A Brief History of the Crimea
August 2014
A Brief History of the Crimea
M. Akif Kireรงci - Selim Tezcan
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ISBN 978-605-85722-2-5
2014 Š All rights reserved.
A Brief History of the Crimea
Contents Abstract ............................................................................................................................................................................... 5 Introduction
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I. THE KHANATE PERIOD (1441-1783) The Establishment of the Khanate and its Attachment to the Ottoman Empire ............................................................................................. 8 The Ottoman-Crimean-Russian Relations in the first half of the Fifteenth Century ....................................................................................... 12 The New Epoch of Relations after the Russian Annexation of Kazan and Astrakhan ................................................................................................................................. 16 Russia Emerges as a Major European Power and Ottoman Rival
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Growing Russian Pressure on the Crimea and its Annexation .......................... 23 II. RUSSIAN DOMINATION (1783-2014) The Plight of the Crimean Tatars under Tsarist Rule .................................................... 29 The New Tatar Intelligentsia and the Growth of the National Movement ..................................................................................................................................... 35 The Crimea during the Russian Revolutionary War and Early Bolshevik Rule ............................................................................................................................ 40 The Repression of the Tatars and their Expulsion from the Crimea ..................................................................................................................................................................... 43 The Years in Exile from the Crimea................................................................................................... 47 Epilogue: The Return and Today ......................................................................................................... 50 Bibliography ................................................................................................................................................................ 53 Appendix: Timeline of Crimean History ....................................................................................... 54
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A Brief History of the Crimea
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A Brief History of the Crimea M. Akif Kireçci,1 Selim Tezcan2* ...............................................................................................................................................................................................................................
Abstract:
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his essay traces the history of the Crimean peninsula, a region of considerable economic and political significance, and of the Crimean Tatars, the ethnic group native to the region. It begins with a discussion of the peninsula’s midthirteenth century conquest by a grandson of Genghis Khan, and its subsequent incorporation into the Golden Horde. Two centuries later, after many internecine struggles, it became the independent Khanate of Crimea. Conflicts with Genoese traders based on the peninsula led to an alliance between the Khanate and the Ottoman Empire, and to the establishment of the suzerainty of the Ottoman Empire over the Khanate of Crimea. Conflicts with Muscovy, particularly for Kazan and Astrakhan, led to cycles of wining, claiming and losing control of those regions for two centuries. By 1654, Russia had become a power to be reckoned with in East Europe, but Russians only indirectly challenged Ottoman power in the Crimean regions until after its defeat in the second siege of Vienna. The Russians continued to pressure the Khanate, especially regarding independence from the Ottoman Empire, into the early decades of the eighteenth century. Subsequent revolts of the Crimean Tatars against the Russian-supported Khan provided a pretext for the Russians to annex the Crimea. An outcome of this action was the flight of tens of thousands of Tatars, as they were subjected to policies designed to systematically dispossess them, and force their migration in favor of non-Muslims. As a result of the migrations after the Crimean War, Tatars were reduced to a minority in their own homeland. For much of the next century, Tatars and the markers of their ethnic identity endured a period of slight acceptance and promises of rehabilitation, followed by ever-harsher restrictions, forced exile, and efforts to eradicate all traces of the Tatar Muslim heritage from the peninsula. This process culminated in the forcible deportation of all the Tatars on the peninsula in May 1944, on the pretext of their collaboration with the Germans. This was an operation that led to the 1 2 *
Bilkent University, Faculty of Economics, Administrative and Social Sciences. The Social Sciences University of Ankara, School of Social Sciences and Humanities. The authors express their gratitude to Prof. Halil İnalcık for his insightful guidance and valuable comments.
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death of a hundred thousand Tatars, almost half of those deported. The Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (ASSR), founded in the 1920s, was reduced to an oblast in 1946 and joined to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1954. The severe restrictions imposed on the mobility of the Tatars in exile were lessened two years later, but permission to return to the Crimea remained difficult or impossible to obtain, even after a new national movement among the Tatars compelled the Soviet authorities to rehabilitate them. The Tatars began returning to the Crimea during the Gorbachev era of glasnost, but local authorities continued to hinder repatriation. The collapse of the Soviet Union saw the establishment of an Autonomous Republic of Crimea, but this government also excluded returning Tatars from its ranks of government. Following demonstrations by pro-Russian and pro-EU groups in early 2014, the pro-Russian parliament of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea declared its independence on 11 March 2014. Five days later, with a referendum largely boycotted by the Tatars, the Crimea joined the Russian Federation.
A Brief History of the Crimea
Introduction During the early 2014 upheavals in Ukraine, Russian troops invaded the Crimea. A subsequent referendum, held despite internal and external protests, resulted in its annexation to Russia. Among the protesters on the streets were the Tatars of the Crimea, most of whom had returned to the peninsula only after the collapse of the Soviet Union, following a period of forced exile that began in 1944. Despite official promises from Russia to improve their quality of life and to protect Tatar culture and religion, 99% percent of the Tatar population did not participate in the referendum. This boycott may be linked to a community memory of centuries of Tatar-Russian conflict, which began with the Khans besieging Moscow and imposing tribute on the princes of Muscovy. It then continued through periods when Tatars found themselves struggling to survive the systematic attempts of first the Tsarist and then the Bolshevik governments to eradicate their presence (past and present) from the Crimean peninsula. Today, when the Crimean peninusla is mentioned, most people automatically assume that it has always belonged to Russia or Ukraine, and that Slavs constitute the indigenous element in that geography. However, the fact is that the major part of the peninsula has been settled for most of the last millennium by the Turkish-speaking Tatar people, and that they were reduced to a minority only in the century following the Russian annexation of the Crimea in 1783. This paper will describe the historical events up to modern times to help the reader better understand the past and the current predicament of the Crimean Tatars.
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I. THE KHANATE PERIOD (1441-1783) The Establishment of the Khanate and its Attachment to the Ottoman Empire The “Tatars” of the Golden Horde, mostly subjugated Kipchak Turks,3 first entered the Crimea in 1239. At that time, a majority of the peninsula was already settled by Turks, again primarily Kipchaks who had arrived after the collapse of the Khazars.4 In the fourteenth century, the Empire of the Golden Horde began to disintegrate, a result of conflicts among branches of the ruling Djodjid dynasty. At issue was control of the Ulugh-Yurd, the central lands of the empire in the lower Volga basin, and the title of UlughKhan (supreme ruler) that went with it. The disintegration paved the way for an independent Crimean Khanate. Although Toktamish Khan reunited the Empire for a short time, he was defeated by Tamerlane; the struggle for reunification was continued by Toktamish’s sons and their clans. During this time the Crimea served as a refuge for rivals to the throne and gradually emerged as an independent political entity within the territories of the Golden Horde. However, an independent Crimean Khanate was not founded until the reign of Haji Giray,5 one of Toktamish’s grandsons. Although the Khans of the Crimea struggled to preserve their independence from the Golden Horde, they never renounced their claims to its whole patrimony, including the Russian principalities.6 In order to establish control over the peninsula itself, they were faced with the task of subjugating the Genoese colonies on the Black Sea coast. The goal was to prevent the colonists from interfering with the affairs of the Khanate and to restrict Genoese participation in the revenues from the thriving Crimean trade and commerce. Crimean efforts to preserve their independence continued as Said Ahmet Khan of the Golden Horde attempted to regain control of his western lands. The ongoing conflict with the Genoese led the Crimeans to seek an alliance with the Ottomans, accepting their protection and suzerainty.7 3
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Iskander Izmailov and Mirqasim Usmanov, “The Djocid Nation and its Islamization: Muslim Culture of the Golden Horde Period,” in Tatar History and Civilization, 75-115 (İstanbul, 2010), 94-5; for the theories on the origins of Tatars see also Damir Ishaqov, “Introduction,” in Tatar History and Civilization, 17-31 (İstanbul, 2010), 18-20. İslam Ansiklopedisi, s.v. “Kırım.” The dates of his reign are unclear but the oldest coins were minted 1441-42. Halil İnalcık, “Struggle for East-European Empire: 1400-1700 – the Crimean Khanate, Ottomans and the Rise of the Russian Empire,” The Turkish Yearbook 21 (1991), 1-2; Halil İnalcık, “Kırım Hanlığı,” TDV İslam Ansiklopedisi, XXV, 450; Damir Ishaqov, “Islamic Turco-Tatar States in the 15th-16th Centuries,” in Tatar History and Civilisation, 117-78 (Istanbul, 2010), 121-23. Halil İnalcık, “Yeni Vesikalara göre Kırım Hanlığı’nın Osmanlı Tabiliğine Girmesi ve Ahidname Meselesi,” Belleten 8 (1944), 192-93.
A Brief History of the Crimea
This request by the Crimeans for Ottoman assistance came at a critical juncture, when various candidates for the throne and the aristocracy in the Crimea were at loggerheads, thus providing the Khan of the Golden Horde and the Genoese of Caffa with a golden opportunity to intervene in Crimean affairs. In 1475, however, the Ottomans, seizing the opportunity in a skillful move, came to the assistance of the Crimean party that had sought help. Thus, at one stroke, they conquered Caffa and the other Genoese colonies along the coast, and turned the Khanate of the Crimea into a part of the Ottoman Empire. Ottoman interest in the Crimea at this time stemmed from concerns about security and trade through the Black Sea, which was of vital importance to them. Istanbul fed its population with grains, oil, honey, salt, fish and meat that came seaward from the north. For this reason, beginning from the time of Mehmed the Conqueror (1451-1481), the Ottomans tried to dominate the Black Sea trade, and to establish the wheat production and animal husbandry of the steppes to the north of the Black Sea as an integral part of the Ottoman economy.8 The integrated regional economy permitted the Ottomans to buy wheat, meat and salt from the northern Black Sea at convenient prices, and provided access to imported Turkish and European clothes, arms, spices, sugar and finished products for the Crimeans. This dense trade network made Istanbul an attractive center for all business, and the population of the city grew almost tenfold during the century following its conquest.9 The Crimeans helped the Ottomans realize these goals and their connections remained in place until the annexation of the Crimea by Russia in 1783.10 Before the Ottomans could turn the Black Sea into an internal lake, however, they had to eliminate the Latin presence in the region. Until the conquest of Istanbul in 1453, the Venetians and especially the Genoese dominated the Black Sea as well as the Straits. Since the conquest of Istanbul by the Crusaders in 1204, Latin supremacy and exploitation of the indigenous populace had drawn the Byzantines and early Ottomans into a struggle against them.11 From their castles in the Aegean and the Black Sea, the Latins indulged in piracy, which caused much suffering for the Muslim population.12 On taking over Istanbul as the heirs to Byzantium, the Ottomans continued their anti-Latin policies. Believing them to be usurpers, 8 9 10 11 12
Halil İnalcık, “Osmanlı-Rus İlişkileri,” in Türk-Rus İlişkilerinde 500 Yıl (1491-1992), 25-36 (Ankara, 1999), 34. Halil İnalcık, “The Question of the Closing of the Black Sea under the Ottomans,” in Essays in Ottoman History, 415-45 (Istanbul, 1998), 416. Halil İnalcık, “Osmanlı-Rus İlişkileri,” in Türk-Rus İlişkilerinde 500 Yıl (1491-1992), 25-36 (Ankara, 1999), 34. İnalcık, “Closing of the Black Sea,” 418. İnalcık, “Ahidname Meselesi,” 206.
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they worked to eradicate the Latin presence in the region.13 Addressing the sensibilities of indigenous Orthodox Christians, who held the Genoese and Venetians responsible for their material misery, the Ottoman rulers set out to end the dominance of these colonial powers, which siphoned off the region’s wealth and retarded development of the economy of the Black Sea region.14 It was in this context that Mehmed II conquered not only Amasra, Sinop and Trapezund (in 1461) and Bughdan (in 1476), but also the Crimean ports of Caffa, Sugdak, Balıklava, Gözleve, Kersh and Azak in 1475. This was the beginning of Ottoman suzerainty over the Khanate of Crimea.15 The Ottomans then concentrated their efforts on the Crimean peninsula, a strategically critical crossroads and one that was vital for the control and safety of trade and logistic routes. On the one hand, it was the western terminus of the great Asian trade route. On the other, the Crimean peninsula offered natural ports connecting East Europe with Asia Minor and the Mediterranean basin.16 Since antiquity, Crimean ports had been centers of the trade between these regions. Their fortune depended on Istanbul and the Straits, as the state controlling them also controlled the Crimea and its ports.17 The quest to establish control over the whole Black Sea Basin led the Ottomans to take hold of the Crimean ports and establish their suzerainty over the Khanate of Crimea. The complicated course of events through which the Ottomans achieved this objective was reconstructed by the historian Halil İnalcık in 1944.18 After Haji Giray’s death in 1466, his eldest son Nur Devlet should have acceded to the throne, and he had the backing of the Golden Horde. The independent-minded Crimean aristocracy, led by the Shirin clan and its head Eminek Bey, tudun of Caffa, supported the younger son Mengli Giray. Their rationale for support was that if Mengli were indebted to them for the throne he would allow greater freedom of action. As the two sides balanced each other, they sought assistance from both the Ottomans and the Genoese. These two groups, still in conflict after the conquest of Istanbul for the reasons indicated above, supported rival claimants. At first Nur Devlet was successful and Mengli Giray had to seek refuge in Caffa, but he was later reinstated by Eminek Bey and the Genoese in 1468. Seven years later, when Eminek Bey joined the other beys and clans in a rebellion, 13 14 15 16 17 18
İnalcık, “Closing of the Black Sea,” 418. İnalcık, “Closing of the Black Sea,” 443. İnalcık, “Ahidname Meselesi,” 195. İnalcık, “Ahidname Meselesi,” 191. İnalcık, “Ahidname Meselesi,” 193. İnalcık, “Ahidname Meselesi,” 185-229.
