Émigré, Exile, Diaspora, and Transnational Movements of the Crimean Tatars: Preserving the Eternal Flame of Crimea (Palgrave Studies in Citizenship Transitions) 3030741230, 9783030741235

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PALGRAVE STUDIES IN CITIZENSHIP TRANSITIONS

Émigré, Exile, Diaspora, and Transnational Movements of the Crimean Tatars Preserving the Eternal Flame of Crimea Filiz Tutku Aydın

Palgrave Studies in Citizenship Transitions

Series Editors David Owen, School of Social Sciences, University of Southampton, Southampton, UK Ludvig Beckman, Political Science, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden

This book series focuses on citizenship transitions encompassing contemporary transformations of citizenship as institution, status and practice as well as normative and explanatory analysis of these transformations and their cultural, social, economic and political implications. The series bridges theoretical and empirical debates on democracy, transnationalism, and citizenship that have been too insulated from each other. It takes citizenship transitions as its starting-point and studies the status, role and function of citizenship within contemporary democratic systems and multi-layered governance structures beyond the state. It aims to add a broader array of critical, conceptual, normative and empirical perspectives on the borders, territories, and political agents of citizenship. It scrutinizes the possibilities and challenges of citizenship in light of present broad processes of political fragmentation and pluralisation and the ways emerging ideals and expectations of citizenship are inspired by new social, political and environmental movements. Its cross-disciplinary approach intends to capture the transitions of citizenship from an apparently simple relation between the state and its citizens into a cluster of complex responsibility claims and practices that raise questions concerning citizenship borders and obligations, the public-private scope of citizenship, and even how political actors attempt to and in fact avoid citizenship.

More information about this series at http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14645

Filiz Tutku Aydın

Émigré, Exile, Diaspora, and Transnational Movements of the Crimean Tatars Preserving the Eternal Flame of Crimea

Filiz Tutku Aydın Department of Political Science and Public Administration Social Sciences University of Ankara Ankara, Turkey

Palgrave Studies in Citizenship Transitions ISBN 978-3-030-74123-5 ISBN 978-3-030-74124-2 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-74124-2 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

To the Crimean Tatar people who are determined stay and live in Crimea

Acknowledgments

This book is the result of 20 years of research and observation on the Crimean Tatar diaspora. First and foremost, I must thank Hakan Kırımlı who became a mentor throughout my decades of exploration of Crimean Tatar national identity and encouraged me in publishing this book. I am indebted to Bilkent University and the University of ˙ Toronto for contributing to this project, particularly Ahmet Içduygu and Orhan Tekelio˘glu in Bilkent and Donald Schwartz, Joseph Carens, Jacques Bertrand, Paul Magocsi, and Victor Ostapchuk in Toronto. I thank the Department of Political Science, the Center for European and Russian Studies, and the Petro Jacyk Ukrainian Studies at the University of Toronto, the Ethnicity and Democratic Governance Project of SSHCR, Turkish International Cooperation Agency (TIKA). I am grateful to TUBITAK (Turkish Scientific and Technological Research Institution) and Social Sciences University Ankara for providing me research grants for my post-doctoral project. The Romanian Institute for Research on National Minorities kindly permitted me to republish parts of my two articles (in Chapter 4), previously published in Un Destin la Marea Neagr˘a.: T˘atarii din Dobrogea (2017). I also thank the Palgrave Stuidies in Citizenship Transitions series editors of David Owen and Ludvig Beckman for their encouragement. I owe a debt of heartfelt gratitude to many Crimean Tatars living or deceased in Crimea and mainland Ukraine, Romania, Turkey, the United States, Canada, and Bulgaria whose support, generosity, and care made the research possible. The individual Crimean Tatars who made important contributions to the study are too numerous to mention vii

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

except for a few. In Crimea, I would like to thank Erecep and Esma Hayreddin, Ediye Kangiyeva, Milara Settarova, Qardaslıq Association, ˙ Nariman Re¸sitov, Rustem Khayali, Levent Yüksel, Ismet and Gayana Yüksel, Nadir Bekirov, Sinaver Qadirov, residents of Fontana neighbor˙ hood in Aqmescid, Safure Kadjametova, Seyran Süleyman, Izzet Hayırov, Vasfiye Hayırova, Meryem Özenba¸slı, Rıza Fazıl, Timur Da˘gcı, Ay¸se Seytmuratova, Zampira Asanova, Server Kakura, Dilaver Bekirov, Refat ˙ ˙ Kurtiyev, Ismet Seyhzade, ¸ Idris Asanin, Abdurrrahman Egiz, Eldar Seytbekirov, Bekir Mahmutov, Ulker Musayeva, Refat, and Elvedin Çubarov. ˙ Special thanks are due to the Crimean Tatar Meclis staff, Ismail Gapıralı Library, the Crimean State Industrial Pedagogical Institute, particularly ˙ Ismail Kerimov, Adile Emirova, Nariman Abdulvahap, Enise Abibullayeva, Nariman Seytyahya, Eldar Seydahmetov, and Seyran Suleyman. I would like to express sincere gratitude to Mustafa Abdulcemil Kırımo˘glu and Safinar Cemilova for their hospitality, and Mustafa Aga for allowing me to work in his private archives. I also would like to thank my Ukrainian friends, Natalia Belitser, Oleksandr Halenko, Marta Dyczok, Andrij Sybiha, Maryna Kravets, Yuliya Biletska, and Yevgenia Gaber from whom I learned so much about Ukraine and Ukrainians. My field trip to Romania, in addition to research, helped me to discover my ancestral roots, and find my long lost relatives. I would like to thank all my relatives who treated me as the closest family, Nurcihan, Nedret, and Dinçer Geafer, Namiser Vuap, Zekiye and Beihan Emurla, Rakim Miras, Davut and Figan Mustafa, Niar Mollagazi, Önal Meni¸sa. In Romania, I also would like to thank Naci and Nurten, Urfet Nubin, Nihat Osman, ˙ Sevim Mustafa, Negiat Sali, Nariman Ibraim, Eden Kurtasan, the Uniunea Democratica a Tatarilor Turco-Musulmani din Romania (UDTTMR), and its Mecidiye (Medgidia) branch, Hagi Mehmet Khemaleddin, Denis ˙ Mologani, Belghin Ibram, Essyn Emurla. I especially thank Metin Omer and Adriana Cupcea for providing me detailed comments on my chapter on Romania. ˙ In Turkey, I would like to thank Prof. Halil Inalcık for his interview and for being a continuous source of inspiration with his scholarly work on Crimean Tatar history. I was honored to receive the blessing of great émigré leaders who have passed away, but left the eternal flame to us: ˙ Ismail Otar, Sabri Arıkan, Nurettin Mahir Altu˘g. I am particularly grateful ˙ to Ismail Otar for allowing me work in his private library. I am also ˙ blessed to receive the support of Ahmet Ihsan Kırımlı, the great political leader of not only Crimean Tatar but also Turkish and Turkish-American

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

ix

society. I owe a lasting debt of gratitude to the members of the General Center of the Crimean Tatar Culture and Aid Association (Kırım Türkleri ˙ Kültür ve Yardımla¸sma Derne˘gi Genel Merkezi), Celal Içten, the head of ˙ the Istanbul Association, the members of the Polatlı, Istanbul, Ceyhan, Eski¸sehir, Bursa, Konya, Kocaeli, Kaman, and Nev¸sehir Crimean Tatar Associations. I also thank Saim Osman Karahan, Zafer Karatay, Özgür Karahan, Timur Berk, Namık Kemal Bayar, Bülent Tanatar, Sezai Özçelik, Mükremin Sahin, ¸ Ünsal Akta¸s, Muzaffer Akçora, Ümit Silit, ¸ Serkan and I¸sılay Sava for sharing their ideas, and resources with me. I would like to ˙ thank academicians Zuhal Yüksel, Necip Ablemito˘glu, Ismail, and Ay¸segül Aydıngün, Fethi Kurtiy Sahin, ¸ Feridehanum Useinova for providing me key insights, information, and documents. I also owe gratitude to the members of the American Crimean Tatar ˙ community, Fikret Yurter, Mubeyyin Batu Altan, Inci Altu˘g Bowman, ˙ ˙ Fevzi Alimo˘glu, Idil P. Izmirli, and Ayla Bakkallı for their intellectual work, guidance, and encouragements. Particularly, I would like to thank ˙ Fikret Yurter for allowing me to work in his archive. I also thank Ibrahim Altan, Abdulhakim Saraylı, Sefik ¸ Gürdemir, Rüstem Borluca, Seyitahmet Kırımca, Ahmet Bayımlı, and Sevil Sevdiyar. In Canada, I am grateful for ˙ ˙ Iskender Ibram and Sedat Nezir for encouragement during my studies in Toronto. I am indebted to Clive Campbell and Herbert M. Spencer for editorial assistance, and my colleagues at the Department of Political Science for providing a positive environment while writing this book. I express my sincere gratitude to Gülru Çakmak, Nurcan Atalan-Helicke, Mehtap Kural, Sude Beltan, Nesime A¸skın, Olga Kesarchuk, Ay¸se Güç, Suna and Philip Decker, and Tuba Duman for their friendship and support of my project. Lastly, but most importantly, I wish to thank my late grandmother, Fatma Atlı, and my parents Hasan and Selma Aydın, for teaching me the Crimean Tatar language and culture and inspiring me to write this book. I thank my parents and my brother, Zekeriya Aydın for their patient emotional and financial support, and encouragement for a long time. I could not have achieved this work without the perceptive comments, translations from the Ottoman Turkish, steady encouragement and moral support of my husband, Metin Beziko˘glu. I hope my daughter, Elif Canike, and my son, Berke Fahri will forgive me for taking away from the time that could be spent with them to prepare this book. Any errors or mistakes I have made are of course my own.

´ ´ Exile, Diaspora, and Praise for Emigr e, Transnational Movements of the Crimean Tatars

“Filiz Tutku Aydın is steeped in the history, language, and culture of Crimean Tatars and their tragic history of dispersal. She is especially informative about the fate of Tatars under Stalin’s regime. Using careful exegesis of the comparative literature and rich descriptions of Tatars abroad, the author graphically shows how their diaspora was mobilized despite their poignant history of exile and deportation.” —Robin Cohen, Professor Emeritus of Development Studies, University of Oxford, United Kingdom “In 2014, Crimea was catapulted into the worldwide media following its forcible annexation by Russia. The Crimean Tatars, who were deported en masse in 1944 and who managed to return home in the 1990s, were threatened once again with deportation. Filiz Tutku Aydin’s book tells the remarkable story of how in the course of the twentieth century the Crimean Tatars managed to survive the tribulations of exile in foreign lands and how some managed against incredible odds to return home. Aydin’s book is truly unique in that it tells us not only about Crimean Tatar exiles in Soviet Central Asia, but also about the little-known experience of diasporan communities in Romania, Turkey, and the United States. The well-documented study is a must-read for anyone interested in transnationalism and the impact of diasporan communities upon their ancestral homelands.” —Paul Robert Magocsi, University of Toronto, Canada xi

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PRAISE FOR ÉMIGRÉ, EXILE, DIASPORA, AND TRANSNATIONAL …

“Crimean Tatars, the native people of the Crimea, have experienced bitter debacles of history, starting with the loss of their centuries-long statehood to the Russian Empire in 1783. While the majority of its population were forced to emigrate to the Ottoman Empire in the course of the following 150 years, the remaining ones were subjected to genocidal mass deportation to Central Asia by Stalin in 1944. Consequently, the modern history of the Crimean Tatars has become one of an incessant struggle for national survival and reclaiming their homeland against all odds up to this very day. The extremely unfavorable historical circumstances have compelled the Crimean Tatar people to unite its dispersed diasporic components by constructing a ‘transnational nation,’ a peculiar and remarkably successful case of its kind among the peoples of the ex-USSR. Filiz Tutku Aydın treats this complex subject with the deep insight of an insider and a sound analysis of a scholar. This book is not only an essential reading material to learn the diasporic history of the Crimean Tatars, but also provides us with a useful and comparative case study for the experiences of similar transnational peoples and their long-distance national existence.” —Hakan Kırımlı, Bilkent University, Ankara, Turkey “This is a fascinating study of Crimean Tatars as a transnational nation. Putting framing processes at the center of her analysis, Filiz Tutku Aydin develops a comparative typology of long-distance nationalism and offers intriguing insights into the long-term developments of diasporic mobilization.” —Martin Sökefeld, Luwig Maximilan University of Münich, Germany

Orthographic Note

Romania case: Individual names are given as they are used in Romania. I gave both Turkish (Ottoman) and Romanian versions of place names and institutions as much as possible. Poems are presented in the alphabet they are written in the source. USSR case: The Crimean Tatar language is used for Crimean Tatar key concepts and terms such as Meclis and Qurultay. Turkey case: Turkish is used for key concepts, and names related to diaspora in Turkey. Turkish and Crimean Tatar languages share many common words. The Crimean Tatar alphabet is based on Turkish alphabet with three special letters—Q, Ñ, Â. Both Crimean Tatar and Turkish alphabet are for the most part phonetic except some of the letters, which are pronounced as follows: c¸ is pronounced “ch” in English. Ba˘gc¸ asaray is pronounced “Bakchasaray.” c is pronounced “j” in English. Cemil is pronounced “Jemil.” s¸ is pronounced “sh” in English. Özenba¸slı is pronounced “Ozenbashli.” o¨ , u¨ are pronounced as back versions of English o, u, and i. Russian words are transliterated according to the Library of Congress system. Glasnost, Simferopol and several other words appear without the final soft sign. Translations are mine unless otherwise is stated.

xiii

Contents

1

Introduction 1.1 Historical Background 1.2 Research Design 1.3 Overview of the Book References

1 6 19 21 28

2

Explaining Long-Distance Nationalism 2.1 Introduction 2.2 Theoretical Framework: A Social Movement Theory Approach to Diaspora 2.3 Application of Theoretical Framework to Cases 2.4 Conclusion References

33 33

3

Crimean Tatar Community in the Former Soviet Union (1944–1991): A Case in Exile Nationalism 3.1 Introduction 3.2 Application of Theoretical Framework: Exile Nationalism 3.3 Formation of Crimean Tatar Leninist Collective Return Frame 3.4 Crimean Tatar Democratic Collective Return Frame 3.5 Soviet Master Frame Transformation and Collective Return

34 54 62 64 69 69 70 72 85 111 xv

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CONTENTS

3.6 Movement Consequences and Conclusion References 4

5

6

Crimean Tatar Community in Romania (1900–): From Exile to Diaspora Nationalism 4.1 Introduction 4.2 Application of Theoretical Framework: Exile to Diaspora Nationalism 4.3 Mehmet Niyazi, Emel and Emergence of Exile Nationalism (1900–1948) 4.4 Territorial Nationalism in the Communist Era (1948–1989) 4.5 Diaspora Nationalism to Transnationalism in the Post-communist Romania (1989-) 4.6 Movement Consequences and Conclusion References Crimean Tatar Community in Turkey (1908–): From Émigré to Diaspora Nationalism 5.1 Introduction 5.2 Application of Theoretical Framework: Émigré to Diaspora Nationalism 5.3 Cafer Seydahmet and Emergence of Emigré Nationalism Frame (1908–1945) 5.4 Stagnation of Emigré Nationalism (1945-Early 1980s) 5.5 Diaspora Nationalism to Transnationalism (the 1980s–) 5.6 Movement Consequences and Conclusion References Crimean Tatar Community in the United States (1960–): From Émigré to Diaspora Nationalism 6.1 Introduction 6.2 Crimea Foundation’s Émigré Nationalism 6.3 American Association of Crimean Turks 6.4 Cengiz Da˘gcı: Birth of Crimean Tatar Modern Diaspora Consciousness 6.5 Diaspora Nationalism to Transnationalism References

121 123 127 127 129 133 157 169 187 189 193 193 194 198 219 231 257 258 265 265 266 271 274 278 279

CONTENTS

7

Comparison of Cases and Conclusion: Toward a Crimean Tatar Transnational Nation? 7.1 Review of Cases 7.2 Comparison of Cases and Theoretical Conclusions 7.3 Concluding Remarks on the Crimean Tatars References

xvii

281 281 289 295 297

Appendices

299

Index

307

Abreviations

CPSU DKTK DTHB KTKYDGM MHP MVD NKVD OKND POW QTMHT QTMM UDTTMR WCTC

Communist Party of the Soviet Union Dünya Kırım Tatar Kongresi Dobruca Türk Hars Birli˘gi General Center of Crimean Turks Culture and Aid Associations Milliyetçi Hareket Partisi Ministerstvo Vnutrennikh Del Narodnii Komissariat Vnutrennikh Del Organizatsiia Krimskotatarskogo Natsional’nogo Dvijenya Prisoner of War Qırım Tatar Milli Hareket Te¸skilatı Qırım Tatar Milli Meclisi Unionea Democrata a Tatarilor Turco-Musulmani Din Romania World Crimean Tatar Congress

xix

List of Figures and Exhibits

Fig. 2.1 Fig. 7.1

Exhibit 3.1 Exhibit 3.2 Exhibit 3.3 Exhibit 4.1 Exhibit 4.2 Exhibit 4.3 Exhibit 4.4 Exhibit 5.1 Exhibit 5.2

Pyramid of frame resonance Frame alignment processes of Crimean Tatar extra-territorial agents and organizations Crimean Tatar “Leninist” collective return frame (The first exile nationalism frame in the USSR) The Soviet regime frame concerning the Crimean Tatar question Crimean Tatar democratic collective return frame (The second exile nationalism frame in the USSR) Crimean Tatar exile nationalism frame in Romania (1913–1948) Soviet-Romanian frame for the Crimean Tatar identity Crimean Tatar territorial nationalism frame in the communist era (1948–1989) Crimean Tatar diaspora nationalism frame in Romania Crimean Tatar emigré nationalism frame in the Ottoman Empire/Turkey (1908–1980) Crimean Tatar diaspora nationalism frame in Turkey (1980–)

51 288

76 89 99 146 163 168 182 204 234

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List of Tables

Table 1.1 Table 1.2 Table 2.1 Table 2.2 Table 3.1

Mini-cases of long-distance nationalism Population of people with Crimean Tatar origin in the world Typology of long-distance nationalism Types of long-distance nationalism applied to mini-cases Number of Crimean Tatars in Crimea, 1979–1994

5 16 63 64 119

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CHAPTER 1

Introduction

On 27 February 2014, Russia invaded Crimea and occupied the peninsula through a covert military operation. Later, Russia organized what has been declared as an illegal referendum. Claiming that the population of Crimea voted in favor of unification with Russia, it proceeded to annex the peninsula. This event fomented blurring the lines between the principle of territorial integrity and the principle of self-determination (Burke-White, 2014), arguably bringing to an end the post-Cold War era (Averre and Wolczuk, 2016). Henceforth, the annexation was followed by heavy sanctions by the Western states. The only active force of resistance to the occupation emerged from the Crimean Tatars, who make up around 13% of the Crimean population. The Crimean Tatars, the indigenous people of the peninsula, were deported en masse on the orders of Stalin from Crimea on 18 May 1944 to Central Asia and Siberia. Suffering the genocidal consequences of this deportation, only around half of the Crimean Tatars eventually returned in the early 1990s by their own means. Crimean Tatar resistance to the annexation stemmed from both the 1944 deportation and the first annexation of Crimea by Russia in 1783. Subsequently, two-thirds of the Crimean Tatar population, including my ancestors, was forced to leave the region and seek a new home in the Ottoman Empire.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 F. T. Aydın, Émigré, Exile, Diaspora, and Transnational Movements of the Crimean Tatars, Palgrave Studies in Citizenship Transitions, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-74124-2_1

1

2

F. T. AYDIN

The inspiration for this research emerged from personal experience, growing up in Turkey in the early 1990s. As a high school student, I was startled by the frequent visits paid to my community in the Polatlı district of Ankara by politicians, intellectuals, singers, and dancers from the former USSR. These foreigners, who were always warmly received by our community, despite their different mannerisms, appearances, and ways of speaking, were members of the Crimean Tatar community from the former USSR. Our community was deeply affected by their beautiful music and their sorrowful stories of the deportation. These visits accompanied a transformation in our community. I had always known growing up that I was a Tatar, but now the realization emerged that we were “Crimean” Tatars, and our link to a foreign land became the center of our identity. The language that was taught to me by my grandmother suddenly acquired a new significance and became a medium of communication with these visitors. We learned that we had a flag, an anthem, a homeland, and a national cause other than that of Turkey, the country in which we lived. Family and friends who had previously self-identified as somewhat leftwing, hence focused on class issues began to take on ethnic identity politics in the early 1990s. Subsequently, when I became a student of ethnicity and nationalism studies, I began to investigate what were the reasons for sudden transformation in our political identity as a local community. I realized that experiences of my local community were reflected in the broader community of Crimean Tatars living in Turkey. The main manifestation of rejuvenation was the increasing visibility of the blue Crimean Tatar flag and other symbols such as pictures of “fathers” of the nation, renaming themselves as “Crimean Tatars,” over other ethnonyms previously in use such as Tatar or Turk. Moreover, national ceremonies such as the commemoration of the fall of the Crimean Tatar Republic, the martyrdom of Çelebi Cihan and the deportation of co-ethnics, as well as rituals like tepre¸s (the traditional spring festival) became increasingly commonplace. The myth of “eternal flame” in diaspora began to be oft-quoted. According to this myth, the fire carried from Crimea to Romania and Turkey still survives in diaspora. Reflecting the collective sub-conscience of the Crimean Tatar diaspora, the myth of “eternal fire” perhaps offered a resolution to the dilemma of desire to remain connected to the homeland despite residing in diaspora. The rejuvenation of diaspora identity called into question the existing assumption that the Crimean Tatars had long ago entirely assimilated

1

INTRODUCTION

3

themselves into Turkish society. This phenomenon was not, however, merely local but global. The Crimean Tatar community in the former USSR returned en masse to their homeland in the early 1990s, and the diaspora communities across Romania, the United States, Bulgaria, Germany, and Canada began to contribute to the financing of various institutions in Crimea. A number of Crimean Tatars began to lobby their governments for foreign aid and diplomatic support for their co-ethnics. Individuals with Crimean Tatar roots, who were dispersed around the world, connected to the movement through the ease of modern communication, particularly the Internet. Transnational conferences, festivals, youth conventions, and World Crimean Tatar Congress’ conventions, newly emerged virtual community of the Crimean Tatars were evidence of cultural and political organizing at the transnational level and an emerging transnational public sphere among members of the homeland and diaspora (Altan, 2001; Altınta¸s et al., 2001; Aydın, 2000). Hence, cultural revival in diaspora settings was accompanied by increasing transborder mobility and transnational ties among diaspora and homeland communities. This book is an attempt to explore the unexpected mobilization of the Crimean Tatar diaspora in recent decades. Why and how did the Crimean Tatar communities, all of which resided outside their homeland, develop a political identity and mobilize in the 1990s? How did the communities, living apart from one another, in some cases for more than a century, mobilize simultaneously? Does the transnational mobilization of the Crimean Tatars represent an emergence of a transnational nation? The rise of transnational mobilization is not unique to the Crimean Tatars. In recent decades, not only migrants but also the “descendants of migrants” have begun to rejuvenate their attachments to former “homelands.” Similar to the Crimean Tatars, these descendants of migrants have increasingly begun to identify as “diaspora.” This phenomenon only led to further questions: Have diasporas always existed but remained latent, or did they emerge recently? Do they constitute an ethnonational community or do they represent the transcendence of ethnicity? In what way are diasporas different from territorial ethnic communities? What is the place of territory in the making of a diaspora identity? Do political projects within a diaspora necessarily involve a return to the homeland? How will the politicization of diaspora communities impact nation-states? What is the relationship between diasporas and globalization? Although this book

4

F. T. AYDIN

does not pretend to answer all these questions, it will shed light on some of them through the context of the Crimean Tatar diaspora. The Crimean Tatar diaspora constitutes a significant case. First, the Crimean Tatar case exhibits the features of both traditional diasporas and “new diasporas” (van Hear, 1998). On the one hand, the Crimean Tatar diaspora can still be considered a traditional diaspora because its dispersal dates back to the eighteenth century, and evidence exists indicating the maintenance of an attachment to the homeland, transnational ties, and networks before modernization. On the other hand, their longdistance nationalist movement vitalized toward the end of the twentieth century, constituting a new diaspora. A longue durée study that includes the examination of a diaspora throughout a century will help to examine the question of whether diaspora identity should be considered modern or not. Yin (1994) suggests that one of the goals of a case-study is to expand and generalize theories (analytic generalization) and not to enumerate frequencies (statistical generalization) (Yin, 1994). Therefore, this case can contribute greatly toward the development of a general theory of diaspora. Second, there are very few extra-territorial communities who have maintained a high degree of attachment to their homeland for such an extended duration of time. The Crimean Tatar community in the USSR, having been exiled for nearly fifty years, achieved a collective return, almost entirely through their own resources. Despite previous studies on this case, the mechanisms underlying the maintenance of their identity over the course of fifty years are still far from explained. This case, which includes de-territorialization and re-territorialization, provides a rich source for an examination of the relationship between territory and identity. Similarly, the maintenance of links between Crimean Tatars in both Turkey and Romania and their homeland for more than a century despite the actions of various types of assimilationist regimes deserve closer examination. Even the United States encouraged the assimilation of Crimean Tatar refugees indirectly, but the Crimean Tatars in this country were able to resist. Third, the Crimean Tatar diaspora is made up of several branches that demonstrate varying forms of mobilization; comparing these varying cases enables us to find commonalities and over-arching themes. While the community in the former USSR returned to the homeland Crimea en masse after their 50 years of exile in Central Asia, the communities in

1

Table 1.1 Mini-cases of long-distance nationalism

INTRODUCTION

5

USSR

Romania

Turkey

United States

1944–1989

1900–1948 1948–1989 1989–

1900–1945 1945–1980 1980–

1955–1989 1989–

Turkey, Romania, and the United States mobilized to support their coethnics without themselves attempting a collective return. It is necessary to understand why one community returned to the homeland and others chose not to, while at the same time identify the reasons for the difference in forms of mobilization. Fourth, the Crimean Tatar diaspora branches also lend themselves to longitudinal comparisons. The development of nationalism in these communities spans at least half a century, and in such cases as Turkey and Romania, diaspora communities have maintained a nationalist movement for almost a century. Each case study (except for the USSR case) is divided into two or three eras, each of which constitutes a mini-case in itself. Including the USSR case, nine mini-cases of Crimean Tatar long-distance nationalism appeared (see the Table 1.1). Each mini-case developed in a new political context and represented a significant transformation of earlier movement, which was weakened by a major historical event. This relatively large number enables generalizations to be produced regarding the mechanisms of diaspora mobilization: its emergence, development, and consequences. Through my research, I found that the answer to my initial question regarding the recent rejuvenation of the Crimean Tatar diaspora lies in understanding and considering the general tendencies that affect the rise and fall of a diaspora. The historical-comparative method enabled me to trace other periods in history when the Crimean Tatar diaspora experienced rejuvenation and at the same time contributed to a greater understanding of transnationalism across time. In order to better understand the significance of the Crimean Tatar case, an historical background is provided in the next section. Next, I will provide an overview of my explanation of the causes of diaspora emergence and development. In the final section, I will summarize the chapters, highlighting the main theoretical and empirical points.

6

F. T. AYDIN

1.1

Historical Background

The Crimean Tatar diaspora began to emerge after the Russian annexation of the Crimean Khanate in 1783. The Crimean Khanate was one of the successors of the Turko-Mongolian Golden Horde Empire, which conquered much of Eastern Europe and Russia in the thirteenth century. The Golden Horde was founded by a grandson of Chingiz Khan, Batu. The noble ruling class was Mongolian, but the citizen-soldiers of the army-empire were various Central Asian tribes of Turkic origin. The language of the empire was a dialect of old Turkish (today’s Tatar, Nogay, Kazak, Kirghiz languages emerged from this dialect). “Tatar” is the general ethnonym given to the subjects of the Golden Horde by the Russians, the Ottoman Turks, and Arabs. The Crimean Tatar nation emerged as an amalgam of indigenous inhabitants of Crimea (Taurians, Cimmerians Scythians, Sarmathians, Alans, Hellenes, Goths, Huns, Khazars, Pechenegs, Kypchaks), and Mongolic and Turkic peoples that arrived the peninsula around the tenth century (Magocsi, 2010, 2014; Vozgrin, 2013; Williams, 2001). The Crimean Tatar language is a Turkic language but includes remnants of indigenous cultural elements. The Crimean Khanate became a vassal Muslim state under Ottoman protection in the fifteenth century. The state dominated the De¸st-i Kıpçak (the steppe region north of the Black Sea) and parts of Eastern Europe from its capital city in the Crimean peninsula for nearly 500 years, and ˙ formed a formidable Islamic civilization (Inalcık, 2017). After the annexation in 1783, Russia began to colonize Crimea and the social and economic life of the Crimean Tatars declined. As a result, the majority of Crimean Tatars immigrated to the Ottoman Empire in the hope of a better life both in material and religious terms. The emigration began in 1783 but reached its peak after the Crimean War (1854–1856) when the Tsar openly threatened to deport the Crimean Tatars if they did not leave (Pinson, 1972). These immigrants into the Ottoman Empire were predominantly settled in Dobruca (the Black Sea coastal region of today’s Romania and Bulgaria), which was in dire need of repopulating having been devastated over two centuries of Ottoman-Russian wars. With the retreat of the Ottoman Empire from the Balkans and the emergence of the new sovereign states of Romania (1878) and Bulgaria (1908), the vast majority of Crimean Tatars that had settled in Dobruca once again migrated to Anatolia, where the Turkish Republic was founded in 1923.

