Repression and Exile: Why Crimea’s Indigneous Tatars Turn to Ukraine

by Thibaut Stussi edited by Christina Chekerdjieva

Crimea is a land of beautiful landscapes and rich history, but more than ever, it’s the story and home of a people–the Crimean Tatars–fighting for their right to self-determination and freedom. Descended from the armies of the Golden Horde of the Mongols, the Tatars are Crimea’s indigenous people occupying the region for nearly a thousand years. 1 They quickly organized in the region following the collapse of the Golden Horde in the 15th century, as they broke away from the surviving rump states to fight for control over their land and people. 2 While ruling themselves, the Tatars came under Ottoman vassalage only a few decades later, consequently falling under Russian rule in 1774, henceforth dictating Tatar history. Russian discrimination resulted in persecution, forced exile, and deportation, which today shapes the worldview of Tartar people and creates a desire to return to a homeland free of outside rule. 3

With Crimea and Ukraine lying in an area of geopolitical significance, the Crimean Tatars endured a series of changing foreign rulers, each vying to gain the region for themselves from the Russian Civil War onwards. Initially, Tatars reclaimed their statehood, declaring the Crimean People’s Republic in 1917 and attempting to make a place for themselves in the world away from Russian dominion, 4 yet, only a year later, the Bolsheviks invaded and took power whilst leaders of the Crimean People’s Republic were murdered. 5 In its place rose the Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, an autonomous republic of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic under a semi-autonomous deal that lasted into the Second World War. 6

This deal soon come to a brutal end at the hands of Nazi occupation. Invaded by the German army, Wehrmacht, for its strategic importance, Crimea became the stage of fierce fights between the Allied and Axis powers. In the ensuing conflict, tens of thousands of soldiers perished, many of them Tatars. 7 As Germany solidified its control over the region, Nazi ideology called for the extermination of ‘untermenschen,’ or undesirable groups, of which the Tatars ranked even lower than Slavs. However, in a reversal of Nazi-era policy, German generals saw an opportunity to use Tatars as their enforcement arm, just as they had in other states across Eastern Europe. 8 At the same time, there was the recruitment of Soviet prisoners of war captured by Axis forces, who viewed fighting as preferable to starvation, to create the Crimean Tatar Legion within the German Army to fight partisans in the Eastern Front. 9

At the same time, Crimean Tatars and other ethnic groups were positively depicted in the Soviet media early in the conflict to push the idea of the Red Army as multicultural force against Nazi Aryan supremacy. 10 As the Red Army liberated most of Crimea, Russian media began depicting Tatars as ethnic collaborators with the Nazi regime. 11 This negative portrayal in the heavily organized Soviet press, resulted in hatred and violence against Tatars that resulted in reprisal killing by the liberating Red Army, despite acknowledgement by Soviet officials that the collaborationists were evacuated by the fleeing ‘wehrmacht’. 12

However, Stalin’s desire to expel the Tatars was not solely based on their collaboration, but instead had a strategic reason: his future plans with Turkey. Stalin had eyes on invading Turkey to gain control over the previously ceded regions of Kars and Ardahan, as well as the Dardanelles. 13 The region was vitally important for the Soviet Union, who hoped to use the territory to place bases during the Second World War, as well as to ensure transit protections from the Black to Mediterranean Seas. 14 To achieve this, Stalin noted that he would have to deal with the sympathetic pro-Turkish Muslim ethnic groups in the region in order to create its true goal of an Armenian and Georgian uprising in the region. 15 Despite the cooling down of the situation in Turkey in the coming years, the Soviets still laid claims of treason against these Turkish Muslim groups, beginning their deportation towards other regions of the USSR. 16 This change in perception of Crimean Tatars, coupled with Stalin’s hoped international gains, led to the forced deportation of the entire Tatar population in 1944 by the NKVD, Stalin’s Secret Police, under Decree 5859ss. 17 With little warning, they were expelled to the Uzbek SSR, a Soviet republic in Central Asia, and ‘resettled’ into Soviet collectivized farms. They were only allowed to bring with them select household items and food. 18 Dubbed the ‘Sürgün,’ or exile, by Tatars, the expulsion removed all trace of them from Crimea and the Soviets created an all-Russian people’s republic in their place. 19 Due to these two reasons for deportation, the Tatars were stuck in a precarious situation. They were used as geopolitical pawns and as targets of post-war anger against collaboration within the USSR. This resulted in a combination of persecution and deportation that would come to dominate their lives after liberation from the Nazis, and forever change and shape their lives and future outlooks.