A Brief History of the Crimea
Mengli Giray was removed from his post on the suspicion of collaborating with the Ottomans. The Genoese imprisoned Mengli Giray when he sought refuge with them, and brought Nur Devlet to the throne. Eminek Bey then appealed to the Ottomans for help. Seizing the opportunity, Mehmed the Conqueror sent a military fleet under Gedik Ahmed Pasha to seize Caffa and all the other Genoese ports on the Crimean coast. Once released by Gedik Ahmed from prison, Mengli Giray replaced his brother on the throne and, in return for their assistance, acknowledged his vassaldom to the Ottoman Sultan, describing his relation to him as “appointee.” Thus the Ottomans had eliminated the Genoese colonies, a constant threat to the Crimean interests, and held the Crimean aristocracy in their alliance.19 A last attempt of the Golden Horde to recapture the Crimea was repulsed successfully,20 and an Ottoman province was established on the southern coast of the Crimea with Caffa as its seat. Thus the diplomatic and military skills of Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror allowed the Ottomans to take control of the Crimean peninsula with a minimum of effort and bloodshed. The new acquisition proved to be of great strategic and economic value for the Ottoman Empire. As noted above, the Khanate was a vital source for staples of the Ottoman economy. In strategic terms, it provided human and material resources for the Ottoman campaigns in East Europe. The troops of the Khanate served as light cavalry and infantry, and prepared the ground for the march of the main army with surprise attacks made possible by silent, rapid advances. More 19 20
İnalcık, “Kırım Hanlığı,” 451; İnalcık, “Struggle for East-European Empire,” 2; İnalcık, “Ahidname Meselesi,” 204-07; Alan W. Fisher, the Crimean Tatars (Stanford, 1987), 9. Fisher, Crimean Tatars, 11.
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importantly, the Khanate functioned as an effective defensive zone in the north, protecting By coming to the aid of the northern borders of the Empire against Muscovy, the Ottomans Muscovy and Poland-Lithuania. The regular fundamentally altered the raids of the Tatars in the steppe long prevented balance of power and them from being settled by these states and coming to threaten the shores of the Black Sea. protected them against The raids also weakened Muscovy’s economy, the attacks of the Ulugh since it could not take advantage of these fertile Khans of the Golden regions with a mild climate but had to content Horde in 1476-1502. Thus itself with poorer regions to the north. Moreover, the Crimean-Russian as two of the three main rivers in Russia (the axis proved superior, and Don and the Dnieper), joined the Black Sea at Crimean ports, it became impossible to transthe Golden Horde was port goods via river for either internal or external dissolved. trade. Russians could do little to change this situation as long as they were unable to challenge Ottoman power. Only after the late eighteenth century subjugation of the Khanate did the Russians appear on the shores to ship their goods and cause an abrupt decrease in Ottoman power.21
The Ottoman-Crimean-Russian Relations in the first half of the Fifteenth Century The Ottoman-Russian rivalry developed later, however. In the late fifteenth century, the Ottomans supported Russia and the Crimea against an alliance of Poland-Lithuania and the Golden Horde. This alliance was a result of the rivalry between the states developing in the former territory of the Empire of the Golden Horde. While the Crimeans seemed to have a good chance of gaining supremacy over the whole region, owing to their descent from Toktamish Khan, the Khans of the Saray region allied with the Jagellons of Poland-Lithuania to revive the Golden Horde. To fight this powerful alliance, Mengli Giray, the Khan of the Crimea, joined forces with the Grand Duke of Muscovy and encouraged Ottoman-Muscovite rapprochement as well. By coming to the aid of Muscovy, the Ottomans fundamentally altered the balance of power and protected them against the attacks of the Ulugh Khans of the Golden Horde in 1476-1502. Thus the Crimean-Russian axis
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Fisher, Crimean Tatars, 37-40.
A Brief History of the Crimea
proved superior, and the Golden Horde was dissolved.22 As we shall see, however, the eventual winner in this victory was not the Crimea but Russia. Benefiting from this alliance to survive the most critical part of its history, Russia realized what Mengli Giray had planned for himself when allying with it, and eventually seized the territory of the Golden Horde.23 However, as the Khans of the Crimea grew strong after dismantling the Golden Horde and began to show signs of independence, the Ottomans did not hesitate to ally themselves with Russia against them. For their part, the Russians had grown wary of the newly strong Khanate: The new Khan of the Crimea, Mohammad Giray, sought to revive the Empire of the Golden Horde and thus establish his own hegemony over East Europe. The Ottomans were more concerned with preventing the establishment of a large state that could challenge their dominant position in the Black Sea and with maintaining the balance of power between the rival states in East Europe.24 The Ottomans also perceived Mohammad Giray’s claims on Caffa as a threat. Moreover, the Crimean-Muscovite alliance that had ended with Mengli Giray’s death left the two powers as rivals. The Khan now allied with Lithuania-Poland against them, while the Ottomans, at loggerheads with the latter over Moldavia, wanted Crimean support. Differences in the interests of the two states meant that Crimean-Ottoman relations grew tense during the period, particularly in the reigns of Selim I and Mohammad Giray in the second decade of the sixteenth century. Under these conditions, envoys from Muscovy found a ready reception in the courts of Selim I and his successor Sulaiman I; they even conducted negotiations for an alliance. On his accession, Sulaiman I issued a warning to the Khan not to attack Moscow. This tense state of affairs lasted until the 1530s, when Sahib Giray (1532-1551) convinced the Ottomans that Muscovy constituted a real threat against the former Golden Horde territories in the Volga Basin.25 At this point, the Khans of the Crimea had been engaged in a long and serious rivalry with Muscovy to control the lands and heritage of the Golden Horde, especially those of the Khanates of Kazan and Astrakhan. Mohammad Khan almost achieved his goal of reviving the Golden Horde. First, 22 23 24 25
İnalcık, “Struggle for East-European Empire,” 2-4; Ishaqov, “Islamic Turco-Tatar States,” 171-73. İnalcık, “Osmanlı-Rus İlişkileri,” 25. Halil İnalcık, “Osmanlı-Rus Rekabetinin Menşei ve Don-Volga Kanalı Teşebbüsü (1569),” Belleten 46 (1948), 354-55. Halil İnalcık, “Power Relationship between Russia, Crimea and the Ottoman Empire as Reflected in Titulature,” in The Middle East and the Balkans under the Ottoman Empire: Essays on Economy and Society, 369-411 (Bloomington, 1993), 377; İnalcık, “Osmanlı-Rus Rekabetinin Menşei,” 355-56; İnalcık, “Struggle for East-European Empire,” 4.
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he installed his brother Sahib Giray on the throne of Kazan in 1521; in the next year, he conquered Astrakhan. In the meantime, he also defeated a Muscovite army and burned the outskirts of Moscow, demanding from the Russians a tribute, as in the days of Toktamish Khan. However, in 1523, just as Mohammad Khan was about to achieve the revival of the Golden Horde under the Girays, he was killed by Nogai tribesmen on his way back from Astrakhan: His project collapsed. Sahib Giray was compelled to flee from Kazan to Istanbul in the next year, and Astrakhan was recovered by its former Khan, who collaborated with Muscovy. In 1525, Safa Giray was able to take the throne of Kazan, but he was replaced in 1532 by a protégé of Ivan IV, Jan Ali.26 The tide turned again when Sahib Giray, the former Khan of Kazan, arrived from Istanbul in 1532, sanctioned by the Ottomans as the new Khan of the Crimea. An indefatigable enemy of Muscovy, he had convinced the Ottomans of the danger it posed. Sahib Giray embarked on a program of comprehensive military and administrative reform, and repeated the achievements Mohammad Giray had realized in the early 1520s. He increased the number of soldiers equipped with firearms and tried to centralize the administrative system along Ottoman lines. Reaping the fruits of these energetic moves, he took control of Kazan, where he replaced the Russian protégé with his brother Safa Giray Khan (1546-49), and conquered Astrakhan with the aid of Ottoman guns in 1549.27 As had happened with Mohammad Giray Khan, however, Sahib Khan’s access to so much power led the Ottomans to question his independent tendencies and the dangers this power 26 27
İnalcık, “Osmanlı-Rus Rekabetinin Menşei,” 357; İnalcık, “Kırım Hanlığı,” 451; Fisher, Crimean Tatars, 40-4; Ishaqov, “Islamic Turco-Tatar States,” 173-75. İnalcık, “Power Relationship,” 377-78.
A Brief History of the Crimea
could pose to Ottoman control of the Black Sea. These concerns were confirmed by the claims Sahib Giray raised regarding the port of Gözleve, as well as by the rumors that he planned to take Caffa. The Ottomans were also angered by the Khan’s arrogant treatment of the Ottoman grand vizier Rustam Pasha and his rejection of a request to send troops for the Sultan’s campaign to Iran. Thus a plan was hatched to appoint Devlet Giray ostensibly as the Khan of Kazan and send him to the Crimea where, supported by a local aristocracy annoyed by the Khan’s centralist policies, he would eliminate Sahib Giray. The ambitious Khan would thus be replaced by one more submissive to the Ottomans. The hitch in this plan was that after Safa Giray’s death in 1549 Ivan IV had reinstated his protégé, Shah Ali, on the throne of Kazan. This action had the support of a pro-Muscovite faction of the Kazanian aristocracy and raised serious claims on the khanate. So the Ottomans planned that, immediately after the elimination of Sahib Giray, Devlet Giray would march against the Russians to bring Kazan back under Crimean sway. The first part of the plan went well, but Ivan IV proved to be too formidable and cunning an adversary for the Ottomans to carry out the second part with any success.28 Ivan had already declared himself Tsar, or its equivalent Ulugh Khan, in 1547 and mounted an unsuccessful attack against Kazan in 1549. Now he was carefully watching the developments from Moscow. Learning about the Ottoman attempt to replace Sahib Giray with Devlet Giray, he mustered a huge army, boosting it with powerful artillery. With masterful timing, he moved against Kazan and, before the new Khan could undertake any action, captured it, thus adding Ulugh Yurd, the Golden Horde’s core land in the lower Volga basin, to his domains. Notwithstanding Devlet Giray’s subsequent campaigns, Ivan completed the conquest of the Ulugh Yurd two years later, when he seized Astrakhan. He could now fashion himself Tsar Kazanskii and Tsar Astrakhanskii (Ulugh Khan of Kazan and Astrakhan), and proclaim himself as the true heir of the Empire of the Golden Horde.29 28 29
İnalcık, “Struggle for East-European Empire,” 5; İnalcık, “Kırım Hanlığı,” 452; İnalcık, “Power Relationship,” 378. İnalcık, “Struggle for East-European Empire,” 5; Ishaqov, “Islamic Turco-Tatar States,” 176-77.
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The New Epoch of Relations after the Russian Annexation of Kazan and Astrakhan Halil İnalcık calls these momentous events the beginning of a new epoch in the history of East Europe: The Crimeans had lost their half-century struggle with Muscovy for the heritage of the Golden Horde and the domination of East European steppes and what was now the Tsardom had been established for good.30 These events also led to the collapse of the Ottoman policies of the past eighty years, which had been directed toward preserving the political balance in the north. As a result, Russia came to threaten the Black Sea shores, immediately beginning to construct castles that would dominate the roads between the Black Sea, the Caspian Sea and the Caucasus.31 This was a true turning point for both the Ottoman and the Russian Empires, and by implication, for entire East Europe. The Crimeans had lost
their half-century struggle with Muscovy for the heritage of the Golden Horde and the domination of East European steppes and what was now the Tsardom had been established for good.
The Ottomans, although greatly concerned by this situation, refused to acknowledge the appropriation of Ulugh Yurd by the Tsar. After 1563, they decided that the best remedy to the situation would be to attack Astrakhan, perhaps with the calculation that its distance from Moscow would make it difficult to defend. The Ottoman plan was to open a canal between the Don and the Volga rivers, and to recapture Astrakhan with the help of the troops and guns that would be transferred to the latter river. The ships could then sail to the Caspian Sea. In this way, not only would the Ottomans gain a position from which to attack the Safavids from the rear, but it would also become possible to expel Russia from North Caucasia and the lower Volga basin. The strategically insightful grand vizier Sokullu Mehmed Pasha dedicated himself to the realization of this plan, despite all the protests by the advisors of Selim II who represented it as an expensive and vain effort, and advised instead to concentrate on the Mediterranean. In 1569, an Ottoman army of 15,000 finally set out under the command of the Beylerbey of Caffa, accompanied by Devlet Giray and his troops. When they arrived near today’s Volgograd, where the distance between the Don and the Volga is the smallest, the Ottoman army began to
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İnalcık, “Osmanlı-Rus Rekabetinin Menşei,” 362-63. İnalcık, “Osmanlı-Rus Rekabetinin Menşei,” 362-63.