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7

After the great exodus when 300,000 Tatars left Crimea in the course of a few years and immigrated to the Ottoman Empire in the 1860s, roughly one-third of the population remained in the Crimea. By ˙ the 1880s, under the leadership of Ismail Bey Gasprinskiy, a Westerneducated Crimean Tatar from a noble family, the Crimean Tatars began to reject emigration and created a nationalist resistance. Gasprinskiy initiated a modernization movement not only in Crimea but among the wider Turko-Muslim populations of the Russian Empire (Lazzerini, 1973, 1992; Ortaylı, 1991). He argued that modern ways and Islam were compatible through his education campaign and his newspaper, titled Tercüman/Perevodchik [Translator] and published both in his contended common Turkic language and Russian. He also advocated cultural and political unification of the Turko-Muslim peoples of the Russian Empire, autonomous and equal status for Muslims living in the Russian Empire, and cooperation with the Russian majority in a restructured Russian state. In this introductory history, it is impossible to do justice to the importance of Gasprinskiy for the history of the Crimean Tatars and the larger Turko-Muslim world, as he was one of the most significant theoreticians and practitioners of jadidism, the Islamic reform movement. Gasprinskiy’s thoughts should be conceptualized in the context of Western-Islamic relations for the these reasons: He sought to find ways of combating Western colonization by reforming Islamic culture; he projected peaceful co-existence and collaboration with Western culture, and he aimed to establish Muslim minority rights in a non-Muslim dominated world. The latter question had not previously been adequately theorized in Islam due to the dominance of Islamic states up until the early modern period. (It is doubtful this question has been adequately addressed yet.) The Islamic way of coping with non-Muslim domination to that point was Hijra, which meant emigration to a Muslim-dominated region rather than being subjugated to non-Muslims. The concept of Hijra emerged when the Prophet Mohammed and his followers immigrated to Muslim-dominated Medina from Mecca, which was dominated by non-believers at the time. Hijra was seen as a significant justification for the Crimean Tatars to leave their homeland and immigrate to the lands of the Ottoman Empire, which was characterized as aqtopraqlar by the immigrants (Williams, 2000). The exact meaning of the Crimean Tatar word “aqtopraqlar” is disputed but it probably refers to the Crimean Tatar pronunciation of the Turkish/Arabic “Haq topraqlar”—Land of God/Dar-el Islam. The Crimean Tatars saw their immigration as a way

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by which to protect their Islamic identity, threatened by the Russian rule. One thing most deplored was forceful conscription of Muslims into the army, and the possibility of having to fight against other Muslims, particularly the Ottomans. Gasprinskiy rejected Hijra as a solution and advocated remaining in Crimea and fighting against Russian domination through a process of modernization and the development of national identity. For this book, I also argue that he laid the foundations not only for future Crimean Tatar nationalism in Crimea but also in the diaspora contexts. Mainly as a result of Gasprinskiy’s reforms in Crimea, a nationalistminded young generation emerged in Crimea at the turn of the century. When the Russian Empire collapsed, they declared Crimean Tatar sovereignty in 1917. According to Edige Kırımal, the Crimean People’s Republic constitutes a major milestone in the development of the Crimean Tatar national identity, which emerged through three steps of nationalist activism: Gasprinskiy’s modernization movement, the Young Tatars (Ya¸s Tatarlar) movement in Crimea, and the émigré movement of the Fatherland Society (Vatan Cemiyeti) (Kırımal, 1952). The émigré students from Crimea, primarily Çelebi Cihan and Cafer Seydahmet [Kırımer], founded the Fatherland Society in Istanbul, only to transplant their organization later to Crimea. The Fatherland Society played a major role in laying out the principles of the Crimean Tatar republic. The claim to a right to independent statehood was built on the history of the Crimean Tatar Khanate, which existed for over 250 years. It was conquered through Russia’s violation of the Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca (1774) between the Russian and the Ottoman Empires. They argued that Russia has a small claim on Crimea having infringed on the social, economic, and religious rights of its Crimean Tatar subjects since 1783. This book will elaborate on the contribution of the émigré movement of the Fatherland Society, to the development of Crimean Tatar nationalism. The Crimean People’s Republic (1917) survived for a very short period of time. After three years of political turmoil in Crimea, a Bolshevik political authority was decisively established by 1920, and the Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (ASSR) emerged. In the first decade of Soviet rule, under the president of the Crimean ASSR Veli ˙ Ibrahimov, a Crimean Tatar from the left-wing of the Crimean Tatar Milli Fırqa (National Party), the Crimean Tatars for the first time had the chance to build their national institutions. The Crimean Tatars were accepted as a core nationality (korenniy narod) of this republic, and they

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INTRODUCTION

9

were represented in governing institutions and every aspect of society with a far more than proportional representation. As Brubaker has noted, the Soviet system of institutionalized nationality contributed greatly to the nation-building of many nationalities in the country (Brubaker, 1996). According to Williams, the national concepts and institutions developed in this era were maintained and reproduced in the Central Asian settlements (Williams, 2001). The historical legacy of this era was also shared by the Crimean Tatar refugees of the Second World War settled in Europe, Turkey, and the United States, while the diaspora communities who previously immigrated to Romania and Turkey had little knowledge of the national culture which had developed in Crimea in the 1920s. The “golden age” of the Crimean Tatars was soon reversed by a devastating attack on the Crimean Tatar nation by the Soviet government. After Stalin consolidated power toward the end of the 1920s, he purged the Crimean Tatar intelligentsia, the nationalist and religious ˙ leaders, including Veli Ibrahimov. Stalin deported and murdered large segments of the Crimean Tatar peasantry in his campaign of dekulakization. This action served as a prelude to his later deportation of the entire Crimean Tatar population to Central Asia and Siberia on May 18, 1944, on the pretext of Crimean Tatar collaboration with Nazis. Since then, the deportation is a notable reference point of the modern Crimean Tatar nationalism in exile and diaspora and is accepted by the Crimean Tatars as a form of genocide, which aimed to destroy the Crimean Tatar nationhood. The post-1944 Crimean Tatar long-distance nationalist movements aim to reverse the consequences of this event, by returning the deportees and their descendants to their homeland and re-building national sovereignty. What happened in Crimea during the Second World War is a contentious issue for historians. Like many other oppressed nationalities living in the Soviet Union, the Crimean Tatars both in the homeland and the diaspora perceived the Second World War as a significant window of opportunity for regaining national autonomy and breaking from Soviet rule. In 1941, Crimea was occupied by the German army, which permitted the Crimean Tatars to practice their religion and established their Muslim committees and paramilitary forces. This policy conflicted with Nazi theory, which classified Crimean Tatars as untermenschen (subhumans). It appears that the real purpose of this move was to entice Turkey to enter the war on Germany’s side. Unaware of the true nature of the Nazi regime, some Crimean Tatars believed that they would be

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permitted to rebuild their national autonomy. Those who heavily suffered under the Soviet regime had thought nothing could be worse than the Soviet’s treatment of them. It must be noted that the vast majority of the adult male population had already been conscripted into the Soviet army and were fighting against the Nazis. A part of the Crimean Tatar population joined the partisans fighting against the Nazi occupation in the mountains of Crimea. Soon, it became clear that the Nazis had no intention of providing the Crimean Tatars with national rights, as they murdered large numbers of the Crimean Tatar population, burned more than a hundred of their villages, accusing them of collaboration with partisans, and deported youths between the ages of 14–18 as Ostarbeiter (“Eastern workers,” essentially slave laborer) to Germany and Austria. Despite the suffering experienced by the Crimean Tatars at the hands of the Nazis, and the large numbers of partisans that had resisted the occupation of Crimea by the German army, the Soviet regime, which reoccupied Crimea on 9 May 1944, deported the whole Crimean Tatar population on 18 May. The Soviet archival documents demonstrate that the decision for their deportation was made in 1941 as Stalin planned to invade Turkey, and for this purpose intended to remove this potential fifth column. Stalin’s purely strategic motivations for deporting the Crimean Tatars become clear when in light of similar deportations of Turkic and Muslim nationalities, such as Chechen, Ingush, Karachais, and Balkars in the Caucasus, a region that was not invaded by Nazis. To this day, major Soviet and postSoviet Russian historiography and Russophone media continue to justify the deportation by referring to the alleged collaboration of the Crimean Tatars with the Nazis. The Crimean Tatar national movement does not deny some collaboration, which must be understood in the context of previous attacks on the Crimean Tatar nationalists and people, and the lack of knowledge about the true nature of the Nazi regime. The Crimean Tatars were caught in the cross-fire and aimed to stay alive under the rule of the two occupants. Crimean Tatar historians point to the significant number of Crimean Tatars who fought on the Soviet side and joined the partisans, arguing that the “collaboration with Nazis” appears to be a pretext for deportation, which constituted a continuation of the Russian policy of the de-Tatarisation of Crimea since 1783. In this context, this work sheds further light on the role of the diaspora in the development of the wartime Crimean Tatar nationalism. Despite the difficulty of contact with the local Muslim committees in Crimea, the Crimean Tatar émigrés in Turkey and Europe particularly Cafer

1

INTRODUCTION

11

Seydahmet and Edige Kırımal simultaneously lobbied German authorities (sometimes via Turkish authorities) for greater autonomy for the Crimean Tatars. While this lobbying proved to be largely unsuccessful in influencing the German policy-making, it played a significant role in saving many Crimean Tatar and other Turko-Muslim prisoners of war (POWs) from the Nazi camps, where death rates tended to be very high. The émigrés also assisted in the escape of many members of the Muslim committees from the approaching Soviet army with the help of the Crimean Tatar diaspora in Romania. After the war, émigrés assisted in the obtainment of asylum and eventually citizenship for Crimean Tatars, who had been POWs, Ostarbeiter, and members of Muslim committees or religious leaders from Crimea. In the process of deportation to Central Asia and Siberia and during the decade they spent in a “special settlement regime,” the Crimean Tatar population dropped by a third. Until 1957, the Crimean Tatars lived in the special settlement regime, little more than an open-air prison in which Tatars were forced to live in conditions of poverty, starvation, poor hygiene, a hostile climate, and poor accommodation. They were also required to perform back-breaking labor such as mining, timber production, machining, and cotton-harvesting. Any attempted escape was punishable with a 10-year prison sentence. Meanwhile, the Crimean ASSR was abolished, and the ethnic name “Crimean Tatar” was eradicated from all documents and history textbooks in the USSR (Pohl, 2004). Though the charges against the Crimean Tatars were revoked in 1967, they were not permitted to return to Crimea (Fisher, 1978). This situation did not prevent them from creating the first, the longest, and the largest human rights movement (almost the entire population participated) in the USSR, demanding the right to return to their homeland and reestablish their autonomous republic. This book aims to explain of how and why the Crimean Tatars mobilized in exile settings and attempted a collective return to Crimea in 1989–1990. Since the late 1980s, Crimean Tatars had begun the return to their homeland even if individually, and by the early 1990s around half of the 500,000 Tatars had completed the journey. Though the rest of the Tatars expressed their willingness to return, the window of opportunity had been long closed by the early 2000s, as Uzbekistan and Ukraine began to more strictly control movements of people in and out of their countries. Moreover, their return was also slowed down because of the issues Tatars faced in the process of settlement (Belitser, 2000; Shevel, 2001). Today

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the Crimean Tatars constitute 13% of the population of Crimea (around 270,000). Upon return, the Crimean Tatars declared their sovereignty in Crimea in 1991 (Williams, 2001). The Crimean Tatar declaration was soon eclipsed by another declaration of sovereignty, this time by the Russian majority in the peninsula. Nostalgic Soviet nationalists constitute a majority among the Russian population of Crimea, and after the proclamation of Ukrainian sovereignty, they sought separation from Ukraine and reunification with Russia. They regard Khrushchev’s transfer of Crimea to Ukraine in 1957 as a gift “to mark the 300th anniversary of unification of Russia and Ukraine” an unjust affair. However, Belitser (2000) argues that the real reason for the gift was the devastation of the Crimean economy as a result of the deportation of the Crimean Tatars, and the possibility of a regeneration of the peninsula only if economic resources were transferred from Ukraine. The separatist attempt in Crimea was successfully thwarted in 1991 in the course of a referendum for Ukrainian independence, in which Crimean Tatars overwhelmingly supported Crimea’s remaining a part of Ukraine. Another separatist attempt of the nostalgic-Soviet nationalist-Russians was successfully overcome in 1995 in return for significant concessions for Crimean Slavs which essentially turned Crimea into an ethnic Russian autonomy (Kuzio, 2007; Sasse, 2002). During this time, the right to self-determination for Crimean Tatars was disregarded, stemming from Ukraine’s refusal to recognize Crimean Tatars as an indigenous people. A quota for Crimean Tatar representation in parliament was eliminated while Mustafa Cemilev was elected to Verhovna Rada (Magocsi, 2010, 746). The Meclis was recognized not as a national parliament of Crimean Tatars but merely as a consultative council to the Ukrainian president, and in reality, several Russian politicians, often hostile to the return of Crimean Tatars, viewed it as little more than an NGO. In the same way, despite being one of the official languages prior to the deportation, Crimean Tatar was not reinstituted as one of the official languages of the autonomous republic. Similarly, Crimean Tatars were excluded from the land privatization process during the transition to capitalism. When Crimean Tatars resorted to squatting on empty government land or demanded land through protest, they were often attacked by various paramilitary groups, public security forces, or racist groups. Ethnic clashes ˙ figured more often in Crimea than other parts of Ukraine (Izmirli, 2008a, 2008b; Magocsi, 2010, 746). Crimean Tatars were refused employment

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in the bureaucracy, courts, police, army, and government institutions despite the majority of them being highly educated. Many educated Tatars were forced to work in the agricultural sector and settled in villages (Mikeliˇc, 2012). The unemployment rate among the Crimean Tatars was disproportionally high (UNPO, 2011) and a significant number lived in extreme poverty in the land they appropriated and squats they formed, lacking the primary means of sustenance, such as water, electricity, sewage, and roads. Hate speech against Crimean Tatars in Crimean media was routine and went unpunished. Only eighteen national schools existed for Crimean Tatars, which were funded via their resources, and through international aid; at the same time, the Crimean Tatar language was classified as endangered, and cultural institutions significantly lacked funding. Their social, political, and economic deprivation, added to the lack of compensation for past injustices, created enormous resentment among the Crimean Tatar population, leading to the population to become increasingly alienated from Ukrainian and Crimean politics (Wilson, 2014). Evidently, Crimean Tatars went to the polls in lesser numbers though they remained committed to non-violence. The Crimean Tatars strongly supported both the Orange and Euromaidan protests, in the hope that a Western-oriented and democratic regime would lead to the attainment of their rights. Ukraine could not be blamed for the situation of Crimean Tatars in this period, but rather the Crimean institutions dominated by local Russians chose to interpret many Ukrainian laws in such a way that they could discriminate Crimean Tatars, at times they did not implement them at all. In retrospect, Ukraine’s major strategic mistake was to appease Crimean Russians and give them too much of a freehand in governing Crimea, and to ignore the growing neo-Stalinism (Uehling, 2015b). Instead, Ukraine could have given more support to Crimean Tatars to counter-balance strengthening Russian hegemony in the peninsula (carried out by acts such as the distribution of Russian passports). When evaluating the Ukrainian policy toward the Crimean Tatars, we must take into consideration that Ukraine also had its own problems due to state capture by oligarchs and continuing Russian hegemony in the Ukrainian public sphere. Despite major problems in funding, legal infrastructure, and occasional violence (mostly from pro-Russian groups), Crimean Tatars did not meet much hostility from the pro-Ukrainian elites (Magocsi, 2010, 746), even by the majority of ordinary Slavic people in Crimea (Aydıngün & Aydıngün, 2015). Despite not recognizing their

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indigenous collective identity constitutionally, Ukraine’s policy toward the Crimean Tatars, in general, was tolerant, and Crimean Tatars had considerable freedom in not only expressing but also developing their culture and identity between 1991 and 2004 (Malyarenko and Galbreath, 2013). The Crimean Tatar leadership also contributed effectively to the democratization and nation-building of Ukraine by supporting Orange and Euro-maidan revolutions, and Ukraine’s Western orientation, pursuing an active diplomatic relationship with Western political institutions and leaders. In this period, Crimean Tatar diaspora was also completely free to invest and get involved in Crimea. The transnational relations between Crimea and Turkey boomed, and we must recognize that Ukraine’s liberal attitude contributed greatly to the revival of Crimean Tatar national identity in Crimea, and strengthening of national bonds of diaspora toward the homeland. The Crimean Tatars today evaluate the Ukrainian period more positively than before perhaps because of its sharp contrast with their present lives under Russian authoritarianism. The Russian occupation of the peninsula came shortly after President Yanukovich had to leave the country in the course of the Euromaidan social revolution (Revolution of Dignity as the supporters called it) and Ukraine was experiencing a power vacuum. It was later revealed to be a Russian intelligence operation in which a coup in the Crimean government was plotted and an illegal and unlawful referendum was organized in a short space of time to justify the annexation. Due to fears of persecution under Russian rule, Crimean Tatars came out in support of Ukrainian territorial integrity by boycotting the referendum and taking to streets with Ukrainian and Crimean Tatar flags. When the newly emerging Euromaidan leaders urged Crimean Tatars to refrain from using force, and similarly Ukraine declared that it would not defend Crimea through the use of military force, the Crimean Tatars were forced to become dissidents in occupied Crimea. The Russian government imprisoned indiscriminately hundreds of Crimean Tatars on false charges or on the basis that resisting the Russian occupation goes against Article 10 of Russian law, namely “threatening the security of the Russian Federation” (Pleshakov, 2017, 149). As many as thirty Crimean Tatar men have been found dead, with no investigation carried out to determine the reasons for their death. The Crimean Tatars were declared Russian citizens, and, if they failed to comply, they were denied a residence permit. While Russia promised granting Crimean Tatars rights that had not been granted by Ukraine (“Address by the President of Russian

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INTRODUCTION

15

Federation”, 2014), it did the opposite by banishing Mustafa Cemilev, the world acclaimed Crimean Tatar leader, who fought for Crimean Tatars’ return to homeland all his life, from entering Crimea. Moreover, Russian security force raided the Crimean Tatar Meclis building with automatic guns, and later the democratic Meclis was declared illegal. Ukrainian and Crimean Tatar independent media could not exist in an authoritarian state, and they were quickly shut. Not providing any real political rights for the Crimean Tatars, Russia also rolled back many of the cultural rights, destroying Crimean Tatar cultural institutions, including UNESCO recognized World Heritage Khan’s Palace. Most Crimean Tatar schools and classes were closed, while a few were permitted to operate for keeping up appearances. The management of Crimean Tatar historical buildings, museums, libraries, and archives was appropriated by the Russian state. In a nutshell, Russian human rights violations and racism against Crimean Tatars strengthened, colonization policies of Crimea took a new powerful turn, and “hybrid deportation” emerged with the expelling of Crimean Tatar dissidents and disappearances of all ˙ unwanted (see Goble, 2020; Izmirli, 2020; Kuzio, 2020; Özçelik, 2016; Uehling, 2015a; Wilson, 2017). The only positive consequence of annexation was increased trust and cooperation between Crimean Tatars and Ukrainian state and society, and unprecedented amelioration of the Crimean Tatar image among the Ukrainian public due to their strong defense of Ukrainian territorial integrity (Aydıngün & Acicbe, 2020; Sahin, 2018). The Ukrainian diaspora particularly the ones in Canada also wholeheartedly supported Mustafa Cemilev and Crimean Tatars’s resistance against Russian occupation and drew attention to the Crimean Tatars’ historical attachment to their homeland in various publications (Magocsi, 2014). Ukraine finally recognized the Crimean Tatars as indigenous people of Crimea and Crimean Tatar deportation as genocide (Aydın & Sahin, 2019). Whether and how Ukraine will integrate Crimean Tatar indigenous rights to its constitution and legal system still remains to be seen. There are still about 130,000 Crimean Tatars in Uzbekistan and other parts of Central Asia and Russia. Their return slowed down in the 2000s, and now it has almost stopped due to Russian occupation of Crimea (Aydıngün & Yıldırım, 2010; Lillis, 2014).

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1.1.1

Historical Background of Crimean Tatar Diaspora

As a result of both direct migration to Anatolia and migration from Dobruca to Anatolia, the number of Crimean Tatars in Turkey became overwhelmingly larger than the ones in Romania and Bulgaria. According to Karpat (1985), 1,800,000 Crimean Tatars emigrated to Turkey between 1783 and 1922 (Karpat, 1985, 66). Emigration was illegal in the Soviet period, but some Crimean Tatars managed to take asylum in Turkey in the interwar period. Thousands of Crimean Tatar war refugees were also granted asylum by Turkey, the United States, and other Western countries soon after the Second World War (Fisher, 1978; Karpat, 1985). The estimated number of Crimean Tatars are summarized in Table 1.2, but these numbers need interpretation. After all, census is a crucial instrument for constructing the nation (Anderson, 1991), and producing and maintaining ethnic identities (Uehling, 2004b). In Turkey ethnic identity is not categorized in the census therefore there is not an official number. Based on the number of Crimean Tatars entered in the Ottoman registers at the beginning of the twentieth century (Andrews, 1989; Bezanis, 1994; Karpat, 1985), 3 to 6 million people are estimated in Turkey. Ukraine did not hold a newer census since 2001, Crimean data could be affected by Russian-dominated bureaucracy and IDPs from Crimea in mainland Ukraine are not registered according to ethnic groups (Uehling, 2017). Table 1.2 Population of people with Crimean Tatar origin in the world

Turkey Crimea Uzbekistan Russia (2010 census) Romania (2011 census) Bulgaria (2011 census) United States Mainland Ukraine (after 2014) Canada

3–5 million* 265,985** 130,000* (no census in Uzbekistan since 1989) 2449 20,282 (50,000*) 1803 (7000*) 4000* 30,000–60,000* 400*

* Estimated. This indicates that there is not a recent census or categorization of Crimean Tatar, or census has problems in reliability ** Official statistic from the Verkhovna Rada Krima (Crimean Parliament) before the occupation showed that 265.985 Crimean Tatars settled in Crimea (Mikeliˇc, 2012)

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INTRODUCTION

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130, 000 Crimean Tatar deportees and their off-springs are estimated to remain in Central Asia. In most other places, some Crimean Tatars misrepresent their ethnic identity as Turkish, mere Tatar, or of the dominant ethnicity for political and social reasons. Apart from those reasons, we cannot deny that especially diasporan Crimean Tatars have developed a hybrid, fluid, and hyphenated identities, which affects under-reporting. The Crimean Tatars are well-incorporated citizens of Turkey and have contributed toward the emergence of a core Turkish ethnonational identity because of their Turkic origin and Sunni sectarian identity. Turkey offers protection of all ethnically Turkic minorities abroad including Crimean Tatars. In Romania and Bulgaria, the Crimean Tatars were largely marginalized in the nation-building processes. In Romania, they have been treated somewhat better than they were in Bulgaria, as Romania privileged the Crimean Tatars in comparison with Turks since the former did not have a kin-state. The Bulgarian government, on the other hand, discriminated against Crimean Tatars and Turks as well as other Muslim communities. The number of Turks is much higher than Crimean Tatars. Consequently, the rate of intermixing between the Crimean Tatars and Turks has been higher in Bulgaria, though a distinct Crimean Tatar culture still survives (Karpat, 1985). In the United States, the Crimean Tatar community reflects a dual Crimean Tatar and Turkish identity because of earlier stay in Turkey, protection of the Turkish state, and stronger and more populated Turkish community. While the deported Crimean Tatars in the former Soviet Union mobilized for a return to their homeland, a transformation had also taken place in the Crimean Tatar diaspora who resided outside the Soviet Union. This change was counter-intuitive as previously Crimean Tatars who had immigrated into host countries such as Turkey and the United States were thought to have lost any sense of attachment to their homeland (Bezanis, 1994; Eren, 1998; Williams, 2001). In this work, I will explain in detail that the Crimean Tatars engaged in nationalism outside their homeland several times in history. The Crimean Tatar émigrés prepared the ideological background of the movement in Istanbul at the beginning of the twentieth century. The Crimean Tatar diaspora in Romania created a national movement and prepared to return to Crimea but could not because of the Second World War. As noted before, the Crimean Tatar émigrés in Turkey and Europe connected to the Crimean Tatar movement in German-occupied Crimea, and coordinated efforts despite the odds. It was only the exiled Crimean Tatars in the former USSR who

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organized a collective return movement. Short of return to homeland, the communities outside the USSR, self-identified as “diaspora” acknowledging their political attachment to homeland, and confirming that they form part of a Crimean Tatar nation despite their various citizenships. The Crimean Tatars abroad share common political goals with Crimean Tatars in the homeland, and together they formed World Crimean Tatar Congress as a transnational governance organization. This organization has gained new functions with the annexation of Crimea, as Crimean Tatar political leaders were exiled to mainland Ukraine from Crimea and have to function outside of homeland. The complex developments that took place inside Crimea after the Crimean Tatars returned in the 1990s including the post-annexation situation are beyond the limits of this book and discussed elsewhere (Aydın & Sahin, 2019). However, I will explain how the recent revival in diaspora impacted the movement within the homeland by increasing its power in economic, human resources, cultural, and diplomatic dimensions and by bringing new political possibilities. To say the least, the Crimean Tatars expanded from being 270,000 into 6 million, with direct access to politicians of several host countries. Focusing mainly on long-distance nationalism, this work does not provide a detailed account or analysis of the national movements of the Crimean Tatars developed in the homeland context. The national movements developed in the homeland are mainly discussed in relation to national movements outside the homeland. This work aims to isolate the factors that play a role in determining trans-territorial long-distance nationalism, rather than territorial nationalism. The deportation and the collective return of the Crimean Tatars in the USSR received considerable academic attention, but the diaspora outside the Soviet Union has largely been neglected (Bekirova, 2004; Guboglo and Chervonnaya, 1992; Uehling, 2004a). Other works that discuss the diaspora communities (Eminov, 2000; Oberlander-Tarnaveanu & Volker, 2005; Williams, 2001) generally viewed them as territorial minorities, ignoring the transnationalism of communities and the contributions of diaspora communities in the development of Crimean Tatar nationalism in the homeland. I aim to bring a transnational framework to Crimean Tatar studies by demonstrating the severe limitations of studying one Crimean Tatar community as a nation while disregarding its relations with other parts of the “transnational nation.”

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1.2

INTRODUCTION

19

Research Design

The question that inspired this work is what affected the simultaneous rise of the Crimean Tatar diaspora communities in recent decades. To provide an adequate answer, this question is divided into the such research questions: (i) Which factors contributed to the emergence or revitalization of the Crimean Tatar diaspora communities? (ii) How can the development, dynamics, and trajectory of these communities be explained? (iii) How can we explain variation in forms of nationalist mobilization across communities? (iv) How can we explain the variation in the consequences of diaspora mobilization? Why did only one of the communities return? What can the reasons be for the other communities not returning? Why did the Crimean Tatar diaspora communities mobilize simultaneously? Has the rise of the diaspora movements led to the emergence of a Crimean Tatar transnational nation? 1.2.1

Sources and Research Methods

This work is the result of long-term research. I first began to study the Crimean Tatar diaspora in Turkey in 2001, and I have observed it continuously as I visited the community in Turkey many times and Turkey became my home base in recent years. I also did fieldwork in Crimea in 2006; in Turkey and Romania in 2005–2006; in the United States in 2002 and 2008; in Canada (with the Crimean Tatars from Romania) in 2007–2008; and Ukraine in 2017. In my fieldwork, I conducted a total of fifty-five key informant interviews with a wide spectrum of participants of national movements, as well as significant bystanders and observers. These interviews were for the most part conducted in Crimean Tatar, supplemented by Turkish, Russian, and Ukrainian (through translation) when needed. I conducted participant observation at major events of the Crimean Tatars such as exhibitions, conferences, festivals, Qurultay (Crimean Tatars’ National CongressQırımtatar Milliy Qurultayı), World Crimean Tatar Congress (WCTC) and Meclis sessions (Crimean Tatars’ National Parliament-Qırımtatar Milliy Meclisi), election meetings, association meetings, rallies, protests, concerts, memorial days, performances, lectures, weddings, religious rituals, excursions, social events, balls, traditional festivals such as tepre¸s , hıdırellez, navrez, and new cultural festivals. I stayed with Crimean Tatar families throughout my fieldwork and interacted with community

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members of all ages. While the significance of visiting the field is undeniable, the nature of research today is that it is possible to follow the ongoing developments in the field by being constantly connected through various means on the Internet, especially if one has established contacts and learned where to look at in the field. I have been a continuous observer of these fields last 20 years. Second, I conducted documentary research in major state and private archives, and libraries in the four countries mentioned above. I examined primary sources, such as movement documents, pamphlets, and periodicals, as well as secondary sources such as newspaper articles and books that describe the movement and situation of the Crimean Tatars throughout history in Crimean Tatar, Turkish, Russian, Ukrainian, and English. One thing to note in my research is the insider’s view and how to account for its possible disadvantages. While being an insider could bring a degree of bias to my research, I believe it is outweighed by the advantages brought by my in-depth knowledge of this community, including my knowledge of the Tatar language. Conducting interviews in Crimean Tatar enabled me to reach a level of depth, specificity, and nuance which would have been lost in translation since the pronunciation of certain words, word choice, or dialect choice or mix are significant symbols of identity in the Crimean Tatar culture. I am also sensitive to cultural traditions and rituals, allowing me to realize distinctions and hybridization across communities, which would be lost to many scholars who lack this familiarity. The interviewees recognized that I did not need to be introduced to many aspects of Crimean Tatar culture which allowed them to better focus on the topic of conversation. I was also treated as one of their own, which provided them with the necessary comfort to discuss their ideas and experiences freely. My ability to engage in ethnographic observation has enabled a detailed textual description. Moreover, when researching a diaspora, it is not easy to determine who can be considered an insider and who an outsider. When visiting communities other than my own, such as the communities in Romania, Crimea, and in the United States, I was never a complete insider. In such cases, my cultural distance to these communities enabled me also to bring the impartial observations of an outsider.

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Overview of the Book

In this book, I demonstrate that diasporas are nationalist communities constructed in the modern period. Second, I develop the concept of long-distance nationalism suggested by Anderson. While I use longdistance nationalism as a generic form of nationalism across borders, I also construct a typology of long-distance nationalism, which includes newly developed concepts of émigré, exile, diaspora, and transnational nationalism. “Diaspora literature” suffers from a lack of sufficient typologies, as many different “transnational” phenomena are lumped under this term (Brubaker, 2005). For instance, the literature has difficulty in explaining why not all “diasporas” or “transnational communities” wish to return to their homeland. My typology clarifies this, by classifying those migrants with a “return” goal in their frames as exile nationalists, and those with an ambivalent attitude toward return as diaspora nationalists. Similarly, diaspora literature suffers confusion when debating the extent to which diasporas are integrated into their host-states. My typology also clarifies this issue by grouping those not willing to incorporate as exile nationalists, while those who are willing to incorporate at varying levels as diaspora nationalists. The sociological literature on diasporas proposes that a lack of incorporation into the host country causes diasporas and transnationalism but this literature has difficulties in explaining transnationalism in such cases where diaspora communities are well incorporated. Well-incorporated communities such as the Crimean Tatars in Turkey may still need transnational ties as they wish to maintain their identity, without relinquishing the advantages of incorporation into their country of residence. My argument is that we cannot deduce whether transnationalism will emerge solely from the level of incorporation into host-states, as opposed to some sociological literature. Bringing in diaspora agency, I argue that transnationalism is contingent upon the specific framing processes mainly developed by transnational actors. Depending on the meanings diaspora actors create utilizing their nationalist ideology and their interpretations of the context, they may or may not engage in transnationalism. I believe that a typology best explicates the multifaceted phenomenon of identities of de-territorialized communities.

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This book aims to demonstrate the interplay of structure and agency, rather than privileging one over the other. This will be executed predominantly by focusing on mechanisms and processes, which are conceptualized as neither solely structural nor solely agential variables, but a combination of the two. Although frames are constructed through human agency, they become self-reproducing after a point and constrain collective behavior. However, a change in framing processes or frame transformation is also possible through individual initiative. Moreover, I emphasize that framing processes do not take place in a vacuum. They are embedded in political and discursive opportunity/threat structures that constrain or increase frame resonance. Frames can persist despite inefficiency as a consequence of certain ideational processes (such as availability of specific master frames). My emphasis on the agency of diaspora challenges Cohen’s influential analysis of structural conditions of dispersion as a factor that determines the form of diasporas. Looking at how the agency interacts with structure explains political change better. In fact, Robin Cohen, in the revised edition of his book (Cohen, 2008), suggests that social movement theory provides the best way for developing a dynamic study of diaspora and I follow his advice here. This study attempts to explain the dynamics of “diasporas”—emergence, development, consequences. This research is part of newly emerging explanatory research on diaspora. In line with Cohen, I also suggest that the study of the diaspora must be located in nationalism literature. This work aims to contribute toward developing a constructivist theory of nationalism by explaining how social movements, mobilization, and framing processes construct national identities. While Brubaker (1996) emphasizes the institutional factors in constructing identities in Soviet geography, I argue that mobilization and framing become more critical for communities deprived of their national institutions. This is also a critique of “methodological nationalism” and “statist institutionalism” of ethnicity and nationalism literature. In this global age, maintaining common identities across different state borders is possible. However, this is not a result of the reproduction of a common culture but rather due to political movements that utilize newly developed communication technologies that enable an “imagined transnational community,” and the coordination of political activities across diaspora communities. The nationalism literature must give due attention to the transnational ethnonational communities as long-distance nationalism presents the form that nationalism takes in the global age, and most state nationalisms either has to

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expand to include diasporas abroad or has to come to terms with diaspora identities within their own country. This study also indirectly addresses the problem of whether nations are “constructed” or “re-constructed” based on an “ethnic core” (Smith, 2000). Greta Uehling argues that homeland memory is not simply transmitted, but continuously re-constructed by each generation of Crimean Tatars while in exile (Uehling, 2004a). From an empirical standpoint, this theoretical discussion about construction vs re-construction seems like splitting hairs when we can easily observe that collective memory of the homeland, myths about the ethnic origins, cultural values, and traditions influence the designing frames of long-distance identities. In much the same way that nationalist literature did not make good use of the social movement theory, the social movement theory is weak in explaining national movements. I believe that I have bridged the nationalism ethnicity and nationalism literature and social movement theory to produce meaningful results for both. With respect to the social movement theory, I propose a theoretical synthesis of the framing processes approach and the concept of political opportunities. Unlike the synthesis offered previously by McAdam et al. (Mc Adam et al., 2001), I do not privilege the political opportunities as a framework of explanation and treat the framing processes as ad hoc variables. Instead, I suggest the explanatory value of the framing processes approach and indicate how framing processes interact with the political and discursive opportunity structures. This work contributes to the theorization of framing processes by demonstrating how frames are continuously constructed through the interaction of various agents, structures, and ideational processes; by elaborating relations between movement frames and master frames; by developing a model of frame resonance; by introducing learning and movement traditions to the framing processes by studying them in longueduree; and by highlighting the role of transnationalism in the framing processes. Moreover, I explored how frame alignment processes could be made more effective through strong organizations. Regarding research design, I provide a “transnational” theoretical framework in which diaspora communities are systematically compared taking into consideration the interaction of the various diaspora communities and homeland community, rather than studying each community in isolation. This does not mean states should be ignored, but rather that the influence of the domestic political context must be balanced with transnational influences.

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In terms of research design, I applied Small-N (a small number of cases) which enables an in-depth examination of cases. This is important when exploring a lesser-known phenomenon like diaspora and the Crimean Tatar cases, for which relevant mechanisms and processes first need to be identified. In order to produce stronger generalizations, I opt to increase number of cases, as suggested by Lijphart (Ljiphart, 1971), and conduct within-case comparisons. Explanations emerge as a result of a systematic analysis of processes and mechanisms across time in a small number of cases (small-N). The result is admittedly not a parsimonious explanation but I side with Hall when he states “…parsimony is no longer seen as the key feature of explanation on political science” (Hall, 2003: 387). I try to demonstrate that causal processes must be traced through the longue durée method of French Annales School in case studies for more qualified explanations. Historical context must be an important part of political explanations (Hall, 2003). Without studying the historical context, I would assume that the recent “rise” of the Crimean Tatar diaspora was entirely new while in fact the Crimean Tatars national movement has experienced significant periods of “rise” in interwar Romania and the USSR in the 1960s and 1970s. Studying the historical context allows me to grasp what is distinctive about the recent rise, and how recent transnational relations differ from transnational modes of organizing in history. Moreover, past ideas carried in movement traditions form an explanatory factor in itself and plays a significant role in explaining why movements hold on to certain ideas or organizational modes despite the change of political context. Longue-durée case studies have enabled me to study large processes, such as the emergence, development, and consequences of diaspora movements which generally unfold in the course of decades. In this study, I aim to draw attention to the case of the Crimean Tatar diaspora because how this community maintained its national identity in exile for 50 years and achieved a collective return has not yet been studied in the field of political science to my knowledge. While one purpose of this study is theoretical, the other is to contribute to Crimean Tatar studies. I have brought together a vast amount of historical and contemporary material on the Crimean Tatars based on extensive fieldwork and built on two decades of ethnographic observation. Although I do not claim to have written an authoritative history of the Crimean Tatar diaspora, I ask the question whether the Crimean Tatars are in the process of constructing a “transnational nation.” It goes without saying that

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more historical research needs to be conducted on many periods of diaspora history and diaspora-homeland relations. More empirical studies of changing diasporas in a comparative context are also necessary to elucidate my theoretical framework. An empirical examination of diaspora has significant theoretical implications for a normative study of diasporas. Political theory has recently focused on multiculturalism and minority rights. I believe we are not far from discussing the rights of diasporas in the international system. Diasporas themselves claim various rights, particularly the right to maintain identity across borders, the right for transnational citizenship, and the right to return. This has significant repercussions for sending and receiving states. The discussion of the obligations of diasporas must follow the discussion of rights. Recent literature raises questions about the damaging effects of diasporas on ethnic conflicts. Anderson left us with a cautionary note: …today’s long-distance nationalism…creates a serious politics that is at the same time radically unaccountable. The participant rarely pays taxes in the country in which he does his politics; he is not answerable to the judicial system; he probably does not cast even an absentee vote in its elections because he is a citizen in a different place; he need not fear prison, torture or death nor need his immediate family. But well and safely positioned in the First World, he can send money and guns, circulate propaganda, and build intercontinental computer information circuits, all of which can have incalculable consequences in the zones of their ultimate destinations. (Anderson, 2002: 74)

Next, I would like to overview chapters of the book. In Chapter 2, I offer a theoretical framework that allows for a systematic comparison of identity movements of extra-territorial communities across time. Regarding diaspora as an ethnonational phenomenon as opposed to transcendence of ethnicity and nation, the social movement theory is brought in to explain the dynamics of diaspora mobilization. The framing processes approach along with political and discursive opportunity structures is utilized to explain the movement emergence and development in the diaspora. This chapter also problematizes mobilization through the concept of frame resonance and suggests examining the quality and quantity of participation among each stratum of constituents. Variation in movement consequences is explained with movement missions epitomized in persistent movement frames and

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thereby different forms movements take. Finally, movement forms such as émigré, exile, diaspora, and transnational nationalism are organized into a typology of long-distance nationalism. How this typology illuminates the cases of the Crimean Tatar diaspora is also discussed. In Chapter 3, the Crimean Tatar community in the Soviet Union (1944–1991) is examined as a case of exile nationalism. The Crimean Tatars initiated a collective return movement shortly after their exile in Central Asia because of their return-oriented movement frames. Their struggle for return went through mainly three phases as a response to changes in the political and discursive opportunities in the regime and international arena: alignment with the communist master frame, alignment with the democracy and human rights master frame, the emergence of a fit between Crimean Tatar frame and democratizing regime frame. How movement activists increased movement resonance among the Crimean Tatar people, and how they sustained such widespread and active participation over fifty years is studied in detail. The Crimean Tatars did not return because the Soviet Union collapsed, but because they consistently, assertively but not violently demanded a return. Taking it in their hands to organize their collective return to their homeland before the Soviet Union collapsed, the Crimean Tatars reached their movement goals. In Chapter 4, the Crimean Tatar community in Romania (1900-the 1990s) is investigated as a case of early exile nationalism transforming into first territorial and then into diaspora nationalism. First, the nationalist movements among the Crimean Tatars, who have immigrated Ottoman Dobruca region throughout the nineteenth century, will be examined. The long-distance nationalism in Dobruca between 1900 and 1945 forms the first mini-case. The emergence of nationalism is prompted by intelligentsia’s re-interpretation of pan-Turkist ideology to fit the structural problems the Crimean Tatar minority faced during the modernization and nationalization of Romania. This movement is qualified as exile nationalism because it became quite resonant among people and planned a collective return, which failed to realize only due to the outbreak of the Second World War. The territorially rooted nationalism developed under communist policies forms the second mini-case, and a smaller number of communist-educated intelligentsia could preserve Crimean Tatar cultural identity without referring to the homeland. The post-communist period

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is the last mini-case of diaspora mobilization and demonstrates a rejuvenation of identity despite the Crimean Tatars no more aim to return to the homeland. This forms the diaspora nationalism. In Chapter 5, the Crimean Tatar community in Turkey (1908-the 1990s) is presented as a case of early émigré nationalism transiting to diaspora nationalism. This chapter will examine the long-distance nationalism that emerged among the Crimean Tatar diaspora in Turkey at the beginning of the twentieth century. Even the declaration of the first Crimean Tatar Republic was largely prepared in Turkey, utilizing resources of the host land. The first mini-case corresponds to the émigré movement organized in Turkey and Europe after the Bolsheviks took over Crimea, and its particular influential activity during the Second World War in saving lives. The second mini-case concerns the relative stagnation of the émigré movement between 1945 and 1980 due to shrinking political and discursive opportunities, and the inability to construct appealing and effective frames. The third mini-case marks the rejuvenation of the Crimean Tatar diaspora in 1980 as participation level and range of activities proliferate. The revival can be explained with openings in the political sphere of Turkey and the Soviet Union and new interpretations of diaspora as having the capacity to play a political role in the homeland’s future, forming diaspora nationalism, and even attempting to form a transnational nation. In Chapter 6, the Crimean Tatar community in the United States (1945-the 1990s) is studied as a case transforming from initial emigré nationalism into diaspora nationalism. This chapter examines the movements of Crimean Tatar refugees of WWII, who settled in the United States, usually after a short stay in Turkey. The first mini-case features the period between 1960 and 1990, in which the refugee movement was divided into political and apolitical branches. A small number engaged in émigré nationalism, by advocating for the contemporary Crimean Tatar collective return movement in the USSR due to the legacy of their earlier frames carried over from nationalist movement in wartime Crimea. The larger group preferred to de-emphasize links to Crimea as they perceived the political and discursive opportunities in the United States were not apt for diasporic activity and bridged frames with the “stagnant” frame of the community in Turkey at the time. After the end of the Cold War, these two movements largely converged to form diaspora nationalism, in the same manner as the simultaneous transformations in Turkey and Romania.

