In 2024, 10 years have passed since Putin’s Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula, and historians Cosmin Popa, Armand Goșu and lecturer Gayana Yüksel (Crimea, Ukraine) debated the key points of the subject at a conference organised at the “Ovidius” University of Constanta. The event was attended by the Consul General of the Republic of Turkey in Constanta, Emre Yurdakul, Rector Dan Marcel Iliescu, members of the Turkish-Tatar community, professors, students and journalists. The event was moderated by Tatar researcher Metin Omer.
Rector Marcel Iliescu said that this is the first conference organized under the aegis of the Institute for Black Sea Security Studies, which “was clinically dying and was given back to the Faculty of History and Political Science”, which he praised for its activity and events. The Rector stressed the importance of the topic of the annexation of Crimea due to the great need for continuous and correct information.
- “Should Ukraine give up Crimea or what should be the status of this territory?”, Metin Omer started the debate. He brought up Russian propaganda that repeatedly repeats themes such as “the Crimean peninsula has always been Russian territory”, “it is an integral part of Russia” and “demographically it is Russian” because Russians are the majority inhabitants there, Omer said.
He also explained how some international personalities, “useful idiots” as historian Armand Goșu calls them, have fallen into the trap of Russian rhetoric about Crimea, one of them being Elon Musk, who argues that Ukraine should give up the peninsula.
Omer also reviewed the main points of Crimean history, concluding that the peninsula has always been “a thorn in the side of St Petersburg and Moscow”, and then gave the floor to Gayana Yüksel who brought the subject up to date.
Yüksel delivered her speech in Crimean Tatar, with Romanian translation provided by moderator Metin Omer.
About the debate speakers:
- Historians Cosmin Popa and Armand Goșu are considered to be the best specialists in Russian history, are Russian speakers and were fellow students in Moscow. Popa is a researcher at the Nicolae Iorga Institute of History in Bucharest, while Goșu is a professor at the University of Bucharest. Both are authors of several books on the USSR, the former Soviet space, present-day Russia, etc. Armand Goșu announced in February 2023 that he had been put on the Kremlin’s list of “foreign agents” of Russia.
- Gayana Yüksel is a Tatar from the Russian-occupied Crimean Peninsula who took refuge in Turkey in 2014. Before the Russian invasion, Yüksel taught at Tavrida University (Ukraine), and now teaches at Istanbul University where she is an associate lecturer, but she also teaches at Tavrida University, moved from Crimea to Kyiv, online. She is a specialist in communication and journalism, former editor-in-chief of a publication now banned in Crimea. Her family has known the memory of exile for four generations: her grandparents left Crimea in 1944, her parents left Uzbekistan for the Urals, she herself left Crimea in 2014, and her daughter found refuge in the West.
- The historian Metin Omer of Tatar origin studied in Ankara, where he wrote his PhD thesis on the emigration of Turks and Tatars from Romania to Turkey between the two world wars (Hacettepe University, 2018). He is a researcher at the “Ovidius” University of Constanța, where he also teaches the only course on Tatar history and civilization.
Who is next after Ukraine?
Yüksel showed how today the Tatars are victims of repression unprecedented in recent decades and explained why no one should be scared of a Tatar autonomy of the peninsula: because the Tatars have always supported the integrity of the state they were part of:
- “The subject of our meeting today is the annexation of Crimea, with deep meanings, it is always difficult for me to talk about this subject because I want to convey both the personal experiences of people and the historical context (…)
- First of all it is an illegal act (…) the Tatars were put under pressure like never before. There are arrests, there are repressions, my Tatars have no way to recognize the annexation (…)
- The peninsula has been turned into a Russian military base, a policy of “altering” the demography has begun, attempts are being made to expel Ukrainians and Tatars and to “infuse” Russians into the country, there have been countless human rights violations, and Crimeans do not have free access to correct information about what is happening in the world and in Russia or Ukraine (…)
- Russia will not stop, first it was Donbas, then Crimea, who is next after Ukraine? (…)
- In order not to be forcibly mobilized by Russia in the war with Ukraine many Tatars took refuge and left the island, and we call this a silent deportation (…)
- Among Crimean Tatars there is no debate about the autonomy of the peninsula, they all want it (…)
- Our request is that nobody should be afraid of a Tatar autonomy because Tatars have always supported the integrity of the state. And even after the creation of this autonomy, all links between Crimea and Ukraine would be preserved (…)
- A large part of the Tatar population is still in Crimea. We have not broken ties with the Tatars there and we are trying to keep in touch with them, get information from there and present it to the world.
- But we have to understand very well that it is not only pressure against journalists, even those who listen to Ukrainian music or dress in Ukrainian colours are arrested. Even at the ceremonies, people are gathering their phones and putting them in a corner for fear of being tapped (…)”.
Tatars and the curse of Crimea
- “The Tatars and their historical destiny are the most faithful image of the curse of the strategy from which the Crimean peninsula suffers,” says historian Cosmin Popa, pointing out how Russia has understood how to “make amends for the excesses and mistakes of the past”.