A Brief History of the Crimea
dig the canal. Only a third of the work was completed by wintertime. Abandoning the channel temporarily, the Ottoman-Crimean alliance gathered 40 days’ provisions, and began a march on Astrakhan. Since the castle built by the Russians near the former town of Astrakhan turned out to be very well fortified, the command of the Ottoman army decided to pass the winter there. At this point, however, the Crimeans under Devlet Giray began to intimidate the Ottoman troops with rumors about the severity of the winter in those regions, and subsequently abandoned the Ottomans. The Ottoman soldiery in any case was much more willing to participate in campaigns on the fertile soil of the Hungarian plain that brought them ample booty. They eventually rebelled as a result of the Crimeans’ propaganda, and the army had to retreat in a miserable condition to the Azov castle. When the ammunition stores in this camp exploded under suspicious conditions, no choice was left but a return home to Istanbul.32 Thus Sokullu’s visionary project of establishing Ottoman hegemony over the great strategic and commercial routes of the world had been sabotaged by his adversaries in Sultan Selim II’s court and by the Crimeans. The Khan of Crimea was indeed extremely unwilling to see the Ottomans become firmly entrenched in Kazan and Astrakhan; this would threaten his independence as well as his control of the steppes. He may have also sought to increase his influence in Moscow through his resistance. Thus, as İnalcık observes, 32
İnalcık, “Osmanlı-Rus Rekabetinin Menşei,” 372, 380-83; İnalcık, “Kırım Hanlığı,” 452; Fisher, Crimean Tatars, 44-5.
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the Khanate now pursued a prudent policy between the Ottoman Empire and the Tsardom, one that would preserve its sphere of influence and avoid being crushed between the two.33 The Crimean tribal aristocracy was also hostile to the growth of Ottoman influence on the Khanate, and more often than not supported pretenders to the throne. As for the opposite faction in Selim II’s court, after the debacle of 1569 their arguments that the adventurous and costly campaigns in the north would be in vain appeared to be confirmed. They claimed that the results were emboldening the Khan while distracting attention from the significant issues in the Mediterranean and Central Europe. A rival of Sokollu’s, Vizier Lala Mustafa, eventually swayed the imperial council in favor of an invasion of Cyprus, and the subsequent disaster at Lepanto and its complications caused the Empire to turn its attention completely away from the north to the Mediterranean scene. Ultimately, the government of the Ottoman Empire decided to leave the affairs of the north to the Khan’s discretion, at least for the time being.34 The next attempt at control was not until 1587. Khan Devlet Giray energetically embarked on a new offensive, now on his own behalf. His target was not Astrakhan, however, but Moscow itself. Perhaps he believed that he could inflict direct damage on Muscovy in this way, and even wrest away Kazan or Astrakhan in resulting negotiations. Defeating the Russian army on the banks of the river Oka, he marched upon the Russian capital and set fire to its outskirts; the fire spread inside the city and almost all of Moscow burned, with many dead and others enslaved. The Tsar himself fled to Aleksandrovsky, proving that he was incapable of repelling the Tatars from his capital. Devlet Giray’s exploits earned him the title taht-algan (“the winner of the throne”), and he was hailed as “Emir of the Crimea, and sincere and loyal friend of our Throne” by the Ottoman Sultan. Nevertheless, he failed in his main purpose, the recovery of Kazan and Astrakhan.35 Eighteen years after the debacle of 1569, in 1587, the Ottomans again turned their attention to the North, and revived their plans to attack Astrakhan. A new period of conflict began in 1583, with an attack by Russian forces on the Ottoman army marching from Daghistan to the Crimea. At the time, the main concern for the Ottomans was to prevent the Tsar and his forces from expanding towards the Caucasus and the Black Sea.36 In 33 34 35 36
İnalcık, “Osmanlı-Rus Rekabetinin Menşei,” 377, 383-84. İnalcık, “Struggle for East-European Empire,” 6; İnalcık, “Osmanlı-Rus Rekabetinin Menşei,” 386-87. İnalcık, “Osmanlı-Rus Rekabetinin Menşei,” 388; Fisher, Crimean Tatars, 45; İnalcık, “Kırım Hanlığı,” 452 İnalcık, “Kırım Hanlığı,” 452.
A Brief History of the Crimea
addition, the Ottomans were disturbed by the increasing interventions by the Tsar into the internal affairs of the Crimea; his influence was a dangerous rival to theirs. The planned attack on Astrakhan failed to take place, however. The Crimeans preferred to march against Moscow itself rather than upon Astrakhan, rightly fearing a retaliatory attack from Moscow in the Crimea as they were away on campaign. Ottoman promises to send a fleet to protect the peninsula in their absence away were not enough to alleviate these fears. In any case, they believed, they could wrest the concession of Astrakhan if they placed sufficient pressure on Moscow. However, the Khan Islam Giray died a short time after he had set out with his own army against Moscow (1588). His death led to a rapprochement between the Giray princes with the Ottomans and, as the Shah of Iran also made peace under pressure from the attacks of the Khan of Turkestan, the attention by the Ottomans to the north slackened again. Around the same time, a war with Austria began: this lasted thirteen years and diverted all attention and resources of the Ottoman state to Central Europe, with the Khan himself joining in the expeditions in that front. Thus, both the Ottomans and the Crimeans had reason to neglect the northern front, the former’s lack of interest fostered by the false promises of the shrewd Russian diplomacy.37 The diversion of Crimean attention away from the north, which mainly took place in the decade after Devlet Giray’s death in 1577, proved to be a turning point in their political-administrative history. It contributed to the gradual reduction of Crimean independence from the Ottomans. Realizing that they had lost the competition for the heritage of the Golden Horde for good, they turned away from the north to concentrate on the east and west, the Caucasus and Iran on the one hand and Hungary and Danubian principalities on the other. Politically motivated attacks on the Tsardom, such as that of 1588, were replaced by economically motivated ones directed at the slave trade. Crimean attacks on Iran and Hungary came to be seen as more lucrative, with greater promises of booty. This change in the orientation and ambitions of the Khanate, as Alan Fisher observes, exerted a profound influence on the political and social nature of the Crimea. Having given up efforts to restore their hegemony over the heritage of the Golden Horde, the Crimeans lost the chief motivation for trying to act on their own behalf. As a result, the Khanate’s dependence on the Ottoman Empire increased, and it developed closer ties to the Empire and its foreign policies. For their part, the Ottomans came to interfere in Crimean succession prob37
İnalcık, “Osmanlı-Rus Rekabetinin Menşei,” 391, 393-95.
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lems with greater frequency, and with success. Invitations to join Ottoman campaigns grew into orders, and refusals led more often than not to the replacement of one Khan by another. A symbolically significant step in this growing subjection to the Ottomans occurred during Islam Giray II’s reign (1584-1588). The Sultan’s name began to be mentioned in the Friday noon prayers, signifying a recognition of the severe curtailment of the Khans’ sovereignty (even though coins continued to be minted in their name until the end of the Khanate).38
Russia Emerges as a Major European Power and Ottoman Rival The cessation of Crimean and Ottoman claims on Kazan and Astrakhan left the eastern part of East Europe to Russia, a true turning point in the fortunes of that part of the continent. Another turning point in the mid-seventeenth century led to the establishment of Russian hegemony in the western part of East Europe as well. Now that the Crimeans had become full vassals and an integral part of the Ottoman Empire, the Crimean Khan Islam Giray III, in close collaboration with the Ottomans, moved against the Christian powers to the northwest. He conducted several campaigns against Russia and Poland, which led, in 1647, to an alliance between those states. Khan Giray III also won over the Ukrainian Cossacks on the The cessation of Crimean Dnieper who had rebelled against Poland. Their and Ottoman claims on leader, Bohdan Khmelnytsky, approached the Kazan and Astrakhan Crimeans and the Ottomans with the offer to establish a Cossack state in the Ukraine that left the eastern part of would be a vassal of the Ottomans modeled East Europe to Russia, a on the examples of Moldavia and Transylvania. true turning point in the Tangled in a crisis in Transylvania and in the fortunes of that part of Cretan campaign against the Venetians (16451669), however, the Ottomans could not prothe continent. Another vide adequate support to İslam Giray and so turning point in the midwere unable to take advantage of this opporseventeenth century led tunity. When, after several campaigns against to the establishment of Poland in 1648-53, the lack of Ottoman support led İslam Giray to sue for peace, Khmelnytsky Russian hegemony in approached Russia: they signed the agreement the western part of East of Pereiaslav in 1654. After the Russian invasion Europe as well. of the Khanates of Kazan and Astrakhan this 38
Fisher, Crimean Tatars, 45-6.
A Brief History of the Crimea
was, as Halil İnalcık points out, the second most critical historical development. The result was an extension of Muscovite hegemony from the east to the west of East Europe. It was only after 1654 that the Tsardom grew into a power that dominated the entire East Europe, one capable of playing an important role in European policy. At this point, all the land from the Baltic to the Black Sea basins lay open before Russia. Penetrating the lands in question, Russia would become a direct threat to the Crimea as well as a neighbor of the Ottomans in the Ukraine. It would also grow capable of influencing all European state affairs.39 Despite this success, it was not until after the unsuccessful second siege of Vienna that the Russians lost their wariness of Ottoman power to consider direct attacks on the Khanate.40 The Ottomans and Crimeans, on the other hand, refused to acknowledge the subjection of the Cossacks to Russia and did not give up their claims on Ukraine, where they were now direct neighbors and rivals with the Tsardom. The Ottomans and the Crimeans were all too aware of the threat posed by the alliance between Russia and the Dnieper Cossacks to the Black Sea basin in general and to the Crimea in particular, and the best way to remove the threat was to ensure the autonomy of Ukraine by driving out the Russians. In this context, the Grand Vizier Kara Mustafa Pasha and the Crimean Khan Murad Giray invaded Ukraine and laid siege to the castle of Chyhyryn (1678).41 The resulting battle was the first important one to be fought between the Ottomans and Russians. In it, the castle was captured, but this achievement did not bring lasting results to the Ottomans. Distracted by developments elsewhere, they found they were not able to concentrate on the rivalry with Russia on the northern front. Still the Ottomans believed they had issued sufficient warning to Russia to refrain from attacking Crimean territory from this new vantage point.42 Thus a new balance of power was struck with the expedition to Ukraine, one that was sufficient to hold the Russians at bay. The situation changed dramatically however, after the debacle suffered by the Ottomans before Vienna in 1683 and the destruction of Ottoman military power that occurred in the subsequent three years. In 1686, Russia joined the Holy League un39 40
41 42
İnalcık, “Struggle for East-European Empire,” 7-8; İnalcık, “Kırım Hanlığı,” 453. It should be remembered that back in 1637, when the Cossacks offered the Tsar the captured castle of Azov, he cautiously declined the offer. Ultimately, the Cossacks only held the castle for about five years and then had to evacuate it. İnalcık, “Struggle for East-European Empire,” 6. About this campaign see Mustafa İsen and İsmail Hakkı Aksoyak, Vuslati Ali Bey: Gazâ-Nâme-i Çehrin (Ankara, 2003). İnalcık, “Struggle for East-European Empire,” 8, 14.
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der advantageous conditions, and could then exploit the Ottoman collapse in East Europe to realize a long-time goal, descending to the Black Sea.43 Throughout this period (1683-1699), when cooperation between the Ottomans and Crimeans had become a matter of survival, Khan Haji Selim Giray, fully conscious of the gravity of the situation, extended vital support to the Ottomans. He helped to thwart repeated Russian attempts to invade the Crimea, ward off Polish attacks on Bessarabia, and repulse a Habsburg army in Serbia.44 The Russian attempts to invade the peninsula in 1689 involved a huge artillery unit of 350 canons. They were still too weak to defeat the Crimeans, however, and unable in particular to surmount the problem of logistics in the vast steppe. Peter the Great then reversed his strategy and targeted Azov, capturing the town in 1696. Its fall spread panic in the Crimea and Istanbul, because once it had been converted into a Russian stronghold on the Black Sea coast, the Crimeans faced a two-pronged threat, with the Dnieper Cossacks raiding the coasts as well.45 When traveling to the peace talks held in the following year (1700), the Russian envoy did not make the traditional stop at the Crimea to request the permission from the Khan to proceed to Istanbul. Instead, he sailed directly from Azov on a Russian ship.46 This signified a new diplomatic and political period, in which the equal or superior status of the Khans vis-à-vis the Tsars came to an end. Russia emerged as a major member of the European states system, drastically altering the balance of power in the continent. The new Russian period began with the Treaty of Constantinople (1700), an outcome of the peace talks, in which the Khanate and the Ottoman Empire were compelled to recognize the Russian domination of East Europe. The Khanate ceased to be a threat to Ukraine and other Russian territories: on the contrary, it became vulnerable to Russian attacks. The Khan was no longer considered suzerain of the Tsar, who now became equal in rank to the Sultan. All practices signifying Russian subjection to the Khanate were abrogated, including the payment of an annual tribute and the need for Russian envoys to receive the Khan’s permission to travel to Istanbul. An aspect of the latter provision was that the Crimean Khan also ceased to be a mediator in Ottoman-Russian relations. Russia was acknowledged as a full member of the European state system, while the Ottoman Empire was seen as easy prey for conquest and partition at the hands of the Tsars 43 44 45 46
İnalcık, “Struggle for East-European Empire,” 8-9, 14. İnalcık, “Kırım Hanlığı,” 453. İnalcık, “Struggle for East-European Empire,” 10-12; İnalcık, “Power Relationship,” 392; Fisher, Crimean Tatars, 50. İnalcık, “Power Relationship,” 392.