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In Chapter 7, I compare the four cases, drawing attention to withincase comparisons and finally discuss a possible trend toward a transnational nation. In this final chapter, the Crimean Tatar cases are classified into émigré, exile, diaspora, and transnational nationalism as a way of explaining the variation in mobilization and consequences of these identity movements. Generalizations about the emergence and development of the extra-territorial communities are drawn. Instead of studying each community in isolation as it was done up until now, the benefits of paying attention to transnational relations among communities are noted. The chapter also predicts a development toward constructing a transnational nation, as there are significant attempts emerged in his direction recently. The move can potentially empower the Crimean Tatars to fight with the Russian occupation of Crimea that continues since 2014. The chapter concludes by suggesting that future transnational Crimean Tatar nation better be thought of in multiculturalist terms rather than essentialist.

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CHAPTER 2

Explaining Long-Distance Nationalism

2.1

Introduction

In this chapter, I will provide theoretical answers to emergence, development, and consequence of diaspora mobilization, which will be utilized, elaborated, and supported by evidence in my case studies in the rest of the dissertation. I first review the literature on diaspora, the literature on ethnicity and nationalism, and the literature on social movement theory and suggest that the diaspora must be thought of within a transnational and a constructivist framework. I mainly argue that diaspora communities are constructed through mobilization. I argue further that the formation of identities through mobilization is best explained by the social movement theory, particularly a framing processes approach. The formation of frames by diaspora agents creates national movements. Each historical period (or mini-case) is marked by a different dominant frame structure, which I outline in my case studies. Hence, each frame structure shapes a different movement path. My theoretical framework outlines how various framing processes interact with political and discursive opportunity structures and cause the creation, development, and consequences of movements. The outlined theoretical framework above is applied to the Crimean Tatar diaspora mobilization cases. In each case study, I identify the main framing processes at play in mobilizing the communities and the © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 F. T. Aydın, Émigré, Exile, Diaspora, and Transnational Movements of the Crimean Tatars, Palgrave Studies in Citizenship Transitions, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-74124-2_2

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interaction of those processes with political and discursive opportunity structures, and trace how those processes and interactions change over time. Next, I provide sketches of how my theoretical framework is applied to my cases. I also develop a typology of long-distance nationalism that emerges as a result of observation of various forms of mobilization across my cases, and that enables distinguishing the different ways in which the Crimean Tatars sought to maintain their membership in a national community when they did not live in the homeland. As a result of my assessment of cases, a typology of long-distance nationalism emerges, and I demonstrate how typology applies to each mini-case, and conclude.

2.2 Theoretical Framework: A Social Movement Theory Approach to Diaspora 2.2.1

Literature Review

2.2.1.1 Diaspora Literature “Diaspora” in ancient Greek means “dispersal” or “scattering across” (dia) of “seeds” (spora). It was first employed to describe the Hellenic colonizers. Later, in the Greek translations of the Bible, it was utilized to describe the Jewish exile (Cohen, 1997; Safran, 1991). From antiquity until recently, it was used as a specific term to denote the dispersion of Jews around the world. However, from the 1970s on, the term diaspora’s application has been gradually extended to Armenians, Greeks, Africans, and Palestinians in the academy and the media (Cohen, 1997). A simple Google search today yields hundreds of self-identifying diasporas. The mobilization of the Crimean Tatar diaspora must be understood within the context of a recent global diaspora mobilization. Two different approaches attempt to explain the recent mobilization of diasporas. The first group of theorists (Basch et al., 1994; Bhabha, 1990; Brah, 1996; Clifford, 1994; Gilroy, 1995; Hall, 1994), who can be called post-structuralists (Brubaker, 2005) or transnationalists (Gold, 2002), are found primarily in the disciplines of anthropology and cultural studies. These theorists point out that along with the unprecedented increase in migration, the developments in communication technologies and the ease of transportation prevent assimilation of migrants into society, and in some cases, reverse the assimilation of older migrants as they opt for

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maintaining their links with their former homelands and kin abroad. The sustainability of trans-border contacts enables migrants to live in more than one world simultaneously, renders nation-state borders less relevant, and paves the way for the emergence of “transnational communities” (Portes et al., 1999). These communities not only question the assumptions of homogeneity with respect to existing nations but also reveal the hybrid, fluid, creole, and syncretic nature of identity (Brubaker, 2005, 6). The “heterogeneity” and “hybridity” of transnational communities makes them “anti-national,” which means that these communities resist nationbuilding processes (Appadurai, 1996; Brubaker, 2005, 8; Kearney, 1991). However, it is not clear if these post-modern approaches escape implicit essentialism as for some identities to be hybrid or heterogenous, there must be others who are conceptualized as “pure” and “homogenous” (Anthias, 2001, 637; Young, 1996). The post-structuralist school’s predictions are not empirically sustainable either (Kokot et al., 2004, 1). For example, despite their immense increase, migrants still form only 3.5% of the world population (International Organization for Migration, 2019, 2). Nationalism is on the rise all around the world, and the nation-state is still intact. Moreover, new migrants are observed to engage in “long-distance nationalism” (Anderson, 1998), deploying the newly developed communication technologies for nationalist purposes. Thus, migrants are not immune to nationalism. Also, scholars of the history of immigration challenge the “novelty” of the phenomenon of “transnationalism,” pointing to the widespread transnational activity of American immigrants at the end of the nineteenth century (Waldinger & Fitzgerald, 2004). Still, the transnationalist/post-structuralist approaches offer significant insights. Although transnationalism’s definition of sustained trans-border networks is not something entirely new, it acquired “a critical mass and complexity necessary to speak of the emergence of a research field” and a “transnational social field” (Portes et al., 1999, 217; Faist, 2000). This transnational social space does not replace but “supplements” the sphere of nation-states (Faist, 2000, 192). Moreover, the internal homogeneity of nation-states is more often in question; therefore, assimilation can no longer be taken for granted. Migration is no longer regarded as a transient phenomenon. Migrants are no longer just studied concerning problems of incorporation in receiving states, but they became a topic of investigation in themselves, having political agency. Such theoretical developments paved the way to the emergence of a “transnational lens” in migration studies (Basch et al., 1994; Faist, 2000; Portes et al., 1999).

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I adopt these transnationalist school premises, focusing on the agency of the Crimean Tatar diaspora communities, and the transnational links and interactions across diaspora communities that change over time. The other school of diaspora studies, represented by Safran (1991) and Cohen (1997), depart from the post-structuralist premises of the transnationalist approach by insisting on the “ethnonational” nature of diasporas. They agree that diasporas deconstruct the state’s national identity, but this does not mean that they also deconstruct ethnicity. They rightly point out that diasporas reorganize ethnic and national identity across borders. Cohen (1997, 2008) by refining Safran’s previous definition (1991) lists several features of diaspora: -dispersal or travel from an original homeland to two or more foreign regions, -a collective memory of myth, an idealized homeland, -a commitment to the maintenance of a homeland, including a movement for return, -a strong, long-term group consciousness or identity, a belief in a shared fate, -a range of possible relations (from troubled to enriching) with the host society, -a sense of empathy and solidarity with co-ethnics in other places of settlement. (Cohen, 1997, 6)

According to Cohen (1997, 6), this is an ideal type category. Not all diaspora communities have all these aspects, but to qualify as a diaspora, a community must have a majority of them. By emphasizing the ethnonational aspects of diasporas, Cohen provides a useful corrective to the first approach (Cohen, 1997), which situates diaspora in contradiction to ethnicity and nation. The main difficulty with this approach is that it cannot explain why diasporas began to mobilize in recent decades (Anthias, 1998; Butler, 2001). The explanation Cohen provides is that diasporas maintained their forms more or less intact beneath the existing structures over centuries and that they resurfaced whenever the nation-state began to retreat (Cohen, 1997). In this sense, Cohen’s definition fits Anthony Smith’s (2009) ethno-symbolism. Cohen explains it as follows: “Globalization has enhanced the practical, economic, affective roles of diasporas, showing them to be particularly adaptive forms of social organization” (Cohen, 1997, 177, xii). On this view, post-structuralists interestingly concur with him. In fact, both approaches do not state

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precisely their conception of globalization, or the mechanisms of how globalization caused diaspora mobilization. Cohen’s definition of diaspora brings to mind many questions. First, is there really such a strong continuity of the collective diaspora identity? Second, it is very difficult to make a judgment about any diaspora with the criteria provided in Cohen’s (1997) definition. Do all types of migration from an original homeland create a diaspora? What does an “attachment to the homeland” in Cohen’s definition entail? What exact kind of action is expected from the diaspora, and what determines it? Do all diasporas demand self-determination? On which territory exactly do they demand self-determination? What determines the borders of the homeland? What explains the different responses to displacement? Third, can such a static definition of diasporas explain change and mobilization? These problems stem from the fact that Cohen’s diaspora theory is based on his assumptions on the nature of ethnicity. To analyze Cohen’s arguments, it is imperative to bring in the literature on ethnicity and nationalism, which can help us develop an adequate understanding of diaspora ethnicity. 2.2.1.2 Ethnicity and Nationalism Literature Ethnicity and nationalism literature can be divided into two schools: primordialist and instrumentalist. The primordialists (Geertz, 1973; Shils, 1957; Van Den Berghe, 1981) argue that ethnicity is based on innate, given, and fixed “primordial ties.” The primordialists assert either a biological or psychological need for belonging to a group and support their case by pointing to the endurance of family and kinship ties in human societies (Connor, 1993; Horowitz, 2001; Van Den Berghe, 1981). The primordialists principally consider ethnicity as being of the same nature as these natural ties. The fact that many people change their ethnic and national identity and that many people assimilate suggests that ethnicity and nation are not fixed or natural. It is easily observed that shared traits (e.g., language, kinship, homeland) do not automatically create ethnic identity. Primordialism was later softened by adding various caveats to it. For instance, perennialists do not argue that these ties are unchanging since time immemorial, but rather that they are enduring. They admit that some ethnic ties might fade away, but that they can also reemerge after long-periods (Armstrong, 1976; Connor, 1993). Armstrong points to a continuous existence of Jewish, Armenian, and Greek diasporas, perhaps not since the dawn of history, but at least

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since the twelfth century (Armstrong, 1976). Anthony Smith’s ethnosymbolist approach (Smith, 1993, 69) recognizes that structural changes, particularly modernization or globalization, might affect the development of ethnicity and nation, but Smith disagrees that they change an underlying durable “ethnic core.” The “ethnic core,” composed of myths, symbols, values, and traditions, creates a strong continuity with a preexisting ethnic community and modern nation (Smith, 1993, 39). Smith points out the continuity of “symbolic” factors, such as myths, values, symbols, and traditions, in many diasporas such as Jews, Armenians, and, to a certain extent, Greeks (Smith, 2000, 9). He emphasizes symbolic phenomena, such as the myth of the Promised Land, the myth of chosen people, the myth of the golden age of history, the myth of a common language, a common religion, and a sense of common fate as mechanisms for providing continuity (Smith, 1999). As Cohen emphasizes similar features, his understanding of diaspora can be regarded as predominantly ethno-symbolist (Cohen, 1997). The ethno-symbolist account of the diaspora is weak for the following reasons: First, more than for any other ethnic community, it is hard to imagine that diaspora branches immersed in different contexts can easily maintain shared group identity. Empirical evidence demonstrates that culture is not stagnant, and people reinterpret myths, values, symbols, and traditions in light of experience in a changing context. Therefore, diversity within diasporas, such as the existence of various Jewish identities and conflicts between them, contradicts Cohen’s pre-political view of singular Jewish diaspora identity (Cohen, 1997). With regard to the historical depth of the diaspora identity, we must consider the following. A historical examination demonstrates that most immigrant communities that are identified as “diasporas” today did not identify as a diaspora before the “era of globalization.” A few other longterm diasporas did not identify as such before the modern era. Even the “Jewish Diaspora” was used as a religious term for centuries, and it only gained a political meaning with the emergence of Zionism in the nineteenth century. Regarding the existence of a premodern attachment to “homeland,” we could argue that attachment due to religious meaning and sacredness is not equivalent to the attachment to modern “homelands” of the diasporas, which has more commonality with the secular patrie. As Anderson points out, an attachment to a larger territory requires first the ability to imagine it, for instance, by viewing a map of the “homeland,”

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by traveling across it, perhaps by train or by getting information about places one never saw through modern communication such as a newspaper (Anderson, 1998). Before the great migrations in the nineteenth century, most Crimean Tatars never left their villages during their lifetime (Williams, 2001, 329). Thus, they had more commitment toward their home or village in or around Crimea as the pre-modern Crimean Tatar state spread to an area beyond the peninsula, and state borders were fluid in that era (Williams, 2001, 64, 216). Cohen’s pre-political account of a diaspora ethnic community cannot explain the diversity in political manifestations of a diaspora identity. Russian Jews, for example, expressed their discontent by joining the revolutionary movement or founding the Jewish Bund, an ethnic party aiming for self-determination within a united Russia. Many members of the African diaspora in the Americas did not demand a return to their original homeland and did not proclaim their right to self-determination despite their enormous discontent. In the same way, many migrants or refugees in the world voluntarily assimilated. The claim for a similar level of empathy and solidarity among diaspora communities is not empirically sustainable. In the same way, the claim for a similar level and type of attachment to the homeland is not realistic. While some diasporas have merely symbolic ties to the homeland, others have political solidarity with it. Many diasporas do not want to return due to economic reasons or political violence. It is not clear how symbols, values, traditions, and myths with significant stagnancy levels can explain the change, such as diaspora mobilization. Was the emergence of an Israeli nation a natural outcome of Jewish myths, tradition, or religion, or were there other more important factors that made those myths, traditions, and religion relevant? In order to understand the concept of diaspora further, I review theories of situationalism and constructivism. Instrumentalism is divided into two schools: situationalism and constructivism. The situationalists outline various structural factors, including social, economic, and political processes that help explaining nationalist mobilization. Processes of modernization such as industrialization, public education, urbanization, modern state-building, and mass communications facilitate and necessitate the emergence of a nation (Breuilly, 1994; Deutsch, 1953; Gellner, 1983; Hobsbawm & Ranger, 1983; Kedourie, 1960; Mann, 1986; Tilly, 1975). An alternative explanation of this approach is that uneven processes of modernization create

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inequalities among groups in society. Therefore, joining an ethnic group and engaging in an ethnic conflict becomes a rational decision for individuals who aim to maximize their interests (Brass, 1985; Hechter, 1975; Nairn, 1977). Constructivism agrees with situationalism that ethnicity, nation, and diaspora emerged as a response to modern political, social, and economic processes. It is true that the gradual crystallization of the Westphalian nation-state system and nation-building processes disrupted the communities and transformed the relations of states toward their minorities (Gellner, 1983). The foremost example is the Jewish diaspora, which faced increasing discrimination, pogroms, and finally genocide in the modern era. In a way, the modern nation-state system created the pre-conditions for diaspora identity. Migrants adopted the hegemonic categories of race, ethnicity, and nation in self-defense from persecution in host and homeland contexts (Gellner, 1983; Naimark, 2001). Diaspora identity is modern in another way too. Educational attainment and means of communication, at least among the migrant elite, are prerequisites to define and create a diaspora identity and organize a strong challenge against the central authority.1 Constructivism, however, criticizes several aspects of situationalism. First of all, situationalism argues that modernization, print capitalism, communication, and other macro-sociological modern processes are the causes for the mobilization of ethnic communities, but this casts a very wide net and does not explain the causal chain of how these factors create mobilization. Constructivism criticizes the reduction of nationalism to modern processes, although it also argues that ethnonational identities emerged as a response to modern processes or were facilitated by modern processes (Calhoun, 1997, 29). However, the significance of modern 1 The situationalist view of diaspora conflicts with the post-structuralist thesis that diasporas are immune to nationalism. However, with globalization, the situationalist approach took an interesting turn and argued that globalization of the economy makes national units less appropriate so as to weaken contemporary nation-states (Brown, 2000, 13). As we move to the post-modern, the nation as a corollary of modernity will also be transcended. Thus, the interpretation of diaspora as more “fit” and more “functional” in the era of globalization interestingly concurs with the post-structuralist view. Situationalism does not really reject the existence of ethnicity in a primordial sense, but it argues that ethnicity becomes relevant and meaningful only if it is utilized to create ethnic and national mobilization by political actors within the modern processes (Breuilly, 1994). This is in fact because both post-structuralism and situationalism agree with the view of ethnicity as a given form of human community, despite their view of nation as a construction.

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processes is explained differently. Anderson (1998), who contributed significantly to the constructivist explanation of ethnicity, argued that nation is first and foremost a response to the disappearance of face-toface communities (which were not primordial but imagined too), and their replacement by large-scale territorial societies organized around a state. The disruption of the social structure, including the dislocation of existing authority structures, disruptions of social cohesion, dislocations, and dis-empowerment will cause individuals to face cognitive and moral dilemmas, stress, and humiliation. Nationalism is one possible response to this situation as nationalist imagination sought harmony and security. Brown (2000, 152) interprets Anderson (1998)’s idea as such: “…when aspiring political elites sought to legitimate the rise of the modern state by employing the nationalist ideology, the disruptive impact of modernization processes upon face-to-face communities of family and locality ensured the widespread appeal of the nation as a surrogate- mythical kinship community.” A constructivist explanation of nationalism here confirms the findings of the framing processes approach. According to the latter approach, grievances do not automatically create mobilization; mobilization only occurs when meanings are attributed to them (Snow et al., 1986, 464). Therefore, stress and humiliation caused by modern society, particularly genocide, forced migration, and exploitation, do not automatically create diaspora mobilization without “frames,” which analyze who is culpable, what the root of the problem is, and what can be done. Secondly, the weakness of the situationalist approach stems from its understanding of human psychology. In the situationist accounts of nationalism, individuals turn to nationalism to serve their self-interests derived from the environmental structures the individuals are embedded in. However, the individual interest of a diasporic person or the collective interest of diaspora is not easily readable from the structures, but rather they have to be interpreted by human agency. Instead of rationally calculating their self-interest before every move, which is beyond human beings’ cognitive capacity, individuals rely on other sources, such as the elites or the institutional or ideological frameworks constructed by other agents, to explain the situation and then project the best way of action. Brown proposes that “national identity is constructed on the basis of institutional and ideological frameworks which offer simple and indeed simplistic formulas of identity and diagnoses of contemporary problems to otherwise confused and insecure individuals” (Brown,

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2000, 20). He also suggests that a “nationalist formula” offers “simplistic diagnosis and prescription” “to deal with complex social problems” (Brown, 2000, 152). Thus, constructivism underlines how self-interests are socially, ideologically, and politically constructed. Various constructivist theories emphasize different ways of constructing identities, such as state and institutional frameworks and discursive structures. I argue that the construction of the diaspora communities takes place in the course of mobilization. Mobilization is best explained by the framing processes approach in social movement theory, which emphasizes that humans rely on a schema of interpretation called “frames” to understand and interpret the complex world.2 Thirdly, situationalism takes for granted the existence of “diaspora” as a unitary collective actor ready to be mobilized in response to political opportunities and threats. Brubaker (2004, 8) warns that we must not talk about ethnicity or nation as if they are real collectivities. Brubaker suggests treating diaspora as a category of practice, project, claim, and stance rather than a bounded group (Brubaker, 2005, 13). It is the processes of defining borders, classification, and categorization that make the nation (Brubaker, 2004, 48). Brubaker views nation not “as a substance but as an institutionalized form; not as a collectivity but as a practical category, not as an entity, but as contingent event” (Brubaker, 1996, 16). For Calhoun ethnicity and nation are discursive formations: “Nations are constituted largely by the claims themselves, by way of talking and thinking that relies on these sorts of claims to produce collective identity, to mobilize people for collective projects…” (Calhoun, 1997, 3, 5). For Cohen, many transnational communities of today have not existed long, so they cannot be regarded as diasporas, but as “embryonic diasporas” (Cohen, 2008, 4) that must pass the test of time to prove to be diasporas. Brubaker conflicts with Cohen who wants to exclude certain groups who self-identify as diasporas, as they do not meet his objectivist criteria and time test (Brubaker, 2005; Cohen, 1997). For Brubaker and Calhoun, those claims, projects, efforts, mobilization to

2 The constructivist approach to ethnicity and the framing processes approach both signify a cognitive turn in their fields. Cognitive research emphasized complex culturally and historically specific mental structures and processes as determinants of human behaviour (Brubaker, 2004, 36). According to the cognitive approach, before individuals act, they have to attribute meaning to circumstances.

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become a diaspora would be more interesting (Brubaker, 2005; Calhoun, 1997). Perhaps, instead of restricting communities, which are growing in number, from using this term for self-identification, we must view these very claims as data that need to be explained, and perhaps as data that necessitate rethinking the conceptualization of diaspora. In his account of diaspora, Sokefeld states that: As an emic concept, employed by the agents of society for particular purposes identity is therefore not a descriptive category. Identity is a project … As a project identity presupposes what it seeks to achieve. In the case of a nationalist movement, the unity and reality of the nation, expressed for instance in a long and detailed history, is considered a fact even if political reality denies its factuality. It is real in a higher kind of reality. The particulars of political life have to be brought into line with that essential reality – not the other way around. (Sökefeld, 2008, 30)

The proliferation of communities who claim to be diasporas draws our attention to ways of studying claim-making, mobilization, and diasporas’ collective projects. This situation necessitates bringing in the framing processes approach once again. Suppose we apply the propositions developed by the framing processes approach and the constructivist approach to the case of diaspora: Changes in international politics, mainly after Westphalia, in search for homogenization of nation-states created oppression for transnational migrants and their descendants, by displacing them or by forcing them to assimilate (Tölölyan, 1991). The emerging long-distance nationalism frame addressed this historical and/or continuing injustice. This frame involved a diagnosis that identified a specific event or specific villains that caused forced migration or assimilation. It also constructed a prognosis that included plausible solutions such as returning to the homeland, or some other version of maintaining political ties to the homeland. That will help restore some of what was lost in de-territorialization and fulfill an aspiration to maintain identity in places of exile. The mobilizational aspect for the diaspora frame underlined the danger of eternal loss of a homeland and hope for territorialization as well as assimilation. Therefore, the diaspora identity is produced by a nationalist frame invented by the elite to remedy the community’s problems that emerged in the modern context. Once invented, frames can be learned and adopted by others in the movement.

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2.2.2

Main Framing Processes

The comparative politics literature demonstrates that collective action is not necessarily the most rational option given the possibility of free-riding (Olson, 1965). Even if it was the most rational option, psychological research confirms that human beings do not stop and assess all their options before acting, as this would be impossible. Instead, they rely on previously constituted mental schemas, which Goffman calls “frames” (Goffman, 1974). Frames help them “locate, perceive, identify and label” (cf Snow et al., 1986, 464) to make sense of the complex world around them, thereby helping individuals figure out how to act. This way is different from the previous ideational approach to mobilization, which emphasized ideologies. Instead of the content of ideologies, “frames” says it is more important to look at what meanings are attributed to them, how they are perceived, and how they are adopted and attributed by human agents to understand their influence (Snow & Benford, 1988). Unlike previous explanations of movements by ideology, the movements are not viewed as carriers of certain ideas but as “signifying agents” actively engaged in producing and maintaining meanings through their interaction with targets (Snow & Benford, 1988, 198). The targets involve the potential adherents, bystanders, and antagonists in the “social movement field,” which are determined by the movement leaders, based on the “goal of the organization” and the targets’ “perceived influence” (Evans, 1997, 453). How are frames relate to ideologies is a significant issue here. It is true that the collective action frames can function to amplify, extend the existing ideologies, or provide innovative antidotes to [ideologies] (Benford & Snow, 2000, 613). In a way, since a macro-transformation such as an ideological or consciousness transformation is hard to establish, Snow and Benford prefer to focus on the frame changes propagated by the intellectual leaders, which are easier to identify. However ideologies are important sources of master frames, and other frames (Snow & Benford, 1988). Framing processes are intended to mobilize potential adherents and constituents, garner bystander support, and demobilize antagonists (Snow & Benford, 1988, 198). The first two processes are conducted through the method of “frame alignment,” and the last one is done by “counterframing.”

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“Frame alignment” can be defined as a process in which individuals’ interpretations are linked to interpretations of organizations or elite activists such that “individual interests, values, and beliefs” and organization’s “activities, goals, and ideology” are “congruent and complementary” (Snow et al., 1986, 464). This alignment is done through four major methods: frame transformation, frame extension, frame amplification, and frame bridging. The first significant process of alignment is “frame transformation.” It refers to a “reframing of some set of conditions,” even though conditions may not have changed (Snow et al., 1986, 474). In other cases, “a domain previously taken as normative or acceptable is reframed as an injustice that warrants change” (Snow et al., 1986, 474). In cases of diaspora, the elite problematizes the identity of immigrants or immigrants of migrant origin. They find out past injustices, most notably forced population movement or genocide. They question forgetting past injustices and settling down with the current situation of dispersion and assimilation into a host-society. In cases of immediate grievances, they identify perpetrators so that the grievances do not seem like a result of impersonal forces. The second process of frame alignment is “frame extension.” It is “the extension of the primary framework so as to encompass interests, and points of view that are incidental to [organizations’] primary objectives, but of considerable salience to potential adherents” (Snow et al., 1986, 467). The movement could extend to the various identities of the adherents such as ethnonational, religious, gender, occupational, and so on. “Frame extension” means negotiating with various local, religious, ethnic, cultural and political identities of potential adherents in the diaspora setting. The third frame alignment process is “frame amplification.” It refers to “identification, idealizations, and elevation” of values and/or beliefs “that may not be especially salient and readily apparent to constituents to inspire collective action” (Snow et al., 1986, 472). In the case of diaspora, this is done through identification and idealization of the homeland, and elevation of patriotic values. Several aspects of ethnic identity such as myth of origins, myth of golden age, myth of chosen people, and historical heroes are identified, idealized, and elevated. Fourth frame alignment process is “frame bridging.” It refers to “the linkage of two or more ideologically congruent but structurally unconnected frames regarding a particular issue” (Snow et al., 1986, 467). This link contributes to the formation of alliances or coalitions and the recruitment of bystanders. Transnational bridging of frames among various

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diasporas is also possible. Frame-bridging is different from the adaptation of another frame as two different frames continue to exist. One most often used framing process is “counter-framing,” which refers to “the attempt to undermine opponents’ attempts of frame alignment with contested targets” (Evans, 1997, 452). This framing can involve attempts to “rebut, undermine, or neutralize a person’s or group’s myths, versions of reality, or interpretive framework” (Benford, 1987, 75). A major component of my framework is “master frames.” The world is replete with “master frames” through which people make sense of the world. Snow and Benford (1992) define the master frame as a “specific dominant representation of the political environment” or “general symbolic frames that are culturally resonant in their historical milieux” (Snow & Benford, 1992, 151). Swart explains that “…to make their specific historical situation meaningful, movement actors ‘keynote’ these master frames” (Swart, 1995, 469) or “tap into” a master frame (Swart, 1995, 469). To clarify, the vocabulary of movement frames is heavily influenced by the resonant master frame of the context in which the movement operates. It must also be noted that there might be several master frames that relate to a specific context, and movement leaders might strategically shift between them. Master frames have a close affinity with the concept of discursive opportunity structures. The latter is defined as “meaning-making institutions in a particular society” or “public discourse” (Ferree et al., 2002, 62), and can refer to media, public opinion, and state or official ideology in totalitarian/authoritarian states that “channels and organizes discourse” (Ferree et al., 2002, 62). Both master frames and discursive opportunity structures influence how movement frames are defined and worded. Frame alignment processes can also take place between the master frame and movement frames. “Master frame alignment processes link the activities, goals, and ideology of a movement organization to those within the broader cultural and political context of the movement” in the form of master frame transformation, master frame extension, master frame amplification, and master frame bridging (Swart, 1995, 465). Master frame extension is the one most often used by the Crimean Tatars with regard to master frames of Leninism, communism, human rights and democracy, or pan-Turkism. “Master frame extension involves the adaptation or extension of the symbolic boundaries of the master frame in order to

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make it coincide with the movement’s unique historical situation, interests, or objectives” (Swart, 1995, 472). I also demonstrate situations that a movement can also counter-frame against a master frame and expose inconsistencies in their frameworks gradually, even if the master frame is hegemonic in the beginning. I suggest that this provides another source of master frame transformation. Frame transformation can take place at the level of the master frame through “the influence of social movement sector on the cultural transformation of systems of meaning” (Swart, 1995, 477). 2.2.2.1 Political and Discursive Opportunity Structures A significant criticism of framing theory is that it does not address power inequalities. A potent idea does not always guarantee success due to structural obstacles. These criticisms are addressed by incorporating political and discursive opportunity structures in the theoretical framework. Political and discursive opportunity structures refer to both “institutional and cultural access points that actors can seize upon to attempt to bring their claims into the political forum” (Ferree et al., 2002, 62). Political opportunity/threat structures are generally used to identify protest events’ frequency and timing, but I will interpret them as possible causes of the framing processes’ change. Diaspora frames can be transformed when the political and discursive opportunity structures change, and new frames can emerge to address the new conditions. The political and discursive opportunities are theorized as transnational. Thus, in times of political threat, the movement center may migrate to other diaspora contexts (which have more tolerance) where they rebuild a movement or strengthen an already initiated one. In the Crimean Tatar case, Turkey’s interwar national movement moved to Europe, and the postwar movement in Romania moved to Turkey. Some nationalists carried their activities from Turkey and the USSR to the United States in the post-war era.3 Political opportunities influence but do not shape diaspora movements. Even if the movement’s mobility is restricted, framing processes can still influence strongly the outcomes because the framing processes are necessary for the interpretation of structures as “opportunity” or “threat.” 3 Examples can be given from my cases: Cafer Seydahmet moved his activity from Turkey to Europe and Romania, Müstecip Ülküsal moved from Romania to Turkey, and re-started his work there and Ay¸se Seytmuratova and the Second World War refugees moved from, respectively, the USSR and Turkey to the United States.

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What is a threat in one context can be interpreted as an opportunity in another. Koopmans (2005) points out that repression sometimes ends movements and sometimes reinvigorates them, depending on the discursive variables (Koopmans, 2005, 159). Framing processes are also key variables because when movements are not successful in reaching their goals, they might change their frames into those who interpret the political and discursive structures differently. For example, the Crimean Tatar frame in the USSR was changed from one that seeks to utilize the master frame extension into one that counter-frames the master frame. One can delineate competing for discursive political opportunities in the international realm (Adamson, 2005); thus, some movements may tap into the discursive opportunity structures that are more “enabling” for the movement. Steinberg critiques the framing theory for neglecting the role of discourse in constructing meanings: “the discourse used in framing is taken to be a generally straight-forward bearer of meanings…” (Steinberg, 1998, 845) In another place, he adds that “actors cannot make meanings just as they would wish, because discursive practices necessarily limit the vision of what is necessarily plausible and justifiable” (Steinberg, 2002, 213). I agree that the process is not completely malleable in the hands of framing agents. This is partly addressed in discussing frame resonance in this work. Not all frames are successful in creating strong movements or obtaining goals, and inefficient frames do not automatically change. Frames can survive due to a lack of credible alternatives. This circumstance was the case for the post-war frames in the Crimean Tatar diaspora in Turkey. This case again means that we have to look at the nature of the framing processes in a context to explain the outcomes. 2.2.2.2 Identifying Frames The main methodological problem with ideational research is identifying the ideational variables. I will discuss this issue in relation to the concept of “frame resonance,” which is considered to be the most problematic aspect of framing theory. The problem with the framing literature is that it generally speaks as if all frames are successful. Ferree states that it is crucial to “operationally define framing independently of the outcomes it is claimed to produce... Most studies describe the frame and argue that the resonance of this framing contributed to its success, or that its failures can be explained by the shortcomings of the framing” (Ferree, 2003: 305). Thus, frames are identified retrospectively.

