Who lived in Crimea before the Crimean Tatars. Origin of the Crimean Tatars ethnic group

The origin of both large and small communities of the population - peoples, nationalities and various ethnographic groups - is a complex historical process, including migrations, wars, epidemics, and deportations. Some populations became heterogeneous, which inevitably caused problems in understanding the history, culture, and evolution of both the communities themselves and the entire world.

To solve these problems, a number of classifications were compiled based on languages, specific objects of material culture, main phenotypic differences, etc. However, despite the existing good historical ethnogenetic and anthropogenetic reconstructions and classifications, it cannot be argued that they fully reflect the real historical fact. In this case, special biological (genetic) research, which has been rapidly developing recently, could help us.

One of these areas is the study of the morphological features of the structure of human hair, which are used not only in forensic medical examination, but also to determine various ethnic groups. Based on a large number of studies on hair of different nationalities, unique results have been obtained. It turned out that the edges of keratinocytes form specific “patterns”. They have, as it turned out, identical characteristic features for individual genetically closely related groups that make up a particular people. The change in edge pattern occurs very slowly, perhaps over several millennia.

The purpose of this work is to analyze the research results and compare the “patterns” of hair keratinocytes using a new scientific raster-electronic method (SEM) of various ethnic and ethnographic groups of Crimea, but first of all, to clarify the ethno-anthropological composition of the group of “Crimean Tatars” (breakdown produced according to the ethnic self-identification of the subjects).

The problem of the origin of the Crimean Tatars is complex and poorly understood. Although much has been devoted to the ethnic history of the Crimean Tatar people scientific works and monographs by historians, ethnologists, philologists. There are the following versions of the ethnogenesis of this people. A.L. Jacobson in his work “Medieval Crimea” directly indicates that “the ancestors of the Crimean Tatars are the Mongols.” Philologists have a different version, who, based on the peculiarities of the Crimean Tatar language, classify these people as Kipchak tribes (Polovtsians). The same views, in particular, are shared by Turkologist G.T. Grunina, who believes that the bulk of the Turkic-speaking population of Crimea, both before the Mongol invasion (if such a thing took place in the history of the peninsula at all) and after it, were Kipchaks (Cumans) and “only after the Mongol invasion” other Turkic tribes “came to the peninsula” .

The following peoples could take part in the formation of the Crimean Tatar ethnic group: Taurians, Scythians, Greeks, Byzantines, Sarmatians, Alans, Goths, Huns, Khazars, Proto-Bulgarians, Pechenegs, Polovtsy (Kypchaks), Horde, etc.

According to one version, “two powerful ethnic layers” emerged in Crimea: the Tats, who inhabited the mountainous and coastal regions of the peninsula, and the Turkic, whose representatives inhabited the steppe and foothill parts.

Another classification, based on practical observations, the study of dialect differences in language, characteristics of the anthropological type, material and spiritual culture, made it possible to divide the Crimean Tatars into four groups (the fourth is conditional, characteristic for 1940). The first group includes the Crimean Tatars of the southern coast of Crimea (self-name “Yaly-Bolyu” - “coastal”). Scientists include the second group as the population living between the First and Second ridges of the Crimean Mountains. They were called "tats". Conditionally introduced by scientists, the group of Crimean Tatars of the northern foothills lived in the lower reaches of the Chernaya, Belbek, Kachi, Alma and Bulganak rivers and had the self-name “Tatars”, less often “Turk”. And finally, the third group is the steppe Tatars of Crimea, or “Nogai”, “Nugai” (self-name “Mangyt”).

The South Coast Tatars were also called “tatami”. The ethnonym “janaviz” is also found. The Tat population of the eastern part of the mountainous Crimea retained the self-name “Tau-Boily”.
During the study, external biometric data were recorded, including: eye color, color, shape, length, thickness of hair, as well as the nature of their peripheral end, the nature and characteristics of the lines of the cuticle pattern, the number of the latter at a certain length. Hair was cut with scissors at the surface of the skin of different parts of the head (temporal, frontal, parietal, occipital regions). Hair samples were at least 50 mm.

The shape of the hair was described using conventional notations; their length was measured according to generally accepted methods. Hair color was determined according to the color scale of G.G. Avtandilov (1964) for pathologists and forensic doctors. Brief color scale by G.G. Avtandilova includes 107 chromatic and achromatic colors and shades. There is a color nomenclature that provides scientifically based names for color shades. The color naming system has a uniform terminology. When examining hair, a MMU-modified light binocular microscope (magnitude 5000) was used.

The obtained data were subjected to variation-statistical analysis. The name of the type of keratinocyte pattern was given according to that published in the monograph by Academician Yu.V. Pavlova (1996) classification. If a certain type of pattern in a subject was found in the overwhelming number of samples, then it was recognized as dominant for this person. And the sign found in the largest number respondents of the group is recognized as dominant in the group.

Some of the names of the types of keratinocyte patterns originally appeared as a result of research by Academician Yu.V. Pavlova. Some are the result of research by expert Alexey Novikov. General group names are used here, such as: Uralic (for Finno-Ugric peoples), Slavic, Iranian, Turkish-Asia Minor (for the ancient population of Asia Minor), Turkish-Turkic, Turkic-Kypchak (i.e. Tatar), Turkic Oguz (i.e. Turkmen), Northern Mongolian (i.e. Buryat), Western Mongolian (i.e. Kalmyk), Indian (i.e. Dravidian or Tamil), etc.

In our studies, the hair cuticle cells - keratinocytes - in the Crimean group of “Crimean Tatars” are large and have an arc. Mechanical damage to the free edges of the hair cuticle cells - cracks, breaks, splitting - indicates increased fragility of the hair, which is apparently associated with its genetic, chemical and morphological characteristics.

First of all, studies were carried out on adults of both sexes in the amount of 56 people identifying themselves as “Crimean Tatars”. The sample is random and due to the nature of the work of independent experts. The respondents evenly represented the Balaklava, Yalta, Alushta, Sudak-Feodosia, Sevastopol, Bakhchisarai, Simferopol, Kirov, Lenin-Kerch, Dzhankoy regions of Crimea, rural and urban areas. Pilot study.

In each case, when taking hair samples, the person's genealogy was taken into account, the region from which the respondent originated, and information about all ethnic inclusions, if known, was indicated. Such data is necessary for comparison, because In this study, an important place was given to the issues of cross-breeding of the people under study, their ethnic drift. In addition, it is necessary to take into account the extreme conservatism of the Crimean Tatar population before the Second World War, before the deportation in 1944, during which miscegenation was extremely low, communities were often endogamous.

In the studied Crimean group of “Crimean Tatars”, 33 types of keratinocyte patterns were found, of which the most common were: Chinese in 31 subjects (55.36%), Italian – in 27 (48.21%), Kurdish – in 25 (44.64%), Greek, Central Ural, Japanese and Turkish-Asia Minor – in 20 (35.71%), Latvian – in 14 (25.00%), Armenoid – in 13 (23.21%), Korean and Indian – in 12 (21.43%), North Mongolian – in 11 ( 19.64%), Germanic – 10 (17.86%), Turkic-Kypchak (Tatar) – 9 (16.07%), Iranian, Uzbek, Gypsy – 8 (14.29%), Iraqi – 7 (12.50%), Slavic – in 6 subjects (10.71%) of the total. This fact indicates that the “Crimean Tatars” are not a monoethnic group, but represent a complex multiethnic composite.

As can be seen from the data presented, among the “Crimean Tatars” the “Chinese” type of keratinocyte pattern turned out to be dominant (55.36%), which dominated in every two out of five carriers of this type (41.94%) and in every fifth in the group as a whole (23.21%).
The Japanese type was found in 20 people. (35.71%), Korean – for 12 people. (21.43%). Signs of all three types were found in 40 respondents, which amounted to 71.43%. This includes 32 people with the Ural (35.71%) and North Mongolian types (19.64%). Taking into account the fact that the same person can be a carrier of different anthropological types, we took these into account only once. As a result, there were 48 representatives of the “Golden Horde complex”, which amounted to 85.71% of the entire group. However, the Far Eastern anthropological type (Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Mongolian) dominates only in every third respondent of the entire group (33.93%).
Most likely, representatives of the Chinese peoples came to Eastern Europe along with the troops of Batu Khan in the 13th century. In addition to them, the Tungus-Manchurian, Japanese, Korean, Altai and other Siberian and Far Eastern peoples and nationalities could and should have been under the leadership of the Mongols. Initially, apparently, they could be localized in the Volga-Ural basin, where the core of the "Golden Horde" was formed. Consequently, assimilated Uralic peoples must also be taken into account in the composition of this population. In general, this community can easily be called “Golden Horde”. It stands out for its relative integrity, characteristic specificity, compatibility and is represented by a complex of Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Mongolian (northern, eastern and central groups) and Ural anthropological types.

The second dominant type is the “Italian” anthropological type of keratinocyte pattern (48.21%), which prevailed in one of the three carriers of this type (37.04%) and in every sixth in the group as a whole (17.86%). Taking into account the proximity of the French type (4 people = 7.14%), only 31 people, which would be 55.36%. However, in two cases the speakers of Italian and French coincided, therefore, we have 29 people of the Western Mediterranean type, which is 51.79%. That is, half. The appearance of the Italian type in the Crimea can be associated with the late Middle Ages, when in the XII-XV centuries, when there was an intensive Venetian, Genoese and minor Lombard and Montferrat colonization of the southern coast. A certain number of Italians could have appeared with the Romans who came to Crimea in the 1st century. BC. – VI century AD A small number of French colonists, apparently, arrived here in the 14th-15th centuries. together with the Genoese.
If the Italians and French are traditionally referred to as the western part of the Mediterranean community, then the Balkan-Armenoid group is traditionally referred to as its eastern part. First of all, this concerns the Greeks. Among the respondents, the study identified the Greek anthropological type in 20 people, which amounted to 35.71% of the group. The Turkish-Asia Minor anthropological type of representatives of the ancient population of Asia Minor and the Black Sea region was also found in 20 people, which is 35.71% of the group. And the Armenoid anthropological type was found in 13 people, which is 23.21% of the group. But taking into account that in some carriers the signs of different types may coincide, we ended up with 38 people, which amounted to 67.86% of the group. This reflects the realities of both the ancient population of Crimea and those who later arrived. The Turkish-Asia Minor anthropological type can correspond to both representatives of the ancient agricultural population of Crimea and representatives of Turkish expansion in the late Middle Ages and modern times. Greek - from the first appearance of the Greeks in Crimea in the 7th-6th-5th centuries. BC. until the first third of the 20th century. AD The Armenoid one may be associated with the appearance of the troops of the Pontic Emperor Mithridates VI Eupator here at the end of the 2nd century. BC, then - the Roman Empire, Byzantine Empire(not only the Byzantine dynasty, but also a significant part of the soldiers were Armenians). The large influx of Armenian population dates back to the late Middle Ages and modern times under the Genoese and Turks.
Of great interest in the study was the presence of the German anthropological type among the Crimean Tatars, residents of the Bakhchisarai-Balaklava region. This region was sometimes even unofficially called Gothia, believing that the descendants of the ancient Gothic-Germans remained there. According to the study, it was possible to establish that the German type among the Crimean Tatars is distributed extremely dispersed throughout the entire peninsula and is extremely rare: Sudak-Feodosia region - 3, Yalta - 1, Balaklava - 1, Bakhchisarai - 2, Dzhankoy - 1, Simferopol - 1 representative.

The discovery of Slavic types among the Crimean Tatars also aroused interest. The Slavic type belongs to 10.71% of the group; separately “Russian” (possibly Alan?) type – 3.57%. Total – 14.29% of the group. However, Slavic types are localized in limited regions: the Kerch Peninsula, Yalta-Alushta and Simferopol regions. In addition to the German and Slavic groups Iranian peoples belong to the Indo-Europeans. The Iranian anthropological type was found among 17.39% and is represented in the following regions: Alushta, Simferopol, Bakhchisaray, Balaklava, Kerch. It is most often combined with the following types: Italian, Greek, Turkish-Asia Minor, Japanese, Turkic-Kypchak (Tatar), Chinese, Ural, Iraqi. Considering the departure of Iranian nomads, localization in transit regions and the presence of the Golden Horde complex, we can assume a later origin of the Iranians. In this case, it is doubtful to connect them with the ancient peoples of the Northern Black Sea region: Scythians, Cimmerians, Sauromatians, Sarmatians, Alans.

It is noteworthy that among the respondents the representation of the Caucasian population is extremely low: isolated cases of Georgian and Ossetian types were found and no more. At the same time, the Indian anthropological type was found in 12 respondents, which amounted to 21.43%, and the Gypsy type - in 8, which amounted to 14.29%. Taking into account the belonging of these types to the South Asian group, a total of 17 carriers were identified, which amounted to 30.36%.
It should be noted a very high level of Western Asian and Middle Eastern types of keratinocyte pattern in the study group as a whole: Kurdish - in 25 people. (44.64%), Iraqi – 7 (12.50%), Lebanese – 4 (7.14%), Kuwaiti – 2 (03.57%), together – 33 people. (58.93%).

