Crimean Tatars. Crimean Tatars: history, traditions and customs

Invasion

In the margins of a Greek handwritten book of religious content (synaxarion) found in Sudak, the following note was made:

“On this day (January 27) the Tatars came for the first time, in 6731” (6731 from the Creation of the World corresponds to 1223 AD). Details of the Tatar raid can be read from the Arab writer Ibn al-Athir: “Having come to Sudak, the Tatars took possession of it, and the inhabitants scattered, some of them with their families and their property climbed the mountains, and some went to the sea.”

The Flemish Franciscan monk William de Rubruck, who visited southern Taurica in 1253, left us with terrible details of this invasion:

“And when the Tatars came, the Komans (Polovtsians), who all fled to the seashore, entered this land in such huge numbers that they devoured each other mutually, the living dead, as a certain merchant who saw this told me; the living devoured and tore with their teeth the raw meat of the dead, like dogs - corpses.”

The devastating invasion of the Golden Horde nomads, without a doubt, radically updated the ethnic composition of the population of the peninsula. However, it is premature to assert that the Turks became the main ancestors of the modern Crimean Tatar ethnic group. Since ancient times, Tavrika has been inhabited by dozens of tribes and peoples who, thanks to the isolation of the peninsula, actively mixed and wove a motley multinational pattern. It’s not for nothing that Crimea is called the “concentrated Mediterranean”.

Crimean aborigines

From the 6th century BC. e. to 1st century AD e. were the rightful masters of the southeastern coast of the Crimean Peninsula brands. Christian apologist Clement of Alexandria noted: “The Taurians live by robbery and war " Even earlier, the ancient Greek historian Herodotus described the custom of the Tauri, in which they “sacrificed to the Virgin shipwrecked sailors and all Hellenes who were captured on the open sea.” How can one not remember that after many centuries, robbery and war will become constant companions of the “Crimeans” (as the Crimean Tatars were called in the Russian Empire), and pagan sacrifices, according to the spirit of the times, will turn into slave trade.

In the 19th century, Crimean explorer Peter Keppen expressed the idea that “in the veins of all inhabitants of territories rich in dolmen finds” the blood of the Taurians flows. His hypothesis was that “the Taurians, being heavily overpopulated by Tatars in the Middle Ages, remained to live in their old places, but under a different name and gradually switched to the Tatar language, borrowing the Muslim faith.” At the same time, Koeppen drew attention to the fact that the Tatars of the South Coast are of the Greek type, while the mountain Tatars are close to the Indo-European type.

At the beginning of our era, the Tauri were assimilated by the Iranian-speaking Scythian tribes, who subjugated almost the entire peninsula. Although the latter soon disappeared from the historical scene, they could well have left their genetic trace in the later Crimean ethnos. An unnamed author of the 16th century, who knew the population of Crimea well in his time, reports: “Although we consider the Tatars to be barbarians and poor people, they are proud of the abstinence of their lives and the antiquity of their Scythian origin.”

Modern scientists admit the idea that the Tauri and Scythians were not completely destroyed by the Huns who invaded the Crimean Peninsula, but concentrated in the mountains and had a noticeable influence on later settlers.

Of the subsequent inhabitants of Crimea, a special place is given to the Goths, who in the 3rd century, having swept through the north-western Crimea with a crushing wave, remained there for many centuries. The Russian scientist Stanislav Sestrenevich-Bogush noted that at the turn of the 18th-19th centuries, the Goths living near Mangup still retained their genotype, and their Tatar language was similar to South German. The scientist added that “they are all Muslims and Tatarized.”

Linguists note a number of Gothic words included in the Crimean Tatar language. They also confidently declare the Gothic contribution, albeit relatively small, to the Crimean Tatar gene pool. “Gothia faded away, but its inhabitants disappeared without a trace into the mass of the emerging Tatar nation”, noted Russian ethnographer Alexei Kharuzin.

Aliens from Asia

The question to what extent modern Crimean Tatars can be considered the heirs of the Horde conquerors, and to what extent to have autochthonous or other origins, is still relevant. Thus, the St. Petersburg historian Valery Vozgrin, as well as some representatives of the “Majlis” (parliament of the Crimean Tatars) are trying to establish the opinion that the Tatars are predominantly autochthonous in Crimea, but most scientists do not agree with this.

Even in the Middle Ages, travelers and diplomats considered the Tatars “aliens from the depths of Asia.” In particular, the Russian steward Andrei Lyzlov in his “Scythian History” (1692) wrote that the Tatars, who “are all countries near the Don, and the Meotian (Azov) Sea, and Taurica of Kherson (Crimea) around the Pontus Euxine (Black Sea) "obladasha and satosha" were newcomers.

During the rise of the national liberation movement in 1917, the Tatar press called for relying on the “state wisdom of the Mongol-Tatars, which runs like a red thread through their entire history,” and also with honor to hold “the emblem of the Tatars - the blue banner of Genghis” (“kok- Bayrak" is the national flag of the Tatars living in Crimea).

Speaking in 1993 in Simferopol at the “kurultai”, the eminent descendant of the Girey khans, Dzhezar-Girey, who arrived from London, said that "we are the sons of the Golden Horde", strongly emphasizing the continuity of the Tatars "from the Great Father, Lord Genghis Khan, through his grandson Batu and eldest son Juche."

However, such statements do not quite fit into the ethnic picture of Crimea that was observed before the peninsula was annexed by the Russian Empire in 1782. At that time, among the “Crimeans” two subethnic groups were quite clearly distinguished: narrow-eyed Tatars - a pronounced Mongoloid type of inhabitants of steppe villages and mountain Tatars - characterized by a Caucasian body structure and facial features: tall, often fair-haired and blue-eyed people who spoke a language other than the steppe, language.

What ethnography says

"Steppe people" ("Nogai", "Nogai")- descendants of nomadic tribes that were part of the Golden Horde. Back in the 17th century, the Nogais roamed the steppes of the Northern Black Sea region from Moldova to the North Caucasus, but later, mostly forcibly, they were resettled by the Crimean khans to the steppe regions of the peninsula. Westerners played a significant role in the ethnogenesis of the Nogai. Kipchaks (Polovtsians). The race of the Nogai is Caucasian with an admixture of Mongoloidity.

