Crimean Tatars

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qırımtatarlar, qırımlılar

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• Autonomous Republic of Crimea
• Kherson Oblast
• Zaporizhzhia Oblast
• Lviv Oblast
• Kyiv |Regions with significant populations}}

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| label11 = Ukraine

• Autonomous Republic of Crimea
• Kherson Oblast
• Zaporizhzhia Oblast
• Lviv Oblast
• Kyiv

| data11 = 248,193Template:Efn<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> | label12 = Uzbekistan | data12 = 239,000<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> | label13 = Turkey

• Eskişehir Province

| data13 = 150,000 | label14 = Romania | data14 = 24,137<ref name="romania">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> | label15 = Russia

• Krasnodar Krai

| data15 = 2,449Template:Efn<ref>Russian Census 2010: Population by ethnicity Template:Webarchive Template:In lang</ref> | label16 = | data16 = | label17 = Bulgaria | data17 = 1,803<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> | label18 = Kazakhstan | data18 = 1,532<ref>Агентство Республики Казахстан по статистике. Перепись 2009. Template:In lang Template:Webarchive (Национальный состав населения Template:Webarchive.rar)</ref> | label19 = United States | data19 = 500–1,000<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> | label20 = | data20 = | label21 = | data21 = | label22 = | data22 = | label23 = | data23 = | label24 = | data24 = | label25 = | data25 = | label26 = | data26 = | label27 = | data27 = | label28 = | data28 = | label29 = | data29 = | label30 = | data30 = | label31 = | data31 = | label32 = | data32 = | label33 = | data33 = | label34 = | data34 = | label35 = | data35 = | label36 = | data36 = | label37 = | data37 = | label38 = | data38 = | label39 = | data39 = | label40 = | data40 = | label41 = | data41 = | label42 = | data42 = | label43 = | data43 = | label44 = | data44 = | label45 = | data45 = | label46 = | data46 = | label47 = | data47 = | label48 = | data48 = | label49 = | data49 = | label50 = | data50 = | label51 = | data51 = | label52 = | data52 = | label53 = | data53 = | label54 = | data54 = | label55 = | data55 = | label56 = | data56 = | label57 = | data57 = | label58 = | data58 = | label59 = | data59 = | label60 = | data60 = | header61 = {{#if:Template:Hlist |Languages}} | data62 = Template:Hlist | header63 = {{#if:Sunni Islam, minority Eastern Orthodox |Religion}} | data64 = Sunni Islam, minority Eastern Orthodox | header65 = {{#if:Urums<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>Template:• Crimean KaraitesTemplate:• Lipka TatarsTemplate:• KrymchaksTemplate:• Crimean RomaTemplate:• Dobrujan TatarsTemplate:• KumyksTemplate:• BalkarsTemplate:• KarachaysTemplate:• Turks<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>Template:• NogaisTemplate:• Volga Tatars |Related ethnic groups}} | data66 = {{#if:Urums<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>Template:• Crimean KaraitesTemplate:• Lipka TatarsTemplate:• KrymchaksTemplate:• Crimean RomaTemplate:• Dobrujan TatarsTemplate:• KumyksTemplate:• BalkarsTemplate:• KarachaysTemplate:• Turks<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>Template:• NogaisTemplate:• Volga Tatars |Urums<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>Template:• Crimean KaraitesTemplate:• Lipka TatarsTemplate:• KrymchaksTemplate:• Crimean RomaTemplate:• Dobrujan TatarsTemplate:• KumyksTemplate:• BalkarsTemplate:• KarachaysTemplate:• Turks<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>Template:• NogaisTemplate:• Volga Tatars Template:Main other }}

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File:Crimean Tatars ethnicity map.png

Crimean Tatars (Template:Crh), or simply Crimeans (Template:Crh), are an Eastern European Turkic ethnic group and nation indigenous to Crimea.Template:Sfn Their ethnogenesis lasted thousands of years in Crimea and the northern regions along the coast of the Black Sea, uniting Mediterranean populations with those of the Eurasian Steppe.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref name="генофонд2015">Агджоян А. Т., Схаляхо Р. А., Утевская О. М., Жабагин М. К., Тагирли Ш. Г., Дамба Л. Д., Атраментова Л. А., Балановский О. П. Генофонд крымских татар в сравнении с тюркоязычными народами Европы Template:Webarchive, 2015</ref>Template:Sfn<ref name="mtDNA" /> Genome-wide study of the Crimean Tatars unveiled connections between them and the genomes of individuals from the Steppe during the Bronze Age, specifically those associated with the Yamnaya archaeological culture.<ref name="full-genome" /><ref>Balanovsky O., Chukhryaeva M., Zaporozhchenko V., Urasin V., Zhabagin M., Hovhannisyan A., Agdzhoyan A., Dibirova Kh., Kuznetsova M., Koshel S., Pocheshkhova E., Alborova I., Shalyakho R., Utevska O., The Genographic Consortium, Mustafin Kh., Yepiskoposyan L., Tyler-Smith C., Balanovska E. Genetic differentiation between upland and lowland populations shapes the Ychromosomal landscape of West Asia // Hum Genet. 2017 Apr;136(4):437-450. doi: 10.1007/s00439-017-1770-2. Epub 2017 Mar 9. — page 445.</ref>

Until the 20th century, Crimean Tatars were the most populous demographic cohort in Crimea, constituting the majority of the peninsula's population as a whole.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Following the Russian Empire's annexation of the Crimean Khanate in 1783, they were subjected to attempts at driving them from the region through a combination of physical violence and harassment, forced resettlement, and legalized forms of discrimination. By 1800, between 100,000 and 300,000 Crimean Tatars had left Crimea.

While Crimean Tatar cultural elements were not completely eradicated under the Romanov dynasty, the populace was almost completely eradicated from the peninsula under the Soviet Union, especially during the Stalinist era.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> In May 1944, almost immediately after the Soviets retook German-occupied Crimea during World War II, the country's State Defense Committee ordered the deportation of all Crimean Tatars, including the families of Crimean Tatar soldiers in the Red Army. The deportees were transported in trains and boxcars to Central Asia, where they were primarily resettled in Uzbekistan. Anywhere from 18% to 46% of the Crimean Tatar population was lost due to the Soviet deportation campaigns.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> From 1967 onwards, only a few of the displaced Crimean Tatars were allowed to return, although de-Stalinization had led to the Soviet government's recognition of the deportations as ethnic cleansing and cultural genocide. Later, in 1989, the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union adopted new policies for the full right of return of the Crimean Tatars, sparking a steady increase in the population.

Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Crimean Tatars have been members of the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The European Union and international indigenous groups do not dispute their status as an indigenous people and they have been officially recognized as an indigenous people of Ukraine since 2014.<ref>Verkhovna Rada recognized Crimean Tatars indigenous people of Ukraine (Рада визнала кримських татар корінним народом у складі України) Template:Webarchive. Mirror Weekly. 20 March 2014</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> However, the Russian administration in occupied Crimea considers them a "national minority" instead of an indigenous people,<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> and continues to deny that they are the peninsula's titular nation, in spite of the fact that the Soviet administration considered them indigenous before their deportation.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="Vozgrin" /><ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Today, Crimean Tatars constitute approximately 15% of the Crimean population.<ref> In the 2014 census, many of those who indicated the nationality "Tatar" in the census were actually Crimean Tatars.</ref> Beyond the peninsula, significant populations of the Crimean Tatar diaspora exist in Turkey, Romania, and Bulgaria, among other countries.

Language

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The Crimean Tatar language is a member of Kipchak languages of the Turkic language family. It has three dialects and the standard language is written in the central dialect. Crimean Tatar has a unique position among the Turkic languages because its three "dialects" belong to three different (sub)groups of Turkic. This makes the classification of Crimean Tatar as a whole difficult.

