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THE CRIMEAN TATARS IN THE CRIMEA: SOURCE OF CONFLICT OR STABILITY BETWEEN CRIMEAN RUSSIANS AND UKRAINS?
İsmail AYDINGÜN
İsmail Aydingün, Ph.D. (Public Administration and Political Science), lecturer; Başkent University, Department of Political Science and International Relations (Ankara, Turkey)
In this article, with specific reference to the Crimean Tatars, I will discuss how the strategic significance of a region shapes the fate of the groups living there through entailing important human rights violations and causing in some cases their total displacement. The role that minorities can play in ethnic relations will be another point of focus. I will also analyze the impact of global political pressure and international organizations on the restitutions to the victims of the human rights violations.
Throughout history the Crimea has been a place where numerous representatives of different cultures lived side by side, including the Crimean Tatars. The Crimean Tatars can be defined as an ethnically heterogeneous group that emerged as a result of the amalgamation of the Tatar tribes of the Golden Horde and the various ethnics living in the peninsula. The Crimean Tatars are a Hanafi, Sunni Muslim Turkic-speaking community whose ethnic identity formation as a distinct group goes back to 14th and 15th centuries.
The Crimean Tatars used to live in the Crimea until their deportation to Central Asia and Siberia by Stalin in 1944. It is only after 45 years of exile that the Crimean Tatars obtained the right to return to their homeland. After the decision of the Supreme Soviet in 1989, they began to return to the Crimea en masse despite the discouraging attitude of the local authorities. The return process was followed by ethnic, economic and geopolitical crises. The mass return of the Crimean Tatars to their homeland entailed numerous problems including housing and unemployment. The dissolution of the Soviet Union did not facilitate but on the contrary aggravated the rehabilitation process due to changes in the political and legal systems and the changing status of the Russian Federation. Despite these difficulties, the Crimean Tatars’ struggle for constructing a new life in their homeland continues and they expect the financial and political support of international organizations for the proper realization of…………..
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