“South Coast Tatars” (“yalyboylu”)- mostly immigrants from Asia Minor, formed on the basis of several migration waves from Central Anatolia. The ethnogenesis of this group was largely provided by the Greeks, Goths, Asia Minor Turks and Circassians; Italian (Genoese) blood was traced in the inhabitants of the eastern part of the South Coast. Although most yalyboylu- Muslims, some of them retained elements of Christian rituals for a long time.

"Highlanders" ("Tats")- lived in the mountains and foothills of central Crimea (between the steppe inhabitants and the southern coast dwellers). The ethnogenesis of the Tats is complex and not fully understood. According to scientists, the majority of the nationalities inhabiting Crimea took part in the formation of this subethnic group.

All three Crimean Tatar subethnic groups differed in their culture, economy, dialects, anthropology, but, nevertheless, they always felt themselves to be part of a single people.

A word for geneticists

One of the tasks of geneticists was to discover evidence of the existence of an “extraterritorial” population group that could determine the common origin of the Crimean, Volga and Siberian Tatars. The research tool was Y chromosome, convenient because that is transmitted only along one line - from father to son, and is not “mixed” with genetic variants that came from other ancestors.

The genetic portraits of the three groups turned out to be dissimilar to each other; in other words, the search for common ancestors for all Tatars was unsuccessful. Thus, the Volga Tatars are dominated by haplogroups common in Eastern Europe and the Urals, while the Siberian Tatars are characterized by “Pan-Eurasian” haplogroups.

DNA analysis of the Crimean Tatars shows a high proportion of southern - “Mediterranean” haplogroups and only a small admixture (about 10%) of “Nast Asian” lines. This means that the gene pool of the Crimean Tatars was primarily replenished by immigrants from Asia Minor and the Balkans, and to a much lesser extent by nomads from the steppe strip of Eurasia.

At the same time, an uneven distribution of the main markers in the gene pools of different subethnic groups of the Crimean Tatars was revealed: the maximum contribution of the “eastern” component was noted in the northernmost steppe group, while in the other two (mountain and southern coastal) the “southern” genetic component dominates.

It is curious that scientists have not found any similarity in the gene pool of the peoples of Crimea with their geographical neighbors - Russians and Ukrainians.

The question of where the Tatars came from in Crimea has, until recently, caused a lot of controversy. Some believed that the Crimean Tatars were the heirs of the Golden Horde nomads, others called them the original inhabitants of Taurida.

Invasion

In the margins of a Greek handwritten book of religious content (synaxarion) found in Sudak, the following note was made: “On this day (January 27) the Tatars came for the first time, in 6731” (6731 from the Creation of the World corresponds to 1223 AD). Details of the Tatar raid can be read from the Arab writer Ibn al-Athir: “Having come to Sudak, the Tatars took possession of it, and the inhabitants scattered, some of them with their families and their property climbed the mountains, and some went to the sea.”
The Flemish Franciscan monk William de Rubruck, who visited southern Taurica in 1253, left us with terrible details of this invasion: “And when the Tatars came, the Comans (Cumans), who all fled to the seashore, entered this land in such huge numbers that they they devoured each other mutually, the living dead, as a certain merchant who saw this told me; the living devoured and tore with their teeth the raw meat of the dead, like dogs - corpses.”
The devastating invasion of the Golden Horde nomads, without a doubt, radically updated the ethnic composition of the population of the peninsula. However, it is premature to assert that the Turks became the main ancestors of the modern Crimean Tatar ethnic group. Since ancient times, Tavrika has been inhabited by dozens of tribes and peoples who, thanks to the isolation of the peninsula, actively mixed and wove a motley multinational pattern. It’s not for nothing that Crimea is called the “concentrated Mediterranean”.

Crimean aborigines

The Crimean peninsula has never been empty. During wars, invasions, epidemics or great exoduses, its population did not disappear completely. Until the Tatar invasion, the lands of Crimea were inhabited by Greeks, Romans, Armenians, Goths, Sarmatians, Khazars, Pechenegs, Polovtsians, and Genoese. One wave of immigrants replaced another, to varying degrees, inheriting a multiethnic code, which ultimately found expression in the genotype of modern “Crimeans”.
From the 6th century BC. e. to 1st century AD e. The Tauri were the rightful masters of the southeastern coast of the Crimean Peninsula. Christian apologist Clement of Alexandria noted: “The Tauri live by robbery and war.” Even earlier, the ancient Greek historian Herodotus described the custom of the Tauri, in which they “sacrificed to the Virgin shipwrecked sailors and all Hellenes who were captured on the open sea.” How can one not remember that after many centuries, robbery and war will become constant companions of the “Crimeans” (as the Crimean Tatars were called in the Russian Empire), and pagan sacrifices, according to the spirit of the times, will turn into slave trade.
In the 19th century, Crimean explorer Peter Keppen expressed the idea that “in the veins of all inhabitants of territories rich in dolmen finds” the blood of the Taurians flows. His hypothesis was that “the Taurians, being heavily overpopulated by Tatars in the Middle Ages, remained to live in their old places, but under a different name and gradually switched to the Tatar language, borrowing the Muslim faith.” At the same time, Koeppen drew attention to the fact that the Tatars of the South Coast are of the Greek type, while the mountain Tatars are close to the Indo-European type.
At the beginning of our era, the Tauri were assimilated by the Iranian-speaking Scythian tribes, who subjugated almost the entire peninsula. Although the latter soon disappeared from the historical scene, they could well have left their genetic trace in the later Crimean ethnos. An unnamed author of the 16th century, who knew the population of Crimea of his time well, reports: “Although we consider the Tatars to be barbarians and poor people, they are proud of the abstinence of their lives and the antiquity of their Scythian origin.”
Modern scientists admit the idea that the Tauri and Scythians were not completely destroyed by the Huns who invaded the Crimean Peninsula, but concentrated in the mountains and had a noticeable influence on later settlers.
Of the subsequent inhabitants of Crimea, a special place is given to the Goths, who in the 3rd century, having swept through the north-western Crimea with a crushing wave, remained there for many centuries. The Russian scientist Stanislav Sestrenevich-Bogush noted that at the turn of the 18th-19th centuries, the Goths living near Mangup still retained their genotype, and their Tatar language was similar to South German. The scientist added that “they are all Muslims and Tatarized.”
Linguists note a number of Gothic words included in the Crimean Tatar language. They also confidently declare the Gothic contribution, albeit relatively small, to the Crimean Tatar gene pool. “Gothia faded away, but its inhabitants disappeared without a trace into the mass of the emerging Tatar nation,” noted Russian ethnographer Alexei Kharuzin.