UNESCO ranked Crimean Tatar as one of the most endangered languages that are under serious threat of extinction (severely endangered) in 2010.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> However, according to the Institute of Oriental Studies, due to negative situations, the real degree of threat has elevated to critically endangered languages in recent years, which are highly likely to face extinction in the coming generations.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

• Noğay, (çöl "desert", şimaliy "northern"): Noğay is spoken by the vast majority of diaspora Crimean Tatars in Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey and others. It belongs to Bulgar subgrouping of the Kipchak family and Nogai, another Kipchak language, has influenced it. It is related to Kazakh, Karakalpak, and Nogai proper. This dialect was spoken by former nomadic inhabitants of the Crimean steppes. It has roots in Cumania and later the Golden Horde.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }}</ref> It was influenced by the Middle Mongol spoken in the Golden Horde and notable Slavic influences occurred during the Imperial Russian invasion in 1783.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

• Bağçasaray (orta yolaq "middle region"): Standard Crimean Tatar is classified as a language of the Cuman subgroup of Kipchak and the closest relatives are Karachay-Balkar, Karaim, and Urum. Bağçasaray is spoken in Crimea by sedentary Tatars as the standard language because its speakers comprise a relative majority of Crimean Tatar speakers in Crimea. The middle dialect, although it is a Kipchak language, has strong Turkish, Ukrainian, Mariupol Greek (especially Urum language) elements.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
• Yalıboyu (cenübiy "Southern"): The Yalıboyu, Tat-Tarter, or Coastal Tatar language is an Oghuz language descended from Ottoman Turkish.<ref>Brian Glyn Williams (2001) "The Crimean Tatars: The Diaspora Experience and the Forging of a Nation", ISBN 90-04-12122-6</ref> It arrived in Crimea through the Ottoman Empire's conquest of the Principality of Theodoro in 1475.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Following the Turkish occupation, Southern Crimea came under direct Ottoman Turkish rule, while the Crimean Khanate in northern regions was vassalized. The language has possible Crimean Gothic and some Italian and Greek influences due to trade routes.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Sub-ethnic groups

File:Крымские татары. Мулла.jpg

Crimean Tatars and a mullah Template:Circa

The Crimean Tatars are most often subdivided into three core sub-ethnic groups:

• The Mountain Tats (not to be confused with the Iranic Tat people, living in the Caucasus region) who used to inhabit the mountainous Crimea before 1944 predominantly are Cumans, Greeks, Goths and other people, as Tats in Crimea also were called Hellenic Urum people (Greeks settled in Crimea) who were deported by the Imperial Russia to the area around Mariupol;<ref name=eohou/> The term Tat appears already in the 8th century Orkhon inscriptions denoting "a subjected foreign people". In the 17th century Crimean context, it probably denoted various peoples of foreign (ie. non-Turkic) origin living under the khan's rule, especially the Greeks, Italians, and the remnants of Goths and Alans inhabiting the mountainous southern section of Crimea.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }}</ref>

• The Yaliboylu Tats composed of Tatarized descendants of peoples who lived on the Southern Coast of the peninsula before 1944 and practiced Christianity until the 14th century;<ref name=eohou>Crimean Tatars (КРИМСЬКІ ТАТАРИ) Template:Webarchive. Encyclopedia of History of Ukraine.</ref>
• The Noğay Tatars (not to be confused with related Nogai people, living now in Southern Russia) — former inhabitants of the Crimean steppe.<ref name=eohou/>

There are also three other groups that are closely related to Crimean Tatars and sometimes are considered as sub-ethnic groups:

• The Tajfa who are Roma Muslims assimilated into the Crimean Tatar people, speak a Crimean Tatar dialect, and typically consider themselves to be Crimean Tatar first and Roma as a secondary identity.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
• The Urum. Some researchers consider the Urums to be a Turkic people—Christian Crimean Tatars who historically practiced Orthodoxy,<ref>Маріупольські греки Template:Webarchive, Велика російська енциклопедія, 2010</ref>Template:Sfn as they share identical customs and traditions and speak Crimean Tatar, while genetic studies show them to be significantly closer to Southern Coastal (d=0.16) and Mountain Crimean Tatars (d=0.2) than to Greeks (d=0.55) or even the neighboring Rumey Greeks (d=0.33), with even Steppe Crimean Tatars (d=0.45) being genetically nearer to them than mainland Greeks;Template:Sfn however, culturally, both Urums and Rumai identify more strongly with Greece, evidenced by institutions like Mariupol University's Modern Greek department (teaching standard Greek rather than their unique dialects),<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }}</ref> though scholars generally classify them as a Greek sub-ethnic group and diaspora,Template:Sfn a categorization challenged by Ukrainian historian V. I. Ivatsky, who argues the Rumey-Urum distinction is political (Greek vs. Turkic-speaking) rather than ethnic, positing that Rumey could denote any Orthodox Crimean resident (Greek, Goth, Kipchak, or Oghuz) while Urums specifically descend from non-Greek Turkic-speaking Crimeans,Template:Sfn with the prevailing "Tatarized Greeks" narrative being perpetuated through Greek and Cypriot consulate-sponsored initiatives in Mariupol (Modern Greek classes, media, and cultural events),Template:Sfn all while the community underwent progressive Russification since the mid-19th century, losing traditional markers like language and dress and adopting a Hellenic identity shaped by Russian education and imperial perceptions, wherein Russified Azov Greeks internalized the external image imposed upon them.Template:Sfn

• The Lipka Tatars. Part of the Lipka Tatars, who came from the Crimean Khanate, are considered part of the Crimean Tatars.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> They played a significant role in the Crimean Tatar national movement during the First and Second World Wars (Maciej Sulkiewicz, Mustafa Edige Kirimal, Olgerd Krychynsky).<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Famous scientists and writers with a world name come from Lipka Tatars (Henryk Sienkiewicz, Ahatanhel Krymsky and Mykhailo Tugan-Baranovsky). Most of them do not know the Crimean Tatar language due to assimilation and speak Polish, Lithuanian, Belarusian and Ukrainian.

Historians suggest that inhabitants of the mountainous parts of Crimea lying to the central and southern parts (the Tats), and those of the Southern coast of Crimea (the Yalıboyu) were the direct descendants of the Pontic Greeks, Scythians, Ostrogoths (Crimean Goths), and Kipchaks along with the Cumans while the latest inhabitants of the northern steppe represent the descendants of the Nogai Horde of the Black Sea, nominally subjects of the Crimean Khan.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>Khodarkovsky – Russia's Steppe Frontier p. 11</ref> It is largely assumed that the Tatarization process that mostly took place in the 16th century brought a sense of cultural unity through the blending of the Greeks, Italians, Ottoman Turks of the southern coast, Goths of the central mountains and Turkic-speaking Kipchaks and Cumans of the steppe and forming of the Crimean Tatar ethnic group.<ref>Williams, BG. The Crimean Tatars: The Diaspora Experience and the Forging of a Nation. Pgs 7–23. Template:ISBN</ref><ref name="Ripley1899">Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite EB1911</ref> However, the Cuman language is considered the direct ancestor of the current language of the Crimean Tatars with possible incorporations of the other languages, like Crimean Gothic.<ref>István Vásáry (2005) Cumans and Tatars, Cambridge University Press.</ref><ref>Stearns(1979:39–40).</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The fact that Crimean Tatars' ethnogenesis took place in Crimea and consisted of several stages lasting thousands of years is proved by genetic research showing that the gene pool of the Crimean Tatars preserved both the initial components for thousands of years, and later in the northern steppe regions of the Crimea.<ref name="full-genome" /><ref>Агджоян А. Т., Схаляхо Р. А., Утевская О. М., Жабагин М. К., Тагирли Ш. Г., Дамба Л. Д., Атраментова Л. А., Балановский О. П. Генофонд крымских татар в сравнении с тюркоязычными народами Европы Template:Webarchive, 2015</ref>

The Mongol conquest of the Kipchaks led to a merged society with a Mongol ruling class over a Kipchak speaking population which came to be dubbed Tatar and which eventually absorbed other ethnicities on the Crimean peninsula like Italians, Greeks, and Goths to form the modern day Crimean Tatar people; up to the Soviet deportation, the Crimean Tatars could still differentiate among themselves between Tatar, Kipchak, Nogays, and the "Tat" descendants of Tatarized Goths and other Turkified peoples.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

• Crimean Tatars of different sub-ethnic groups
• Обитатель татарского Крыма.jpg

  Crimean Tatar, 1700.

• Mountain Crimean Tatars.jpg

  Mountain Crimean Tatars, 1820s-1830s, D. K. Bonatti.

• Ногайские татары.jpg

  Nogai Tatars. Russian engraving, beginning of the 19th century.

• Семья крымских татар.jpg

  Family of Crimean Tatars. French engraving, 1840s.

• Крымская татарка.jpg

  Crimean Tatar girl, Kapsikhor, XIX century, by Gustav Radde.

• Крымскотатарские девушки в Алупке, 19 век.jpg

  Crimean Tatar girls in Alupka, 1889, by Kostyantin Trutovsky.

• Крымские татарки.jpg

  Crimean Tatars girls, XIX century.

• Крымскотатарские девочки.jpg

  Crimean Tatar girls, from a collection of photographs of pre-revolutionary Russia.

• Crimean Tatar family.jpg

  Crimean Tatar woman with children, 1925.

• 34. Ulica - Tatarski Zespół Taneczno-Wokalny Buńczuk - 20210710 1958 9393.jpg

  Lipka Tatars, 2021.

