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Crimean Tatar diaspora
- The angry and wild Black Sea roared,
- Rushed to extinguish my burning motherland.
- The old Çatırdağ, distressed and worried,
- "Where are the Tatars going?" she cried.
İskender Fazıl, from his poem Stand Up (Çatırdağ is a mountain in Crimea)
The Crimean Tatar diaspora dates back to the annexation of Crimea by Russia in 1783, after which Crimean Tatars emigrated in a series of waves spanning the period from 1783 to 1917. The diaspora was largely the result of the destruction of their social and economic life as a consequence of Russian colonization policies.
The Soviet Union brought about a second dispersal of Crimean Tatars in 1944, in the midst of the Second World War, when it relocated those Tatars remaining in the Crimea to Central Asia. This population is considered an exiled community rather than a diaspora.
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Experiences in exile within the Ottoman Empire
The Tatars immigrated to the Ottoman Empire, where they were welcomed as fellow Muslims and as the populace of the formerly protected Crimean Khanate. The Ottoman territory was called "aqtopraq" ("white soil") by the Crimean Tatar immigrants, as they conceived of their migration as a "hijra" similar to the prophet's temporary retreat to Medina under the pressure from enemies of Islam. The outflow of the Crimean Tatars turned into an exodus after the Crimean War (1854-1856), as the Russian government began to treat the Crimean Tatars as internal threats to its security because of their historical relations with the Ottoman Empire.
The majority of the Tatar immigrants were settled in the Dobruja region of the Balkans by the Ottoman authorities, but some were directed to various parts of Anatolia, where they had to face serious climate challenges. Although some émigrés came from the coastal, central, and urban regions of Crimea, the majority were from the steppes and rural parts of the Crimean peninsula and its surroundings, including a significant number of Nogays, who had integrated in the main Tatar population. There are accounts of entire families or villages perishing because of their inability to adapt to the environmental changes they faced in Anatolia.
The Crimean Tatars, who lived largely in closed peasant communities, observing endogamy, were able to maintain their ethnic identity and language intact almost up until the 1970s. The Crimean Tatar diaspora identity emerged over this period in the form of predominantly oral cultural traditions in stories, songs, poems, myths, and legends about the loss of the "homeland" and the miseries of immigration.
The end of the Ottoman Empire and the creation of modern Turkey
With the shrinking of the Ottoman Empire in the last quarter of the 19th century, once again the majority of the Crimean Tatars in Dobrudja migrated to Anatolia, and sometimes re-migrated several times more within Anatolia. This pattern of immigration contributed to the severing of kinship ties, and hence ties to the homeland, amalgamating the previously more segregated sub-ethnicities.
The Crimean Tatars participated in the building of the new Turkish Republic, as well as the formation of the core Turkish identity. Today the number of people of Crimean Tatar descent in Turkey is estimated to be three to five million, although there is no official census data enumerating them.
A small number of Crimean Tatar refugees from the USSR joined the diaspora in Turkey after the World War II, and a small number migrated from Romania and Bulgaria to Turkey after the decline of communism. The Crimean Tatar diaspora in Turkey established several ethnic associations, published journals but experienced a rise in ethnic consciousness only after the dissolution of the USSR and the return to the homeland of their co-ethnics from the places of exile within the USSR.
Exile within the Soviet Union
On May 18, 1944 the Soviet government deported the Crimean Tatars who were left in Crimea to Central Asia. After 1989, nearly 250,000 Tatars were able to return to Crimea from their places of deportation, but another roughly 250,000 Crimean Tatars remain in Uzbekistan and other parts of the former Soviet Union. This population is best considered as an exiled community rather than a diaspora, although they might develop into a diaspora if their exile is prolonged.
Diaspora within the Eastern Bloc and elsewhere
The Crimean Tatar diaspora community in Romania, today numbering nearly 24,000, had been a very vibrant one until the beginning of the communist era in Romania. It has also recently experienced an ethnic revival and renewal of links with the homeland, as well as with other diaspora communities, particularly the one in Turkey.
The communities in Bulgaria, North America, and Western Europe number only in the thousands, but they also recently began to link themselves with their co-ethnics abroad, and especially with the repatriated Crimean Tatars. The Crimean Tatars in the Western hemisphere are composed of refugees from the former USSR, Romania, and Bulgaria, as well as new immigrants. There are also very small numbers of Crimean Tatars in Eastern Europe, South America, and Australasia.
Recent challenges
The main challenges to the Crimean Tatar diaspora in the 1990s were the erosion of ethnic identity as a result of swift modernization of communities and the consequent difficulties in mobilization of resources among the apathetic diaspora members in order to support the repatriation of co-ethnics. As in other diasporas, diaspora political activity is mostly conducted by elites and ethnic organizations.
As in other diasporas, Crimean Tatars also suffered from problems stemming from the differentiation of their identities over time due to their acculturation into various host-societies. In the last decade, the various diaspora communities, as well as the homeland community, have been ardently negotiating what it means to be a “Crimean Tatar”, seeking an agreement on a common sense of identity.
There are also differences among Crimean Tatars as to what the goals of the diaspora and the national movement should be and how to reach those goals, leading to a lively internal politics, as in other flourishing diasporas of the 1990s. However, the Crimean Tatar diaspora in general seems to be unified in recognizing the legitimacy of Crimean Tatar National Assembly (Medjlis) in Crimea, and recognizes its head, Mustafa Abdulcemil Kirimoglu(Dzhemilev, Jemilev) as their leader in taking the major decisions concerning the fate of the nation. The diaspora is also in agreement with the leadership of Cemiloglu with respect to non-violent political struggle for the restitution of the rights of the deported Tatars within the framework of respect for the territorial integrity of Ukraine. For the diaspora, the restitution of Crimean Tatar sovereignty seems to be replaced by a contemporary agenda related to how to mobilize political and economic resources for the return of the remaining Crimean Tatars from their places of deportation to homeland and for the recognition of Crimean Tatar political rights by the Ukrainian and Crimean authorities. The pressing concern for the diaspora as well as the Crimean Tatars in homeland is the restoration of historical justice in relation to the crime perpetrated against their ethnic community.
This is viewed by Crimean Tatar diaspora as the last link in the chain of historical injustices perpetrated by Russia since the illegitimate annexation of its homeland by the violation of the Treaty_of_Kuchuk-Kainarji (1774), and therefore entitled to return. However, the collective return of the Crimean Tatars from the diaspora does not seem to be likely for the near future, although it always remains as an option, especially within the more romantic circles of diaspora. As of today, however, the most plausible prospect for the diaspora seems be the establishment of certain political rights for the members of diaspora, such as political representation, property-owning, and dual citizenship.
See also
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