Aliens from Asia

In 1233, the Golden Horde established their governorship in Sudak, liberated from the Seljuks. This year became the generally recognized starting point of the ethnic history of the Crimean Tatars. In the second half of the 13th century, the Tatars became the masters of the Genoese trading post Solkhata-Solkata (now Old Crimea) and in a short time subjugated almost the entire peninsula. However, this did not prevent the Horde from intermarrying with the local, primarily Italian-Greek population, and even adopting their language and culture.
The question to what extent modern Crimean Tatars can be considered the heirs of the Horde conquerors, and to what extent to have autochthonous or other origins, is still relevant. Thus, the St. Petersburg historian Valery Vozgrin, as well as some representatives of the “Majlis” (parliament of the Crimean Tatars) are trying to establish the opinion that the Tatars are predominantly autochthonous in Crimea, but most scientists do not agree with this.
Even in the Middle Ages, travelers and diplomats considered the Tatars “aliens from the depths of Asia.” In particular, the Russian steward Andrei Lyzlov in his “Scythian History” (1692) wrote that the Tatars, who “are all countries near the Don, and the Meotian (Azov) Sea, and Taurica of Kherson (Crimea) around the Pontus Euxine (Black Sea) "obladasha and satosha" were newcomers.
During the rise of the national liberation movement in 1917, the Tatar press called for relying on the “state wisdom of the Mongol-Tatars, which runs like a red thread through their entire history,” and also with honor to hold “the emblem of the Tatars - the blue banner of Genghis” (“kok- Bayrak" is the national flag of the Tatars living in Crimea).
Speaking in 1993 in Simferopol at the “kurultai”, the eminent descendant of the Girey khans, Dzhezar-Girey, who arrived from London, stated that “we are the sons of the Golden Horde,” emphasizing in every possible way the continuity of the Tatars “from the Great Father, Mr. Genghis Khan, through his grandson Batu and eldest son of Juche."
However, such statements do not quite fit into the ethnic picture of Crimea that was observed before the peninsula was annexed by the Russian Empire in 1782. At that time, among the “Crimeans” two subethnic groups were quite clearly distinguished: narrow-eyed Tatars - a pronounced Mongoloid type of inhabitants of steppe villages and mountain Tatars - characterized by a Caucasian body structure and facial features: tall, often fair-haired and blue-eyed people who spoke a language other than the steppe, language.

What ethnography says

Before the deportation of the Crimean Tatars in 1944, ethnographers drew attention to the fact that these people, albeit to varying degrees, bear the mark of many genotypes that have ever lived on the territory of the Crimean peninsula. Scientists have identified three main ethnographic groups.
“Steppe people” (“Nogai”, “Nogai”) are the descendants of nomadic tribes that were part of the Golden Horde. Back in the 17th century, the Nogais roamed the steppes of the Northern Black Sea region from Moldova to the North Caucasus, but later, mostly forcibly, they were resettled by the Crimean khans to the steppe regions of the peninsula. The Western Kipchaks (Cumans) played a significant role in the ethnogenesis of the Nogais. The race of the Nogai is Caucasian with an admixture of Mongoloidity.
“South Coast Tatars” (“yalyboylu”), mostly from Asia Minor, were formed on the basis of several migration waves from Central Anatolia. The ethnogenesis of this group was largely provided by the Greeks, Goths, Asia Minor Turks and Circassians; Italian (Genoese) blood was traced in the inhabitants of the eastern part of the South Coast. Although most of the Yalyboylu are Muslims, some of them retained elements of Christian rituals for a long time.
“Highlanders” (“Tats”) - lived in the mountains and foothills of the central Crimea (between the steppe people and the southern coast dwellers). The ethnogenesis of the Tats is complex and not fully understood. According to scientists, the majority of the nationalities inhabiting Crimea took part in the formation of this subethnic group.
All three Crimean Tatar subethnic groups differed in their culture, economy, dialects, anthropology, but, nevertheless, they always felt themselves to be part of a single people.

A word for geneticists

More recently, scientists decided to clarify a difficult question: Where to look for the genetic roots of the Crimean Tatar people? The study of the gene pool of the Crimean Tatars was carried out under the auspices of the largest international project “Genographic”.
One of the tasks of geneticists was to discover evidence of the existence of an “extraterritorial” population group that could determine the common origin of the Crimean, Volga and Siberian Tatars. The research tool was the Y chromosome, which is convenient in that it is transmitted only along one line - from father to son, and does not “mix” with genetic variants that came from other ancestors.
The genetic portraits of the three groups turned out to be dissimilar to each other; in other words, the search for common ancestors for all Tatars was unsuccessful. Thus, the Volga Tatars are dominated by haplogroups common in Eastern Europe and the Urals, while the Siberian Tatars are characterized by “Pan-Eurasian” haplogroups.
DNA analysis of the Crimean Tatars shows a high proportion of southern – “Mediterranean” haplogroups and only a small admixture (about 10%) of “Nast Asian” lines. This means that the gene pool of the Crimean Tatars was primarily replenished by immigrants from Asia Minor and the Balkans, and to a much lesser extent by nomads from the steppe strip of Eurasia.
At the same time, an uneven distribution of the main markers in the gene pools of different subethnic groups of the Crimean Tatars was revealed: the maximum contribution of the “eastern” component was noted in the northernmost steppe group, while in the other two (mountain and southern coastal) the “southern” genetic component dominates. It is curious that scientists have not found any similarity in the gene pool of the peoples of Crimea with their geographical neighbors - Russians and Ukrainians.

Crimean Tatars are a very interesting people who arose and formed on the territory of the Crimean peninsula and southern Ukraine. They are a people with a dramatic and controversial history. The article will discuss the numbers, as well as the cultural characteristics of the people. Who are they - Crimean Tatars? You can also find photos of this amazing people in this article.