A Brief History of the Crimea
and Habsburg emperors. Finally, the Treaty of Constantinople confirmed Russian possession of Azov, from where they would now be in a position to invade the Khanate itself, capture the Ottoman Black Sea possessions, and even threaten Istanbul.47 Tsar Peter I was quick to proceed to take advantage of the Russian access to the Black Sea at Azov. In a flurry, he had a new fleet constructed there, as well as a new castle. The new Khan, Devlet Giray II, urged the Ottomans to preempt a Russian attack on the Crimea by declaring war on Russia. He succeeded in persuading them to do so when he was reinstated in 1708. Taking advantage of the conflict between Russia and Sweden, and aligning with the latter, the Ottoman and Crimean forces were able to recover Azov by the Pruth River Campaign in 1711, even though they lost an opportunity to crush the forces of the Tsardom.48
Growing Russian Pressure on the Crimea and its Annexation Although the endeavors of Peter I to build a fleet at Azov and invade the Crimea were thus thwarted and Azov was recovered by the Ottoman Empire, the Russian pressure on the peninsula continued to increase during the first three quarters of the eighteenth century. There were both economic 47 48
İnalcık, “Struggle for East-European Empire,” 13-14; İnalcık, “Power Relationship,” 392. İnalcık, “Struggle for East-European Empire,” 13; İnalcık, “Kırım Hanlığı,” 453.
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and political motives behind this pressure. Establishing control over the ports on the mouths of Don and Dnieper, as pointed out before, would do much to facilitate transport of Russian goods to the Black Sea and promote foreign trade with Europe. It would become possible to use the full potential of the fertile agricultural lands in Ukraine without losing human resources to slave trade. In political terms, Muscovy would have eliminated the last stronghold of an enemy that, for centuries, made it suffer through armed attacks and political subjugation. The fact that it was an “infidel” enemy, moreover, did much harm to Russia’s professed self-image as the “Third Rome.”49 Considerations such as these led Empress Anna’s military advisor, Count Münnich, to counsel her to invade the peninsula and put an end to the existence of the Crimea as a political entity. Early in 1736, while Khan Kaplan Giray was away on a Caucasian campaign, the Russian forces succeeded in breaking through the defenses at Perekop and reached Bahçesaray, burning down the Khan’s palace as well as two thousand houses. The rich collection of books at the library founded by Selim Giray was also destroyed. Akmescid, the center of the Kalgays (heirs apparent to the throne), was similarly ruined. This was not a deathblow to the Khanate, however as an outbreak of disease and a shortage of supplies subsequently compelled the Russians to retire from the peninsula. They returned in the two years following to continue with their depredations, and in 1739 recovered the Azov castle in the Treaty of Belgrade.50 Selamet Giray, who had replaced the absentee Khan Kaplan Giray, the person held responsible for the debacle of 1736, came to realize that the Ottomans were no longer able to be of much help. To avoid the devastation of future invasions he recognized the value of establishing commercial and political ties with the Tsardom. Empress Elizabeth responded positively to his overtures, realizing that the establishment of such ties would provide an outlet to the warm seas and help stabilize her southern frontier, allowing her to turn her attention to Polish affairs. Elizabeth’s policy was continued in the 1760s by Catherine the Great, who was persuaded by her foreign minister to establish a consul in the Crimea. Khan Kırım Giray agreed to a permanent Russian consul in Bahçesaray in 1763, implying that the Tatars were trying to revive the more independent stance of their sixteenth-century predecessors while also realizing that their future would be more closely 49 50
Fisher, Crimean Tatars, 51. İnalcık, “Kırım Hanlığı,” 453; Fisher, Crimean Tatars, 50.
A Brief History of the Crimea
bound by Russian intentions. However, his successor Selim Giray III sent the consul home and there was no diplomatic contact between Bahçesaray and St. Petersburg until the outbreak of the Ottoman-Russian war in 1768.51 The disastrous war of 1768-1774 began when the Russians entered the Khan’s city of Balta in pursuit of the Polish confederates who had taken refuge there. In the following years, in contrast to the preceding centuries, there was no military cooperation between the Ottomans and Crimeans. The exception was an incursion led by Kirim Khan from Bessarabia into Russian frontier principalities. When Kirim Khan died under suspicious circumstances and his successor Devlet Giray IV proved unable to rally the Tatar clans to send troops for the battle, the Crimean aristocracy, headed by the Shirin clan, forced Khan Kaplan Giray to open negotiations with the Russians for the “restoration” of Crimean independence. Their rationale for demanding this included the realization that the Ottomans were no longer capable of defending the Crimea against the Russians, and the belief among the Crimeans that an alliance with the Russians would restore the aristocracy to its former status vis-à-vis the Khan.52 On learning of Kaplan Giray’s treason, the Ottomans replaced him with Selim Giray, who compelled his predecessor and Shirin Bey to flee to the Russians. During the Russian invasion of 1771 that followed, the Russian general Dolgoruky issued, on behalf of Catherine the Great, a manifesto promising independence to the Crimeans and calling upon them to renounce their ties with Istanbul. Most of the Girays and the aristocracy flocked to the side of the Russians, and Selim Giray surrendered. Shortly afterward, he abdicated and fled to Istanbul. The clan leaders then rejected the Ottoman candidate Maksud Giray and elected Russian partisans, Khan Sahib Giray II and his Kalgay Şahin Giray. The two were the architects of a short-lived independent Crimean state. The foundations of this state were laid by a treaty signed in Karasu Bazaar (1772), the capital of the Shirin Clan. The treaty involved the decision to establish an independent Crimea, one where the Khan would have complete administrative power and would be elected without Ottoman or Russian interference. The Russians would be “firm allies,” and replace the Ottomans in the former eyalet of Caffa. The realization of this independence would only take place after its acknowledgement by the Ottomans two years later, in the Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca (21 July 1774).53 51 52 53
Fisher, Crimean Tatars, 51-2. Fisher, Crimean Tatars, 52-4. Fisher, Crimean Tatars, 52-6; İnalcık, “Struggle for East-European Empire,” 14; İnalcık, “Kırım Hanlığı,” 453.
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The Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca confirmed the war as a complete defeat for the Ottomans, including their effective loss of the Crimea. The Crimean Khanate was declared independent, with a territory encompassing the peninsula as well as the steppe between the Bug and the Kuban rivers. The castle of Yenikale, which controlled the opening to the Sea of Azov, and the fortress of Kılburun, situated at the mouth of the Dnieper, were conceded to Russia. This made the “independent” Crimean Khanate vulnerable to attacks on all sides, and was designed to prepare for a future annexation. The Ottomans, on the other hand, were able to retain some sort of influence through continued possession of the castle of Özü (Ochakiv) as well as by an article in the treaty that recognized the Sultan, in his role as Caliph, as the religious suzerain of all the Crimean Muslims. Thus, as İnalcık observes, both sides left a door open for future intervention in the nominally independent Crimean Khanate, a state of affairs that was liable to foster civil conflict.54 This was made even more likely as the treaty did not provide an adequate basis for the continued existence of an independent state, failing to address in detail the form of administration, the precise nature of the relations with Russians, the political relations within the Crimea, or the economic foundations of the new state. Exacerbating these problems was the absence of a true leader who might have remedied these risks by securing stability in the political administration and in society. Altogether, the three factors—the lack of an adequate institutional basis and leadership and competing Russian and Ottoman interests—rendered the nine years of independence a very turbulent period for the Crimeans.55 Fisher divides the short-lived Crimean independence into three periods, identifying them by a change of the Khan or by rebellions. In the first period (1774-1776), the Russians and Ottomans tried to sway the Crimean government and aristocracy to their side. Between 1776 and 1778 Shahin Giray, the protégé of the Russians, seized the power with their assistance and undertook Westernizing reforms in law and administration, sparking a revolt. In the final period (1778-1783), Shahin Giray continued his reform efforts. In the process, he eliminated many traditional institutions, but without being able to establish new ones that were acceptable to society. His lack of success caused another revolt, and Empress Catherine II paid heed to her advisors and put an end to the independent Crimean State.56 Considered overall, Fisher observes, “the independence of the Crimea during this 54 55 56
İnalcık, “Kırım Hanlığı,” 453-54. Fisher, Crimean Tatars, 56-9. Fisher, Crimean Tatars, 59.
A Brief History of the Crimea
period was no more than a sham perpetrated and perpetuated by the force of Russian arms. It was a transitional period between Ottoman suzerainty and Russian suzerainty.”57 The first period of independence began with Sahib Giray and his successor Devlet Giray renouncing their alliance with the Russians and calling upon the Ottomans to receive the Crimea back into vassaldom. Their requests went unheeded however, since the reformist statesmen in Istanbul, intent on dealing with internal reforms and rightly fearing that another war with Russia could even lead to the collapse of the Empire, prevented any aid from reaching them. In the absence of this assistance, Devlet Giray had to yield to Shahin Giray, based at Taman, who drew some of the mirzas to his side and arrived in the Crimea with the Russian army (1776).58 Effectively a tool of the Russians, albeit one deluded by their promises of independence and lacking the support of the aristocracy for any attempt at centralization, Shahin Giray nevertheless embarked on an ambitious program to restore the Khan’s former power through centralizing reforms, hoping to recover some of the Khanate’s former influence in East Europe. Accordingly, he attempted to make the Khanate hereditary and founded institutions of government that would solely serve the Khan himself. Moreover, he ventured to divest the clans of the regional authority they had enjoyed for centuries. The administrative reforms were accompanied by reforms in the military and economic fields, consisting of westernizing the army and increasing the taxes, which were similarly calculated to bolster central authority against other foci of power. Shahin Giray also personally adopted a Western lifestyle and attire, began to build a new palace, transferred the capital to Caffa, where he planned to establish a new administrative and industrial center, and included various European experts in his retinue. By all these measures he dreamed of a Western-style state that could exist despite Ottoman and even Russian intervention.59 Instead, Shahin Giray’s efforts at reform caused general unrest among the Crimean Tatars who were still deeply religious and firmly loyal to their ageold traditions in all aspects of daily life. This was so true that the result of the efforts of this self-styled “Peter the Great of the Crimea” was a truly insuperable abyss between the people and their ruler.60 His granting of equality 57 58 59 60
Fisher, Crimean Tatars, 69. Fisher, Crimean Tatars, 59-62. Ahmet Özenbaşlı, Çarlık Hakimiyetinde Kırım Faciası, translated by İsmail Otar (Eskişehir, 2004), 16, 19; Fisher, Crimean Tatars, 62-64; İnalcık, “Kırım Hanlığı,” 454. Özenbaşlı, Kırım Faciası, 17, 20.
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before law to Christians, in particular, led his subjects to look upon him as an infidel, and contributed substantially to the outbreak of a serious revolt in 1777. Another factor effective in that outbreak was the settlement of a number of Greek and Slavic emigrants near Yenikale. Shahin had to flee, but before an Ottoman fleet with Selim Giray could intervene, he returned quickly with the Russian army to suppress the revolt. The Aynalı Kavak Convention, which followed these events, was signed by the Ottomans and Russians in 1779. It stabilized the situation in favor of Shahin Giray and the Russians. According to the terms of the Convention, the Ottomans acknowledged Shahin as Khan for life, promised to refrain from interference in Crimean affairs, and even gave up the Sultan’s religious protectorate as caliph. In contrast, Russia’s right to intervene was recognized, as well as its right to impose the Khan they chose, even though they promised to withdraw troops from the Crimea.61 However, it was not long before the increased Russian influence around Shahin Giray sparked another rebellion. In May 1782, Shahin was attacked by his subjects at Caffa and had to escape to Yenikale. The revolt spread, but once again Shahin was reinstated by Catherine, returning with an army under Potemkin. They savagely repressed the rebels, putting to death 30.000 Crimeans. In the meantime, Potemkin made plans to annex the Crimea and contacted the local population. Finally, he persuaded Catherine to wait no longer to annex the peninsula and this was accomplished on 8 April 1783. The Ottoman government was not in a position to declare war by this time, and so had to recognize the annexation of the Crimea, Taman and Kuban with an official document signed in Istanbul on 8 January 1784. The river Kuban was accepted as the new frontier.62 As in the case of Kazan and Astrakhan some two hundred years earlier, the Ottomans did not at first consent to this loss, finding it hard to accept the annexation of Muslim territory by a Christian power and regarding it intolerable that the Russians could now threaten Istanbul directly from their new bases on the Black Sea. They undertook a new war in 1787 to save the Crimea, with Shahbaz Giray and Baht Giray consecutively appointed Khans and leading Turks of Budjak (Bessarabia) against the Russians. Defeated in this war, which ended with the Treaty of Jassi in 1792, the Ottomans had to abandon all the contested territories up to Dniester to the Russians. With
61 62
Fisher, Crimean Tatars, 64-6. Fisher, Crimean Tatars, 67-9; Özenbaşlı, Kırım Faciası, 21-5; İnalcık, “Kırım Hanlığı,” 454.
