Mubarek zone

Last updated

Mubarek zone [lower-alpha 1] was the name given to a Soviet-Uzbek project to promote Crimean Tatar settlement into the newly formed Mubarek District of the Uzbek SSR, instead of allowing for a return to their homeland in the Crimea. The project was very unpopular with Crimean Tatars, who wanted to return to Crimea instead of settling into the Uzbek desert. Many viewed the project as an extension of the wider Uzbek cotton scandal. The Mubarek District was established in 1978, and the whole settlement project was largely abandoned after the death of its mastermind, Sharof Rashidov in 1983.

Contents

Background

The Crimean Tatar people were deported from Crimea in 1944; while other deported peoples such as the Chechens, Ingush, Karachays, Balkars, and Kalmyks were permitted to return to their homelands and had their titular republics restored in the 1950s by Khrushchev, Crimean Tatars were not granted this right, [1] as their labor was seen as too valuable to let go of by Uzbek authorities. [2] Crimean Tatar rights activists had long been petitioning the government for the right to return to Crimea and restoration of their national autonomy (the Crimean ASSR), but the government steadfastly refused these demands. [3]

Created in 1978, the area of the Mubarek District was one-fifth the size of Crimea. [4] The climate was very hot, arid, and considered inhospitable, [5] nothing like the lush greenery of Crimea; [6] there were only six tiny settlements in the district when it was formed, composed of Turkmen tribesmen. [6] [4]

Project

Intending to eliminate the Crimean Tatars' desire to return to Crimea, and further rooting Crimean Tatars in their places of exile, the Soviet government came up with the plan of creating a national autonomy with compact residence for them in the almost completely uninhabited Qashqadaryo desert, [7] where Crimean Tatars had no historic ties. [8] Some people in the government felt that promising Crimean Tatars "compact residence" in Mubarek would stop them stop seeking a return to Crimea and restoration of the Crimean ASSR. [7] One of the main organizers of the project was Sharof Rashidov, the leader of the Uzbek SSR at the time. [9]

The Mubarek District of the Uzbek SSR, located within the Qashqadaryo Region, was formed for the project in September 1978; [10] this was followed by the creation of Bahoristan Region in April 1979. [11] [12] Nazim Osmanov was chosen to be the secretary of the new Mubarek District. Seit Tairov, First Secretary of the Jizzax Region and signatory of the Letter of Seventeen, [13] was recruited to aid the project. As the project was unsuccessful he was transferred to the Ministry of Forestry, leading to jokes that he was chosen for the position to make trees take root since he failed at making Crimean Tatars take root in the area. [14]

Despite promises of creating national autonomy with cultural institutions for Crimean Tatars, [8] the government still had no intention of treating Crimean Tatars as a completely distinct ethnic group and continued to maintain the line that Crimean Tatars were a subgroup of the Volga Tatars, a completely different ethnic group; [15] only in 1989, years after the project was canceled, did the government abolish all restrictions on the use of the term Crimean Tatar. [16]

Attempted implementation

The Communist Party put pressure on respected members of the Crimean Tatar community like Mustafa Selimov to support the project, but he completely refused and said that returning to Crimea would be the only solution to their national question. [17] Other Crimean Tatars like Şamil Alâdin caved into the pressure and conducted agitation encouraging Crimean Tatars to move to Mubarek. [17] Deputy Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Uzbek SSR Georgy Orlov was chosen to meet with Crimean Tatar elites to recruit them into supporting the project. [18] Timur Daĝcı, the head editor of the Crimean Tatar language newspaper Lenin Bayrağı was supportive of the project and sent his son to live in Mubarek to be an example for other Crimean Tatars. [19] [20] The newspaper Lenin Bayrağı] and the magazine Yıldız frequently published articles encouraging relocation to Mubarek, singing praises of the development of the project. [20] Sources differ as to how supportive Cherkez Ali was of the project, with some sources reporting he was extremely skeptical of the project [17] while others report he was supportive of the project; [21] however, there is no dispute that he did actively encourage Crimean Tatars to move to Mubarek. [22] Şamil Alâdin also helped promote the project after he was asked to by Orlov; he did not deny his remarks in which he said he would support the project because the party wanted it. However, he had little enthusiasm about it despite Orlov constantly trying to increase his interest in the project [17]