General characteristics of the people

Crimea is an unusual multicultural land. Many peoples left their tangible mark here: Scythians, Genoese, Greeks, Tatars, Ukrainians, Russians... In this article we will focus on only one of them. Crimean Tatars - who are they? And how did they appear in Crimea?

The people belong to the Turkic group of the Altai language family; its representatives communicate with each other in the Crimean Tatar language. Crimean Tatars today (other names: Crimeans, Krymchaks, Murzaks) live in the territory of the Republic of Crimea, as well as in Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania and other countries.

By faith, most Crimean Tatars are Sunni Muslims. The people have their own anthem, coat of arms and flag. The latter is a blue cloth, in the upper left corner of which there is a special sign of the nomadic steppe tribes - tamga.

History of the Crimean Tatars

The ethnos is the direct ancestor of those peoples who at different times were associated with Crimea. They represent a kind of ethnic mix, in the formation of which the ancient tribes of the Taurians, Scythians and Sarmatians, Greeks and Romans, Circassians, Turks and Pechenegs took part. The process of formation of the ethnic group lasted for centuries. The cement mortar that cemented this people into a single whole can be called a common isolated territory, Islam and one language.

The completion of the process of formation of the people coincided with the emergence of a powerful power - the Crimean Khanate, which existed from 1441 to 1783. For most of this time, the state was a vassal of the Ottoman Empire, with which the Crimean Khanate maintained allied ties.

During the era of the Crimean Khanate, the Crimean Tatar culture experienced its heyday. At the same time, majestic monuments of Crimean Tatar architecture were created, for example, the Khan's palace in Bakhchisarai or the Kebir-Jami mosque in the historical district, Ak-Mosque in Simferopol.

It is worth noting that the history of the Crimean Tatars is very dramatic. Its most tragic pages date back to the twentieth century.

Number and distribution

It is very difficult to name the total number of Crimean Tatars. The approximate figure is 2 million people. The fact is that the Crimean Tatars, who left the peninsula over the years, assimilated and stopped considering themselves as such. Therefore, it is difficult to establish their exact number in the world.

According to some Crimean Tatar organizations, about 5 million Crimean Tatars live outside their historical homeland. Their most powerful diaspora is in Turkey (about 500 thousand, but the figure is very inaccurate) and in Uzbekistan (150 thousand). Also, quite a lot of Crimean Tatars settled in Romania and Bulgaria. At least 250 thousand Crimean Tatars currently live in Crimea.

The size of the Crimean Tatar population on the territory of Crimea in different years is striking. Thus, according to the 1939 census, their number in Crimea was 219 thousand people. And exactly 20 years later, in 1959, there were no more than 200 Crimean Tatars on the peninsula.

The bulk of the Crimean Tatars in Crimea live today in rural areas (about 67%). Their greatest density is observed in the Simferopol, Bakhchisarai and Dzhankoy regions.

Crimean Tatars, as a rule, are fluent in three languages: Crimean Tatar, Russian and Ukrainian. In addition, many of them know Turkish and Azerbaijani languages, which are very close to Crimean Tatar. Over 92% of Crimean Tatars living on the peninsula consider Crimean Tatar their native language.

Features of the Crimean Tatar culture

The Crimean Tatars created a unique and distinctive culture. The literature of this people began to actively develop during the Crimean Khanate. Another of its heydays occurred in the 19th century. Among the outstanding writers of the Crimean Tatar people are Abdullah Dermendzhi, Aider Osman, Jafer Gafar, Ervin Umerov, Liliya Budjurova and others.

The traditional music of the people is based on ancient folk songs and legends, as well as the traditions of Islamic musical culture. Lyricism and softness are the main features of Crimean Tatar folk music.

Deportation of Crimean Tatars

May 18, 1944 is a black date for every Crimean Tatar. It was on this day that the deportation of the Crimean Tatars began - an operation to forcibly evict them from the territory of the Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. He led the NKVD operation on the orders of I. Stalin. The official reason for the deportation was the collaboration of certain representatives of the people with Nazi Germany during the Second World War.

Thus, the official position of the State Defense Committee of the USSR indicated that the Crimean Tatars deserted from the Red Army and joined Hitler’s troops fighting against the Soviet Union. What’s interesting: those representatives of the Tatar people who fought in the Red Army were also deported, but after the end of the war.

The deportation operation lasted two days and involved about 30 thousand military personnel. People, according to eyewitnesses, were given half an hour to get ready, after which they were loaded into wagons and sent east. In total, over 180 thousand people were deported, mainly to the territory of the Kostroma region, the Urals, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.

This tragedy of the Crimean Tatar people is well shown in the film “Haitarma”, which was filmed in 2012. By the way, this is the first and so far the only full-length Crimean Tatar film.

The return of the people to their historical homeland

Crimean Tatars were prohibited from returning to their homeland until 1989. National movements for the right to return to Crimea began to emerge in the 60s of the twentieth century. One of the leaders of these movements was Mustafa Dzhemilev.

The rehabilitation of the Crimean Tatars dates back to 1989, when the Supreme Soviet of the USSR declared the deportation illegal. After this, the Crimean Tatars began to actively return to their homeland. Today there are about 260 thousand Crimean Tatars in Crimea (this is 13% of the total population of the peninsula). However, returning to the peninsula, people faced a lot of problems. The most pressing among them are unemployment and lack of land.

Finally...

Amazing and interesting people - Crimean Tatars! The photos presented in the article only confirm these words. This is a people with a complex history and a rich culture, which, without a doubt, makes Crimea an even more unique and interesting region for tourists.