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The main challenge in cultural research is identify the cultural elements. How do we know when we see a frame? For this reason, even though framing is a process, for theoretical purposes, I will take a snapshot of this process by identifying frame structures at an individual moment. To ensure that frames are identified clearly and separately from the analysis of outcomes, frames are provided in schemas throughout this work. I constructed the schemas after inferring the frames from the various texts, interviews, and verbalized forms of movement events that were observed during fieldwork (conversations, speeches, songs, slogans, visual representation) (Johnston, 2002: 67). It is vital to verify frames by referring explicitly to the observed behavior. I took pains to provide as many examples of movement texts, interviews, and other evidence as the space permitted to confirm the frames I identified. Frames are both fixed cognitive structures and emergent cognitive processes (Johnston, 2002, 64). However, for practical purposes, taking frame snapshots not only enables me to trace continuities and differences in framing processes over time, but it also helps me analyze the discursive strengths of the frames (i.e., structure and consistency) (Johnston, 2002: 66). This approach allows me to tell the difference between a good frame and a bad one to not speak of as if all frames I identified are successful. For Benford and Snow, various internal qualities of frames may help distinguish a potent frame from those who are not (Benford & Snow, 2000). They provide a list of qualities that good frames have under the headings of credibility and salience. Credibility is based on three factors: frame consistency, empirical credibility, and credibility of the frame articulators or claim makers (Benford & Snow, 2000, 619). The first and third features are straightforward. The second feature, empirical credibility means “apparent fit between the framings and events in the world” (Benford & Snow, 2000, 620). Benford and Snow explain that the issue here is not actual validity and what constitutes evidence is subject to debate. They ask: “Is there something out there that can be pointed to as evidence of the claim embedded in the framing?” (Benford & Snow, 2000, 620, for a critique see Jasper & Poulsen, 1995, 496) Salience is a function of centrality, experiential commensurability, and narrative fidelity (Benford & Snow, 2000). The frame must be “central” to the “larger belief system.” They explain that “greater correspondence between the values promoted by the movement and the potential constituents would increase mobilization” (Snow & Benford, 1988, 205). Experiential commensurability denotes congruence of frames with “the personal, everyday experiences of the targets

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of mobilization” (Benford & Snow, 2000, 621). Narrative fidelity points out a fit with “cultural narrations” (Benford & Snow, 2000, 622). These could be “the stories, myths and folk tales that are part and parcel of one’s cultural heritage” (Snow & Benford, 1988, 210). Frames have various political and discursive challenges, and this can influence their effectiveness. As frames try to align “best” with the potential adherents and bystanders, and “the content which would most effectively counter-frame” against the opponents, according to the importance attributed to each of them (Evans, 1997, 455), they might have different levels of internal consistency. If the targets are heterogenous, trying to appeal to different audiences can damage frames’ internal coherence and some frames might fail (Evans, 1997: 467). When a new frame was “perceived to more effectively balance the targets,” frame transformation can take place (Evans, 1997, 456). Non-resonant frames also matter, and thus need to be identified. I also distinguish between a resonant movement and a successful movement. Apart from increasing resonance among its potential adherents, the movement might also seek resonance among different and conflicting audiences, and a variety of bystanders, such as foreign states. Sometimes movement leaders prefer to work with secret services or behind-the-door diplomacy, and a wide resonance might prevent them from achieving the movement goals. Thus, movements can exist and succeed without a massive resonance or with low levels of resonance. Resonance might be managed by the elite for strategic purposes. The elites might prefer recognition of bystanders, such as states or foreign publics than resonance with their community, which could be deemed quite powerless. Moreover, the elite might not have a complete hold on the framing processes. The political and discursive context, which we call the opportunity/threat structures, limits the elites. Frames might continue due to a lack of alternatives, despite ineffectiveness or low resonance. Therefore, I argue that we must look at the political context to understand what type of interaction took place between the ideational, strategic, and structural variables. In this book, instead of asking whether a frame is resonant for the entire people, I try to unpack how different layers of the potential adherents react to frames and to what extent and in what ways they participate in frame alignment processes. I identify three levels of participation in my cases of diaspora mobilization. Classifying participation as such does not

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mean the existence of a strict hierarchy. The three levels denote a division of labor, rather than a hierarchical power relation. These three levels can be best thought of as a pyramid. While the top level, the movement elite or leaders, is the smallest, the number of people participating rises progressively as we go down. The pyramid generally coincides with sociological strata, but some people of higher social standing can be classified at the lowest level of the pyramid, as their participation in the Crimean Tatar movement or their consciousness of the Crimean Tatar identity is low. These three levels of frame resonance are shown in Figure 2.1. The first layer is divided into two: the movement leaders or elite who have the most influence in designing the frames and the intellectual or bureaucratic elite who are well-integrated into the host-states’ political institutions. The intellectual and bureaucratic elite’s role ranges from a mediating role between the community and the host-state, framebridging with the host-state, local political organizations, civil society, and the media (bystanders), and preparing the host-state institutional environment for a diaspora movement. Apart from obvious activist leaders, the intellectual elite who published the communist newspapers in the Crimean Tatar language in the USSR, the artists who functioned

Elite level Constructs frames

Midlevel Conducts recruitment, frame alignment with mass levels

Mass level ParƟcipates in less-costly, less-risky, and massive events and perfomances Fig. 2.1 Pyramid of frame resonance

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in Soviet-founded cultural institutions, the Crimean Tatar bureaucrats and professionals in communist Romania also belonged this group because of their intellectual work. The second layer is neither the elite nor the masses but the middlemen between them. This layer is the key, as it mediates between the higher and lower levels of the community. These middlemen are educated and often well-versed in frames through their contact with the first level. They carry out broader frame alignment processes through organizing the less educated, lower-status groups. In the USSR, generally, the students, university graduates, and technicians functioned at this level. In pre-war Romania, the students who worked in the preparation, publication, and distribution of Emel , who organized local nationalist events and activities, and formed local nationalist organizations, functioned at this level. This level did not exist in post-war Turkey, Romania, or the United States, but did begin to grow after 1990. The lowest layer is more populated and provides funding for the organizations and activities of the movement. It involved a population with more traditional attitudes, as well as some young village youth who were open to new ideas in inter-war Romania. These people participated in demonstrations and protests so that the movement is able to exert pressure on authorities in the former USSR, and in the 1990s in all diaspora settings. The resonance was strong at this level only in pre-war Romanian and the post-deportation Soviet communities, and these communities projected to return to the homeland. 2.2.2.3 Synopsis of Main Argument I outline my theoretical framework as follows: The emergence of frames can explain movement emergence and change in extra-territorial communities. Long-distance nationalism frames are constructed by the movement elite as a response to various form of de-territorialization, and consequent minority status in host lands. The elite considers hostland and international political and discursive opportunity structures and utilizes available master frames that provide a schema of interpretation when constructing diaspora mobilization frames. The construction of frames involves diagnosing diaspora’s host land and homeland-related problems and prognosis and plan of action to remedy them. Prognosis could be the one that reconnects the community with the homeland in various ways. Long-distance nationalism frames mobilize people of migrant origin and thus result in the formation of communities in countries of reception.

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Diasporic movements operate, develop, and change through frame alignments with potential adherents and bystanders, and counter-framing against the opponents (such as those who caused de-territorialization), and in response to changing political and discursive opportunity structures. Frame alignment might include frame transformation to address new political and discursive opportunity structures, frame bridging with changing allies, and alignment to different master frames in the host land and internationally. Generally, each political and discursive opportunity structure helps shape a different movement path, wherein a particular way of frame alignment and counter-framing processes crystallizes. The longdistance nationalist movement in the Soviet Union, Turkey, Romania, and the United States formed different movement traditions, which limited the course of their particular development in the subsequent era. Thus, a change in political and discursive opportunity structures cannot create complete diversion from the path. There are various ways the diaspora actors can influence the movement path. First, in times of repression (prevalence of political threat structures), a movement center might be carried to other diaspora contexts (which have more tolerance) where the activists rebuild the movement or build onto an already initiated local one. Thus, the political and discursive opportunity/threat structures for diaspora communities must be viewed as transnational rather than state-bound. In a way, it is possible to say that states can constrain the diaspora organization’s strategies, but they do not determine them. Second, when the political and discursive opportunity structures are not favorable, but transnational mobility is restricted, long-distance nationalist frames can be transformed to meet the movement goals better by aligning with different master frames; by pursuing an alternative framing strategy, perhaps engaging in frame-bridging with other actors, and counter-framing against different targets. Generally, frame contests emerge within the movement to transform the frame. However, if there is a lack of credible contestation, inefficient frames can survive. Movement consequences can be explained by movement paths. For example, some communities returned to their homeland because, in the beginning, they entered into a movement path that was targeted to return. After entering a certain path, they aligned in a particular way, bridged frames with particular movements, and counter-framed with particular targets. In the Soviet case, bystanders and former opponents agreed and collaborated with their eventual goal of return after long decades of particular framing strategies. In contrast, the other movements

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ruled out a return from the beginning or did not sustain the return goal in their movement paths. One major movement consequence is the formation of a common transnational frame across all dispersed communities, which paves the way for constructing a transnational nation.

2.3 2.3.1

Application of Theoretical Framework to Cases

The Crimean Tatar Community in the Soviet Union: 1944–1991

A. Movement emergence 1. The Soviet master frame (1917–1956) emerged, a discursive opportunity for the master frame extension appeared (1956– 1967). 2. A Leninist collective return frame (1956–1960) was formed through frame amplification (of attachment to the homeland), and the Crimean Tatars attempted to extend the Soviet master frame. 3. The resonance of the Crimean Tatar Leninist collective return frame increased (1956–1967) but the frame did not succeed in bringing about return to the homeland. B. Movement development 4. The Crimean Tatar movement (1960–1967) underwent a frame transformation through amplification of the theme of “deportation” in addition to the previous amplification of “attachment to the homeland.” This new frame counter-framed the Soviet frame and sought extension of the democracy master frame. 5. This new “democratic” frame undertook a frame-bridging with the “democracy and human rights movement” in the USSR (1967–1991). 6. The resonance of the transformed collective return frame increased (1967–1994), but the movement partly reached its goal. C. Movement consequences 7. The Soviet master frame was transformed, and the Crimean Tatars returned to the homeland (1989–1994) as the new master frame supported the “democratic” frame.

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The Crimean Tatar Community in Romania (1900–)

A. Movement Emergence 1. Mehmet Niyazi played a significant role in creating the first long-distance nationalism frame around 1913 through frame amplification (of attachment to the homeland) and seeking an extension of the master frame of “pan-Turkism.” 2. The publishers of Emel , the Crimean Tatar journal, utilized Mehmet Niyazi’s frame and engaged in frame-bridging with Cafer Seydahmet Kırımer’s émigré nationalism frame developed in Turkey to form an exile nationalism movement, with a considerable level of resonance, with the aid of the strong organization, and with a collective return goal. B. Movement Development 3. The exile nationalism frame and movement in Romania suddenly ended due to radical change in political and discursive opportunity structures with the outbreak of the Second World War. Romania’s new communist regime imposed a frame based on an artificial “Tatar” identity, which did not resonate with the people. 4. The new leaders, educated in the communist regime, sought reconciliation with the communist master frame by creating a territorial, non-diasporic nationalism, based on a frame amplification of certain sub-ethnic features of Crimean Tatars in Romania. This frame could not achieve considerable resonance among the masses and remained an elite frame. C. Movement consequences 5. Changes in political and discursive opportunities with the transition to democracy created new frame contests between frames that were learned from the diaspora community in Turkey and homeland and frames from earlier eras. A new frame that can be identified as “diaspora nationalism” prevailed, as in Turkey and the United States. 6. The World Crimean Tatar Congress played a crucial role in transnational frame-bridging between the Romanian and other diaspora and homeland communities.

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2.3.3

The Crimean Tatar Community in Turkey (1908–)

A. Movement emergence 1. Pan-Turkism emerged as a master frame in the Russian Empire and was transferred to the Ottoman Empire by Turkic émigrés (1908–1923). 2. The Crimean Tatar émigré nationalism frame (1908–1921) emerged through the extension of the pan-Turkist frame, frame amplification (of attachment to the homeland), counter-framing against Russian imperialism, and Bolshevism as its contemporary form. The émigré frame succeeded in transplanting itself to Crimea and declared Crimean Tatar self-determination. B. Movement Development 3. The emergence of a Kemalist master frame based on Anatolian nationalism in hostland constrained the Crimean Tatar émigré frame. 4. The transnational political and discursive opportunity structures in interwar Europe appeared with the Promethean League organization supported by Poland and other European states. 5. The émigré nationalism frame from Turkey transferred to Europe and began to be active in the European transnational space (1920s–1960). The émigré nationalism frame bridged frames with other émigré movements in the Promethean League, and anti-Soviet states such as Poland and Germany, and the newly emerging Crimean Tatar movement in Romania. Promethean movement counter-framed the Soviet frame. 6. A new wave of immigrants, the Second World War refugees entered into frame contest to transform the dominant frame, but they were unsuccessful due to a lack of sufficient political and discursive opportunities in Turkey. These leaders left for the United States and developed their frame there. 7. The discursive and political opportunity structures in Turkey changed very little. The inefficient, low-resonating émigré nationalism frame lingered on due to path-dependency (1960– 1980). By frame-bridging with Turkish ultra-nationalism, émigrés aimed to reach some part of the Turkish public.

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C. Movement Consequences 9. The émigré nationalism frame transformed into a diaspora nationalism frame through “learning” the Crimean Tatar collective return frame in the USSR. 10. Frame resonance increased, as the new frame extended the rising cultural liberalization (identity politics) and pan-Turkism master frames in Turkey. 11. Attempts for frame-bridging with Romania and the United States (1982–1992) encouraged these communities to transform their frames simultaneously. 12. In the late 1990s and 2000s, transnational frame-bridging and a frame transformation to form a transnational nation took place. 2.3.4

The Crimean Tatar Community in the United States (1960–)

A. Movement Emergence and Development: 1. The movement of refugees contested the émigré frame in Turkey, but due to limited political opportunities in Turkey, they decided to immigrate to the United States. In the United States, the refugees bridged frames with the strengthening democratic collective return movement of the Crimean Tatars in the USSR as well as international human rights and Soviet dissident movements. 2. This movement also had to remain as an émigré activity as it could not resonate with the large part of the Crimean Tatar refugees, who did not want to emphasize their connection to the Soviet Union in the Cold War environment of the United States. A more resonant frame was the one that bridged frames with the Turkish Association in the host-country. Interestingly, they also bridged frames with the present émigré nationalism frame in Turkey at the time. B. Movement Consequences: 3. The émigré movement (Crimea Foundation) successfully propagated its frame to the world public and attained compensation from Germany and Austria for wartime atrocities. 4. Both movements merged frames to form a diaspora nationalist movement connected to Mejis and World Crimean Tatar Congress.

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2.3.5

Cases and Forms of Long-Distance Nationalism

While the long-distance nationalism movements in each host-country can be viewed as a case, they can also be divided into mini-cases that reflect different forms of long-distance natinoalism. I classify four types of longdistance nationalism according to the frame snapshots, which I consider relatively stable for each selected historical period (mini-case): émigré, exile, diaspora, and transnational nationalism. Forms are categorized according to movement goals, levels of resonance, levels of incorporation to host-states, relations to the homeland, and forms of organization. The first form is exile nationalism, which can be identified in the post1944 USSR and interwar Romania. In this form, the frame resonance was high, reaching all three levels of society. The reason for the high resonance among the Soviet Union community was empirical fidelity due to collective memory. In Romania, the collective memory of the homeland and the practicality of returning to Crimea was admittedly weaker; thus, the empirical fidelity was weaker, but this could have been overcome through intensive frame alignment programs conducted by the strong organization of the Crimean Tatars. In both cases, the host land environment threatened the maintenance of identity, and therefore the community refrained from integration because of the forced nature of arrival. Consequently, returning collectively to the homeland was the primary purpose of this movement form. The USSR community was quite successful in reaching this goal while the community in Romania failed due to a lack of political opportunities, or in other words, the emergence of political threat structures. (The Second World War prevented the return of the Crimean Tatars to Crimea, as Romania and the Soviet Union initially fought against each other, and later the Soviet Union occupied Romania.) Strong grassrootsbased coherent organizations are observed in both cases (though informal in the Soviet case). The relationship between community organizations and framing processes could be a topic of further inquiry in cases of diasporas. The second form of nationalist mobilization is émigré nationalism, which was observed in the community in Turkey (1923–1980) and the community that immigrated to the United States after a short (almost a decade) stay in Turkey (the 1960s). In this form of long-distance nationalism, frame alignment processes among the masses were not pursued because the host land political structures were perceived to be intolerant toward both ethnic nationalism and transnational activism. This type of nationalism fit better in an age when diasporas were seen mainly as suspect due to potential dual loyalties. Within these political opportunity

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structures, the émigré circle believed that involving the masses would be disadvantageous for the movement, and the limitation of participants was necessary to reach their goals. They reasoned that the movement would be best served by a small, coherent cadre. Involving the masses would make things harder by making the movement less coherent and vulnerable to the host or other states’ intervention. The émigré nationalists tended to extend this elitist attitude to the homeland community and assumed a supervisory role on the nation-building process carried out in the homeland, reserving the right to interfere if it went out of their suggested direction. In Turkey, émigré nationalism developed because the political and ideological structure of the new Turkish state was not tolerant toward the formation of ethnic communities and the movement had to limit itself to a small circle of émigrés. In this circle, while only the natural leader Cafer Seydahmet was a true émigré, his émigré mentality was internalized by the small number of disciples born in the diaspora. In Turkey, the Crimean Tatar masses could engage in cultural maintenance activities, but political activity was the domain of a closed circle of the elite. The elite engaged in behind-the-door negotiations with the host-state and security officials and was also engaged in diplomatic relations with other states to work for the national self-determination of the homeland community, thus acting as a government-in-exile. In the United States, too, the political-discursive opportunities did not permit a mass nationalism. The refugees’ history of forced labor under the Nazis or their previous Soviet citizenship was perceived to hinder the Crimean Tatar refugees advance in American society by the majority of the community, who preferred to identify themselves as Turks, causing the refugees to achieve a segmented integration into the Turkish community in the United States. Thus, only a small elite was engaged in long-distance nationalism and lobbying on behalf of Crimea and the co-ethnics in the Soviet Union. In émigré nationalism, the elites did not have to develop a strategy about what the masses should do nor manage their identity. They did not treat them as either subject or object of framing and did not view them as a constituency to be mobilized for homeland-oriented action. As a result, the community’s collective return (unlike in exile nationalism) was out of the question in the host land. Thus, without reference to the context that the framing processes are embedded, it is impossible to explain the frame

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resonance wholly. Frame resonance can sometimes be lacking because it is not desired, and no effort is shown to increase it. When I started my research, my initial question was why the Crimean Tatar diaspora communities simultaneously rose at the beginning of the 1990s. The Crimean Tatars developed diaspora nationalism, a different form of long-distance nationalism than previously, and this led to the “rising of the diaspora.” The factors that prompted this were (i) the increasing disruption of the traditional Crimean Tatar communities and threat to the maintenance of cultural identity due to pressures of modernization and globalization in host lands and (ii) the development in communication technologies and ease of transportation, which enabled transnational flows from Crimea to Turkey. The collective return frame of the community repatriating to Crimea was learned in Turkey. The concern about the homeland’s well-being previously limited to émigré circles was now being spread to the masses (thus, frame resonance increased). The newly emerging leaders beyond the émigré circle mobilized the masses to support the homeland economically and advocate the Crimean Tatar cause politically. Unlike exile nationalism, this type of nationalism was not fixated on return. The return was not seen as a solution before ensuring the homeland’s well-being, and the diaspora could do more service to the homeland by lobbying in the host land and transferring the resources from the host land to the homeland. Moreover, the masses were incorporated into the host society, and the goal of return would not resonate with them. Unlike émigré nationalism, diaspora nationalism had a program for the masses and aimed and viewed it as possible to maintain an identity as a community in diaspora settings. This situation again made return less necessary, unlike in exile nationalism. However, while not repressive, the host and political structures were not multiculturalist, and more latent assimilatory forces were still at work4 . Transnational ties rejuvenated local communities and contributed to the formation of translocal organizations, identities, frames. In the post-1990s, the levels of resonance in Turkey, Romania, and the United States far surpassed the previous levels. However, the level of resonance (they only reached the first three levels) did not reach Soviet or pre-war Romanian levels. The reason could be weaker empirical fidelity due to even further weakened collective memory. 4 As Kymlicka argues even though the Western liberal state model is not outright oppressive, the assumption about state neutrality in fact conceals an assimilating policy tendency. Inasmuch as all states have an official language, they cannot be neutral (Kymlicka, 1995).

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The diaspora nationalism movement did not have coherent, sustained participation as in the exile nationalism, simply because the movement participants were more incorporated into the host society. They were only part-time long-distance nationalists, and participation was more fluid. In my cases, I observed regular participation down to the second level, but not at the lower level. Not all Crimean Tatar communities engaged in long-distance nationalism. The fourth form of mobilization observed in one of my cases was “territorial” minority nationalism. In cases of “political-discursive threat,” such as the communist totalitarian regime in Romania, the community fell back on territorial nationalism without implying any transnational links to the homeland. The community emphasized the links to the local territory and focused on maintaining local culture and language. The fifth form of mobilization is transnational nationalism. Transnational nationalism emerged in the last decade and required means and technologies of globalization as diaspora nationalism. The idea was that because distance and borders are assumed to lose significance, separate branches of diaspora merged into one united community in a “transnational social space.” This was reflected in the emergence of a division of labor between the community members residing in various countries worldwide. In the last decade in the Crimean Tatar community, sustainable transnational space is increasingly constructed through continuous frame-bridging with the community in the USSR and merging their frames under one frame of the transnational nation. Thus, the diaspora nationalism began to develop into transnational nationalism. Like diaspora nationalism, this type of nationalism goes beyond return, and other ways of service to the homeland are investigated. I suggest that the formation of a transnational nationalism frame facilitate translocal framing processes and further rejuvenate local communities. This is a project of forming common identity, common goals, and common concerns for all Crimean Tatars wherever they were located. The homeland community is also transformed in the transnational nation project in that they include the expatriate community in decision-making processes in the homeland. The diaspora’s rights and responsibilities are institutionalized in these forms: diaspora taxation, diaspora citizenship, diaspora representation, and diaspora acting as embassy of the homeland. Transnational frame alignment processes require a strong organization to bring together diaspora communities more diverse than one would arguably find within territorial borders. The convention of the World Crimean Tatar Congress

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was established to function as the permanent body for conducting regular transnational relations of these communities. Thus, even at the transnational level, nation-building required the unification of diverse interests and establishing hegemonies. This happened in communist Romania, which had a somewhat harsher regime than Khrushchev’s thaw. The features of forms of nationalism are summarized in Table 2.1. The former USSR community demonstrated exile nationalism in the post-1944 period until they began to return to Crimea. The community in Turkey manifested émigré nationalism between 1908 and the 1980s, and diaspora nationalism after that. The community in Romania had a period of exile nationalism between the 1900s and 1945, a period of “territorial” minority nationalism devoid of any symbolic connections to homeland between 1945 and 1989, and a period of developing diaspora nationalismin the post-1989 period. The community in the United States demonstrated a different type of émigré nationalism, which conflicted with the one in Turkey between 1960 and 1989. The majority of this community continued to act as a satellite of the Crimean Tatar community in Turkey registering the same frame. The diaspora nationalism of this community was weaker. Only in the last decade or so have all communities, including the repatriated community, begun to proceed toward a transnational nation frame. I summarized the classification of cases in Table 2.2.

2.4

Conclusion

In this chapter, I have offered a theoretical framework to explain the dynamics of long-distance ethnic mobilization that works at any modern time period. I suggested that recent and historical mobilization of diaspora communities has significant continuities though the recent rejuvenation is much larger and related to the changes in communication technologies and ease in transportation. I explained how trans-territorial communities constructed their identities through mobilization within the political and discursive opportunities offered them by nation-states, and various ideologies. I particularly underlined the discursive processes, particularly framing as a method of forming identities, the assumption being new identities create new political and national movements. I sketched how these theoretical propositions helped understand politics of

Save homeland through diplomacy Tutelary relationship to homeland

Return to homeland

Supports homeland community

Nation-building in a transnational context

Exile nationalism

Diaspora Nationalism

Transnational nationalism

Movement Goal

Dual identity

High, multiculturalist hostland

Low, exclusionary hostland

Low

Level of incorporation to host-state

Typology of long-distance nationalism

Émigré Nationalism

Table 2.1

Absolute attachment to homeland Diaspora experience is valuable as it enables saving homeland Absolute attachment to homeland. No regard for diaspora experience Dual attachment to homeland and diaspora Diaspora and homeland merges

Attachment to homeland

Mass, formal

Fluid, informal

Mass, formal, coherent

Closed, elite

Type of organization

High

Medium

High

Low

Level of resonance

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Table 2.2 Types of long-distance nationalism applied to mini-cases USSR Pre-Second World War II Post-War Postcommunist 2010s–

Romania

X

Exile nationalism Exile Territorial nationalism nationalism X Diaspora nationalism Transnationalism Transnationalism

Turkey

United States

Émigré nationalism Émigré nationalism Diaspora nationalism Transnationalism

X Émigré nationalism Diaspora nationalism Transnationalism

Crimean Tatar deterritorialized communities, both in terms of why and how they mobilized, and their internal variance.

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CHAPTER 3

Crimean Tatar Community in the Former Soviet Union (1944–1991): A Case in Exile Nationalism

3.1

Introduction

Subsequent to the exodus of a large proportion of the population from their ancestral homeland, the Crimean Tatars carried on their struggle of maintaining their identity within the Russian Empire and the subsequent Soviet Union. Under the rule of Stalin, the Crimean Tatar people were deported en masse from their homeland of Crimea between the 18th and 20th of May, 1944 on the pretext of collaboration with Germans, who had invaded Crimea during the Second World War (Pohl, 2004). The Crimean Tatars lost 46%1 of their population in the course of the deportation, and those who were deported spent the next thirteen years in the “special settlement regime” (a ghetto under constant police guard). According to Vozgrin (1994), Pohl (2004), Williams (2001, 2015), Uehling (2015), Kırımlı (cf. Bayar, 2020), and Kuzio (2020), this tragic event constitutes “genocide.” What is both remarkable and notable is the unexpected resurgence of national identity and the emergence of a collective return movement among the Crimean Tatars in exile. The Crimean Tatars maintained a demand for returning to the homeland for more than fifty years. The main topic of this chapter is why and how 1 The Soviet sources argued that it was 20%, but the Crimean Tatars conducted their own census and found their numbers had reduced by 46%.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 F. T. Aydın, Émigré, Exile, Diaspora, and Transnational Movements of the Crimean Tatars, Palgrave Studies in Citizenship Transitions, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-74124-2_3

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Crimean Tatars returned to homeland after fifty years. In this chapter, after reviewing accounts of this unique phenomenon, I propose an explanation for the emergence, development, and outcomes of the Crimean Tatar diaspora mobilization.

3.2 Application of Theoretical Framework: Exile Nationalism The Crimean Tatars’ maintenance of homeland-centric identity in exile and the collective return to their homeland almost fifty years after their deportation has been the cause of much debate, and conflicting reasons have been proposed by various scholars. Immigration is generally explained by structural factors, such as push and pull factors. If we consider that Crimean Tatars left a relatively comfortable, peaceful, and prosperous life in Central Asian settlements and migrated to an unknown life marked with poverty, loss of status, discrimination, and physical violence in Crimea, the phenomenon of return does not fit to pull-push framework of immigration literature. This brings us to ethnicity and nationalist literature. We do not yet have a general theoretical framework explaining ethnic mobilization in the USSR, particularly for nonterritorial ethnic communities. Beissinger’s theory based on “movement cycles” (Beissinger, 2002) which attempts to explain ethnic mobilization with the emergence of “political opportunities” in the Gorbachev era overlooks the mobilization of national, and religious groups beginning from the late 1950s when arguably there was less “political opportunity” (see Reddaway, 1998; Zisserman-Brodsky, 2003 for the existence of pre-Gorbachev nationalist mobilization). “Political opportunity” is not sufficient to explain nationalist mobilization, without reference to the internal dynamics of movement. The latter is done by Guboglo and Chervonnaya who argue that facing the tragedy of deportation, Crimean Tatars formed organizations and mobilized resources to enable their collective return (Guboglo & Chervonnaya, 1992). According to these authors, the return movement was a rational act, reflected in well-chosen tactics and strategies toward the goal. Although the Soviet state did not permit a formal organizational structure, the informal networks and cell-type organizational units covering almost all of the population enabled collective return. While the material and strategic factors are important, the “strategies” and “goals” of the movement should not be taken for granted but rather problematized. The fact that the Crimean Tatars preferred

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to “return to their homeland” and rejected other options such as “integration in Uzbekistan,” “cultural autonomy in Uzbekistan” or “national autonomy outside Crimea” needs explanation. Other possible questions include why they insisted on certain tactics and proscribed others, such as violence, why they did not focus on the Islamic or pan-Turkic aspect of their identity, instead of democratic, why they pursued alliances with certain national, religious, or dissident groups in the USSR and the world. Tragedies such as deportation shape but do not determine strategies. None of the other peoples who had been deported so decisively focused on collective return as their ultimate goal. Vozgrin, Fisher, and Williams explain the mobilization of the Crimean Tatars in exile as a function of their ethnonational identity (Fisher, 1978; Vozgrin, 1992; Williams, 2001). Vozgrin and Williams allude a primordial attachment to Crimea due to Crimean Tatars’ indigenous roots while Williams combines the cultural and symbolic elements and Soviet era institutions such as korenizatsiia policies to explain national identity (Vozgrin, 1992; Williams, 2001). Deportation became a catalyst of ethnic mobilization creating a homeland consciousness among deported people. Uehling emphasizes re-construction of memory in newer generations in exile as the cause of return (Uehling, 2004). Focusing on the formation of ethnonational identity does not explain the timing and forms of Crimean Tatars’ mobilization. Grievances, identities, ideologies, and memories do not dictate any particular form of action. To explain political mobilization, we must look how the actors attributed meaning to their condition, and developed goals and strategies. Even ethnonational identity is shaped by these continuous meaning-making processes. Collective memory was molded by the movement leaders, and this “partyline” of how to remember the deportation and how to react it was communicated down to people through organizational structures, with a view of strategic goals. This, in turn, explained the course of movement development and paved the way to consequences such as return and declaration of sovereignty in the homeland. Accordingly, in this chapter, I will explain the framing processes, which illuminate the emergence and trajectory of the Crimean Tatar movement in the USSR: the emergence of Leninist “collective return” frame as a response to the discursive opportunity for dissent during Khrushchev thaw; having no concrete results with the first one, after 1967, alignment with a “democracy” master frame, and openly counter-framing against the Stalinism; frame-bridging with democracy and human rights movements in the USSR which also

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aimed to transform the communist master frame; frame resistance despite heavy repression in the 1970s marked with defiant individual returns to Crimea and re-deportations; increased resonance of the democratic ‘collective return’ frame in the Soviet public and international community during the Gorbachev period, followed by permission for returning to their homeland collectively.

3.3 Formation of Crimean Tatar Leninist Collective Return Frame 3.3.1

Soviet Master Frame

At the end of a short, relatively liberal period under the New Economic Policy (1921–1928), totalitarianism was established in the USSR with Stalin’s ascendance to the leadership. Like several other nationalities in the USSR, the Crimean Tatars suffered from civil war, man-made famine, collectivization, de-kulakization, purges, partial deportations, the Second World War, and the German occupation of their homeland until 1944, but it was the deportation of all Crimean Tatars en masse on May 18, 1944 which brought the nation to the brink of dissolution. In the Stalinist era, the Soviet state sustained its hold on the society by a hegemonic master frame enforced by mass terror. Ethnic destruction of the Crimean Tatars was executed under the pretext of mass betrayal of the “fatherland” during the war. According to the Soviet historian P. N. Nadiinski, the reason for their betrayal was “the survival of capitalism in Crimean Tatar society” (cf. Fisher, 1978, 172). After the Crimean Tatars were deported, Fisher states that “the Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1953) removed all traces of Crimean Tatars and their civilization save for the claim that they had been primarily brigands and raiders and an advance guard for Ottoman expansion into Slavic lands” (Fisher, 1978, 172). Crimea was relegated from the status of a republic into an oblast soon to be transferred from Russian SFSR to Ukrainian SSR (Fisher, 1978, 172). After the most prized valuables were taken to Moscow and St. Petersburg, Crimean Tatar houses and remaining belongings were given to the new Slavic settlers in Crimea. The vast majority of the Crimean Tatar geographic names were changed to Slavic ones. All references to Crimean Tatars in Soviet publications were erased and all material in the Crimean Tatar language was destroyed. By the 1950s, the guides in the Crimean Khan’s Palace museum were speaking of the Tatars as if they were an ancient tribe

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but were now extinct. The Stalinist master frame and this special narrative of the non-existence of the Crimean Tatars became part of official and “societal” discourses of the Soviet Union—established truths, which were impossible for the Crimean Tatars to challenge in an age of absolute totalitarianism, whereby hegemony was sustained by coercion. From the time of Stalin’s death in 1953, Khrushchev consolidated his power in 1956. In his “secret speech” at the 20th Party Congress (1956) in which he condemned “Stalinism” and the “cult of personality” and declared a return to “Leninism,” he also promised to establish “socialist legality” to prevent the reoccurrence of Stalin’s arbitrary, murderous rule. Socialist legality binds authorities to observe their law, or at least to not publicly override their own law (Hosking, 1991, 44). It also brought an end to the mass terror and state security was subordinated to the Party (Cutler, 1980, 20). According to Bukovskii, this allowed a small amount of freedom for the individual (cf Hosking, 1991, 44), and thus created political and discursive opportunities for civil society and social movements. Khrushchev’s secret speech involved special references to a nationality policy, and therefore implied master frame change specifically in this area: All the more monstrous are the acts whose initiator was Stalin and which are crude violations of the basic Leninist principles of the nationality policy of the Soviet state. We refer to the mass deportations from their native places of whole nations, together with all Communists and Komsomol s without any exception; this deportation action was not dictated by any military considerations. Thus already at the end of 1943, when there occurred a permanent break-through at the fronts of the great patriotic war was in favor of the Soviet Union, a decision was taken and executed concerning the deportation of all Karachay from the lands on which they lived. In the same period, at the end of December 1943, the same lot befell the whole population of the Autonomous Kalmyk Republic. In March 1944, all the Chechen and Ingush people were deported and the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Republic was liquidated. In April 1944, all Balkars were deported to faraway places from the territory of the Kabardine-Balkar autonomous republic and the Republic itself was renamed the Autonomous Kabardine republic. The Ukrainians avoided meeting this fate only because there were too many of them and there was no place to which to deport them. Otherwise, he would have deported them also. (Laughter and animation in the hall.)