It is significant that of the Turkic types, "Turkic-Kypchak" is represented in 9 people. (16.07%) and “Turkic-Oguz” (Turkmen-Turkish – 1 person, Azerbaijani – 2 people and Uzbek – 8 people) for 10 people. (17.86%). The northern Mongolian anthropological type appeared in 19.64% of the group.

Of these anthropological types, first of all, we were interested in the Turkic-Kypchak, which is often identified with the “Tatar”. It turned out that it is extremely rare among the Crimean Tatars (up to 16%) and is localized in certain regions: Bakhchisarai, Yalta, Alushta and Kerch. Perhaps these are the remnants of the pre-Mongol Far East-Central Asian population of Crimea. It is tempting to assume that we found representatives of the Polovtsian (Kypchak) ethnic group.

What was surprising was the discovery of the Latvian anthropological type, which was unexpectedly numerous (25.00% of the entire group) and showed a certain localization in the so-called. “Gothic” region (71% between Bakhchisarai and Balaklava). It is also represented in the nearby Yalta region, as well as in the Sudak and Kerch-Lenin regions. It is often combined with the following types: Kurdish, Chinese, Mordovian; much less often - with Italian and Greek. This reflects a preference for belligerence rather than sedentism.

In general, the entire group of Crimean Tatars easily splits into northern and southern parts. The southern group includes representatives of the southern coast of Crimea from Balaklava to Feodosia. The anthropological types of this group are arranged in the following descending order: Italian, Chinese, Kurdish, Turco-Asia Minor, Ural, Greek, Japanese, Armenoid, Latvian, Korean, North Mongolian, Indian, Iraqi, Germanic, Turko-Kypchak, Iranian, Uzbek, gypsy, Lebanese.
Here the share of Italian increases sharply to 53.33% (among 30 people with South Coast roots). And up to 60.00% only among those living on the southern coast, without taking into account the descendants of mixed marriages with the northern group. Together with French, the share rises to 66.67%. And, accordingly, the share of the Chinese type also drops sharply to 43.33% with mixed marriages and to 40.00% for those from the south coast. Japanese: from one third to one quarter. Of the Golden Horde complex here, the percentage of the Ural type is unexpectedly large: more than 50%. The Korean type also grew from one-fifth of the whole group to one-fourth in the southern part without intermarriage. The Mongolian type (up to one third) was also strongly manifested among the southern coastal part of the group. The entire Golden Horde complex was found in 90% of the entire group.

The level of representation of Turkic types is traditionally low; it fluctuates between one seventh and one eighth of the group. While Caucasian types are insignificant and, perhaps, random, the share of Eastern Mediterranean types is expected to increase compared to the entire group: the Greek anthropological type is present in more than every second representative (53.33%), Turkish-Asia Minor and Armenoid - in every third . A total of 76.67% of the entire group.
The Near Asian-Middle Eastern types are represented by Kurdish (33.33%), Iraqi (20.00%) and Lebanese (13.33%). There are 17 people in total, which is 56.67% of the entire group. Quite low representation of South Asian patterns, about one in seven respondents. Minor representation of Iranian, Slavic, Turkic and Latvian patterns.
In general, the southern group demonstrates the following average composition: nine-tenths are Golden Horde types, three-quarters are Eastern Mediterranean, two-thirds are Western Mediterranean, and half are Western Asian-Middle Eastern types.
Anthropological types of the northern part of the group are arranged in the following descending order: Chinese, Kurdish, Turco-Asia Minor, Japanese, Italian, Ural, Greek, Indian, Latvian, Armenoid, Germanic, Korean, North Mongolian, Turko-Kypchak, Iranian, Gypsy, Uzbek .

Here the share of Chinese is traditionally large - 57.14% (dominant among the 25.71% of the northern group) and without mixed marriages - up to 73.68%. The share of the North Mongolian (dominant among 11.43%) and Korean (dominant among 5.71%) types falls compared to the average figure in the group, and the Japanese increases from one third to two fifths in the group (42.86%). The entire Golden Horde complex makes up 91.43% of the group. The representation of Eastern Mediterranean types is very high: the Turkish-Asia Minor anthropological type is present in two out of five (42.86%), Greek - in every third representative (31.43%), and Armenoid - in every fifth (22.86%). A total of 71.43% of the entire group.
The Near Asian-Middle Eastern types are represented by Kurdish (48.57%), which is dominant among 11.43% of the group, Iraqi (8.56%), Lebanese (5.71%) and Kuwaiti (2.86%) types. Only 57.14% of the entire group. Together with mixed marriages, Western Mediterranean types made up 42.86% of the group (dominant among 17.14%), and South Asian and Latvian types each represented 31.43% (both dominant among 5.71%). Minor representation of Iranian, Slavic and Turkic patterns.
The northern group demonstrates the following composition: nine-tenths are the Golden Horde complex, almost three-quarters are East Mediterranean types, almost three-fifths are Western Asian-Middle Eastern, two-fifths are Western Mediterranean, one-third are South Asian and Latvian types.

The entire group of studied Crimean Tatars demonstrates the following composition: almost nine-tenths are Golden Horde types, two-thirds are Eastern Mediterranean, three-fifths are Western Asian-Middle Eastern, half are Western Mediterranean, one-third are South Asian and a quarter are Latvian types.

Based on the data obtained on the distribution of keratinocyte types in the scalp of representatives of the studied Crimean group of Crimean Tatars, it can be stated that this community is multiethnic. A significant proportion of its composition is occupied by Golden Horde anthropological types [Chinese (55.36%), Japanese (35.71%), Korean (21.43%), Central Ural (35.71%), North Mongolian (19.64%)], Eastern Mediterranean [Greek (35.71%), Turkish-Asia Minor (35.71%) and Armenoid (23.21%)], Near Asian-Middle Eastern or Afroasiatic [Kurdish (44.64%), Iraqi (12.50%), Kuwaiti, Lebanese], Western Mediterranean [Italian (48.21 %) and French], South Asian [Indian (21.43%) and Gypsy (14.29%)], Northern European [Latvian (25.00%), Germanic (17.86%) and Slavic (10.71%)], Turkic [Turkic-Oghuz ( 19.64%) and Turkic-Kypchak (16.07%)] and Iranian (14.29%). However, the basic anthropological type of this group can be considered the “Golden-Horde composite” for the northern part and the “Italian-Balkan-Caucasian composite” for the southern part. At the same time, the most likely candidates for the archaic part of the Crimeans may be population groups with Turkish-Asia Minor, Greek and Armenoid anthropological types, which corresponds to the ancient farmers of the peninsula.
There is too little Iranian to build an assumption about the participation of the Scythian-Sarmatian-Alan peoples in the ethnogenesis, and too little German to build an assumption about the participation of the Gothic peoples in the ethnogenesis. Perhaps the ethnically Crimean Goths were not of Germanic origin or were completely exterminated or moved outside the peninsula. Perhaps the Baltic (Latvian) peoples will take their place.
Turkic types were separated from the Golden Horde complex due to the fact that “Oguz” influences may be of very late origin, associated with the deportation of a large number of Crimean Tatars to Uzbekistan. The Turkic-Kypchak or “Tatar” type, in turn, appeared in Crimea very early and cannot always be tied specifically to the Mongol conquests. In addition, the latter type is not scattered among all regions, but, unlike Chinese, Japanese or Korean, is strictly localized and is not characteristic of the entire Crimean Tatar ethnic group, which does not give researchers the right to call this community “Tatar”.

Perhaps historically there should have been more Slavic types, but a significant number of supposed speakers among the northern part of the Crimean Tatars were resettled outside of Crimea or left it after its conquest and wars in the 18th-19th centuries. Unfortunately, natives of the Krasnoperekopsk, Chernomorsky, Razdolnensky, Belogorsk, Nizhnegorsky and Leninsky districts of Crimea were absent or only slightly represented among the respondents. But this did not exclude the possibility of detecting some trends and processes.

Thus, based on the pilot study and the results of the analysis of anthropological macro-microscopic data on the structure of the cuticle of scalp hair, taking into account that the group itself is small, we can only make a very cautious preliminary assumption that the Crimean group of Crimean Tatars represents part of the characteristic Crimea is a community that is a complex ethnic composite that has been formed throughout the last millennium. In its formation, there probably was a partial miscegenation with the Golden Horde population of Eastern Europe. Among the processes that continue, one can note the erasure of narrow group barriers, increased regional migration, powerful urbanization, widespread loss of traditions, the replacement of local traditions with stylized Soviet or Arab-Turkish ones, and against this background, as a consequence, acculturation and strong intra-group and extra-group group miscegenation. The data obtained do not yet allow us to identify the Crimean Tatars with the Tatars, Turks, Slavs (including Ukrainians), Scythians, Sarmatians, Khazars, Germans (including Goths), Mongols and Celts. But they provide an opportunity to create historical reconstructions. For example, the participation of a large number of forcibly mobilized Chinese population from China destroyed by the Mongols in the campaign of Batu Khan.

The Crimean group of Crimean Tatars under study constitutes a significant part of Crimean society according to the latest population census. In linguistic, cultural and religious spheres of life, as well as in ethnic and genetic-anthropological relations, they represent a unique and specific Crimean community.

Our research can be used by anthropologists, ethnographers, historians, political scientists engaged in research of Crimean society, will help to penetrate deeper into the essence of the problems of the history of Crimea, reduce the severity interethnic relations in Crimea. But most importantly, there is a need to conduct a large-scale study of the main groups of the Crimean population, which could solve many issues of modern history.

The Autonomous Republic of Crimea is part of Ukraine - an independent state formed after the collapse of the USSR at the end of 1991 (from 1922 to 1991 - the second most important union republic Soviet Union).

The area of Crimea is 27 thousand square meters. km, population in 1994 - 2.7 million people. The capital is Simferopol. In the south of Crimea is the port city of Sevastopol, which was the support base of the USSR Black Sea Fleet (in 1996 the fleet was divided between Ukraine - the Ukrainian Navy, and Russia - the Black Sea Fleet; both fleets are based in Sevastopol, Balaklava and other bases on the southwestern coast of Crimea). The basis of the economy is resort tourism and agriculture. Crimea consists of three cultural and climatic regions: Steppe Crimea, Mountain Crimea and the Southern Coast (actually the southeastern) of Crimea.

Story. Crimean Tatars

One of the states that emerged from the ruins of the Golden Horde in the 14th-15th centuries was the Crimean Khanate with its capital in Bakhchisarai. The population of the Khanate consisted of Tatars, divided into 3 groups (steppe, foothill and southern), Armenians, Greeks (who spoke the Tatar language), Crimean Jews, or Krymchaks (who spoke the Tatar language), Slavs, Karaites (Turkic people professing a special not recognizing the Talmud, the movement of Judaism and speaking a special language close to the Crimean Tatar), Germans, etc.

Traditions of the Crimean Tatars attribute the spread of Islam in Crimea to the companions of the Prophet Muhammad (s.a.v.)- Malik Ashter and Ghazi Mansur (7th century). The oldest dated mosque - 1262 - was built in the city of Solkhat (Old Crimea) by a native of Bukhara. From the 16th century Crimea became one of the centers of Muslim civilization in the Golden Horde; from here the Islamization of the North Caucasus was carried out. The Zindzhirli madrasah, founded on the outskirts of Bakhchisarai in 1500, was very famous. The south of Crimea was traditionally oriented towards Turkey, while the north retained the steppe Horde properties. Among the Sufi tariqas common in Crimea were Mevlevia, Halvetia(both came from Turkey; the latter from the city of Sivas), nakshbandiya, yasaviya(the first traditionally dominated the entire Golden Horde; the latter came in the 17th century; both were widespread among the steppe inhabitants).

The conquest of the Khanate by Russian troops in the 18th century marked the beginning of the colonization of Crimea and migration from Crimea to Turkey large groups Tatar population. The Crimean Khanate ceased to exist in 1783, becoming part of the Russian Empire under the name Tauride Governorate (Tavrichesky Chersonesos). At that moment there were about 1,530 mosques, dozens of madrassas and teke.

At the end of the 18th century, Crimean Tatars made up the majority of the population of Crimea - 350-400 thousand people, but as a result of two migrations to Turkey in the 1790s (at least 100 thousand people) and 1850-60s. (up to 150 thousand) were a minority. The next waves of Tatar emigration to Turkey occurred in 1874-75; then - at the beginning of the 1890s (up to 18 thousand) and at 1902-03. In fact, by the beginning of the 20th century. Most of the Crimean Tatars found themselves outside their historical homeland.

After 1783, until the formation of the Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, the Crimean Tatars were part of the Tauride province (divided into counties: Simferopol, Evpatorsky, Feodosia /Crimea itself/, Perekopsky /partially in Crimea/, Dnieper and Melitopol /territory of internal Ukraine/ - in the last three Tatars also lived in the counties - in fact, Nogais). In Crimea itself, at the beginning of the 20th century, Tatars lived compactly in the area: from Balaklava to Sudak and from Karasubazar (Belogorsk) to Yalta; on the Kerch and Tarkhankut peninsulas; in the region of Evpatoria; on the shore of the Sivash bay. The largest groups of Tatar townspeople were in Bakhchisaray (10 thousand people), Simferopol (7.9 thousand), Evpatoria (6.2 thousand), Karasubazar (6.2 thousand), Feodosia (2.6 thousand) and Kerch (2 thousand). The cultural centers of the Tatars were Bakhchisaray and Karasubazar. By 1917, the number of mosques in Crimea was reduced to 729.