Genetics

File:Gene pool of the Crimean Tatars.svg

Gene pool (Y-DNA) of the Crimean Tatars.<ref name="genpool">Wells, RS; Yuldasheva, N; Ruzibakiev, R. et al The Eurasian heartland: a continental perspective on Y-chromosome diversity // Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2001 </ref><ref name="genezis">Следы древних миграций в генофонде крымских и казанских татар: анализ полиморфизма y-хромосомы = Traces of ancient migrations in the gene pool of Crimean and Kazan Tatars: analysis of y-chromosome polymorphism Template:Webarchive Агджоян А. Т., Утевкая О. М. и др. — Вестник УТГС 2013.</ref>

The genetic composition of the Crimean Tatars is distinguished by the presence of two predominant patterns: the so-called "sea pattern" and the "steppe pattern". The former is believed to have originated from Mediterranean populations,Template:Sfn while the latter is attributed to the nomadic tribes of the Great Eurasian steppe.<ref name="genes" />Template:Sfn<ref name="genezis" /> The primary contributor to the "sea pattern" of the Crimean Tatars is not the later migrations of Greeks from the Byzantine Empire, but rather the ancient populations from the city-states of the Eastern Mediterranean dating back to the 7th to 5th centuries BC. This assertion is further substantiated by the analysis of the Crimean Tatar gene pool as revealed by the Human Origins full-genome panel data.<ref>Template:Harvnb: "Thus, medieval migrations from Asia Minor could have strengthened the "marine" layer of the Crimean gene pool, but its main source was still the ancient populations from the city-states of the Eastern Mediterranean. Indirect confirmation of this hypothesis can be found in the analysis of the Crimean Tatar gene pool according to the Human Origins genome-wide panel (Figure 17, Section 3.3) and the projection of the position of the gene pool of mountain and southern coastal Crimean Tatars on the principal component graph for the same data set, published in the work [Mathieson et al., 2017] using data on ancient DNA of the Balkans and Asia Minor from the Neolithic to the Bronze Age".</ref> Geneticists have concluded that the Crimean Tatars, as a distinct ethnic group, were formed directly within Crimea, rather than migrating to the region, thereby affirming their status as the indigenous inhabitants of Crimea.<ref name="genes">Template:Cite journal</ref>Template:Sfn

Contrary to hypotheses suggesting that the gene pool of the Crimean Tatars was significantly influenced by Central Asian populations or Mongolic groups, genetic research indicates a considerable divergence from both,<ref>Template:Harvnb: "the gene pools of all the populations studied are very distant from both the Mongols and other populations of Central Asia"</ref> with the Balkars, a highland ethnic group from the Caucasus, being most genetically akin to the Crimean Tatars.<ref name="genezis" /><ref name="comparisongene">Агджоян А. Т., Схаляхо Р. А., Утевская О. М., Жабагин М. К., Тагирли Ш. Г., Дамба Л. Д., Атраментова Л. А., Балановский О. П. Генофонд крымских татар в сравнении с тюркоязычными народами Европы Template:Webarchive, 2015</ref> Furthermore, the hypothesis positing a substantial impact of Slavic populations on the genetic makeup of the Crimean Tatars is also refuted by genetic studies, which reveal no significant influx of "Slavic" genetic material into the Crimean Tatar gene pool despite prolonged proximity.<ref>Template:Harvnb: "All six studied Crimean populations, according to the analysis of both haploid and whole-genome autosomal markers, are genetically very distant from their closest geographical neighbors – Ukrainians and Russians: significantly farther than from the populations of the Mediterranean or the Caucasus. This result indicates the absence of a significant genetic contribution of the Slavic population to the gene pool of the studied Crimean populations".</ref>

The preliminary phase of the comprehensive analysis of complete Y-chromosomes, undertaken at the Laboratory of Genomic Geography of the N. I. Vavilov Institute of General Genetics of the Russian Academy of Sciences, focused on three specific haplogroups — G1, N3, and R1b — unveiled connections between the Crimean Tatars and the genomes of individuals from the Bronze Age steppes of Eurasia, specifically those associated with the Yamnaya archaeological culture, and the "European" (N3a3) and "Asian" (N3a5) Neolithic variants of haplogroup N3 in Northern Eurasia. These findings may reflect not only the genetic legacy of the Scythians and Sarmatians but also more ancient affiliations between the populations of mainland Eastern Europe and the Crimean Peninsula.<ref name="full-genome">Template:Cite journal</ref>

The genetic composition of the Crimean Tatars is primarily constituted by five predominant Y-DNA haplogroups: R1a, R1b, J2, G2a3b1 and E1b1b1, which together account for 67% of the genetic diversity, whereas other haplogroups are classified as minor, each contributing between 1% and 5% to the overall genetic makeup of the Crimean Tatars.<ref name="genezis" />

The structure of the mitochondrial gene pool of Crimean Tatars (haplogroups transmitted exclusively through the maternal line) varies depending on the region: the Southern Coastal Crimean Tatars — yalıboylu — show similarities to the populations of the Eastern Mediterranean and Europe, with a predominance of haplogroups H, V, U5a, K, and T2b, as well as the presence of Near Eastern lineages (R0a, T2c, U3). The Mountain Crimean Tatars — tats and dağlı— share these traits but have a slight shift toward the steppe Crimeans, which is manifested by the presence of East Asian haplogroups (M9, D). Steppe Crimean Tatars — noğays and çöllü — are distinguished by a relatively high proportion of East Asian lineages (A, B, C, D, F, and others), which make up about a quarter of their mitochondrial gene pool, bringing them closer to the populations of Central Asia and the North Caucasus. A unique feature of the Steppe Crimean Tatars is the increased proportion of haplogroup H (43 %), which is rare for populations with a similar set of haplogroups. Multivariate analysis confirms that, along maternal lines, the Southern Coastal and Mountain Crimean Tatars are included in the Mediterranean cluster together with the Greeks, Italians, the peoples of Sicily and Sardinia, Cyprus and Crete, Turks, Bulgarians, and Romanians. They also approach the cluster of the Caucasus population, reflecting the significant proximity of all European populations to each other precisely in maternal haplogroups. The Steppe Crimean Tatars, however, are included in the Central Asian cluster (within its boundaries, they are close to the more western Turkic groups).Template:Sfn

• MtDNA of Crimean Tatars and Crimean Greeks (leaving in Azov region now).svg

  MtDNA genepool of the Crimean Tatar sub-ethnic groups, as well as the Urums and Rumeys [Agdzhoyan, 2018].Template:Sfn

• Ancestral populations of the Crimean Tatars according to mtDNA.webp

  Ancestral populations of Crimean Tatars based on mitochondrial DNA compared to Central Asian populations [Comas et al., 2004].<ref name="mtDNA">Comas, D., Plaza, S., Wells, R. et al. Admixture, migrations, and dispersals in Central Asia: evidence from maternal DNA lineages. Eur J Hum Genet 12, 495–504 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.ejhg.5201160 Template:Quote</ref>

• Gene pool of Lipka Tatars.svg

  Gene pool (Y-DNA) of the Lipka Tatars, closely connected to the Crimean Tatars.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>Template:Sfn

History

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Origin

Template:Multiple image The Crimean Tatars were formed as a people in Crimea and are descendants of various peoples who lived in Crimea in different historical eras. The main ethnic groups that inhabited the Crimea at various times and took part in the formation of the Crimean Tatar people are Tauri, Scythians, Sarmatians, Alans, Ancient Greeks, Crimean Goths, Huns, Bulgars, Khazars, Pechenegs, Cumans, Italians. The consolidation of this diverse ethnic conglomerate into a single Crimean Tatar people took place over the course of centuries. The connecting elements in this process were the commonality of the territory, the Turkic language and Islamic religion.<ref>Мухамедьяров Ш. Ф. Введение в этническую историю Крыма. // Тюркские народы Крыма: Караимы. Крымские татары. Крымчаки. — Moscow: Наука. 2003.</ref><ref name="Хайр">Хайруддинов М. А. К вопросу об этногенезе крымских татар/М. А. Хайруддинов // Ученые записки Крымского государственного индустриально-педагогического института. Выпуск 2. -Симферополь, 2001.</ref>Template:Sfn<ref name="genezis" />

