Related Research Articles
Crimean Tatars or Crimeans are a Turkic ethnic group and nation native to Crimea. The formation and ethnogenesis of Crimean Tatars occurred during the 13th–17th centuries, uniting Cumans, who appeared in Crimea in the 10th century, with other peoples who had inhabited Crimea since ancient times and gradually underwent Tatarization, including Ukrainian Greeks, Italians, Ottoman Turks, Goths, Sarmatians and many others. Despite the popular misconception, Crimean Tatars are not a diaspora of or subgroup of the Tatars.
Mustafa Abduldzhemil Jemilev, also known widely with his adopted descriptive surname Qırımoğlu "Son of Crimea", is the former Chairman of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar People and a member of the Ukrainian Parliament since 1998. Commissioner of the President of Ukraine for the Affairs of the Crimean Tatar People (2014–2019). He is a member of the Crimean Tatar National Movement and a former Soviet dissident.
The deportation of the Crimean Tatars or the Sürgünlik ('exile') was the ethnic cleansing and the cultural genocide of at least 191,044 Crimean Tatars which was carried out by Soviet Union authorities from 18 to 20 May 1944, supervised by Lavrentiy Beria, chief of Soviet state security and the secret police, and ordered by the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin. Within those three days, the NKVD used cattle trains to deport the Crimean Tatars, mostly women, children, and the elderly, even Communist Party members and Red Army members, to the Uzbek SSR, several thousand kilometres away. They constituted one of the several ethnicities which were subjected to Stalin's policy of population transfer in the Soviet Union.
Emin Bektöre was a Dobrujan-born Dobrujan Tatar folklorist, ethnographer, lyricist, and activist for ethnic Dobrujan Tatar causes.
Musa Mamut was a deported Crimean Tatar who immolated himself in Crimea as a sign of protest against the enforced exile of indigenous Crimean Tatars. His self-immolation symbolized the Crimean Tatar belief that deportation back to exile was worse than death. Today, he remains an icon of the Crimean Tatar civil rights movement. His act of ultimate self-sacrifice was later repeated by other Crimean Tatars, but Mamut remains the most well-known Crimean self-immolator, with his act being commemorated annually with large memorials. Crimean Tatar literature often describes him as an eternal flame illuminating Crimea.
Akhtem Shevketovych Seitablayev is a Ukrainian actor, screenwriter and film director of the Crimean Tatars origin. He is the director of several high-profile films, including Haytarma in 2013 and Another's Prayer in 2017. He has expressed opposition to the annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation and his films about the fate of several prominent Crimean Tatars have been praised throughout the former Soviet Union but criticized by hardline Russian nationalists.
Yuri Bekirovich Osmanov was a scientist, engineer, Marxist–Leninist, and Crimean Tatar civil rights activist. He was one of the co-founders of the National Movement of Crimean Tatars, which sought full right of return of the Crimean Tatar people to their homeland and restoration of the Crimean ASSR.
The de-Tatarization of Crimea refers to the Soviet and Russian efforts to remove traces of the indigenous Crimean Tatar presence from the peninsula. De-Tatarization has been manifested in various ways throughout history, ranging from the full-scale deportation and exile of Crimean Tatars in 1944 to other measures such as the burning of Crimean Tatar books published in the 1920s and toponym renaming.
Şamil Alâdin was a Crimean Tatar writer, poet, translator, and civil rights activist. Early in his career he wrote poetry, later moving on to prose and nonfiction works.
Seit Memetovich Tairov was the highest-ranking Crimean Tatar politician in Soviet Union after the Sürgün, having risen to prominence as a leader in Akkurgan and then first secretary of the Jizzakh regional committee of the Communist Party. A controversial figure among Crimean Tatars today, he is remembered for his staunch opposition to full right of return to Crimea. As a public supporter of "taking root" in Uzbekistan, he was one of the top signatories of the notorious "Letter of Seventeen" in March 1968 that downplayed Crimean Tatar struggles and discrimination in exile and urged Crimean Tatars to avoid "succumbing" to desires to return to Crimea.
Rollan Kemalevich Kadyev was a Crimean Tatar physicist and civil rights activist in the Soviet Union. A defendant in the Tashkent process, he became known as a firebrand opponent of marginalization and delimination Crimean Tatars, publicly denouncing the restrictions on returning to Crimea as well as the government policy of claiming Crimean Tatars were not a distinct ethnic group that was exemplified by official use of the euphemism "people of Tatar nationality who formerly lived in the Crimea" instead of their proper ethnonym of "Crimean Tatar". For his activities such as distributing leaflets and verbally confronting those who endorsed the status quo against of national policy relating the Crimean Tatars, he was imprisoned on charges of "defaming the Soviet system", despite passionately making the case that discriminatory and assimilationist policies against Crimean Tatars was a huge deviation from proper Leninist national policy. Later on in his life he significantly softened his tone after a 1979 imprisonment for getting into a fight with a party organizer, controversially signing off an open letter critical of Ayshe Seitmuratova's activities with Radio Liberty, which was published in Lenin Bayrağı and Pravda Vostoka in February 1981.
Decree No. 493 "On citizens of Tatar nationality, formerly living in the Crimea" was issued by the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet on 5 September 1967 proclaiming that "Citizens of Tatar nationality formerly living in the Crimea" [sic] were officially legally rehabilitated and had "taken root" in places of residence. For many years the government claimed that the decree "settled" the "Tatar problem", despite the fact that it did not restore the rights of Crimean Tatars and formally made clear that they were no longer recognized as a distinct ethnic group.
