Crimea - History
Although the Russian propaganda attempted to convince the entire world community that Crimea was “eternally Russian”, this is a false stereotype. The peninsula was part of Russia for a relatively short time period. Crimea was part of the Russian Empire from 1783 until 1917. During the same period Russian emperors gained control of several European countries, some of which are EU and NATO members at the present moment. Crimea was part of Russia (as Russian Soviet Socialist Republic) only from 1921 until 1954 (the 1941-1944 German occupation excluding). In other words, Crimea was part of Russia for about 30 years. Consequently, the myth about the so-called ages-long “Russianness” of Crimea simply does not stand. Similarly, the Crimean Tatars made the peninsula’s ethnic majority until the early 20th century. The Russians became the ethnic majority as a result of repressions, persecutions and deportation of Crimea’s indigenous people.
Crimea belongs to the regions with the oldest history. Some archaeological finds indicate its possible settlement a million years ago. Crimea was first mentioned in written sources three thousand years ago.
The Crimean steppes (as well as in the bigger part of Ukraine’s South) were populated by the nomads: the Cimmerians (from the 9th century BC), the Scythians (from the 7th century BC as nomadic and from the 3rd century as settled people), the Sarmats (from the 1st century AD) and Alani (from the 3rd century AD), the Huns and Ancient Turks (from the 4th century AD), the Khazars (from the 7th century AD), the Hungarians (from the 9th century AD), the Pechenegs (from the 9th century AD), the Polovtsy (from the 11th century AD), the Mongols (from the 13th century AD) and the Nogai (from the 16th century AD). The first autochthonous people – the Tauri or Taurians – settled down in the Crimean Mountains in the 8th century BC. The Goths (and some Alani tribes) settled down here in the 3rd century AD after adopting Christianity, but preserving their native tongue.
In 610 BC Pantikapei was founded - the first Hellenic city (and the oldest still existing in Eastern Europe), modern Kerch. Today it is known as Kerch. In the following century, many other towns were founded along the peninsula’s entire coastline. In 480 BC these Eastern Crimean towns formed the Bosporan Kingdom. Founded between 528 BC and the early 5th century, the city of Chersonese preserved its republican form of government.
In 110-46 BC Crimea was part of the Hellenistic Kingdom of Pontus ruled by Mithradates VI Eupator. Later, until the 220s AD it was within the orbit of the Roman Empire. By the year of 534 the city of Chersonese, the South Coast and partly the Kerch Peninsula became part of the Byzantium Empire, with the mountainous peoples of Goths-Alani tribes (“The Doros County”) serving as allies.
In the 11th century the Crimean steppes were conquered by the Polovtsy tribes. The remaining local settlers, primarily the Turks, were slowly assimilated by the new rulers.
The unique character of the Crimean Polovtsy tribes was explained by the geographic isolation of the peninsula from the other large nomadic peoples of the Dnipro steppe region. The earliest known inhabitants of the Crimea were the Cimmerians, who were driven out by the Scythians about 680-631 BC, and fled into Asia Minor, leaving only a remnant, who took refuge in the mountains and were afterwards known as the TaurL These appear to have been a savage people, from the fact that all strangers that landed, or were cast on their coast, were sacrificed to the virgin goddess Iphigenia, afterwards apparently identified with a goddess of their own mythology by the Grecians, who named the country the Tauric peninsula after their predecessors, whence the Russian name Taurida. The numerous crypts existing about the rocky heights were in all probability the troglodyte caves of the Tauri; in some parts they were converted into hermitages and retreats by the Greeks during Byzantine occupation, and were again so utilized by their successors in the last century; these caves are to be seen at Ak-Kaya, Tepe-Kerman, Katch-Kalen, Tcherkess-Eerman, Mangoup, Mangoush, Tchyfout-Kaleh, Inkerman, etc.
In the year 658 BC the Heracleotes crossed the Euxine, as the Black sea was then called, and founded a colony near where is now Sevastopol, the territory they occupied becoming known as the Heracleotic Chersonese, to distinguish it from the Tauric Chersonese. The city of Chersonesus flourished under its own free institutions during the space of 1000 years, and even longer, though it became a dependency of the Eastern empire; it was taken in 988 by the Russian grand-prince Vladimir, who there received baptism, and was completely destroyed in 1363, by Olgerd, grand prince of Lithuania.