Very few Crimean Tatars willingly moved to Mubarek; many were put under intense pressure to move there. Some were effectively forced to move to Mubarek after being re-deported from Crimea after attempting to return and then being only offered a residence permit in the Mubarek area. [23] In 1983 the government tried to make all graduates of the Crimean Tatar language department of the Nizami Pedagogical Institute (which was not called a Crimean Tatar language faculty but rather called Tatlit institute due to censorship) [24] [lower-alpha 2] move to the area, but they strongly protested the plan. [20] The government never told them an official reason for demanding that all of them move to Mubarek even though there were only two job spots open for them, nor did the party answer why it was not sending any of them to cities with large Crimean Tatar populations like Chirchiq. [25] But in the end, it was clear that the reason that all of them were told to go to Mubarek despite most not being needed for work was to increase the population of Crimean Tatars in the district. [26]

Only a tiny fraction of the Crimean Tatar population moved to Mubarek; while the government claimed that 4,000 of them moved to Mubarek, [23] this figure is derived from the combination of Crimean Tatars and Volga Tatars who moved there, [lower-alpha 2] [23] with the actual population of Crimean Tatars being somewhere between 1,900 [23] to 2,000. [27]

The project was canceled shortly after the death of Sharof Rashidov, [28] the mastermind of the project, [9] who was disgraced as his corruption regarding cotton production claims came to light. [29]

Reception

Most Crimean Tatars had no desire to resettle anywhere except in Crimea and were not interested in a national autonomy outside Crimea [14] and especially did not want to participate in the project by relocating to the Mubarek District. Most Crimean Tatars viewed it as merely a scheme of Sharof Rashidov to fleece Moscow of more funds. [30] Many of the few Crimean Tatars such as Şamil Alâdin who supposed the project did so reluctantly only because the Communist Party wanted them to. [17]

Some Crimean Tatar participants in the project admitted that they understood the inherently flawed nature of the plan were personally uncomfortable with the idea and did not expect it to amount to anything. [31] Many Crimean Tatars who supported the project were stigmatized as traitors to other Crimean Tatars. [30] [8] Some supporters of Rashidov view it as an example of Rashidov's accomplishments. [28] [32] However, the project remains seen in an almost universally negative light by Crimean Tatars, who compare other resettlement projects that promote residing outside of Crimea as "Mubarek zone" style projects. [33] While Crimean Tatar-Uzbek relations were not as terrible as Meskhetian Turk-Uzbek relations, [34] [35] the project did anger some Uzbek nationalists who did not want Crimean Tatars to have an autonomy in Uzbekistan and undoubtedly Crimean Tatar-Uzbek relations would have worsened if Crimean Tatars accepted the program. [36] [34]

See also

Footnotes

  1. ↑ The project has been referred to as the Mubarek zone, the Mubarek project, the Mubarek plan, the Mubarek Republic, etc. The project was expanded to encompass the Bahoristan Region in 1979, but the project largely focused on the Mubarek area.
  2. 1 2 Even though the government was marketing the project as a national autonomy for Crimean Tatars, the government did not count Crimean Tatars as a distinct ethnic group in censuses and officially considered Crimean Tatars to be a subgroup of Volga Tatars despite their different origins. For more information, read Denial of Crimean Tatars by the Soviet Union.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Crimean Tatars</span> Turkic ethnic group indigenous to Crimea

Crimean Tatars or Crimeans are a Turkic ethnic group and nation indigenous 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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sharof Rashidov</span> Soviet Uzbek politician

Sharof Rashidovich Rashidov was the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Uzbekistan from 1959 until his death in 1983. During his tenure the Uzbek SSR saw considerable economic growth and had a very high degree of autonomy from the rest of the Soviet Union.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Deportation of the Crimean Tatars</span> 1944 Soviet ethnic cleansing and genocide

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 that 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, even Soviet Communist Party members and Red Army members, from Crimea to the Uzbek SSR, several thousand kilometres away. They were one of several ethnicities that were subjected to Stalin's policy of population transfer in the Soviet Union.