Dzhebbar Akimov was a Crimean Tatar teacher, writer who worked as editor of the newspaper "Qızıl Qırım" until the Sürgün. In exile, stood at the origins of the Crimean Tatar rights movement, becoming the leader of the Bekabad initiative group as well as authoring many documents about their plight for which he was expelled from the party in 1966, dubbed "the most active supporter of returning to Crimea" by the government in 1967, and eventually sentenced to three years in prison in 1972. Like many other leaders of the original Crimean Tatar rights movement, he considered himself a communist and opposed the prospect of members of movement associating with Soviet dissidents like Andrey Sakharov and Pyotr Grigorenko.
The Gromyko Commission, officially titled the State Commission for Consideration of Issues Raised in Applications of Citizens of the USSR from Among the Crimean Tatars was the first state commission on the subject of addressing what the dubbed "the Tatar problem". Formed in July 1987 and led by Andrey Gromyko, it issued a conclusion in June 1988 rejecting all major demands of Crimean Tatar civil rights activists ranging from right of return to restoration of the Crimean ASSR.
The main wave of Crimean Tatar repatriation occurred in the late 1980s and early 1990s when over 200,000 Crimean Tatars left Central Asia to return to Crimea whence they had been deported in 1944. While the Soviet government attempted to stifle mass return efforts for decades by denying them residence permits in Crimea or even recognition as a distinct ethnic group, activists continued to petition for the right of return. Eventually a series of commissions were created to publicly evaluate the prospects of allowing return, the first being the notorious Gromyko commission that lasted from 1987 to 1988 that issued declaring that "there was no basis" to allow exiled Crimean Tatars to return en masse to Crimea or restore the Crimean ASSR.
Qaytarma is a form of Crimean Tatar folk dance and folk music characterised by cyclical motion. It is most commonly performed at weddings and on holidays.
Enver Sherfedinov was a Crimean Tatar musician of Tayfa origin. He mastered playing 18 different musical instruments, but is most renowned for his violin music, earning himself the label of "The Crimean Tatar Paganini" and "the soul of the people" for his huge contributions to Crimean Tatar music and culture. He is held up as an inspiration to other Crimean Tatar musicians. He did not know musical notation, instead only knowing music by ear. He contributed a lot to the Haytarma ensemble was extremely versatile in his work, performing not just Crimean Tatar music but music of many other nationalities including Uyghur, Hungarian, and Korean.
Yaya Sherfedinov was a Soviet-Crimean Tatar composer, musician, and poet. Born to a poor family in Feodosia, he began playing the violin at a young age. He was a graduate of the prestigious Moscow Conservatory. Before exile from Crimea, he worked in Crimea for the Crimean Radio Committee, the Crimean Tatar State Drama Theater, and the State Song and Dance Ensemble of the Crimean Tatars. When he was not composing new music, he wrote down compliations of many Crimean Tatar folksongs. In exile in Uzbekistan, he continued his musical work, and expanded to writing music for an Uzbek play, working with Uzbek composer Toʻxtasin Jalilov; however, most of his work centered around Crimean Tatar folksongs. His works spanned many themes.
Sabriye Erecepova was a Crimean Tatar singer. She began working for the Crimean Radio Committee in 1932 after impressing Yaya Sherfedinov and was awarded the title Honored Artist of the Crimean ASSR in 1940. In exile she remained a very popular singer and was labeled as the most popular singer in the Uzbekistan in 1964. She not only sang traditional Crimean Tatar songs but also wrote her own songs and sang Russian folksongs too.
Crimean Tatar denialism is the idea that the Crimean Tatars are not a distinct ethnic group. After the deportation of the Crimean Tatars, the Soviet government no longer recognized Crimean Tatars as a distinct ethnic group and forbid internal passports and official documents from using the term in the nationality section, despite previously permitting it. The non-recognition of Crimean Tatars was emphasized by the wording of Ukaz 493 which used the euphemism "Citizens of Tatar nationality formerly living in Crimea." Only in 1989 were all restrictions on the use of the term lifted.
References
- 1 2 3 Useinova, Gulnara (17 March 2017). "Ансамблю «Хайтарма» — 60 лет". goloskrimanew. No. 10.
- ↑ Seitbekirov, Eldar (24 June 2016). "Ему рукоплескал народ!". goloskrimanew.ru.
- ↑ Къырымтатар халкъ йырлары. Tarbiya. 1996.
- ↑ Биз - къырымлармыз!: Мы - крымцы! 2006, p. 33.
- ↑ Khalitova, Merzie (18 March 2024). "Творчество Ягъи Шерфединова в музыкально-культурной традиции крымских татар". Avdet (in Russian).
- ↑ Allworth 1988, p. 196-197.
- ↑ Sonevytsky 2019, p. 130-131.
Bibliography
- Allworth, Edward (1988). Tatars of the Crimea: Their Struggle for Survival : Original Studies from North America, Unofficial and Official Documents from Czarist and Soviet Sources. Duke University Press. ISBN 978-0-8223-0758-7.
- Sonevytsky, Maria (2019). Wild Music: Sound and Sovereignty in Ukraine. Wesleyan University Press.
- Биз - къырымлармыз!: Мы - крымцы! [We are Crimeans!] (in Crimean Tatar). Aqmescit. 2006. ISBN 9663541180.