In the 7th century BC, other Grecians, the Milesians, settled at Theodosia, and later at Nymphseum and Panticapaeum (Eertch), which last city became their metropolis under the authority of an archon, and afterwards of a king, whose dominion, the kingdom of the Bosphorus, included Phanagoria on the eastern shore of the Cimmerian Bosphorus, a city founded with others at the same time as Panticapaeum, and the emporium of the people on the Asiatic shores of the strait. Parisades, sovereign in 115 BC, being hard pressed by the Scythians, voluntarily ceded his dominion to Mithridates, king of the Pontus, whose son Pharnaces, after his own downfall, was permitted by Borne to assume the sovereignty of the Bosphorus, a sovereignly that continued until a late period under the protection of the Roman empire.
The peninsula was overrun successively by the Alans (62 AD), the Goths, whose descendants, peaceably employed in agriculture, remained until the early part of the 14th century, the Huns in 376, the Khozars in the 8th century, expelled by the Byzantines in 1016, and the Kiptchaks, who possessed themselves, about 1050, of Khazary, by which name the peninsula was called, after the Khozars.
The Tatar Yoke
By the 13th century, Crimea was occupied by the Tatars - Turkic-speaking Muslims who were part of the Mongol Empire. The Khozars were in their turn expelled by the Mongols, about 1237. Penticapseum, or Cerchio (Kertch), was for a time (1343), occupied by the Venetians, their successors being the Genoese, who had established themselves at Caffa (Theodosia) in 1263-67, and to whom the seaboard known as Gothia, extending to Cembalo (Balaclava), was ceded in 1315. Cembalo, Soldaia (Soudak), and Caffa were strongly fortified by them, Caffa being the centre of an extensive Asiatic trade that included Persia, India, and China. The ruins of the Genoese fortifications still remain.
After the destruction of the Golden Horde by Tamerlane, the Tatars of the Crimea elected, about 1428, a khan for themselves, a descendant through Toktamish of Jinghis Khan, one Hadgy, who assumed the name of Ghyrey, his capital being at Solkhat, now Esky-Crim. This khanate continued independent until the conquest of Crim by Mahomet II (1475), who made the khan prisoner, and sent the Genoese and other Christians into servitude and slavery.
The reign of Suleiman the Magnificent [r. 1520-1566] marked the zenith of the Ottoman power. At the time of his death the Turkish Empire extended from near the frontiers of Germany to the frontiers of Persia. The Black Sea was practically a Turkish lake, only the Circassians on the east coast retaining their independence; and as a result of the wars with Persia the whole Euphrates valley, with Bagdad, had fallen into the sultan’s power, now established on the Persian Gulf. The princes of the Crimea were invested with many of the prerogatives of independence, e.g. that of coining money; the ruler of Transylvania was allowed to retain the royal title, nor were Turkish troops quartered in the country. The Danubian principalities were also ruled by native princes until the Phanariote period.
Following a Turkish declaration of war in 1710, the Turks succeeded in surrounding Peter the Great near the Pruth, and his army was menaced with total destruction, when the Turkish commander, the grand vizier Baltaji Mahommed Pasha, was induced by the presents and entreaties of the empress Catherine to sign the preliminary treaty of the Pruth (July 21, 1711), granting terms of peace far more favorable than were justified by the situation of the Russians. These were: the cession to Turkey of Azov with all its guns and munitions, the razing of all the forts recently built on the frontier by Russia, the renunciation by the tsar of all claim to interfere with the Tatars under the dominion of the Crimea or Poland or to maintain a representative at Constantinople, and Russia’s consent to Charles’s return to Sweden.
In 1733 France declared war against Russia and her ally Austria, and her envoy, the marquis de Villeneuve, urged Turkey to join by representing the danger of allowing Russian influence to extend. Turkey had cause of complaint against Russia for refusing to allow the Crimean troops to march through Daghestan during the Persian campaign, and on the 28th of May 1736, war was declared, in spite of the efforts of England and Holland. The Russians had not waited for the formal declaration of war; and on the very day that this was notified by the hanging out of the horse-tails before the Seraglio at Constantinople. Russian army under Marshal Miinnich stormed the ancient wall that guarded the isthmus of the Crimea and conducted a systematic devastation of the peninsula.