By the end of the 15th century, the main prerequisites that led to the formation of an independent Crimean Tatar ethnic group were created: the political dominance of the Crimean Khanate was established in Crimea, the Turkic languages (Cuman-Kipchak on the territory of the khanate) became dominant, and Islam acquired the status of a state religion throughout the Peninsula. By a preponderance Cumanian population of the Crimea acquired the name "Tatars", the Islamic religion and Turkic language, and the process of consolidating the multi-ethnic conglomerate of the Peninsula began, which has led to the emergence of the Crimean Tatar people.<ref name="Vozgrin">Vozgrin, Valery "Historical fate of the Crimean Tatars" Template:Webarchive</ref> Over several centuries, on the basis of Cuman language with a noticeable Oghuz influence, the Crimean Tatar language has developed.<ref>Sevortyan E. V. Crimean Tatar language. // Languages of the peoples of the USSR. — t. 2 (Turkic languages). — N., 1966. — Pp. 234–259.</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>Essays on the history and culture of the Crimean Tatars. / Under. edited by E. Chubarova.Simferopol, Crimecity, 2005.</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

In the Golden Horde

File:Мечеть Узбека.JPG

Ozbek Han Mosque — one of the oldest mosques of the Crimea. It was built in 1314 during the rule of the Golden Horde in the peninsula

At the beginning of the 13th century in the Crimea, the majority of the population, which was already composed of a Turkic people — Cumans — became a part of the Golden Horde. The Crimean Tatars mostly adopted Islam in the 14th century and thereafter Crimea became one of the centers of Islamic civilization in Eastern Europe. In the same century, trends towards separatism appeared in the Crimean Ulus of the Golden Horde. De facto independence of the Crimea from the Golden Horde may be counted since the beginning of princess (khanum) Canike's, the daughter of the powerful Khan of the Golden Horde Tokhtamysh and the wife of the founder of the Nogai Horde Edigey, reign in the peninsula. During her reign she strongly supported Hacı Giray in the struggle for the Crimean throne until her death in 1437. Following the death of Canike, the situation of Hacı Giray in Crimea weakened and he was forced to leave Crimea for Lithuania.<ref>Gertsen, Mogarychev Крепость драгоценностей. Кырк-Ор. Чуфут-кале. Template:Webarchive, 1993, pages 58—64. — Template:ISBN.</ref>

The Crimean Tatars emerged as a nation at the time of the Crimean Khanate, an Ottoman vassal state during the 16th to 18th centuries.<ref name="davies"/> Russian historian, doctor of history, Professor of the Russian Academy of Sciences Ilya Zaytsev writes that analysis of historical data shows that the influence of Turkey on the policy of the Crimea was not as high as it was reported in old Turkish sources and Imperial Russian ones.<ref>Крымское ханство: вассалитет или независимость? // Османский мир и османистика. Сборник статей к 100-летию со дня рождения А.С. Тверитиновой (1910–1973) Template:Webarchive М., 2010. С. 288–298</ref> The Turkic-speaking population of Crimea had mostly adopted Islam already in the 14th century, following the conversion of Ozbeg Khan of the Golden Horde.<ref>Williams, BG. The Crimean Tatars: The Diaspora Experience and the Forging of a Nation. Pg 12. Template:ISBN</ref> By the time of the first Russian invasion of Crimea in 1736, the Khan's archives and libraries were famous throughout the Islamic world, and under Khan Krym-Girei the city of Aqmescit was endowed with piped water, sewerage and a theatre where Molière was performed in French, while the port of Kezlev stood comparison with Rotterdam and Bakhchysarai, the capital, was described as Europe's cleanest and greenest city.<ref name="Rayfield, Donald p 15">Rayfield, Donald, 2014: "Dormant claims", Times Literary Supplement, 9 May 2014 p 15</ref>

In the Crimean Khanate

File:Carlo Bossoli Khanpalast von Bachcisaraj 1857.jpg

The Crimean Khan's Palace in Bakhchysarai by Carlo Bossoli

In 1441, an embassy from the representatives of several strongest clans of the Crimea, including the Golden Horde clans Shırın and Barın and the Cumanic clan — Kıpçak, went to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania to invite Hacı Giray to rule in the Crimea. He became the founder of the Giray dynasty, which ruled until the annexation of the Crimean Khanate by Russia in 1783.<ref name ="Gayvoronsky" /> Hacı I Giray was a Jochid descendant of Genghis Khan and of his grandson Batu Khan of the Golden Horde. During the reign of Meñli I Giray, Hacı's son, the army of the Great Horde that still existed then invaded the Crimea from the north, Crimean Khan won the general battle, overtaking the army of the Horde Khan in Takht-Lia, where he was killed, the Horde ceased to exist, and the Crimean Khan became the Great Khan and the successor of this state.<ref name ="Gayvoronsky" /><ref>Vosgrin, 1992. Template:ISBN.</ref> Since then, the Crimean Khanate was among the strongest powers in Eastern Europe until the beginning of the 18th century.<ref>Halil İnalcik, 1942 Template:Page needed</ref> The Khanate officially operated as a vassal state of the Ottoman Empire, with great autonomy after 1580.<ref>Great Russian Encyclopedia: Вер­хов­ная власть при­над­ле­жа­ла ха­ну – пред­ста­ви­те­лю ди­на­стии Ги­ре­ев, ко­то­рый яв­лял­ся вас­са­лом тур. сул­та­на (офи­ци­аль­но за­кре­п­ле­но в 1580-х гг., ко­гда имя сул­та­на ста­ло про­из­но­сить­ся пе­ред име­нем ха­на во вре­мя пят­нич­ной мо­лит­вы, что в му­сульм. ми­ре слу­жи­ло при­зна­ком вас­са­ли­те­та) Template:Webarchive</ref> At the same time, the Nogai hordes, not having their own khan, were vassals of the Crimean one, Muskovy and Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth<ref>Kochegarov Template:Webarchive (2008), p. 230</ref><ref>J. Tyszkiewicz. Tatarzy na Litwie i w Polsce. Studia z dziejow XIII-XVIII w. Warszawa, 1989. p. 167</ref> paid annual tribute to the khan (until 1700<ref>Davies (2007), p. 187; Torke (1997), p. 110</ref> and 1699 respectively). In the 17th century, the Crimean Tatars helped Ukrainian Cossacks led by Bohdan Khmelnytsky in the struggle for independence, which allowed them to win several decisive victories over Polish troops.<ref>There is a popular thesis in the Russian-Soviet propaganda about the Crimean Tatars betrayal of Khmelnytsky. However, the words of the vizier of the Crimean Khanate Sefer Ğazı show just the opposite. He said: «The Zaporozhian Cossacks spent 800 years in servitude with the Polish kings, then seven years with us, and we, taking them together and hoping that they would be righteous and standing in service, defended them, fought for them with Poland and Lithuania, shed a lot of innocent blood, and did not allow them to be harmed. Back then there were only 8,000 Cossacks, and we Tatars made 20,000 of them. The Cossacks liked it, when we covered them and always came to their aid, then Khmelnytsky kissed me, Sefergazy-Aga, in the legs and wanted to be with us in submission forever. Now the Cossacks have misappropriated us, betrayed us, forgotten our goodness, gone to the Tsar of Moscow. You, members, know that it is traitors and rebels who will betray the Tsar just as they betrayed us and the Poles. Mehmed Giray the Tsar is unable to do anything but to walk on them and destroy them. I do not think any of the Crimeans and Nogais will have a claw on the fingers of their hands, I don't think their eyes will be covered with ground – then only the treachery and the Cossack faith will be avenged.» (source of the quote Template:Webarchive)</ref>

File:Bohdan Khmelnytsky and Crimean khan.jpg

The Crimean Khan and Bohdan Khmelnytsky performing namaz.

