#the history of the Crimea

[sonyaheaneyauthor]

A Crimean Tatar man cries at a protest in Ukraine after his homeland was illegally annexed by russia in 2014. X

The Day of Remembrance of the Genocide of the Crimean Tatar People is the 18th of May. The 80th anniversary is 2024.

[folklorespring]

May 18 is the 80th anniversary of the deportation of Crimean Tatars from the territory of Crimea in 1944 by the Soviet authorities. It is also a remembrance day for the victims of this genocide.

Thread on deportation of Crimean Tatars

[blueiskewl]

Disputed Ukrainian Treasures Returned to Kyiv After Dutch Court Ruling

A haul of Ukrainian treasures sent to Europe for an exhibition nearly 10 years ago have been returned to Kyiv from the Netherlands after a lengthy legal battle.

The collection of ancient artifacts was dispatched to the Netherlands from four museums in Crimea before Russia’s annexation of the region in 2014. But the annexation meant their return has not been straightforward.

“After almost 10 years of litigation, artifacts from four Crimean museums that were presented at the exhibition ‘Crimea: Gold and Secrets of the Black Sea’ in Amsterdam have returned to Ukraine,” the National Museum of History of Ukraine said in a statement.

The collection comprised 565 items, including antique sculptures, Scythian and Sarmatian jewelry, and Chinese lacquer boxes that are 2,000 years old, the museum said.

Rostyslav Karandieiev, Ukraine’s acting minister of culture and information policy, described the treasures’ homecoming as “our great historical victory.”

“It is very important for us to save and protect our history, traditions, and heritage. This is what we are fighting for at the battlefield. We are fighting for our identity and freedom,” he said.

“The exhibition in the Netherlands was showing the history of Ukrainian Crimea, therefore it is exclusively the people of Ukraine who should possess these treasures,” he added.

In a statement published on its website, the Allard Pierson museum in Amsterdam confirmed that the collection had been kept in storage while the legal dispute raged on over whether items should be returned to Ukraine or the four museums in Russian-controlled Crimea, with both sides claiming ownership rights over the historic pieces.

Ultimately, the Supreme Court of the Netherlands ruled on June 9 of this year that the collection should be returned to Kyiv.

In its statement, the Allard Pierson museum went on to say that the items were “independently checked and carefully packed in accordance with museum rules” last month and arrived back in Kyiv on Sunday.

Els van der Plas, director of the museum, said in the statement: “This was a special case, in which cultural heritage became a victim of geopolitical developments. After it became clear in 2014 that the judge would consider the case, we focused on safely storing the artefacts until the time came to return them to their rightful owner. We are pleased that clarity has emerged and that they have now been returned.”

Welcoming the development, Ukraine’s Ministry of Culture and Information Policy said in a statement: “Until the de-occupation of Crimea, the ‘Scythian Gold’ will be temporarily stored on the territory of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra.”

By Maria Kostenko, Victoria Butenko and Lianne Kolirin.

[queerism1969]

[foreverinthepagesofhistoryy]

New photo of Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia painting with a bucket on her head 😂, Livadia 1914

Released by Ilya aka Sledstvie on Instagram and LastRomanovs on Flickr

[illustratus]

The Khan's Palace in Bakhchisarai, Crimea by Carlo Bossoli

[worldhistoryfacts]

Roger Fenton took some of the most famous early war photos, in the Crimean War. He took pictures of ordinary soldiers:

Fenton even captured those who supplied and assisted the soldiers, like this French vivandiere, who would have accompanied the army to sell them provisions:

{WHF} {Ko-Fi} {Medium}

[sovietpostcards]

On the beach in Yevpatoriya, Crimea (1933)

[panimoonchild]

Russian methods are still the same

Anyone who is in Cambridge I highly recommend you to visit the place where you can witness evidence of one of the many Russian crimes.

80 years later same scenario. Russians are happy and feel bliss in their impunity. Russians think they are better than the indigenous people, the Mariupol people. They want to live in bloody destroyed buildings where our people are buried. Russians are non-humans. They've done and keep doing the worst crimes for humanity because they never paid for it.

[classyclips]

“If tomorrow Russia goes into Crimea, no one will raise an eyebrow. Besides… promises, no one ever planned to give Ukraine any guarantees.” Leonid Kuchma

It is no accident that Kuchma mentioned the possible invasion of Crimea in 1994, not Donbas or any other region of Ukraine. Already in the spring of 1994, Russia seriously attempted to invade Crimea for the first time, just seven months before signing the Budapest Memorandum.

[sonyaheaneyauthor]

1994: Crimean Tatars mark the 50th anniversary of russia deporting their entire population from their homeland. From the 18th-20th of May 1944 the Tatars were loaded onto cattle trains and removed from their native land.

2024 is the 80th anniversary of Stalin's Crimean genocide.

Since 2014 Crimea has again been occupied by russia.

[folklorespring]

Crimean Tatars in Crimea before being deported by soviet authorities

[ohsalome]

Today, a few words about the “Crimean Tatar question.” Stalin’s order and the resolution of the USSR State Defense Committee of May 11, 1944, led to tragic effects. Within three days in May 1944, an entire nation that had lived in Crimea for centuries was forcibly deported to Central Asia. According to various sources, between a quarter and half of the people were killed during long-term transportation in packed freight cars, as well as later in barbaric forced living conditions. 

At the same time, any public mention of Crimean Tatars was banned in the USSR. The mention of the ethnicity was suddenly absent in subsequent Soviet censuses. Authorities changed about 90 percent of geographic names on the peninsula that had Crimean Tatar names. 