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Not only Marxist-Leninist but also no man of common sense can grasp how it is possible to make whole nations responsible for inimical activity, including women, children, old people, Communists and Komsomol s, to use mass repression against them, and to expose them to misery and suffering for the hostile acts of individual persons or groups of persons. (cf. Conquest, 1970, 144)

This speech makes no mention of the three deported nations: Volga Germans, Meskhetian Turks, and the Crimean Tatars. After the speech, all deported nations that were recognized were returned to their homeland, with the exception of these three. With the 28 April 1956 Edict, the Crimean Tatars were removed from the special settlement regime. However, they were not permitted to return to their homeland, or reclaim their property and belongings, which had been appropriated in the course of the deportation (Özcan, 2002, 114). Obviously, this created an inconsistency with the master frame: The Crimean Tatars should have been returned when the other nationalities were returned to their homeland, and this brought about an opportunity for exposing an inconsistency in the treatment of previously deported peoples. 3.3.2

Crimean Tatar Attempt for Soviet Master Frame Extension

In the years immediately after the deportation, the Crimean Tatars were unsure what had happened to them and why. Deportation had shuffled the population and many Crimean Tatars who had never left the surroundings of their village lost contact with friends and family as Crimean Tatars of various sub-ethnicities and from all parts of the peninsula were moved together. Up until the end of the special settlement regime, many families could not reunite as they were prohibited to leave the reservation. Everybody witnessed the tragedy that befell them and those nearby, but it took the Crimean Tatars some time to become fully aware of what kind of tragedy befell them as a nation. Mustafa Cemilev, who was a child during the special settlement regime, recalls that the Crimean Tatars used to come together in the evenings, and the topic of their conversations was always Crimea (Cemilev, 2005, 14). Rıza Fazıl recalls that in the year 1952, the Crimean Tatar students in his institute came together to read nationalist poetry to each other and take a photograph together beneath a statue for liberty in their town as a sign of their determination to fight for their rights(interview 2006). In 1954,

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the Crimean Tatar elders (called aqsakals or “white beards”), who were mostly Crimean Tatar members of the Communist Party, veterans of war, and former partisans, began to meet regularly (Özcan, 2002, 118). It was these elders who became instrumental in the emergence of the first collective return frames . Fisher states that in established Soviet practice, the government “was supposed to accept and consider petitions from the Soviet citizens” (Fisher, 1978, 177). Utilizing this “legal-institutional channel,” the Crimean Tatar elders composed their first letters to the Soviet government in 1957, which articulated the Crimean Tatar collective return frame for the first time: In accordance with the decisions of the 20th Congress of the Communist Party, and principles of V. I. Lenin on the national question, which were published after the congress, and by understanding those as documents of outstanding political significance for the life of our nation, which also governs the activities of the party in the contemporary period, we one more time appeal to the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU that in the period of the liquidation of results of the cult of personality in relation to other questions, we plead that you resolve the important political question of the return of unjustly deported Crimean Tatar nation to its homeland- to Crimea; the re-establishment of Crimean ASSR within the Ukrainian SSR, which was founded by the decree of the Soviet government on 18 October 1921 signed by V. I. Lenin; the return of or compensation for property before the deportation; and the taking of measures for the people to return to normal life as soon as possible (7.9.1956). (Bekirova, 2004, 71)

It is evident that the Crimean Tatars expressed a naïve belief that if they properly explained to party leaders that their deportation had been a terrible mistake, it would be corrected. The petitions were to disprove the argument that Crimean Tatars defected in the war, and aimed to exemplify how they fought on the side of the communists. Major activism of the national movement consisted of trying to get into academic libraries of the USSR, which stored original historical documents of the Crimean Tatars and “smuggling” their content to buttress the Crimean Tatar frame with evidence. This was the reason Ay¸se Seytmuratova, the first Crimean Tatar graduate student in history, was “invited” to the movement by the elders (interview, 2006).

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Exhibit 3.1: Crimean Tatar “Leninist” collective return frame (The first exile nationalism frame in the USSR) • The deportation of Crimean Tatars was a mistake, as they did not betray the motherland and in fact, served the motherland bravely. • The deportation and the destruction of the Crimean SSR violated Lenin’s nationalities policy and Soviet law. • Khrushchev promised a return to “Leninism” and a dismantling of Stalinism. Therefore, Khrushchev is obligated to correct the error and return the Crimean Tatars collectively to their homeland and reestablish the Crimean ASSR, the national autonomy of the Crimean Tatars.

This same structure of frame stated Exhibit 3.1 was repeated in many appeals to the various organs of the Soviet government. Greta Uehling corroborates that these letters and petitions followed the same “pattern”: “A typical appeal began with a historical account, followed by a detailed citation of Leninist nationality policy. This customarily led to the mention of the Crimean ASSR and the logic that they are returned to their homeland in an organized manner” (Uehling, 2004, 141). These “repetitive” letters “standardized” a diagnosis and prognosis of their problem, which contributed to the exceptional coherence of the movement. According to Reddaway (1998), the 1957 Edict (Ukaz): … brought Tatar movement quickly into being. Mass petitions and group lobbying…were its main tactics, the line being that the authorities must have made a mistake: Tatars had been overwhelmingly loyal in the war, the deportation of 1944 had been the work of malevolent forces in the security police, and there was no reason now not to exculpate the Crimean Tatars and allow them to return to Crimea. (Reddaway, 1998, 226)

Cemilev observes that: The tone of Crimean Tatar appeals, especially in the first years, was absolutely loyal and strictly in the communist spirit. As a rule, they contained numerous quotations from Lenin and renowned communist leaders. This allowed them to collect many signatures to their letters. (Jemilev, 2003, 12)

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It is not surprising that the elders encouraged the young generation to join the Communist Party, instead of opposing the party for what had been done (interview with Ay¸se Seytmuratova). Timur Da˘gcı, who joined the group of elders, although he was in his 30s, explained the mindset and tactics of the elders, which reflect their frame: This government is not to joke. If we openly go against the authorities, they will crush us. The government has democratic laws. [We can utilize those laws.] All the documents we prepare should not be against the government, they should be in a spirit of praise. We shouldn’t form secret organizations. Don’t involve the intelligentsia. Involve whoever participated in the war and workers. If a worker is fired, he can find a job easily in the next factory…Don’t write letters to the other governments. (interview with Timur Da˘gcı)

Da˘gcı adds “There were not any secret meetings…We did not have any protocols, or documents of our meetings so that the KGB would not find any.” 3.3.3

Resonance of the First Crimean Tatar Collective Return Frame Increases

Participation in frame alignment processes can be organized into three levels, though not formally in the Crimean Tatar movement: (i) movement leaders who collectively created the frames having in mind their audience (potential adherents), and the intellectual elite who contributed and provided internal critiques to frame designs; (ii) professionals and the student youth who linked the leaders to masses and who ensured that the movement frames and individual frames were congruent through the collection of signatures for petitions, writing letters, going from door to door, and organizing initiative group meetings; (iii) lesser-educated, lower-class masses, who participated in mass activities, such as meetings, rallies, protests, signing petitions, and writing letters. Relatives of veterans and war heroes who were sometimes uneducated but selected to represent the Crimean Tatar frames to authorities due to their prestige also enter to this group. For a movement to be highly resonant, having significant participation of the last level is required.

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i. Elders, Crimean Tatar members of the CPSU, intellectuals The first level was the leadership stratum of the movement. This level was composed of the communist elders and former partisans or war heroes, who were the brains behind the frames. They met regularly and discussed the best way to present the issue to the Crimean Tatar people and the authorities. In the mid-1960s, these elders were replaced by a younger generation of leaders, who attempted to transform the frames of the elders (This will be elaborated upon later.). Disputes arose among the leaders about various possible frames. Timur Da˘gcı states that E¸sref Semizade ¸ and some of the other elders decided at one point to frame the issue as “one of return and not autonomy.” They reasoned that after they had returned, the next step would be demanding autonomy. There was a fear that a request for both return and autonomy would be too much to expect from authorities and so would be rejected. Timur Da˘gcı, then a 30-year old journalist, stated that he communicated this message to the communist authorities and received a positive response. According to Da˘gcı, the authorities responded, “if you put it that way, it is easier for us to consider it.” However, another elder and former partisan, Bekir Osmanov, became enraged and demanded to meet Timur Da˘gcı urgently, saying “Who told you that we don’t need autonomy? We need autonomy!!!” Subsequently, Osmanov organized the collection of a large number of signatures under a letter that demanded autonomy in addition to return (interview with Timur Da˘gcı). The frame that involved return and autonomy together emerged victorious from these frame contests and became the standard Crimean Tatar demand, as it was more resonant (i.e., could be measured by a large number of signatures). The first level also included writers, poets, and artists, who were not leaders in the political sense but played a significant role in the frame alignment processes, and master frame extension processes due to their ability to reach out to the masses. An example of this collaboration was the mass concerts of famous Crimean Tatar singers. The artists participated in frame alignment process by communicating certain messages to ˙ people through their art. Izzet Hayırov, my interviewee, remembered the emotional atmosphere after the mass concert of prominent Crimean Tatar singers in 1957. He said: “everybody left the concert with a determination that we will not dissolve, we will return to Crimea” (interview). According ˙ to Hayırov, the leaders organized the concert for this purpose. Ismail Kerimov, one of the teachers of the Department of Tatar Language and

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Literature founded in 1978 at Tashkent University, stated: “my national movement was learning Crimean Tatar” and commented upon the difficulties he had to overcome in order to study the Crimean Tatar language academically; he could defend his dissertation only when the perestroika arrived. For, the authorities did not permit him to use the word “Crimean Tatar” in his dissertation on Crimean Tatar literature (interview). The Crimean Tatar writers helped sustain national identity through the maintenance of language and literature using only a small number of periodicals and books permitted by the regime, and thus indirectly strengthened the Crimean Tatar frame. On the other hand, to enable that, they agreed to publish a newspaper, Lenin Bayra˘gı (Lenin’s Flag), the purpose of which was to propagate the Soviet frame in the Crimean Tatar language, that is, to convince Tatars to lay roots in places of exile rather than asking for return. It was for this reason that the authorities granted this “cultural right.” This does not mean the newspaper only served the purpose intended. Rıza Fazıl argued as follows: How did Lenin Bayra˘gı emerge?…[because] the Crimean Tatars kept writing letters pleading return. In order to distract them, the regime allowed the Qaytarma Music Assembly, radio, and newspaper. It was the regime’s goal, but it did not reach its goal. (interview)

The newspaper Lenin Bayra˘gı strove to support the Crimean Tatar frame by discovering and identifying individual Crimean Tatars who served in the Soviet army or as partisans during the war, and by publishing the oral testaments of partisans and war heroes to disprove the claim that Crimean Tatars betrayed the homeland (Seutova, 1991). This could not be censured as it was consistent with the communist frame. At the same time, this was an attempt for master frame extension, an attempt to “recontextualize” (Swart, 1995, 469) the “communist” master frame and integrate the “Crimean Tatar” concerns. Rıza Fazıl collected the memoirs of fifty-four Crimean Tatar women who participated in the war and published a biography of Ahmet Han Sultan, the Crimean Tatar fighter pilot who twice obtained the hero of the Soviet Union medal. Rıza Fazıl stated: “I was trying to write in a national sentiment as much as possible…KGB dealt with me continuously. In the end, they demoted me to a translator in the newspaper.” (interview) Despite that, he had a tense relationship with the political leaders as follows:

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Cebbar Akim and the people around him did not understand Lenin Bayra˘gı. I have never been a member of the Communist Party. There had been times I wanted to quit the newspaper. I was regularly donating to the national movement and bringing them information. But then those Crimean Tatars around him stopped subscribing. They said we don’t need it. They boycotted the newspaper…This damaged our nation…They said we would have newspapers after we returned to the homeland, but now everybody understands that this was not the case. They had a one-sided understanding of the national cause. We could not instill in our children the habit of reading in the mother tongue at home, and today our intergenerational links are beginning to shatter…That is our tragedy. A cultural genocide…. (interview)

Rıza Fazıl also wrote a letter to the Central Committee, in which he complained about the lack of any Crimean Tatar publications in Central Asian exile. As a result, the Crimean Tatars were given a quota from the state publishing house to publish books in their language. In the same way, the Crimean Tatar writers were granted permission to publish a Crimean Tatar academic literary journal, Yıldız. Rıza Fazıl adds that: This does not mean our letter was the major cause of the publication of Yıldız. The real cause was our national movement, its continuous and collective pressure on the party and government organs, and its demands for homeland and nation. (Fazıl, 2005, 8)

Rıza Fazıl further States that: Before the war, they inserted many Russian words in our language. We cleaned them out. ..We cleaned them out and the authorities did not realize it…A whole new generation of young poets emerged. They [The movement leaders] were also opposed to the Department of Crimean Tatar Language and Literature or schools in the mother tongue. But these all helped. When we returned to Crimea, we did not come empty-handed. ..Isn’t this called a national movement?

He emphasizes that the national struggle has two fronts. “The first one is returning to the homeland. The second one is the maintenance of culture. These two cannot be separated from each other and we cannot do one and ignore the other. And each has different methods” (inter˙ view). Ismail Kerimov, the head of the Department of Crimean Tatar Language and Literature at KGPU in Simferopol, recognizes that the

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Crimean Tatar publications under communism were small in number and limited in content due to censure, but the published works still constitute a significant resource for academic studies today and serve the purpose of maintenance of language and literature in exile (interview). ii. Professionals and students In the mid-level of frame alignment processes, there was a larger number of educated people, such as university graduates, students, and technicians who became familiar with the movement frame earlier than others as they had to type and copy the movement documents, and compile these samizdat documents. After learning the frames by-heart, these mid-level activists played a significant role in communicating the frames to the third level, the common people, who were the most numerous, and constituted the base of the movement. For this purpose, mid-level activists went from door to door to explain the Crimean Tatar frame and collect signatures under letters that included that frame. These activists were very important as they mediated between the elite and grassroots levels. They did the physical, organizational, secretarial work of the movement, which enabled the common frame to be widely accepted by the population. This work involved the organization of grassroots initiative groups that could encompass the entire population, the mobilization of people through holding regular meetings, going from door to door, convincing people to sign petitions and donate, overseeing the election of representatives to Moscow, copying petitions, and information letters coming from Moscow and updating people on how their donations were being used and the status of the Crimean Tatar question. These activists could also be democratically elected as representatives of their communities to Moscow to deliver petitions signed by members of the Tatar communities and present their case to Soviet authorities. This was perfectly legal both according to Soviet law and under the special provisions of the decision of 1956 (Fisher, 1978, 177). They were the ones generally elected to be rotating representatives to Moscow. The Crimean Tatar representation in Moscow increased from ten to fifteen people in rotation and reached four-hundred by mid-1967 (Uehling, 2004, 146). For each Tatar arrested, the local communities sent three more, and these were threatening to demonstrate in Red Square if necessary (Fisher, 1978, 178). The Crimean Tatar representation became

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permanent after 1964, though in rotation. Therefore, many Crimean Tatars visited Moscow and usually stayed one month, spending their yearly vacation from work. The delegates “regularly published leaflets about their activities in Moscow and disseminated typewritten copies to all major centers of deported Crimean Tatars,” where they were further duplicated and sent to all initiative groups (Rossiiskaia Federatsia protiv Mustafi Jemileva: Omskii Protses , 2003, 13). Cemilev points out that “[T]hese pieces of “Information” from the Crimean Tatar representatives in Moscow became the first “samizdat periodicals in the Soviet Union” (Jemilev, 2005, 13). The information was put together by the representatives of Crimean Tatars in Moscow. From October 1964 to March 1979, 129 issues of “Information” were issued (Seytmuratova, 1997, 179). For frame alignment processes, the mid-level activists also organized initiative group meetings. These initiative groups covered the entire population. Every Crimean Tatar was targeted, thanks to the compact settlement. In the words of Alan Fisher: …between 1962 and 1966… in each Tatar settlement, they organized committees whose aim was to instruct the Tatars about the truth of their past, the facts of life under the German occupation, and the injustices of their deportation and subsequent existence. (Fisher, 1978, 177)

Jemilev also notes that “The task of these groups was to organize regular meetings of compatriots to explain to them the goals and objectives of the national movement, informing them about events connected with the Crimean Tatar issue…” (Jemilev, 2005, 13) Words and phrases such as “Communicating to people the truth about the past,” “injustices,” and “goals and objectives” can be taken as communicating to people the movement frame. Guboglo and Chervonnaya point to the success of frame alignment processes by claiming that the common people among the Crimean Tatars could cite history far better than any other people in the Soviet Union who had institutions to teach national history (Guboglo & Chervonnaya, 1992). Petitioning served frame alignment as well and the Crimean Tatars continued in this manner despite evidence that petitions were ineffective in influencing authorities as they simply ignored them. As activists told me, the internal work was more important for them. They transformed the right to petition authorities into a tool to create and maintain national identity in the totalitarian state. Timur Da˘gcı was one of the writers of

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the petition to the 23rd Party Congress, which had more than 120,000 signatures (virtually the entire adult population). He stated that “when I wrote it, my first purpose was to have 120,000 of our people read it and understand their condition” (interview). This is an attempt to transform and align the frames of 120,000 Crimean Tatars with the frame in the petition. The resonance of this frame increased gradually. A good way of understanding resonance is to compare the number of signatures under the letters since petition writing was the main movement activity in this initial period. The Crimean Tatars petitioned with: 6,000 signatures to the Supreme Soviet in June 1957. 18,000 signatures to the 21st Party Congress in January 1959. 25,000 signatures to the 22nd Party Congress in October 1961 (Fisher, 1978, 176). 120,000 signatures (i.e. virtually the whole adult population) and 14,284 letters to the 23rd Party Congress in March 1966. (Fisher, 1978). Bekirova states that in total the Soviet central government received 53,000 letters and telegrams, many of them with 10, 100, and 1000 signatures (Bekirova, 2004, 112). Uehling and Bekirova note that in total 4 million signatures were collected, suggesting an average of ten signatures per person (Bekirova, 2004; Uehling, 2004). It should be noted that signing a petition in the Soviet Union requires courage unrequired for the same purpose in the democratic West (Guboglo & Chervonnaya, 1992). Cemilev underlines that none of the other national, religious or human rights movements in the Soviet Union were so “massive” (Rossiiskaia Federatsia protiv Mustafi Jemileva: Omskii Protses, 2003, 13). iii. Masses At the third level, there were less educated, mostly blue-collar Crimean Tatars. They were the ones who donated money to representatives in Moscow, supported families of imprisoned activists, signed petitions, and showed up for mass demonstrations. Despite sometimes being uneducated, veterans, war heroes or relatives of deceased war heroes and martyrs were selected to represent the movement in Moscow as they

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enjoyed prestige vis-à-vis the Soviet master frame, and could contribute to the inclusion of the Crimean Tatar frame in the extended Soviet frame. After all, they constituted living proof of Crimean Tatar service to the “fatherland” in the war. It was also harder to arrest or harass them. The third level is the largest and, therefore, very important. As noted above, the frame was communicated to the third level by the second level through information letters, meetings, and petitions, but also through unconventional means such as conversations, weddings, religious rituals, concerts, and newspapers. The individuals at this level contributed to the reproduction of the frame by acting it out in their lives, by story-telling, educating their children at the dinner table, and narrating their memory of Crimea and deportation (Altan, 1998). Previously, I noted the high number of signatures under petitions, but resonance among people can also be understood from monetary donations and regular and widespread initiative group meetings. My conversations with movement participants showed that almost all Crimean Tatars donated money or attended an initiative group meeting at least once. Most reported regular attendance at meetings and frequent donations. Timur Da˘gcı stated that “our national movement was costly, our nation had to spend a lot of money”2 and underlined the lack of corruption in the collection of donations for the full thirty years of mobilization, due to mechanisms of oversight but also the honesty of representatives.3 Assessing participation in mass demonstrations is another way of understanding resonance. Mass demonstrations were legal according to Soviet law though not an accepted practice (Fisher, 1978, 187). On the 27th of August, 1965, more than one thousand Crimean Tatars demonstrated in Bekabad.4 On the 8th of October, 1966, for the 45th year of the establishment of the Crimean ASSR, in several cities of Uzbekistan, meetings were organized, thousands were beaten, and hundreds were arrested over 15 days.5 On the 22nd of April, 1967, in Andijan, Crimean 2 An amount close to $250 was given to each representative for expenses in Moscow. 3 According to Da˘ gcı, there were limits to what representatives could buy in Moscow,

i.e. a box of candy for their children. One representative who bought a sofa when he was in Moscow was publicly shamed, and this action was never repeated. Timur Da˘gcı, Interview by author, 28 April 2006, Simferopol. 4 3 were arrested (Bekirova, 2004, 110). 5 17 were there for longer periods.18 Tatars received two-year sentences (Bekirova,

2004, 110).

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Tatars, including women and children from Andijan and Fergana oblasts, demonstrated in front of Lenin’s statue (Bekirova 2004, 110).6 In the mid-1960s, the Uzbek government complained of frequent meetings in which 100 to 200 people participated (Bekirova, 2004, 111). In 1966– 1967, in Tashkent, Andijan, and Bekabad, during several court processes, 766 activists were called by the police and received warnings (Bekirova 2004, 111). During the Crimean Tatar annual spring festival and celebrations of Lenin’s birthday in Chirchik, on the 21st of April 1967, nearly 300 people were arrested (Bekirova, 2004,126).7 Immediately after the affair on the 17th of May 1967, the massive demonstration of Crimean Tatars in Moscow took place, in which 800 participated. On May 18, 1967 the Crimean Tatars demonstrated in all places of settlement. In terms of intangible evidence, Uehling underlines the significance of widely shared emotions concerning Crimea and the desire to return (Uehling, 2004). In 1967, after another mass concert, Hayırov argued that all had the “national sentiment” even among those who did not participate actively in the national movement (interview) . This evidence points to the highest level of resonance among the Crimean Tatar diasporas. Most diaspora movements, including the Crimean Tatar diasporas (except for the Crimean Tatar diaspora in Romania in the interwar period) were unable to reach this mass level.

3.4

Crimean Tatar Democratic Collective Return Frame

When 400 Crimean Tatar representatives threatened to demonstrate in Red Square in 1967, the Crimean Tatars finally received a promise from top-ranking Soviet officials to bring the issue in front of the Central

6 The women and children were in the front row. The authorities did not allow them to reach the Lenin statue and some were arrested after a fight. Those arrested received 6 months to three years (Bekirova, 2004, 110). 7 Between 30 May and 2 June 1968, the court process of Refat Ismailov, ˙ Re¸sat Alimov, Sadi Abhairov—the Chirchik demonstrators—was held. They were given 3, 2, and a half, and 2 years respectively, and between 18–26 June, the rest of the demonstrators were prosecuted, being accused of organizing a demonstration in Chirchik on 24 March, 7 April, and finally 21 April. In the court, Moscow “human rights advocate” lawyers defended them, giving authorities small trouble (Bekirova, 2004, 126).

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Committee (Fisher, 1978, 178)8 . On September 9, 1967, a decree was published in newspapers where Tatars resided proclaiming that: …accusations of active collaboration of a section of the Tatar residents in the Crimea with the German usurpers were groundlessly leveled at the whole Tatar population of the Crimea. These indiscriminate accusations in respect of all the citizens of Tatar nationality who lived in Crimea must be withdrawn, the more so since a new generation of people has entered on its working and political life…the Tatars formerly living in Crimea have taken root in the territory of Uzbek and other Union republics; enjoy all the rights of the Soviet citizens, take part in public and political life…radio broadcasts are made for them, a newspaper in their language is published, and other cultural measures are taken.9 With the aim of further developing areas with Tatar population, the councils of ministers of Union republics are instructed to continue rendering help and assistance to citizens of Tatar nationality in economic and cultural construction…. (Fisher, 1978, 179)

In relation to the Edict, another decree was issued to explain that …citizens of Tatar nationality who previously resided in Crimea and members of their families have a right, as all citizens of USSR, to live in all territory of the Soviet Union as long as they act within law and …within limitations of the passport regime. (Guboglo & Chervonnaya, 1992, 2, 52)

The decree epitomizes the Soviet framing of the Crimean Tatar question, which was apparent before 1967 but was never clearly articulated as it was here. Moreover, this framing did not change until the Gorbachev period but was modified or bolstered by administrative decrees. The major 8 Interestingly, the Uzbek authorities arrested all 130 of the representatives returning

from Moscow for “organizing mass disorders and resisting authorities”, which demonstrated that the government’s attitude had not changed much, despite promises made to that effect (Fisher, 1978, 178). 9 Other cultural measures refer to a Crimean Tatar dance assembly which was founded in 1957. Unlike other nationalities, the Crimean Tatars were deprived of the right to study in their language at the pre-university or university level. Crimean Tatar newspapers were not permitted to publish any national content and were heavily censored (Rıza Fazıl, Interview with author, 5 May 2006, Simferopol). Maintenance of national culture through these limited cultural rights was near impossible in the Soviet Union of the 1960s and 1970s in which the society is urbanized and with an increasingly dominant Russian language in all spheres of life.

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aspect of the frame is that it aimed to impede collective return by arguing that the Crimean Tatars “have taken root.” The evidence used to support the notion was that “the new generation of the Crimean Tatars grew up, who never lived in Crimea” and involves the assumption that the new generation did not want to return (Bekirova, 2004, 115). Although the related decree argued that the Crimean Tatars could live in any part of the Soviet Union, it became obvious that it never meant a return to Crimea. Cemilev states that after the publication of the 1967 Edict, 10,000s of Crimean Tatars from Uzbekistan arrived in Crimea and strove to register and find jobs in Crimea for several months, suffered under the repression of authorities and had to once again leave the homeland. Hundred of them were deported by force (Rossiiskaia Federatsia protiv Mustafi Jemileva: Omskii Protses, 2003, 62). A passport regime was hastily established in Crimea, and the returning Crimean Tatars were refused registration as residents of Crimea, which was required to obtain a job, to buy a house, and to register children in schools.10 In sum, the only positive outcome attained after ten years of the national movement was the limited exoneration of the Crimean Tatars. The 1967 Edict was a cold shower for the Crimean Tatar movement. What this means is that Crimean Tatar leaders misdiagnosed the master frame, and aligned themselves with the Leninist frame that was not operational. The Soviet frame was still, for the most part, a Stalinist frame. It is also debated whether “Leninism” can be viewed as a type of Soviet ideology fundamentally different to that of Stalinism (Fainsod, 1953). Tucker argues that had Lenin lived longer, very little in the Soviet Union would have changed as the system was fundamentally doomed from the beginning and in its very nature (Tucker, 1999, 78). Certain scholars argued that a complete de-Stalinization would mean the collapse of totalitarianism and would eventually cause the dissolution of the Soviet state. This possibility was foreseen by the Soviet leaders so that they never completely reversed Stalin’s policies, and the state remained Stalinist at its core until glasnost. Indeed, Martin Malia concluded that “communism cannot be reformed” (Malia, 1992, 57). In any case, the 1967 Edict of the regime remained the ultimate document that signifies that 10 On 22 February 1974, and 1978, the regime issued further decrees named “additional measures for strengthening the passport regime in Crimea” to make the registration and resettlement of Crimean Tatars in Crimea almost impossible and to enable re-deportation of those who attempted to return by the police.

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the Crimean Tatar case was not the region that the Soviet Union would have preferred to de-Stalinize. The exoneration of the Crimean Tatars by this decree appeared to be an attempt at the transformation of the Stalinist master frame, however, this was not the case. The innocence of the Crimean Tatars was not communicated to the Soviet people through official venues which “made it very difficult to persuade many non-Tatar Soviet citizens of the justness of their cause” (Fisher, 1978, 180) and limited the possibility of frame alignment with the by-standers. The Crimean Tatars continued to be accused in the press, on the radio, in school curricula, literature, historical articles, and official documents, demonstrating that the government still wished to endorse the Stalinist master frame regarding the Crimean Tatars. Let alone recognizing the Crimean Tatar frame, the regime continued to counter-frame against it. The Soviet regime confirmed the “nonexistence” of the Crimean Tatar nation by not using their ethnonym “Crimean Tatar” and referring to them as “Tatars formerly living in Crimea,” “Tatar residents in Crimea,” and “citizens of Tatar nationality who lived in Crimea.” Referring to them as Tatars denied them a separate nationality as there were many other Tatars in the Soviet Union (Volga Tatars, Astrakhan Tatars, Siberian Tatars, and so on). This automatically removed many of the demands tied to national identity, i.e., collective return to the homeland, national autonomy, national-cultural rights, and an end to discrimination (Seytmuratova, 1997, 165). In other words, “[T]here could be no need to return to Crimea- a people without nationality has no homeland to which to return” (Fisher, 1978, 180).11 The regime continued to counter-frame against the Crimean Tatars in its supplementary documents to the 1967 Edict. The regime argued that the “Crimean ASSR” was not intended as a “Crimean Tatar ASSR” as was obvious in its name. The republic was never intended to be “nationally” autonomous but rather regionally autonomous. After all, the Russians were more populous than the Crimean Tatars in Crimea (Bekirova, 2004, 114). However, this was the same case for half of the autonomous republics or regions in the USSR due to Russian/Slavic colonization in the previous and contemporary periods.

11 The mention of language meant the language spoken and read by the Tatars in general in the Soviet Union, not only that of the Crimean Tatars (Fisher, 1978, 180).

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Ultimately, the regime relied on the excuse that even if the deportation was a mistake it was too late to redress it. Crimea was already populated by Russians and Ukrainians, argued the regime, and any further large movement of people into the Crimea would only disrupt the normal living of the local population. The claim that the Crimea was over-populated contradicted the fact that continuous invitations of the labor force in Crimea were published in Soviet newspapers (Bekirova, 2004, 115). In reality, a secret document of the time reveals that according to the authorities, Crimea is an important strategic region as it is the strongest sea base in the country as well as a border zone and health resort (Bekirova, 2004, 141–142). Evidence that the regime engaged in master frame alignment among the Crimean Tatar people is found in many internal administrative documents of the regime, such as the policy of “improving ideological work among citizens of Tatar nationality, especially youth …strengthening of legal propaganda and preventive-preemptive measures with the aim of inadmissible instigator activities of Crimean Tatar ‘autonomists’ among the Tatar population” (Badzan et al., 2004, 13). The Exhibit 3.2 shows the structure of the Soviet frame, epitomized in the 1967 Edict. Exhibit 3.2: The Soviet regime frame concerning the Crimean Tatar question • Although some of the Crimean Tatars truly betrayed the fatherland, the deportation of all Tatars from Crimea was a punishment out of proportion and realized under the cult of personality of Stalin, thus has nothing to do with the Communist Party. • The majority of the deported people died and their children do not have to return since they grew up in exiled places, became prospering citizens and enjoy their cultural rights. • “Tatars” cannot be regarded as indigenous to Crimea, as their ancestors settled in the peninsula as invaders. The Crimean ASSR was not a national autonomy, therefore, the Crimean Tatars formerly residents in Crimea were not deprived of their national state or anything else. • The return of the Crimean Tatars to Crimea will not be expedient for the economy, population density, and inter-ethnic peace.

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The 1967 decree rehabilitated the Crimean Tatars in theory but was meaningless in terms of reinstituting justice without removal of consequences of this unjust accusation, i.e., collective return, restoration of national autonomy, or the end of discrimination through the widespread publication of this decree across the Soviet Union (Fisher, 1978, 180). In the words of Crimean Tatars, the edict of 5 September 1967 granted “freedom to the dead and eternal exile to the living” (Seytmuratova, 1997, 165). The 1967 edict showed the Crimean Tatar movement until 1967, unfortunately, has very limited success in terms of meeting its goals. Moreover, it led to a strong counter-framing effort to oust the Crimean Tatar movement. The actions of the regime, such as the brutal suppression of Chirchik and Moscow protests, supported the idea that the regime increasingly took an oppositional stance against the Crimean Tatars, not enabling them to use legal methods to defend their case. The inflexibility of the master frame and inability of the Crimean Tatars to attain their goals did not end their movement. After all, “even the small positive outcome (symbolic exoneration of the Crimean Tatars) attained was due to their demands and not due to self-criticism by the state” (Fisher, 1978, 181). But the inability to attain satisfactory outcomes gave way to strengthened internal criticism. Frame contests within the movement accelerated, and a new generation of activists who were either children during the deportation or born in the special settlement regime, began to fashion the Crimean Tatar issue differently. The frame transformation among the young generation appears to have taken place at various exile locations between 1960 and 1967. In the first court process against the Crimean Tatars, students were prosecuted for preparing letters in a language quite different from the pleading Leninist frame. To communists: We have been patient and waited long enough…How long more can our insulting condition continue. In the 20th century, this constitutes barbarism…We realized that your purpose is our nation’s dissolution in the midst of other nations…. We demand our nation to be recognized and to be permitted to return to the homeland. Crimea is our homeland and sooner or later you will recognize that. We have one purpose today: Homeland or Death… (The Union of Crimean Youth). (Bekirova, 2004, 86, 87)

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Changes to the frame are evident in the future leader Ay¸se Seytmurova’s behavior in 1964. She joined the Crimean Tatar delegation to Moscow when she was a university student. In the office of the Soviet official, the delegation voiced concerns regarding discrimination against the Crimean Tatars. The Soviet bureaucrats, in attempting to silence the delegation, requested the names of those who had discriminated against the Crimean Tatar people. To this request, Seytmuratova stood up from the remote corner she was listening to the conversation and said: “Write down that it is the Soviet government who discriminates against us.” During my interview, Seytmuratova expressed how startled both the bureaucrats and Crimean Tatar delegates were, who were from the older generation and aligned with the previous pleading frame. Seytmuratova said, “Nobody could dare to accuse the Soviet government before.” The Soviet bureaucrat was speechless and could only ask for her name (Uehling, 2004). Having been expelled from the university as a result of this action, Seytmuratova (1997, 162) “became actively involved in the national movement in Samarkand” (Seytmuratova 1997, 162). She states: “I went from house to house talking to the Crimean Tatars about our right to return to homeland…I held meetings…I explained the constitutional right of all people to have schools in their native language and their press as well as the right to a national culture…” (Seytmuratova, 1997, 162). Rather than pleading, Seytmuratova became a Crimean Tatar who demanded her rights. She counter-framed rather than attempted a master frame extension. She described her frame debates with the regime officials in the course of her interrogations as such: “The bottom line was that their reasoning was on a lower level than mine” (interview) In her conversation with Greta Uehling, Ay¸se Seytmuratova narrates that she beat, pounded the authorities to let her out and the Central Committee was “humbled” under her pressure and had to follow the law and let her emigrate from the Soviet Union (Uehling, 2004, 144). A clear expression of confrontation with the regime reflecting a new frame was heard from Mustafa Cemilev who was tried for rejecting military service in Tashkent on May 1st, 1966. He took an oppositional stance after his culture-oriented Union of Crimean Youth, which acted strictly within legal boundaries, was harshly suppressed by the authorities. In the court, Cemilev openly equated the deportation with the Nazi genocide and refused to serve in the military of a state which had committed genocide against its own people (Guboglo & Chervonnaya, 1992).