A Brief History of the Crimea
Budjak abandoned to the Russians after a war that concluded with the Treaty of Bucharest (1812), all the territory once belonging to the Crimean Khans came under the sway of Russian domination.63
II. RUSSIAN DOMINATION (1783-2014) The Plight of the Crimean Tatars under Tsarist Rule In early February 1784, soon after annexing the Crimea, Russia established a local government that aimed to fully assimilate it to the Russian Empire in terms of administration, geography, society and demography. Creating this government was intended to remove what was perceived as an important obstacle to the planned leap of Russia from the north of the Black Sea to the south. To this end, the Crimea was not preserved as a distinct administrative entity but joined with other regions with a Russian majority, which had not ever been parts of any Crimean state in the past. Reference to the word “Crimea” was carefully avoided; the newly formed administrative unit was called the Taurida oblast (and, in 1802, Taurida gubernia). The Taurida oblast encompassed not only the Crimea but also the steppe to the north and the Taman region. The intended effect was that the Crimean peninsula lost its identity as a corpus separatum, and the Tatar population of the new administrative unit was diluted.64 In the following century and a half, no administrative positions were granted to the Tatars and their numbers dropped rapidly as a result of successive waves of migration. Through systematic policies such as appropriation of lands, deportations, and settlement of Slavic population from elsewhere, as well as religious and cultural pressure, the Tatar population was reduced in both numbers and proportion. All traces of the Turkish and Islamic past of the peninsula were systematically eradicated and, due to the decline of the educational institutions and the class of merchants and shopkeepers under pressure, the remaining population was deprived of an intelligentsia and a middle class. In this connection, Ahmet Özenbaşlı stated in his 1925 book on the “Crimean Disaster under Tsarist Rule”: The arrests, banishments and exiles from the Crimea, the hatred and contemptuous treatment displayed toward the Tatar people by Russian officials, the construction of churches and monasteries in Tatar villages, and finally the policy of Russification that had been launched
63 64
İnalcık, “Kırım Hanlığı,” 454. Hakan Kırımlı, “Rus İdaresi Dönemi,” TDV İslam Ansiklopedisi, XXV, 458; Fisher, Crimean Tatars, 73
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with great force: All these attempts constituted formulas invented by the Russian imperial mechanism to eradicate the Tatar element.65
Thus especially in the period after 1802, no Tatars could be found in the higher echelons of local bureaucracy, nor even at the district level in police administrations and town governments. A result was severe administrative and financial abuses by Russian officials stationed in the Crimea: The central government in the Russian capital received a constant stream of complaints.66 It was not only a matter of local administrators abusing their authority however; the central government maintained a systematic policy to remove the Tatar Muslim population from the Crimea. Apart from their historic animosity, the Russians saw Tatars as an obstacle to the full Russification of this region. They planned that the Crimea, with its unique climate and huge economic and commercial potential, would serve as a station to expand toward Istanbul and the warm seas.67 Slavic and other non-Muslim immigrants were settled in the peninsula, and the Tatar peasants were deprived of their lands. The government’s policy of promoting colonization and settlement bore its fruits especially in the period 1820-1860. At that time, the southern coast had a particularly dense collection of village and town settlements due to the favorable land and climate conditions. By 1854, the Tatars constituted only 150,000 out of a total population of 250,000, with more than 70,000 Russians; Greeks, Armenians, Germans, and Jews made up the rest. New settlers were granted further privileges after the Crimean War.68 The demographic and economic pressures on the Crimean Tatars, combined with the religious, administrative and psychological pressures of living under foreign rule, caused a true exodus to the Ottoman Empire. Beginning soon after the Russian annexation and continuing for around 150 years, this exodus reached a peak in the nineteenth century, with seven notable periods of mass migration: 1812, 1828-1829, 1860-1861, 1874, 1890 and 1902. Most of these forced migrations occurred in the aftermath of wars between the Ottomans and Russians, as the latter increased pressure on the Tatars to leave, owing to concerns that they could act as a fifth column. After 1874, the introduction of compulsory military service for Tatar youths was another important factor in the migration.69 When, some
65 66 67 68 69
Özenbaşlı, Kırım Faciası, 46. Fisher, Crimean Tatars, 83-4. İnalcık, “Struggle for East-European Empire,” 14-15; Hakan Kırımlı, National Movements and National Identity among the Crimean Tatars (Leiden, 1996), 4-5; Özenbaşlı, Kırım Faciası, 45, 47. Kırımlı, “Rus İdaresi Dönemi,” 458. On the introduction of compulsory military service and its consequences see Kırımlı, National Movements and National Identity, 30-1 and Özenbaşlı, Kırım Faciası, 64-9.
A Brief History of the Crimea
decades later, an agricultural and urban labor shortage (despite immigration of other groups) forced the government to try to lure back the Tatars with promises of pardon, its attempts proved unsuccessful. It is estimated that overall 1,800,000 Crimean Tatars departed from their native lands in the period 1783-1922. It is known that this emigration reduced the Tatars to a minority in the Crimea.70 Not content with the mass exodus of the Tatars from the Crimean peninsula, the Russian authorities also set about eradicating the traces of centuries of Crimean Turkish-Islamic culture and civilization. Place names were replaced with original or made-up Greek names in an attempt Not content with the mass to show that the peninsula had a Christian-Orexodus of the Tatars from thodox past and that the Muslims were mere the Crimean peninsula, invaders. Historical buildings and monuments the Russian authorities were pulled down or otherwise damaged. Alan Fisher attributes these actions to the lack of realso set about eradicating spect felt by the Russians towards Muslim Tathe traces of centuries of tar culture. They considered the Crimea not as Crimean Turkish-Islamic a Tatar province but rather as a part of Russia culture and civilization. that had been recovered after a backward, uncivilized interlude. All monuments of Tatar culture were, according to the Russians, remnants of that period and so not worthy of preservation. The new non-Muslim majority in the cities did not see any reason to preserve what they perceived as useless buildings. As a result, even foreign Christian visitors were appalled at the destruction they saw in all parts of the Crimea except for Bahçesaray, where the Crimean-Turkish legacy was preserved, at least in part.71 While the Russians were completely indifferent and even hostile toward Tatar culture, they adopted a different policy toward the Muslim religious establishment. Aware of the fact that the ulama had an enormous influence over the outlook of the common people, they sought to win over and control the Muslim population through them. For this purpose, they turned all the men of religion, from the mufti and kazasker down to the imams and muezzins of individual mosques, into salaried officials of the state. They also preserved all the social and economic privileges traditionally granted to the ulama, ensuring that their position in religion, education and local 70 71
Kırımlı, “Rus İdaresi Dönemi,” 458; Kırımlı, National Movements and National Identity, 6-12; Fisher, Crimean Tatars, 93. Kırımlı, “Rus İdaresi Dönemi,” 458; Fisher, Crimean Tatars, 94.
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justice remained untouched. Thus the ulama became a part of the Russian regime, the native element that included its strongest supporters, although they had been the staunchest opponents of Russian influence before the annexation. To the same end, the Russians also set up a Spiritual Council (Idare-i Ruhaniyye), charged with operating and maintaining religious foundations, mosques, schools, madrasas and other religious and educational institutions. An effective tool at the hands of the Tsarist government, the Council remained passive during a century when 70% of the lands of charitable foundations were alienated to Russians and the number of schools and madrasas fell far below the level before 1783.72
Bahçesaray Fountain. A famous landmark in Bahçesaray that served as an inspiration for Pushkin’s famous poem with the same name.
While the ulama were relatively untouched by the Russian colonial administration, all other sections of Tatar Muslim society suffered as a result of government policies. This led to further disruption of the traditional Tatar social structure. The first loss came through a reduction in the number of mirzas as a result of emigration and Slavic colonization. The economic basis of their position collapsed as annexation and the appropriation of the formally granted aristocratic rights and privileges by distrustful Russian officials led to the loss of much of their wealth. Land seizures occurred chiefly because the constantly increasing and more bureaucratically inclined Slavic population exerted great pressure on Tatar landholding.73 Nevertheless, a part of the mirza class did eventually become integral members of the Russian aristocracy, and took advantage of their formal incorporation into that class. The price of this advantage, however, was becoming Russified in habits, language, and ways of conducting business, all required for harmonious interactions with their Russian counterparts. As a result, the Russified mirzas became estranged from the rest of Muslim society. Those who were unable or unwilling to adapt to these foreign habits were unable to claim or preserve their rights or privileges. This was made all the more difficult as the years of turmoil
72 73
İnalcık, “Kırım Hanlığı,” 458; Fisher, Crimean Tatars, 77-8, 93; Kırımlı, National Movements and National Identity, 14-17. Fisher, Crimean Tatars, 86-7, 96.
A Brief History of the Crimea
between 1768-1783 made it hard to determine which Tatars were indeed nobles and which were the lands they held.74 The once thriving Tatar urban class was similarly afflicted during the Russian occupation. Fewer in number than previously, their significance was likewise reduced and confined to the two Tatar towns of Bahçesaray and Karasu Bazaar, both on the periphery of Crimean life. All other Crimean cities were turned over to Slavs, Greeks and Armenians, causing largescale upheavals in their demographic structure. Cities such as like Caffa and Gözleve, which once played an important role in southern trade, lost their economic importance and their once sizeable population. New port cities, built nearby and settled with non-Muslim urban groups, claimed their economic role. Moreover, the urban artisans and shopkeepers, who had enjoyed a powerful organization until that time, found they were unable to compete with the developing Russian capitalism and were impoverished. Tatars were excluded from urban government everywhere except Bahçesaray. The traditional Tatar urban life disappeared and it became harder for the Tatar urban classes to preserve their cultural consciousness. Thus by the end of a century of Russian domination, there was no longer a true Tatar bourgeoisie or intelligentsia in the Crimea. It was not until the late nineteenth century that a new Tatar urban class reappeared in Bahçesaray and Karasu Bazaar, making possible the re-establishment of a national Tatar culture. This new Tatar culture was nevertheless different from that in place before annexation.75 The Tatar peasants faced considerable difficulties and emigrated in large numbers in the first two decades after annexation. One cause was the method of Russian colonization: Vast tracts of land, more than 12% of the land mass on the peninsula, was declared state property. These lands had once belonged to the Crimean state and dynasty or to others who 74 75
Fisher, Crimean Tatars, 76, 84-5, 93; Kırımlı, National Movements and National Identity, 12-13. Fisher, Crimean Tatars, 89-90, Kırımlı, “Rus İdaresi Dönemi,” 458-59; Kırımlı, National Movements and National Identity, 19-21.
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had left—whether voluntarily or compulsorily—the Crimea. The Russians gave or sold (at very low prices) these lands to state officials of all ranks. A particularly critical problem was that the bestowment charters, signed by Catherine II, Potemkin or the governor, identified the size of the land to be bestowed, but not its whereabouts. Therefore, venal local officials could confiscate desirable land as state property and then allot the tract to the charter holder who wanted it. The grantors and recipients paid no heed to the fact that Tatar peasants lived on these lands. Once in possession, the pomeschiks, the new “landlords,” treated the lands as regular estates and regarded the peasants living on them as squatters. They demanded higher rents than the customary 10%, leaving no alternative but immediate departure. Sometimes the new landlords appropriated an entire harvest as a means to compel the peasants to leave their possessions. Many peasant lands were expropriated, and endless litigations between the peasants and pomeschiks ensued. Ultimately, at the turn of the century, the Tsarist government agreed to reject the confiscation of peasant lands as state lands if ownership could be documented. This was hardly a remedy however, as land tenure had been based on custom rather than formal contract. The absence of written documents also allowed the new landlords to make excessive demands from the peasants. The consistent expropriation and exploitation forced the emigration of many peasants in the twenty years immediately following annexation. Especially vulnerable were those from the steppe to the north of the peninsula. Catherine II and her administrators resisted demands from the pomeschiks to enserf the Tatar peasants, declaring them state peasants to prevent that action. However, there was scant difference between the Tatars who remained on their traditional lands and serfs elsewhere. They had to pay one-third of their harvest as taxes and were obliged to thresh the pomeschiks’ harvest and carry it as far as the station or the port. The Crimean War further aggravated the peasants’ situation, as government attitudes became even harsher. Most peasants living in the fertile coastal region were removed inland on the pretext of taking measures against a possible landing by the Ottoman fleet. Exploiting what must have seemed to be an excellent opportunity, the pomeschiks did their best to prevent the peasants from returning after the war. Those who did faced very high taxes and limited access to such essentials as the village water supply. Accordingly, most peasants remained inland or, increasingly, chose to emigrate into the Ottoman Empire.76 Atrocities perpetrated during 76
Kırımlı, National Movements and National Identity, 5-6, 17-19; Özenbaşlı, Kırım Faciası, 37-44; Fisher, Crimean Tatars, 90-1.
A Brief History of the Crimea
the time of war by the Cossacks and officials of the Tsardom impelled them further in this direction.77 The reason the Russian government’s policy toward the Tatars hardened during the Crimean War was that Tsar Alexander IV had been (falsely) informed that the Tatars were making common cause with the British and the French, as allies of the Ottomans. In fact, the Tatar peasants had fought against the foreign troops with loyalty. This false intelligence rendered the entire Tatar population suspect in the Tsar’s view, and, to remove what he perceived as their danger, he decided after the war to encourage emigration. We have already seen that during the war the Tatars living in the coastal regions were driven away from their lands, which were appropriated by the pomeschiks with the government’s tacit consent. Once resettled in the interior, they lost their status as state peasants and became easy prey for Slavic colonizers. Thus when the Tsar’s decision to urge Tatar emigration became generally known in 1859, a panicked mass flight ensued. To this time the greatest wave of Tatar migration had taken place during the two decades following annexation, with an estimation of around 110,000 emigrants. A much greater wave now occurred within a shorter time, and at least 100,000 Tatars left the Crimea in 1860 and the following few years. Where the total population of the Crimean peninsula had been 275,000 in 1850, a decade later it was only 194,000. Of that number, the Tatars were only about half, making them a minority in their homeland. Realizing the damage this would inflict on the economic and agricultural production of the peninsula, the government reversed its plans. Beginning in 1860, it refused to issue passports to Tatars and threatened denial of reentry to those who left the Crimea. The Tsar instructed his Crimean administrators to treat the remaining Tatars well, but their apprehensions were far from soothed and the flood of emigrants continued.78
The New Tatar Intelligentsia and the Growth of the National Movement The great waves of Tatar emigration abated after 1902. Factors that contributed to this development were the emergence of a new Tatar intelligentsia that advised against emigration, and the launching of a new newspaper that represented Tatar public opinion.79 We have seen that the only
77 78 79
For details on these atrocities see Özenbaşlı, Kırım Faciası, 49-54. Fisher, Crimean Tatars, 88-9; Kırımlı, “Rus İdaresi Dönemi,” 458. Özenbaşlı, Kırım Faciası, 74.
