On July 7 the Ukrainian film “Haytarma” (“The Return,” 2012) was screened at the National Democratic Institute in Washington. The showing was co-sponsored by the Embassy of Ukraine. Produced by the Crimean Tatar television station ATR, which has now been forced to leave Crimea and broadcasts from Kyiv, “Haytarma” was first shown in 2013. In the months before the February-March 2014 Russian invasion, the film became popular in Ukraine and abroad, even winning an award in Russia. Now it is banned there. The July screening was the first in Washington. The film, which is in Tatar and Russian, has English subtitles, and can be ordered from the Embassy for non-commercial purposes.
“Hatyarma” tells the story of Amet-khan Sultan (1920-1971), an aviator and test pilot from Crimea who was twice decorated a Hero of the Soviet Union. His mother was Crimean Tatar, his father an ethnic Lak from Dagestan. On a brief leave from the Soviet air force, Amet-khan returns to his native town of Alupka just before the deportation (Sürgün) of the Tatars. There is some aerobatic exhibitionism and breathtaking landscapes that, in view of Ukraine’s loss of Crimea, are especially poignant. There are some cheesy scenes, too, and a bit of dramatic exaggeration. But the most important scenes – those depicting the deportation – are almost certainly not exaggerated. We know enough about the Soviet deportations from eastern Poland in 1940 and the post-war deportations from various parts of the USSR to be confident that these are authentic.
The story of the Crimean Tatars is well-known. In November 1941, the Germans entered Crimea. Like most occupants, they seized property and burned villages. But this was not the worst of occupations; for one thing, the Germans tolerated Islam. Some Tatars volunteered for a German unit. But between 30,000 (according to the film) and 80,000 (according to other sources) fought in the Soviet armed forces. To hold the entire people collectively responsible for the collaboration of a few was patently unfair.
But that is what Joseph Stalin did. On May 18-20, 1944, some 194,000 Crimean Tatars, by the official count (some sources say 240,000), were deported, with barely enough notice to gather their essential belongings. Herded into cattle cars, they were shipped mostly to Uzbekistan. Suffering from hunger, thirst, inhumane conditions and the Central Asian heat, about half of them perished.
In 1967, the charge of collaboration was withdrawn. In the late 1960s, Gen. Petro Grigorenko campaigned for the Tatars’ right to return to their homeland. From the mid-1980s, many were able to do so. But they could not recover their homes and farms, many of which had been taken over by Russians, including retired officers of the armed forces and the NKVD. In 1989, two years before the break-up of the Soviet Union, the USSR Supreme Soviet condemned the deportation as lawless and inhumane.
One could hope that the crimes of the past would not be repeated. But last year’s Russian invasion of Crimea casts doubt on such hopes. In fact, the Putin regime had long harbored designs on the peninsula. On August 11, 2009, President Dmitry Medvedev publicly attacked the Yushchenko government’s unwillingness to extend Russia’s lease on the naval base at Sevastopol after it expired in 2017. Ukraine was also accused of selling arms to Georgia, which Russia had invaded a year earlier, and of interfering with operations of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet. At that point Aleksandr Dugin, head of the International Eurasian Movement, speculated that Mr. Medvedev’s statements heralded a Russian-American war, to be fought in the Crimea and eastern Ukraine. (See “Cross-Currents,” September 13, 2009).
Mr. Dugin’s words have proved prophetic. As usual, the Russian war against Ukraine (and, in effect, against America and Europe) has been accompanied by false historical claims. For example, the notion that “Crimea was always Russian” – which we sometimes see repeated in the American press – is easily dispelled. In ancient and medieval times a host of peoples, including the Greeks and the Genoese, established colonies on the peninsula. The Crimean Tatar Khanate ruled it from 1449 to 1783 – 334 years, almost twice as long as Russia, which held it for 171 years, from 1783 to 1954. Equally specious is the claim that the “referendum” held in the wake of Russian annexation and under Russian guns on May 16, 2014, retroactively justified the forcible annexation of the previous March 18.
Since the invasion, Muslims, as well as some Christian churches, have been harassed. Harsh Russian laws and policies have been imposed. Paramilitary groups have threatened Tatars. Kidnappings and killings have been reported. Over 10,000 Tatars have found it necessary to emigrate. Tatar leader Mustafa Abdülcemil Qırımoğlu (also known as Mustafa Dzhemilev), and a number of other prominent Tatar activists, have been banned from their homeland for five years. The deputy head of the Mejlis (the executive organ of the Qurultay, or parliament), Ahtem Çiygöz, was arrested last January 29 and remains in prison without having been charged, in violation of international norms.
Melinda Haring of the Atlantic Council reported on July 8 that, according to a Turkish report based on some 100 interviews conducted in the Crimea last April, the Crimean Tatar language, schools and religious institutions have been subjected to intense pressure by the Russian authorities. The textbooks used under Ukrainian rule have been banned, as has the annual ceremony marking the 1944 deportation. (http://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-atlanticist/repression-of-crimean-tatars-intensifies-under-russia-says-new-turkish-report)
Will the crimes of history be repeated? At a Kennan Institute talk by political analyst Dmitry Polikanov given last June 2 – the topic was “What Does Russia Really Want?” – a representative of the Crimean Tatars gave an impassioned account of the tragedy of her people. In response, the speaker expressed regret for the sufferings of the Tatars. Á propos, he noted that according to a recent report, the GDP of Chechnya had risen. Chechnya, he cheerfully suggested, could serve as a good model for Crimea as a part of Russia.
Commentary, as they say, would be superfluous.