Crimean Tatars consisted of three subethnic groups: steppe Tatars (Nogai Tatars), foothill Tatars (tat, or tatlar), South Coast Tatars (yaly boylyu); the Nogai group stands out especially (nogai, nogaylar) mingled with the steppe Tatars; sometimes they distinguish the Central Crimean Tatars (orta-yulak). The difference between these groups was in ethnogenesis, and in dialect, and in traditional culture. In the places of deportation of the Crimean Tatars - Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, etc. - this division has practically disappeared, and today the nation is quite consolidated.

In 1921, the Crimean ASSR was formed as part of Soviet Russia. According to the 1939 census, the Crimean Tatars numbered 218.8 thousand people, or 19.4% of the population of the ASSR. In 1944, all Crimean Tatars were deported from Crimea to Central Asia and Kazakhstan - 188.6, or 194.3, or 238.5 thousand people (according to various sources). Russians and Ukrainians moved to Crimea from various regions of the USSR, and all material and spiritual traces of the Tatar-Muslim civilization of Crimea were destroyed, even the fountains at the mosques. All materials about the culture of Crimean Muslims were removed from all reference books and encyclopedias.

Persecution of religion in Crimea, as throughout the USSR, began immediately after the revolution. Until 1931, 106 mosques were closed in the Crimean ASSR (Sevastopol, for example, was given to the Black Sea Fleet) and 2 Muslim prayer houses, of which 51 were immediately demolished. After 1931, a second anti-religious wave took place, as a result of which the most magnificent mosques of Bakhchisarai, Evpatoria, and Feodosia, Yalta, Simferopol, which were slowly destroyed or destroyed immediately. The German occupation of the Crimea in 1941-44 temporarily allowed the restoration of relative religious freedom. After the deportation of the Tatars in 1944, all the mosques that had survived by that time were handed over to the new authorities of Crimea, then most of them were destroyed. By the 1980s not a single mosque has been preserved in a satisfactory condition on the territory of Crimea.

The libraries of the Khan's palace and the oldest Zinjirli Madrasah in Bakhchisarai contained thousands of titles of handwritten books. All this was destroyed with the loss of Crimean independence and began to revive at the end of the 19th century. In 1883-1914, Ismail Bey Gasprinsky, one of the prominent Muslim leaders throughout the Russian Empire, published the first Crimean Tatar newspaper "Terdzhiman" in Bakhchisarai. In 1921-28, many books and other literature were published in this language (writing: until 1927 - Arabic, in 1928-39 and from 1992 - Latin, in 1939-92 - Cyrillic). After the deportation of the Crimean Tatars, all books in the Crimean Tatar language from libraries and private collections were destroyed. [In 1990, the first Crimean Tatar library was opened in the center of Simferopol (in 1995 it acquired the status of a republican library). Now the library building is in need of reconstruction.]

In 1954, according to the order of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, the Crimean region was transferred from the RSFSR to the Ukrainian SSR (at the same time, the status of Sevastopol, which was a city of republican (RSFSR) subordination, remained "hanging in the air"). The Crimean ASSR was restored after a referendum on its status in 1991 (since 1992 - the Republic of Crimea, later - the Autonomous Republic of Kazakhstan).

Since the 1960s, when it became clear that the leadership of the USSR would not return the Crimean Tatars to their homeland (unlike the deported and returned Chechens, Ingush, Karachays, Balkars, etc.), new , young leaders, among them Mustafa Cemil, who later became the head of the Organization of the Crimean Tatar National Movement (OKND). OKND was formed by 1989 on the basis of the "Central Initiative Group", created in 1987 back in Uzbekistan. Until the mid-1990s, when the return of the Tatars became an irreversible phenomenon, the authorities of the USSR, then independent Ukraine and Crimea, created all sorts of obstacles to the return of these people, right up to the bloody massacre in the summer-autumn of 1992 in the suburbs of Alushta, trying to turn the confrontation between the Tatars and the authorities Ministry of Internal Affairs in an interethnic war. Only the high level of organization of the Tatars and a clear system of government contributed then and now to the goals facing the nation - to survive and regain Crimea. By the mid-1990s. lost its meaning that existed in the late 1980s. demarcation of the Tatar national movement (NDKT - conservative, loyal to the Soviet regime, led by Yu. Osmanov until his death in 1993, and radical OKND). Supreme body self-government of the Crimean Tatars is the Kurultai ("First Kurultai" is read, held in 1917; the 2nd - in 1991; the 3rd Kurultai took place in 1996), forming the Mejlis. The leader of the Crimean Tatars, Mustafa Cemil, was re-elected as Chairman of the Mejlis for the last time.

	Census 1937		Census 1939		Census 1989
TOTAL	990-1000 thousand		1126.4 thousand		About 2500 thousand
Russians	476 thousand	47,6%	558.5 thousand	46,6%	1617 thousand	65%
Crimean Tatars	206 thousand	20,7%	218.9 thousand	19,4%	OK. 50 thousand	OK. 2%
Ukrainians	128 thousand	12,9%	154.1 thousand	13,7%	622 thousand	25%
Jews	55 thousand	5,5%	65.5 thousand	5,8%	17 thousand	0,7%
Germans	50 thousand	5,1%	51.3 thousand	4,6%
Greeks			20.7 thousand	1,8%	2.4 thousand
Bulgarians			17.9 thousand	1,4%
Armenians			13 thousand	1,1%	2.8 thousand
Poles					6.1 thousand
Moldovans					6 thousand
Chuvash					4.6 thousand
Mordva					4.5 thousand

date	Number of Tatars in Crimea	Number of arrivals to Crimea	Total number of Tatars (sum of data )
1979	5k#
1987, spring	17.4 thousand*/ # - for 1989
1987, July	20 thousand*
1989	Approximately 50 thousand/ 38.4 thousand **/ #	For 1989 - 28.7 thousand****
1990, May	83k#	Official 35 thousand/ 33.8 thousand**
1990, October	120 thousand		100.9 thousand
1991, July	135 thousand/*	41.4 thousand****	142.3 thousand
1991, November	147 thousand*** = non-Ukrainian citizen
1992, May-July	173 thousand*	13.7 thousand from Uzbekistan*/ in total 27.6 thousand**	169.9 thousand
1992, September	200 thousand*
1993, July	270 thousand** (???)	19.3 thousand****	189.2 thousand (?)
1993, end	240-250 thousand*
1994		10.8 thousand****	200 thousand (?)
1995		9.2 thousand****	209.2 thousand (?)
1996, mid		3.6 thousand****	212.8 thousand (?)
1997, end	More than 250 thousand*, or 248.8 thousand*

Sources: * - "Crimean Tatar national movement".
** - "Peoples of Russia", Encyclopedia.
*** - Publications in "NG" (June 1996, December 1997).
**** - “Banner of Islam”, ј5 (09) 1997.
# - "Crimean Tatars. Problems of repatriation." P.85 (according to the Mejlis).

If in the spring of 1987 there were only 17.4 thousand Crimean Tatars in Crimea, and in July 1991 - 135 thousand, then in July 1993 there were already 270 thousand (??) (according to other sources, only by 1996 the number of Tatars reaches 250 thousand people; expert calculations indicate a number of 220 thousand Tatars by the beginning of 1997). Of these, 127 thousand (??) remain citizens of Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Russia, since the government complicates the process of obtaining Ukrainian citizenship (according to the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine, 237 thousand Tatars were registered by 1996). "Commonwealth of NG" (ј6, 1998, p.4) named a figure of 260 thousand - total Tatars living in Crimea, of which 94 thousand are citizens of Ukraine. Tatars return to the places of their birth and residence of their ancestors, although they are offered to settle exclusively in the steppe part of Crimea. The strategic goal of the Mejlis is the transformation of Crimea into a national Crimean Tatar state. Currently, the relative number of Tatars is close to 10% of the total population of Crimea; in certain areas - Simferopol, Belogorsky, Bakhchisarai and Dzhankoy - their share reached 15-18%. The repatriation of the Tatars has somewhat rejuvenated the age structure of the Crimean population, especially noticeably in rural areas (the proportion of children under 15 years old, according to some data, is 32% among the Tatars). But this effect is limited in scope - due to the exhaustion of immigration potential (among the Tatars remaining in Central Asia, elderly people predominate), due to the highest infant mortality rate among the Tatars (fertility rate 8-14%%, and mortality rate - 13-18%). %), due to difficult social and living conditions, unemployment and degradation of the healthcare system.

About 250 thousand Crimean Tatars, according to the Mejlis, still live in the places where they were deported (experts are very critical of this information, casting great doubt on it; we can talk about no more than 180 thousand Tatars, of which 130 thousand . - in the republics of Central Asia, the rest - in Russia and Ukraine). In present-day Crimea, Tatars live compactly in more than 300 villages, towns and microdistricts, of which 90% are self-built buildings without electricity, etc. About 120 thousand Tatars do not have permanent housing. About 40 thousand Tatars are unemployed, and more than 30 thousand work outside their specialty. From 40 to 45% of adult Tatars cannot participate in elections, because do not have Ukrainian citizenship (all data needs to be carefully double-checked, since many of them do not coincide with each other).

According to the 1989 census, there were 271.7 thousand Crimean Tatars in the former USSR. Many Crimean Tatars then hid their true nationality; According to research calculations, we are talking about a figure of 350 thousand Crimean Tatars. According to the Mejlis, about 5 million “Crimean Turks” live in Turkey today - descendants of the Tatars evicted from Crimea in the 17th and 18th centuries. (R. Landa estimates the number of “Crimean Turks” at 2 million people, Damir Iskhakov - at 1 million, the researchers most critical of this problem (Starchenko) believe that the maximum number of “Crimean Turks” who have not completely assimilated does not exceed 50 thousand people.) In addition, the historical parts of the Crimean Tatar nation are the Budzhak, or Dobruja Tatars, living in Romania (21 thousand, or 23-35 thousand - D. Iskhakov), Bulgaria (5, or 6 thousand) and in Turkey in the Bursa region. In addition to the Tatars of Crimea and Dobruja themselves, the third part of the nation formed in the former Crimean Khanate after the collapse of the Golden Horde were the Tatars of Kuban (modern Krasnodar region of Russia) - who completely migrated to Turkey, either destroyed by Russian troops, or became part of the Nogais and Cossacks of Kuban in the 17th-18th centuries.

According to the law of 1993, the Crimean Tatars received 14 seats (out of 98) in the Crimean parliament - the Supreme Council. However, the Mejlis sought a quota of 1/3 of all deputy mandates + 1 mandate - in order to block the adoption of laws that affected the interests of the Tatars. Until now, the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatars has not been recognized as a legitimate body by either the Crimean authorities or the Ukrainian authorities. The new Constitution of Crimea, adopted in November 1995, does not provide for a parliamentary quota for indigenous and deported peoples. The new Constitution of Ukraine, adopted by the Verkhovna Rada in 1996, in the section “Autonomous Republic of Crimea”, also does not provide for the concepts of “indigenous” or “deported” peoples.

The elections to the Crimean parliament that took place in the spring of 1998 did not give the Tatars a single seat (the only Crimean Tatar in the new Supreme Council was elected on the list of the Communist Party); 2 Crimean Tatars (including Mustafa Dzhemil) were elected to the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine - according to the Rukh lists.

Spiritual Administration of Muslims of Crimea

The first DUM in Crimea was formed under Tsar Alexander I in 1788 (Tauride DUM, with its center in Simferopol). In the 1920s The DUM was liquidated (in 1924 the Crimean Central Muslim People's Administration of Religious Affairs was created, headed by the Mufti, which soon disappeared). In 1941-44, during the occupation of Crimea by the Germans, they allowed the Tatars to regain their mosques (250 mosques were opened) and madrassas; “Muslim committees” were created, but the muftiate was not allowed to be restored. In 1991, the Kadiat (Spiritual Administration) of the Muslims of Crimea was formed, which had the status of a mukhtasibat within the DUMES. Seyid-Jalil Ibragimov became the first mufti of Crimea (under him, in 1995, the DUM included 95 parishes; the most literate of his generation among the Crimean Tatars, he graduated from the Bukhara Madrasah and the Islamic Institute in Tashkent); in 1995, Nuri Mustafayev became a mufti, having more neutral relations than his predecessor with the chairman of the DUM of Ukraine A. Tamim (the leader of the Khabashists, who is not recognized by the Tatars of Ukraine, has very a good relationship with the government of Ukraine and support from Caucasians, Lebanese and Palestinian Arabs and other Shafiites), and better relations with the Turks (but much less literate in the field of Islam). [Said-Jalil-Hazrat has now gone to study in Riyadh.]