Under the masterful Catherine II the aggressive policy of Russia in the direction of the Caspian and Black Seas became more and more evident; complaints reached the Porte of a violation of the neutrality of Kabardia, of a seditious propaganda in Moldavia by Russian monks; and of Russian aid given to the malcontents in Servia and Montenegro. Added to all this was the news of the continual Russian military aggressions in Poland, against which the Catholic confederation of Bar continued to appeal for aid. At last, on the 6th of October 1768, on the refusal of the Russian minister to give guarantees for the withdrawal of the Russian troops from Poland and the abandonment of Russia's claim to interfere with the liberties of the republic, war was declared and the Russian representative was imprisoned in the Seven Towers.
The war that followed marks an epoch in the decay of the Ottoman Empire and in the expansion of Russia. When, in the spring of 1769, the first serious campaign was opened by a simultaneous attack by three Russian armies on the principalities, the Crimea and the buffer state of Kabardia, the Turks, in spite of ample warning, were unprepared. They were hampered, moreover, by an insurrection in the Morea, where a Russian expedition under Orlov had stirred up the Mainotes, and by risings in Syria and Egypt. It was not, however, till September that the fall of Khotin in Bessarabia marked the first serious Russian success. The following year was more fatal.
In May the Ottoman fleet was attacked and destroyed off Cheshme, and the Russian warships threatened to pass the Dardanelles. In June Romanzov's victory at Kartal made him master of the principalities, and by November the fortresses of Izmail and Kilia, guarding the passage of the Danube, and those of Akkcrman and Bender on the Dniester had fallen into the hands of the Russians. The campaign of 1771, which opened with a gleam of success in the capture of Giurgevo, proved yet more disastrous to the Turks, the Russians passing the Danube and completing the conquest of the Crimea.
Russian Conquest
It was not long before Russia showed that it was not the independence but the absorption of the Crimea which she desired. In 1779 a rupture on this account was only averted through the mediation of the French ambassador, coupled with the fact that Turkey was in no condition to enter upon hostilities, owing to the outbreak of plague in her army. The Porte, unable to resist, was obliged to consent to the convention of Ainali Kavak (March 10, 1779) whereby the Russian partisan, Shahin Girai, was recognized as khan of the Crimea, the admission of Russian vessels to navigate Turkish waters was reaffirmed and Russia's right of intervention in the affairs of the Danubian principalities was formally recognized.
Five years later Potcmkin induced the chiefs of the Crimea and Kuban to hold a meeting at which the annexation of their country to Russia was declared, Turkey giving her consent by a convention, signed at Constantinople, on the 8th of January 1784, by which the stipulations as to the liberty of the Tatars contained in the treaty of Kuchuk Kainarji and the convention of Ainali Kavak were abrogated. In 1786 Catherine made a triumphal progress through the Crimea in company with her ally, Joseph II, who had succeeded to the imperial throne on the death of his mother.
Repressive measures by the Russian government against Crimean Tatars and Slavic immigration into Crimea forced many Tatars to emigrate. Others were forcibly deported. During a century of Russian rule, the Tatar population in Crimea declined from about 500,000 at the end of the eighteenth century to fewer than 200,000 by the end of the nineteenth century. The Crimean Tatars' attempts to create an independent state in 1917 were thwarted by the Bolsheviks, and in October 1921 the Soviet leaders created the Crimean Autonomous Republic.
Crimea had first experienced autonomy during the civil war (1918-1920). In the southeastern section of Russia, with its considerable sprinkling of Tatar stock intermingled with Slavic blood, a half-dozen small republics sprang into existence following the Bolshevik Revolution. The Tauride Republic, including the Crimean Peninsula, with an area of approximately 23,000 square miles and a population of 1,800,000, declared itself independent of Russia in March 1918. Germany made further attempts to encourage the separatist tendency in Russia, in contravention of the Brest treaty. The German Government inquired of the local Crimean authorities concerning the nationalization of their flag. The Bolsheviki interpreted this step as indicative of the German desire to separate the Taurida Republic from the Russian Federation.
The Red Army (the Soviet Republic of Tavrida (1918) and Crimean SSR (1919)) as well as the White Army (regional governments (1918-1919) and government of P.N.Wrangel (1920)), were forced to give the elements of statehood to the Crimea. The Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (1921) was created due to the joint Decree of the all union Central Executive Committee and Council of Public Commissars "in borders of the Crimean peninsula" and was part of the structure of the Russian Socialist Federal Soviet Republic. It was claimed as the Republic on the First Crimean Constituent Congress of the Soviets. In 1945 by the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR it was abolished and transformed into the Crimean region.