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class of people to emerge from the calamity of Russian occupation relatively unscathed was the Muslim clergy, who controlled the schools and madrasas. Secular subjects were excluded from these schools, and the education they provided was inadequate preparation for a professional life in the modern world.80 Faced with these conditions, new Russian schools, which first appeared in the 1861-77 reform period and quickly spread, created an opportunity for the emergence of a new intelligentsia. Its members included school staff, sanitation workers, medical personnel, employees in government and social service, and most importantly, social and pedagogic reformers.81 The first effective reformer appeared in Kazan, however, rather than in the Crimea where the conservative clergy preserved its control of schools until 1867. Shihabeddin Merjani, a historian and educator, promoted a view that Islam’s survival was contingent on its adaptation to the modern world, and insisted that there was no essential contradiction between preserving one’s Muslim heritage and learning Russian.82 One student of Merjani’s ideas in the Crimea was the famous Ismail Bey Gaspiralı (Gasprinsky, 1851-1914), who believed that Russian educational and cultural methods had to replace the deep conservatism and outdated curriculum prevalent in the schools controlled by the Muslim clergy. Only if these more modern methods were used to present both the skills needed 80 81 82
Kırımlı, National Movements and National Identity, 21-26. Fisher, Crimean Tatars, 98; Kırımlı, National Movements and National Identity, 27-29. Fisher, Crimean Tatars, 99-100. For Marjani see further Gul’nara Idiyatullina, “Beginning of the Modernisation Process in Tatar Society,” in Tatar History and Civilisation, 208-19 (Istanbul, 2010), 217-19.
A Brief History of the Crimea
in the modern world and the best of Islamic and Tatar heritage would the Crimean Tatars stand a chance of resisting complete Russification.83 Gaspiralı promoted the study of Russian as well as the inclusion of Western natural and social sciences in the curricula of Tatar schools. In accordance with these principles, he launched a new method (Usul-i Cedid) of education in his own school in Bahçesaray, founded in 1884. Alongside such the traditional courses as the Qur’an and Islamic law, taught in Arabic, Gaspiralı introduced new courses in history, geography, and mathematics in Russian and Tatar.84 A secondary aim of Gaspıralı in introducing his New Method was to work toward the unity of all the Turkic peoples in Russia into a modern, single Turkish nation. He believed that only through such a unity could the Turkic peoples solve the complicated social, economic and political problems they faced, and become a formidable power. The means to achieve this was not difficult, according to Gaspıralı, as a common ground of religion, language and culture already existed. What was lacking was a new, national system of education and a form of literary Turkish that could be common to all the Turkic peoples in question. The New Method was also intended to cover this need.85 A second important field of activity for Gaspıralı was journalism. In 1853, he established a newspaper, Tercüman, to broadcast his ideas and reform program. Gaspiralı used his highly influential newspaper to plead the case for modernization of Islam in Russia, defend the equality of Muslim women, work for the establishment of a common Turkic language to be used by the press throughout the Turkish-speaking world, and promote the formation of a single Turkic elite across the borders of the Russian and Ottoman empires. On the other hand, Gaspiralı advised his followers against opposition to the Russian government. He believed that the chance of success was
83 84 85
Fisher, Crimean Tatars, 100-01. Fisher, Crimean Tatars, 101-03. Kırımlı, “Rus İdaresi Dönemi,” 469.
Ismail Gaspıralı (1851-1914)
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small. He also failed to see any essential contradiction between working for Muslim Tatar reform and national identity and maintaining good relations with the tsarist government.86 The audience Gaspiralı found for his views came from the new intelligentsia educated in the Russian-Tatar schools that proliferated after 1867, including the Tatar Teachers’ School established in Akmescid in 1871, and his own school at Bahçesaray. While not all members of this group agreed with his views, all debated his opinions and the issues he raised.87 Three generations of intellectuals emerged in sequence from the modernized Russian-Tatar schools. The first consisted of Gaspiralı’s own followers, who shared his wish to work within the framework of the Russian system and to participate in the newly established political institutions alongside Russian liberals. The second generation, the so-called Young Tatars, had more revolutionary views than the first group, although they shared Gaspıralı’s reform agenda. Led by Abdürreşid Mehdi, they declared war upon the tsarist regime, and played an active role in the events of 1905 alongside Russian socialist revolutionaries. While they shared that party’s radical opposition to the regime, agricultural socialist principles and methods of underground struggle, they preferred to remain a separate, national Crimean movement. Thus, before their dissolution by the Tsarist government in 1910, they became the first political nationalist movement to emerge from amongst the Crimean Tatars in the modern period. As such, they bolstered the religious
86 87
Fisher, Crimean Tatars, 102-03. Fisher, Crimean Tatars, 103; Kırımlı, “Rus İdaresi Dönemi,” 469.
A Brief History of the Crimea
and ethnical foundations of a national Crimean Tatar identity laid down by Gaspıralı with a concept of the Crimea as the fatherland.88 The third and final generation, which emerged after 1907, was known as the Tatar nationalists. Unlike the first two groups, members of this third group had been educated in Istanbul as well as at Crimean schools; they established close contacts with the Young Turks. Under the latter’s influence the Tatar nationalists established a Crimean Student Society (Kırım Talebe Cemiyeti) in 1908. The following year, this organization produced an offshoot called Vatan, dedicated to the goal of establishing an independent Crimean state. Led by Numan Çelebi Cihan, Cafer Seydahmet and Abdülhakim Hilmi Arifzade, the members of Vatan harbored a bitter enmity toward the tsarist regime and established contact with secret nationalist cells in the Crimea that similarly pursued national independence. Together with them, the Vatan group had succeeded in establishing similar cells everywhere in the Crimea by 1917.89 The Tatar politician and historian Kırımal describes how “the interaction of these three streams of nationalist thought (Gaspiralı, the Young Tatars, and Vatan) . . . gradually prepared the ground for a broad popular nationalist movement among the Crimean Tatars that came into the open in March 1917,”90 when the revolution broke out. Using the opportunities of88 89 90
Fisher, Crimean Tatars, 104-07; Kırımlı, “Rus İdaresi Dönemi,” 469; Kırımlı, National Movements and National Identity, 217-19. Fisher, Crimean Tatars, 104-07; Kırımlı, “Rus İdaresi Dönemi,” 469; Kırımlı, National Movements and National Identity, 219-22. Edige Kırımal, “The Crimean Tatars,” Studies on the Soviet Union 1 (1970), 78, cited in Fisher, Crimean Tatars, 107.
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fered by the turmoil following the Bolshevik revolution of November 1917, the Crimean Tatar nationalists held free elections for the constitution of a national assembly (kurultay). The national assembly convened for the first time in December 1917 and accepted a Constitution that declared the establishment of Kırım Ahali Cumhuriyeti (Crimean Democratic Republic) (26 December 1917). On the same day, the first Crimean Tatar government, led by Numan Çelebi Cihan, was also established. Although the new government was able to control much of the Crimea within a short time, the Bolshevik marines in the port of Sebastopol, the main base of the Russian Black Sea fleet, marched upon Bahçesaray and Akmescit in late January and, by force of arms, replaced the Crimean National Government with a Bolshevik one. A true reign of terror followed, in which Numan Çelebi Cihan was arrested and executed along with thousands of other victims.91
The Crimea during the Russian Revolutionary War and Early Bolshevik Rule In June 1918, the Bolshevik government in the Crimea was toppled by German forces that had invaded the Crimea, in accordance with their agreement with the independent Ukrainian government that had been established after the Treaty of Brest-Litowsk. The new government that replaced the Bolsheviks, led by General Suleyman Sulkiewicz, granted a place to Tatar members as well as to anti-Bolshevik Russians and Germans. The government had to resign five months later however, as Germany surrendered and the German troops withdrew. The next government, led by the Karaim Salomon Krım and backed by the White Army, was dominated by liberal Russian and Jewish politicians who had sought refuge in the Crimea. They considered the peninsula an integral part of Russia and decidedly excluded the Tatars from the government.92 The Crimea became a pawn of the Red and White Armies during the two years of civil war in Russia (January 1919 to late 1920); it changed change hands twice more in that period. Neither side showed any interest in what the Tatars wanted and, whatever their radical differences, neither were prepared to consider the idea of an independent Crimea ruled by Tatars.93 After the Bolsheviks established permanent control of the Crimea, the Chekha, the secret Bolshevik police organization, carried out a purge of all
91 92 93
Kırımlı, “Rus İdaresi Dönemi,” 459-60. Kırımlı, “Rus İdaresi Dönemi,” 460. Fisher, Crimean Tatars, 127-28.
A Brief History of the Crimea
the opponents of Soviet power; 60,000 died in a period of six months from November 1920 to summer 1921. The Tatars, accused of being bourgeois nationalists and class enemies, were targeted alongside anti-Bolshevik Russians.94 Another 100,000 Crimeans, including 60,000 Tatars, died in the artificially provoked famine of 1921-1922, as Crimea-grown grains were exported and foreign food aid diverted elsewhere.95 All these policies met with strong resistance from the Tatars. The Tatar partisans who had fought the White Forces from the mountains now began, under the name “Green Forces,” to fight the Bolsheviks, causing considerable hardship for them. Neither side could score a decisive victory against the other however, so the Bolshevik leadership in Simferopol reversed course, promising the Tatars national autonomy and participation in the government. Following the advice of Sultan-Galiev, the famous Tatar Bolshevik leader renowned for his promotion of Muslim “national communism,” the Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (ASSR) was founded on 18 October 1921. A general amnesty was granted to the partisans and many Tatar nationalists from the former Milli Fırka (Nationalist Party) were accepted into the government. It seemed that the Crimean Tatars had succeeded in achieving, if not independent rule, at least national and cultural autonomy under the Soviets. A short period, under the leadership of Veli İbrahim (1923-1928) was later recalled by many Tatars in exile as a golden age.96 Veli İbrahim was a former Milli Fırka member whose Communist Party membership had done no change in his national allegiances. Once named the leader, he launched a program of Tatar national revival with social, economic, and cultural components. He promoted the employment of Crimean Tatars, above all former Milli Fırka members, in all ranks of the government. Veli İbrahim also sought to bring the Crimean economy back to its pre-1918 state, returning lands to their former owners and industrial enterprises to their former managers if possible. He applied the Soviet land policies in a way that would bring maximum benefit to Tatar peasants who had been deprived of their lands during the tsarist period. He took measures to secure the return of emigrated Tatars and thus to increase the Tatar population in the peninsula. Finally, in Fisher’s words, he “pursued a cultural policy of Tatarization of the Crimea.” While the Crimean Tatar schools grew during
94 95 96
Kırımlı, “Rus İdaresi Dönemi,” 460; Fisher, Crimean Tatars, 132-33. Edige Kırımal, “Kırımda Topyekûn Tehcir ve Katliam,” in Kırım’daki Soykırımı Unutmayınız, edited by Sabri Arıkan (Ankara, 1994), 23-24. Kırımlı, “Rus İdaresi Dönemi,” 460; Fisher, Crimean Tatars, 133; Alan W. Fisher, the Crimean Tatars, the USSR, and Turkey,” in Soviet Asian Ethnic Frontiers, edited by William O. Mc Cagg, Jr. and Brian D. Silver, 1-24 (New York, 1979), 187.
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this period in both number and quality, the cultural and scientific activities of the Tatars also saw unprecedented development with many new scientific institutes, museums, libraries, and theaters opened. The Crimean Tatar language was made an official language of the republic. Books on Crimean Tatar history and culture were published. The new scholarly journals issued included articles from Tatar intelligentsia. Most importantly, a university was opened in 1924 in Simferopol, one that included a science faculty, and, after 1925, an Oriental institute that allowed study of the language and literature of the Crimean Tatars.97 However, the policies established under Veli İbrahim eventually provoked a backlash from Moscow. He was accused of “bourgeois nationalism” and, in 1928, arrested and executed. All the policies he had initiated were reversed on his death, and the Crimean Tatar nationalists were purged from the government. According to Alexandre Benigsen, the “golden period” for Crimean Tatars was the result of a misunderstanding: “The Muslims were deluded into thinking that they could take advantage of the new regime in finally implementing their reformist movement; and the Bolsheviks entertained falsely the hope that they would be able to reeducate their fellow travelers and make them in the long run into good Marxists.” Fisher adds that the Bolsheviks also hoped this brief opportunity would help Tatar leaders realize their mistake in pursuing a nationalist policy that ran counter
97
Fisher, Crimean Tatars, 139-40.