The Polovtsy - the ancestors of the modern Tatars - are a nomadic people who came to Rus' from the Baikal steppes from Central and Central Asia. They first began to appear at the Russian borders in 1055 and until 1239 they did not have any “own” land, since they lived off robberies and robberies, engaging in cattle breeding and horse stealing, like the gypsies. And when their cattle ate up all the grass in the steppes of Romania, Hungary and Lithuania, they moved to the steppes of Tavria. Fortunately, the grass there was noble: they could cover a horse and rider, not like in Lithuania or Poland, for example. They came and, due to their inability to plow and build, began to engage in raids on trade caravans, and to destroy and plunder peasant kurens and farms, and engage in the slave trade: driving girls, Slavic beauties, to Persia to replenish the harems of the Turkish and Iranian shahs. And when the Mongols went to Rus', they joined them. And together with them they joyfully plundered and burned the Russian land. Until they began to receive resistance from the Zaporozhye and Don Cossacks.
For the first time, the ethnonym “Tatars” appeared among the Turkic tribes that wandered in the 6th-9th centuries to the southeast of Lake Baikal.
Even the word Crimea did not exist in those days. There was Tavria.
The Tatars called this land Crimea already in 1239, when they came with the Mongol army of Khan Batu and formed the Crimean ulus of the Golden Horde. And during more than 200 years of occupation of the lands of Tavria by the Mongol-Tatars, and then by the Turks, this name stuck and became used by the majority of the invaders living there.
And already from the second half of the 13th century. the name Tavria completely disappears from the name of the peninsula.
And all the stories of the Crimean Tatars about “The centuries-old history of the already established national economy, culture, language and statehood with the capital “original Tatar” cities of Solkhat and Bakhchisarai” are nothing more than complete nonsense invented by them themselves!
Because the “ancient” “Tatar” city of Solkhat appeared in Crimea in the 40s-80s of the 13th century, i.e. in the interval from 1240 to 1280. i.e. with the invasion of Rus' by the Golden Horde. And it was built not in the bare steppe, but on the ruins of Christian and Jewish villages destroyed by the Mongols and Tatars. The village became the administrative center of the Crimean ulus of the Golden Horde. Later, a large group of Asia Minor Turks, who came with Izzaiddin Keykavus, settled in Solkhat. It was then that they, and not even the Tatars, built the first mosque in that city. In 1443, the Tatars proclaimed Hadji Giray as their Crimean Khan, but they miscalculated, because he, having concluded an alliance with the Turks in 1454, subjugated the Tatar Crimean Khanate to the Ottoman Empire.
Well, the “ancient Tatar” city of Bakhchisarai is even cooler. It was founded in 1532 and not even by the Tatars, but already in the era of the Ottoman (Turkish) Empire on the territory of three settlements:
1. The ancient small town of Chufut-Kale - founded by Jews and Alans (Ossetians), which supposedly arose in the 5th-6th centuries as a fortified settlement on the border of the Byzantine possessions. By the way: from the Crimean Tatar Chufut-Kale is translated as “Jewish fortress”.
It was renamed by the Tatars to Kyrk-Er, translated: “forty fortifications,” during the time of the same Ottoman Empire.
2. Salachik. It was founded at the end of the 6th century AD. e. by Byzantine Christians as a military fortification on the border of its possessions and existed almost until the end of the 13th century. Until in 1239 the local people - the Kipchaks and Alans - were defeated and expelled from the city by the Mongol army of Jochi, the son of Genghis Khan. At the same time, the entire Tavria peninsula came under the control of the new administration. Along with numerous Mongols, masses of Turks conquered by the Mongols, as well as Tatars close to them in language and culture, also arrived on the peninsula. It was during this period of time that the formation of a new “indigenous” local Crimean Turkic-speaking ethnic group – the Crimean Tatars – began on the peninsula. Salachik was turned by the Tatars into the capital of the Crimean ulus of the Golden Horde, until it was transferred directly to Bakhchisarai in the 15th century.
3. Eski-Yurt was not founded by the Tatars, but by Central Asian Arab pilgrims who venerated the ashes of Aziz Malik-Ashter and spread Islam.
And the problem was not at all that the Tatars and Turks settled that Crimea. It was that this was not enough for them. Yes, and Russia would not care at all what kind of peoples settled in Crimea. If only... they would plow their Crimea there and sow. So no. They just didn’t fit in Crimea. In the second half of the 16th century alone, the Tatars carried out 48 devastating raids on the southern regions of Russia, and in the first half of the 17th century, more than 200 thousand Russian captives were driven into slavery for work. And Catherine II put an end to this Tatar banditry in 1771, defeating the 100,000-strong Turkish-Tatar army.
By the way, her parting words before the campaign to the Crimea to General Peter Panin dated April 2, 1770, in which the Russian Empress spoke out regarding the fate of the Tatar peoples, have been preserved: “We have absolutely no intention of having this peninsula and the Tatar hordes, which belong to it in Our citizenship, but it is desirable only , so that they break away from Turkish citizenship and remain forever independent. It is entrusted to you, continuing the deportation and negotiations begun with the Tatars, to persuade them not to Our citizenship, but only to independence and resigning from Turkish power, solemnly promising them our guarantee, protection and defense.”
Here's how. I decided to separate the Tatars from the Turks. That is, make them independent!
Khan Selim Giray III was defeated by the Russians and fled to Istanbul.
And on August 1, 1772, Catherine II recognized with a state charter “the Khan of Crimea as an independent ruler, and the Tatar region in equal dignity with other similar free regions and under their own government.” In November of the same year, in Karasubazar, Sahib Giray with “plenipotentiaries from the Tatar people”, Prince Dolgorukov and Lieutenant General E. Shcherbinin signed a peace and union treaty, ratified on January 29, 1773 by Catherine II, according to which Crimea was declared an independent khanate under the patronage of Russia, to which the Black Sea ports of Kerch, Yenikale and Kinburn passed.
According to the Decree of Catherine II of February 22 (March 4), 1784, the Tatars were granted all the rights and benefits of the Russian nobility. The inviolability of religion was guaranteed, mullahs and other representatives of the Muslim clergy were exempt from paying taxes. Crimean Tatars were even exempted from military service...
Well, how did the Crimean Tatars repay Russia for this great mercy? But their same “great” betrayal. An opportunity arose in 1853, when they quietly and without a fight surrendered Crimea and swore allegiance to the descendant of the Girey family of Seit-Ibrahim Pasha, Wilhelm of Tokar, who, having appropriated Crimea, announced that from now on the peninsula became free and independent, but why - already under the auspices of France. But only the peaceful Christians who previously lived in Evpatoria together with the Tatars did not become free, because the Tatars were mercilessly killed in the most brutal way, and their churches were barbarically destroyed.
And again, the same imperialist Russia, the “prison of nations,” as the Bolsheviks later called it, having once again defeated the Ottoman Empire and expelled the Turks from the Crimea, treats the Tatars tenderly and kindly - everyone who agreed to live according to the laws of Russia, leaves in their homes and on their lands. But this time he doesn’t promise them any independence. And he decides that if the Tatars cannot (or themselves do not want) to be independent, then let them at least not be among the enemies of Russia. And annexes Crimea. Did this make the Tatars worse? Judge for yourself.
Both under the Russian tsars and under the Bolsheviks, the Tatars always had a good life. At least not worse than the Russians. From the very moment of the formation of the Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic as part of the RSFSR in 1921 and until the war with Nazi Germany in 1941, no one in the USSR infringed on any rights of the Crimean Tatars. And even the official and EQUAL STATE LANGUAGES in the Crimean ASSR during the totalitarian USSR were Russian and Tatar!