Assistance to the Crimean Tatars in restoring their national culture and religion is provided by the government and private organizations of Turkey, and charitable organizations from Arab and Muslim countries. They finance the construction of mosques in new villages built by the Tatars. But the restoration of ancient mosques in the cities of Crimea, as well as assistance in the socio-economic development of the Crimean Tatars, requires more active participation of Islamic states.

Currently, 186 Muslim communities are registered in Crimea, there are 75 mosques (June 1998), most of which are adapted buildings. In December 1997, the Muslim community of Bakhchisarai, with the support of the Mejlis, occupied a mosque on the territory of the Khan's palace-museum.

Karaites

Karaites (Karai, Karaylar - from the Hebrew “readers”) are a Turkic people who speak a special Turkic language (the Karaite language of the Kipchak subgroup, the writing is Jewish), professing a special current of Judaism - Karaiteism, or Karaism, founded in the 8th century by the Mesopotamian Jew Ben- David. Karaites recognize the Old Testament (Torah and other books), but, unlike other Jews, they do not recognize the Talmud. Although there are more than 20 thousand Karaites all over the world - in Egypt (Cairo), Ethiopia, Turkey (Istanbul), Iran, and now mainly in Israel - the Crimean Karaites (and their descendants in Lithuania, Poland, Ukraine and Russia) are considered a special ethnic group, related to the Middle Eastern Karaites only by a single religion, but having a different origin and a different native language. According to the most common version of their origin, they are descendants of the Khazars (Crimea was part of the Khazar Kaganate), who professed Judaism. After the defeat of Khazaria in the 10th century, the bulk of the Khazars assimilated with other peoples (as Douglas Reed argues in his book “The Question of Zion” based on the works of some historians, such a large mass of people could not assimilate without a trace; the descendants of the Khazars who adopted the languages of their neighbors, but those who did not change their religion, says D. Reed, are the Ashkenazi Jews of the countries of Eastern Europe: the Lithuanian-Polish state, the Russian Empire, Romania, etc.), while a smaller part, which apparently had differences from other Khazars, remained in Crimea and turned into Karaites. They lived in Crimea in the fortified cities of Chufut-Kale and Mangup-Kale, and occupied a very honorable position at the Khan’s court. At the end of the 14th century, part of the Karaites, together with a small horde of Crimean Tatars, went to Lithuania, to Grand Duke Vytautas, who settled them around the city of Trakai and guaranteed them freedom of religion and language (the descendants of those Tatars are modern Lithuanian Tatars, and the descendants of the Karaites are about 300 people - still live in Trakai, and they are the only ones who have preserved the Karaite language). Another group of Karaites then settled in Galicia and Volyn (Lutsk, Galich, Krasny Ostrov, etc. - modern western Ukraine). The Trakai and Galich-Lutsk groups developed independently from the Crimean Karaites. When Crimea was annexed by Russia in 1783, the Turks wanted to evacuate the Karaites to Albania. However, Russian rulers, starting with Catherine II, treated them favorably (in contrast to their attitude towards Jews). The Karaites were the owners of tobacco and fruit plantations, salt mines (the Jews were small artisans and traders). In 1837, the Tauride Spiritual Administration of the Karaites was formed (by analogy with the Spiritual Administrations of Muslims); the residence of the gaham - the head of the Karaite clergy - was Evpatoria. During the revolution and civil war in Russia in 1918-20. The Karaites participated in it mainly on the side of the whites. After the revolution, all religious buildings of the Karaites (kenas) in Crimea were closed, including the central kenasa in Yevpatoria, in which a museum of atheism was established (until the 1940s, the only Karaite kenasa operated in Trakai, Lithuania). The national library - "karai bitikligi" - was destroyed. After the death of the last Gahan in the late 80s. no one was chosen in his place, and thus the religious institutions almost collapsed.

In 1897, the total number of Karaites in Russia was 12.9 thousand. There were 9 thousand Karaites within the borders of the USSR in 1926, and 5 thousand abroad (mainly Lithuania and Poland). In 1932 in the USSR - 10 thousand (mainly in Crimea), in Poland and Lithuania - about 2 thousand. Before the war, there were about 5 thousand Karaites in Crimea. During the war, the Germans did not persecute the Karaites (unlike the Jews), for which there was a special order from the German Ministry of Internal Affairs (1939) that the “racial psychology” of the Karaites was not Jewish (although the Karaites in Krasnodar and Novorossiysk were persecuted). Nevertheless, after the war, the process of migration of Karaites abroad, and above all to Israel, and, most importantly, strong assimilation by Russians, is gradually gaining momentum. In 1979, there were 3.3 thousand Karaites throughout the USSR, of which 1.15 thousand were in Crimea. In 1989 in the USSR - 2.6 thousand, of which in Ukraine - 1.4 thousand (including in Crimea - 0.9 thousand, as well as in Galicia, Volyn, Odessa), in Lithuania - 0 .3 thousand, in Russia - 0.7 thousand. In the 1990s. The national movement intensified, kenas were opened in Vilnius, Kharkov, and it is planned to open kenas in Evpatoria. However, a clear trend towards a decline in national self-awareness leaves little chance for this nation. With the exception of the Karaites of Lithuania, only the older generation knows the language.

Today there are no more than 0.8 thousand Karaites in Crimea, which is 0.03% of the population of Crimea. Using the status of the “indigenous people of Crimea” (along with the Crimean Tatars and Krymchaks), they had 1 seat (out of 98) in the parliament of the republic, according to the amendments to the Law “On Elections of the Supreme Council of Crimea”, adopted on October 14, 1993 (new Constitution of Crimea 1995 and the new Constitution of Ukraine in 1996 deprives them of such a quota).

Krymchaks

Krymchaks (Crimean Jews) have lived in Crimea since the Middle Ages. They were distinguished from other groups of Jews (Ashkenazi and others) who appeared in Crimea much later - in the 18th-19th centuries - by their spoken language (a special dialect of the Crimean Tatar language) and traditional way of life. In the 14th-16th centuries. their main center was the city of Kaffa (modern Feodosia), at the end of the 18th century. - Karasu-Bazar (modern Belogorsk), since the 1920s - Simferopol. In the 19th century, the Krymchaks were a small, poor community engaged in crafts, agriculture, gardening and viticulture, and trade. At the beginning of the 20th century. Krymchaks also lived in Alushta, Yalta, Yevpatoria, Kerch, as well as outside Crimea - in Novorossiysk, Sukhumi, etc. Representatives of the Krymchaks took part in the Zionist movement. In 1941-42 Most of the Crimeans died during the German occupation of Crimea. In the 1970-90s. the high level of migration to Israel practically led to the disappearance of this people from Crimea and the countries of the former USSR. The number of Krymchaks in Crimea before the war was 7.5 thousand, in 1979 - 1.05 thousand, in 1989 - 679 people, in 1991 - 604 people. (or less than 0.02% of the modern population of Crimea). Currently, considered one of the “indigenous peoples of Crimea” (along with the Crimean Tatars and Karaites), they had 1 seat (out of 98) in the parliament of the republic, according to the additions to the Law “On Elections of the Supreme Council of Crimea”, adopted on October 14, 1993 ( the new Constitution of Crimea of 1995 and the new Constitution of Ukraine of 1996 deprive them of such a quota).

Crimean Armenians, Bulgarians, Greeks and Germans

In 1941, by order of the Soviet government, the Germans - about 51 thousand people - were deported from Crimea to the eastern regions of the USSR; in May 1944, after the liberation of Crimea from the Nazis, the Crimean Tatars and the remnants of the Crimean Germans (0.4 thousand) were deported; a month later, in June, the same fate befell the Greeks (14.7, or 15 thousand), Bulgarians (12.4 thousand) and Armenians (9.6, or 11 thousand), as well as foreign nationals living in Crimea: 3.5 thousand Greeks, 1.2 thousand Germans, Italians, Romanians, Turks, Iranians, etc.

Armenians known in Crimea since the 11th century. In the 11th-14th centuries. they migrated to the peninsula from Hamshen and Ani (Asia Minor), settling mainly in the cities of Kaffa (Feodosia), Solkhat (Old Crimea), Karasubazar (Belogorsk), Orabazar (Armensk). In the 14th-18th centuries. Armenians occupied the second largest number in Crimea after the Tatars. Subsequently, the colony was replenished with immigrants from Armenia, Turkey, and Russia. Since the 12th century, they built 13 monasteries and 51 churches in Crimea. In 1939, 13 thousand Armenians lived in Crimea (or 1.1% of the total population of the republic). After the deportation of 1944, Crimea began to be populated again by Armenians in the 1960s. - immigrants from Armenia, Nagorno-Karabakh, Georgia, Central Asia. In 1989, there were 2.8 thousand Armenians in Crimea (of which 1.3 thousand were city residents). Only a small part of them are descendants of those deported from Crimea after the war.

Bulgarians appeared in Crimea at the end of the 18th-19th centuries. in connection with the Russian-Turkish wars. In 1939, 17.9 thousand Bulgarians (or 1.4%) lived in Crimea. Due to the performance of Bulgaria during the war of 1941-45. On the side of Nazi Germany, all Bulgarians were deported from Crimea. Today, their repatriation is the least organized (compared to other nations).

Greeks lived in Crimea since ancient times, having numerous colonies here. The descendants of the ancient Greeks - immigrants from the Empire of Trebizond - "Romeyus" with their native Crimean Tatar language and Modern Greek (Mariupol dialect) - who lived in the Bakhchisaray region, in the bulk were withdrawn in 1779 from the Crimea to the northern coast of the Sea of \u200b\u200bAzov in the Mariupol region (modern. Donetsk region of Ukraine). The settlers of the new time (17-19 centuries) - "Hellenes" with the Modern Greek (in the form of dimotic) language and Pontics with the Pontic dialect of the Modern Greek language - settled in Kerch, Balaklava, Feodosia, Sevastopol, Simferopol, etc. In 1939, Greeks made up 1.8% of the republic's population (20.7 thousand). The deportation of 1944 left a very heavy psychological mark on the national consciousness of the Greeks; Until now, many of them, when returning to the peninsula, prefer not to advertise their nationality (even after 1989, Greeks were practically not registered in Crimea); I have a strong desire to go to Greece. Among those returning to the Crimea, a significant part are the descendants of the Pontic Greeks deported in 1944-49. from various regions of the North Caucasus; Likewise, Crimean Greeks settled in the North Caucasus.

Germans began to populate Crimea since the time of Catherine II. This was the only one of the old-time groups of Crimea that mixed little with the Crimean Tatars and adopted almost nothing from the Tatars (neither in language nor in culture). On the contrary, already in the 20th century. German city dwellers in Simferopol, Yalta and others did not differ in their everyday life from Russians. In 1939, there were 51.3 thousand Germans in Crimea, or 4.6% of the republic's population. The bulk of them were evicted in 1941, a small part - in 1944. Today, both the descendants of the Crimean Germans and the Germans of the Volga region and other areas are returning to Crimea (all the Germans of the European part of Russia and Ukraine were deported at the beginning of the war). When returning, they probably experience the least difficulties compared to other peoples. Neither the local population, nor the Crimean authorities, nor the Ukrainian authorities have anything against their return, and even, on the contrary, in every possible way invite the Germans to settle in Crimea (are they hoping for a financial flow from Germany?).

As of November 1, 1997, about 12 thousand Bulgarians, Armenians, Greeks and Germans returned to Crimea (NG, December 1997). All these groups, as descendants of “deported peoples,” each had 1 seat in the parliament of the republic out of 98, according to the amendments to the law “On elections to the Supreme Council of Crimea,” adopted on October 14, 1993 (the new Constitution of Crimea 1995 and the new Constitution of Ukraine 1996. do not provide for such quotas).

Ashkenazi Jews in the 1930s had a Jewish National (Larindorf) district in Crimea; in addition, Jews lived in the Evpatoria, Simferopol, Dzhankoy and Freidorf (western Steppe Crimea) regions. The number of Jews in Crimea in 1926 - 40 thousand, 1937 - 55 thousand (5.5%), 1939 - 65.5 thousand, or 5.8% (including Crimeans -?), in 1989 - 17 thousand. (0.7%).