Yani dyunya is a Crimean Tatar-language weekly newspaper, published in Simferopol. Its history dates back to 1918, when it was established in Moscow. In 2015, the newspaper was merged with the magazine Yildiz.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yadgar Nasriddinova</span> Soviet Uzbek politician

Yadgar Sodiqovna Nasriddinova was an Uzbek Soviet engineer, politician, and high ranking member of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union. After serving in a variety of posts in the Komsomol, she rose through the ranks of the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic and became a deputy in the Supreme Soviet from 1958 to 1974. Between 1959 and 1970, she was the Deputy Chair of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet and subsequently the chair of the Council of Nationalities of the Supreme Soviet until 1974. She was purged from the Communist Party in 1988 after the death of Leonid Brezhnev (1906–1982) and during the corruption investigations in the Uzbek cotton scandal. She was rehabilitated and restored to party membership in 1991, when the allegations of bribery against her could not be substantiated. Nasriddinova was awarded the Order of Lenin four times over the course of her career, as well as twice receiving the Order of the Red Banner of Labour.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yuri Osmanov</span> Soviet-Crimean Tatar scientist, human rights activist, and Crimean Tatar leader (1941–1993)

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Şamil Alâdin</span> Crimean Tatar writer and civil rights activist

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Seit Tairov</span> Soviet Crimean Tatar politician

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.

The Letter of Seventeen was a highly controversial open letter published in Lenin Bayrağı in March 1968, condemning the desire for the right of return among the exiled Crimean Tatar community. It was often referred to as "the letter of seventeen traitors."

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dzhebbar Akimov</span> Soviet Crimean Tatar journalist and civil rights activist

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 Tashkent Ten were ten Crimean Tatar civil rights activists tried in Tashkent by the Uzbek Supreme Court from 1 July to 5 August 1969. The trial was sometimes called the Tashkent Process.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gromyko Commission</span> 1987–1988 Soviet government commission on Crimean Tatar legal rights

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 Crimean Tatar civil rights movement was a loosely-organized movement in the second half of the 20th century among the Crimean Tatars, who were living in exile following their deportation from Crimea in May 1944. It had the primary goals of regaining recognition as a distinct ethnic group, the right to return to live in Crimea, and restoration of the Crimean ASSR. When the movement started in the 1950s, its leaders were exclusively Communist Party workers and Red Army veterans, who were confident that the Soviet Union would soon fully rehabilitate them in accordance with proper adherence to Leninist national policy. As decades passed and the party remained hostile to even the most basic requests from Crimean Tatar petitions and deletions, a split emerged in the movement; many youths who were deported as children gave up hope in communism and took issue with the Leninist line towed by leaders of the movement. Eventually in 1989 the Soviet government lifted the restrictions on moving to Crimea from all exiled Crimean Tatars, and began the rehabilitation process. Since then, in the period of a few years, over 200,000 Crimean Tatars returned to Crimea, but they continue to lack a national autonomy of their own in Crimea.

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.

The Haytarma ensemble, originally called the State Song and Dance Ensemble of the Crimean Tatars is a Crimean Tatar music and dance group. The group was formed in Simferopol in 1939 with the Crimean State Philharmonic with Ilyas Bakhshish as artistic director, Yaya Sherfedinov as musical director, and Usein Bakkal as choreographer. After the deportation of the Crimean Tatars in 1944 the ensemble was abolished, but in 1957 the group was re-established in exile in Uzbekistan. The ensemble re-established in Crimea in 1992 after the return of Crimean Tatars to Crimea. Many famous Crimean Tatar artists worked for the ensemble at some point, including Enver Sherfedinov, Sabriye Erecepova, Edem Nalbandov among many others.

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 forbade 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.

Abselâm Islâmov was a Crimean Tatar party worker, commissar, and journalist. For 25 years, he was the chief editor of the Crimean Tatar language newspaper Lenin Bayrağı.

Timur Şahmurad oğlu Daĝcı was a Crimean Tatar journalist and newspaper editor. In his youth he was involved in the Crimean Tatar rights movement, but later became active in the Communist Party and actively promoted the Mubarek resettlement scheme intended to resettle Crimean Tatars in the Uzbek desert.

Enver Aliyevich Aliyev was a Crimean Tatar cotton farmer who received the title Hero of Socialist Labour. His son Ali is an accomplished physicist in the field of nanotechnology.

References

Bibliography

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.