Crimean Tatars

, flag = Flag of the Crimean Tatar people.svg
, flag_caption = Flag of Crimean Tatars
, image = Love, Peace, Traditions.jpg
, caption = Crimean Tatars in traditional clothing in front of the Khan's Palace
, poptime =
, popplace =
, region1 =
, pop1 = 3,500,000 6,000,000
, ref1 =
, region2 =
*
, pop2 = 248,193
, ref2 =
, region3 =
, pop3 = 239,000
, ref3 =
, region4 =
, pop4 = 24,137
, ref4 =
, region5 =
, pop5 = 2,449
, ref5 =
, region7 =
, pop7 = 1,803
, ref7 =
, region8 =
, pop8 = 1,532
, ref8 =
, region9 =
*()
, pop9 = 7,000
(500–1,000)
, ref9 =
, region10 = Total
, pop10 = 4.024.114 (or 6.524.114)
, region11 =
, pop11 =
, langs =
, rels = Sunni Islam
, related = Dobrujan Tatars, Nogais, Volga Tatars, Lipka Tatars, Crimean Karaites

Crimean Tatars ( crh, Къырымтатарлар, translit=Qırımtatarlar) or Crimeans ( crh, Къырымлар/Къырымлылар, translit=Qırımlar/Qırımlılar) are a Turkic ethnic group and nation who are an indigenous people of Crimea. The formation and ethnogenesis of Crimean Tatars occurred during the 13th–17th centuries, uniting Cumans, who appeared in Crimea in the 10th century, with other peoples who had inhabited Crimea since ancient times and gradually underwent Tatarization, including Greeks, Italians, Armenians, Goths, Sarmatians, and many others.

Crimean Tatars constituted the majority of Crimea's population from the time of ethnogenesis until the mid-19th century, and the largest ethnic population until the end of the 19th century. Russia attempted to purge through a combination of physical violence, intimidation, forced resettlement, and legalized forms of discrimination between 1783 and 1900. Between Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 1783 and 1800, somewhere between 100,000 and 300,000 Crimean Tatars emigrated. However, this did not result in the complete eradication of Crimean Tatar cultural elements (at least not under the Romanov dynasty; however, under the Soviets, the Crimean Tatars were almost completely driven from the Crimean peninsula).Almost immediately after retaking of Crimea from Axis forces, in May 1944, the USSR State Defense Committee ordered the deportation of all of the Crimean Tatars from Crimea, including the families of Crimean Tatars who had served in the Soviet Army. The deportees were transported in trains and boxcars to Central Asia, primarily to Uzbekistan. The Crimean Tatars lost 18 to 46 percent of their population as a result of the deportations. Starting in 1967, a few were allowed to return and in 1989 the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union condemned the removal of Crimean Tatars from their motherland as inhumane and lawless, but only a tiny percent were able to return before the full right of return became policy in 1989.

The European Union and international indigenous groups do not dispute their status as an indigenous people and they have been officially recognized as an indigenous people of Ukraine as of 2014. The current Russian administration considers them a "national minority", but not an indigenous people, and continues to deny that they are titular people of Crimea, even though the Soviet Union considered them indigenous before their deportation and the subsequent dissolution of the Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (Crimean ASSR). Today, Crimean Tatars constitute approximately 15% of the population of Crimea. There remains a Crimean Tatar diaspora in Turkey and Uzbekistan.

The Crimean Tatars have been members of the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization (UNPO) since 1991.

Distribution

In the Ukrainian census of 2001, 248,200 Ukrainian citizens identified themselves as Crimean Tatars with 98% (or about 243,400) of them living in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea. An additional 1,800 (or about 0.7%) lived in the city of Sevastopol, also on the Crimean peninsula, but outside the border of the autonomous republic.

About 150,000 remain in exile in Central Asia, mainly in Uzbekistan. The official number of Crimean Tatars in Turkey is 150,000 with some Crimean Tatar activists estimating a figure as high as 6 million. The activists reached this number by taking one million Tatar immigrants to Turkey as a starting point and multiplying this number by the birth rate in the span of the last hundred years. Crimean Tatars in Turkey mostly live in Eskişehir Province, descendants of those who emigrated in the late 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries. The Dobruja region of Romania and Bulgaria is home to more than 27,000 Crimean Tatars, with the majority in Romania and approximately 3,000 on the Bulgarian side of the border.

Sub-ethnic groups

The Crimean Tatars are subdivided into three sub-ethnic groups:

*the '' Tats'' (not to be confused with the Iranic Tat people, living in the Caucasus region) who used to inhabit the mountainous Crimea before 1944 predominantly are Cumans, Greeks, Goths and other people, as Tats in Crimea also were called Hellenic Urum people (Greeks settled in Crimea) who were deported by the Imperial Russia to the area around Mariupol; The term ''Tat'' appears already in the 8th century Orkhon inscriptions denoting "a subjected foreign people". In the 17th century Crimean context, it probably denoted various peoples of foreign (ie. non-Turkic) origin living under the khan's rule, especially the Greeks, Italians, and the remnants of Goths and Alans inhabiting the mountainous southern section of Crimea.
*the '' Yaliboylu'' who lived on the southern coast of the peninsula before 1944 and practiced Christianity until the 14th century;Crimean Tatars (КРИМСЬКІ ТАТАРИ)
Encyclopedia of History of Ukraine.
*the ''Noğays'' (not to be confused with related Nogai people, living now in Southern Russia) — former inhabitants of the Crimean steppe.