A Brief History of the Crimea
to the centralizing Soviet state.98 When nothing of the kind happened, the punishment was not late in coming.
The Repression of the Tatars and their Expulsion from the Crimea The end of the Veli İbrahim government was followed by a period of severe repression and state terror. The authorities began by reversing Ibrahim’s cultural policy of Tatarization of the Crimea. The directors of all educational institutions were changed, with Tatars replaced by Russians or Ukrainians or at least by Tatars who had received education after the revolution. Editors of newspapers and journals, directors of Tatar national theaters, and poets and authors were all dismissed. Some of the Crimean cultural leaders joined Crimean politicians abroad in Romania or Turkey. Others, accused of bourgeois nationalism or anti-Soviet activity, were banished to Siberia or the Urals. One year after Ibrahim’s demise, the entire prerevolutionary Tatar intelligentsia was eliminated from their positions.99 Much worse followed during the great Stalinist purges of the 1930s. Those who had been allowed to remain in the Crimea were considered politically safe, but even they felt compelled to raise their voices against policies they rightly perceived as being directed at the destruction of the Crimean Tatar community. As a result, during the Stalinist purges of 1933 and 1939, almost all the remaining members of the Tatar intelligentsia as well as men of religion were executed or died in labor camps.100 The intelligentsia was only a fraction of the Tatar victims of Soviet policies, however; already by 1933, 150,000 or about half the population of Crimean Tatars had been killed or exiled. Among them were about 40,000 Crimean Tatar peasants who had been banished to the Urals or Siberia during the time of collectivization. The famine of 1931-1933 hit the Tatars as well as other groups in the peninsula very hard.101 The attack on the Tatar community in general and Tatar intellectuals in particular was accompanied by an attack on Tatar Muslim culture, religion and customs. The purging of the Tatar intelligentsia meant resistance to the attempts at Russification would be minimal. Even before Veli İbrahim’s fall, the traditional Arabic alphabet had been replaced with a Latin one, which was later replaced 1938 with Cyrillic. Although the change to the Latin al-
98
Alexandre Bennigsen and Chantal Lemercier-Quelquejay, Islam in the Soviet Union (New York, 1967), 107, cited in Fisher, Crimean Tatars, 139, Kırımlı, “Rus İdaresi Dönemi,” 459-60. 99 Fisher, Crimean Tatars, 142. 100 Fisher, Crimean Tatars, 145; Kırımal, “Kırımda Topyekûn Tehcir ve Katliam,” 28-31. 101 Kırımlı, “Rus İdaresi Dönemi,” 461.
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phabet was supported by some Tatar intellectuals, the government used this change and the subsequent change to Cyrillic as a means to select the literature available to the younger generations. Most of the prerevolutionary and early post-revolutionary Tatar literature, considered “non-proletarian and non-Soviet,” was available only in the now unreadable Arabic script. Many words of Arabic, Persian, or Turkish origin in the Tatar language were replaced with Russian loanwords. A result of the purges was a drastic reduction in the number of journals and newspapers in the Tatar language: where there had been twenty-three in 1935, by 1938 there were only nine. Furthermore, a significant portion of the national cultural heritage preserved in museums and libraries was destroyed. The remaining mosques and madrasas were pulled down or their buildings repurposed. It became impossible to attend the few mosques that remained and Muslim prayers, fasting and circumcision were absolutely prohibited. The final blow to Tatar culture was a government-sponsored campaign of sheer terrorism against the rural Tatar population. The pretext was reform of social and family customs to bring them into conformity with Soviet Russian behavior standards.102 In sum, the first twenty years of Bolshevik rule in the Crimea (1921-1941) saw the death or exile of about 170,000 Tatars, amounting to half of the Tatar population of the peninsula by 1917.103 Yet these atrocities fade in comparison to those of 1944, after the withdrawal of the German occupation forces and the arrival of Soviet troops. Within two weeks of their arrival, the Soviet forces began a campaign of terror against all the Tatars who remained on the peninsula.104 A three-day operation began on the night of 17-18 May, during which the Tatars were awakened by Red Army troops, allowed 15-20 minutes to prepare, and told to take only as much as they could carry. They were brought to train stations and loaded into cattle cars. The cars, chock full, were sealed from outside and sent on a 3-4 week voyage to Central Asia (especially Uzbekistan), the Urals or Siberia. No water, food or medical help was provided; nearly eight thousand Tatars died of hunger, thirst and fatigue in transit. Nor did the end of the journey mean the end of suffering. The concentration camps in the Sverdlovsk region in the Urals and in the Tashkent area, where most of the Tatars were shipped, did not offer even the most basic needs, the living 102 Fisher,
Crimean Tatars, 144, 147; Kırımlı, “Rus İdaresi Dönemi,” 461. “Kırımda Topyekûn Tehcir ve Katliam,” 33. 104 Kırımal, “Kırımda Topyekûn Tehcir ve Katliam,” 37; Fisher, Crimean Tatars, 162. 103 Kırımal,
A Brief History of the Crimea
conditions were miserable, and the work was very heavy. The result was that a few years after the deportation more than 46% (112,180) Tatars had died; more than 60,000 of these were children.105 The ostensible reason for this mass deportation given in the Soviet literature was the widespread collaboration of the Crimean Tatars with the German occupation forces. The German General Manstein had adopted a policy of fostering cordial relations with the Tatars, so that he would not have to station large numbers of his forces in the Crimea. His effort was mildly successful, as 15-20,000 Tatars formed self-defense battalions and fought in the mountains against Soviet partisans. However, compared to the Volga Tatars (35,000) and other Caucasian peoples (110,000), or especially the Slavs, this was not a large number of anti-Soviet resisters. While the minister of cultural affairs during the German occupation was a Tatar, he was the only representative of his nationality to have a position of such authority. Again, the overwhelming majority of German political collaborators were Slavic inhabitants of the Crimea.106 In an attempt to understand why a limited section of the Crimean population initially welcomed and collaborated with the German army, it must not be forgotten that by 1941, when the Germans arrived, almost all Tatar poli105 Tayfun
Atmaca, Sömürülen Topraklarda Sürgünler ve Soykırımlar (Ankara, 2009), 226-31, 236; Kırımlı, “Rus İdaresi Dönemi,” 462; Fisher, Crimean Tatars, 170. 106 Fisher, Crimean Tatars, 155-56, 158.
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ticians, officials and intellectuals had been banished or liquidated, tens of thousands of Tatar peasants dispossessed, starved to death or deported, and in all nearly half of the Crimean Tatar population killed or exiled, leaving them little ground to deplore the defeat of the Soviets. Their grievances were exacerbated by the wide-scale atrocities and massacres perpetrated by the retreating NKVD (the People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs) forces on the eve of the German occupation, indicating what would happen should the Bolsheviks return.107 It is all the more remarkable under these conditions that the number of Crimean Tatars who fought alongside the Partisans or the Red Army was much higher than those who fought alongside the Germans. If, of the 95,000 men over 18 years, 15-20,000 sided with the Germans, no fewer than 65,000 fought alongside the Russians, 53,000 of them in the army and 12,000 in the resistance. Of the 65,000 pro-Soviet Tatars, almost half died, while some 40% received orders and medals and nine were even declared Heroes of the Soviet Union. Nevertheless, all the survivors, however highly lauded, were deported as soon as they returned to the Crimea.108 In this connection, the Tatar novelist Cengiz Dağcı has remarked: The tragedy did not start only after the war (deportation), it had its beginnings in the thirties. Thousands of Crimean Tatars were deported between 1930 and 1936. These people were not opposed to the regime, they were only interested in cultivating their land, their vineyards, and orchards. They were simple, innocent people living in an agricultural community. . . . The charge that the Crimean Tatars betrayed their Russian comrades during the war was nothing but a pretext, a deliberate slander. Among all the people of the Soviet Union, including the Russians, the Crimean Tatars collaborated the least.109
A consideration of all these facts suggests that the true reasons for the deportation were different. It may have been that Stalin wanted to use the turmoil of the war to get rid of the Tatar population for good, in order to Slavicize this peninsula so valuable for the Soviet Union with its climate, natural resources and strategic location. Another reason may have been Stalin’s wish to remove all Turkic groups dwelling near to Turkey as he prepared to claim control of the Turkish Straits, to increase Soviet influence within Tur107 Kırımal,
“Kırımda Topyekûn Tehcir ve Katliam,” 34-36; Fisher, Crimean Tatars, 149, 153. Crimean Tatars, 160-62. 109 Osman Türkay, “The Tragedy of the Crimean Tatars,” Index on Censorship 1(1970), 1970, cited in Fisher, Crimean Tatars, 162. 108 Fisher,
A Brief History of the Crimea
key, and to apply pressure on the Soviet-Turkish border. The Mashkatian Turks on the Turkish-Georgian border were replaced by Soviet Armenians in 1944, although they had had no contact with the Germans. In a similar manner, Russians and Ukrainians replaced the Crimean Tatars, when the Soviet regime began to press for Russian bases on the straits. Thus, the claim of Tatar collaboration with Germans served as a pretext for the deportation; the real motive was the eradication of the Tatar population from the Crimea. This effort was the culmination of Russian policies since the annexation of 1783, and preparation for the more aggressive policy to be adopted against the Turks of Anatolia. The Crimean ASSR was dismantled and reduced to an oblast in 1946, and became attached to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1954.110 The policies of the last 150 years directed at the cultural as well as political eradication of Tatar Muslim heritage culminated after the Soviet deportation schemes of 1944 with the systematic eradication of all historical, cultural and linguistic traces of the Tatar population. With a few exceptions, all the surviving historical buildings, monuments and other works of art were destroyed, as were the houses, vines, gardens and cemeteries of the deportees. Written works met the same fate: All publications in the Crimean Tatar language, including those dating from the Soviet period, were collected from libraries in the Crimea and throughout the Soviet Union, and destroyed. Except for the cities of Bahçesaray and Canköy, the names of hundreds of cities, towns and villages were also Russified. From 1944 until the end of the 1980s, use of the term “Crimean Tatar” was itself forbidden. All of the possessions left behind by the Tatars were confiscated. Russians and Ukrainians were settled in their place from the summer of 1944 onwards.111
The Years in Exile from the Crimea In exile, the Tatars lived under extremely difficult circumstances until Stalin’s death in 1953. They were subject to severe restrictions of movement even within the region in which they had been settled. The travel ban was lifted for former partisans in 1954 and for all Tatars in April 1956. The decree was unpublicized, which made it difficult for Tatars to settle in most other places in the USSR, but it did permit families to reunite, and many Tatars assem110 Kırımlı,
“Rus İdaresi Dönemi,” 462; Kırımal, “Kırımda Topyekûn Tehcir ve Katliam,” 41-42; Fisher, Crimean Tatars, 168-70. 111 Kırımlı, “Rus İdaresi Dönemi,” 462; Atmaca, Sürgünler ve Soykırımlar, 231-35; Fisher, Crimean Tatars, 171-72, 174.
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bled in Uzbekistan. Permission was given to publish in Crimean Tatar Turkish a biweekly newspaper called Lenin Bayrağı and a few small books per annum (although the words Crimea or Crimean Tatar were still forbidden), and to establish a folk music group called Kaytarma Ansamblı. The limits of these concessions were obvious, however, when Khrushchev’s 1956 speech rehabilitating most of the peoples exiled into the Soviet Union did not include the Crimean Tatars (or the Ahıska Turks or the Volga Germans). Unlike the rehabilitated peoples, prohibitions against the return of these three groups to their homeland remained in place.112 Faced with the continued denial of individual and national rights, and taking advantage of the partial lifting of restrictions on movement and publication, the Tatars began to organize and conduct activities directed toward gaining national rehabilitation and the right to return to the Crimea. The effort began with individual and mass petitions to government and party offices requesting their rights. This phase was followed in the early 1960s by the establishment of cultural and political committees in each Tatar settlement. These groups informed the Tatars of their past, of the truths of the German invasion, and of the injustices they had suffered as a people after 1944. The same committees sent delegations to Moscow to deliver the petitions and to conduct follow-up, bringing their case to the attention of the authorities. Thus a Crimean Tatar National Movement emerged, spreading despite all odds and winning the support of the Crimean Tatar population. Without 112 Kırımlı,
“Rus İdaresi Dönemi,” 462; Fisher, Crimean Tatars, 174-75.