The most plausible version of the numerous sharp turns in the fate of Crimea is set out in NG on March 20, 1998 in the article by candidate of historical sciences, associate professor S.A. Usov “How Russia lost Crimea.” This article directly talks about the role of Jews in the sad fate of the Crimean Tatars, Germans and other problems. After the revolution of 1917 (the role of Jews in the revolution is known) and the civil war, about 2.5 million Jews remained on the territory of the USSR, i.e. half of their number in the collapsed Russian Empire. Most of them lived in Ukraine and Belarus. In 1923, after the mass death of more than 100 thousand people in Crimea from the famine of 1921-22, the majority of whom were Crimean Tatars, the USSR and the USA almost simultaneously began to discuss the idea of creating Jewish national autonomy by relocating Jews from Belarus, Ukraine and Russia to lands in the Black Sea region. In the USA, this idea was promoted by the Jewish charitable organization "Joint", and in the USSR by the elite circles of the capital's intelligentsia, close to Maria Ulyanova and Nikolai Bukharin. In the fall of 1923, a report was submitted to the Politburo through Kamenev with a proposal to create state autonomy for Jews by 1927 within the regions of Odessa - Kherson - Northern Crimea - the Black Sea coast to Abkhazia, incl. Sochi. Supporters of this secret project were Trotsky, Kamenev, Zinoviev, Bukharin, Rykov, Tsyurupa, Sosnovsky, Chicherin and others. Gradually, those discussing the project reduced the territory of the supposed Jewish autonomy (and in January 1924 already the Jewish Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, federated with Russia) to the size of the Northern Crimea. The “Crimean project” received wide support among Jewish financiers of the West, future US presidents Hoover and Roosevelt, leaders of the World Zionist Organization, and was included in the agenda of the Jewish Congress of America in Philadelphia. The US Congress, although it did not have diplomatic relations with Soviet Russia, decided to finance the “Crimean Project” through the Joint organization. After this, the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, based on Kalinin’s report, adopted a resolution on the possibility of organizing Jewish autonomy in Crimea. The resettlement of Jews to the Steppe Crimea began; the increased secrecy of the project was “exploded” by the chairman of the Ukrainian All-Russian Central Executive Committee Petrovsky, who gave an interview to Izvestia, after which the situation in Crimea sharply worsened. Unrest began among the Crimean Tatars and Germans; Tatar intelligentsia, in opposition to Jewish autonomy, wished to create German autonomy in the north of Crimea. In early 1928, Veli Ibraimov, chairman of the Crimean Central Executive Committee, who actually led the sabotage of Moscow's instructions to allocate land to Jews in the steppe part of Crimea, was arrested and shot three days later. After this, under the personal control of Menzhinsky, the GPU fabricated a closed trial “63”, according to which the flower of the Tatar national intelligentsia was sent to Solovki for resistance to the Jewish colonization of Crimea and shot there. The unrest of the Crimean Germans was harshly suppressed. In order to free up lands for the resettlement of Jews to Crimea, the Presidium of the USSR Central Executive Committee urgently approved a special law recognizing the North Crimean funds as lands of all-Union significance for the resettlement needs of the USSR; At the same time, about 20 thousand Crimean Tatars were deported to the Urals. Mass seizure of land for new settlers began. In total, 375 thousand hectares were confiscated - they planned to resettle 100 thousand Jews here and proclaim a republic. On February 19, 1929, in an atmosphere of heightened secrecy, an agreement was concluded between the Joint and the USSR government on American financing of the Crimean Project, according to which the Joint allocated 900 thousand dollars a year for 10 years at 5% per annum. Repayment of the debt was to begin in 1945 and end in 1954. The USSR government undertook to issue bonds for the entire amount of the loan and transfer them to the Joint, and this organization distributed shares among wealthy American Jews - among them were Rockefeller, Marshall, Roosevelt, Hoover and others. In total, by 1936, the Joint transferred more than 20 million dollars to the Soviet side. By that time, Stalin had already pursued a policy of destroying his competitors - Trotsky, Kamenev, Zinoviev and others. Soon Stalin decided to form two Jewish regions in Crimea (instead of an autonomous republic), and an autonomous region was created in the Far East in Birobidzhan; Later, everyone who took part in the project of the Jewish Republic in Crimea was destroyed. Nevertheless, it was not for nothing that the Germans were deported from Crimea in 1941 - they were retaliated against for their anti-Jewish speeches. When Crimea was occupied by Nazi troops, resentment towards Moscow in the light of the “Crimean Project” was the main reason for the alliance of the Crimean Tatars with the German fascists. With the outbreak of war with Hitler, Stalin was forced to reconsider his policy towards the Jews; The Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee (JAC) was created. In the USA, JAC representatives were reminded of the USSR's obligations regarding the Crimean Project loan; a little later, the fulfillment of these obligations was the main condition for the extension of the Marshall Plan to the USSR. In 1944, Stalin was sent a petition from the leaders of the JAC to create a Jewish republic in Crimea, and now it was not only about the northern regions of Crimea, but about the entire peninsula. In May 1944, the Crimean Tatars, and a month later the Armenians, Bulgarians and Greeks were deported from Crimea. The leaders of the JAC have already begun to distribute among themselves the highest positions in the future republic. However, a little later, the USSR supported the formation of a Jewish state in Palestine. Stalin again began to have fits of suspicion towards Jews, and a trial was launched against the leaders of the JAC; after sudden death Stalin stopped this campaign in 1953. Khrushchev's decision to transfer Crimea to Ukraine was caused by the fact that the obligations to allocate land for the resettlement of Jews to Crimea under an agreement with the Joint were accepted by the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the RSFSR. Thus, the transfer of Crimea to Ukraine was aimed at closing the issue of the obligation to the Zionist organizations of the United States to allocate land and create Jewish statehood in Crimea.

This story is indirectly mentioned by experts from the company “Applied Social Research” and the Center for Management Design S. Gradirovsky and A. Tupitsyn in the article “Diasporas in a Changing World” (“Commonwealth of NG”, No. 7, July 1998), saying: “at least two are known attempts to transform Crimea into a Jewish Autonomous Region in the 20s and late 40s of the twentieth century." (page 14).

Conclusion

In conclusion, I would like to highlight the main trends that characterize the Crimean Tatar nation today, after many years of exile and the difficulties of finding a homeland:

For 50 years of life in deportation, the Crimean Tatars have completely changed the rhythm of life and professional orientation in the sphere of production, from a rural area they have become mainly an urbanized nation.
The general educational level of the people has increased.
The dominant features were a huge capacity for work and an active life position.
There are no dependent sentiments.
The self-perception of the people as a single nation has strengthened. The conditional division into Tats and Nogays disappears.
Increased nationalist sentiment among the youth.
The development of culture and language was greatly slowed down.
Religion and many of its canons were transformed into national customs and traditions.
The spiritual basis of the worldview of the Crimean Tatars was the love for the Motherland and the desire to return to the Crimea.
The Crimean Tatars did not accept the state ideology, having repeatedly experienced its deceit and inconsistency.
There was a constant feeling of being "second-class" and, as a result, mental tension among the entire people.
One can state discrimination on the basis of nationality in all spheres of public life.
The discrepancy between the mentality of the nation and its position in state structure country (Crimea).
Lack of prospects for national development.

Today, more than ever, not just one-two-time assistance is needed, but targeted support for a number of economic, cultural, social, religious and educational programs to strengthen the very precarious positions of the Crimean Tatars in order to strengthen Islam and Muslims in Crimea.

Notes:

Some old and new names of major cities of Crimea

Literature

Publications in Nezavisimaya Gazeta, June 1996, December 1997, etc.
Crimean Tatars: problems of repatriation. RAS, Institute of Oriental Studies, M., 1997.
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Crimean Tatars are a nationality that originated on the Crimean peninsula and in southern Ukraine. Experts say that this people came to the peninsula in 1223, and settled in 1236. The interpretation of the history and culture of this ethnic group is vague and multifaceted, which causes additional interest.

Description of the nationality

Crimeans, Krymchaks, Murzaks are the names of this people. They live in the Republic of Crimea, Ukraine, Turkey, Romania, etc. Despite the assumption about the difference between the Kazan and Crimean Tatars, experts argue about the unity of the origins of these two directions. Differences arose due to the specifics of assimilation.

The Islamization of the ethnic group occurred at the end of the 13th century. It has symbols of statehood: a flag, a coat of arms, an anthem. The blue flag depicts a tamga - a symbol of the steppe nomads.

As of 2010, about 260 thousand are registered in Crimea, and in Turkey there are 4-6 million representatives of this nationality who consider themselves Turks of Crimean origin. 67% live in non-urban areas of the peninsula: Simferopol, Bakhchisaray and Dzhankoy.

They speak three languages fluently: Russian and Ukrainian. Most speak Turkish and Azerbaijani. The native language is Crimean Tatar.

The history of the emergence of the Crimean Khanate

Crimea is a peninsula inhabited by Greeks already by the 5th-4th centuries BC. e. Chersonese and Theodosia are large Greek settlements of this period.

According to historians, the Slavs settled on the peninsula after repeated, not always successful, invasions of the peninsula in the 6th century AD. e., merging with the local population - the Scythians, Huns and Goths.

The Tatars began to raid Taurida (Crimea) from the 13th century. This led to the creation of a Tatar administration in the city of Solkhat, later renamed Kyrym. With so began to call the peninsula.

The first khan was recognized as Khadzhi Giray, a descendant of the Khan of the Golden Horde Tash-Timur - the grandson of Genghis Khan. The Gireys, calling themselves Genghisides, laid claim to the khanate after the division of the Golden Horde. In 1449 he was recognized as the Crimean Khan. The capital was the city of the Palace in the gardens - Bakhchisarai.

The collapse of the Golden Horde led to the migration of tens of thousands of Crimean Tatars to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Prince Vitovt used them in military operations and to impose discipline among the Lithuanian feudal lords. In return, the Tatars received land and built mosques. Gradually assimilated with local residents, switching to Russian or Polish. Muslim Tatars were not persecuted by the church, since they did not interfere with the spread of Catholicism.

Turkish-Tatar Union

In 1454, the Crimean Khan concluded an agreement with Turkey to fight the Genoese. As a result of the Turkish-Tatar alliance in 1456, the colonies agreed to pay tribute to the Turks and Crimean Tatars. In 1475, Turkish troops, with the assistance of the Tatars, occupied the Genoese city of Cafu (Kefe in Turkish), and then the Taman Peninsula, ending the presence of the Genoese.

In 1484, Turkish-Tatar troops took possession of Black Sea coast. The Budrzycka Horde state was founded on this square.

The opinions of historians regarding the Turkish-Tatar alliance are divided: some are sure that the Crimean Khanate turned into a vassal of the Ottoman Empire, others consider them equal allies, since the interests of both states coincided.

In reality, the Khanate depended on Turkey:

Sultan - leader of the Crimean Muslims;
Khan's family lived in Turkey;
Türkiye bought slaves and loot;
Türkiye supported the attacks of the Crimean Tatars;
Türkiye helped with weapons and troops.

The Khanate's long military operations with the Moscow state and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth stopped Russian troops in 1572 at the Battle of Molodi. After the battle, the Nogai hordes, formally subordinate to the Crimean Khanate, continued their raids, but their numbers were greatly reduced. The formed Cossacks took over guard functions.

Life of Crimean Tatars

The peculiarity of the people was their non-recognition sedentary lifestyle life until the 17th century. Agriculture developed poorly and was mainly nomadic: the land was cultivated in the spring, the harvest was harvested in the fall, after returning. The result was a small harvest. It was impossible to feed people through such farming.

The source of life for the Crimean Tatars remained raids and robberies. The khan's army was not regular and consisted of volunteers. 1/3 of the men of the khanate took part in major campaigns. In especially large ones - all men. Only tens of thousands of slaves and women with children remained in the Khanate.

Life on a hike

The Tatars did not use carts on campaigns. The carts at home were harnessed not to horses, but to oxen and camels. These animals are not suitable for hiking. Horses themselves found food in the steppes even in winter, breaking the snow with their hoofs. Each warrior took 3-5 horses with him on a campaign to increase speed when replacing tired animals. In addition, horses are additional food for a warrior.

The main weapon of the Tatars is bows. They hit the target from a hundred paces. During the campaign they had sabers, bows, whips and wooden poles, which served as supports for tents. On the belt they kept a knife, a crosshair, an awl, 12 meters of leather rope for prisoners and a tool for orienting in the steppe. For ten people there was one pot and a drum. Everyone had a pipe for warning and a bucket for water. During the hike we ate oatmeal - a mixture of flour from barley and millet. From this the drink pexinet was made, to which salt was added. In addition, everyone had fried meat and crackers. The source of nutrition is weak and injured horses. From horse meat they prepared boiled blood with flour, thin layers of meat from under the saddle of a horse after a two-hour race, boiled pieces of meat, etc.

Taking care of horses is the most important thing for a Crimean Tatar. The horses were poorly fed, believing that they were restoring their strength on their own after long marches. For horses, lightweight saddles were used, parts of which were used by the rider: the lower part of the saddle was a carpet, the base was for the head, a cloak stretched over poles was a tent.

Tatar horses - bakemans - were not shod. They short stature and clumsy, at the same time resilient and fast. Rich people used beautiful cow horns for their purposes.

Crimeans on campaigns

The Tatars have a special tactics for conducting a campaign: on their territory, the speed of transition is low, with the concealment of traces of movement. Beyond it, the speed dropped to a minimum. During raids, the Crimean Tatars hid in ravines and hollows from enemies, did not light fires at night, did not allow horses to neigh, caught tongues to obtain intelligence information, and before going to bed, lassoed themselves to horses to quickly escape from the enemy.

As part of the Russian Empire

In 1783, the “Black Century” began for the people: annexation to Russia. In the decree of 1784 “On the structure of the Tauride region,” governance on the peninsula is implemented according to the Russian model.