Historians suggest that inhabitants of the mountainous parts of Crimea lying to the central and southern parts (the Tats), and those of the Southern coast of Crimea (the Yalıboyu) were the direct descendants of the Pontic Greeks, Armenians, Scythians, Ostrogoths ( Crimean Goths) and Kipchaks along with the Cumans while the latest inhabitants of the northern steppe represent the descendants of the Nogai Horde of the Black Sea, nominally subjects of the Crimean Khan. It is largely assumed that the Tatarization process that mostly took place in the 16th century brought a sense of cultural unity through the blending of the Greeks, Armenians, Italians and Ottoman Turks of the southern coast, Goths of the central mountains and Turkic-speaking Kipchaks and Cumans of the steppe and forming of the Crimean Tatar ethnic group. However, the Cuman language is considered the direct ancestor of the current language of the Crimean Tatars with possible incorporations of the other languages, like Crimean Gothic. The fact that Crimean Tatars' ethnogenesis took place in Crimea and consisted of several stages lasting over 2500 years is proved by genetic research showing that the gene pool of the Crimean Tatars preserved both the initial components for more than 2.5 thousand years, and later in the northern steppe regions of the Crimea.

The Mongol conquest of the Kipchaks led to a merged society with a Mongol ruling class over a Kipchak speaking population which came to be dubbed Tatar and which eventually absorbed other ethnicities on the Crimean peninsula like Armenians, Italians, Greeks, and Goths to form the modern day Crimean Tatar people; up to the Soviet deportation, the Crimean Tatars could still differentiate among themselves between Tatar, Kipchak, Nogays, and the "Tat" descendants of Tatarized Goths and other Turkified peoples.

History

Origin

The Crimean Tatars were formed as a people in Crimea and are descendants of various peoples who lived in Crimea in different historical eras. The main ethnic groups that inhabited the Crimea at various times and took part in the formation of the Crimean Tatar people are Tauri, Scythians, Sarmatians, Alans, Greeks, Goths, Bulgars, Khazars, Pechenegs, Italians and Circassians. The consolidation of this diverse ethnic conglomerate into a single Crimean Tatar people took place over the course of centuries. The connecting elements in this process were the commonality of the territory, the Turkic language and Islamic religion.Очерки истории и культуры крымских татар. / Под. ред. Э. Чубарова. — Симферополь, Крымучпедгиз, 2005.Хайруддинов М. А. К вопросу об этногенезе крымских татар/М. А. Хайруддинов // Ученые записки Крымского государственного индустриально-педагогического института. Выпуск 2. -Симферополь, 2001.

By the end of the 15th century, the main prerequisites that led to the formation of an independent Crimean Tatar ethnic group were created: the political dominance of the Crimean Khanate was established in Crimea, the Turkic languages ( Cuman-Kipchak on the territory of the khanate) became dominant, and Islam acquired the status of a state religion throughout the Peninsula. By a preponderance Cumanian population of the Crimea acquired the name "Tatars", the Islamic religion and Turkic language, and the process of consolidating the multi-ethnic conglomerate of the Peninsula began, which has led to the emergence of the Crimean Tatar people.Vozgrin, Valer
"Historical fate of the Crimean Tatars"
Over several centuries, on the basis of Cuman language with a noticeable Oghuz influence, the Crimean Tatar language has developed.

Golden Horde and Crimean Khanate

At the beginning of the 13th century, the Crimea, the majority of the population of which was already composed of a Turkic people — Cumans, became a part of the Golden Horde. The Crimean Tatars mostly adopted Islam in the 14th century and thereafter Crimea became one of the centers of Islamic civilization in Eastern Europe. In the same century, trends towards separatism appeared in the Crimean Ulus of the Golden Horde. De facto independence of the Crimea from the Golden Horde may be counted since the beginning of princess (khanum) Canike's, the daughter of the powerful Khan of the Golden Horde Tokhtamysh and the wife of the founder of the Nogai Horde Edigey, reign in the peninsula. During her reign she strongly supported Hacı Giray in the struggle for the Crimean throne until her death in 1437. Following the death of Сanike, the situation of Hacı Giray in Crimea weakened and he was forced to leave Crimea for Lithuania.

