 Crimea : A Nation Interrupted By Serhiy Kharchenko |
Given its historical and strategic significance and the natural beauty that makes it a regional magnet for tourists, it isn't surprising that the Crimean peninsula has been
a controversial spot for centuries. Over time, it has been invaded, ceded, used as
a bargaining chip and as a hideaway, and it is home to thousands of people who bear few ethnic or religious similarities to the majority of the population of what is otherwise a largely homogenous country.
The 25,500-square kilometer Autonomous Republic of Crimea is the only region of Ukraine where interethnic conflicts occur from time to time - most recently over the distribution of land. The peninsula's ethnic composition belies its tumultuous past - it is almost 60% Russian, 25% Ukrainian and 12% Crimean Tatar. The remainder of the population is a melting pot of some 120 other ethnic groups.
The peninsula's ethnic Russians, Ukrainians and Tatars hold disparate views of how the area should be governed, and by whom. Many of the nearly 2 million Russian inhabitants feel that Kyiv's influence is too weak, and would like to see Moscow take a strong hand in the peninsula's administration, protecting their interests against those of the area's 200,000 Crimean Tatars.
Indeed, the debate between the various ethnic groups boils down, essentially, to the question of control: To which nation does Crimea rightfully belong?
Russians have long asserted what they see as their right to "the age-old Russian land" of Crimea, leading to vigorous debate over the peninsula's future, but the historical facts presage the questions surrounding its past.
Soviet historians posit that Crimea was part of Kyivan Rus, and that Russia is a successor of that Slavic state. Triumphant from an exhausting war with Turkey, Russia returned to Crimea, which was established Russian territory. Ever since, Crimea and its seaport of Sevastopol have been symbols of Russian military power.
Latter-day scholars hold, however, that the Ukrainian Cossacks were the real successors to Kyivan Rus. The Cossacks had a longstanding - though sometimes rocky - relationship with their Crimean neighbors, but that relationship was nevertheless continuous.
Free Ukrainians constituted more than half of the Crimean Khanate's population of 1.5 million during the 17th century.
Historians also doubt the significance of Russia's military power in battles with Turkey. The most crucial factor supporting the power of the Turkish Empire did not lie in its infantry and cavalry forces, but in its "un-impregnable" fortresses and "un-defeatable" navy. Russia had neither cities nor fortresses on the Black Sea and its Black Sea fleet was in its infancy.
By the 18th century, however, the Zaporozhe Cossacks' navy was already 200 years old. Their hundreds of "chaikas" - small boats with sails and oars - demonstrated such military superiority over the Turks that during the 15th and 16th centuries, the Black Sea was called the Cossack Sea.
Russia asked the Ukrainians for help. Despite the fact that the Cossacks' fortress on the Dnipro River - Zaporozhia Sich - had been destroyed on orders from Empress Catherine the Great, the Cossacks agreed to fight under the command of Russian General Oleksandr Suvorov.
The Cossack chaikas determined the fate of the Ochakov fortress and, later,
the Cossack sailors took the Khadzhibei fortress in Odessa. More than 6,000 Cossack warriors participated in the storming of Izmail.
On Suvorov's order, his Cossack commanders, or starshyny, were awarded gold medallions inscribed "Za otlichnuyu khrabrost'" ("For outstanding bravery") and "Izmail vzyat 11 dekabrya" ("Izmail was taken on December 11").
In the Crimean war (1853 - 1856), one-third of the Russian army was comprised of Ukrainian troops. Moreover, 70% of the sailors and almost all of Russia's admirals were Ukrainians.
These events have lead Russia to see Crimea as an important component of its naval power. Needless to say, Russians, Ukrainians and Crimean Tatars view the same historical events from widely different perspectives.
Russia may have never had a strong claim to Crimea, but it seriously weakened whatever claim it had in 1954, when Soviet President Nikita Khrushchev ceded the peninsula to the Ukrainian SSR. Khrushchev undoubtedly saw little risk to the move, given the Ukrainian government's solid position as a component of the USSR.
It was only after the USSR ceased to exist that the Russian Federation strove to reassert its claim on the land. The Russian State Duma has twice passed resolutions attempting rescission of Khrushchev's gift, only to be rebuffed in the United Nations.
While Khrushchev may have had political motives for the transfer, there were strong economic and cultural reasons for it as well. Under the stewardship of Russian collective farmers, Crimea was in danger of becoming an agricultural wasteland. The Russians were unaccustomed to Crimea's climate and had almost no understanding of irrigation. The state of agriculture on the peninsula had deteriorated so severely that during the early 1950's, there were just 34 bread stores and eight dairy shops in all of Crimea.
Ukrainian farmers more familiar with the weather and ecology of the Crimean steppe were needed to turn the agriculture industry around. Even so, Moscow's Crimean gift was greeted in Ukraine with mixed emotions. The peninsula needed massive investment, and the government of the Ukrainian SSR was faced with subsidizing Crimean affairs, an effort that cost every Ukrainian family about 120 rubles a year.
Given the Ukrainian perspective on history and the financial investment made by Kyiv over the years, the oft-repeated slogan, "Crimea is Russian land!" is understandably not well received in Ukraine, which sees efforts by ethnic Russians - in Moscow and Crimea - to drive a wedge between Crimean Russians, Tatars and Ukrainians. Nevertheless, Crimea stubbornly retains its Russian orientation - an orientation evidenced by the fact that only one newspaper in the autonomous republic is printed in the Ukrainian language.
Crimean Tatars, however, see discrimination flowing from both Moscow and Kiev, and have made their stand over the division of the peninsula's land. The Tatar people's long and sorrowful history on the peninsula is highlighted by Josef Stalin's forced eviction of the Tatars in 1944. Stalin required that the Tatars be "repatriated" to their "historic lands" in Central Asia, and it was not until after Ukraine declared Independence in 1991 that the peninsula's former residents were allowed to return.
Squabbling over land has marred the Tatars return. Tatar leaders hold that the government should return land confiscated by the Soviet government at the time of the forced repatriation. Present Ukrainian law doesn't provide that guarantee, and in fact, whatever legal claim that returning Tatars have to their former land is difficult to enforce. The republic's government has been faulted for showing a preference to business interests over those of Tatar families.
Tension over the land issue has necessarily become an issue of interethnic conflict. Crimean Tatars have staged "voluntary takeovers" of land, especially along Crimea's southern coast, where Crimean Tatars have lived for hundreds of years.
Tensions have flared after ethnic Russians formed extra-governmental militias and so-called self-defense troops headed by former Soviet military officers. Crimea's officially sanctioned law enforcement agencies worry about the potential for violence made possible by "strengthening unhealthy ethno-psychological barriers," that make it difficult to maintain order and protect human rights.
Crimea's ethnic communities are becoming segmented and self-segregated, with even schoolchildren shifting into ethnic groupings.
The question, "Who owns Crimea" will ultimately have to be answered by the Crimeans themselves, without undue interference from either Moscow or Kyiv.
This article was based on information from the newspaper "Den" (04.02.2004) and the book, "Ukraine, Crimea, Russia," published by “Biblioteka Ukraintsya”, Kyiv, 2000.
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More in the section:
The Russians Are Coming
Read also previous issue' articles:
Are Ukraine's Political Habits Unique?
Is Ukraine's Economic Growth Speculation-led?
Ukraine is Drifting to the West - Slowly but Surely
The Unfinished Orange Revolution?
Vacuums, Reforms and the Need to Regain the Initiative
Pirates of the 21st century
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