PSCRP-BESA Reports No 35 (February 14, 2024)
On July 1, 2021, a little more than six months before the start of Russia’s full-scale aggression against Ukraine, the Verkhovna Rada passed the law “On the Indigenous Peoples of Ukraine” initiated by President Volodymyr Zelensky. Three weeks later, it was signed into law by the President of Ukraine and came into force with the exception of one clause, discussed below. By “indigenous peoples of Ukraine” this law refers not to all national minorities traditionally residing in the territory of modern Ukraine, but only to those that are “an autochthonous ethnic community that was formed in the territory of Ukraine, possesses a distinctive language and culture, has traditional, social, cultural or representative bodies, recognizes itself as the indigenous people of Ukraine, constitutes an ethnic minority within its population and does not have its own state entity outside of Ukraine.”
The criterion of the absence of “its own state entity outside of Ukraine” automatically excluded from the list of candidates for the status of “indigenous people of Ukraine” such large national minorities that have lived in the country for many centuries as Moldovans/Romanians, Belarusians, Poles, Jews, Armenians and Greeks — as well as Russians, Bulgarians and Gagauz (the latter have their own territorial autonomy within the Republic of Moldova), who settled here in the 18th century. As a result, only Crimean Tatars, Krymchaks and Karaites were recognized as “indigenous peoples of Ukraine.”
Given that Crimean Tatars and Karaites are considered by both orthodox Judaism and the Israeli Law of Return as part of the Jewish people, it can be argued that they too have “their own state entity outside of Ukraine.” If we emphasize that as special ethnic communities, the Krymchaks and Eastern European Karaites, with their “distinctive language”, which is an ethnolect of the Crimean Tatar language, were formed in the territory of modern Ukraine (even if these communities are historically and religiously connected with the Jewish people), then the Turkic-speaking Greeks — the Urums, or Greek-Tatars), which are not mentioned in the law “On the Indigenous Peoples of Ukraine” — could also claim the status of such a special ethnic community. This minority was formed as such in Crimea and lived there until the end of the XVIII century, when the Urums were resettled, together with the Crimean Greeks speaking Rumaiic Greek, in the vicinity of present-day Mariupol by order of the Russian Empress Catherine II.
However, no objections were raised by the representatives of this ethnic group regarding the fact that the Urum Greeks, most of whom at the time of the adoption of the law lived in the territory controlled by the Government of Ukraine and a smaller part in the Russian-occupied territories of the self-proclaimed DNR, were not included in the list of legally recognized indigenous peoples of Ukraine. At the same time, the law “On the Indigenous Peoples of Ukraine” immediately provoked official protests and even threats from the Russian authorities.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said in an interview with a correspondent of the Rossiya-24 TV channel that the above-mentioned Ukrainian law “does not comply with the norms of international humanitarian law” and that “Kiev’s idea to declare Russians non-indigenous inhabitants of Ukraine deals a powerful and very serious blow to the Russian people.” According to him, the adoption of the law “On the Indigenous Peoples of Ukraine” could be “compared to a weapon of mass destruction.” Representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church, which is in full solidarity with the course of the Russian authorities, but continues to operate in Ukraine through the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate, said that the adoption of this law “may undermine the stability and integrity of Ukraine” . Given that the quoted statements were made six months before the start of Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine, they undoubtedly served to prepare Russian public opinion for it and at the same time represented an attempt to provoke anti-government demonstrations, or at least sentiment among ethnic Russians in Ukraine.
Realizing that this is exactly how the Russian authorities would behave in connection with the adoption of the law, the Ukrainian officials pre-emptively addressed the accusations expected from Russia. The day before the Verkhovna Rada adopted the law “On the Indigenous Peoples of Ukraine”, Oleksiy Reznikov, who then held the post of Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Temporarily Occupied Territories (and in November 2021 assumed the post of Minister of Defense), made a statement in which, in particular, he noted that “the concept of ‘indigenous peoples’ was enshrined in the Constitution of Ukraine on June 28, 1996. Precisely 25 years ago. Articles 11, 92 and 119 of the Constitution stipulated a quarter of a century ago that the concept of ‘indigenous peoples’ and ‘national minorities’ are not identical.” In other words, the law introduced nothing new.
This raises a legitimate question: why then did the Ukrainian authorities need to adopt this law? Undoubtedly, it was originally meant only for Crimean Tatars living predominantly on the Crimean Peninsula occupied and annexed by Russia back in 2014. Krymchaks and Karaites, whose numbers in Ukraine, including its Russian-occupied parts, are very small (715 Karaites and 280 “Crimean Jews”/Krymchaks according to the Ukrainian census of 2001 and 813 Karaites according to the Russian census of 2021), appear in this law as an accidental “addition”, explained by the Soviet-era practice of the Karaite and, to a much lesser extent, Krymchak intelligentsia to position their communities as distinct “Turkic” peoples.
