The Crimean Question
I make no excuses. I love Crimea. I have family there. I had the opportunity to visit, prior to 2014. I am saddened that I can no longer visit. It is a very beautiful place. The people living there are friendly and helpful. When I visited the people there loved meeting Americans.
Crimea has a very long and sordid history of conflict and conquest going back to at least the 6th century BCE. Probably before that as well although it is difficult to establish history from so long ago.
The formulation, “the Crimean Question” goes back to at least 1783 when Russia took over rule and administration of the territory from the Tartar Khanate after defeating the Ottoman Empire for control of the Black Sea. It refers to the question of who should rule, who should administer policy, where should sovereignty lie. Many people thought and argued, discussed whether Crimea should be Russian or Turkish. That version of the question was not really settled until after the Russian Revolution. Crimea was then Russian and The Ottoman Empire was defeated. But that is not the end of it. To this day, many Turks feel that Crimea is a lost province and should rightly be Turkish.
I can’t really speak to the historical complexity of Crimean Sovereignty prior to 1783. It is too storied, too much happened for me to recount. If anyone wants to read about it there is a Wikipedia article on the history of Crimea that recounts all of the conquests in some detail. However you choose to view that history, the list of societies claiming Crimea as a vassal include: Ancient Greece, Scythia, Tauri, Rome, Byzantium, Trebizond, Theodoro, Venice, Genoa, Kievan Rus, Mongol Golden Horde, Ottoman Turk, Crimean Tartar, and Russia.
The Tartars may or may not be indigenous to Crimea. There are theories speculating that the Tartars came from a combination of ethnic groups in the area and other theories saying that the Tartars came from Mongolia with the Golden Horde or from Southern Siberia. The answer to this question seems to be political and not scientific. Ukrainian President Poroshenko declared the Tartars to be the First People of Crimea and indigenous to the Crimea. There is or was a group of Tartars that preferred to be part of Ukraine than Russia. There clearly are Tartars living to this day in Mongolia and Uzbekistan. There is an alternative theory for why there are Tartars in Central Asia and that is that they are descendants of the Tartars that were deported from Crimea following WWII. Probably both are true. What is not disputed is that the Tartars were the first Muslim population to be recognized as independent by the Ottoman Empire. Also beyond dispute is that the majority of Tartars currently living in Crimea prefer to be Russian and not Ukrainian.
Ukraine clearly prefers to see the Tartars as indigenous to Crimea as it serves the interest of those Tartars who want to be Ukrainian. Russia believes that it should rule because the Ottoman empire was defeated centuries ago by Russia.
Ukrainian Nationalists believe that Ukraine is an ancient land, populated by Ukrainians and Cossacks before them. As a state, a political entity, Ukraine has existed since the Russian Revolution. The Bolsheviks granted the Ukrainians the opportunity to become a Soviet Socialist Republic and the opportunity to join the Soviet Union. This was because the people living in the area around Kiev agreed to oppose the White Army during the Russian Revolution.
For the time following the Russian Revolution Crimea was itself a Soviet Socialist Republic and full member state of the Soviet Union. Only later, in 1945, was Crimea reduced to an oblast by Russia.
In 1944, following WWII, the Tartars of Crimea were mostly deported to Central Asia. Their homes and lands were given to Russians, often officers of the Russian Military. The deportation was unjust and terrible suffering ensued. Relatively recently, the Tartars were finally allowed to return to Crimea. Their ancestral property claims could not be returned to them. But Crimea set aside lands, good lands, to be the property of the Tartars. They again have a home in Crimea although they can never recover what they lost.
Ukraine had no claim to Crimea until 1954 when Nikita Kruschev transferred the Crimean Oblast, which had only been an oblast and not a SSR for nine years from the Russian Soviet Socialist Republic to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. From a historical perspective it is clear that this transfer has wrought longstanding social injustice to the people living in Crimea who never wanted to be Ukrainians.
And as has been noted many times, the end of the Soviet Union saw a treaty between Ukraine and Russia where both agreed to respect the borders in place at that time. It is possible to look at Crimea’s history and declare that the modern equivalent of the Crimean Question was settled finally and for all time and that Crimea is and shall always be Ukrainian. This is the view of the Ukrainian Government and current administration of the USA.
It is possible to cherry pick events from history to justify an already held position. The U.S. position seems to be thus: Russia bad, Russians bad, Putin evil. Should our foreign policy be forged according to this bias? I can easily cherry pick other events from history to justify another outcome. And if this is how we proceed we will never have a legitimate answer to what should happen today.