A Brief History of the Crimea
help from representatives abroad, so important to the case of the Soviet Jews, and despite harassment by the Soviet authorities, the Crimean Tatar National Movement created such pressure that the authorities were compelled to respond.113 The response was an official decree, issued on 9 September 1967, published in newspapers in the Tatar areas, which partially rehabilitated the Crimean Tatars. The expression “Crimean Tatars” was still circumvented—the description of choice was “the citizens of Tatar nationality The Tatars began to who formerly resided in the Crimea.” Although organize and conduct the decree admitted that the deportation had activities directed been unjust, it emphasized that the deportees toward gaining national now had roots in their new abode. The prohibirehabilitation and the right tion against return to the Crimea was, in effect, continued by a decree secretly communicated to return to the Crimea. to the local authorities. The official decree fell short of Tatar expectations, as they had hoped for a general official announcement of the complete rehabilitation of their nationality, restoration of all illegally confiscated property and, most important, the right to return to the Crimea, including the re-establishment of the Crimean ASSR. The last two demands had been denied explicitly if secretly, as was the existence of Crimean Tatar as distinct from Tatar nationality. Contrary to promises, the announcement of the rehabilitation was made public only in the regions where Tatars lived. As a result, the majority of the Soviet population remained unaware of the official rehabilitation and gave no support to the civil rights campaign of the Tatar National Movement.114 In view of the limited response to their demands, the Crimean Tatar leadership continued to pressure the Soviet government. They also contacted Soviet intellectuals known to be concerned about civil rights. Most importantly, they encouraged some Tatars to return to the Crimea. Many other Tatars, deluded by the elusive wording of the decree and unaware of the official determination to deny them entry, headed for the Crimea on their own. All met with a strong reaction from local authorities in the Crimea who, clearly under orders from Moscow, refused to register these returnees. Unregistered, the returnees could not live or work in the Crimea. They were again forcibly expelled from the peninsula, as many as 10,000 in 1968 113 Kırımlı, 114 Fisher,
“Rus İdaresi Dönemi,” 462-63; Fisher, Crimean Tatars, 175-77. Crimean Tatars, 178-180; Kırımlı, “Rus İdaresi Dönemi,” 463.
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alone. As this was taking place, the settlement of Slavs in the Crimea was further encouraged by the Russian administration, as a means to render the return of the Tatars even less possible. Significant portions of the Russian residents of the Crimea today settled there in this period. Faced with these rejections, members of the National Movement increased their protests and began to call on international institutions and public opinion, albeit with little response. The number of those allowed to settle in the Crimea did not surpass 10,000 until the mid-eighties.115 In the meantime, Tatar intellectuals continued their efforts to foster Crimean Tatar national consciousness through their newspaper, Lenin Bayrağı and their publishing house, as well as from their positions in institutions of culture and education. They also strove to keep alive the written Crimean Tatar language through their publications and research.116
Epilogue: The Return and Today The situation changed only after a liberalization in the state’s policies took place in the latter half of the 1980s, with Gorbachev’s Glasnost and Perestroika. The Crimean Tatars attracted the attention of the world to their cause through a four-day occupation of Red Square in July 1987. After
115 Kırımlı,
“Rus İdaresi Dönemi,” 463; Fisher, Crimean Tatars, 180-81. For the petitions addressed in this period to the UN Human Rights Committee see Kırım’daki Soykırımı Unutmayınız, 77-90. 116 Fisher, Crimean Tatars, 181, 199, 200.
A Brief History of the Crimea
this, they embarked on a new wave of migration back to their homeland and, despite attempts to prevent this by the local authorities, remained determined to stay at whatever cost. By April 1989, the number of returnees exceeded 40,000. Six months later, with the Soviet Union nearing collapse, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet issued a declaration recognizing and guaranteeing the rights of the Crimean Tatars and all other peoples of the Soviet Union who had been unjustly treated in the past. The subsequent years saw an even greater surge in the migration to the homeland.117 Yet the return of the Tatars and the possibility of the restoration of Crimean Tatar national autonomy caused great concern among the Russian majority dwelling there. Their response was an effort to preempt such a development by the establishment of an Autonomous Republic of Crimea without Tatar participation; this was accomplished in February 1991. The new administration continued the old negative policy against the return of the Tatars. The strong reaction by the Tatars ultimately compelled the Russian nationalists to establish, in 1993, a quota of 14 Tatar MPs in the 98-member Crimean Parliament. The Russian majority in the parliament continued to block any development in the Tatars’ favor, eventually even revoking the 14-seat quota, and so excluding them from the parliament entirely. In the first decade of the twenty-first century, 15 years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, nearly 300.000 Tatars had returned to Ukraine. They continued to meet with difficulties and resistance in re-establishing their place in the economy, society, education, and culture.118 By the 2010s, Tatar population still did not exceed 12% of the population of the Crimea, 300,000 out of 2,200,000.119 With turmoil in Ukraine in early 2014, the Russian troops occupied the Crimean peninsula and, in a referendum in which the majority of the Crimean Tatars refused to participate, the peninsula was attached to the Russian Federation, although Ukraine refused to acknowledge the fait accompli. The Tatars protested the annexation, the bitter memories of two centuries of Russian rule still vivid; the Russian President promised rehabilitation and help to improve their life and proclaimed Tatar Turkish one of the Crimea’s three official languages alongside Russian and Ukrainian. The Crimean lo117 Kırımlı,
“Rus İdaresi Dönemi,” 464; Atmaca, Sürgünler ve Soykırımlar, 243-44. “Rus İdaresi Dönemi,” 464. 119 Alice Speri, “Crimean Tatars Hardly Reassured by Putin’s Promises of Inclusion,” Vice News, http://news.vice. com/article/crimean-Tatars-hardly-reassured-by-putin-s-promises-of-inclusion (accessed 24 May 2014). 118 Kırımlı,
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cal authorities promised on their part to ensure the protection of Tatar culture and religion, and announced that 20 percent of government positions would be reserved for them. At the same time, however, they announced that the Tatars would be required to exchange some of their current landholdings for land in other places in the Crimea.120 Whether these promises will kept or, as happened after the independence in 1774 and the first annexation in 1783, prove bitterly illusory, remains to be seen.
120 Denis
Dyomkin, “Putin Tells Crimean Tatars Their Place is in Russia,” Reuters, http://in.reuters.com/article/2014/05/16/uk-ukraine-crisis-the Crimea-Tatars-idINKBN0DW1B020140516 (accessed 24 May 2014); Reassured.” Speri, “Crimean Crimean Tatars Hardly Reassured.
A Brief History of the Crimea
Bibliography Atmaca, Tayfun. Sömürülen Topraklarda Sürgünler ve Soykırımlar. Ankara, 2009. Dyomkin, Denis. “Putin Tells Crimean Tatars Their Place is in Russia.” Reuters, http://in.reuters.com/article/2014/05/16/uk-ukraine-crisis-the Crimea-TatarsidINKBN0DW1B020140516. Accessed 24 May 2014. Fisher, Alan W. The Crimean Tatars. Stanford, 1987. Fisher, Alan W. “The Crimean Tatars, the USSR, and Turkey.” In Soviet Asian Ethnic Frontiers, edited by William O. Mc Cagg, Jr. and Brian D. Silver, 1-24. New York, 1979. Idiyatullina, Gul’nara. “Beginning of the Modernisation Process in Tatar Society.” In Tatar History and Civilisation, 208-19. Istanbul, 2010. Ishaqov, Damir. “Introduction.” In Tatar History and Civilization, 17-31. Istanbul, 2010. Ishaqov, Damir. “Islamic Turco-Tatar States in the 15th-16th Centuries.” In Tatar History and Civilisation, 117-78. Istanbul, 2010. Izmailov, Iskander, and Mirqasim Usmanov. “The Djocid Nation and its Islamization: Muslim Culture of the Golden Horde Period.” In Tatar History and Civilization, 75-115 (Istanbul, 2010), 94-5. İnalcık, Halil. “Struggle for East-European Empire: 1400-1700 – the Crimean Khanate, Ottomans and the Rise of the Russian Empire.” The Turkish Yearbook 21 (1991): 1-16. İnalcık, Halil. “Kırım Hanlığı.” TDV İslam Ansiklopedisi. İnalcık, Halil. “Yeni Vesikalara göre Kırım Hanlığı’nın Osmanlı Tabiliğine Girmesi ve Ahidname Meselesi.” Belleten 8 (1944): 185-229. İnalcık, Halil. “Osmanlı-Rus İlişkileri.” In Türk-Rus İlişkilerinde 500 Yıl (1491-1992), 25-36. Ankara, 1999. İnalcık, Halil. “The Question of the Closing of the Black Sea under the Ottomans.” In Essays in Ottoman History, 415-45. İstanbul, 1998. İslam Ansiklopedisi. S.v. “Kırım.” İnalcık, Halil. “Osmanlı-Rus Rekabetinin Menşei ve Don-Volga Kanalı Teşebbüsü (1569).” Belleten 46 (1948): 349-402. İnalcık, Halil. “Power Relationship between Russia, the Crimea and the Ottoman Empire as Reflected in Titulature.” In The Middle East and the Balkans under the Ottoman Empire: Essays on Economy and Society, 369-411. Bloomington, 1993. İsen, Mustafa and İsmail Hakkı Aksoyak. Vuslati Ali Bey: Gazâ-Nâme-i Çehrin. Ankara, 2003. Kırımal, Edige. “Kırımda Topyekûn Tehcir ve Katliam.” In Kırım’daki Soykırımı Unutmayınız, edited by Sabri Arıkan, 19-46. Ankara, 1994. Kırım’daki Soykırımı Unutmayınız, edited by Sabri Arıkan. Ankara, 1994. Kırımlı, Hakan. “Rus İdaresi Dönemi.” TDV İslam Ansiklopedisi. Kırımlı, Hakan. National Movements and National Identity among the Crimean Tatars. Leiden, 1996. Özenbaşlı, Ahmet. Çarlık Hakimiyetinde Kırım Faciası, translated by İsmail Otar. Eskişehir, 2004. Speri, Alice. “Crimean Tatars Hardly Reassured by Putin’s Promises of Inclusion.” Vice News, http://news.vice.com/article/crimean-Tatars-hardly-reassured-byputin-s-promises-of-inclusion. Accessed 24 May 2014.
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Appendix: Timeline of Crimean History • 1239: Genghis Khan’s grandson Batu Khan, leading an army consisting largely of subjugated Kipchaks, captures the Crimea, itself already largely settled at the time by Kipchaks. The peninsula is incorporated into the Golden Horde. • 1441: The Khanate of Crimea is established by Haji Giray Khan. • 1475: The Ottomans capture all the Genoese ports on the Crimean coast and restore Mengli Giray to the throne, thus establishing their suzerainty over the Khanate. • 1502: Mengli Giray puts an end to the existence of the Golden Horde. The Khanate and Muscovy become rivals for its heritage, notably for Kazan and Astrakhan. • 1523: Khan Muhammad Giray subjugates Kazan and Astrakhan, and burns the outskirts of Moscow. He is killed soon after by the Nogays and all his gains are lost. • 1552: Khan Sahib Giray, after having recovered Kazan and Astrakhan, is killed and replaced by Devlet Giray, sent from Istanbul. The Russians use this opportunity to annex Kazan, adding Astrakhan two years later. • 1569: The Ottomans make an unsuccessful attempt to dig a canal between Don and Volga and recapture Astrakhan, foiled to a large degree by the Crimeans themselves. • 1571: Khan Devlet Giray besieges Moscow without any lasting result. • 1584-88: The Ottoman Sultan’s name begins to be mentioned in the Friday noon prayers during Islam Giray II’s reign, signifying the increased political dependence of the Khanate on the Ottoman Empire. • 1654: Bohdan Khmelnytsky, hetman of the Ukrainian Cossacks on the Dnieper, makes peace with Russia after overtures to Crimea and the Ottomans. This leads to a further entrenchment of Russian power in East Europe. • 1696: Russia, having joined the Holy Alliance against the Ottomans, captures the castle of Azov, granted to it formally in the Treaty of Istanbul in 1700. The Ottomans recover it later by the Pruth River Campaign (1711). • 1736-38: The first Russian invasions of the Crimea. • 21 July 1774: The Crimea is declared independent by the Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca, signed between Russia and the Ottoman Empire. • 21 March 1779: The Aynalı Kavak Convention between Russia and the Ottoman Empire, signed after the suppression of a revolt against the Russian protégé Shahin Giray, confirms the independence of the Crimea. • 1783: Russia occupies and annexes the Crimea after suppressing a second revolt against Shahin Giray. Tens of thousands of Tatars emigrate from the Crimea in the following two decades. • 10 January 1792: After an unsuccessful war to recapture the Crimea, the Ottomans lose it permanently with the Treaty of Jassi. • 1860-61: A great wave of Tatar migration begins after the Crimean War (1853-56), encouraged by the Tsarist government. • 1874: The introduction of compulsory military service for Tatar youth contributes to the occurrence of further waves of migration until 1902.
A Brief History of the Crimea
• 26 December 1917: An independent Crimean Democratic Republic is established under Numan Çelebi Cihan’s leadership. • 23 February 1918: The Crimean Democratic Republic is dismantled by the Bolsheviks. • 18 October 1921: The Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (ASSR) is founded. • 18 May 1944: All the remaining Tatar population in the Crimea is deported to the east on Stalin’s orders. • 28 July 1946: The Crimean ASSR is dismantled and reduced to an oblast. • 19 February 1954: The Crimea is attached to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. • 28 April 1956: The severe restrictions on the mobility of the Tatar population in exile are relieved, but permission to return to the Crimea is withheld. • 5 September 1967: The Crimean Tatars are rehabilitated by official decree, but their right to return to the Crimea is still denied. • 23-26 July 1987: Tatars stage a a four-day demonstration in Red Square, Moscow. Afterward, they begin to return to the Crimea in thousands, despite continuing attempts by the authorities to hinder them. • 12 February 1991: An Autonomous Republic of Crimea, attached to the Ukraine, is established. The Tatars’ return to the peninsula continues; their numbers reach 12% of the total population of Crimea by 2014. • 11, 16, 18 March 2014: Following demonstrations by pro-Russian and pro-EU groups, the pro-Russian parliament of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea declares its independence. Five days later, with a referendum boycotted by the Tatars, the Crimea joins the Russian federation. This is ratified by the Russian President Vladimir Putin on 18 March.
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Notes