- How Crimea fell into Russian hands: The Ottoman Empire recognised the “independence” of the Crimean Khanate in 1774 through the Treaty of Kuciuk Kainargi, concluded with its centuries-old rival, the Russian Empire. In fact, Crimea, which is considered the cradle of the Tatar people, has since become a ‘puppet’ in the hands of the Russians, who officially annexed it in 1783. In 1954, the Soviet Union transferred the peninsula to the Ukrainian SSR, and after the fall of the USSR Crimea was internationally recognised as part of Ukraine. In 2014 dictator Vladimir Putin annexed the peninsula, under the pretext of a referendum in which Crimeans “chose” to be part of Russia, not Ukraine.
Popa recalled an episode representative of the Russian divisive ploy in the spring of 1944, when Stalin made the decision to deport Crimean Tatars and began an “almost subtle process of coercing Jews into this deportation.”
At the height of the war and in the midst of the Nazi extermination campaign, Stalin had given the Jews the idea that the Crimean Peninsula could become their republic if the Tatars left, so the Jews did not react to their deportation, Popa explains:
- “And then Molotov himself (Veaceslav Molotov, Soviet Foreign Minister under Stalin, ed.) suggested to representatives of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee to propose to the Soviet leadership a plan to form an autonomous Jewish republic in Crimea. This was exactly in February 1944. The result was a letter to Stalin and Molotov, written and signed by the leaders of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, proposing the organisation of this autonomous Jewish republic in Crimea. Obviously, Stalin never intended to form such a republic in Crimea;
- Later, in 1952, most of the leaders of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee were accused of anti-Soviet acts, using, what do you know, this very Crimean letter of the leaders of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee as evidence;
- What made the effect achieved ‘fantastic’ is that: the Jews, another people historically subject to vicissitudes, had no reaction to the deportation of Crimean Tatars because they were co-interested, as it was suggested to them that the deportation of the Tatars was a fantastic opportunity for the fulfilment of the Jewish territorial dream and the formation of a Jewish state embryo”, explained historian Cosmin Popa.
Popa also points out that Tatars tried to return from Uzbekistan, where many of them arrived, to Crimea between 1967 and 1985, but were prevented from doing so, their addresses were not registered on their ID cards, they were not given jobs, and their children were not admitted to schools.
Instead, the peninsula was massively populated with tens and hundreds of thousands of Russian and Ukrainian families, the historian adds.
On the other hand, Popa says, “Tatars have always been perceived not only by Russians but also by Ukrainians as a danger to the territorial unity of Ukraine, a danger exacerbated after Ukraine gained independence.”
But things change after 2014 and then 2022, when Ukrainians understand that Crimean Tatars are one of the few guarantees that the Crimean Peninsula can ever return to the territorial structure of Ukraine.
“Not because they are a local people, as Ukrainian law recognized them in 2021, but because Tatars are, if you like, the only and most authentic bearers of democratic values in that country. Because deprived of the protection of a state, historically deprived of their rights, the only basis for the existence and maintenance, and replication of this people is the democratic organisation of society,” Popa explains.
How can a people go crazy all of a sudden?
“But how can a people suddenly go crazy?” asks historian Armand Goșu, speaking about the lack of reaction of the Russians to the atrocities committed by their own leader in Ukraine.
“Is it a Putin problem, a leadership problem, an elite problem? Or does Putin best express the essence of this people?” continues the historian who was put on the Kremlin’s list of “foreign agents” in February 2023.
Goșu explains that it is not possible for there to be a profound lack of reaction from society to all the atrocities committed by the Russians during the war in Ukraine (Bucea, Mariupol, etc.) unless this society overwhelmingly supports its leader.
- “I think it’s a question of the people, not the leader, and I think Putin’s demise will not change things. There is a risk that it won’t change much (…)
- Why didn’t they take to the streets to protest? The military aggression against Ukraine has started. Not after Bucha, not after Mariupol? Has anyone taken to the streets to protest? There were two or three cases (…) Where are the rest? This is about the fact that the population supports this imperialist project (…)
- So in the long run expect the worst. And Ukraine is an existential problem for Russia (…) The loss of Ukraine alters Russia’s identity,” added Armand Goșu.
Has the Third World War begun?
The end of the debate was dedicated to the question that everyone has been thinking about after 24 February 2022: Is World War III starting? Historians Cosmin Popa and Armand Goșu shared the same scenario, complementing each other for a few minutes and ending the debate:
“Yes, World War III has started”, both historians answered in unison.
“It’s just that it’s not unfolding as we know it, it’s a different story. It’s a different kind of war, but it has started,” adds Armand Goșu.
“Putin in this situation either comes out on the basket or under the shield. He’s the only leader who has control over atomic weapons who is gambling not his popularity but his life,” Popa adds.
“Even in 1940-1941 those in Bucharest or Constanța were not thinking in terms of war, although it was war. Weddings were taking place, children were being born, people were going to restaurants, to brothels, life was taking its course”, Goșu adds.
“We, now, at a distance from them, say yes, it was war then. Just as when our children read about what is happening today they will say that year the war started,” Goșu adds.
“And the classic war will come, that’s clear”, Cosmin Popa concludes.
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