Decree No. 493 "On citizens of Tatar nationality, formerly living in the Crimea" (Russian: Указ № 493 «О гражданах татарской национальности, проживавших в Крыму») was issued by the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet on 5 September 1967 proclaming that "Citizens of Tatar nationality formerly living in the Crimea" [sic] were officially legally rehabilitated and had "taken root" in places of residence. For many years the government claimed that the decree "settled" the "Tatar problem", despite the fact that it did not restore the rights of Crimean Tatars and formally made clear that they were no longer recognized as a distinct ethnic group.[1][2]

History

While other deported peoples such as the Chechens, Ingush, Kalmyks, Karachays, and Balkars had long since been permitted to return to their native lands and their republics were restored in addition to other forms of political rehabilitation as recognized peoples,[3] the very same decree of 24 November 1956 “On the restoration of national autonomies of the Kalmyk, Karachay, Chechen and Ingush peoples” («О восстановлении национальных автономий калмыцкого, карачаевского, чеченского и ингушского народов») that rehabilitated those peoples in 1956[4][5] took on a genocidal tone towards internally deported Crimean Tatars, offering "national reunification" in the Tatar ASSR belonging to the distinct but similarly named Volga Tatars in lieu of restoration of the Crimean ASSR for Crimean Tatars who sought a national autonomy, despite the fact that Crimean Tatar activists did not seek a "return" to Tatarstan.[6][7][a] As result, Crimean Tatars organized petitions and delegations to Moscow demand their rehabilitation.[12]

The decree was issued roughly two months after a Crimean Tatar delegation met with senior government officials in Moscow,[13] requesting to be rehabilitated in the same manner as the other deported peoples that had been rehabilitated in 1956.[14] Besides Andropov, Georgadze, Shchelokov, and Rudenko were present at the meeting. On 21 July 1967, Yuri Andropov promised the Crimean Tatars that they would be rehabilitated, however, the decree was not issued until 5 September that year.[15]

Much to the aghast of Crimean Tatar activists, the decree not only failed to allow them to return to Crimea en mass[13] but also revealed that the government did not see them as a distinct ethnic group, only as "people of Tatar nationality formerly living in Crimea"[16] and claimed that they had already "taken root" in Central Asia.[17][18]

Implementation and response

Unlike what leaders in Moscow had promised, the decree was only published locally in areas where Crimean Tatars lived.[19]

Many Crimean Tatars living in exile who saw the decree mistakenly thought that it meant they were allowed to return to Crimea, and the odd wording of the decree resulted in considerable confusion among Crimean Tatars. As result, many Crimean Tatar families traveled to Crimea in the expectation that they would be allowed to live in Crimea and would be seen as a rehabilitated people.[20] However, most of them were redeported,[21] and very few Crimean Tatars were allowed to return to Crimea in the following years, most under an organized labor recruitment scheme that let in very few Crimean Tatars.[22] For many years, Crimean Tatars continued to be re-deported from Crimea, and it was not until 1989 that they were allowed to return en mass.[5]

Hero of the Soviet Union Abdraim Reshidov was among the first Crimean Tatars who tried to return to Crimea upon seeing the decree, but unlike many others he was able to get a residence permit, albeit only after resorting to threatening self-immolation.[23]

The decree was widely rebuked by people in the Crimean Tatar civil rights movement as being a "fraud", "Another step towards the liquidation of the Crimean Tatar people as a nation" (Очередной шаг в направлении ликвидации крымскотатарского народа как нации),[24] and was ridiculed by the Tashkent Ten defendants as farce.[18][20][25]

Footnotes

  1. ^ The Crimean Tatars are not closely related to the Tatars proper of Tatarstan, who are a Bulgar people with origins in Kazan.[8][9] Many other ethnic groups not part of the Volga Tatars (who are now just called Tatars) have historically been called Tatar, such as the Azerbaijanis, formerly called Caucasian Tatars.[10] After the deportation of the Crimean Tatars, the Soviet Union did not recognize Crimean Tatars as a distinct ethnic group and frequently suggested Crimean Tatars "return" to Tatarstan despite the fact that Crimean Tatars have no ancestral roots in Tatarstan or common ancestor with the Volga Tatars.[11]