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Frame transformation was not limited to prominent activists. According to Bekirova the brutal repression of the Chirchik and Moscow demonstrations of April–May 1967 displayed an entirely different relationship between Crimean Tatars and the authorities, breaking the illusion of a peaceful solution to the Crimean Tatar problem (Bekirova, 2004, 127–128). The interlocutor of Uehling who was a demonstrator in Chirchik argued that this was a galvanizing moment which clearly demonstrated that the politics of the Soviet state did not match its rhetoric (Uehling, 2004, 161). According to the Soviet dissident General Pyotr Grigorenko, more people crossed over to the opposition after the spring of 1967 (Bekirova, 2004, 128). Cemilev who later became the leader of the Crimean Tatar movement criticized the previous frame of Crimean Tatar communists as such: To justify the deportation of the Crimean Tatars, Soviet propaganda, of course, asserted that an overwhelming majority of the Crimean Tatars collaborated with the Nazis and betrayed their “Soviet motherland”. The Crimean Tatars, who were participants in the war and partisan movements, and some of whom had been activists of the nationalist movement during its initial period, tried to prove the contrary… They fell into the other extreme, asserting that, with the exception of an insignificant number of “traitors to the people,” almost all Crimean Tatars remained faithful to the “Soviet motherland”…the situation was not that simple…doubtless, some Crimean Tatars who were not sufficiently informed about the essence of German fascism entertained hopes, for a time, of deliverance from the hated Bolshevik regime which had brought so much suffering to their people within a short period of time…However, very soon…most of the Crimean Tatars came to realize that in principle there was no difference between German fascism and Russian Bolshevism…Therefore, most of the Crimean Tatars viewed the “Great Patriotic War” as no more than a skirmish between two villains, neither of which promised any kindness or relief. (Jemilev, 2005, 56–57)

In his account of the Crimean Tatar movement, Cemilev does not aim to be consistent with the Soviet master frame or extend it to include the issue of return. In fact, he rejected Soviet terms such as “Soviet fatherland” or “betrayal.” Proving how many Crimean Tatars were loyal to the Soviet authorities was of little interest to him. Loyalty to his homeland is “amplified” as the most significant value (frame amplification). The move for national independence when opportunity permits as the

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Crimean Tatar nationalists had done is interpreted as the correct action to take. After all, the Crimean Tatars did not willingly join the Soviet Union and suffered enormously under the communist rule. According to Jemilev, the “Crimean Tatar national liberation movement…goes back to the period when the Crimean Khanate was liquidated and its territory was annexed by the Russian Empire in April 1783” (Jemilev, 2005, 50). Thus, he casts the issue not as one of misunderstanding between the Soviet government and the Crimean Tatars, but a continuation of an age-old struggle between the Crimean Tatars and Russia, two equal enemies. For the old generation, the state is largely benevolent but ignorant when taking action (Uehling, 2004, 140–141). According to the new frame, the state is the principal opponent. Cemilev explained the frame transformation process in which he took part: Soon after 1965, a more radical wing began to split off and take the lead in the Crimean Tatar national movement. This wing opted for a different strategy and attitude toward the prospect of restoring people’s rights…the understanding matured that a just solution of the problem could only be seriously expected under complete substitution of the Soviet totalitarian system with a democracy (which remained highly unlikely in the foreseeable future) or at least, transformation of the regime in a more democratic direction. This concept dictated the necessity of uniting the Crimean Tatar national movement with all other national-democratic, religious, human rights movements in the USSR that opposed the regime. The appeals, informational bulletins, and other documents of the more radical wing were addressed primarily not to state officials but to broader society, including the international community…As a rule documents were redirected to the West through Moscow dissidents and foreign journalists and then “returned” to the USSR through the powerful transmitters of the radio stations …over the entire territory of the country. Obviously this was a most painful blow to a regime that spent huge amounts of money annually for propaganda both inside the country and abroad to create an attractive image [Italics mine]. (Jemilev 2005, 59–60)

According to Cemilev, prominent dissident General Pyotr Grigorenko’s speech (see Appendix A), which was copied thousands of times and distributed among the Crimean Tatars to be recited in meetings contributed greatly to the “radicalization” of the movement. If a copy was found on a person they could face arrest (Kırımo˘glu[Jemilev], 1993, 5). Grigorenko stated:

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…You were formerly subjected to repressions as Crimean Tatars, but, since, the “political rehabilitation,” [1967 Edict] it seems that there is not such nation. The nation disappeared but discrimination remains…you underestimate your enemy. You think that you are dealing only with honest people. This is not so…you address yourselves to the leadership of the party with meekly written pleas, which pass through the hands of those who are against your struggle for national equality…as long as you request…your case is not moving forward…what is prescribed by law should not be requested, it should be demanded! (Fisher, 1978, 195)

Mustafa Cemilev states, “He advised for changing our strategy and tactic totally…Of course before his talk, there were radicals among us. … But after we met Pyotr Grigorenko and other dissidents, it is definite that the radicals began to dominate the movement” (Kırımo˘glu [Cemilev], 1993, 5). The newly transformed Crimean Tatar frame did not attempt for a master frame extension, i.e., extending the present Soviet communism frame to include the Crimean Tatar view. Instead of appealing to the authorities, they appealed to bystanders, such as the Soviet public, and international society as well as other dissident movements. The information bulletins were transmitted beyond the community and were published as samizdat or smuggled to be published outside the country as tamizdat . Mass demonstrations became the main movement tactic. These activities were harshly repressed by the state through house-searches, appropriation of documents, arrests, trials, and penalties. The Crimean Tatars and other dissidents “did not plead guilty” and “turned the trials… into political demonstrations” (Reddaway, 1998, 228). Their testimonies were published by samizdat and tamizdat , which forcefully counterframed against the regime. The interrogations and court proceedings against the activists were “a battle of words” between the Crimean Tatars and the representatives of the regime. Here is one example of the battle of frames: The Crimean Tatar activists in Tashkent in 1969 claimed that the deportation constituted a genocide based on the statistics they conducted and asserted that between 1944 and 1945, 46% of the Crimean Tatars had died. The Soviet prosecutors, however, argued that according to the Uzbekistan National Security Committee registers only 26,781 Crimean Tatars died in the first two years, which corresponds to less than 20% of the Crimean Tatars at that

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time. Rollan Kadiyev, however, argued that even this lower “20%” is sufficient for the case to constitute “genocide” (Özcan, 2002, 162). There are several examples of how show-trials were appropriated by Crimean Tatars to counter-frame against the Soviet ideology. Rollan Kadiyev, one of the ten Crimean Tatars tried in the famous Tashkent Trial in 1969, in his own defense, after paraphrasing the criticisms in the Soviet press of the treatment of the Xinkian Uighurs by the PRC, pointed out the hypocrisy of the regime as it had been doing the same to the Crimean Tatars. Consequently, he stated, “I accepted as my duty to bring consciousness of each Crimean Tatar that the political actions towards our people constitute genocide and discrimination” (Tashkentskii Protses , 1976, 593), for “the Soviet government, starting from 1944, consistently followed this assimilation politics” (Tashkentskii Protses , 1976, 593). He criticized the state policies: “Haven’t we gotten kicked out of our homeland? … Does even one Crimean Tatar work in the police force, in the KGB, as a procurator? Is there a Crimean Tatar judge? Haven’t they stirred the other peoples against us? …Do the Soviet people know that criminal charges of betrayal are removed from me?” (Tashkentskii Protses 1976, 595).…I wonder if my people have history written so that we could learn about our past. Didn’t they burn our books after deportation? They burned them! The books do not exist anymore! …Haven’t all our monuments and relics been destroyed? We appealed to competent organs to stop that barbarism, but this became one of the reasons we sit in this chair in trial…In Simferopol, in the city center, there is a monument of a tank, which entered the city first. Until unification with Ukraine, on this tank was written the name of the driver of the tank- Hero of the Soviet Union Abdulla Tevfik [a Crimean Tatar]. Today they erased that name from the monument…When the guides were Ied who the driver of this tank was, they answered Petrenko, another time Arkhinenko, and a third time another surname. This is a living falsification of history. …Don’t they continue the massive settlement of Russians and Ukrainians in Crimea until this very day? This is exactly one of the clearest demonstrations of assimilation conducted towards us…so that later they will tell us these settlers already laid roots, and we’d better leave Crimea to new settlers”. (Tashkentskii Protses , 1976, 596–597)

Similarly, in both of his trials, another prominent young leader, Yuri Osmanov, made the case that Soviet political actions against the Crimean

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Tatars constituted genocide (Asanin, 2001, 371, 373) and was therefore sentenced first to hard labor and, later imprisoned in a psychiatric institution. In his own trial, Mustafa Cemilev continued to counter-frame, exposing the inconsistencies of the Soviet frame: “If until that time the Crimean Tatars had equal rights, one must ask, why was the Edict of 1967 necessary then?” (Rossiiskaia Federatsia protiv Mustafi Jemileva: Omskii Protsess, 2003, 61) He continues: Despite, it is well-known that the Crimean Tatars, who previously resided in Crimea have equal rights as other people… in the document [he prepared] …I propose that the court conduct a legal investigation… Whether the Crimean Tatars have the same rights as other nations to register and get employment in Crimea or do they face discrimination due to their nationality?” (Rossiiskaia Federatsia protiv Mustafi Jemileva: Omskii Protses 2003, 63)… One of the accusations concerns that… [I argued that] the young generations of Crimean Tatars do not have possibility to learn their own language, their own culture…. Since the moment of the deportation of the Crimean Tatars, for the last thirty years, there has not been one school teaching the Crimean Tatar language. How can we talk about learning national culture if one does not know one’s own language? (Rossiiskaia Federatsia protiv Mustafi Jemileva: Omskii Protses, 2003, 65)

Counter-framing persisted in the trial of Mustafa Cemilev and Ilya Gabay, a Jewish defendant of the rights of the Crimean Tatars, published under the title Shest Dnei (“Six Days”). Ilya Gabay pointed to the continuing physical and emotional repression of the Crimean Tatars and the violation of their human rights, stating, “I am happy to share a role in the just struggle of the Crimean Tatars against the Soviet government” (Özcan, 2002, 162). Cemilev had been arrested after he joined the protest against the invasion of Czechoslovakia and his trial was linked with that of Ilya Gabai. In response to the question of whether he had been tried before, Cemilev answered: “Yes I was tried twice before. Once in …1966…and the other time was on 18 May 1944, when I was six months old, when I was deported from my homeland being accused of “betraying the fatherland”… (Shest Dnei, 1980). Although some of the young leaders of the Crimean Tatars used the words “Soviet,” “communist,” or “Lenin” these were for subversive purposes and were not used in the same way that the elders did. Viewing

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the regime not as a neutral target to be convinced but as an opponent who must be held accountable is evident in Re¸sat Jemilev’s letter to the KGB: …Who, after all, in the given instance is the violator of the Soviet law? He who is pointing at the violations and asking them to be intercepted or they who have committed the named violations, who stubbornly refuse to investigate the given fact pertaining to the violation of the law? (cf. Uehling, 2004, 145)

Izzet Hayırov’s testimony in the Tashkent Trial is illustrative of how the new generation subverted the meaning of communism: I have been a communist since 1962. For me, there was never a question about whether to join the national movement or not. The government, by deporting 14 nationalities from its territories, disrupted the Soviet laws and neglected its international responsibilities for the protection of the rights of national minorities. The Crimean Tatar national movement for obtaining rights is legal and substantiated. The goals of directing the movement are legal and do not conflict with the program and the statutes of the party. As a communist, I accept it as my duty to take the most active part in this movement. When asked who the “communist-Crimean Tatars” ought to be with, the chairman of the KGB, Andropov, accepting the representatives in Moscow in July 1967, recognized that communists of the Crimean Tatar nation ought to be with their own people. (Tashkentskii Protses , 1976, 397)

Similarly, korenizatsiia, an originally Leninist concept, was utilized to demonstrate that Lenin accepted that the Crimean Tatars are indigenous people (korenniy narod) of Crimea, due to their historical connections to the land. Accordingly, the claims to national sovereignty on Crimea could be substantiated by its korenniy status. ˙ Ismail Kerimov, a Crimean Tatar academician who was born in Uzbekistan explains the claim to bourgeoning claim to indigeneity: Our tragedy is that we lost our roots. Our thousand-year-traditions, historical manuscripts were lost…they destroyed our cemeteries, villages…In Ba˘gçasaray, there were many who continued to teach handicrafts within family over generations. Those ceased to teach the traditional handicrafts…there were those who looked after wells, who knew and controlled the groundwater ways. The wells are all lost…(Crimea now gets its water from Dnieper river)… There were 48 varieties of apples, fruit, and grapes. In the

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nineteenth century, the Crimean Tatars received medals in the Paris fair for their apples… It was the tradition of our forefathers to clean the fortress, take out the dry branches. Now it is hard to trek in Crimean mountains or fortresses. They were not looked after at all following the deportation of Tatars… Our forefathers were living in harmony with nature…It was difficult to maintain traditions in Uzbekistan. Most of them are lost. (interview)

The new Crimean Tatar frame aligned with an alternative master frame: democracy and human rights. The Crimean Tatars often quote the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Tashkentskii Protses , 1976, 328, 332). In the previous frame, the right to national sovereignty was justified under Soviet law, particularly Lenin’s policies and actions. The new frame did not recognize Lenin as the reference point. Universal principles of liberty, equality, democracy and human rights emerged as new justifications for a claim to national sovereignty in Crimea. These are the final words of Mustafa Cemilev in his trial in Tashkent on 19 January 1970: Signing this or that document which demands just resolution of the Crimean Tatar national question, protesting the violation of human rights, and criticizing actions of the government- I of course wholly took part in these sort of activities for which I can be arrested again, and my freedom can be limited for a longer period…The prosecutor aimed to demonstrate that …we discredit our country. But, I hope, people understand rightly who damages our country: those who engage in arbitrary rule and unlawfulness, or those in the name of all protest for the end of unlawfulness…I hope the government will understand meaninglessness…of fighting with opinions of people through these court interactions and will understand that the Crimean Tatar question can only be resolved by granting the demands of the people, not by repressing the activists of the national movement… [A]s a sign of protest against the brutal repression of the Crimean Tatar people…and against the violation of their right to… the homeland, and as a sign of protest against the violation of human rights in our country, I announce thirty days of hunger strike… hoping that this would “awaken the consciousness” of people…Homeland or Death! Long live freedom! (Shest Dnei, 1980, 368–371)

The transformed democratic frame is demonstrated in Exhibit 3.3:

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Exhibit 3.3: Crimean Tatar democratic collective return frame (The second exile nationalism frame in the USSR) • The deportation of Crimean Tatar was deliberate to destroy the Crimean Tatars as a nation, and the “betrayal to the fatherland” was used as justification for it. • The deportation is the last link in the chain of historical events through which Russia aimed to de-Tatarize Crimea and transform it into Slavic territory. The Soviet state demonstrates continuity with Russian colonial and imperialistic policies, not only towards the Crimean Tatars but also to all non-Russian nationalities. • The solution to the Crimean Tatar question is the collective return to the homeland, compact settlement in the southern and central regions of Crimea, where the Crimean Tatars had resided before, reestablishment of national autonomy, and compensation for property lost. • The collective return and re-establishment of national autonomy require democratization of the Soviet Union by the dismantling not only of Stalinism but the whole totalitarian system of communism. • The Crimean Tatars are the indigenous (korenniy) population of Crimea and have no other homeland.

3.4.1

Frame-Bridging with the Democracy and Human Rights Movement in the USSR

The Crimean Tatar movement bridged frames with the dissident and democracy movements in the USSR. The transformed democratic frame was transferred to the United States through the extradition of Ay¸se Seytmuratova. The extradition of Seytmuratova led to wider recognition of the Crimean question to the Crimean Tatar diaspora communities outside the Soviet Union (see Chapter 6). The transformation of the Crimean Tatars’ frame, its alignment with the democracy master frame and frame-bridging with the human rights and democracy movement in the USSR re-defined the “political field” in the sense that, in addition to the Crimean Tatar people and the Soviet government, other movements and by-standers such as the Soviet public, international society, and foreign governments also became part of the new framing processes. Ay¸se Seytmuratova argues that “We…were accused of treason against the motherland, and we needed fact, not only to rectify slander of the Soviet government but also to demonstrate to the peoples of the Soviet Union

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the hostility of authorities toward a relatively small group of people” (Seytmuratova, 1997, 158). Thus, Seytmuratova visited schools and hung up clippings about Crimean Tatar heroes, partisans, and war heroes in the classroom, and, in this way, “not only the Crimean Tatar children were made aware of the heroism of Crimean Tatars during the Second World War but also children of other nationalities” (Seytmuratova, 1997, 163). Grigorenko also points out that in the post-1967 Edict years, the Crimean Tatars learned how to rally international support. In 1969, the Crimean Tatars staged the first public demonstration in a Moscow square (Reddaway, 1998, 228). In their appeal to the wider world (in 1969), the representatives of the Crimean Tatars proclaim the following: Spreading the rumors about us that we want to return to Crimea in order to push out those who now live there - that is not true. We are a peaceful nation and have always lived and will live in friendship with the multi-national population of Crimea. We do not threaten anybody- they continuously make threats of our national dissolution …What they do to us has an entirely definite name- genocide. In the period of our struggle, it has been collected 3 million signatures under the letters sent by our people to the Soviet government… Not even one party-government organ even once replied to our letters…That is why we are applying to the world public…. (Signed by Z. AsanovIR. Kadiyev, R. Bayramov, M. Voennyi, Z. Halilova, M. Ibrish, E. Shabanov, A. Bekirova, R. Muratov) (Badzan et al., 2004)

It was a group of young Crimean Tatar leaders, including Re¸sat Jemilev, who decided to organizationally link their movement to the dissidents. “To relate their movement to the more general ‘democratic’ and ‘struggle for human rights’ movements among the Soviet intelligentsia” (Fisher, 1978, 194), they mailed letters to Moscow members of the Writers’ Union. They received a sympathetic response from Aleksei Kosterin, who proceeded to connect the Crimean Tatars with the incipient human rights movement. According to Bekirova, Cemilev and other dissidents met in such a way: In the spring of 1968, when Re¸sat Cemilev attempted to settle Crimea without success, he met dissidents General Petro Grigorenko, Pavel Litvinov, and Piotr Yakir (Bekirova, 2004). On 25 August 1968, with the request of Grigorenko, he was invited to present their case in one of the meetings of the defenders of human rights in the Soviet Union. As a result, several important dissident leaders, such as Kosterin and Grigorenko, “adopted the Tatar cause as their own” (Fisher,

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1978, 194). In his letter written in February 1968, Kosterin points to a “policy of genocide towards a series of small nations,” particularly the Volga Germans and the Crimean Tatars (Fisher, 1978, 194). This is another letter addressed to the Presidium of the Consultative Conference of Communist Parties in Budapest (24 February 1968): In recent years in our country, there has been a series of political trials…trials that were conducted with hard breach of legality, most importantly openness… in the labors and prisons thousands of political prisoners of whom almost nobody knows anything… In the same manner, we draw your attention to the fact of discrimination of small nations and political persecution of the individuals who fight for national equality, which especially clearly reveals itself on the question of Crimean Tatars…We apply for the participants of this consultative meeting to measure this danger which gives way to flouting of human rights in our country…. (signed by A. Kosterin, L. Bogoraz, P. Litvinov, Z. Asanova, Petr Yakir, V. Krasin, I. Gabay, B. Shragin, Levitin-Krasnov, Y. Kim, Y. Glazov, P. Grigorenko) (Badzan et al., 2004)

Apart from these signatories, A. Sakharov, Y. Bonner, Franko, Lisenko, Volpin, S. Pisarev, A. Soljenitsin, A. Marchenko, Y. Orlov, M. Budenko, and I. Kandiba publicized the Crimean Tatars’ plight in the West, and in the Soviet Union (Fisher, 1978, 194; Kırımo˘glu [Cemilev], 1993, 10) sent several appeals to the UN and other international bodies, as well as the Soviet government (Fisher, 1978, 194; Guboglo & Chervonnaya, 1992). Thanks to the democracy and human rights movement in the USSR, the Crimean Tatar movement became more visible across the world. In the words of Grigorenko, the Crimean Tatar movement was known to the world after the Chirchik demonstration. The day after a telegram on the event was sent to Grigorenko, he communicated the matter to foreign correspondents in a press conference held in Kosterin’s apartment (Bekirova, 2004, 127; Guboglo & Chervonnaya, 1992). Khronika Tekushchikh Sobytii (The Chronicle of Current Affairs), the main samizdat periodical in the Soviet Union, published by the dissidents, in its first issue (1968), already published an article on the Crimean Tatar demands, furthermore devoted a special issue on Crimean Tatars in 1973. In 1976, the Moscow “Helsinki Group” which monitored Soviet observance of human rights compiled detailed reports on the Crimean Tatars’ situation and delivered them to representatives of 35 signatory governments

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(Alexeeva, 1985, 17). This was significant in a time when the Crimean Tatars were heavily repressed (Bekirova, 2004, 188; Guboglo & Chervonnaya, 1992, 108). These examples of human rights abuses to Soviet citizens were useful for the dissidents to make their case concerning the poor human rights record of the Soviet Union. They served to shatter the Soviet master frame in a piecemeal process. After connecting with the dissident movement, the Crimean Tatar political trials could be used to propagate their frame in the international community through publishing of court records by tamizdat . This was originally a strategy of the dissident movement. For the first time in 1965, the dissidents compiled a record of the Daniel-Sinyavski trial (Kenez, 2006, 226), distributed it among themselves, and even sent it to authorities. Dissidents then took risks to maintain contacts with foreign journalists, so that their activities and the court processes against them would be broadcast through Western media to the Soviet people (Kenez, 2006, 226). One of the most prominent trials of the Crimean Tatar leaders was that of the “Tashkent Ten” between 1 July and 5 August 1969. The “Tashkent Ten” included prominent leaders Rollan Kadiyev, ˙ Ismail Yazıcıyev, Re¸sat Bayramov, Rıdvan Gafarov, and Izzet Khairov. Pyotr Grigorenko applied to defend them in the court, and the Crimean Tatars collected more than 3000 signatures for him to become their attorney. When he arrived in Tashkent, Grigorenko was arrested, and the dissidents were forced to find new lawyers. Grigorenko’s arrest and the court records published by Herzen Foundation in Amsterdam under the title, Tashkentskii Protsess (Tashkent Trial) further increased the publicity of the trial.12 12 The court records were generally recorded by hand by Crimean Tatars who were family members and so permitted to attend the trials. Cemilev received Nansen Refugee prize (1998) and Lech Walesa Solidarity Prize (2014) for his non-violent struggle for the return of the Crimean Tatars. He was the Head of Crimean Tatar National Parliament (Mejlis) until 2013. See on Mustafa Cemilev: Bekirova, G. (2019). Mustafa. Put Lidera. Ukraine Information Politics Ministry; Musaeva, S., & Aliev, A. (2017). Mustafa Cemilev, Nezlamnıy. Harkiv; Tiefenböck, O. (2017). Mustafa Jemilev og Krims Forfulgte. Mr. East Forlag; Semena, M. (2010). Mustafa Cemilev: Lyudina, Yaka Peremogla Stalinizm…. ; Chervonnaya, S. (2003). Mustafa – Sın Krıma. Ocak; Mert, H. (2000). Mustafa Abdül˙ cemil Kırımo˘glu, Bir Insan Hakları Savunucusu. Bilgi Yayınları; Alexeyeva, L. (1998). Mustafa Jemiloglu, His Character and Convictions. In E. A. Allworth (Ed.), The Tatars of Crimea: Return to the Homeland (pp. 206–225).Duke University Press; Seytmuratova, A. (1986). Mustafa Dzhemilev and the Crimean Tatars: Story of a Man and his People. Center for Democracy.

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The Soviet dissidents became influential in propagating the future Crimean Tatar leader Mustafa Jemilev’s struggle to the world. Cemilev was sentenced to three years of hard labor after being tried in 1966 (for rejecting military service), and 1970 (with Ilya Gabai, published as samizdat under the title of Shest Dnei [1980]). Before his term ended in 1974, he was again tried and sentenced to a further year under another pretext. Again, when nearing the end of his second period of labor, he was sentenced again, this time through a false witness. As a response, Cemilev declared a hunger strike that turned out to be one of the longest hunger strikes in the world reaching to 303 days and in which he fell to 30 kg in weight. Consequently, Andrei Sakharov, the Nobel Prizewinning physicist, and Grigorenko appealed to the world and UN General Secretary, and even “pleaded” to the Soviet authorities to spare Jemilev’s life. Levitin-Krasnov appealed to the Muslim world. He was forced to end his hunger strike while the Soviet government tried him once again in Omsk in 1976, and sentenced him to two and a half years in a labor camp. Sakharov and his wife managed to attend the trial but were harassed by the KGB. The harassment of the Nobel Laureate and his wife attracted the attention of the West and details of the trial were published in tamizdat as Rossiiskaia Federatsia protiv Mustafi Jemileva: Omskii Protses (Russian Federation vs. Mustafa Jemilev: Omsk Trial). When Cemilev was finally released, he was placed under house arrest in Tashkent and later exiled to Yakutistan. When he tried to return to Crimea he was again placed under house arrest in Yangiyul. In 1979, he petitioned to relinquish his Soviet citizenship. Cemilev was arrested again in November 1983 and sentenced to three years in a hard labor camp in Magadan for slandering Soviet internal and external politics, antiSoviet behavior, and publishing a protest against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. He was sentenced for a further three years when close to completing his previous term. Due to the publicity his case had attracted, in the first Gorbachev-Reagan summit in Reykjavik, Cemilev was one of the five human rights defenders in prison, whom Reagan asked to be released. As a result of frame-bridging with the democracy and human rights movements, a significant aspect of the transformed Crimean Tatar frame became anti-totalitarianism and advocacy for the democratization of the Soviet Union. On 20 May 1969, the Crimean Tatars wrote the first letter of the Crimean Tatar initiative groups on human rights in the USSR. Mustafa Cemilev joined the first formal Initiative Group for the Defense

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of Civil Rights in the Soviet Union as one of fifteen members (Reddaway, 1998, 228). Re¸sat Cemilev and Mustafa Cemilev were later among the eight people who protested the invasion of Czechoslovakia in Red Square, and this was included among Mustafa Jemilev’s list of “crimes against the Soviet state” in his 1970 trial (Shest Dnei, 1980). The Crimean Tatar diaspora, especially the Crimea Foundation of Mehmet Sevdiyar and Fikret Yurter in New York contributed to the publicity of the case of the Crimean Tatars and Mustafa Jemilev, through their publications, lobbying, and mass protests. The extradition of Ay¸se Seytmuratova to the United States brought information about co-ethnics and their struggle to the Crimean Tatar diaspora communities outside the Soviet Union (Altan, 2001; Aydın, 2000) (see Chapter 6). 3.4.2

Resonance of the Transformed Frame

The decline of support for the Leninist Crimean Tatar frame can be deduced from the decline of the number of signatures under the petitions. While more than 120,000 signatures were sent to the 23rd Congress of the Soviet Union, only 60,000 signatures were sent to the 24th, 20,000 to the 25th and only 4,000 to the 26th. Instead, most Crimean Tatars focused their energies on attempting to return to Crimea and resettle in defiance of the authorities. As explained above, the young generation of Crimean Tatars emerged as the leadership stratum, propagating a transformed frame. In this first level of frame designing, there was Re¸sat Jemilev, Ay¸se Seytmuratova, Rollan Kadiyev, and Mustafa Jemilev. The proponents of the transformed Crimean Tatar frame did not make a closed clique. Many of them often consulted with the communist elders and shielded them from government aggression by assuming responsibility for nationalist acts. The elders sustained the first frame, which Uehling described as “a concern with continued Leninist nationalities policy” in the Crimean Tatar movement (Uehling, 2004, 141). Timur Da˘gcı, who contributed to the creation of the first Crimean Tatar frame, stated that: … if we joined with Mustafa and Re¸sat, we would all be against the government…Our hearts were always with them, but to their face, we said ‘don’t behave this way’. The Soviet government also profiled us as ‘the Crimean

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Tatars who had a favorable opinion of the state’ and them as ‘the opponents of the government’. It was obvious that they wanted to destroy the regime. Our purpose was different although we also did not like the government. We said, “don’t get us into trouble, don’t spoil our plan”. In the end, Mustafa and Re¸sat did good things and contributed a lot. When Perestroika came, it became possible to work together. (interview)

There was not, however, always unanimity in everything (interview). Mustafa Jemilev, Ay¸se Seytmuratova, Eldar Sabanov, ¸ and Re¸sat Cemilev were close to human rights defenders in the Soviet Union. Refat Gocenov had a more flexible relationship with the government. Yuriy Osmanov adapted the idea of the fulfillment of historical injustice within the framework of Lenin’s national politics and Lenin’s autonomy (Bekirova, 2004, 161). After all, individual frames are never completely identical. The difference between a frame and a formal organization is that a frame provides general guidelines for behavior but has little control over individual behavior in the way that a formal organization has. Although the strategies differed, all leaders were able to agree upon the basic points in their common frame, such as return, sovereignty, and human rights. What about the resonance of this frame at the grassroots level? I present an example of an ordinary Crimean Tatar appealing to bystander targets for frame alignment. As we learn from KGB records, in 1966, M. Osmanov wrote a letter, to the well-known Soviet writer B. AntonenkoDavidovich, in which he said: …What did I get from life? What awaits my children? I have three sons. My children often come from school crying because they are called “traitors”. 22 years passed, and we are still traitors. Where are Lenin’s politics? And why did they talk about national rights in the 20th Congress? Dear Boris Dmitrievich, can you as a writer explain [me] anything about that? I heard how just and progressive a writer you are and that is why I am writing to you…. (cf. Badzan et al., 2004, 115)

Although M. Osmanov still refers to the old Leninist frame, he, at the same time, expressed that he had lost his belief in it. The writer expressed his support and encouragement for the Crimean Tatars in his response. He characterized the Crimean Tatars as “the real owners of the Crimea.” It seems that the writer, as a member of the bystander public (general population) also identified with the Crimean Tatar frame. According to another record from the KGB archives, on 25 July 1967, on a touristic

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trip between Yalta and Sivastopol, the guide Vorontsov was asked a question about the Crimean Tatars, to which he answered that in the period of the Fatherland War, the Crimean Tatars betrayed the fatherland, and for that, they were exiled to Central Asia. In this trip, there were also two Crimean Tatars who had come to Yalta for their vacations. One, who identified himself as Azizov, interrupted and stated that on 21 July, the Crimean Tatar representative in Moscow was received by Andropov and Georgadze, who announced that the Crimean Tatars will be politically rehabilitated and a decree was underway, meaning that the return of the Crimean Tatars remained an open question (cf. Badzan et al., 2004,115). These two examples from the lay Crimean Tatars’ actions demonstrated that the Crimean Tatar movement was not always directed by an organization, but that the internalization of frames turned each Crimean Tatar into a participant of the movement through their micro-resistance to the system, and micro-attempts to counter-frame the regime while going about their lives. The two Crimean Tatars traveling to Yalta must have put in the minds of the other people on the trip an alternative interpretation of the truth, though not necessarily persuading them on that point. Alekseeva and Guboglo and Chervonnaya described the 1970s as a decline in the movement as there were no longer mass protests, mass signature campaigns, or dynamic initiative group activities (Alexeeva, 1985; Guboglo & Chervonnaya, 1992). Özcan noted that it was predominantly elites, through their continuous civil disobedience in preparing samizdat and resulting court processes, which maintained the movement (Özcan, 2002). He also underlined the sociological changes in Crimean Tatar society, as settlements became less concentrated in urban centers close to the factories where they had worked, and they began to buy larger houses in the countryside as their economic situation gradually improved (Özcan, 2002). Based on these observations, I do not agree that resonance of the transformed frame was low. Khayali (interview) and Bekirova (2004) point to the new forms the movement took, such as individual or family returns to Crimea. Therefore, the lower stratum of the Crimean Tatars was attempting to return to Crimea individually in disregard for state decrees, and when re-deported, they were trying again. After the 1967 edict, Bekir Osmanov, Muksim Osmanov, and Re¸sat Osmanov called for Crimean Tatars to re-settle Crimea by building tents if necessary (Bekirova, 2004, 141). They planned to open Crimean Tatar national schools and mosques and re-create their national autonomy. On 26 May 1968, 98 Crimean Tatars built tents in Marino, Simferopol. The

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Soviet government applied certain bureaucratic tactics such as a requirement for residence permits (propiska) when Crimean Tatars attempted to settle in Crimea. Crimean authorities were ordered not to issue residence permits, and the local authorities in Uzbekistan were ordered not to issue passports to prevent an exit from Uzbekistan. Those who violated this newly instituted Crimea passport regime were sent to court. According to Jemilev, between 1967 and 1968 more than 300 Crimean Tatars were convicted of violating the passport regime (Rossiiskaia Federatsia protiv Mustafa Jemileva: Omskii Protsess, 2003, 19). As a result, on 26 June 1968, the repatriates approached Crimean authorities, protesting the government’s refusal to provide residence permits (propiska). Eleven people were arrested, and the Crimean Tatars began a hunger strike and several Crimean Tatars received prison sentences ranging from one to three years (Bekirova, 2004, 121). Next, the regime promoted anti-Tatar attitudes among the local Crimean population by threatening to punish them if anyone was caught aiding the Crimean Tatars. The authorities also ordered enterprises in Crimea not to offer jobs to Crimean Tatars. Finally, forceful eviction by the militia, fire brigades, or local public order squads, who were occasionally composed of those convicted of minor crimes, began to be implemented to prevent Crimean Tatar repatriation. These re-deportations were sometimes carried out with cruelty; property was broken or stolen and children were sometimes injured. According to Cemilev, in 1968 alone, over ten thousand Crimean Tatars who had returned were re-deported (Cemilev, 2005, 18–19). Some families were re-deported several times but returned each time and continued to struggle for the right to live in their homeland (Bekirova, 2004, 121). Others did not return to the places of exile in Central Asia but chose to settle close to Crimea in the Kherson and the Zaporozhia regions of Ukraine and Krasnodarskii Krai of the Russian Federation, where they also formed dynamic initiative groups (Cemilev, 2005, 20). Bekirova emphasizes that those who returned to Crimea are nameless heroes of Crimean Tatar history (Bekirova, 2004, 189). The extent of the tragedy of redeportation is best evident in Musa Mamut, a 46-year-old Crimean Tatar who set himself on fire in front of his three children and the Soviet officials who came to evict his family once again after having re-deported them several times. Mamut had also previously been imprisoned for two years. The sight of Mamut in flames running after the Soviet officials in his garden had been an unforgettable image for the Crimean Tatars and entrenched anti-Soviet frame. Later, the account of Mamut’s death by

