Abstract
Deportation, Repatriation and Cultural Revival: Rebulding ‘Authentic’ Culture and Cultural Hybridity Among Crimean Tatars
Following the weakening of the Golden Horde state, the Crimean Khanate was founded in the mid-fifteenth century (Azade-Rorlich 2000; Fisher 1978: 1-8). Starting in 1475, the Crimean Khanate came under the suzerainty of the Ottoman Empire until the Küçük Kaynarca Treaty was signed at the end of the Ottoman Russian War in 1774. Crimea was annexed and the Crimean Khanate was abolished by Russian Empire in 1783. After the annexation, the Crimean Tatars started to migrate to the Ottoman Empire. These migrations especially increased after the Crimean War (1853-1856). The Crimean Tatars who deported to the Central Asia and Siberia after World War II, however, obtained right to repatriate to their homeland in 1989. This paper focuses on the interaction of the Crimean Tatars with other ethnic groups both in Central Asia during the deportation years and in Crimea following their return to the homeland, and the impact of interaction with other ethnic groups on the Crimean Tatars’ ethnic identity and culture is examined. In this paper, a constructionist approach is adopted, with special attention given to the role of interaction with different cultures and state policies in shaping ethnic and cultural identities. Emphasizing the necessity of distinguishing ethnic and national identities from cultural identity, I argue that ‘hybridity’, as one of the new concepts aiming to challenge static and essentialist approaches to ethnicity and culture, is more useful in explaining cultural content rather than the notion of the ethnic boundary.<
Keywords
Ethnic identity, cultural identity, national identity, cultural revival, cultural hybridity