The noble nobles of Crimea and the supreme clergy became equal in rights to the Russian aristocracy. Massive land seizures led to emigration in the 1790s and 1860s, during the Crimean War, to the Ottoman Empire. Three quarters of the Crimean Tatars left the peninsula in the first decade of the Russian Empire. The descendants of these migrants created Turkish, Romanian and Bulgarian diasporas. These processes led to devastation and desolation of agriculture on the peninsula.

Life within the USSR

After the February Revolution, an attempt was made to create autonomy in Crimea. For this purpose, a Crimean Tatar kurultai of 2000 delegates was convened. At the event, the Temporary Crimean Muslim Executive Committee (VKMIK) was elected. The Bolsheviks did not take into account the decisions of the committee, and in 1921 the Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic was formed.

Crimea during the Great Patriotic War

During the occupation, since 1941, Muslim committees were created, which were renamed Crimean and Simferopol. Since 1943, the organization was renamed the Simferopol Tatar Committee. Regardless of the name, its functions included:

opposition to partisans - resistance to the liberation of Crimea;
the formation of voluntary detachments - the creation of Einsatzgruppe D, which numbered about 9,000 people;
creation of auxiliary police - by 1943 there were 10 battalions;
propaganda of Nazi ideology, etc.

The committee acted in the interests of forming a separate state of the Crimean Tatars under the auspices of Germany. However, this was not part of the Nazi plans, which envisaged the annexation of the peninsula to the Reich.

But there was also the opposite attitude towards the Nazis: by 1942, a sixth of the partisan formations were Crimean Tatars, who made up the Sudak partisan detachment. Since 1943, clandestine work has been carried out on the peninsula. About 25 thousand representatives of the nationality fought in the Red Army.

Collaboration with the Nazis led to mass evictions to Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, the Urals and other territories in 1944. During the two days of the operation, 47 thousand families were deported.

You were allowed to take clothes, personal belongings, dishes and food with you in an amount of no more than 500 kg per family. In the summer months, the settlers were provided with food in exchange for the property they left behind. Only 1.5 thousand representatives of the nationality remained on the peninsula.

Returning to Crimea became possible only in 1989.

Holidays and traditions of the Crimean Tatars

Customs and rituals include Muslim, Christian and pagan traditions. The holidays are based on the agricultural calendar.

The animal calendar, introduced by the Mongols, depicts the influence of a specific animal in each year of a twelve-year cycle. Spring is the beginning of the year, so Navruz (New Year) is celebrated on the day of the vernal equinox. This is related to the beginning field work. On the holiday it is necessary to boil eggs as symbols of new life, bake pies, and burn old things at the stake. For young people, jumping over a fire and going home in masks while the girls told fortunes were organized. To this day, the graves of relatives are traditionally visited on this holiday.

May 6 - Khyderlez - the day of the two saints Khydyr and Ilyas. Christians celebrate St. George's Day. On this day, work began in the field, cattle were driven out to pastures, and the barn was sprinkled with fresh milk to protect against evil forces.

The autumn equinox coincided with the holiday of Derviz - the harvest. Shepherds returned from mountain pastures and weddings were held in the settlements. At the beginning of the celebration, according to tradition, prayer and ritual sacrifice were carried out. Then the residents of the settlement went to the fair and dances.

The holiday of the beginning of winter - Yil Gejesi - fell on the winter solstice. On this day, it is customary to bake pies with chicken and rice, make halva, and go from house to house as mummers to buy sweets.

Crimean Tatars also recognize Muslim holidays: Uraza Bayram, Kurban Bayram, Ashir-Kunyu, etc.

Crimean Tatar wedding

A Crimean Tatar wedding (photo below) lasts two days: first for the groom, then for the bride. The bride's parents are not present at the festivities on the first day, and vice versa. Invite from 150 to 500 people from each side. According to tradition, the beginning of the wedding is marked by the bride price. This is a quiet stage. The bride's father ties a red scarf around her waist. This symbolizes the strength of the bride who becomes a woman and devotes herself to order in the family. On the second day, the groom's father will remove this scarf.

After the ransom, the bride and groom perform the wedding ceremony in the mosque. Parents do not participate in the ceremony. After the mullah reads the prayer and issues a marriage certificate, the bride and groom are considered husband and wife. The bride makes a wish during prayer. The groom is obliged to fulfill it within the time frame established by the mullah. The desire can be anything: from decorating to building a house.

After the mosque, the newlyweds go to the registry office to officially register the marriage. The ceremony is no different from the Christian one, except for the absence of a kiss in front of other people.

Before the banquet, the parents of the bride and groom are obliged to buy the Koran for any money without bargaining from the smallest child at the wedding. Congratulations are accepted not by the newlyweds, but by the bride's parents. There are no competitions at the wedding, only performances by artists.

The wedding ends with two dances:

national dance of the bride and groom - haitarma;
Horan - guests, holding hands, dance in a circle, and the newlyweds in the center dance a slow dance.

Crimean Tatars are a nation with multicultural traditions that go deep into history. Despite assimilation, they retain their own identity and national flavor.

(in Turkey, Bulgaria and Romania)

Religion Racial type

South European - Yalyboys; Caucasian, Central European - Tats; Caucasoid (20% Mongoloid) - steppe.

Included in

Turkic-speaking peoples

Related peoples Origin

Gotalans and Turkic tribes, all those who ever inhabited Crimea

Sunni Muslims belong to the Hanafi madhhab.

Settlement

Ethnogenesis

The Crimean Tatars were formed as a people in the Crimea in the XV-XVIII centuries on the basis of various ethnic groups that lived on the peninsula earlier.

Historical background

The main ethnic groups that inhabited the Crimea in antiquity and the Middle Ages are Taurians, Scythians, Sarmatians, Alans, Bulgars, Greeks, Goths, Khazars, Pechenegs, Cumans, Italians, Circassians (Circassians), Asia Minor Turks. For centuries, the peoples who again came to Crimea assimilated those who lived here before their arrival, or themselves assimilated among them.

Important role in the formation of the Crimean Tatar people belongs to the Western Kipchaks, known in Russian historiography under the name Polovtsy. Kipchaks from the -12th centuries began to populate the Volga, Azov and Black Sea steppes (which from then until the 18th century were called Desht-i Kypchak - "Kypchak steppe"). From the second half of the 11th century they began to actively penetrate into Crimea. A significant part of the Polovtsians took refuge in the mountains of Crimea, fleeing after the defeat of the united Polovtsian-Russian troops from the Mongols and the subsequent defeat of the Polovtsian proto-state formations in the northern Black Sea region.

The key event that left an imprint on the further history of Crimea was the conquest by the Ottoman Empire of the southern coast of the peninsula and the adjacent part of the Crimean Mountains, which previously belonged to the Republic of Genoa and the Principality of Theodoro, in 1475, the subsequent transformation of the Crimean Khanate into a vassal state in relation to the Ottomans and the entry of the peninsula into Pax Ottomana is the "cultural space" of the Ottoman Empire.

The spread of Islam on the peninsula had a significant impact on the ethnic history of Crimea. According to local legends, Islam was brought to Crimea in the 7th century by companions of the Prophet Muhammad Malik Ashter and Gaza Mansur. However, Islam began to spread actively in Crimea only after the adoption of Islam by the Golden Horde Khan Uzbek as the state religion in the XIV century. Historically traditional for the Crimean Tatars is the Hanafi direction, which is the most "liberal" of all four canonical sects in Sunni Islam.

Formation of the Crimean Tatar ethnic group

By the end of the 15th century, the main prerequisites were created that led to the formation of an independent Crimean Tatar ethnic group: the political dominance of the Crimean Khanate and the Ottoman Empire was established in Crimea, the Turkic languages (Polovtsian-Kypchak on the territory of the Khanate and Ottoman in the Ottoman possessions) became dominant, and Islam acquired the status of the state religions throughout the peninsula. As a result of the predominance of the Polovtsian-speaking population, called “Tatars,” and the Islamic religion, processes of assimilation and consolidation of a motley ethnic conglomerate began, which led to the emergence of the Crimean Tatar people. Over the course of several centuries, the Crimean Tatar language based on the Cuman language with noticeable Oghuz influence.

An important component of this process was the linguistic and religious assimilation of the Christian population, which was very mixed in its ethnic composition (Greeks, Alans, Goths, Circassians, Polovtsian-speaking Christians, including the descendants of the Scythians, Sarmatians, etc., assimilated by these peoples in earlier eras), which comprised At the end of the 15th century, the majority were in the mountainous and southern coastal regions of Crimea. The assimilation of the local population began in the Horde period, but it especially intensified in the 17th century. The Byzantine historian of the 14th century Pachymer wrote about the assimilation processes in the Horde part of Crimea: Over time, having mixed with them [the Tatars], the peoples who lived inside those countries, I mean: Alans, Zikkhs, and Goths, and various peoples with them, learned their customs, along with the customs they adopted language and clothing and became their allies. In this list, it is important to mention the Goths and Alans who lived in the mountainous part of Crimea, who began to adopt Turkic customs and culture, which corresponds to the data of archaeological and paleoethnographic research. On the Ottoman-controlled South Bank, assimilation proceeded noticeably more slowly. Thus, the results of the 1542 census show that the vast majority of the rural population of the Ottoman possessions in Crimea were Christians. Archaeological studies of Crimean Tatar cemeteries on the South Bank also show that Muslim tombstones began to appear en masse in the 17th century. As a result, by 1778, when the Crimean Greeks (all local Orthodox Christians were then called Greeks) were evicted from Crimea to the Azov region by order of the Russian government, there were just over 18 thousand of them (which was about 2% of the then population of Crimea), and more than half of these The Greeks were Urums, whose native language is Crimean Tatar, while the Greek-speaking Rumeans were a minority, and by that time there were no speakers of Alan, Gothic and other languages left at all. At the same time, cases of conversion of Crimean Christians to Islam were recorded in order to avoid eviction.

Story

Crimean Khanate

Weapons of the Crimean Tatars of the 16th-17th centuries

The process of formation of the people was finally completed during the period of the Crimean Khanate.

The state of the Crimean Tatars - the Crimean Khanate existed from 1783 to 1783. For most of its history, it was dependent on the Ottoman Empire and was its ally. The ruling dynasty in Crimea was the Gerayev (Gireev) clan, whose founder was the first khan Hadji I Giray. The era of the Crimean Khanate is the heyday of the Crimean Tatar culture, art and literature. The classic of Crimean Tatar poetry of that era is Ashik Umer. Among other poets, Mahmud Kyrymly is especially famous - the end of the 12th century (pre-Horde period) and Khan of Gaza II Geray Bora. The main surviving architectural monument of that time is the Khan's palace in Bakhchisarai.

At the same time, the policy of the Russian imperial administration was characterized by a certain flexibility. The Russian government made the ruling circles of Crimea its mainstay: all the Crimean Tatar clergy and the local feudal aristocracy were equated with the Russian aristocracy with all rights reserved.

Harassment by the Russian administration and expropriation of land from Crimean Tatar peasants caused mass emigration of Crimean Tatars to the Ottoman Empire. The two main waves of emigration came in the 1790s and 1850s. According to researchers of the late 19th century F. Lashkov and K. German, the population of the peninsular part of the Crimean Khanate by the 1770s was approximately 500 thousand people, 92% of whom were Crimean Tatars. The first Russian census of 1793 recorded 127.8 thousand people in Crimea, including 87.8% Crimean Tatars. Thus, in the first 10 years of Russian rule, up to 3/4 of the population left Crimea (from Turkish data it is known about 250 thousand Crimean Tatars who settled in Turkey at the end of the 18th century, mainly in Rumelia). After the end of the Crimean War, about 200 thousand Crimean Tatars emigrated from Crimea in the 1850-60s. It is their descendants who now make up the Crimean Tatar diaspora in Turkey, Bulgaria and Romania. This led to the decline of agriculture and the almost complete desolation of the steppe part of Crimea. At the same time, most of the Crimean Tatar elite left Crimea.

Along with this, the colonization of Crimea, mainly the territory of the steppes and large cities (Simferopol, Sevastopol, Feodosia, etc.), was intensively carried out due to the Russian government attracting settlers from the territory of Central Russia and Little Russia. All this led to the fact that by the end of the 19th century there were less than 200 thousand Crimean Tatars (about a third of the total Crimean population) and in 1917 about a quarter (215 thousand) of the 750 thousand population of the peninsula.

In the middle of the 19th century, the Crimean Tatars, overcoming disunity, began to move from rebellions to a new stage of national struggle. There was an understanding that it was necessary to look for ways to fight against emigration, which is beneficial to the Russian Empire and leads to the extinction of the Crimean Tatars. It was necessary to mobilize the entire people for collective protection from the oppression of tsarist laws, from Russian landowners, from the Murzaks serving the Russian Tsar. According to the Turkish historian Zühal Yüksel, this revival began with the activities of Abduraman Kırım Khavaje and Abdurefi Bodaninsky. Abduraman Kyrym Khavaje worked as a teacher of the Crimean Tatar language in Simferopol and published a Russian-Tatar phrasebook in Kazan in 1850. Abdurefi Bodaninsky, in 1873, overcoming the resistance of the authorities, published the “Russian-Tatar Primer” in Odessa, with an unusually large circulation of two thousand copies. To work with the population, he attracted the most talented of his young students, defining for them the methodology and curriculum. With the support of progressive mullahs, it was possible to expand the program of traditional national educational institutions. “Abdurefi Esadulla was the first educator among the Crimean Tatars,” writes D. Ursu. The personalities of Abduraman Kyrym Khavaje and Abdurefi Bodaninsky mark the beginning of the stages of the difficult revival of a people who have been languishing under political, economic and cultural repression for many decades.