References

  1. ^ Эмель (in Russian). Фонд "Крым". 1977. p. 50. При этом официальные "толкователи" Указа , уполномоченные ЦК, заявили, что этот Указ выражает окончательное решение крымскотатарского национального вопроса. Естественно, крымскотатарский народ не мог удовлетворить- ся таким " решением " своего национального вопроса. В своих документах он заклеймил позором такой указ , вскрыв его ан- тинародную сущность . Указ сыграл коварную роль в судьбе национального движе- ния . Вскрыв и правильно оценив сущность Указа , республикан- ское совещание инициаторов выработало неверные тактические задачи движения после 1967 г.
  2. ^ Dagdzi 2008, p. 175 "Практически полстолетия крымские татары были лишены права этнической самоидентифи- кации — этноним «крымские татары» был изъят из переписей населения, научного и правового использования, культурного обихола." (For almost half a century, the Crimean Tatars were deprived of the right of ethnic self-identification - the ethnonym “Crimean Tatars” was removed from population censuses, scientific and legal use, and cultural life.)
  3. ^ Fisher 2014, p. 258-259 "Finally, and perhaps most ominously, the decree was not published widely and loudly as originally promised by Andropov; it was published selectively, in those regions of the USSR where the Tatars had "taken root." For the vast majority of Soviet citizens, nothing had changed, and the views about the Tatars with which they had been indoctrinated for twenty-three years remained unrevised. In the years that followed, this fact caused the Tatars untold harm, for they were unable to persuade many non-Tatar Soviet citizens of the justness of their cause. "
  4. ^ Постановление Центрального Комитета КПСС от 24 ноября 1956 года
  5. ^ a b Andrew, Wilson (2014-11-18). Ukraine Crisis: What It Means for the West. Yale University Press. p. 104. ISBN 978-0-300-21292-1. After Khrushchev's 'secret speech' in 1956, in which he denounced Stalin, many other deported peoples were allowed to return home — even the Chechens. But not the Crimean Tatars. A decree in 1967 withdrew the charges of collabo-ration, but this was given little publicity outside Central Asia and stopped well short of full rehabilitation. The Crimean Tatars were only able to return to Crimea in the very late Soviet period, after 1989. Ironically, an assistance programme was drawn up in Moscow in 1989, but remained largely unimplemented at the time of Soviet collapse. By 2014, just under 270,000 had returned to Crimea, with perhaps another 100,000 left in Central Asia, plus several million of Crimean Tatar descent in the diaspora, mainly Turkey.
  6. ^ Fisher 2014, p. 258 "Prior to 1967, when making their demands for redress of grievances, the Crimean Tatar leadership had concentrated on three areas: (1) complete rehabilitation of their nationality, to be officially announced by government authorities; (2) restoration of property illegally seized at the time of the deportation; and (3) the right to return to their homeland in the Crimea, with the re-creation of the Crimean ASSR. In their euphoria just after the issuance of the decree in September, the Tatars temporarily forgot these demands. But not for long. It did not take a high degree of sophistication to realize that the wording of the "rehabilitation" left two of their demands completely unanswered and only partially dealt with the third."
  7. ^ Bekirova 2004, p. 168.
  8. ^ Rorlich, Azade-Ayse (2017-09-01). The Volga Tatars: A Profile in National Resilience. Hoover Press. ISBN 978-0-8179-8393-2.
  9. ^ Williams 2021, p. 92.
  10. ^ Gasimov, Zaur (2017). Historical Dictionary of Azerbaijan. Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 978-1-5381-1042-3. The largest group of Russian Muslims on the eve of Moscow's conquest of Caucasia and Central Asia consisted of Tatars in the Volga region. Following this logic, Russians called the Muslim population in the Caucasus who spoke Turkic "Tatars of the Caucasus" (tatary Kavkaza) or "(Trans-)Caucasian Tatars" ([za]kavkazskie tatary)