And Stalin, not at all because he didn’t like the Tatars, decided to deport them in 1944. And exclusively - after their next betrayal of Russia and massive collaboration with the fascists was revealed and proven.
We read from the memorandum of the deputy. People's Commissar of State Security of the USSR B.Z. Kobulova and deputy People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR I.A. Serov addressed to L.P. Beria, dated April 22, 1944 in Crimea: “... All those drafted into the Red Army amounted to 90 thousand people, including 20 thousand Crimean Tatars... 20 thousand Crimean Tatars deserted in 1941 from 51- th army during the retreat from Crimea...” The desertion of the Crimean Tatars from the Red Army was almost universal. And this is confirmed by data for individual settlements.
And here are the facts from the certificate of the High Command of the German Ground Forces dated March 20, 1942: “The Tatars are in a good mood. German superiors are treated with obedience and are proud if they are recognized in the service or outside. Their greatest pride is to have the right to wear German uniforms. Many times they expressed the desire to have a Russian-German dictionary. You can notice the joy they experience if they are able to answer a German in German... In addition to serving in volunteer detachments and punitive forces of the enemy, self-defense units were created in Tatar villages located in the mountainous forest part of Crimea, in which Tatars were members, residents of these villages. They received weapons and took an active part in punitive expeditions against the partisans.”
And, if you think about it, Stalin’s treatment of the Crimean Tatars in 1944 was not so cruel: he exiled them, but not even to the Gulag, but only to a settlement beyond the Urals, to the Kazakh steppes. This is where practically their ancestors came to Rus' from. But he could have shot everyone according to martial law. Moreover, unlike the Tatars, with Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians, etc. he wasn't so blatant.
Just think: the Indians in America were conquered by the Americans and they even drove them like cattle into reservations, and even they were in the war with the Nazis of 1941-1945. entire rifle battalions fought in the ranks of the American and Canadian armies, and none of them deserted. Michael Delisle from the Mohawk Indian tribe in the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec took part in the landing of American troops in Normandy, received a Bronze Star from the US government, and in Canada many years later - the Order of the Legion of Honor. As The Canadian Press wrote, he was the first to enter the Dachau concentration camp. Well, why, tell me, even the oppressed Indians, unlike the Crimean Tatars, did not fight on the side of the Nazis and betray their Motherland?
Not at all an example of equals among equals, the Tatars who were offended by Russians and Stalin.
However, today you cannot envy the Crimean Tatars.
Ukraine did not accept succession from Russia regarding the territory of Crimea and the peoples living on it. And that is why on the Crimean Peninsula, which belongs to Ukraine, which is independent from Russia and the Crimean Tatars, the Tatar language is not the second state language. In addition, since Ukraine did not deport the Tatars in 1944, it therefore does not consider itself obligated to return the fathers and grandfathers of the deported Tatars to the lands.
And in general: only the one who once deported them can recognize someone as an unjust victim and return them back to Crimea on LEGAL grounds, with the payment of compensation and the return of confiscated lands and real estate, i.e., correctly - Russia. And this means only one thing - that first of all, the Crimean Tatars themselves should be interested in Crimea becoming Russian again. After all, otherwise no one else will be able to recognize them as refugees or illegally repressed, even if they want to. After all, Ukraine does not have any documents indicating who exactly, and from what place and where.
What are the Tatars doing in Crimea today? They are engaged in self-seizure of lands, fight with local Cossacks, Christians and lie that Stalin and the USSR once unleashed a real genocide against them. But the question is: what and with whom are they fighting? For the independence of Crimea? From whom? From Ukrainians? From Russian Cossacks? Greeks? Armenians? Jews?....
No. They never understood who was their friend and who was their enemy, because they didn’t want to know or see anything beyond their own selfish interests.
Therefore, instead of creating a Crimean autonomy in alliance with the Russians, or for Russia to recognize them, like Abkhazia and South Ossetia, they are fighting with the Orthodox Russians there.
And Türkiye will not help the Tatars, despite their best wishes. Russia has never ceded Crimea to the Turks, and now it won’t give it up - they won’t wait. As well as the Americans, if they suddenly covet him under the pretext, for example, of helping the disadvantaged Tatars. Russia is not Iraq or Libya... So, not everything is so simple in the life of the Crimean Tatars today. And, by the way, they themselves are to blame for everything. And in general: for all those wars against Russia in alliances with the Cumans, the Golden Horde, then the Ottoman Empire, and for the betrayal of their Motherland during the Great Patriotic War - they, according to historical justice, should have been completely deprived of the right of residence for all centuries on the Crimean lands.
And who should be returned to Crimea is its truly indigenous population, exterminated by the Mongol, Tatar and Turkish invaders, namely the Greeks, Bulgarians, Ossetians and Alans. And at the same time, return the historical name to the peninsula. And call it by its former name - Tavria.
P.S.
Two years ago, when this article was written, no one could even imagine the events that are unfolding in Ukraine today in February 2014. Militants of the radical group Right Sector not only led the protest movement against the current government in the country and the Berkut law enforcement forces, but also took up arms. The blood of government officials, civilians and militants has been shed. Not everyone in Ukraine supports such radicalism. And in Crimea, almost the entire multinational population of the peninsula rose up against the actions of the Right Sector. Deputies of the Crimean Autonomy firmly stated that in the event of a violent and unconstitutional overthrow of the current government, they will turn to Russia with a request to return the Crimean Autonomy to Russia. And at this turning point for Ukraine, despite the fact that the Crimean Mejlis recently adopted a resolution to support the armed attempt of an anti-constitutional coup by the radicals and stated that it would make every effort to prevent Crimea from becoming Russian. All the same, the Crimean Tatars have a real chance, leaving behind their old grievances against the Russians, to unite with them in the fight for a Crimea free of racism. After all, even during the times of the totalitarian USSR, Russian and Tatar were official and EQUAL STATE LANGUAGES in the Crimean ASSR. Unlike today’s “democratic” and “free” Ukraine, in which, having come to power illegally, the new pro-fascist Verkhovna Rada abolished the Law on Regional Languages with its very first Decree. Only in alliance with the Russians will the Crimean Tatars today be able to resist the Banderaites, the UPA, the “Right Sector” and the Ukrainian neo-fascists who came to power, in order to be able to defend with them both the right to live in the land of their ancestors and the right to speak their native language in Crimea.
How difficult it is to be contemporary with great events. It's surprising, but Crimea has become Russian again!
Without firing a single shot. This is what the people of the peninsula decided by holding a referendum.
Let other nations not be offended by me if I say, not without pride for Russia and the Russians, that they rightfully deserve it.
I think that March 18, 2014 will go down in the history of both Crimea and Russia as the day that N.S.’s political mistake was corrected. Khrushchev, which he committed on February 19, 1954, by his personal decision transferring the Crimean region from the RSFSR to the Ukrainian SSR. The Russians simply refused to build a unitary nationalist Ukrainian state in Crimea and the entire peninsula, along with the Tatars and Ukrainians living there, returned home to Russia. Historical justice has triumphed. Now in Crimea there will be 3 state languages: Russian, Crimean Tatar and Ukrainian. This, however, is what happened to us with Crimea.