I think that the people living in Crimea should determine their own fate. How, then, does this happen?
Following the end of the Soviet Union, Crimea declared itself to be the Republic of Crimea, a nation among nations. This attempt to decide its own fate was overturned by the treaty that declared Ukraine and Russia to be inviolate within the borders in place at that time. This agreement did not recognize Crimea’s independence. Crimea was not a party to that agreement. Later attempts by Crimea to redress the question of sovereignty were rebuffed. Ukraine does not want an independent Crimea. Crimea is valuable real estate. There is speculation that Ukraine wants to offer the Russian Federated City of Sevastopol to NATO for a military base. It is difficult to see how that could ever happen. Sevastopol has been a Russian city for at least a hundred years and has never lived under Ukrainian Sovereignty.
Following the Ukrainian Federal election in 2014, there were mass protests in Crimea regarding the overthrow of the Ukrainian government by Maidan protesters. The election 0f 2014 was overthrown as well. The people of Crimea did not like having their President, their candidate to be President deposed. There is not the slightest question about this, Crimeans did not stand with the EuroMaidan. They wanted their freely elected government. They wanted Yanukovic.
There was a referendum in Crimea in 2014 during which the people living in Crimea voted to declare independence from Ukraine and to rejoin Russia instead. According to a survey carried out by the Pew Research Center in 2014, the majority of Crimean residents say they believed the referendum was free and fair (91%) and that the government in Kyiv ought to recognize the results of the vote (88%).
Just to sum up, the people of Crimea saw the government of Ukraine overthrown and their candidate for President chased into exile by the Ukrainians who lived around Kiev. Was this just and fair to the Crimeans? I think not. You? Was it a free and fair election? How could it be when the outcome of the election was never implemented. Is it surprising that the Crimeans don’t want to be Ukrainians anymore? Hardly. They never wanted to be Ukrainians, but their choice was taken away by powers who did not represent them. Crimea wanted independence too, and most particularly from Ukraine.
What about the Minsk agreements? The 2014 conference between Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and the United States came up with a protocol to resolve the impasse in Ukraine over the 2014 election. This agreement gave the Maidan protesters everything they asked for. The Minsk protocols were never implemented because the Maidan protesters would not have it, even though it gave them everything they asked for. And again, Crimea was not a party to the conference. Crimea was not invited to attend.
Back to the Crimean Question. Who should rule, where shall sovereignty lie?
Turkey? Turkey has not been a factor in Crimea since Russia defeated the Ottoman Empire 150 years ago.
Crimean Tartars? Well, they have a case as they were dispossessed by Russia. The thing is that there are not many of them left in Crimea compared to the other groups living there now and of those that remain, most support Russian Sovereignty.
Crimea itself. I think that Crimea would agree to this although they would most likely then petition Russia for reunification.
Russia? Russia has a very strong case for sovereignty based on historical precedent and current popularity among the people living in Crimea.
Ukraine? Ukraine’s case is entirely based on the agreement between the Soviet Union and Ukraine that Ukraine would be sovereign within its current borders at that time. Crimea was not party to this agreement and does not want to be Ukrainian. Should the agreement between Russia and Ukraine be binding on Crimea now and for all time despite what the people living in Crimea prefer, both at that time and now?
The people living in Crimea now should decide. It is their country. The West and many international bodies think that the 2014 referendum is not binding because Crimea was under occupation at the time. It takes a particular kind of bias to call what Russia is doing an occupation since it is so clearly what the populace wants. The West and the international bodies don’t want Crimea to be free. They want to see Russia defeated. A broader view and historical context should guide this determination.
I think that Crimea is and should be free and like any free people anywhere they should decide their own path and future and provide the answer to the Crimean Question for these times we’re living in now.
How does this happen? If the 2014 referendum is not legitimate it is difficult to see how Crimea will ever be able to decide its own fate. Ukraine will never let it go and would never sponsor or allow a referendum on Crimean independence, not in any foreseeable future. Russia considers the question closed and answered. Russia would not like to have this issue raised but it is difficult to see Russia objecting to the Crimean peoples voting again on the question of Sovereignty since the overwhelming majority of people living there are themselves proud Russians. I think that Russia sees the Crimean Question as answered for this moment in history. The people have spoken and they want to be Russians and not Ukrainians.