  11. ^ Markina, Nadezhda; Agdzhoyan, Anastasiya (14 December 2016). "У татар не нашли общей родины" [The Tatars did not find a common homeland]. gazeta.ru (in Russian). «Генетические портреты» трех групп татар — крымских, поволжских и сибирских, — созданные по результатам исследования их Y-хромосомы, оказались очень разными. Это не подтверждает гипотезу ученых об общем происхождении всех татар из единой средневековой популяции. ("Genetic portraits" of three groups of Tatars - Crimean, Volga and Siberian - created based on the results of a study of their Y-chromosome, turned out to be very different. This does not confirm the scientists' hypothesis about the common origin of all Tatars from a single medieval population.)
  12. ^ Fisher 2014, p. 254.
  13. ^ a b Allworth 1988, p. 195.
  14. ^ Fisher 2014, p. 258 "Prior to 1967, when making their demands for redress of grievances, the Crimean Tatar leadership had concentrated on three areas: (1) complete rehabilitation of their nationality, to be officially announced by government authorities; (2) restoration of property illegally seized at the time of the deportation; and (3) the right to return to their homeland in the Crimea, with the re-creation of the Crimean ASSR. In their euphoria just after the issuance of the decree in September, the Tatars temporarily forgot these demands. But not for long. It did not take a high degree of sophistication to realize that the wording of the "rehabilitation" left two of their demands completely unanswered and only partially dealt with the third."
  15. ^ Gubernsky, Bogdan (6 September 2015). ""Это был самый лживый, самый лицемерный указ..."" [“This was the most deceitful, most hypocritical decree...”]. Крым.Реалии (in Russian). Retrieved 2021-10-03.
  16. ^ Williams 2021, p. 421-422.
  17. ^ Fisher 2014, p. 258-259 "Finally, and perhaps most ominously, the decree was not published widely and loudly as originally promised by Andropov; it was published selectively, in those regions of the USSR where the Tatars had "taken root." For the vast majority of Soviet citizens, nothing had changed, and the views about the Tatars with which they had been indoctrinated for twenty-three years remained unrevised. In the years that followed, this fact caused the Tatars untold harm, for they were unable to persuade many non-Tatar Soviet citizens of the justness of their cause. "
  18. ^ a b Bekirova, Gulnara; Gromenko, Sergey (16 September 2018). "Псевдореабилитация крымских татар". Крым.Реалии (in Russian). Retrieved 2021-10-03.
  19. ^ Fisher 2014, p. 258-259 "Finally, and perhaps most ominously, the decree was not published widely and loudly as originally promised by Andropov; it was published selectively, in those regions of the USSR where the Tatars had "taken root." For the vast majority of Soviet citizens, nothing had changed, and the views about the Tatars with which they had been indoctrinated for twenty-three years remained unrevised. In the years that followed, this fact caused the Tatars untold harm, for they were unable to persuade many non-Tatar Soviet citizens of the justness of their cause. "
  20. ^ a b "Началась формальная амнистия крымских татар". Gazeta.ua (in Russian). 2020-09-05. Retrieved 2021-10-03.
  21. ^ Aydın 2021, p. 106-108.
  22. ^ Report. The Group. 1970. p. 16. It is true that a few hundred Crimean Tatar families have returned to the Crimea under the organized labour recruitment scheme. But firstly, only farm labour is recruited. Secondly, the families have to stay permanently on the farm for which they were recruited or leave the Crimea. Thirdly, the families are settled in ones or twos, or at best in fives to tens, which makes it difficult for them to preserve their language and cultural identity. Fourthly, their children have been denied higher or further education in the Crimea. And finally, the number of Crimean Tatars recruited is a mere fraction of the total Crimean Tatar population.
  23. ^ Ablyazov, Emir (13 March 2015). "Герой добился права жить и умереть на Родине". goloskrimanew.ru. Retrieved 2019-10-09.
  24. ^ Bekirova 2005, p. 204.
  25. ^ Ташкентский процесс: Суд над десятью представителями крымскотатарского народа (1 июля – 5 августа 1969 г.): Сборник документов с иллюстрациями. – Амстердам: Фонд имени Герцена, 1976. – 854 с., [4] л. ил.: портр., факс. – (Серия «Библиотека Самиздата»; № 7)

Works cited

External links

Crimean Tatar exile (1944–1989)
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