The further development of the Crimean Tatar revival, which is associated with the name of Ismail Gasprinsky, was a natural consequence of the mobilization of national forces undertaken by many, nameless today, representatives of the secular and spiritual intelligentsia of the Crimean Tatars. Ismail Gasprinsky was an outstanding educator of the Turkic and other Muslim peoples. One of his main achievements is the creation and dissemination of a system of secular (non-religious) school education among the Crimean Tatars, which also radically changed the essence and structure primary education in many Muslim countries, giving it a more secular character. He became the actual creator of the new literary Crimean Tatar language. Gasprinsky began publishing the first Crimean Tatar newspaper "Terdzhiman" ("Translator") in 1883, which soon became known far beyond the borders of Crimea, including in Turkey and Central Asia. His educational and publishing activities ultimately led to the emergence of a new Crimean Tatar intelligentsia. Gasprinsky is also considered one of the founders of the ideology of Pan-Turkism.

Revolution of 1917

At the beginning of the twentieth century, Ismail Gasprinsky realized that his educational task had been completed and it was necessary to enter a new stage of the national struggle. This stage coincided with the revolutionary events in Russia of 1905-1907. Gasprinsky wrote: “The first long period of mine and my “Translator” is over, and the second, short, but probably more stormy period begins, when the old teacher and popularizer must become a politician.”

The period from 1905 to 1917 was a continuous growing process of struggle, moving from humanitarian to political. During the revolution of 1905 in Crimea, problems were raised regarding the allocation of land to the Crimean Tatars, the conquest of political rights, and the creation of modern educational institutions. The most active Crimean Tatar revolutionaries grouped around Ali Bodaninsky, this group was under the close attention of the gendarmes. After the death of Ismail Gasprinsky in 1914, Ali Bodaninsky remained as the oldest national leader. The authority of Ali Bodaninsky in the national liberation movement of the Crimean Tatars at the beginning of the 20th century was indisputable. In February 1917, Crimean Tatar revolutionaries monitored the political situation with great preparedness. As soon as it became known about serious unrest in Petrograd, on the evening of February 27, that is, on the day the State Duma was dissolved, the Crimean Muslim Revolutionary Committee was created on the initiative of Ali Bodaninsky. Ten days late, the Simferopol group of Social Democrats organized the first Simferopol Council. The leadership of the Muslim Revolutionary Committee proposed joint work to the Simferopol Council, but the executive committee of the Council rejected this proposal. The Muslim Revolutionary Committee organized popular elections throughout Crimea, and already on March 25, 1917, the All-Crimean Muslim Congress took place, which managed to gather 1,500 delegates and 500 guests. The congress elected a Provisional Crimean-Muslim Executive Committee (Musispolkom) of 50 members, of which Noman Celebidzhikhan was elected chairman, and Ali Bodaninsky was elected manager of affairs. The Musispolkom received recognition from the Provisional Government as the only authorized and legal administrative body representing all Crimean Tatars. Political activities, culture, religious affairs, and the economy were under the control of the Musiysk Executive Committee. The executive committee had its own committees in all county towns, and local committees were also created in the villages. The newspapers “Millet” (editor A. S. Aivazov) and the more radical “Voice of the Tatars” (editors A. Bodaninsky and X. Chapchakchi) became the central printed organs of the Musiysk Executive Committee.

After the all-Crimean election campaign carried out by the Musis Executive Committee, on November 26, 1917 (December 9, new style), the Kurultai - General Assembly, the main advisory, decision-making and representative body, was opened in Bakhchisarai in the Khan's Palace. Kurultai opened Celebidzhikhan. He, in particular, said: “Our nation does not convene the Kurultai to consolidate its dominance. Our goal is to work hand in hand, head to head with all the peoples of Crimea. Our nation is fair." Asan Sabri Aivazov was elected Chairman of the Kurultai. The Presidium of the Kurultai included Ablakim Ilmi, Jafer Ablaev, Ali Bodaninsky, Seytumer Tarakchi. The Kurultai approved the Constitution, which stated: “...The Kurultai believes that the adopted Constitution can ensure the national and political rights of the small peoples of Crimea only under a people’s republican form of government, therefore the Kurultai accepts and proclaims the principles of the People’s Republic as the basis for the national existence of the Tatars.” Article 17 of the Constitution abolished titles and class ranks, and the 18th legitimized the equality of men and women. The Kurultai declared itself the national parliament of the 1st convocation. The Parliament chose from its midst the Crimean National Directory, of which Noman Celebidzhikhan was elected chairman. Celebidcikhan composed his office. The director of justice was Noman Celebidcihan himself. Jafer Seydamet became the director of military and foreign affairs. The director of education is Ibraim Ozenbashly. The director of awqafs and finance is Seit-Jelil Khattat. The director of religious affairs is Amet Shukri. On December 5 (old style), the Crimean National Directory declared itself the Crimean National Government and issued an appeal in which, addressing all nationalities of Crimea, it called on them to work together. Thus, in 1917, the Crimean Tatar Parliament (Kurultai) - the legislative body, and the Crimean Tatar Government (Directory) - the executive body, began to exist in Crimea.

Civil War and Crimean ASSR

The share of Crimean Tatars in the population of Crimean regions based on materials from the 1939 All-Union Population Census

The Civil War in Russia became a difficult test for the Crimean Tatars. In 1917, after the February Revolution, the first Kurultai (congress) of the Crimean Tatar people was convened, proclaiming a course towards the creation of an independent multinational Crimea. The slogan of the chairman of the first Kurultai, one of the most revered leaders of the Crimean Tatars, Noman Celebidzhikhan, is known - “Crimea is for the Crimeans” (meaning the entire population of the peninsula, regardless of nationality. “Our task,” he said, “is the creation of a state like Switzerland. Peoples of Crimea represent a wonderful bouquet, and are necessary for every nation equal rights and conditions, for we must go hand in hand." However, Celebidzhikhan was captured and shot by the Bolsheviks in 1918, and the interests of the Crimean Tatars were practically not taken into account by both the Whites and the Reds throughout the Civil War.

Crimea under German occupation

For participation in the Great Patriotic War, five Crimean Tatars (Teifuk Abdul, Uzeyir Abduramanov, Abduraim Reshidov, Fetislyam Abilov, Seitnafe Seitveliev) were awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union, and Ametkhan Sultan was awarded this title twice. Two (Seit-Nebi Abduramanov and Nasibulla Velilyaev) are full holders of the Order of Glory. The names of two Crimean Tatar generals are known: Ismail Bulatov and Ablyakim Gafarov.

Deportation

The accusation of cooperation of the Crimean Tatars, as well as other peoples, with the occupiers became the reason for the eviction of these peoples from Crimea in accordance with the Decree of the State Defense Committee of the USSR No. GOKO-5859 of May 11, 1944. On the morning of May 18, 1944, an operation began to deport peoples accused of collaborating with the German occupiers to Uzbekistan and adjacent areas of Kazakhstan and Tajikistan. Small groups were sent to the Mari Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, the Urals, and the Kostroma region.

In total, 228,543 people were evicted from Crimea, 191,014 of them were Crimean Tatars (more than 47 thousand families). Every third adult Crimean Tatar was required to sign that he had read the resolution, and that escaping from the place of special settlement was punishable by 20 years of hard labor, as a criminal offense.

Officially, the basis for the expulsion was also declared to be the mass desertion of the Crimean Tatars from the ranks of the Red Army in 1941 (the number was said to be about 20 thousand people), the good reception of German troops and the active participation of the Crimean Tatars in formations German army, "SD", police, gendarmerie, prison and camp apparatus. At the same time, the deportation did not affect the overwhelming majority of Crimean Tatar collaborators, since the bulk of them were evacuated by the Germans to Germany. Those who remained in the Crimea were identified by the NKVD during the “cleansings” in April-May 1944 and condemned as traitors to the motherland (in total, about 5,000 collaborators of all nationalities were identified in Crimea in April-May 1944). Crimean Tatars who fought in the Red Army were also deported after being demobilized and returning home from the front to Crimea. Crimean Tatars who did not live in Crimea during the occupation and who managed to return to Crimea by May 18, 1944 were also deported. In 1949, there were 8,995 Crimean Tatar war participants in the places of deportation, including 524 officers and 1,392 sergeants.

A significant number of displaced people, exhausted after three years life under occupation, died in places of deportation from hunger and disease in 1944-45. Estimates of the number of deaths during this period vary greatly: from 15-25% according to estimates of various Soviet official bodies to 46% according to the estimates of activists of the Crimean Tatar movement, who collected information about the dead in the 1960s.

Fight for return

Unlike other peoples deported in 1944, who were allowed to return to their homeland in 1956, during the “thaw”, the Crimean Tatars were deprived of this right until 1989 (“perestroika”), despite appeals from representatives of the people to the Central Committee of the CPSU, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine and directly to the leaders of the USSR and despite the fact that on January 9, 1974, the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR “On the recognition as invalid of certain legislative acts of the USSR, providing for restrictions in the choice of place of residence for certain categories of citizens,” was issued.

Since the 1960s, in the places of residence of the deported Crimean Tatars in Uzbekistan, a national movement arose and began to gain strength to restore the rights of the people and return to Crimea.

The Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine reports that recently, and especially in 1965, visits to the Crimean region by Tatars who were resettled in the past from Crimea have become more frequent... Some Suleymanov, Khalimov, Bekirov Seit Memet and Bekirov Seit Umer, residents of the city, came to Crimea in September 1965. Gulistan of the Uzbek SSR, during meetings with their acquaintances, they reported that “a large delegation has now gone to Moscow to seek permission for the Crimean Tatars to return to Crimea. We will return, all or no one.<…>

From a letter to the CPSU Central Committee about visits to Crimea by Crimean Tatars. November 12, 1965

The activities of public activists who insisted on the return of the Crimean Tatars to their historical homeland were persecuted by the administrative bodies of the Soviet state.

Return to Crimea

The mass return began in 1989, and today about 250 thousand Crimean Tatars live in Crimea (243,433 people according to the 2001 All-Ukrainian census), of which more than 25 thousand live in Simferopol, over 33 thousand in the Simferopol region, or over 22% of the region's population.

The main problems of the Crimean Tatars after their return were mass unemployment, problems with the allocation of land and the development of infrastructure of the Crimean Tatar villages that had arisen over the past 15 years.

Religion

The vast majority of Crimean Tatars are Sunni Muslims. Historically, the Islamization of the Crimean Tatars occurred in parallel with the formation of the ethnic group itself and was very long-lasting. The first step on this path was the capture of Sudak and the surrounding area by the Seljuks in the 13th century and the beginning of the spread of Sufi brotherhoods in the region, and the last was the massive adoption of Islam by a significant number of Crimean Christians who wanted to avoid eviction from Crimea in 1778. The bulk of the population of Crimea converted to Islam during the era of the Crimean Khanate and the Golden Horde period preceding it. Now in Crimea there are about three hundred Muslim communities, most of which are united in the Spiritual Administration of Muslims of Crimea (adheres to the Hanafi madhhab). It is the Hanafi direction, which is the most “liberal” of all four canonical interpretations in Sunni Islam, that is historically traditional for the Crimean Tatars.

Literature of the Crimean Tatars

Main article: Literature of the Crimean Tatars

Prominent Crimean Tatar writers of the 20th century:

Bekir Choban-zade
Eshref Shemy-zadeh
Cengiz Dagci
Emil Amit
Abdul Demerdzhi

Crimean Tatar musicians

Crimean Tatar public figures

Subethnic groups

The Crimean Tatar people consist of three sub-ethnic groups: steppe people or Nogaev(not to be confused with the Nogai people) ( çöllüler, noğaylar), Highlanders or tats(not to be confused with Caucasian tatami) ( tatlar) And South Coast residents or Yalyboy (yalıboylular).