The descendants of the survivors of the genocide returned home in 1989. By that time, their family houses were mostly inhabited by Russians who had transmigrated in 1944, immediately after the deportation of the local population. And in 2014, after Russia’s annexation of Crimea, the persecution of Crimean Tatars began again. Dozens of Crimean Tatar activists are currently being held in Russian prisons. From time to time, human rights advocates record the mysterious deaths of Crimean Tatars, and there is a lot of evidence of repression of the Crimean Tatar language. 

[...]

So when an acquaintance, a Crimean Tatar, told me her story, it resonated with me completely, despite the 1,000 kilometers separating the places of my birth and hers. By the time her relatives returned to Crimea in 1989, their family house had been inhabited by new owners for decades. So the Crimean Tatars decided to build a new house in another area. They often went to the village market. Once there, amid the various items available for sale, they saw the embossed utensils they had left in their home in 1944. 

[redjaybathood]

This is not my text but a translation of a text originally posted here.

Give the author on twitter a like, a reblog and a follow while you are at it.

"Today commemorates the death of Noman Çelebicihan, a leader of the Crimean Tatar people.

January 26, 1918, he was imprisoned as the result of the Red Terror, and a month later, on February 23, in Sevastopol (Aqyar) they shot him and threw his body into the sea. 

I will talk about why it is important to learn about him, below.

Noman Çelebicihan was the one who revived the tradition of Qurultay, a national democratic assembly.

It was under his leadership that the Crimean Tatar self-awareness began to flourish for the first time since the annexy of Crimean Khanate (1783).

During the February Revolution of year '17, demand for self-awareness in society is growing, and in April, Çelebicihan becomes a comimissioner of spiritual leadership and first democratically elected mufti of Crimea. This was when he also became the first Mufti of Muslims of Lithuania, Poland, and Belarus. 

Meanwhile, the Muslim Executive Committe becames the main executive body of the government. 

In Summer 1917, Crimean national military units began to form, the so called Squadrones. Çelebicihan then calls for a formation of Muslim Armed Forces.

December 1917, Qurultay has declared Crimean Democratic Republic, founders of which were Çelebicihan and like-minded individuals. This was also when they adopted a democratic Constitution drafted by him, Cafer Seydamet and other peers. 

It talked about electoral right for everyone, any and all class ranks or titles were canceled, as were their priveleges, it asserted equal rights of women and men, established regulations on assembly of parlaiment. A regulation on election of national government - Directory - was also established. 

Çelebicihan, as well as Cafer Seydamet (who became a minister of foreign affairs and military minister), maintained connections to Central Council of Ukraine (Ukrainian Central Rada). In Spring 1917, by an invite of the Central Council, Crimea sent 10 people in a delegation to participate in the work of the Congress of Nations (Congress of the Enslaved Peoples of Russia) in Kyiv.

Apart of all that noted above, Çelebicihan lifted the obligation of Crimean Tatar women to wear a veil, which led to a wave of disconent from conservative part of populatoin. 

At the Congress, he declared and advocated for the equality of all nations that live in Crimea: "Our mission is to create a state like Switzerland. Nations of Crimea are a beautiful bouquet, and every nation needs equal rights and conditions, because we are to walk side by side."

It is thanks to Çelebicihan that a women's gymnasium (a school) and technical school were opened in Simferopol (Aqmescit), that a Pedagogic Institute based on Zıncırlı medrese was opened, and that there were established short-term advanced training courses for teachers. 

In addtion, he was a writer and a poet, one of his most known works is "A Prayer for Swallows", and his poem-pledge Ant Etkenmen is now a national anthem of all Crimean Tatars.

You can find the lyrics and a modern translation today in the Kitap Qalesi publication

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Kitap Qalesi | Кримськотатарське видавництво (@kitap_qalesi)

Listen to it here:

Bolsheviks seizing power endangered the existence of Crimean People Republic. 

January 4, 1918, Çelebicihan took initiative to rsign from the positions of leadership.

Due to attempts to negotiate with Bolsheviks about the cessation of armed struggle in Crimea, on January 18, 1918, they took over the government in Simferopol (Aqmescit), arrested Çelebicihan and transported him to Sevastopol (Aqyar) in an airplane. February 23, 1918, he was shot in the city prison.

This is not the full list of what Çelebicihan has become famous for, in a fairly short time. He wrote poetry, published papers, organized an underground society for Crimean Tatar youth in İstanbul, there were also other changes that were introduced in the Republic."

A longer text is to come, and the author plans to publish it on her blog on Drukarnia. It already has an awesome post on where to learn Crimean Tatar language. And while it's in Ukrainian, most browsers, whether on mobile or PC, support auto translation. I translated this thread just because twitter makes it really tedious to read threads in other languages. So like. Subscribe and support the author!

[awesome-casuallyfamouscollector]

Very good news: Russian big landing ship Caesar Kunikov (BDK-64) destroyed by by Ukrainian MAGURA V5 sea drones  near the city of Alupka in Crimea, Ukraine, February 14, 2024. Screenshot from video published by NEWSADER

[foreverinthepagesofhistoryy]

Grand Duchesses Olga and Tatiana Nikolaevna playing with their little cousins Princes Georg Donatus and Ludwig of Hesse and By Rhine, also with their maternal uncle Grand Duke Ernst Louis of Hesse and By Rhine, Livadia Crimea 1912 🤍