In 1711, when Peter I of Russia went on a campaign with all his troops (80,000) to gain access to the Black Sea, he was surrounded by the army of the Crimean Khan Devlet II Giray, finding himself in a hopeless situation. And only the betrayal of the Ottoman vizier Baltacı Mehmet Pasha allowed Peter to get out of the encirclement of the Crimean Tatars.<ref>Ahmad III, H. Bowen, The Encyclopaedia of Islam, Vol. I, ed. H. A. R. Gibb, J. H. Kramers, E. Levi-Provencal and J. Shacht, (E. J.Brill, 1986), 269.</ref> When Devlet II Giray protested against the vizier's decision,<ref>He was claiming: "Such a strong and merciless enemy as Moscow, falling on its feet, fell into our hands. This is such a convenient case when, if we wish so, we can capture Russia from one side to the other, since I know for sure that the whole the strength of the Russian army is this army. Our task now is to pat the Russian army so that it cannot move anywhere from this place, and we will get to Moscow and bring the matter to the point that the Russian Tsar would be appointed by our padishah" (Halim Giray, 1822)</ref> his response was: "You should know your Tatar affairs. The affairs of the Sublime Porte are entrusted to me. You do not have the right to interfere in them".<ref>Halim Giray Template:Webarchive, 1822 Template:In lang</ref> Treaty of the Pruth was signed, and 10 years later, Russia declared itself an empire. In 1736, the Crimean Khan Qaplan I Giray was summoned by the Turkish Sultan Ahmed III to Persia. Understanding that Russia could take advantage of the lack of troops in Crimea, Qaplan Giray wrote to the Sultan to think twice, but the Sultan was persistent. As it was expected by Qaplan Giray, in 1736 the Russian army invaded the Crimea, led by Münnich, devastated the peninsula, killed civilians and destroyed all major cities, occupied the capital, Bakhchisaray, and burnt the Khan's palace with all the archives and documents, and then left the Crimea because of the epidemic that had begun in it. One year after the same was done by another Russian general — Peter Lacy.<ref name ="Gayvoronsky">Gayvoronsky, 2007</ref><ref>Tucker, Spencer C. (2010). A Global Chronology of Conflict: From the Ancient World to the Modern Middle East, Vol. II. ABC-CLIO. p. 732</ref> Since then, the Crimean Khanate had not been able to recover, and its slow decline began. The Russo-Turkish War of 1768 to 1774 resulted in the defeat of the Ottomans by the Russians, and according to the Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca (1774) signed after the war, Crimea became independent and the Ottomans renounced their political right to protect the Crimean Khanate. After a period of political unrest in Crimea, Imperial Russia violated the treaty and annexed the Crimean Khanate in 1783.

The main population of the Crimean Khanate were Crimean Tatars, along with them in the Crimean Khanate lived significant communities of Karaites, Italians, Armenians, Greeks, Circassians and Roma. In the early 16th century a part of Nogays (Mangyts), who roamed outside the Crimean Peninsula, moving there during periods of drought and starvation, passed under the rule of the Crimean khans. The majority of the population professed Islam of the Hanafi stream; part of the population – Orthodox, Monotheletism, Judaism; in the 16th century. There were small Catholic communities. The Crimean Tatar population of the Crimean Peninsula was partially exempt from taxes. The Greeks paid jizya, the Italians were in a privileged position due to the partial tax relief made during the reign of Meñli Geray I. By the 18th century the population of the Crimea (excluding continental territories of the Khanate) was about 500 thousand people. The territory of the Crimean Khanate was divided into qaymaqams (governorships), which consisted of qadılıqs, covering a number of settlements.<ref name="GRE">Great Russian Encyclopedia: Крымское ханство Template:Webarchive — A. V. Vinogradov, S. F. Faizov</ref>

Nogay slave trade (15th–18th centuries)

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Until the beginning of the 18th century, the Crimean Nogays were known for frequent, at some periods almost annual, slave raids into present-day 'mainland' Ukraine and Russia.<ref>Subtelny, Orest (2000). "Ukraine: A History". University of Toronto Press. pp. 105–106.</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="davies">Brian L. Davies (2014). Warfare, State and Society on the Black Sea Steppe. pp. 15–26. Routledge.</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> For a long time, until the late 18th century, the Crimean Khanate maintained a massive slave trade with the Ottoman Empire and the Middle East which was one of the important factors of its economy.<ref name="GRE" /><ref name="raids">Template:Cite journal</ref> One of the most important trading ports and slave markets was Kefe.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>"The Crimean Tatars and their Russian-Captive Slaves Template:Webarchive" (PDF). Eizo Matsuki, Mediterranean Studies Group at Hitotsubashi University.</ref> According to the Ottoman census of 1526, taxes on the sale and purchase of slaves accounted for 24% of the funds, levied in Ottoman Crimea for all activities.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> But in fact, there were always small raids committed by both Tatars and Cossacks, in both directions.<ref name="Alan26">Alan W. Fisher, The Russian Annexation of the Crimea 1772–1783, Cambridge University Press, p. 26.</ref> The 17th century Ottoman writer and traveller Evliya Çelebi wrote that there were 920,000 Ukrainian slaves in the Crimea but only 187,000 free Muslims.<ref name="davies" /> However, the Ukrainian historian Sergey Gromenko considers this testimony of Çelebi a myth popular among ultranationalists, pointing out that today it is known from the writings on economics that in the 17th century, the Crimea could feed no more than 500 thousand people.<ref name="krymr" /> For comparison, according to the notes of the Consul of France to Qırım Giray khan Baron Totta, a hundred years later, in 1767, there were 4 million people living in the Crimean khanate,Template:Sfn and in 1778, that is, just eleven years later, all the Christians were evicted from its territory by the Russian authorities, which turned out to be about 30 thousand,Template:Sfn mostly Armenians and Greeks, and there were no Ukrainians among them. Also, according to more reliable modern sources than Evliya's data, slaves never constituted a significant part of the Crimean population.<ref>Great Russian Encyclopedia Template:Webarchive: Crimean Khanate</ref> Russian professor Glagolev writes that there were 1.800.000 free Crimean Tatars in the Crimean Khanate in 1666,<ref>Религия Караимов Template:Webarchive, Глаголев В. С., page 88</ref> it also should be mentioned that a huge part of Ukraine was part of the Crimean Khanate, that is why Ukrainians could have been taken into account in the general population of the Khanate by Evliya (see Khan Ukraine).

File:Inval van de Tartaren in Polen, 1666 (Invasion of the Tatars in Poland, 1666).jpg

Invasion of the Tatars in Poland in 1666. Drawing by Jan Luyken, 1698.

Some researchers estimate that more than 2 million people were captured and enslaved during the time of the Crimean Khanate. Polish historian Bohdan Baranowski assumed that in the 17th century Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth (present-day Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania and Belarus) lost an average of 20,000 yearly and as many as one million in all years combined from 1500 to 1644.<ref name="davies" /><ref>Darjusz Kołodziejczyk, as reported by Template:Cite journal</ref> One of the most famous victims of the Tatar slave trade was a young woman from Ruthenia, captured during her wedding who came to be known as Roxelana (Hürrem Sultan), a concubine of Sultan Suleiman.

In retaliation, the lands of Crimean Tatars were being raided by Zaporozhian Cossacks,<ref name="Alan26" /> armed Ukrainian horsemen, who defended the steppe frontier – Wild Fields – against Tatar slave raids and often attacked and plundered the lands of Ottoman Turks and Crimean Tatars. The Don Cossacks and Kalmyk Mongols also managed to raid Crimean Tatars' land.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The last recorded major Crimean raid, before those in the Russo-Turkish War (1768–74) took place during the reign of Peter the Great (1682–1725).<ref name="Alan26" /> However, Cossack raids continued after that time; Ottoman Grand Vizier complained to the Russian consul about raids to Crimea and Özi in 1761.<ref name="Alan26" /> In 1769 one last major Tatar raid, which took place during the Russo-Turkish War, saw the capture of 20,000 slaves.<ref name="raids" />

Nevertheless, some historians, including Russian historian Valery Vozgrin and Polish historian Oleksa Gayvoronsky have emphasized that the role of the slave trade in the economy of the Crimean Khanate is greatly exaggerated by modern historians, and the raiding-dependent economy is nothing but a historical myth.<ref>The historical fate of the Crimean Tatars Template:Webarchive — Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor Valery Vozgrin, 1992, Moscow Template:In lang</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> According to modern researches, livestock occupied a leading position in the economy of the Crimean Khanate, Crimean Khanate was one of the main wheat suppliers to the Ottoman Empire. Salt mining, viticulture and winemaking, horticulture and gardening were also developed as sources of income.<ref name="GRE" />

Several modern historians have argued that historiography on the Crimean Tatars has been strongly influenced by Russian historians, who have rewritten the history of the Crimean Khanate to justify the annexation of Crimea in 1783, and, especially, then by Soviet historians who distorted the history of Crimea to justify the 1944 deportation of the Crimean Tatars.<ref>RFEL:Сергей Громенко против «лысенковщины» в истории Крыма Template:Webarchive (in Russian)</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>Serhiy Hromenko «Все было не так»: зачем Россия переписывает историю Крыма Template:Webarchive</ref><ref>Gulnara Bekirova: Крымскотатарская проблема в СССР: 1944–1991 Template:Webarchive</ref><ref>Gulnara Bekirova Crimea and the Crimean Tatars in XIX—XXth centuries Template:Webarchive, 2005, page 95</ref>

In the Russian Empire

File:Giovanni Antonio Rizzi Zannoni. Carte de la partie septentrionale de l'empire otoman-Crimée.jpg

French-language map of Crimea from 1774, showing mostly Turkic placenames.