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Re¸sat Cemilev was published in samizdat and tamizdat under the title Jivoi Fakel’ (Human Torch), and he became a symbol of Crimean Tatar resistance until today. The return accelerated in 1975 and 337 Crimean Tatars were sent to court (Özcan, 2002, 180). Still, by 1978, 10,000 Crimean Tatars managed to settle in Crimea. Consequently, with an unpublished decree in 1978, forcible re-deportations increased as the Crimean police were given the authority to deport Crimean Tatars. After 1978, the Crimean Tatar return stopped, and the houses they bought were not permitted to register were confiscated and given to Kolkhozes (Özcan, 2002, 188). Uzbekistan did not erase the residence permits of the Crimean Tatars to make it impossible for them to get another one in Crimea (Özcan, 2002, 189). Between November 1978 and February 1979, about sixty families were re-deported, and in 1980 there were only sixty families left of 700 who managed to return to Crimea between 1967 and 1978 (Reddaway, 1998, 229). After 1979, in addition to the cessation of the individual return to Crimea, less Crimean Tatars were imprisoned, which led some to conclude that the movement had entered into a quiet phase. In fact, in the late 1970s, the human rights movement also suffered under heavy repression and so could not publicize Crimean Tatar activities (Reddaway, 1998, 229). In 1983, the Crimean Tatars published the information bulletin of the initiative group in the name of Musa Mamut. Also, the funerals of veterans Bekir Osmanov in Crimea (May 1983) and Cebbar Akimov in Uzbekistan (July 1983) turned into political demonstrations (Bekirova, 2004, 163). The Soviet regime not only attempted to prevent individual returns to Crimea, and repress activists by keeping them in prison in the 1970s, but also attempted a limited master frame transformation. For, the new Crimean Tatar frame could not be so easily ignored the previous one, as it enjoyed growing support of the Soviet public and Western world. Thus, the Soviet Union modified its master frame by incorporating elements of the Crimean Tatar frame, without accepting it in its core claims. The first modification of the master frame was Orgnabor, or “organized selection.” According to this policy, the regime sought to convince the Crimean Tatars that the state would return the Crimean Tatars gradually, applying a yearly quota to ensure that the returning individuals could be easily integrated socially and economically. Therefore, rather than trying to return under their own volition, they should wait for

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the state to return them patiently. This means the Soviet Union recognized that the deportation of the majority of the Crimean Tatars was unjust, but rejected return based on expediency, i.e., the difficulty of wholesale return for the Crimean and Soviet economy and Crimean interethnic peace and harmony. Orgnabor began in 1968, and at first, it created great hope among the Crimean Tatars. Hayırov remembers many Crimean Tatars gathered to say farewell with traditional costumes, songs, and dances to those families leaving Uzbekistan under Orgnabor (interview). However, it soon became apparent that the authorities would only return uneducated, manual laborers, who had not participated in the national movement, signed the petitions, or donated to representatives in Moscow (Özcan, 2002, 145). Those types of Crimean Tatars were rare, and it meant that most could not hope to return according to this policy. Still, with Orgnabor by 1972, there were 3496 Crimean Tatars in Crimea. The status of Crimean Tatars who returned by Orgnabor was recorded as “immigrant” in their passports and their children were registered in Russian schools (Özcan, 2002, 146). This made it apparent that the government had a very different conceptualization of the return of the Crimean Tatars, that is, the government hoped to assimilate them within the dominant Russian culture without providing national rights, let alone national autonomy. In their petitions to authorities, the Crimean Tatars argued that the collective return problem of Crimean Tatars could not be addressed with Orgnabor. They stated that in addition to manual laborers, they also wanted intellectuals, disabled people and pensioners to be returned to Crimea (Özcan, 2002, 147). They also contacted Crimean Tatars who had settled under Orgnabor and asked them to write petitions for collective settlement in Crimea, the settlement of Tatars in the southern shore and the capital city, and the right to bring their close relatives. Those “uneducated, apolitical” Crimean Tatars complied, and actively supported the collective return of the Crimean Tatars (Bekirova, 2004; Özcan, 2002,147). This demonstrated that despite not being activists, they identified with the Crimean Tatar collective return frame. It seems that the regime sought to break the frame coherence within the movement, by convincing some that Orgnabor was a more viable solution than an immediate collective return. Orgnabor ended in 1978 to be revived again in 1986 when they return to Crimea again was beyond the control of the authorities (Özcan, 2002). Another modification of the Soviet master frame was the creation of national autonomy for the Crimean Tatars in Uzbekistan. National

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autonomy in Crimea was the second major demand of the Crimean Tatars, and by creating autonomy for them in Uzbekistan, the regime aimed to weaken the charge that the Soviet regime intended to erode the Crimean Tatar national identity and assimilate them into Soviet society. “In this attempt…the authorities had shown that they accepted the wish for compact settlement” (Allworth, 1998, 200). This attempt was also consistent with the Soviet frame of integrating the Crimean Tatars in places of exile. The regime first attempted to strengthen the ties of Crimean Tatars to the places of exile by offering incentives. They placed the Crimean Tatars in higher status positions. They placed 128 Crimean Tatars in local government, 8 as deputies of the High Soviet, 861 as deputies of local Soviets, and more than 1800 in various party positions (Bekirova, 2004, 153). In 1974, in Jizzax, an oblast of Uzbekistan, the position of the first secretary was given to Crimean Tatar Seytmemet Tairov and other important posts of the oblast were given to the Crimean Tatars as well. However, autonomy outside Crimea did not interest the majority of Crimean Tatars; therefore, Tairov was transferred to the Ministry of Forestry. The Crimean Tatars joked that since Tairov could not make the Crimean Tatars take root in Uzbekistan, he was now charged with making the plants take root (Bekirova, 2004, 155). In the early 1980s, the regime attempted to create a semi-autonomous region of Mubarek and later Baharistan (both rayons) in Qashkadarya oblast of Uzbekistan for the Crimean Tatars. In these regions, the Crimean Tatars would be in government positions and would have cultural and educational institutions, as in the former Crimean ASSR (Özcan, 2002, 190). All subjects would be taught in the Crimean Tatar language (Allworth, 1998, 200). All of the 1983 graduates of the Department of Tatar Language and Literature of Tashkent Nizami Pedagogical Institute were assigned to Mubarek and Baharistan. The regime trusted that these graduates would be grateful to be offered jobs since no other schools were teaching the Crimean Tatar language in Uzbekistan.13 The Crimean Tatar graduates of vocational schools and other universities were

13 The department established in 1970 was meant to educate teachers for Crimean Tatar classes in primary and secondary schools, but since there were no such schools, they were compelled to teach Russian to earn their living (Allworth, 1998, 199). Five or six schools instituted optional Crimean Tatar classes, but a lack of Crimean Tatar textbooks and other materials in their native language was a significant drawback (Allworth, 1998, 199).

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also directed to these underdeveloped, and under-populated regions of Uzbekistan. The authorities even began to publish two local newspapers in Crimean Tatar, Dostluq (Friendship) and Baharistan Akiqatı (Truth of Baharistan) in Mubarek between 1980 and 1987, which served as propaganda for transferring Crimean Tatars into the region (Kırımlı, 1989). They planned to bring the national dance troupe and Lenin Bayra˘gı to the region. However, both Mubarek and Baharistan were practically deserts (despite names meaning “blessed” and “spring land”) and Mubarek was only one-fifth of the size of the Crimean peninsula (Özcan, 2002, 190). They named ˙ the streets Yalta, Ba˘gçasaray (Bakhchisarai), and so on. Ismail Kerimov asks, “How convincing can a Yalta in the middle of a desert be?” (interview). Only 2000 Crimean Tatars were persuaded to settle in the area. Allworth states that “[I]n the face of great pressure openly and indirectly applied to them, the Crimean Tatar graduating students refused to become the vanguard of the resettlement project…the students explained that they meant to settle only in the Crimean homeland” (Allworth, 1998, 200). According to Allworth, “this incident revealed very much about the coherence of the Crimean Tatar community” (Allworth, 1998, 200).

3.5 Soviet Master Frame Transformation and Collective Return The last round of the Crimean Tatar struggle for return took place between 1985 and 1994, during which the resonance of their transformed frame increased among the Crimean Tatar people. The Crimean Tatars counter-framed effectively and actively against the weakened Soviet frame and registered the support of not only the dissidents but also the general public and emerging civil society to their own frame. Eventually, the master frame was also transformed to recognize the Crimean Tatar frame. While the transformation of the Soviet master frame was the result of several factors, the Crimean Tatar framing effort was effective in determining how the change in the master frame would influence the Crimean Tatar case. The Crimean Tatars finally persuaded the Soviet state of their version of the truth, of the absolute necessity of their collective return, and re-building of their national autonomy. Unlike the Crimean Tatars, the Volga Germans, the Meskhetian Turks, and other deported nationalities were unable to reach their desired outcomes primarily because of an inability to maintain the resonance of their people and their inability

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to convince the Soviet state, public, and international society about their proposal of solutions. After Gorbachev announced glasnost, the Soviet master frame began to be challenged widely. According to Suny: Faith in the socialist project had been long eradicated among the educated people, but the subversive power of new criticism undermined what was left of the authority and influence of the party apparatus. Glasnost ’ eliminated within a few years the privileged position of Marxism-Leninism and the rewriting of Soviet history moved back in time beyond the permitted critique of Stalinism into a fundamental rereading of Lenin’s revolution. (Suny, 1993, 140)

Like Khrushchev, Gorbachev announced a return to Lenin’s policy on the “national question,” signaling an emerging window of opportunity for national movements (Suny, 1993, 155). Observing the surprisingly mild reaction of the regime to the Kazak riots in 1986, mass national movements emerged in Transcaucasia, the Baltics, Moldavia, Ukraine, and Belorussia (Suny, 1993, 141). The Crimean Tatars had already begun to feel the restraint of “the kind of physical force that had forged the empire and preserved it for seven decades” (Suny, 1993, 142). As noted before, after the Reykjavik summit between Reagan and Gorbachev, Mustafa Cemilev was finally released after 15 years of imprisonment (Guboglo & Chervonnaya, 1992, 131). Yuri Osmanov, another prominent leader was also released from the psychiatric hospital. The court processes against the Crimean Tatars decreased too, the last one being held in 1987. To take the opportunity brought by glasnost and to further push democratization, the Crimean Tatars held the first all-union meetings of Crimean Tatar initiative groups on 11–12 April 1987 in Tashkent (Guboglo & Chervonnaya, 1992, 133). They composed a collective letter to Gorbachev repeating their democratic collective return frame and elected sixteen representatives to meet him. The resonance of the movement greatly increased in this period. They once again collected a large number of signatures and elected more than a thousand delegates to demonstrate in Moscow in the event that their attempt was ignored (Guboglo & Chervonnaya, 1992, 133). The massive delegation of 800 people arrived in Moscow on June 20, 1987 and increased to 1500 by the end of July (Guboglo & Chervonnaya, 1992, 134). Bekir Umerov and other Crimean Tatars began hunger strikes. They carried out the

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biggest meeting in Red Square in Soviet history. This was handled with surprising indulgence, and the demonstrations were also supported by a number of Muscovites. The regime seemed more flexible this time since the Gromyko Commission, the first official body to discuss minority demands, convened. The Crimean Tatars increased their pressure and proclaimed 26 July as the deadline by which the Commission should make a positive decision. Organized demonstrations were conducted in numerous locations, including Moscow, throughout the month. The demonstrators held a twenty-four-hour sit-in on 25 July asking to meet Gromyko. During the glasnost, the Crimean Tatars aimed to propagate their frame to the general public. In their letter to Gorbachev, in addition to their usual demands, the Crimean Tatars demanded “permission to publish in central and local press letters and appeals of the Crimean Tatars and other citizens on the Crimean Tatar question, that is to observe in full measure the proclaimed principle of expansion of glasnost’ also in relation to our national problems” (Guboglo & Chervonnaya, 1992, 214–216). More than one thousand Crimean Tatar delegates in Moscow were active and visited newspapers, journals, artist unions, writers, famous intellectuals, and human rights defenders seeking to align their individual frames with the Crimean Tatar collective return frame. Consequently, the representatives of the newly emerging civil society, academics, Soviet intelligentsia, and even democratically inclined government officials, expressed the need to address the Crimean Tatar issue (Guboglo & Chervonnaya, 1992, 131–132). The Crimean Tatars began to openly communicate with the embassies of several countries. Soviet bystanders increasingly identified with the Crimean Tatar frame, as would become clear from their support of demonstrations by Crimean Tatars in Moscow and letters to the Soviet government. One example is as follows: I am aware that at the moment in the Presidium of High Soviet of USSR, considers the question of granting the Crimean Tatars right to peacefully live and work in the land of their fathers, grandfathers, great grandfathers in Crimea. The Crimean Tatars were deeply insulted with the unjust accusation…violently deported from their…land. This was done without taking into consideration that many Crimean Tatars heroically fought against fascism on the front while their …families nothing to be blamed for were kicked out of their born homes…not permitting Crimean Tatars to return constitutes a violation of their constitutional rights and conflicts

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with humanitarian values… When individual families of the Crimean Tatars obtained permission to return, later they were again kicked out…we must from now on stop this anti-humanist relationship to our rightful members of our Soviet, and give them the possibility to live and work where their hearts and memories of their hearts say. I think their return will contribute flowering of Crimea and the friendship of nations in our country. (8 Iyunya 1987, Evgenii Evtushenko) (cf Biluha & Vlasenko, 2004, 368)

Yet, the regime’s resistance was not broken. As a response to increased Crimean Tatar activism, the regime once again counter-framed with a TASS announcement in July 1987. The TASS announcement added more false accusations to the previous. The regime argued that the deportation: was motivated by the collaboration of a part of the Tatar population with German fascist occupations. Truly…Muslim congress was founded by which a Crimean government headed by Khan Bilal Asanov was formed…Crimean Tatar self-defense units were formed…attacked partisan bases…with the participation of the Crimean Tatar nationalists killed 86,000 peaceful residents of Crimea…Crimean Tatar battalions made stoves…in which they burned living people round-the-clock. It is hard to escape those facts. (Guboglo & Chervonnaya, 1992, 219–221)

Subsequent to these new false accusations, the TASS Announcement repeats the Soviet frame crystallized in the 1967 edict: However, unfortunately…the decision…about the deportation the Crimean Tatar population from Crimea involved not only the traitors …but all Crimean Tatar population. In any case…[this] is unjust, especially when thousands actively participated in warring situations against fascist occupations…the decree on 5 September 1967, wholly established their constitutional rights…From then on more than a thousand Crimean Tatars were settled in Crimea…It must be taken into account that in Crimea a situation completely different than the pre-war situation was created. Therefore, the question at hand must be analyzed with an understanding of the real, more complex situation, in the interest of all nations of the country… attempts to fire up passions…hardly can help a solution…In these conditions, appeals to a foreign public opinion does not look constructiveand such pressure is inappropriate … commission requires definite time for work, and its conclusions will be published. (Guboglo & Chervonnaya, 1992, 219–221)

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The Crimean Tatars in return counter-framed in an open letter to TASS. First, the Crimean Tatars did not accept the history presented by TASS, pointing out the disinformation, and provocative nature of the presentation. They argued that only a few members of the Muslim committees; … cannot represent the Crimean Tatar people, who never elected them. There was not such a Khan Bilal Asanov or such a congress…not one resident of Crimea heard about this…which constitutes purposeful disinformation and crime against the whole Crimean Tatar nation…From which source, the population of Crimean Tatar voluntary battalions are learned …and that they were composed of Crimean Tatars? …these were composed of war captives…including various nationalities, which the living witnesses of those years among our representatives, who are in Moscow could ascertain…warring sections of volunteers were formed …under the administration of occupational powers, and not by personalities of Crimean Tatar nationality…the most unbelievable accusation is holding the Crimean Tatars responsible for the annihilation of Ukrainians, Russians, Jews, Greeks, and Gypsies- those brotherly nations, with whom the Crimean Tatars lived in peace for centuries…Who wants this, and to which purpose does this accusation serve? What type of friendship of nations can we talk of after this kind of falsification of history?… TASS announcement does not only not answer the expectations of our people, but also makes its relation with other brotherly nations more difficult…We demand our open protest be published in the newspaper, which published the TASS announcement. (Guboglo & Chervonnaya, 1992, 221–223)

They underlined that the Simferopol court on war crimes concluded that there were only two Crimean Tatars among the criminals who were composed of different nationalities. “In the materials of that trial nobody mentioned any ‘stoves,’” “in which living people were burned roundthe-clock.” They pointed out that while TASS gave the number of those citizens killed by the occupationists, it is silent about “the annihilation of 87 Crimean Tatar villages” by the Nazis. Most significantly, they protested the attempt to create a shadow of ambiguity as to who is responsible for the Crimean Tatar suffering: “If the ‘severe conditions of war, the actual situation in Crimea, the mood of those times’ were to blame, then what kind of mood prevents today to restore justice?” In a statement declared at a later demonstration in Yangiyul, participants emphasize “the attempt to vindicate what is perpetrated against our people” with the phrase of

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“severe conditions of war, the actual situation in Crimea, the mood of those times.” They warn Gromyko commission not to accept the “chauvinist position” of the TASS announcement, and call for “healthy powers” in the country to provide support against the “provocateurs” in TASS (Guboglo & Chervonnaya, 1992, 223–224). The TASS announcement caused the elder communists, who were loyal to a Leninist frame, to openly criticize the communist regime as well: In 1952, a decree was proclaimed…called for orders of Stalin to revise in historical “science” the role of Turkic and other non-Slavic nations in the history of “Russian steppes and Russian Black Sea region” That decree, until today remains a fundamental document for the continuation of falsification of the history of Crimea and it’s indigenous (korenniy)’population, the Crimean Tatars…they banned us to name ourselves Crimean Tatars and did not recognize this ethnonym in the time of the census of the population. And when new people entered into Politbureau…they let us be called Crimean Tatars as before the war. We still have hope that we will get into the next census…In the 1926 census in our country, there were 194 ethnonyms, in the 1979 census 101 nationalities were named. Where did 93, almost half of them go? One is found- the Crimean Tatars. What happened to the others? V.I. Lenin warned that “sliianie” should take place itself. One should not rush or force the process… The reason for Crimean Tatars’ not settling in Mubarek is nothing ties us to that land. Beginning from 1944 they beat us…if we raised the question of the homeland, not permitting us to cry, to mourn about that… We cannot explain the reaction of partisans of Crimea to TASS Announcement…. (Biluha & Vlasenko, 2004, 401–402)

As it became obvious with the preceding TASS announcement, the Gromyko Commission did not extend the master frame to include the key Crimean Tatar demands. It also “failed to provide unequivocal condemnation of the 1944 deportation and made no mention of restoring the designation Crimean Tatar” (Wilson, 1998, 282). According to Lazzerini (1990) at this time, there was a greater fear that granting Crimean Tatar demands would produce an undesirable effect in other ethnically contested areas and that it could also produce problems within Crimea itself. As a result, the Crimean Tatars continued to be penalized for the violation of the passport system still in 1988 in Crimea. However, the authorities extended the master frame as before: (i) by implementing slow, selective, and individual return by Orgnabor, instead

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of collective return and (ii) by multiplying cultural rights in the places of exile, and in Crimea instead of national autonomy in Crimea. The authorities rejuvenated Orgnabor again in 1988, and 300 families were resettled in Crimea by the government (Bekirova, 2004, 243). Courses teaching the Crimean Tatar language were instituted in Crimea in addition to schools in Uzbekistan and Ukraine. Teacher-training programs were designed and implemented. A Department of Crimean Tatar Language and Literature was established at the Simferopol State University in Crimea. Several textbooks were compiled in Tashkent and Kiev. Radio and television programs expanded in Uzbekistan and were introduced in Tadzhikistan. The Dostluq newspaper in Crimean Tatar began as a supplement to the Krymskaya Pravda. A non-Tatar newspaper in Cankoy (a city in northern Crimea with a large Crimean Tatar population) began to publish excerpts from the Crimean Tatar newspaper, Lenin Bayra˘gı. Many Crimean Tatar figures were rehabilitated and “Crimean Tatar” was again recognized as an ethnic identifier (Lazzerini, 1990). The modification of a master frame by these measures was not sufficient for the Crimean Tatars who pushed for the transformation of the master frame to recognize their democratic collective return frame. Between January and April 1988, mass demonstrations of the Crimean Tatars continuously took place in Krasnodar Krai, Uzbekistan, Crimea, and Novorossisk (Bekirova, 2004, 243). The authorities tried to take measures against public demonstrations, but, in practice, were unable to prevent them (Bekirova, 2004, 244). On 23–24 April 1988, in Tashkent, the 4th All-Union meeting of representatives of initiative groups took place. In the words of Jemilev, they made decisions for the application of tactics of meetings and demonstrations instead of writing petitions (Bekirova, 2004, 246). The Crimean Tatar National Movement Organization (Qırım Milliy Areket Te¸skilatı) emerged in the 5th All-Union Congress of Crimean Tatar initiative groups on 20 April and 2 May 1989. Cemilev was elected as the head of the organization, which was based on the transformed frame, as it emphasized the significance of civil disobedience, and propagated the Crimean Tatar cause domestically and internationally through a biweekly periodical of the organization. The resonance of this new frame was apparent in the increase in the number of people who returned to Crimea. In March 1988, only 1000 Crimean Tatars could register in Crimea. In 1989, the number of Crimean Tatars reached 50,000 in Crimea.

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The legacy of the dissident movement, including the Crimean Tatar movement played a significant role in the transformation of Soviet master frame (Horvath, 2005, 5). The master frame transformation emerged with the semi-democratic elections to the re-created Soviet Congress of People’s Deputies, the representative and legislative organ of the Soviet government, previously eliminated by Stalin. The Crimean Tatars applied to this newly emerging parliament of the Soviet Union, which had several democratic members. On 14 November 1989, the new Soviet parliament formally condemned the deportation declaring that: … without condition, the forceful exile of the nationalities is the heaviest crime against international law and the humanistic principle of the socialist order. USSR High Soviet guarantees that human rights and humanist principles of the state will not be repeated. …USSR High Soviet declares it necessary to take the measures to return the rights of the oppressed Soviet nationalities. (cf. Badzan et al., 2004, 165).

The Soviet of Nationalities of High Soviet of USSR also issued a decree that sought: …To pay attention to central, republican, and local organs of power to undertake and determine work related to the return of the Crimean Tatars to the Crimean oblast as soon as possible. Together with that, it should be gradually resolved the problems of apportionment for this purpose of financial means and material-technical resources, additional market funds for wood and construction materials….[It is ordered]to establish a state commission for the problem of the Crimean Tatars with Soviet ministers of Ukraine, …in participation with the representative of the Crimean Tatar nation to complete…preparation of a union-republican state program for the return of the Crimean Tatars…the Crimean oblast Soviet of National Deputies and local Soviets of the oblast must continue work for determination of..land grants for construction of houses, resolution of problems of registration, organization …of workplaces, construction of conditions for the development of national-cultural aspects of the Crimean Tatar nation. … the Crimean oblast Soviet of National Deputies, with the help of societal organizations of Crimean Tatar people widely undertaking organizational and explanatory work so that the return of Crimean Tatars…will begin with good terms…It is recommended that…the organs of mass information regularly inform the public about the process… The Soviet of Nationalities

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of High Soviet of USSR appeal to the population of Crimea to demonstrate understanding and patience …resolve problems with goodwill and mutual respect…. (cf. Badzan et al., 2004, 166–167)

The regime declared that the difficulties or complexity of the Crimean Tatar return were insufficient reasons for rejecting their return. This meant that all legal and bureaucratic obstacles preventing the return of the Crimean Tatars were removed (Guboglo & Chervonnaya, 1992). According to Wilson, however, “by then Tatars were increasingly taking matters in their own hands as the declining powers of the Soviet state opened floodgates to mass return to Crimea” (Wilson, 1998, 283). Wilson provides a Table 3.1 demonstrating how the number of new arrivals rose during 1990–1992 and argues that the rapidly rising travel costs slowed the flow after 1993. The Crimean Tatars were unable to attain the state-sponsored collective return that they demanded; this was, however, largely the result of unforeseen structural changes, such as the collapse of the authority of the Soviet state. The state formed a commission to provide limited material assistance to aid the Crimean Tatars’ organized return (July 1991). According to the plan prepared by this commission, the state would organize return by resolving the problems of infrastructure, accommodation, social-cultural environment, and economic development in the first stage. In the second stage, individuals would return by their means, without state sponsorship. In the third stage, the collectivities would return and form villages or neighborhoods (Guboglo & Chervonnaya, 1992). According to Wilson, by the time a council of the ministers’ decree was declared and a commission was convened to organize a return Table 3.1 Number of Crimean Tatars in Crimea, 1979–1994 (prepared based on Mikelic, 2012; Wilson, 1998)

1979 (Soviet Census) Spring 1988 1989 (Soviet Census) May 1990 January 1991 July 1991 August 1991 May 1993 September 1993 1994 2014 (Crimean VR data)

5,400 17,500 38,000 83,000 100,000 132,000 142,200 250,000 257,000 260,000 270000

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to Crimea, the Soviet Centre greatly lost its capabilities (Wilson, 1998, 283) and in July 1991 with the dissolution of the USSR, the commission also dissolved. This created a situation in which the Crimean Tatar return could not take a state-organized and sponsored form. The second Crimean Tatar demand, national autonomy in Crimea could not be attained due to the dissolution of the Soviet Union, and the emergence of an entirely different geopolitical situation. Partly as a response to accelerating the Crimean Tatar return and re-establishment of possible claims to Crimean Tatar sovereignty, the Ukrainian High Soviet held a referendum, and upon its results, approved the re-establishment of the Crimean ASSR on 12 February 1991. After decades of lobbying for the establishment of the Crimean ASSR, the Crimean Tatars rejected this cynical move to establish the republic as a Russian-dominated one with no recognition whatsoever of Crimean Tatar national sovereignty. The returning Crimean Tatars boycotted the elections for the Crimean High Soviet on 22 March 1991 arguing that these developments were against the Ukrainian constitution. In August 1991, Gorbachev was toppled by a coup d’état and on 1 December 1991, Ukraine declared independence. A total of 73, 981 Crimean Tatars, who could receive Ukrainian citizenship with the 13 November 1991 law, overwhelmingly voted for Ukrainian independence (Williams, 2001; Wilson, 1998). Despite the major structural changes which made obtaining their goals more difficult, the existence of the collective return frame enabled the Crimean Tatars to completely take the initiative into their hands and return collectively, utilizing the absence of authority in the political transition process and organize settlement in the region. There were 157,862 Crimean Tatars living in Crimea by 1992. The decisions taken by the Soviet cabinet in 1989 were not implemented by the local Crimean authorities, who began to act independently of the Soviet government. The Crimean Tatars were not given land plots or empty houses, as suggested by the government commission. Therefore, they established Tent Villages in empty plots while Crimean security forces attempted to prevent their squatting through the use of force. The Crimean Tatars continued to flow to their homeland and half of the Crimean Tatars in exile, amounting to 250,000 people returned by 1994. After 1994, the window of opportunity was closed, and the Crimean Tatar return slowed down.

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Movement Consequences and Conclusion

This chapter analyzed how the Crimean Tatar movement emerged, and developed in exile, and ended its phase of exile by returning to the homeland collectively and re-asserting national autonomy. Can the Crimean Tatar movement in exile be regarded as successful in reaching its goals? The Crimean Tatar national movement developed two major goals: return to the homeland and the restoration of national autonomy in Crimea. More than half of the population returned to the homeland by 1994, and that number reached 270,000 in the 2000s. The collective return was largely undertaken based on community resources, due to the dissolution of the Soviet state. The goal of restoration of territorial national autonomy was regarded as more difficult to concede than return for the Soviet authorities, but eventually, they came to an understanding that the Crimean Tatars required some form of robust national-cultural rights for the perpetuation of their national identity. We do not know what might have happened on that front if the Soviet Union survived longer. We offer an analysis of framing processes of the Crimean Tatar movement in post-Soviet Ukraine and Russian-occupied Crimea somewhere else (Aydın & Sahin, 2019), but Crimean Tatar framing processes in the Soviet Union paved the way for the claim of indigenous status without seceding from Ukraine (Bowring 66), which was finally recognized in 2014 by this country. Crimean Tatars’ right to self-determination was finally recognized and the Crimean Tatar movement can be regarded as largely successful in reaching their goals (Aydın & Sahin, 2019). Nonetheless, they cannot exercise this right in a meaningful way because of the Russian occupation of Crimea. However, this development was of course, out of their control. This case confirms that the historical process matters in explaining national movements. The different outcomes are best explained as being the result of divergent movement traditions, which were in turn shaped by different framing processes. The Crimean Tatar community returned because it set it as a purpose unlike other diaspora communities of Crimean Tatars, and unlike other deported nationalities in the USSR. The émigré frames of the diaspora in Turkey and the United States or territorial nationalism frame in communist Romania never had advanced such a purpose. Only the movement in interwar Romania forwarded such a collective return goal (examined in Chapter 4), but the Crimean Tatar movement in the former USSR was more successful because of

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more effective framing processes such as strong counter-framing against the state authorities, frame-bridging with democratic dissidents movements, and ability to propagate their cause internationally, and higher resonance of their frame (almost resonant among the whole population). This is exceptional in diaspora populations in which resonance is generally lower than territorial communities, as ideological work is more difficult to conduct, and most importantly, diaspora identities need to compete with the ideological agenda of the nation-states for attention. One diaspora with comparably highest resonance is the Armenians, among which only one third takes interest in nationalist activities. The Crimean Tatars in the Soviet Union far surpassed this threshold, which necessitated to classify it as a different type, exile nationalism. A strong collective memory of the deportation which bestowed empirical credibility on the prognosis and diagnosis of the frame and a cohesive organizational structure led to this form of exile nationalism and affected the result of the return to the homeland. Various attempts by the Soviet regime to frame the Crimean Tatars as “having taken root” in contexts of exile had the unintended consequence of strengthening the will to return. For, the Soviet state continued to discriminate heavily against the Crimean Tatars, failing to recognize their ethnic identity or provide meaningful cultural and language rights in places of settlement. Hence, the Crimean Tatars became convinced that the maintenance of identity was only possible by re-establishing the autonomous institutions in the homeland. This book rejects the simplistic view that the Crimean Tatars returned because the Soviet Union collapsed. The return had begun before the collapse or before anyone could predict that the communist state would suddenly collapse. The discursive power of the Crimean Tatar frame was the main cause for the collective return. When the master frame transformed into democratization, the Crimean Tatars frame’s aptness to this master frame became obvious and the Gorbachev regime was eventually obliged to support the Crimean Tatar goals. Nobody could come up with a reason why the Crimean Tatars ought not to return. Indeed, along with the dissident movement, the Crimean Tatar frame contributed to the transformation of the Soviet frame toward glasnost’ and democratization.

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References Alexeeva, L. (1985). Soviet dissent. Wesleyan University Press. Altan, M. (1998). Structures: The importance of family-a personal memoir. In E. Allworth (Ed.), The Crimean Tatars of Crimea: Return to the homeland (pp. 155–180). Duke University Press. Altan, M. (2001). The Crimean Tatar national movement and the American diaspora. Intenational Committee of Crimea. https://iccrimea.org/scholarly/ diaspora.html. Accessed 11 May 2021. Allworth, E. (1998). Mass exile, ethnocide, group derogation: Anomaly or norm in Soviet nationality policies? In E. Allworth (Ed.), The Crimean Tatars of Crimea: Return to the homeland, (pp. 180–206). Durham: Duke University Press. ˙ (2001). Vsya jizn kak putevodnaya zvezda [All life like a guiding star]. Asanin, I. Golos Krima, 13, 384. Aydın, F. T. (2000). A case in diaspora nationalism: Crimean Tatars in Turkey (MA thesis). Ankara: Bilkent University. Aydın, F. T., & Sahin, F. K. (2019). The politics of recognition of Crimean Tatar collective rights in the post-Soviet period: With special attention to the Russian annexation of Crimea. Communist and PostCommunist Studies, 52(1), 39–50. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.postcomstud. 2019.02.003. Accessed 20 January 2021. Badzan, O. G., Danilok, Y. Z., Kokin, S. A., & Loshidskii, O. A. (Eds.). (2004). Krimski Tatari: shliakh do povernennia. Krimskotatarskii natsiyonal’nii rykh (dryga polovina 1940-kh-pochatok 1990-kh rokiv) Ochima radianskikh spetssludzb zbirnik dokymentiv ta Mmaterialiv (Vol 1) [Crimean Tatars: Path to Return. Crimean Tatar national movement from the second half of the 1940s to the beginning of the 1990s. The collection of Documents and materials reflectng the perspective of Soviet intelligence]. NANY Institut Istoriyi Ukraiyini. Bayar, G. (2020, 4 June). Deportation of Crimean Tatars in 1944 was genocide. Anatolian Agency. https://www.aa.com.tr/en/turkey/-deportation-ofcrimean-tatars-in-1944-was-genocide-/1865274. Accessed 3 February 2020. Beissinger, M. R. (2002). Nationalist mobilization and the collapse of the Soviet state. Cambridge University Press. Bekirova, G. (2004). Krimskotatarskoye problema v SSSR (1944–1991). [The Crimean Tatar problem in the USSR] Simferopol: Odja. Biluha, I., & Vlasenko, O. (Eds.). (2004). Deportavani: Krims’ki Tatari, Bolgari, Virmeni, Greki, Nimtsi (1917–1991) Dokumenti. Fakti. Svidcheniia [The deported: Crimean Tatars, Bulgarians, Armenians, Greeks, German: Documents, Facts, Evidence]. Muz. Ukraina. Bowring, B. (2005). The Crimean autonomy: innovation or anomaly? In M. Weller & S. Wolff (Eds.), Autonomy, self-governance and conflict resolution:

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innovative approaches to Institutional design in divided societies (pp. 75–98). Routledge. Conquest, R. (1970). The nation-killers. Macmillan. Cutler, R. M. (1980). Soviet dissent under Khrushchev. An Analytical Study. Comparative Politics, 13(1), 15–35. Fainsod, M. (1953). How Russia is ruled. Harvard University Press. Fazıl, R. (2005). Mejmua boyle meydana kelgen edi [This is how the journal emerged]. In Z. Kurtnezir, Yıldız’ nin 25 yillik bibliyografyasi (1980–2004) [Yıldız’s 25 years of bibliography]. Kirimdevokuvpedne¸sir. Fisher, A. (1978). The Crimean Tatars. Stanford: Hoover Press Publication. Guboglo, M., Chervonnaya, S. (1992). Krimskotatarskoye natsiyonalnoe dvizhenie [The Crimean Tatar national movement] (Vol. 1). Tsentr po izucheniyu mejnatsiyonalnikh otnoshenii. Horvath, R. (2005). The legacy of Soviet dissent: Dissidents, democratization and radical nationalism in Russia. Routledge Curzon. Hosking, G. (1991). The awakening of the Soviet Union. Harvard University Press. Jemilev [Cemilev], M. (2005). A history of the Crimean Tatar national liberation movement: A sociopolitical perspective. Ojak. Karatay, Zafer. (2019). Kırımıo˘glu: Bir Halkın Mücadelesi. Kenez, P. (2006). A history of the Soviet Union from the beginning to the end. Cambridge University Press. Kirimli, H. (1989). Soviet educational and cultural policies toward the Crimean Tatars in exile (1944–1987). Central Asian Survey, 8(1): 69–88. Kırımo˘glu [Cemilev], M. (1993). A. Pyotr Grigorenko ve Kırım Tatar hareketi [Pyotr Grigorenko and the Crimean Tatar movement]. Emel, 194, 3–12. Kuzio, T. (2020). Racism, Crimea and Crimean Tatars. E-International Relations. https://www.e-ir.info/2020/12/06/racism-crimea-and-crimeantatars/. Accessed 3 February 2020. Lazzerini, E. (1990). Crimean Tatars. In G. Smith (Ed.), The nationalities question in the post-Soviet states. Longman. Malia, M. (1992). Leninist endgame. Dauedalus, 121(2), 57–75. Mikelic, V. (2012). Housing, land and property issues of formerly deported peoples (FDP’s) in Crimea. SSRN . https://ssrn.com/abstract=2309340. Accessed 3 February 2021. Özcan, K. (2002). Vatana dönü¸s: Kırım Türklerinin sürgünü ve milli mücadele hareketi (1944–1991) Return to homeland: The deportation of Crimean Tatars and the movement of national struggle]. Tarih ve Tabiat Yayınları-Tatav Yayınları. Pohl, J. O. (2004). “And this must be remembered!”: Stalin’s ethnic cleansing of Crimean Tatars and their struggle for rehabilitation, 1944–1985.