Following the declaration, Tatars were effectively unpersoned by the Soviet state apparatus, their autonomous republic dismantled, and mentions of them stricken from Soviet literature and academia. 20 Deportation fragmented communities as Tatars were spread all over Uzbekistan and Central Asia with thousands dying on the journey. 21 AntiTatar propaganda was spread amongst the local Uzbek population by the NKVD in hopes to further destroy social cohesion, which resulted in the deaths of 40,000 more Tatars from state and local violence within the first two years of deportation. 22 However, NKVD propaganda soon failed, as the local Uzbek and Tatar communities communities, attempting to reinforce their culture while longing for a return home. 25

It took until 1989 under Gorbachev’s perestroika and glasnost policies for them to be allowed back into their homeland–without reparations–and roughly half of the displaced Tatars took up the offer. 26 However, return was not the glory that they had hoped for, as local elites and commoners alike fought against the Tatars’ reintegration. 27 The former lands of the Tatars were now taken over by local Ukranians and Russians, who were not keen to give up their land to perceived newcomers and World War Two traitors. 28 formed a shared bond over their Islamic beliefs and traditions and over disgust for the Soviets deporting mainly women, children, and army veterans. 23 The shared grief and abuse of deportation and death would go on to shape their experience within their new home. Tatars created an idealized narrative over their homeland of Crimea, viewing it as their paradise on earth and their birthright to return. 24 They organized into their own settler-

The collapse of the USSR did not create the situation to change these underlying problems. Instead, the collapse of the USSR, and the move to market economics has drastically changed Ukraine and Crimea, helping exacerbate the preexisting problems in the region. When privatization occurred within Ukraine, farmland was divided among members of collectivized farms. Since Crimean Tatars arrived so late, they were not members of these farms, leaving them with no land post-privatization. 29 This left the Crimean Tatars to occupy what little land remained around the cities in squatter towns or forced away from the coast to the unoccupied interior. 30 This left the Tatars in a precarious position that only furthered poverty within their group. 31 Despite support from the Ukrainian government, Crimean Tatar communities lacked many of the basic necessities of modern-day life, such as education, gas, telephone lines, and health services. 32 The tension between the Ukrainian and Russian immigrants and the newly arrived Crimean Tatars did not subside but continued as Tatars continued to try to reclaim their stolen lands and property, much to the opposition of settled locals. 33

The Crimean Tatars worked to increase their political linkages with the newfound Ukrainian state through the creation of local Tatar governing structures called ‘mejlis’ which, in the absence of national statehood, provided a degree of selfgovernance. 34 The ‘mejlis,’ a primarily secular body, was used as a forum to promote increased national identity and solidarity, but also to commemorate and acknowledge the collective trauma of deportation, as well as religious openness. 35 The role of Islam in the lives of Tatars became an increasingly touchy subject, as the more secular-focused ‘mejlis’ acted as a balancing force. 36

As time progressed and the politics of Tatars evolved alongside the Ukrainian state, they began to take an increasingly pro-European stance due to the internationalist stance of Tatar organizations and as a counter to Russian influence. 37 Following the outbreak of the Ukraine Euromaidan protest in 2013 to 2014 and subsequent events, a power vacuum took shape within Ukraine, in which the territorial integrity of the Crimean peninsula was challenged. 38 Within Crimea, masked individuals seized government buildings and Russia prepared the legal ground for annexation, which would soon come to haunt Crimea. 39