The Russo-Turkish War (1768–1774) resulted in the defeat of the Ottomans by the Russians, and according to the Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca (1774) signed after the war, Crimea became independent and the Ottomans renounced their political right to protect the Crimean Khanate. After a period of political unrest in Crimea, Russia violated the treaty and annexed the Crimean Khanate in 1783. After the annexation, the wealthier Tatars, who had exported wheat, meat, fish and wine to other parts of the Black Sea, began to be expelled and to move to the Ottoman Empire. Due to the oppression by the Russian administration and colonial politics of Russian Empire, the Crimean Tatars were forced to immigrate to the Ottoman Empire. Further expulsions followed in 1812 for fear of the reliability of the Tatars in the face of Napoleon's advance. Particularly, the Crimean War of 1853–1856, the laws of 1860–63, the Tsarist policy and the Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878) caused an exodus of the Tatars; 12,000 boarded Allied ships in Sevastopol to escape the destruction of shelling, and were branded traitors by the Russian government.<ref name="Rayfield, Donald p 15"/> Of total Tatar population 300,000 of the Taurida Governorate about 200,000 Crimean Tatars emigrated.<ref>"Hijra and Forced Migration from Nineteenth-Century Russia to the Ottoman Empire" Template:Webarchive, by Bryan Glynn Williams, Cahiers du Monde russe, 41/1, 2000, pp. 79–108.</ref> Many Crimean Tatars perished in the process of emigration, including those who drowned while crossing the Black Sea. In total, from 1783 till the beginning of the 20th century, at least 800 thousand Tatars left Crimea. Today the descendants of these Crimeans form the Crimean Tatar diaspora in Bulgaria, Romania and Turkey.

Ismail Gasprali (1851–1914) was a renowned Crimean Tatar intellectual, influenced by the nationalist movements of the period, whose efforts laid the foundation for the modernization of Muslim culture and the emergence of the Crimean Tatar national identity. The bilingual Crimean Tatar-Russian newspaper Terciman-Perevodchik he published in 1883–1914, functioned as an educational tool through which a national consciousness and modern thinking emerged among the entire Turkic-speaking population of the Russian Empire.<ref name="Rayfield, Donald p 15"/> After the Russian Revolution of 1917 this new elite, which included Noman Çelebicihan and Cafer Seydamet Qırımer proclaimed the first democratic republic in the Islamic world, named the Crimean People's Republic on 26 December 1917. However, this republic was short-lived and abolished by the Bolshevik uprising in January 1918.<ref>Хаяли Л. И. — Провозглашение Крымской народной республики (декабрь 1917 года) Template:Webarchive</ref>

• Crimea and Crimean Tatars in History
• Caffa in ruins.jpg

  Caffa in ruins (1788) after Russian annexation of Crimea

• Tragedy of Qarasuvbazar.jpg

  Abandoned houses in Qarasuvbazar.

• Танец крымских татар, 1790-е годы.jpg

  The Crimean Tatar national dance, Qaytarma (1790s)

• Крымскотатарский эскадрон.jpg

  Crimean Tatar squadron of the Russian Empire (1850)

• Lucznik tatarski.jpg

  Crimean Tatar archer (Wacław Pawliszak, Template:Circa 1890)

• Kurultay of the Crimean Tatar People (1917).jpg

  Kurultay of the Crimean Tatar People, 1917

In the Soviet Union (1917–1991)

File:Crimean Tatar child on a special settlement.jpg

Crimean Tatar child on a special settlement after the deportation. 1944, Molotov region, RSFSR

As a part of the Russian famine of 1921 the Peninsula suffered widespread starvation.<ref name="Drohobycky" /> More than 100,000 Crimean Tatars starved to death,<ref name="Drohobycky">Maria Drohobycky, Crimea: Dynamics, Challenges and Prospects, Rowman & Littlefield, 1995, p.91, Template:ISBN</ref> and tens of thousands of Tatars fled to Turkey or Romania.<ref name="OneEurope">Template:Cite book</ref> Thousands more were deported or killed during the collectivization in 1928–29.<ref name="OneEurope"/> The Soviet government's "collectivization" policies led to a major nationwide famine in 1931–33. Between 1917 and 1933, 150,000 Tatars—about 50% of the population at the time—either were killed or forced out of Crimea.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> During Stalin's Great Purge, statesmen and intellectuals such as Veli İbraimov and Bekir Çoban-zade were imprisoned or executed on various charges.<ref name="OneEurope"/>

File:Deportation of the Crimean Tatars tr.svg

The swallow flying over the Crimea is one of the symbols of the deportation of the Crimean Tatars

In May 1944, the entire Crimean Tatar population of Crimea was exiled to Central Asia, mainly to Uzbekistan, on the orders of Joseph Stalin, the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the Chairman of the USSR State Defense Committee. Although a great number of Crimean Tatar men served in the Red Army and took part in the partisan movement in Crimea during the war, the existence of a Tatar Legion in the Nazi army and the collaboration of some Crimean Tatar religious and political leaders with Hitler during the German occupation of Crimea provided the Soviet leadership with justification for accusing the entire Crimean Tatar population of being Nazi collaborators. Some modern researchers argue that Crimea's geopolitical position fueled Soviet perceptions of Crimean Tatars as a potential threat.<ref>Aurélie Campana, Sürgün: "The Crimean Tatars’ deportation and exile, Online Encyclopedia of Mass Violence" Template:Webarchive, 16 June 2008. Retrieved 19 April 2012, ISSN 1961-9898</ref> This belief is based in part on an analogy with numerous other cases of deportations of non-Russians from boundary territories, as well as the fact that other non-Russian populations, such as Greeks, Armenians and Bulgarians were also removed from Crimea (see Deportation of the peoples inhabiting Crimea).

All 240,000 Crimean Tatars were deported en masse, in a form of collective punishment, on 17–18 May 1944 as "special settlers" to the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic and other distant parts of the Soviet Union.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> This event is called Sürgün in the Crimean Tatar language; the few who escaped were shot on sight or drowned in scuttled barges, and within months half their number had died of cold, hunger, exhaustion and disease.<ref name="Rayfield, Donald p 15"/> Many of them were re-located to toil as forced labourers in the Soviet Gulag system.<ref>The Muzhik & the Commissar, Time, 30 November 1953</ref>

Civil rights movement

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Starting in 1944, Crimean Tatars lived mostly in Central Asia with the designation as "special settlers", meaning that they had few rights. "Special settlers" were forbidden from leaving small designated areas and had to frequently sign in at a commandant's office.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref name=":1">Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref name=":3">Template:Cite book</ref> Soviet propaganda directed towards Uzbeks depicted Crimean Tatars as threats to their homeland, and as a result there were many documented hate crimes against Crimean-Tatar civilians by Uzbek Communist loyalists.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref name=":2">Template:Cite book</ref> In the 1950s the "special settler" regime ended, but Crimean Tatars were still kept closely tethered to Central Asia; while other deported ethnic groups like the Chechens, Karachays, and Kalmyks were fully allowed to return to their native lands during the Khrushchev thaw, economic and political reasons combined with basic misconceptions and stereotypes about Crimean Tatars led to Moscow and Tashkent being reluctant to allow Crimean Tatars the same right of return; the same decree that rehabilitated other deported nations and restored their national republics urged Crimean Tatars who wanted a national republic to seek "national reunification" in the Tatar ASSR in lieu of restoration of the Crimean ASSR, much to the dismay of Crimean Tatars who bore no connection to or desire to "return" to Tatarstan.<ref name=":2" /><ref>Хаяли Р. И. Политико-правовое урегулирование крымскотатарской проблемы в СССР (1956—1991 гг.) Template:Webarchive // Ленинградский юридический журнал. 2016 № 3. стр. 28-38</ref> Moscow's refusal to allow a return was not only based on a desire to satisfy the new Russian settlers in Crimea, who were very hostile to the idea of a return and had been subject to lots of Tatarophobic propaganda, but for economic reasons: high productivity from Crimean Tatar workers in Central Asia meant that letting the diaspora return would take a toll on Soviet industrialization goals in Central Asia.<ref name=":1" /> Historians have long suspected that violent resistance to confinement in exile from Chechens led to further willingness to let them return, while the non-violent Crimean Tatar movement did not lead to any desire for Crimean Tatars to leave Central Asia. In effect, the government was punishing Crimean Tatars for being Stakhanovites while rewarding the deported nations that contributed less to the building of socialism, creating further resentment.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