Recent History
The Crimean Tatars were exiled from Crimea during World War II and scattered throughout Soviet Central Asia. State Defense Committee Decree No. 5859ss of May 11, 1944 noted that "During the Patriotic War [World War II], many Crimean Tatars betrayed the Motherland, deserting Red Army units that defended the Crimea and siding with the enemy, joining volunteer army units formed by the Germans to fight against the Red Army; as members of German punitive detachments, during the occupation of the Crimea by German fascist troops, the Crimean Tatars particularly were noted for their savage reprisals against Soviet partisans, and also helped the German invaders to organize the violent roundup of Soviet citizens for German enslavement and the mass extermination of the Soviet people."
The State Defense Committee decreed that: " 1. All Tatars are to be banished from the territory of the Crimea and resettled permanently as special settlers in the regions of the Uzbek SSR. The resettlement will be assigned to the Soviet NKVD. The Soviet NKVD (comrade Beria) is to complete the resettlement by 1 June 1944. 2. The following procedure and conditions of resettlement are to be established: a) The special settlers will be allowed to take with them personal items, clothing, household objects, dishes and utensils, and up to 500 kilograms of food per family. Property, buildings, outbuildings, furniture, and farmstead lands left behind will be taken over by the local authorities; all beef and dairy cattle, as well as poultry, will be taken over by the People's Commissariat of the Meat and Dairy Industries..."
In 1954 Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev gave the peninsula to Ukraine - at that time a Soviet republic. Water, gas and electricity come across a narrow corridor connecting Crimea to the rest of Ukraine. There were no access routes from Russia - apart from a ferry across the Strait of Kerch. Crimea was not self-sufficient with water: The region's climate is dry and warm, and most streams and rivers dry up over the summer monxths. Most of the water - more than 80 percent - comes from the Dnieper river via the North Crimean Canal, which begins at the Kakhovka Reservoir in the southeast of the mainland, weaving its way through the Isthmus of Perekop and branching out over the entire Crimea.
Khrushchev’s son Sergei said the decision to give Crimea to Ukraine had to do with economics and agriculture - the building of a hydro-electric dam on the Dnieper River which would irrigate Ukraine’s southern regions, including Crimea. “As the Dnieper and the hydro-electric dam [is] on Ukrainian territory, let’s transfer the rest of the territory of Crimea under the Ukrainian supervision so they will be responsible for everything," Sergei Khrushchev said. "And they did it. It was not a political move, it was not an ideological move - it was just business.” Khrushchev said it made sense to have one entity responsible for the building of such a large project. “And now we have this speculation that my father wanted to satisfy Ukrainian democracy, that he even made a gift to his wife, my mother, because she was Ukrainian - all this have nothing with reality. It was just an economical issue, and not political,” said Khrushchev.
In February 1956, Nikita Khrushchev condemned the deportations as a violation of Leninist principles. In his "secret speech" to the Twentieth Party Congress, he stated that the Ukrainians avoided such a fate "only because there were too many of them and there was no place to which to deport them." The Crimean Tatars, however, were only partially rehabilitated. This charge of “mass treason” has since been well refuted by scholars and ultimately rescinded by the Soviet governmentin 1967 The Crimean Tatars were not, for the most part, permitted to return to their homelands until after the disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991. Beginning in the early 1990s, thousands of Crimean Tatars returned to Ukraine. They have since struggled to rebuild their lives, push for a voice in the politics ofindependent Ukraine, and find ways to retain their values and traditions. Crimean Tatars, numbering an estimated 300,000, constitute the third-largest ethnic group in Crimea.
Crimea - History
As a result of the Mongol invasion, Crimean Turks obtained the ruling dynasty – the ancestors of Genghis Khan (analogous processes took place in the entire Eurasia, particularly in the lands of Rus’). In half a century Islam became the state religion of the Crimean Ulus of the Golden Horde, thus differentiating its inhabitants from their Christian and Pagan neighbours. That is how the nucleus of the new ethic group – later to be known as the Crimean Tatars – was formed.Starting from the 1260s the larger part of Crimea’s Southern Coast fell under control of the Republic of Venice and the Republic of Genoa.
At the turn of 14th and 15th centuries the Golden Horde fell into decay. The mountain settlers of Greek, Goth and Alani origin established the Principality of Theodoro. In 1441 the Crimean beys chose Haci Geray as their ruler, paving the way to the independent Crimean Khanate. In 1475 the Osman Empire seized control of the Crimean territories previously belonging to the Republic of Genoa and the Principality of Theodoro. The Crimean Khans fell under the authority of the Ottoman Sultans, but preserved their sovereign rule over the respected territories.