Scientists have endless debates and debates about the origin of the Crimean Tatars. Today, researchers find the roots of the Crimean Tatar people in the archaeological cultures of the Bronze and Iron Ages, which once developed in the Northern Black Sea region and Crimea.

Representatives of one of these cultures - the Kizil-Kobinskaya - are the Tauri, the aborigines of the Crimean peninsula.

This is discussed in the material of the historian, ATR TV presenter Gulnara Abdulla, published by the publication 15 minutes.

It is the brands that have been known since the 10th century BC. e., and became one of the main components of the emerging indigenous people of Crimea. They inhabited the mountainous and foothill regions of the peninsula and, undoubtedly, left their mark on the material culture of the peoples of Crimea. The Cimmerians, known from the 10th to 7th centuries BC, have common related roots with the Taurus. e. However, they never mixed with each other. The Cimmerians occupied a vast steppe territory between the Don and Dniester, the steppe part of Crimea and Taman. Some researchers claim that in the first half of the 7th century BC. e. part of this people left the territory of the Northern Black Sea region due to severe drought. But on the peninsula, by this time, the descendants of the Cimmerians had already become an integral part of the Taurian and Scythian people, part of the gene pool of Crimea.

In the 7th century BC e. In Crimea, the most famous tribal union in ancient history appeared - the Scythians. Unlike the Tauri and Cimmerians, the ancestral home of the Scythians was Altai - the cradle of the Turkic peoples. In Crimea, the Scythian tribes settled unevenly and occupied the eastern and western coasts and the main ridge of the Crimean mountains. The Scythians settled in the steppe part reluctantly, but this did not stop them from pushing the Cimmerians to the foothills. But as for the Taurians, the Scythians coexisted peacefully with them and for this reason an active process of interethnic interaction took place between them. In historical science, the ethnic term “Tavro-Scythians” or “Scyphotaurs” appears.

Around the 8th century BC. e. On the Crimean peninsula, small settlements of fishermen and traders appeared, belonging to the Hellenes from Miletus, the most powerful and richest city in Asia Minor. The first interethnic contacts between the colonists and the local Crimean population were exclusively economic and rather restrained. The Hellenes never moved deeper into the peninsula; they settled in the coastal strip.

More intensive integration processes took place in the eastern part of Crimea. Integration with the Hellenes did not proceed at a rapid pace, for example, like the Scythians with the Cimmerians and Taurians, the latter became smaller in number. They gradually dissolved in the Scythians and poured out in the 3rd century BC. e. from the mainland to the Sarmatian peninsula, who occupied the steppes of the Northern Black Sea region, displacing the Scythians from there. A distinctive feature of the Sarmatians was matriarchy - women were both part of the cavalry and occupied high priestly positions. The peaceful penetration of the Sarmatians into the mountainous and foothill regions of the peninsula continued throughout the 2nd–4th centuries. n. e. Soon they were called nothing more than “Scythian-Sarmatians.” Under the pressure of the Goths, they left the Crimean valleys of Alma, Bulganak, Kachi and went to the mountains. So the Scythian-Sarmatians were destined to settle forever between the First and Second ridges of the Crimean Mountains. The culture, ideology and language of the Sarmatians were close to the Scythians, so the integration process of these peoples proceeded quickly. They mutually enriched themselves, while at the same time maintaining the features of their individuality.

In the 1st century AD e. Roman legionnaires appeared on the Crimean peninsula. It cannot be said that their history is closely intertwined with the local population. But the Romans were in Crimea for quite a long time, until the 4th century AD. e. With the departure of the Roman troops, not all Romans wanted to leave Crimea. Some were already related to the Aborigines.

In the 3rd century, East German tribes - the Goths - appeared on the peninsula. They occupied Eastern Crimea and settled mainly along the southern coast of the peninsula. Arian Christianity actively spread among the Crimean Goths. It is noteworthy that the Crimean Goths lived in Crimea for quite a long time in their principality of Mangup, almost without mixing with the local population.

In the 5th century AD e. The era of the Great Migration began. The ancient civilization ceased to exist, Europe entered the early Middle Ages. With the establishment of new states, feudal relations were formed, and new political and administrative centers, mixed in ethnic composition, were formed on the peninsula.