A 1967 Soviet decree removed the charges against Crimean Tatars on paper while simultaneously referring to them not by their proper ethnonym but by the euphemism that eventually became standard of "citizens of Tatar nationality who formerly lived in Crimea", angering many Crimean Tatars who realized it meant they were not even seen as Crimean Tatars by the government. In addition, the Soviet government did nothing to facilitate their resettlement in Crimea and to make reparations for lost lives and confiscated property.<ref>Buttino, Marco (1993). In a Collapsing Empire: Underdevelopment, Ethnic Conflicts and Nationalisms in the Soviet Union, p.68 Template:Webarchive Template:ISBN</ref> Before the mass return in the perestroika era, Crimean Tatars made up only 1.5% of Crimea's population, since government entities at all levels took a variety of measures beyond the already-debilitating residence permit system to keep them in Central Asia.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

The abolition of the special settlement regime made it possible for Crimean Tatar rights activists to mobilize. The primary method of raising grievances with the government was petitioning. Many for the right of return gained over 100,000 signatures; although other methods of protest were occasionally used, the movement remained completely non-violent.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref name=":4">Template:Cite book</ref> When only a small percentage of Crimean Tatars were allowed to return to Crimea, those who were not granted residence permits would return to Crimea and try to live under the radar. However, the lack of a residence permit resulted in a second deportation for them. A last-resort method to avoid a second deportation was self-immolation, famously used by Crimean Tatar national hero Musa Mamut, one of those who moved to Crimea without a residence permit. He doused himself with gasoline and committed self-immolation in front of police trying to deport him on 23 June 1978. Mamut died of severe burns several days later, but expressed no regret for having committed self-immolation.<ref name=":4" /> Mamut posthumously became a symbol of Crimean Tatar resistance and nationhood, and remains celebrated by Crimean Tatars.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Other notable self-immolations in the name of the Crimean Tatar right of return movement include that of Shavkat Yarullin, who fatally committed self-immolation in front of a government building in protest in October 1989, and Seidamet Balji who attempted self-immolation while being deported from Crimea in December that year but survived.<ref name=":7">Template:Cite book</ref> Many other famous Crimean Tatars threatened government authorities with self-immolation if they continued to be ignored, including Hero of the Soviet Union Abdraim Reshidov. In the later years of the Soviet Union, Crimean Tatar activists held picket protests in Red Square.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref name=":3" />

After a prolonged effort of lobbying by the Crimean Tatar civil rights movement, the Soviet government established a commission in 1987 to evaluate the request for the right of return, chaired by Andrey Gromyko.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Gromyko's condescending attitude<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> and failure to assure them that they would have the right of return<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> ended up concerning members of the Crimean Tatar civil rights movement. In June 1988 he issued an official statement that rejected the request for re-establishment of a Crimean Tatar autonomy in Crimea and supported only allowing an organized return of a few more Crimean Tatars, while agreeing to allow the lower-priority requests of having more publications and school instruction in the Crimean Tatar language at the local level among areas with the deported populations.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> The conclusion that "no basis to renew autonomy and grant Crimean Tatars the right to return"Template:Sfn triggered widespread protests.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Less than two years after Gromyko's commission had rejected their request for autonomy and return, pogroms against the deported Meskhetian Turks were taking place in Central Asia. During the pogroms, some Crimean Tatars were targeted as well, resulting in changing attitudes towards allowing Crimean Tatars to move back to Crimea.<ref name=":0">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Eventually a second commission, chaired by Gennady Yanaev and inclusive of Crimean Tatars on the board, was established in 1989 to reevaluate the issue, and it was decided that the deportation was illegal and the Crimean Tatars were granted the full right to return, revoking previous laws intended to make it as difficult as possible for Crimean Tatars to move to Crimea.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

In independent Ukraine (1991–2014)

Today, more than 250,000 Crimean Tatars have returned to their homeland, struggling to re-establish their lives and reclaim their national and cultural rights against many social and economic obstacles. One-third of them are atheists, and over half that consider themselves religious are non-observant.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> As of 2009, only 15 out of 650 schools in Crimea provided education in the Crimean Tatar language, and 13 of them only do so in the first three grades.<ref name=":5">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Squatting in Crimea has been a significant method for Crimean Tatars to rebuild communities in Crimea destroyed by the deportations. These squats have sometimes resulted in violence by Crimean Russians, such as the 1992 Krasny Ray events, in which the security forces of the separatist Republic of Crimea (not to be confused with the post-2014 government of the same name) attacked a Crimean Tatar squat near the village of Krasny Ray. As a result of the attack on the Krasny Ray settlement, Crimean Tatars stormed the Verkhovna Rada of Crimea, leading to the release of 26 squatters who had been abducted by the Crimean security forces.<ref name=":6">Template:Cite news</ref>

File:Rally Deportation of Crimean Tatars.jpg

Rally in support of the Crimean Tatars in Kyiv, 2014

Crimean Tatars were recognised as an indigenous people by the 1996 Constitution of Ukraine, and granted a limited number of seats in the 1994 Crimean parliamentary election. Nonetheless, they faced constant discrimination from the authorities of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, which was primarily governed by ethnic Russians and directed towards Russian interests.<ref name=":6" /> Under the presidency of Viktor Yushchenko, increased attention was paid to Crimean Tatars, with trials for crimes against humanity beginning for those involved in the deportations.<ref name=":5" /> However, issues of land failed to be resolved.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

2014 annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation

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File:Pro-Ukrainian demonstration in Simferopol, 2014.jpg

Pro-Ukrainian demonstration in Simferopol (Ukrainian flag on the left, Crimean Tatar flag on the right) during the Russian military intervention in Crimea, March 2014

Following news of Crimea's independence referendum organized with the help of Russia on 16 March 2014, the Kurultai leadership voiced concerns of renewed persecution, as commented by a U.S. official before the visit of a UN human rights team to the peninsula.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> At the same time, Rustam Minnikhanov, the president of Tatarstan was dispatched to Crimea to quell Crimean Tatars' concerns and to state that "in the 23 years of Ukraine's independence the Ukrainian leaders have been using Crimean Tatars as pawns in their political games without doing them any tangible favors". The issue of Crimean Tatar persecution by Russia has since been raised regularly on an international level.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

On 18 March 2014, the day Crimea was annexed by Russia, and Crimean Tatar was de jure declared one of the three official languages of Crimea. It was also announced that Crimean Tatars will be required to relinquish coastal lands on which they squatted since their return to Crimea in the early 1990s and be given land elsewhere in Crimea. Crimea stated it needed the relinquished land for "social purposes", since part of this land is occupied by the Crimean Tatars without legal documents of ownership.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The situation was caused by the inability of the USSR (and later Ukraine) to sell the land to Crimean Tatars at a reasonable price instead of giving back to the Tatars the land owned before deportation, once they or their descendants returned from Central Asia (mainly Uzbekistan). As a consequence, some Crimean Tatars settled as squatters, occupying land that was and is still not legally registered.

File:Марш захисників України у День Незалежності, 24 серпня 2020 р. (50264209977).jpg

Crimean Tatars during the march of defenders of Ukraine, 2020

Some Crimean Tatars fled to Mainland Ukraine due to the annexation of Crimea – reportedly around 2,000 by 23 March.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> On 29 March 2014, an emergency meeting of the Crimean Tatars representative body, the Kurultai, voted in favor of seeking "ethnic and territorial autonomy" for Crimean Tatars using "political and legal" means. The meeting was attended by the Head of the Republic of Tatarstan and the chair of the Russian Council of Muftis.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Decisions as to whether the Tatars will accept Russian passports or whether the autonomy sought would be within the Russian or Ukrainian state have been deferred pending further discussion.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Template:As of, the Mejlis worked in emergency mode in Kyiv.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

File:Those Who Survived Were Robbed of Decades after 1944 – President of Ukraine on the Remembrance Day of the Genocide of the Crimean Tatar People. (53728898487).jpg

Crimean Tatar politicians of Ukraine at the place of laying a monument to the victims of the genocide of the Crimean Tatar people in Kyiv, 2024.

After the annexation of Crimea by Russian Federation, Crimean Tatars were persecuted and discriminated by Russian authorities, including cases of torture, arbitrary detentions, forced disappearances by Russian security forces and courts.<ref name="urlCrimea: Persecution of Crimean Tatars Intensifies | Human Rights Watch">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name="urlUN documents torture and arrests of Crimean Tatars by Russia - 12.12.2017 14:44 – Ukrinform News">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

On 12 June 2018, Ukraine lodged a memorandum consisting of 17,500 pages of text in 29 volumes to the UN's International Court of Justice about racial discrimination against Crimean Tatars by Russian authorities in occupied Crimea and state financing of terrorism by Russian Federation in Donbas.<ref name="urlUAWire - Ukraine files memorandum with UN Court of Justice containing evidence of Russias involvement in financing of terrorism">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name="urlUkraine submits to ICJ evidence of Russian crimes in Crimea, Donbas | UNIAN">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

In May 2024, Mustafa Dzhemilev announced that at least 41 Crimean Tatars had died fighting for Russia in the Russian invasion of Ukraine, 22 of which were convicts, 13 a result of Russian mobilisation and 6 as volunteers.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Distribution

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In the 2001 Ukrainian census, 248,200 Ukrainian citizens identified themselves as Crimean Tatars with 98% (or about 243,400) of them living in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea.<ref name="2001CensusUkraine">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> An additional 1,800 (or about 0.7%) lived in the city of Sevastopol, also on the Crimean peninsula, but outside the border of the autonomous republic.<ref name="2001CensusUkraine"/> This territory was annexed by Russia in 2014.