These events led to the unfolding of the largest shift in the status of Crimea since the collapse of the Soviet Union: Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea. The annexation and conflict led to the expulsion and flight of many Tatars who saw parallels between these actions and the 1944 ‘Sürgün.’ Tatars faced repression and intimidation by pro-Russian ‘people’s defense forces’ and the Russian government, whilst vehemently denying the legitimacy of the annexation referendum over claims of irregularities and fears over returning to Russian colonial and imperial rule. 40 With fears of reprisals and a repeat of the past, thousands of Tatars self-exiled themselves in mainland Ukraine, marking yet another instance of Crimean Tatars leaving their homeland. 41 The fears of repression were not unfounded, as Russia soon began to act against the ‘mejlis’ due to its activism against annexation and for the rights of Tatars, banning them on the grounds of being an “extremist organization.” 42 Russian authorities worked to hinder the efforts of Tatar organizations, restricting the publication of Tatar media, and the Spiritual Board of Muslims in Crimea coming under increased scrutiny and Russian State observation looking for “extremist materials.” 43

The events of 2014 mirrored those of the Sürgün decades prior, with the same anti-Tatar propaganda and messaging spreading while persecution increased.

Tatar homes were again being targeted by pro-Russian forces who compiled lists of Tatar residences. 44 Tatar news outlets began to be placed under a Russian pressure campaign, while houses were marked with “X” carvings on the entrances, a bleak reminder of the prelude to deportation by pro-Russian residents. 45 In a shift from being ignored by the Russian state apparatus, now Crimean Tatars were the center of negative attention. Russians viewed the Crimean Peninsula as they had during the post-WWII period, as a Russified territory, and the presence of Crimean Tatars undermined this, requiring the de-emphasization of Crimean Tatar identity and working towards its erasure within Crimea. 46 Unlike Ukraine which seeked to make amends for the ills of the past, Russia refuses to make amends for the past, instead viewing the peninsula as solely Russian. 47

Outside of Crimea, Tatars have increasingly campaigned for their right to a homeland and recognition of their repeated repression at the hands of the Russians. Mustafa Djemilev, the former leader of the ‘mejlis’ organized a “Muslim Batallion” north of Crimea to act as a symbol of Ukrainian defiance against Russia 48 while also joining the Ukrainian military and engaging within counterterrorism operations in Donbas. 49 The Ukrainian State is actively trying to rebuild bridges with Tatars in hopes of gaining its support for the fight against Russian separatism. This fight has gained the support of the elite within the Tatar community, as Ukraine works to integrate Ukrainians more with the state including recognizing them as the indigenous group of Crimea. 50 This contrasts with Russia, who actively subverts Tatar narratives and people to perpetuate the claim of Crimea as an all-Russian republic of the Russian Federation, just as had happened after the Sürgün. All of this considered, the Crimean Tatar community and its political leaders made the decision to align with Ukraine when Russia invaded in February 2022. When Russia began its campaign, Tatars saw potential to re-achieve their national aim: going back to Crimea. The Ukrainian government, realizing this, declared that part of its duty is to liberate Crimea for the Crimean Tatars. 51 Recollecting on past trauma with Russian expansion, the Crimean Tatars have continued their active and passive resistance against Russian occupation from the annexation period into the current conflict. 52 International activism has again placed a spotlight on Crimea, with the UN General Assembly passing a resolution affirming Ukrainian territorial integrity, and thus claims of Crimea, only days after the invasion. 53 This puts Crimea back in a spotlight that, alongside the recent illegal annexation of four Ukrainian oblasts, they hope would unify both the war and Crimea under a single banner. 54 This unique overlapping of the same issues–land falling under Russian occupation and annexation–gives Tatars more leverage in their fight for the liberation of their homeland by unifying it with the larger, internationally supported, coalition for the fight against Russia. At the same time, anti-Russian activism by Tatars within Ukraine is taking two new faces–anti-war activism and combat. Tatar activists within Ukraine, Crimea, and Turkey are actively organizing protests against the war that merges with eight years of systemic human rights abuses against Crimean Tatars. 55 These protests have led to the repeated arrest of Tatars for anti-Russian action and unfounded accusations of sabotage and “extremism.” 56 As for combat, existing fighters from groups established during the 2014 war in the Donbas have continued their fight, while others have just joined the fight against Russia, including high-ranking Tatars, such as Said Ismagilov, Mufti of the Spiritual Administration of Muslims of Ukraine. 57 This is coupled with fears stemming from Russia’s recent mobilization campaign, which has disproportionately targeted Tatar families within Crimea. 58 An estimated 90 percent of those conscripted by the Russian military within Crimea are Tatars despite the fact that they make up only 13 percent of the total population of Crimea. 59 This is furthering the claims made by Tatars that Russia is not only trying to destroy the Crimean Tatar culture and identity but persecute and kill its people as well through conflict and conscription. 60 While these claims were more merited during the 2014 annexation of Ukraine, the more holistic approach of the recent invasion of Ukraine has changed the narrative towards one of more generalized attacks on Ukraine as a whole. However, Crimean Tatars are again finding themselves used as the geopolitical pawns of Russia to achieve its own military goals, while the plight of their people is ignored as the focus shifts to the larger Ukraine conflict.