Due to this development, the peninsula’s other peoples partially converted to Islam, started speaking Crimean Tatar and observing Crimean Tatar traditions. The ancestors of the Theodoro dynasty and many immigrants from Europe and the Caucasus, who settled at the coastline, merged with the new Crimean Tatar people. The long process of the Crimean Tatar ethnic group formation explains why at least three large sub-ethnic groups emerged within one ethno group: the Nogays (inhabitants of the steppe areas), the Tats (inhabitants of the mountainous Crimea) and the Yaliboylu (inhabitants of the South Coast).
In 1771, after decades of wars, the tsarist Russian army occupied the Crimean Khanate. In a few years the last Crimean Khan Sahin Giray ascended the throne. In 1783 the Tsarist Russia annexed the Khanate territories. In 1802 the Taurida Governorate was established within the Russian Empire.
In 1917 several processes were taking place in Crimea – those of democratic revolution, Ukrainization and the revival of the Crimean Tatar national statehood. In December, the First Kurultai ruled to establish the Crimean Tatar People’s Republic and form the Crimean Tatar national government. However, in January 1918 the Bolshevik army gained control of the peninsula’s territory and launched the Red terror. The Bolsheviks lost control over Crimea in April 1918 as a result of the joint military effort of the Ukrainian army led by Petro Bolbochan, the German army and Crimean Tatar protesters. The Black Sea fleet raised the Ukrainian flag on April 29, 1918. The negotiations about Crimea joining the Ukrainian State continued until the fall of 1918. In 1919-1920, the peninsula’s territory turned into a battlefield between the Red and White Armies. The Red Army won.
In 1921 Crimea was turned into the autonomous administrative unit of Russia.
During World War II from 1941 until 1945 Crimea was under German occupation. Having expelled the Nazi Army, Moscow baselessly accused the all Crimean Tatar people of collaborating with the Nazis. Starting from May 18, 1944, the Kremlin deported more than 200,000 people, including new-born children, to Central Asia and other inland Soviet territories. This deportation turned into the Genocide, as during the first years of deportation 20-25% of Crimean Tatars perished. The representatives of other ethnic groups – Germans (since 1941), Italians (since 1942), Bulgarians, Armenians, Greeks and foreign subjects (1944) were also subjected to deportation in their entirety.
In place of the deported indigenous people, the Soviet authorities began to massively relocate to Crimea a population loyal to them, mainly from Russia, which completely changed the ethnic structure of the peninsula. Even the very memory of the former owners of this land was being destroyed: more than 80% of autochthonous Crimean Tatar geographical names were replaced by Russian-Soviet names.
The year of 1954 was also important for Crimea’s history, as Moscow decided to transfer it to Ukraine. The decision was logical and based on real needs. Russia could not provide for the normal economic life on the peninsula, as almost all supplies were provided from Ukraine. The Soviet leadership explained its decision by the following logic: “with consideration of economic proximity, territorial proximity and close trade and cultural ties between the Crimean oblast and the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic.”
It should be underscored that the 1954 process of Crimea joining the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic was documented in accordance with all legal norms. The governments and parliaments of the Soviet Union, Russia and Ukraine consequently adopted the necessary legal rulings. The republican constitutions were also amended with the necessary provisions.
In 1954 the Crimean region was transferred to the structure of Ukraine by the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR. Crimea was ceded by the RSFSR to the Ukrainian SSR in 1954, in recognition of historic links and for economic convenience, to mark the 300th anniversary of Ukraine's union with Russia. Water, gas and electricity come across a narrow corridor connecting Crimea to the rest of Ukraine. There are no access routes from Russia - apart from a ferry across the Strait of Kerch.
The Republic of Crimea was granted special status, with considerable autonomy in its internal affairs. The identification of the Russian population in Crimea with Russia had initially not led to confrontation between Russia and Ukraine, despite the sometimes elevated rhetoric. President Kravchuk repeatedly expressed the view that the autonomous Republic of Crimea ought to have considerable latitude in the economic field.
Although in 1967 the Crimean Tatars were rehabilitated from the “mass betrayal” (of the Soviet state power) accusations, they were not allowed to return to their native land. The mass return of Crimean Tatars to Crimea was not made possible until 1989. The country that took upon itself the key role in accommodating the Crimean Tatar repatriates and assisting them in settling down was independent Ukraine.