As for the Crimean Tatars, according to the Ukrainian census of 2001, they constituted 12.1% of the population of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea. Being an organized and generally anti-Russian force, the Crimean Tatars actively resisted the annexation of Crimea by Russia, and to a noticeably greater extent than the heavily Russified Crimean Ukrainians, who, according to the same census, constituted 24.4% of the population of Crimea. The highest representative body of the Crimean Tatars, Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar people has held and still holds a consistent pro-Ukrainian position (the current Minister of Defense of Ukraine Rustem Umerov was one of the founders of the Mejlis youth organization in 2007, and in 2014 he became a supervisor from the Mejlis on the issue of exchange of political prisoners from Crimea). In 2016, the activities of the Mejlis were banned by the Russian occupation authorities.
Despite the brutal repressions against Crimean Tatar activists, which particularly intensified after the beginning of full-scale aggression against Ukraine, the Russian occupation authorities made certain efforts aimed at attracting Crimean Tatars to their side. Thus, against the background of the almost complete elimination of the already weak system of school education in the Ukrainian language in Crimea, the number of children studying in the Crimean Tatar language remained more or less stable after the annexation. The author of this article had to visit Crimea twice as an envoy of the Jewish Agency after the occupation, particularly the cities of Simferopol, Yevpatoria and Bakhchisarai. It struck me that the national flag of the Crimean Tatars — unlike Ukrainian symbols — was displayed openly there. The fact that in 2014–2016 the post of Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Republic of Crimea as part of the Russian Federation was held by the Crimean Tatar collaborator Ruslan Balbek (who later became a deputy of the State Duma of the Russian Federation), can also be viewed as an attempt by the Russians to ‘placate’ the Crimean Tatars.
Under these circumstances, the Ukrainian authorities, having come to the conclusion that full-scale aggression on the part of Russia was inevitable, found it necessary to promulgate a declaration of intent with regard to the Crimean Tatar national movement, which is what this law became, stating that “indigenous peoples”, i.e. Crimean Tatars, have the right to establish their legally recognized representative bodies and “to allocate part of the revenues from the use of natural resources located in the territory of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol for their needs; to reserve agricultural and other lands for representatives of indigenous peoples who return to the territory of Crimea.” Thus, the Law “On the Indigenous Peoples of Ukraine” offers a compromise between turning Crimea into an ethnic autonomy of Crimean Tatars, which is ideally sought by the Crimean Tatar national movement, and preserving the situation that existed before 2014, when the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, established in 1991, was actually an autonomy of ethnic Russians, who, according to the 2001 census, constituted 58.5% of the population of Crimea. The law, resolving the acute problem of land disputes that arose as a result of the mass return of Crimean Tatars to Crimea in the late 80s and early 90s in their favor, also gives the Crimean Tatar national movement a prospect in the form of hope for a change in the demographic situation through further resettlement of Crimean Tatars in Crimea.
It is estimated that dozens of thousands of Crimean Tatars still live in Uzbekistan, where they were deported in 1944. If they join the estimated quarter of a million or so of their fellow Crimean Tatars now living in Crimea, it will not change the situation dramatically. However, estimates of the number of Crimean Tatars in Turkey, where they were resettled after the annexation of the Crimean Khanate by the Russian Empire in the late eighteenth century, during the nineteenth century, and in the early twentieth century, range from half a million to 5 million[1]. Thus, at least theoretically, there is a possibility that Crimean Tatars will become the absolute majority of the population of Crimea. However, in the summer of 2021, the official authorities of Ukraine announced that the law “On the Indigenous Peoples of Ukraine” comes into force from the day of its publication, “with the exception of part 3 of Article 7, which determines the right of indigenous peoples to direct part of the revenues from the use of natural resources for the needs of indigenous peoples of Ukraine, which comes into force after the return of the temporarily occupied territory of Crimea and Sevastopol under the general jurisdiction of Ukraine.” That is, in order to realize its aspirations, the Crimean Tatar national movement should maximize its effort to return Crimea under the control of Ukraine. And it does this, in particular, being the main pillar of the anti-Russian guerrilla movement in Crimea .
At the same time, the interests of the Crimean Tatar national movement, which seeks to establish a full-fledged national-territorial autonomy, and Ukraine as a unitary state do not coincide. After the return of Crimea to Ukrainian control, a conflict between them is inevitable, and its severity is impossible to predict at this stage. The future political structure of Crimea will be determined in the course of this conflict. One can assume with a high degree of certainty that the Crimean Tatar national movement will receive in this conflict the most active support from Turkey, which consistently acts as its patron.
[1] Feliz Tutku Aydın, Émigré, Exile, Diaspora, and Transnational Movements of the Crimean Tatars Preserving the Eternal Flame of Crimea, “Palgrave MacMillan”, London, 2021, pp. 193-263.