Compounded with the increase of war is the increase of repression by Russian authorities against Crimean Tatars. Within occupied cities, Russian authorities are cracking down on influential Tatar figures, just as they had within occupied Crimea in 2014. 61 Prominent activists are jailed under suspicion of acting for the Ukrainian government, while Russian media perpetuates a narrative that likens them to a “terrorist people.” 62 Authorities have also levied the claim of sabotage against Tatars to further arrest their prominent leaders during the war, claims which activists and Kyiv claim are in retaliation against them increasing the visibility of Crimea. 63 With an increased spotlight now being shown on the Crimean Tatar cause, they are organizing for a fight to regain their land. With many fighting within the military and others arguing on the diplomatic and social side, the war in Ukraine has galvanized the movement for the liberation of the Tatars. International forums undertaken during the conflict with the exiled leader of the Mejlis, Ukraine, Turkey, and others have already undertaken steps to formalize the place of the Tatars within a de-occupied Crimea, with the protection of their national identity at the forefront of thinking. 64 For Crimean Tatars, the war is a continuation of the repression of the past, with a new face. State-sanctioned repression by Russian authorities continues, but there is light at the end of the tunnel, wars can be won and land can be reclaimed, using history as a guide. 65 As Mark Twain says, history never repeats itself, but it does often rhyme.

References

1 Brian Glyn Williams, “The Ethnogenesis of the Crimean Tatars. an Historical Reinterpretation,” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 11, no. 3 (2001): pp. 329-348, https://doi. org/10.1017/s1356186301000311, 333.

2 Ibid. pg. 334

3 Elmira Muratova, “The Transformation of the Crimean Tatars’ Institutions and Discourses after 2014,” Journal of Nationalism, Memory & Language Politics 13, no. 1 (January 2019): pp. 4466, https://doi.org/10.2478/jnmlp-2019-0006, 45.

4 Aykol, U. “Kırım Ahalî Cumhuri̇yeti̇ ve Kırım Da İlk Bolşevi̇k İşgali̇ (1917-1918)”. Uluslararası Suçlar ve Tarih (2019 ): 76

5 Ibid. pg 76

6 “Decree on the Autonomous Crimean Republic,” Seventeen Moments in Soviet History, September 1, 2015, https:// soviethistory.msu.edu/1954-2/the-gift-of-crimea/the-gift-ofcrimea-texts/decree-on-the-autonomous-crimean-republic/.

7 Brian Glyn Williams, “The Hidden Ethnic Cleansing of Muslims in the Soviet Union: The Exile and Repatriation of the Crimean Tatars,” Journal of Contemporary History 37, no. 3 (2002): pp. 323-347, https://doi.org/10.1177/0022009402037 0030101, 327.

8 Ibid. pg. 328

9 Boshyk, Yury, Roman Waschuk, Andriy Wynnyckyj, and Mark R Elliott. “Soviet Military Collaborators during World War II.” Essay. In Ukraine during World War II: History and Its Aftermath: A Symposium, 89–104. Edmonton, Alberta: Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, University of Alberta, 1986.