South Coast residents - yalyboylu

Before the deportation, the residents of the South Coast lived on the Southern Coast of Crimea (Crimean Kotat. Yalı boyu) - a narrow strip 2-6 km wide, stretching along the sea coast from Balakalava in the west to Feodosia in the east. In the ethnogenesis of this group, the main role was played by the Greeks, Goths, Asia Minor Turks and Circassians, and the inhabitants of the eastern part of the South Coast also have the blood of Italians (Genoese). Until the deportation, the inhabitants of many villages on the South Shore retained elements of Christian rituals inherited from their Greek ancestors. Most of the Yalyboys adopted Islam as a religion quite late, compared to the other two subethnic groups, namely in 1778. Since the South Bank was under the jurisdiction of the Ottoman Empire, the South Bank people never lived in the Crimean Khanate and could move throughout the entire territory of the empire, as evidenced by a large number of marriages of South Coast residents with the Ottomans and other citizens of the empire. In racial terms, most of the southern coasters belong to the southern European (Mediterranean) race (outwardly similar to Turks, Greeks, Italians, etc.). However, there are individual representatives of this group with pronounced features of the northern European race (light skin, blond hair, blue eyes). For example, the inhabitants of the villages of Kuchuk-Lambat (Cypress) and Arpat (Zelenogorye) belonged to this type. The South Coast Tatars are also noticeably different in physical type from the Turkic ones: they were noted to be taller, lack of cheekbones, “in general, regular facial features; This type is built very slenderly, which is why it can be called handsome. Women are distinguished by soft and regular facial features, dark, with long eyelashes, large eyes, finely defined eyebrows" [ where?] . The described type, however, even within the small space of the Southern Coast is subject to significant fluctuations, depending on the predominance of certain nationalities living here. So, for example, in Simeiz, Limeny, Alupka one could often meet long-headed people with an oblong face, a long hooked nose and light brown, sometimes red hair. The customs of the South Coast Tatars, the freedom of their women, the veneration of certain Christian holidays and monuments, their love of sedentary activities, compared with their external appearance, cannot but convince that these so-called “Tatars” are close to the Indo-European tribe. The population of the average Yalyboya is different analytical warehouse mind, eastern - love of art - this is determined by the strong influence in the middle part of the Goths, and in the eastern Greeks and Italians. The dialect of the South Coast residents belongs to the Oguz group of Turkic languages, very close to Turkish. The vocabulary of this dialect contains a noticeable layer of Greek and a number of Italian borrowings. The old Crimean Tatar literary language, created by Ismail Gasprinsky, was based on this dialect.

Stepnyaks - Nogai

Highlanders - Tats

Current situation

The ethnonym “Tatars” and the Crimean Tatar people

The fact that the word "Tatars" is present in the common name of the Crimean Tatars often causes misunderstandings and questions about whether the Crimean Tatars are a sub-ethnic group of Tatars, and the Crimean Tatar language is a dialect of Tatar. The name “Crimean Tatars” has remained in the Russian language since the times when almost all Turkic-speaking peoples of the Russian Empire were called Tatars: Karachais (Mountain Tatars), Azerbaijanis (Transcaucasian or Azerbaijani Tatars), Kumyks (Dagestan Tatars), Khakass (Abakan Tatars), etc. d. Crimean Tatars have little in common ethnically with the historical Tatars or Tatar-Mongols (with the exception of the steppe), and are descendants of Turkic-speaking, Caucasian and other tribes that inhabited eastern Europe before the Mongol invasion, when the ethnonym “Tatars” came to the west . The Crimean Tatar and Tatar languages are related, since both belong to the Kipchak group of Turkic languages, but are not closest relatives within this group. Due to quite different phonetics, Crimean Tatars almost cannot understand Tatar speech by ear. The closest languages to Crimean Tatar are Turkish and Azerbaijani from Oguz, and Kumyk and Karachay from Kipchak. At the end of the 19th century, Ismail Gasprinsky made an attempt to create, on the basis of the Crimean Tatar southern coastal dialect, a single literary language for all Turkic peoples of the Russian Empire (including the Volga Tatars), but this endeavor did not have serious success.

The Crimean Tatars themselves today use two self-names: qırımtatarlar(literally “Crimean Tatars”) and qırımlar(literally “Crimeans”). In everyday life colloquial speech(but not in an official context) can be used as a self-designation and the word tatarlar(“Tatars”).

Spelling the adjective “Crimean Tatar”

Kitchen

Main article: Crimean Tatar cuisine

Traditional drinks are coffee, ayran, yazma, buza.

National confectionery products sheker kyyyk, kurabye, baklava.

The national dishes of the Crimean Tatars are chebureks (fried pies with meat), yantyk (baked pies with meat), saryk burma (layer pie with meat), sarma (grape and cabbage leaves stuffed with meat and rice), dolma (bell peppers stuffed with meat and rice ), kobete - originally a Greek dish, as evidenced by the name (baked pie with meat, onions and potatoes), burma (layered pie with pumpkin and nuts), tatarash (literally Tatar food - dumplings) yufak ash (broth with very small dumplings) , barbecue (the word itself is of Crimean Tatar origin), pilaf (rice with meat and dried apricots, unlike Uzbek rice without carrots), pakla shorbasy (meat soup with green bean pods seasoned with sour milk), shurpa, hainatma.

Notes

All-Ukrainian Population Census 2001. Russian version. Results. Nationality and native language. Archived from the original on August 22, 2011.
Ethnoatlas of Uzbekistan
On the migration potential of Crimean Tatars from Uzbekistan and others by 2000.
According to the 1989 census, there were 188,772 Crimean Tatars in Uzbekistan. () At the same time, it should be taken into account that, on the one hand, after the collapse of the USSR, most of the Crimean Tatars of Uzbekistan returned to their homeland in Crimea, and on the other, that a significant part of the Crimean Tatars in Uzbekistan recorded in censuses as “Tatars”. There are estimates of the number of Crimean Tatars in Uzbekistan in the 2000s up to 150 thousand people (). The number of Tatars proper in Uzbekistan was 467,829 people. in 1989 () and about 324,100 people. in 2000; and the Tatars, together with the Crimean Tatars, in 1989 in Uzbekistan there were 656,601 people. and in 2000 - 334,126 people. It is not known exactly what proportion of this number the Crimean Tatars actually make up. Officially, in 2000 there were 10,046 Crimean Tatars in Uzbekistan ()
Joshuaproject. Tatar, Crimean
Crimean Tatar population in Turkey
Romanian Census 2002 National composition
All-Russian Population Census 2002. Archived from the original on August 21, 2011. Retrieved December 24, 2009.
Population census of Bulgaria 2001
Agency of the Republic of Kazakhstan on statistics. Census 2009. (National composition of the population .rar)
About 500 thousand in the countries of the former USSR, Romania and Bulgaria, and from 100 thousand to several hundred thousand in Turkey. Statistics on the ethnic composition of the population in Turkey are not published, so the exact data is unknown.
Turkic peoples of Crimea. Karaites. Crimean Tatars. Krymchaks. / Rep. ed. S. Ya. Kozlov, L. V. Chizhova. - M.: Science, 2003.
Ozenbashly Enver Memet-oglu. Crimeans. Collection of works on the history, ethnography and language of the Crimean Tatars. - Akmescit: Share, 1997.
Essays on the history and culture of the Crimean Tatars. / Under. ed. E. Chubarova. - Simferopol, Krymuchpedgiz, 2005.
Türkiyedeki Qırımtatar milliy areketiniñ seyri, Bahçesaray dergisi, Mayıs 2009
A.I. Aibabin Ethnic history of early Byzantine Crimea. Simferopol. Gift. 1999
Mukhamedyarov Sh. F. Introduction to the ethnic history of Crimea. // Turkic peoples of Crimea: Karaites. Crimean Tatars. Krymchaks. - M.: Science. 2003.

On March 19, at a round table in Simferopol (Aqmesjid), Rosstat presented preliminary results of the population census of the Crimean Federal District by ethnic composition, native language and citizenship. The census conducted in October 2014 was the first on the peninsula since 2001, and new information about the national composition of the Crimean population was of significant interest to the Crimean public. Based on new data, we can now take a fresh look at the national palette of Crimea.

Summing up

According to the published results, the permanent population of the Crimean Federal District, which includes the Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol, amounted to 2284.8 thousand people. Of these, 96.2% indicated their nationality. About 87.2 thousand Crimeans either refused to participate in the census or did not answer the question about their nationality. For comparison, during the 2001 All-Ukrainian Population Census, 10.9 thousand residents of the peninsula did not indicate their nationality.

In total, census takers found representatives of 175 nationalities on the peninsula (according to the 2001 All-Ukrainian Census, representatives of 125 nationalities lived in Crimea). The most numerous national group are Russians, of whom there are 1.49 million people in Crimea. (65.31% of the total population of the federal district), including in the Republic of Crimea - 1.19 million people. (62.86%) and the city of Sevastopol - 303.1 thousand people. (77%).

The second place in number was taken by Ukrainians - 344.5 thousand people. (15.08% of the population of Crimea). Of these, 291.6 thousand people (15.42%) live in the Republic of Crimea, and 52.9 thousand (13.45%) live in Sevastopol.

According to the census results, the number of Crimean Tatars is 232,340 people, which is 10.17% of the population of the peninsula. 229,526 Crimean Tatars live in the Republic of Crimea (12.13% of the total population of the republic), and 2,814 live in Sevastopol (0.72%). At the same time, almost 45 thousand people (2% of the population) were registered as Tatars (Tatars usually mean Kazan, Astrakhan and Siberian Tatars).

The threefold increase in the number of Tatars (in 2001, 13.6 thousand Tatars were enumerated in Crimea) confused the census organizers themselves. According to the Kryminform agency, during the round table, the head of the population and health statistics department of Rosstat, Svetlana Nikitina, said the following: “Due to a sharp increase in the number of Tatars and a reduction in the number of Crimean Tatars by 5%, we carried out a random check of the correctness of collecting information in places of compact accommodation. The results of the checks showed that part of the Crimean Tatars called themselves simply Tatars during the census. People believed that they already lived in Crimea, and indicated the abbreviated name - Tatar, Tatar.” As a result, according to Nikitina, a decision was made to take into account the Crimean Tatar and Tatar populations in total, and at the next population census to carry out explanatory work on the importance of accurately indicating nationality.

Thus, the vast majority of Crimean residents belong to three main national groups - Russians, Ukrainians and Crimean Tatars. Among other peoples, the most numerous are Belarusians - 21.7 thousand (almost 1% of the population) and Armenians - 11 thousand (0.5%). The number of Bulgarians was 1868, Greeks - 2877, Germans - 1844, Karaites - 535, Crimeans - 228 people.

Who is in the black and who is in the black?

Over the thirteen years that passed between the 2001 and 2014 censuses, the number of representatives of the main nationalities changed in different directions. As can be seen from the table, the population of Crimea during the intercensus period decreased by 116.4 thousand people due to the excess of the mortality rate over the birth rate. At the same time, the number of Russians increased by 41.6 thousand people. The bulk of the increase (33 thousand) occurred in Sevastopol, while in the Republic of Crimea the increase in the number of Russians was purely symbolic - 8.5 thousand.

The increase in the number of the Russian population, apparently, was largely due to the reduction of Ukrainians. In total, Ukrainians lost 232 thousand people. Moreover, the reduction was significant both in the Republic of Crimea and in Sevastopol. Such significant changes may have been due to the fact that part of the Ukrainians changed their national identity to Russian.

The Crimean Tatar population, according to data from Rosstat, in turn decreased by almost 13 thousand people. Obviously, a significant part of the Crimean Tatars was mistakenly recorded by the scribes as Tatars. It should be noted that in 1989, according to the last Soviet census, 10.7 thousand Tatars lived in Crimea. By 2001, their number increased to 13.6 thousand. Even then, this fact raised questions, since Tatars live scattered on the territory of Crimea, and there were no noticeable migration flows from Tatarstan to the peninsula. In other regions, where Tatars are represented by Soviet settlers, their numbers have generally declined in the post-Soviet period. It is possible that already during the 2001 census, several thousand Crimean Tatars were recorded as Tatars. At least 6.4% of the Tatar population of Crimea then named Crimean Tatar as their native language. It is obvious that over the past decade there have been no prerequisites for a sharp increase in the number of Tatars in Crimea. Of course, last year a number of representatives of the Tatar people appeared in Crimea, who came here as officials and employees of law enforcement agencies. However, this could hardly increase the number of representatives of this ethnic group threefold.

The idea of taking into account representatives of the two nations together in the current situation can be understood with understanding. A different approach leads to an unjustified underestimation of the number of Crimean Tatars. In general, this is reminiscent of the pre-war Soviet practice, when the Crimean Tatars and Kazan Tatars were counted together. It is worth noting that the Kazan Tatars living in Crimea at that time were closely connected with the Crimean Tatar people, actively participated in their cultural life, and during Stalin’s deportation they were evicted along with the Crimean Tatars.

The total number of Crimean Tatars and Tatars is 277 thousand people or 12.14% of the total population of Crimea. The share of both peoples in the population of the Republic of Crimea was 14.36%.

Native language

As for the native language, 84% of the inhabitants of Crimea, who answered the question about the language during the census, called Russian their native language. Crimean Tatar is considered native by 7.9% of the population, Tatar - by 3.7%. This once again speaks of the quality of the census, since the census takers clearly recorded the Tatar language as their native language and among those who were recorded as Crimean Tatars.

Statisticians note that 79.7% of Ukrainians, 24.8% of Tatars and 5.6% of Crimean Tatars called Russian their native language. Ukrainian is the native language of 3.3% of the peninsula's population. For comparison, in 2001, 79.11% of Crimean residents considered Russian their native language, 9.63% Crimean Tatar, 9.55% Ukrainian, and 0.37% Tatar.

It is planned that more detailed results of the 2014 census by nationality and mother tongue will be made public in May this year. Then we will return to this topic again.

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