Following the Goths, in the 4th century AD. e. a wave of new migrants hit the peninsula. These were the Turks - known in history as the Huns. They pushed the Goths into the mountainous and foothill regions of the peninsula. The Huns traveled a long journey of thousands of kilometers from Mongolia and Altai to Europe and settled in the Crimea, subsequently opening the way for the Khazars, Kipchaks and Horde. Hunnic blood harmoniously poured into the Crimean “melting pot”, which for thousands of years formed the Crimean Tatar ethnic group. The Huns brought the faith and cult of the god Tengri to the peninsula. And from that time on, along with Christianity, Tengrism spread in Crimea.

The Huns were followed by the Avars, but their presence did not leave a deep trace. They themselves very soon disappeared into the local population.

In the 7th century, the Bulgars, one of the Turkic ethnic groups, penetrated into Crimea under pressure from the Khazars. In Crimea they lived in ethnic communities, but did not lead a secluded lifestyle. They settled almost throughout the entire territory of the peninsula. Like all Turks, they were sociable and free from prejudices, therefore they intensively mixed both with the aborigines and with the recent “Crimeans” like them.

At the end of the 7th century, the Khazars (Turkic tribes, overwhelmingly classified as Mongoloids) advanced to the Sea of Azov, subjugating almost the entire Northern Black Sea region and the steppe part of Crimea. Already at the turn of the 8th century, the Khazars advanced to the area of settlement of the Goths in the south of the peninsula. After the collapse of their state - the Khazar Kaganate - part of the aristocracy, who professed Judaism, settled in Crimea. They called themselves “Karaits”. Actually, according to one of the existing theories, it was from the 10th century that a nation, better known as the “Karaites,” began to form on the peninsula.

Around 882, another Turk, the Pechenegs, settled on the peninsula and took part in the ethnic processes taking place among the population of Crimea. They pushed the Turkic-Bulgars into the foothills and thereby intensified the Turkization of the highlanders. Subsequently, the Pechenegs were finally assimilated into the Turkic-Alan-Bulgar-Kipchak environment of the foothills. They had Caucasian features with a slight admixture of Mongoloid ones.

In the second half of the 11th century, the Kypchaks (in Western Europe known as Cumans, in Eastern Europe as Cumans) appeared in Crimea - one of the many Turkic tribes. They occupied the entire peninsula, except for its mountainous part.

According to written sources, the Kipchaks were mostly fair-haired and blue-eyed people. The amazing feature of this people is that they did not assimilate, but were assimilated into them. That is, they were the core to which, like a magnet, the remnants of the tribes of the Pechenegs, Bulgars, Alans and others were attracted, accepting their culture. The capital of the Kipchaks on the peninsula became the city of Sugdeya (modern Sudak). By the 13th century, they finally merged with the local population and switched from Tengrism to Islam.

In 1299, the troops of the Horde temnik Nogai entered the Trans-Perekop lands and the Crimea. From that time on, the peninsula became part of the Dzhuchiev ulus of the Great Horde, without any major shocks, without actually changing the population structure that had developed at the beginning of the 13th century, without changes in the economic structure, without the destruction of cities. After this, both the conquerors and the vanquished lived peacefully on Crimean soil, virtually without conflicts, gradually getting used to each other. In the resulting motley demographic mosaic, everyone could continue to do their own thing and preserve their own traditions.

But it was with the arrival of the Kipchaks in Crimea that the final centuries-old Turkic period began. It was they who completed the Turkization and created the predominantly monolithic population of the peninsula.

When in the 16th century a significant mass of Trans-Perekop Nogais began to penetrate into the Crimean steppes, the descendants of the Kipchaks became the first with whom the Nogais encountered and with whom they began to mix quite intensively. As a result, their physical appearance changed, acquiring pronounced Mongoloid features.

So, from the 13th century, almost all the ethnic components, all the components, were already present on the peninsula, in other words, there were ancestors who would form a new nation - the Crimean Tatars.

It is noteworthy that even before the emergence of the Ottoman Empire, settlers from Asia Minor appeared on the peninsula; these were immigrants from the Turkic tribe, the Seljuks, who left traces of their stay in Crimea, as part of its population who spoke the Turkish language. This ethnic element persisted century after century, partially mixing with the Crimean Tatar population of the same faith and rather similar in language - a process inevitable for any migrants. Actually, contacts with the Seljuks, and then the Ottoman Turks, did not stop in the 13th century and throughout subsequent centuries due to the fact that the future states - the Crimean Khanate and the Ottoman Empire - were always allies.

Speaking about the ethnic composition of Crimea, it is difficult to ignore the Venetians and Genoese. The first Venetians appeared on the peninsula at the end of the 11th century. Following Venice, Genoa began to send its trade and political agents to Crimea. The latter subsequently finally ousted Venice from Crimea. Genoese trading posts flourished in the first years of the independent Crimean Tatar power - the Crimean Khanate, but in 1475 they were forced to return to Italy. But not all Genoese left Crimea. Many took root here and over time completely dissolved into the Crimean Tatars.

Over the centuries, the ethnogenesis of modern Crimean Tatars has evolved quite complexly, in which non-Turkic and Turkic ancestors took part. It was they who determined the characteristics of the language, the anthropological type and the cultural traditions of the ethnic group.

During the period of the Crimean Khanate, local integration processes were also observed. For example, it is known that in the first years of the Crimean Khanate, entire clans of Circassians moved here, who by the end of the 19th century dissolved into the Crimean Tatars.

Today, modern Crimean Tatars consist of three main subethnic groups: southern coastal (Yali Boyu), mountain, foothill Crimean (Tats), steppe (Nog'ai).

As for the ethnonym “Crimean Tatars”, or rather Tatars, it appeared in Crimea only with the arrival of the Horde, that is, when Crimea became part of the Dzhuchiev ulus of the Great (better known as the Golden) Horde. And as was said above, by this time a new nation had almost formed. It was from then on that the inhabitants of Crimea began to be called Tatars. But this in no way means that the Crimean Tatars are descendants of the Horde. Actually, it was this ethnonym that the young Crimean Khanate inherited.

Today, the ethnogenesis of the Crimean Tatars has not yet been completed.