10 Korostelina, “Mass Deportation to Hardships” 38. 11 Ibid. pg. 38

12 Brian Glyn Williams, The Crimean Tatars: From Soviet Genocide to Putin’s Conquest (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2016), https://diasporiana.org.ua/wpcontent/uploads/books/20315/file.pdf, 96.

13 Ibid. pg. 98

14 Özkan Behlül, “The 1945 Turkish-Soviet Crisis,” Russia in Global Affairs 18, no. 2 (2020): pp. 156-187, https://doi. org/10.31278/1810-6374-2020-18-2-156-187, 165.

15 Williams, From Genocide to Conquest, 97-98.

16 Ibid. pg. 97-98

17 “Decree No. 5859SS,” Seventeen Moments in Soviet History, October 1, 2015, https://soviethistory.msu.edu/19432/deportation-of-minorities/deportation-of-minorities-texts/ decree-no-5859ss/.

18 Ibid.

19 Williams, From Genocide to Conquest, 115-116.

20 V. Stanley Vardys, “The Case of the Crimean Tartars,” Russian Review 30, no. 2 (1971): pp. 101-110, https://doi. org/10.2307/127890, 103.

21 Williams, From Genocide to Conquest, 101-102. 22 Ibid. pg. 102-103 23 Ibid. pg. 103-104

24 “Sü rg ü n: The Crimean Tatars’ Deportation and Exile,” Portail Sciences Po (Science Po, June 16, 2008), https://www. sciencespo.fr/mass-violence-war-massacre-resistance/fr/ document/suerguen-crimean-tatars-deportation-and-exile. html.

25 Conquest, Robert. The Nation Killers: The Soviet Deportation of Nationalities. London: Macmillan, 1970. Pg. 186-187

26 Ibid. pg. 345 27 Ibid. pg. 345-346

28 Eftihia Voutira, “Ideology, History, and Politics in Service of Repatriation,” Focaal 2014, no. 70 (January 2014): pp. 3748, https://doi.org/10.3167/fcl.2014.700104.

29 Ibid. 30 Ibid. 31 Ibid.

32 Ibid.

33 Karina Korostelina, “Crimean Tatars from Mass Deportation to Hardships in Occupied Crimea,” Genocide Studies and Prevention 9, no. 1 (2015): pp. 33-47, https://doi. org/10.5038/1911-9933.9.1.1319, 35.

34 Muratova, “Transformation of Crimean Tatars” 49. 35 Ibid. pg. 50

36 Ibid. pg. 51 37 Ibid. pg. 51

38 Anton Bebier, “Crimea and the Russian-Ukrainian Conflict,” Romanian Journal of European Affairs 15, no. 1 (2015): 35-54, 40 39 Ibid. pg. 41 40 Ibid. pg. 43

41 Korostelina, “Mass Deportation to Hardships,” 42. 42 Sławomir Dębski, “Banning the Majlis: Another Manifestation of Russian Repression of the ...,” ed. Katarzyna Staniewska, Polish Institute of International Affairs, March 18, 2016, https://www.pism.pl/upload/images/artykuly/legacy/ files/21822.pdf, 1.

43 Ibid. pg. 2

44 Natalia Antelava, “Who Will Protect the Crimean Tatars?,” The New Yorker (The New Yorker, March 6, 2014), https:// www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/who-will-protect-thecrimean-tatars.

45 Ibid.

46 Filiz Tutku Aydin and Fethi Kurtiy Sahin, “The Politics of Recognition of Crimean Tatar Collective Rights in the Post-Soviet Period: With Special Attention to the Russian Annexation of Crimea,” Communist and Post-Communist Studies 52, no. 1 (2019): pp. 39-50, https://doi.org/10.1016/j. postcomstud.2019.02.003.

47 Andrew Wilson, “Imagining Crimean Tatar History since 2014: Indigenous Rights, Russian Recolonisation and the New Ukrainian Narrative of Cooperation,” Europe-Asia Studies 73, no. 5 (August 2021): pp. 837-868, https://doi.org/10.1080/096 68136.2020.1867709, 2.

