No. 28 - 12/2019:
Ukrainian - Crimean-Tatar Socio-Cultural Encounters
edited by Alexander Kratochvil
The encounter of Crimean Tatars and Ukrainians can be traced back till the ear- ly modern period. There are a variety of forms of interaction between Crimean Tatars and Ukrainians, in this contribution the focus is mainly on sociocultural (literature, art, cinematography) and political contact from the end of the 19th century to the present. These contacts show not only the interactions but also parallel historical and cultural constellations for Crimean Tatars and Ukraini- ans which until today continue to operate as a postcolonial situation. Against that background the author are also elaborate on prospects for the future of Ukrainian-Crimean Tatar relations.
Crimean Tatars have come to play a prominent new role in Ukrainian cultural and political discourses following Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, particularly those who have been displaced to the Ukrainian mainland. Notably, internally displaced Crimean Tatars have become emblematic of newly resurgent narratives of Ukrainian civic identity and multiculturalism, and Crimean Tatar cuisine, music, visual arts, and other products are now increasingly visible components of Ukrainian cultural landscapes. This article investigates recent trends in Crimean Tatar cultural and artistic (re)production in mainland Ukraine—both in traditional and progressive forms—and situates these trends within the political and discursive project of promoting Ukraine’s civic and multicultural identities.
The Euromaidan protest brought tremendous challenges to the political, so- cial-cultural and everyday life in Ukraine and abroad. The military invasion by the neighboring country and annexation of the Crimean Peninsula marked the appearance of newly constructed discourses. The events raised questions about the continuity of the popular paradigm of conceptualization of national iden- tity in Ukraine. Such dichotomies as national vs regional and /or ethnic were re-constructed through practices of civic and national unity. The simultaneous emergence of diverse discourses that ideologically competed with each other (multiculturalism, ethnic nationalism and other), and simultaneously co-exist- ed in the same physical landscape have shed light on the plurality, complexity and fluidity of visions of national identity. Focusing on the representation of Crimean Tatars in Ukraine offers a unique possibility to observe the dynamics of imaginative shifts in Ukrainian media discourses that have appeared during the Euromaidan and further occupation of the Crimean peninsula.
The considerations about Slavia Islamica are divided in two parts. In Part one I outline some preconditions and locate the theoretical framework within Slavia Islamica as a concept. Part two gives several examples from Ukrainian literature and culture as part of a conceptualization of Slavia Islamica as a “contact zone” (Mary Pratt). This approach opens new research perspectives in the entangled sociocultural history of this region and the interactions of Crimean Tatars and Ukrainians. The research will shed light on questions of Ukrainian self-perception and as well on external perceptions of Ukraine and Ukrainian identity. Against this background, questions of Slavia Islamica stress Ukrainian-Crimean Tatar intercultural relations and their significance in Ukraine’s past and present.
This article seeks to shed light on the historical relationships between Poland, Germany and the Crimean Tatars, and how these relations affect the current negotiation of Crimean Tatar identity. We try briefly to illustrate this by first addressing the genesis of historical Tatar-German-Polish relations. In the second step, we present actors and structures of the Crimean Tatar scene between Crimea and Diaspora, as it has been since returning from deportation at the end of the 1980s to the second annexation of Crimea by Russia in 2014. In the last step, we look at the cultural activities of Crimean Tatars in Germany and Poland in the field of tension between “Staying in the Crimea” and “Working for a free Crimea”. The latter usually explicitly implies taking actions outside Crimea, a life in the diaspora that is sometimes more concerned with preserving Crimean Tatar identity than with their Yeşil Ada (Green Island) itself.
The annexed city of Sevastopol as a part of the Crimean peninsula remains de jure a Ukrainian territory for the most of the European countries and be- yond. De facto this city is a new subject of the Russian Federation. A case study conducted in November 2017 demonstrates that in spite of its politically con- tested status, the linguistic landscape of Sevastopol indexes the Russian pow- er. Through the foundational principles of indexicality and emplacement, the study shows how Ukrainian and Crimean Tatar refer to Sevastopol’s past, and Russian represents its present and its future.
After takeover of Crimea by the Russian Empire, rapid territorial and administrative reorganization and integration into the Russian imperial system followed. The colonization of the peninsula led to significant alteration of practices keyed to the exploitation of natural resources, in particular the plants of the Crimean landscape. Crimea served as a showcase of Russian colonial and imperial measures and was to become part of an imperial network across which plants and animals could bе moved, а laboratory to which flora and fauna could bе transferred with the goal of opening up new industrial enterprise.