The Crimean Tatars emerged as a nation at the time of the Crimean Khanate, an Ottoman vassal state during the 16th to 18th centuries. Russian historian, doctor of history, Professor of the Russian Academy of Sciences Ilya Zaytsev writes that analysis of historical data shows that the influence of Turkey on the policy of the Crimea was not as high as it was reported in old Turkish sources and Imperial Russian ones. The Turkic-speaking population of Crimea had mostly adopted Islam already in the 14th century, following the conversion of Ozbeg Khan of the Golden Horde. By the time of the first Russian invasion of Crimea in 1736, the Khan's archives and libraries were famous throughout the Islamic world, and under Khan Krym-Girei the city of Aqmescit was endowed with piped water, sewerage and a theatre where Molière was performed in French, while the port of Kezlev stood comparison with Rotterdam and Bakhchysarai, the capital, was described as Europe's cleanest and greenest city.Rayfield, Donald, 2014: "Dormant claims", ''Times Literary Supplement'', 9 May 2014 p 15

In 1441, an embassy from the representatives of several strongest clans of the Crimea, including the Golden Horde clans Shırın and Barın and the Cumanic clan — Kıpçak, went to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania to invite Hacı Giray to rule in the Crimea. He became the founder of the Giray dynasty, which ruled until the annexation of the Crimean Khanate by Russia in 1783. Hacı I Giray was a Jochid descendant of Genghis Khan and of his grandson Batu Khan of the Golden Horde. During the reign of Meñli I Giray, Hacı's son, the army of the Great Horde that still existed then invaded the Crimea from the north, Crimean Khan won the general battle, overtaking the army of the Horde Khan in Takht-Lia, where he was killed, the Horde ceased to exist, and the Crimean Khan became the Great Khan and the successor of this state. Since then, the Crimean Khanate was among the strongest powers in Eastern Europe until the beginning of the 18th century. The Khanate officially operated as a vassal state of the Ottoman Empire, with great autonomy after 1580. At the same time, the Nogai hordes, not having their own khan, were vassals of the Crimean one, Muskovy and Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth paid annual tribute to the khan (until 1700 and 1699 respectively). In the 17th century, the Crimean Tatars helped Ukrainian Cossacks led by Bohdan Khmelnytsky in the struggle for independence, which allowed them to win several decisive victories over Polish troops.

In 1711, when Peter I of Russia went on a campaign with all his troops (80,000) to gain access to the Black Sea, he was surrounded by the army of the Crimean Khan Devlet II Giray, finding himself in a hopeless situation. And only the betrayal of the Ottoman vizier Baltacı Mehmet Pasha allowed Peter to get out of the encirclement of the Crimean Tatars. When Devlet II Giray protested against the vizier's decision, his response was: ''"You should know your Tatar affairs. The affairs of the Sublime Porte are entrusted to me. You do not have the right to interfere in them"''. Treaty of the Pruth was signed, and 10 years later, Russia declared itself an empire. In 1736, the Crimean Khan Qaplan I Giray was summoned by the Turkish Sultan Ahmed III to Persia. Understanding that Russia could take advantage of the lack of troops in Crimea, Qaplan Giray wrote to the Sultan to think twice, but the Sultan was persistent. As it was expected by Qaplan Giray, in 1736 the Russian army invaded the Crimea, led by Münnich, devastated the peninsula, killed civilians and destroyed all major cities, occupied the capital, Bakhchisaray, and burnt the Khan's palace with all the archives and documents, and then left the Crimea because of the epidemic that had begun in it. One year after the same was done by another Russian general — Peter Lacy.Gayvoronsky, 2007 Since then, the Crimean Khanate had not been able to recover, and its slow decline began. The Russo-Turkish War of 1768 to 1774 resulted in the defeat of the Ottomans by the Russians, and according to the Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca (1774) signed after the war, Crimea became independent and the Ottomans renounced their political right to protect the Crimean Khanate. After a period of political unrest in Crimea, Imperial Russia violated the treaty and annexed the Crimean Khanate in 1783.

The main population of the Crimean khanate were Crimean Tatars, along with them in the Crimean khanate lived significant communities of Karaites, Italians, Armenians, Greeks, Circassians and Roma. In the early 16th century under the rule of the Crimean khans passed part of Nogays (Mangyts), who roamed outside the Crimean Peninsula, moving there during periods of drought and starvation. The majority of the population professed Islam of the Hanafi stream; part of the population – Orthodox, Monotheletism, Judaism; in the 16th century. There were small Catholic communities. The Crimean Tatar population of the Crimean Peninsula was partially exempt from taxes. The Greeks paid dzhyziya, the Italians were in a privileged position due to the partial tax relief made during the reign of Meñli Geray I. By the 18 century the population of the Crimean khanate was about 500 thousand people. The territory of the Crimean khanate was divided into Kinakanta (governorships), which consisted of Kadylyk, covering a number of settlements.Great Russian Encyclopedia
Крымское ханство
— A. V. Vinogradov, S. F. Faizov

Until the beginning of the 18th century, Crimean Nogays were known for frequent, at some periods almost annual, slave raids into Ukraine and Russia.Brian L. Davies (2014).
Warfare, State and Society on the Black Sea Steppe
'. pp. 15–26. Routledge. For a long time, until the late 18th century, the Crimean Khanate maintained a massive slave trade with the Ottoman Empire and the Middle East which was one of the important