48 Sławomir Dębski, “Banning the Majlis,” 2

49 Denis Brylov, “Transformed Perceptions of Islam and Muslims in Ukraine in the Wake of the Social and Political Changes Caused by Euromaidan,” Islam, Religions, and Pluralism in Europe, 2016, pp. 267-284, https://doi. org/10.1007/978-3-658-12962-0_21, 272.

50 Ibid. pg. 278

51 Ukrinform, “Liberating Crimea Ukraine’s Duty before Crimean Tatars - Podolyak,” Ukrinform (Укринформ, August 19, 2022), https://www.ukrinform.net/rubricpolytics/3553794-liberating-crimea-ukraines-duty-beforecrimean-tatars-podolyak.html.

52 Mariia Shynkarenko, “Compliant Subjects?,” Communist and Post-Communist Studies 55, no. 1 (January 2022): pp. 7698, https://doi.org/10.1525/j.postcomstud.2022.55.1.76, 77.

53 General Assembly Resolution ES-11/1, Aggression against Ukraine, A/77/ES-11/1 (2 March 2022)

54 Crimean Platform, “Joint Statement of the International Crimea Platform Participants,” Crimean Platform (Crimean Platform, 2022), https://crimea-platform.org/en/jointstatement-of-the-international-crimea-platform-participants.

55 ”Highlights: Ukraine Crimean Tatar Media 2-8 Jul 22.” BBC Monitoring Former Soviet Union, Aug 01, 2022. https:// ezproxy.bu.edu/login?qurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.proquest. com%2Fwire-feeds%2Fhighlights-ukraine-crimean-tatarmedia-2-8-jul-22%2Fdocview%2F2696817424%2Fse2%3Faccountid%3D9676.

56 Rfe/rl. “Russian Intelligence Accuses Crimean Tatars of Pipeline Sabotage after Kyiv Riposte.” RadioFreeEurope/ RadioLiberty. Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, September 7, 2021. https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-crimean-tatarssabotage/31448494.html.

57 Micah Reddy and Anastasia Levkova, “The Ukrainian Muslims Fighting against Russia,” Russia-Ukraine war | Al Jazeera (Al Jazeera, August 4, 2022), https://www.aljazeera. com/features/2022/8/4/the-ukrainian-muslims-fightingagainst-russia.

58 Walker, Shaun. “‘a Way to Get Rid of Us’: Crimean Tatars Decry Russia’s Mobilisation.” The Guardian. Guardian News and Media, September 25, 2022. https://www.theguardian. com/world/2022/sep/25/a-way-to-get-rid-of-us-crimeantatars-decry-russia-mobilisation.

59 Ibid.

60 Ibid.

61 Agnieszka Pikulicka-Wilczewska, “Russia’s Crackdown on Crimean Tatars Foreshadows Wider Repression,” RussiaUkraine war News | Al Jazeera (Al Jazeera, March 12, 2022), https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/3/12/russia-ukrainecrimean-tatars-dissent-repression.

62 Mansur Mirovalev, “Russian Court Sentences Crimean Muslims to Jail: Activist,” Russia-Ukraine war News | Al Jazeera (Al Jazeera, May 12, 2022), https://www.aljazeera.com/ news/2022/5/12/russian-court-jails-crimean-muslims-amidcrackdown-activist.

63 Rfe/rl. “Russian Intelligence Accuses Crimean Tatars of Pipeline Sabotage after Kyiv Riposte.” RadioFreeEurope/ RadioLiberty. Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, September 7, 2021. https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-crimean-tatarssabotage/31448494.html.

64 Crimean Platform, “«Colonization of XXI Century: Recovery Plan and Restoration of the ...,” Crimean Platform (Second Summit of the Crimean Platform, August 23, 2022), https://crimea-platform.org/en/events/kolonizaciya-xxistorichchya-podolannya-naslidkiv-ta-vidnovlennya-pravkrimskotatarskogo-narodu-yak-instrument-deokupaciyikrimu.

65 Ashish Kumar Sen, “Crimea in Ukraine’s Crosshairs, Say US Generals,” CEPA (Center for European Policy Analysis, September 28, 2022), https://cepa.org/article/crimea-inukraines-crosshairs-say-us-generals/.