About 150,000 remain in exile in Central Asia, mainly in Uzbekistan. According to Tatar activists, Eskişehir Province houses about 150,000 Crimean Tatars. Some activists set the national level figure as high as 6 million, which is considered an overestimation.<ref name="iccrimea.org">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Crimean Tatars in Turkey mostly live in Eskişehir Province, descendants of those who emigrated in the late 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries.<ref name="iccrimea.org"/> The Dobruja region of Romania and Bulgaria is home to more than 27,000 Crimean Tatars, with the majority in Romania and approximately 3,000 on the Bulgarian side of the border.<ref name="romania" />

Culture

File:Crimean tatar musician.jpg

Crimean Tatar musician

Yurts or nomadic tents have traditionally played an important role in the cultural history of Crimean Tatars. There are different types of yurts; some are large and collapsible, called "terme", while others are small and non-collapsible (otav).

Two types of alphabet are in use: Cyrillic and Latin. Initially Crimean Tatars used Arabic script. In 1928, it was replaced with the Latin alphabet. Cyrillic was introduced in 1938 based on the Russian alphabet. The Cyrillic alphabet was the only official one between 1938 and 1997. All its letters coincide with those of the Russian alphabet. The 1990s saw the start of the gradual transition of the language to the new Latin alphabet based on the Turkish one.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

The songs (makam) of the nomadic steppe Crimean Tatars are characterized by diatonic, melodic simplicity and brevity. The songs of mountainous and southern coastal Crimean Tatars, called Template:Crh, are sung with richly ornamented melodies. Household lyricism is also widespread. Occasionally, song competitions take place between young men and women during Crimean holidays and weddings. Ritual folklore includes winter greetings, wedding songs, lamentations and circular dance songs (khoran). Epic stories or destans are very popular among the Crimean Tatars, particularly the destans of "Chora batyr", "Edige", "Koroglu", and others.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

On the Nowruz holiday, Crimean Tatars usually cook eggs, chicken soup, puff meat pie (kobete), halva, and sweet biscuits. Children put on masks and sing special songs under the windows of their neighbours, receiving sweets in return.

The traditional cuisine of the Crimean Tatars has similarities with that of Greeks, Italians, Balkan peoples, Nogays, North Caucasians, and Volga Tatars, although some national dishes and dietary habits vary between different Crimean Tatar regional subgroups; for example, fish and produce are more popular among Yaliboylu Tatar dishes while meat and dairy is more prevalent in Steppe Tatar cuisine. Many Uzbek dishes were incorporated into Crimean Tatar national cuisine during exile in Central Asia since 1944, and these dishes have become prevalent in Crimea since the return. Uzbek samsa, laghman, and Template:Crh (pilaf) are sold in most Tatar roadside cafes in Crimea as national dishes. In turn, some Crimean Tatar dishes, including chibureki, have been adopted by peoples outside Crimea, such as in Turkey and the North Caucasus.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Crimean Tatar political parties and organisations

National movement of Crimean Tatars

Founded by Crimean Tatar civil rights activist Yuri Osmanov, the National Movement of Crimean Tatars (NDKT) was the major opposition faction to the Dzhemilev faction during the Soviet era. The official goal of the NDKT during the Soviet era was the restoration of the Crimean ASSR under the Leninist principle of national autonomy for titular indigenous peoples in their homeland, conflicting with the desires of an independent Tatar state from the OKND, the predecessor of the Mejilis. Yuri Osmanov, founder of the organization, was highly critical of Dzhemilev, saying that the OKND, the predecessor of the Mejilis, did not sufficiently try to mend ethnic tensions in Crimea. However, the OKND decreased in popularity after Yuri Osmanov was killed.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Mejlis

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In 1991, the Crimean Tatar leadership founded the Kurultai, or Parliament, to act as a representative body for the Crimean Tatars which could address grievances to the Ukrainian central government, the Crimean government, and international bodies.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar People is the executive body of the Kurultai.

From the 1990s until October 2013, the political leader of the Crimean Tatars and the chairman of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar People was former Soviet dissident Mustafa Dzhemilev. Since October 2013 the chairman of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar People has been Refat Chubarov.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Following the 2014 Russian annexation of Crimea, Russian authorities declared the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar People an extremist organization, and banned it on 26 April 2016.<ref name="MCTPb26416">Crimean court bans Tatar ruling body in blow to minority Template:Webarchive, The Star (Malaysia) (26 April 2016)</ref>

New Milliy Firqa

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In 2006, a new Crimean Tatar party in opposition to the Mejlis was founded, taking the name of the previously-defunct Milly Firqa party from the early 20th century. The party claims to be successor of the ideas of Yuri Osmanov and NDKT.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> After the Russian annexation, the party announced its cooperation with the occupiers.

Notable Crimean Tatars

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See also

• Index of articles related to Crimean Tatars
• Noman Çelebicihan Battalion
• De-Tatarization of Crimea
• Aqmescit Friday mosque
• Crimean legends
• Tatarophobia
• Tatars

Further reading

• Conquest, Robert. 1970. The Nation Killers: The Soviet Deportation of Nationalities (London: Macmillan). (Template:ISBN)
• Fisher, Alan W. 1978. The Crimean Tatars. Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press. (Template:ISBN)
• Fisher, Alan W. 1998. Between Russians, Ottomans and Turks: Crimea and Crimean Tatars (Istanbul: Isis Press, 1998). (Template:ISBN)
• Nekrich, Alexander. 1978. The Punished Peoples: The Deportation and Fate of Soviet Minorities at the End of the Second World War (New York: W. W. Norton). (Template:ISBN)
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• Quelquejay, Lemercier. "The Tatars of the Crimea, a retrospective summary." Central Asian Review 16#1 (1968): 15–25.
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• Williams, Brian Glyn. "The hidden ethnic cleansing of Muslims in the Soviet Union: The exile and repatriation of the Crimean Tatars." Journal of Contemporary History (2002): 323–347. in JSTOR Template:Webarchive
• Williams, Brian Glyn. "The Crimean Tatar exile in Central Asia: a case study in group destruction and survival." Central Asian Survey 17.2 (1998): 285–317.
• Williams, Brian Glyn. "The Ethnogenesis of the Crimean Tatars. An Historical Reinterpretation" Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (2001) 11#3 pp. 329–348 in JSTOR Template:Webarchive
• Williams, Brian G., The Crimean Tatars: The Diaspora Experience and the Forging of a Nation Template:Webarchive, Leyden: Brill, 2001.

Other languages

• Vozgrin, Valery, 2013, Istoriya krymskykh tatar (Template:In lang Valery Vozgrin "Исторические судьбы крымских татар"), Simferopol (four volumes).
• Smirnov V D, 1886, Krymskoe khanstvo
• Campana (Aurélie), Dufaud (Grégory) and Tournon (Sophie) (ed.), Les Déportations en héritage. Les peuples réprimés du Caucase et de Crimée, hier et aujourd'hui, Rennes: Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2009.
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• Template:Cite journal
• Template:Cite book
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External links

• Official website of Qirim Tatar Cultural Association of Canada Template:Webarchive
• Official web-site of Bizim QIRIM International Nongovernmental Organization
• International Committee for Crimea Template:Webarchive
• UNDP Crimea Integration and Development Programme
• Crimean Tatar Home Page Template:Webarchive
• Crimean Tatars
• Crimean Tatar words (Turkish) Template:Webarchive
• Crimean Tatar words (English) Template:Webarchive
• State Defense Committee Decree No. 5859ss: On Crimean Tatars (See also Three answers to the Decree No. 5859ss Template:Webarchive)
• Crimean Tatars; Essays on Central Asia Index Template:Webarchive Essays on Central Asia Index
• 'Крымская солидарность; ВОЗВРАЩЕНИЕ ДОМОЙ. РУСТЕМ ВАИТОВ' (YouTube channel of Crimean Tatar Solidarity; story of Rustem Vaitov returning home after 5 years of jail) Template:Webarchive