Ethnic tensions in Crimea during 1992 prompted a number of pro-Russian political organizations to advocate secession of Crimea and annexation to Russia. In the spring of 1992, President Kravchuk expressed his willingness to leave to Crimea the control of all "territorial property" on the peninsula. He also stated that Crimea ought to have "all the necessary political and legal opportunities to realise its special potential".
The 1992 Crimean Constitution established Crimea as an independent state linked to, but not part of Ukraine. Crimean leaders declared the independence of the peninsula under a constitution that proclaimed Crimea to be a republic within Ukraine, provided that Crimean laws would have priority over Ukrainian laws, established Russian as the official language of the territory, and allowed Crimea to conduct its own foreign policy.
In July 1992, the Crimean and Ukrainian parliaments determined that Crimea would remain under Ukrainian jurisdiction while retaining significant cultural and economic autonomy. Following a series of compromises with national Ukrainian authorities, the 1992 constitution was repealed, and the Verkhovna Rada (parliament) of Ukraine granted Crimea the status of an autonomous republic within Ukraine and adopted a separate law which defines the jurisdiction of the Crimean authorities. The law allows Crimea to pass its own normative acts provided they do not contradict the laws of Ukraine; adopt a budget and impose local taxes in accordance with the Ukrainian national tax system; implement its own policies in the fields of environmental regulation, social protection, culture, and humanities; and conduct local referendums on questions included in the republic’s jurisdiction.
On 20 May 1994, the Verkhovna Rada (Parliament) of the Republic of Crimea adopted the Law `On Renewal of the Constitutional Basis of the Statehood of the Republic of Crimea' which resumed the sections of the Constitution of the Republic of Crimea of May 6, 1992, aimed at changing the legal status of the autonomous Republic of Crimea as an integral part of Ukraine. By this act, the legislative body of the autonomous Republic of Crimea violated the Constitution of the Ukraine, its legislation in force, including the Law of Ukraine `On the Delimination of Powers between the State Power Authorities of Ukraine and the Republic of Crimea' of 29 April 1992.
A Constitution of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea was adopted on 01 November 1995. Defense, armed forces and security were some other matters which the Constitution of the ARC adopted on 1 November 1995 recognizes as belonging to the exclusive competence of Ukraine. The ARC entered into relations with official bodies of other states and with international organizations only in matters pertaining to the economy, environmental protection and cultural relations that are subject to its jurisdiction.
A new Constitution, adopted by the Crimean Parliament on 21 October 1998 had to be approved by the Ukrainian Parliament. It defined the legal framework for an Autonomous Republic of Crimea within the Ukrainian State. The Autonomous Republic of Crimea exercises normative regulation on the following issues: agriculture and forestry; land reclamation and mining; public works, crafts and trades; charity; city construction and housing management; tourism, hotel business, fairs; museums, libraries, theatres, other cultural establishments, historical and cultural preserves; public transportation, roadways, water supply; hunting and fishing; and sanitary and hospital services.
The successful completion in 1999 of the work of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Mission to Ukraine was an important contribution by the OSCE to the process of stabilization in its Autonomous Republic of Crimea.
There were complex issues associated with Crimea's multiethnic population and with the return to Crimea of over 250,000 deported people and their descendants, the overwhelming majority of whom are Crimean Tatars. There were considerable difficulties for Tatars still without Ukrainian citizenship who have already arrived in Crimea.
Crimean Tatar leaders continued to call for changes in the electoral law allowing them to achieve greater representation in the Crimean and national parliaments; current law does not allow the creation of political parties on the regional level, so Crimean Tatars had to join national political parties or blocs. Only one Crimean Tatar representative was a member of the national parliament. According to the Crimea information portal, the Tatars, who make up 12 percent of the population of Crimea, occupied seven seats in the 100-member Crimean Parliament. Eight of the 25 senior officials in the Crimean government were Tatars, including one deputy prime minister and the minister for labor and social policy, as were two of the 14 heads of raion (county-level) administrations in Crimea. Crimean Tatars remained underrepresented in city councils and city administrations. For example, none of the deputies to the mayor of Simferopol was a Crimean Tatar. The Crimean Tatar representative body, the Mejlis, was not legally recognized by national authorities.
|
NEWSLETTER
|
| Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list |
|
|
|