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Ukrainian Quarterly, 60(1–2). https://iccrimea.org/surgun/pohl-asn-2004. html. Accessed 3 February 2021. Reddaway, P. (1998). The Crimean Tatar drive for repatriation: Some comparison with other movements of dissent in the Soviet Union. In E. Allworth (Ed.), The Crimean Tatars of Crimea: Return to The Homeland (pp. 226–237). Duke University Press. Rossiiskaia Federatsia protiv Mustafi Jemileva: Omskii Protses [Russian Federation vs. Mustafa Jemilev: Omsk Case]. (2003). Simferepol’: Odjak. Seutova, S. (1991). Creating a Crimean Tatar national movement: The role and impact of literature. In Z. Rau (Ed.), The emergence of civil society in Eastern Europe and Soviet Union (pp. 113–129). Westview Press. Seytmuratova, A. (1997). Natsiyonalnoe dvizhenie Krymskikh Tatar: sobities, fakti, dokumenti [The National movement of Crimean Tatars: events, facts, documents]. Simferopol-Akmescit. Seytmuratova, A. (1998). The elders of the new national movement: Recollections. In E. Allworth (Ed.), The Crimean Tatars of Crimea: Return to the homeland (pp. 155–180). Duke University Press. Shest Dnei “Belaya Kniga” (Vol. 2). [Six Days “White Book”]. (1980). Crimea Foundation. Swart, W. J. (1995). The League of Nations and the Irish Question: Master frames, cyles of protest and “master frame alignment”. Sociological Quarterly, 36(3), 465–481. Suny, R. G. (1993). The revenge of the past. Stanford University Press. Tashkentskii Protsess: sud nad 10 predstavitelyami kirimskotatarkogo naroda (1 iyulya-5 avgusta 1969). (1976). [Tashkent Case: trial of 10 representatives of the Crimean Tatar people]. Herzen Fund. Tucker, R. C. (1999). Stalinism as revolution from above. In R. C. Tucker (Ed.), Stalinism: Essays in historical interpretation (pp. 77–108). Transaction Publishers. Uehling, G. (2004). Beyond memory: The Crimean Tatars’ deportation and return. Palgrave Macmillan. Uehling, G. (2015). Genocide’s aftermath: Neo-stalinism in contemporary Crimea. Genocide Studies and Prevention: an International Journal, 9(1), 3–17. Vozgrin, V. E. (1992). Istoricheskie sud’bi Krimskikh Tatar. [Historical Fate of the Crimean Tatars] Moscow: Izdatel’stvo “Misl”. Vozgrin, V. E. (1994). Imperiia i Krym: dol’gii put’ k Imperiya i Krym — Dolgii put’ k genotsidu [Empire and the Crimea: The Long Path to Genocide]. Bakhchisarai. Williams, B. (2001). The Crimean Tatars: The diaspora experience and the forging of a nation. Brill.

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Williams, B. (2015). The Crimean Tatars: Soviet Genocide to Putin’s Conquest. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Wilson, A. (1998). Politics in and around Crimea: A difficult homecoming. In E. Allworth (Ed.), Tatars of Crimea: Return to homeland (pp. 281–323). Duke University Press. Zisserman-Brodsky, D. (2003). Constructing ethnopolitics in the Soviet Union: Samizdat, deprivation and the rise of ethnic nationalism. Palgrave Macmillan.

CHAPTER 4

Crimean Tatar Community in Romania (1900–): From Exile to Diaspora Nationalism

4.1

Introduction

The Crimean Tatars1 began to immigrate to Dobruca (coastal region of today’s Romania), and Anatolia after the Russian annexation of Crimea (1783), and the emigration turned into an exodus between 1859 and 1861 when hundreds of thousands of Tatars and Nogays left their homelands (Kırımlı, 2008, 767). The marginalization of the Crimean Tatars with religious, economic, and political realms in the Russian-ruled Crimea and the incompatibility of Crimean Tatar religious views with those of the ruling Christian monarch are cited as reasons for emigration (Kırımlı, 1996; Williams, 2001). While the Russians did not physically deport the Crimean Tatars, historical sources support that Crimean Tatar emigration was not voluntary. After migrating, the Crimean Tatars did not engage in nationalist mobilization from exile in the Ottoman Empire, nor did they make any collective attempt to return to their ancestral homeland. While the Crimean Tatars were well-incorporated into the Ottoman society, at the same time they enjoyed a degree of autonomy within the framework 1 “Tatar” in this chapter is used to denote “Crimean Tatars” in Romania unless otherwise is noted. The Romanian regime and Tatars themselves have identified themselves as “Tatars” until 1990s although ethnically they are Crimean Tatars, having no relation to Volga/Kazan Tatars. After 1990s, Crimean Tatar self-identification emerged although legally and institutionally they are identified as “Tatars” in Romania.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 F. T. Aydın, Émigré, Exile, Diaspora, and Transnational Movements of the Crimean Tatars, Palgrave Studies in Citizenship Transitions, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-74124-2_4

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of Ottoman millet system. They developed cordial relations with fellow communities in the Balkans, including Christians. They economically and socially prospered. After Dobruca separated from the Ottoman Empire and became part of newly independent Romania in 1878, the economic, social, and political situation of the Crimean Tatars began to deteriorate, and a large proportion of them emigrated to Turkey. However, a small percentage of Crimean Tatars has remained in Dobruca until today.2 Between 1900 and 1940, this community demonstrated a high level of nationalist activity, which I consider the second-highest national activity among the extra-territorial communities of the Crimean Tatars. Had the circumstances been different, this community could have waged a collective return to their homeland. Why and how did nationalism emerge in the Crimean Tatar diaspora in Romania, and what explains the vigor of this community before the Second World War? The first part of this case study aims to answer these questions. After the Second World War and the arrival of the communist regime in Romania, the nationalist elites were purged or captured, and Crimean Tatar nationalism was repressed by the regime. However, overt pressures eventually subsided to the extent that provided the Crimean Tatars with adequate opportunity to develop a type of nationalism though without connection to the homeland. What explains the re-emergence of nationalism under communist repression, and why did it develop in this form? The second part of the case study aims to answer that question. Another unexpected development of this community came after the dissolution of communism. The community, which was estimated to have assimilated, rejuvenated in the last two decades. On the one hand, we must ask why nationalism rose after the community was declared to have assimilated under communism. We must also ask, “If Crimean Tatar nationalist sentiment increased after the fall of communism, why did the community not return to their homeland?” The final matter of interest is the consequences of a century of the Crimean Tatar diaspora movement

2 According to 2002 census, the Crimean Tatars are 24,137, and Turks are 32,596 people. However, Tatar organizations estimate the number is around 50,000, as many Tatars identify themselves as Turks for various reasons. According to 2011 census, the Crimean Tatars are 20,282, and Turks are 27,698. However, Tatar organizations estimate the number is around 50,000 as many Tatars identify themselves as Turks for various reasons. http://www.recensamantromania.ro/noutati/volumul-ii-populatia-stabilarezidenta-structura-etnica-si-confesionala/. Accessed 10 February 2021.

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in Romania. The third part of the case study aims to answer these questions. The case will be examined in terms of emergence, development, and consequences of diaspora nationalism in Dobruca since 1900 until today. At the same time, three stages of diaspora activity will also be regarded as mini-cases which have a beginning and an end in themselves.

4.2 Application of Theoretical Framework: Exile to Diaspora Nationalism The Crimean Tatar community in Romania in the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries has been the subject of a rela˙ tively small amount of historical research (Ekrem, 1994; Ibram, 1998; Iordachi, 2002; Karpat, 1985). Karpat (1985) and Iordachi (2002) focused on the incorporation of the Crimean Tatar community within the contemporary state and societal structures (Ottoman and Romanian). The Crimean Tatar migrants’ transnational relations do not figure significantly into these works. The fact is until the emergence of the Soviet Union, the Crimean Tatar community divided their lives among Dobruca, Crimea, and Anatolia. Families were divided among these three territories. The members of different diaspora communities intermarried through these transnational networks. They visited each other, and even wrestlers from Crimea came to Dobruca to participate in local tournaments (Bekmambet, 2001, 26). The major works on the Crimean Tatars in Russia, from the eighteenth century to the contemporary period neglected the Crimean Tatar diaspora in the Ottoman Empire (later residing in Turkey, Romania, and the United States) and the transnational connections across the diaspora and homeland communities were not investigated (e.g., Bekirova, 2004; Guboglo & Chervonnaya, 1992; Uehling, 2004; Vozgrin, 1992). Andreescu et al. (2005), Erolova (2010), and Eminov (2000) investigate Crimean Tatars in Romania and Bulgaria as minority groups not as diasporas with significant transnational relations. One exception is Hakan Kırımlı’s (1996) historical study of Crimean Tatar nationalism at the beginning of the twentieth century, which sheds light on the transnational connections between the Crimean Tatars in Crimea, Turkey, and to a lesser extent Romania. Williams who studied under the supervision of Kemal Karpat (a major Crimean Tatar historian from Romania who immigrated to Turkey and later to the United States) narrated the historical development of the Crimean Tatar diaspora in Romania, focusing on historical processes of migration and retention of the collective memory of homeland (Williams, 2001). More recently,

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Metin Omer also provided evidence of transnational relations among Crimea, Dobruca and Turkey from a historical perspective. (Omer, 2018, 2019, 2020) The ethno-symbolist framework on Crimean Tatar diaspora suggests the existence of diasporic sentiment in the nineteenth century among the Crimean Tatars in Dobruca (Williams, 2001). Initially, the Crimean Tatars seemed to have kept their hopes of re-conquering Crimea, portraying their migration as a temporary retreat. The members of the Crimean Khans’ dynasty, the Gerays, constantly lobbied in the Ottoman court to start a war with Russia in the 1770s and 1780s to take Crimea back. This can be regarded as the first émigré activity of the Crimean Tatars. The Crimean Tatars did not give up hope for a return through the maintenance of a myth of the homeland, which was characterized as the Green Land in the national imagination. They expressed their longing for their homeland in many songs such as this: We leave Crimea altogether in great numbers, beloved, I say I cry We take our fire with us, we lock the door, beloved, I say I cry I realize how my homeland is sweetest of all, beloved, I say I cry When homeland comes to mind, my heart boils, beloved, I say, I cry3

The Crimean Tatars maintained the myth of the “eternal fire” that they brought from Crimea. Many families believe that their ancestors never let that original fire die (Bektöre, 1966; Karakaya, 1977, 8) symbolizing the perpetual presence of the homeland in their diaspora life. The Crimean Tatar community in Dobruca maintained the memory of homeland and nature of the emigration in their collective memory. This is one of many folksongs on this topic: After lords became serfs, and fathers -butlers, beloved, I say, I cry Sister became servants, mothers -nannies, beloved, I say, I cry We owed it to ourselves to immigrate to White Soil, beloved, I say I cry We trusted our fate, and we sought for the God’s protection4 3 Biz ketermız Kırım’dan cıyınday toyday aytır da cılarman

..Od bastırıp ketermiz ey yar kapını ceklep aytır da cılarman …Her s¸ iyden de tatlı eken ey yar öz tuvgan curtum aytır da cılarman …Tü¸sse Kırım akılga aytır da cılarman içim kaynay aytır da cılarman (Özenba¸slı, 2004, 72–73) 4 Akalar ırgad bolgan son ey yar babalar kahya aytır da cılarman

Ca¸s tataylar hizmetkar ey yar analar daya aytır da cılarman Borç dep bildik koçüvni ey yar Ak Toprakka aytır da cılarman El bagladık kaderge ey yar sıgındık Hakka aytır da cılarman (Özenba¸slı, 2004, 72)

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It is possible to make the case that the Crimean Tatars formed a distinct ethnic community in Dobruca, not perfectly assimilating in the Ottoman society. The Ottoman millet system was based on providing autonomy to the minorities as long as they fulfilled main duties, such as taxation and providing soldiers, in the case of Muslims. Major posts (kadıs, kaymakams) in Dobruca were inhabited by the Crimean Tatars, especially by the members of the former ruling dynasty of the Crimean Tatars, the Gerays. They were permitted to have a certain level of authority among the Crimean Tatar community in Dobruca.5 These factors enabled the Crimean Tatars to re-create their communal life in Crimea without being forced to intermix with the local Muslim (mainly Turkish and Circassian) society. The Crimean Tatars had their mosques. Intermarriage with other Muslims was limited. Still, adapting to the new host land had been difficult as expressed in another folksong: We are not wealthy enough to settle at the seacoast The two oxen the Sultan gave us don’t want to walk I could not figure out: which way is the south, which way is the north My own homeland was sweeter than everywhere.6

Williams argues that in time the Crimean Tatar culture transformed in the diaspora settings in the sense that the strong tribal and class distinctions among the Crimean Tatars eroded, and the steppe dialect, which the majority spoke dominated. Their commonalities loomed larger while their previous differences lost significance, and they formed a close-knit community. The “Nogay” social class of the Crimean society who were no longer willing to remain as a permanent underclass protested vehemently forcing the Ottoman government to accord at least symbolic recognition of their equality by giving them medals and salaries as it did to other Crimean leaders. The notables and leaders of their communities were presented special presents or posts in the Ottoman elite to prevent them to assert parallel claims of power (Karpat, 1985, 140, 141). After

5 The Ottomans additionally accorded a certain degree of political autonomy for the Crimean Tatars who were allowed governance by their own kaymakam (governor), Khan Mirza, who is a member of the dynasty of the Crimean Khans. The Crimean Geray dynasty multiplied in Dobruca and maintained their respected position (Williams, 2001). 6 Ak topraknın yalısı bizge tiymiy

Padi¸sah Bergen iki öküz gah desem cürmiy Bilalmadım men kıblamam sırtım Her s¸ iyden de tatlı eken öz tuvgan curtum (A. K., 1969: 38)

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Dobruca ceded to Romania in 1878, the social differences among the Nogay, Yalıboy and Tat and other Crimean groups largely vanished as they amalgamated into one-single Muslim Tatar group. While they distinguished themselves from others in the Balkans, they also developed an attachment to their Dobrucan villages. Although Williams (2001) notes the rise in nationalist activity among them at the beginning of the twentieth century, he makes the case that in time the Crimean Tatars in Dobruca lost their collective memory of the homeland, ending the possibility of diasporic politics. I will present a different view. The nationalist claim-making in the interwar period was not directed against the Romanian government. It was a type of long-distance nationalism, which I call “exile nationalism.” Without the interwar golden period of long-distance nationalism, protecting distinct Tatar identity in the communist era, and in turn the rise of nationalism in the 1990s would be impossible. Indeed, both the level of activism as in the first forty years of the twentieth century and the present “rise” of the Tatar diaspora movement in Dobruca in the 1990s are testimonies that neither assimilation took place nor was homeland forgotten among Crimean Tatars in Dobruca. The environmental factors (such as the communist regime) did not end the national movement but influenced the re-construction of movement in the form of territorial nationalism in the communist era, pausing transnational connections, but when communism ended, the myth of homeland or cultural traditions were rejuvenated, rendering assimilation verdict questionable. In accordance with my theoretical framework, I argue that the disruption of the political, economic, and social life of the Crimean Tatar community after their incorporation into Romania in 1878 has been an initial cause for the emergence of nationalism in this community. The emerging elite educated in Ottoman and Romanian modern institutions created first exile nationalism frames, pointing out a return to Crimea as a solution to the community’s problems in Romania. They also worked toward stopping immigration to the Ottoman Empire and later Turkey. The movement just needed more time to mobilize the community as the community was still rural and uneducated. The Second World War abruptly ended the exile nationalist movement. However, it still was able to instill a tradition of a national movement among the community. Since Romanian communists did not permit transnational relations with Crimea although it was a part of the Soviet Union, the Crimean Tatar elite forwarded a Dobruca-based nationalist frame. However, with

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the re-establishment of transnational ties in the post-communist period, diaspora nationalism emerged, as by this time the community was both well-integrated into the Romanian society and very interested in establishing transnational links with the community in Crimea and Turkey to raise their status. Thus, evidence suggests that diasporic politics had not ended but has rejuvenated in recent years, even when the Crimean Tatars lost parts of their collective memory and traditional culture, and to an extent, their mother language. This demonstrates the limits of primordialist and ethno-symbolist assumptions about ethnicity for understanding this case.

4.3

Mehmet Niyazi, Emel and Emergence of Exile Nationalism (1900–1948)

The transformation of the pre-modern community of Crimean Tatars in Dobruca, and the emergence of a class of teachers and imams with modern education, provided a suitable environment for the emergence of diaspora nationalism in Dobruca. 4.3.1

Pre-requisites of Nationalism I: The Crimean Tatar Community Under Modernization

The Russian invasion of Dobruca and Bulgaria in 1877–1878 was a second painful shock to the Crimean Tatars, who had escaped from Russian domination. Large numbers of Crimean Tatars had to migrate for the second time to the remaining lands of the Ottoman Empire. In 1878, about a million Muslims were forced out of the area that currently comprises Bulgaria and Romania. According to the British embassy reports, the Russian army and bands of armed Bulgarians killed 300,000 Muslims and forced out five million Muslims in the course of a few years (Karpat, 1985). Unfortunately, this has been a forgotten genocide, and it began to be researched only recently. Between this war and 1940, immigration from Dobruca to Anatolia continued (Ömer, 2019). The 1877–1878 Ottoman-Russian War changed the fate of Dobruca. The Berlin Treaty of July 1–13, 1878 confirmed the independence of Romania, and Romania received the Danube Delta, Snake Island, and the largest part of Dobruca, including all the territory to the north of Mangalia, and the north-east of the Silistra district from Russia in exchange for Bessarabia. The vast majority of Crimean Tatars were left

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in Romania, while some were left in southern Dobruca in Bulgaria. After the Second Balkan War (1913) (being confirmed once again after the First World War), Romania also attained southern Dobruca (Silistra and Dobrich) and continued to rule this region until 1940, when it had to transfer the region to Bulgaria. The breakup of Dobruca, along with Romania from the Ottoman Empire, turned the Crimean Tatars into a Muslim minority in a predominantly non-Muslim society, and their social, political, and economic situation deteriorated. In 1916, Romania entered the First World War and drafted young Crimean Tatar men. As the Ottoman Empire and Romania fought, the Crimean Tatar community’s communication with Turkey was cut. After the war, King Carol recognized the loyalty of Muslims to Romania and awarded them with a mosque (Kral Camii) in Constanta.7 Although Romania accepted the cultural rights of minorities as stipulated in the Treaty of Berlin, it did not provide political rights to Dobruca, which was populated mostly by Muslims when it acquired it. Until 1912, the local population of Dobruca did not have equal political rights such as participating in general elections (they could participate only in local elections), therefore, they had a second-class status in society. Dobruca was considered politically immature, and it was treated as a colony. Romania encouraged the colonization of Dobruca by the Romanians coming from the inner territories or the Vlahs from Macedonia. The lands of Muslims began to pass to Christians through various measures, and the vakif lands which were used to operate the Muslim public institutions such as schools, mosques were largely nationalized. With the waqf land taken, the impoverished community could not sustain its schools and mosques and pay the salaries of teachers and imams without state assistance. However, the state was not willing to assist in the maintenance of Muslim identity, as it preferred for Muslims to assimilate gradually. Unlike Bulgaria, which forced many Muslims to leave, the Romanian national government did not apply pressure on the Muslims to leave. However, the local governments of Tulcea, Constanta (Northern Dobruca), and Qadrilater (Southern Dobruca) successfully pursued a forced emigration policy and

7 Demiro˘ glu argues that prominent Crimean Tatars and Turks were deported from Dobruca to Moldova to live in camps and carry out forced labor. They were infected with typhus and the Spanish flu epidemics in Moldova at the time, and very few could return to their villages (Demiro˘glu, 1983, 33). However, there is not enough research to corroborate this fact.

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caused the Crimean Tatars to fall into minority numbers. The Romanian national government did not take necessary measures for migrants to stay, especially when a large number of Romanians populated after 1900. Thus, after the emigration between 1913 and 1930, there were 150,773 Turks and 22,092 Crimean Tatars left Romanian Dobruja. An agreement was signed between Turkey and Romania in 1936 (entitled 4 Eylül 1936’da Türkiye ile Romanya arasında münakid Dobruca’daki Türk ahalinin muhaceretini tanzim eden Mükavelename), to regulate the emigration of Turks and Crimean Tatars to Turkey and this increased emigration (Ömer, 2019, 309). Between 1937 and 1939, approximately 115,000 people emigrated to Turkey. Eminov argues that this number could be as high as 130,000. The 1948 census under communism showed the combined population of Turks and Crimean Tatars as 28,782 (Eminov, 2000, 134). In a nutshell, the main reasons for the emigration of Turks and Crimean Tatars (generally regarded as Turks by the Turkish government) were the continuation of political, economic, and social marginalization. Even by 1939, the Muslims were not represented fairly at the local institutions let alone national. They lost the religious autonomy they enjoyed in the Ottoman times and Romania provided only limited funding for Muslim religious institutions, and many mosques fell into decay. These grievances prepared the preconditions for Crimean Tatar nationalism in Dobruca. 4.3.2

Pre-requisites of Nationalism II: The Emergence of Modern Education

Although Dobruca and the Crimean Tatars had been formally separate from the Ottoman Empire since 1878, Romania could not integrate Dobruca and its Muslims until the Second World War. The Muslims of Dobruca seemed to have lived under the Ottoman cultural and political influence thanks to abundant transnational ties and flows between Dobruca and Istanbul, and even Crimea. As a traditional peasant community, the Turks and Crimean Tatars in Dobruca continued to provide their children with traditional Muslim education and avoided sending them to Romanian schools due to religious concerns. The Muslims in Dobruca

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continued to invite teachers from Turkey, and the community tried to fund their Muslim schools themselves. For high school, madrasa (religious school,) and university education, they sent their children to Istanbul. The educated Crimean Tatars preferred to remain in the Ottoman Empire, as they had more chances for a career there. The community lacked intellectuals and leaders to defend its interests and rights because of the brain drain. The emergence of an educated class of Muslims who would initiate a nationalist movement took place as a result of modernization beginning at the turn of the twentieth century. The Young Turks particularly ˙ figures such as Ibrahim Temo and Kırımizade, who took refuge among the Turkish communities of Dobruca brought the first modern Muslim education, modern newspapers, and modern ideas such as pan-Turkism to Dobruca in the 1890s–1900s. Moreover, in the 1910s, a small number of Crimean Tatars began to take advantage of the scholarships offered to Muslim students for attendance of Romanian institutions. In 1889, Romania introduced a teacher’s college for Muslim students, based on the age-old madrasa in Babadag. That madrasa was carried to Mecidiye (Medgidia), the center of Muslim life in Dobruca (Omer et al., 2018). The Romanian government added Romanian classes and recognized the equal status of the school to Romanian teachers’ colleges. The school aimed to educate imams, cadre of the muftiate, kadis, and teachers for Muslim institutions. Despite these efforts, it must be noted that only ten percent of the teachers in Romania were Muslims, although they formed twenty-four percent of the population (in 1930). In the first quarter of the twentieth century, a small intelligentsia emerged among the Crimean Tatars, who became familiar with modernist, nationalist, jadidist, Ottomanist, pan-Turkist, and pan-Islamic ideologies by reading ˙ the journals and newspapers reaching to Dobruca, among them Ismail Gasprinsky’s Tercüman from Crimea. The young generation of educated Crimean Tatars either joined the Young Turks or sympathized with their ideas. The young educated Muslims in Dobruca celebrated the 1908 revolution in Istanbul.

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Pan-Turkism Master Frame

Pan-Turkism had several roots. Russian Muslims first developed it as a ˙ response to pan-Slavism. I previously mentioned Ismail Gasprinskiy as one of the first Muslim intellectuals who fought for modernization and enlightenment of Muslim peoples in Russia, partly as a result of his jadidist view of the Islamic religion. One aspect of his thought was a cultural union of the Muslims if they wanted to avoid assimilation and to escape from underdevelopment. Since most Muslims spoke a dialect of Turkish, he suggested the formation of a common Turkic language and began to develop this language in his widely circulated newspaper Tercüman/Perevodchik throughout 30 years. Tercüman’s language was a simplified Ottoman Turkish, equipped with vocabulary and idioms from local dialects of Turkish spoken across the Russian Empire. For him, the common language was a requirement for the development of a unified way of thought and action among the Turko-Muslims of Russia (and even beyond). His pan-Turkism was not based on a racist ideology as he also advocated the development of cooperation between Russian and Muslim communities and thinks that Muslims should find a way of living together with Russians on more equal terms by securing their national-cultural autonomy. Subsequent Muslim intellectuals transferred these ideas to the political realm that culminated in the organization of Muslim Fraction in the State Duma. Soon repressed in Russia, these Muslim intellectuals immigrated to post-Revolution Istanbul and brought their pan-Turkism with them. They contributed greatly to the development of Turkish nationalism among the Young Turks, disillusioned with Ottomanism. The manifesto of Turkish nationalism, written by Yusuf Akçura, a Kazan Tatar intellectual (1905) would eventually turn into an ideology that transformed the Ottoman Empire into the Turkish Republic. Pan-Turkism constituted a master frame for the Turkic minorities left outside the Ottoman Empire as a result of wars. An understanding of the remaining territory as part of the pan-Turkic nation became prevalent although who was included in pan-Turkist transnation was changing according speaker or era. For example, the status of TurkoMuslims in Russia has never been a major concern for the Ottoman pan-Turkists. However, some Young Turks of Crimean Tatar origin probably interpreted this master frame to include the Crimean Tatars in Crimea. Through their transnational contacts with Crimea, they learned

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pan-Turkism also from its source, Tercüman. Gasprinsky’s newspaper circulated in Dobruca and Gasprinskiy visited Dobruja. Being aware of the growing national movement in Crimea, some Dobrujan teachers of Crimean Tatar origin, educated in Istanbul found employment in Crimean schools. The tsarist police tracked them and extradited some as a law emerged that banned teaching of foreign citizens. Still, some managed to stay and even participated in the 1917 events. Mehmet Niyazi, Mufti Halil Fehim, and Doctor Mehmet Nuri from Dobruca visited Crimea a few times and developed close contacts with the Crimean Tatar nationalists there. Through them, and through many Crimean Tatars who received education in Istanbul, the Crimean Tatars of Dobruca learned about the Crimean Tatar national movement. The movement in Crimea needed educated and trusted cadres, which Dobrujan Crimean Tatars could contribute. The cadre from Dobruca and Ottoman Turkey offered the advantage of transferring resources from hostlands to homeland. Hence, pan-Turkism as a master frame and Crimean Tatar nationalism frame developed in Dobruca provided a basis for the emergence of exile nationalism. Holding on to pan-Turkism enabled Dobrujan Tatars to synthesize the Ottoman/Turkish and Crimean aspects of their identity. Müstecip Ülküsal, Cafer Seydahmet, Mehmet Niyazi, and all other exile nationalists regarded themselves first and foremost as pan-Turkists. (However, as the Kemalist revolution in Turkey advanced, transnational pan-Turkism would increasingly be excluded from the state ideology, and the state would limit itself to a Turkish nationalism limited with its borders.) 4.3.4

Mehmet Niyazi’s Creation of the “Exile Consciousness” for the Crimean Tatars Outside the Homeland

Mehmet Niyazi was the first intellectual to imagine the Crimean Tatars living in Dobruca as part of the Crimean Tatar nation who were politically and culturally attached the homeland. He politically reconnected the Crimean Tatars living in Dobruca to the homeland. He was the first person to develop the “exile nationalism” frame, combining the diaspora sentiments in the collective memory with the ideas of pan-Turkism and the Crimean Tatar nationalism.

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Mehmet Niyazi was born in 1878 in A¸sçılar (Vanatori), a village in central Dobruca to a Crimean Tatar family, who emigrated from Crimea. Like many Crimean Tatar children of his generation, he grew up hearing stories about Crimea and Crimean Tatar oral literature. During his education in the Dar-ul Muallimin in Istanbul, Young Turks’ ideas about modernization and pan-Turkism influenced his views. He achieved fluency in French, Arabic, and Persian. After graduating as a teacher, he decided to settle in Crimea, but he was consecutively extradited, in 1900, and again in 1901, by the Tsar’s police. When he returned to Istanbul, he was under scrutiny due to his ideas of liberty, forcing him to return to Dobruca (Ergen, 1997, 22). He married Sefika ¸ Abdulakim, the sister of Kazım Abdulakim (a Crimean Tatar officer in the Romanian army and the First World War hero), and the politician and lawyer Selim Abdulakim. He was appointed as a teacher at the Constanta Turkish Secondary School (Köstence Türk Rü¸sdiyesi) in 1906 and became the headmaster between 1910 and 1914. After 1916, he was appointed headmaster of the Mecidiye Muslim Seminary. Mehmet Niyazi dedicated himself to work for the enlightenment of his people. The Seminary students adored him, recalling that he cited his Crimean Tatar poems in classes, explained to the students his nationalist ideas, and narrated to them his life in Crimea. He later established the Alumni Association of Mecidiye Muslim Seminary (Mecidiye Müslüman Seminarı Mezunları Cemiyeti/ Asociat, ia Absolvent, ilor Seminarului Musulman din Medgidia), which brought together the graduates of this school. The Association was able to influence the selection of Mufti in 1938, the leader of the Islamic community in Romania, who was before appointed by the Romanian state according to its interests (Ülküsal, 1966, 138). Mehmet Niyazi became a member of the Young Turk organization “Menafii Dobruca Müslüman Tamimi Maarif Cemiyeti” (Societatea General˘a de Înv˘at, a˘ mânt din Dobrogea—1909) which was composed of one branch in Mecidiye (Medgidia) and another one in Hrsova. Mehmet Niyazi published Dobruca Sedası, a cultural, scientific, and political journal for this organization with Süleyman Abdulhamit Efendi in Constanta (1910) (Ülküsal, 1966, 158). He published a

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series of short-term journals8 to defend the rights of Muslims in Dobruca and to spread enlightenment to Muslims. When the opportunity appeared in 1918, Mehmet Niyazi returned to Crimea together with Pazarcık Mufti Halil Fehim and Doctor Mehmet Nuri. They participated in efforts to build the new Crimean Tatar state for a few years. There, Mehmet Niyazi published a newspaper, Hakses (The True Word), which formed a mild opposition to the main actors of the movement. He developed a deep knowledge of Crimea and the Crimean Tatar national movement and maintained his network even after 1917. For instance, Bekir Sıtkı Odaba¸s now the delegate of the government of Crimea visited Mehmet Niyazi in Constanta in 1918. Odaba¸s inquired whether the return of Dobrujan Tatars to Crimea is possible as the new government needed more Crimean Tatar population and an educated cadre. Later, however, the central government in Moscow did not permit such an attempt. Mehmet Niyazi was also a poet who wrote in Ottoman Turkish, whose ˙ poems were published under the title Ithafat (Istanbul, 1912). At the same time, he wrote poetry in Crimean Tatar, perhaps being influenced by Tukay who wrote his poems in his mother language, Volga Tatar in the same period. Some of his Crimean Tatar poetry was published in

8 The purpose of the Dobruca Sedası was “cultural activity among the Muslims.” It was a scientific and political journal. It was distributed in Bulgaria, Turkey, and other parts of the Turkic people. It continued for one and a half year. Then came Te¸svik, which also continued for one and a half year. Mehmet Niyazi published this with Abdulhakim Bekir. This was a sister journal of Dobruca Sedası. It also aimed to do service to homeland and defend the rights of its people. The income of both newspapers would be sent to Muslim schools in villages. (Dobruca Sedası 3, 23 Nisan 1910) On the 1st of February, 1914, in Mecidiye (Medgidia), he published the newspaper I¸sık with the financial support ˙ of Cevdet Kemal. The editor of this newspaper was Ibrahim Temo. This newspaper also aimed to advocate for the rights of Muslims. It promised enlightenment and emphasized the significance of science and education. Mehmet Niyazi, Halil Fehim, and Omer Lutfi, the teacher of Mecidiye Saminary, supported this newspaper with their articles. In the I¸sık publishing house, in 1915 Mehmet Niyazi also published the journal Mektep ve Aile (School and Family). This also emphasized education and significance of teachers. After the war started, Halil Fehim published Dobruca, to which Mehmet Niyazi sent articles. Dobruca was closed in 1923. In 1921, Mehmet Niyazi published the Tan newspaper in Pazarcık (Dobrich), which aimed to work towards the interests of Romania and all Dobrujan Muslims. Between 1920 and 1930, he published many articles in the newspapers in Silistre and Pazarcık (Dobrich) (Ülküsal, 1966, 158–159).

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Istanbul in the 1910s.9 In Romania, his poetry was published only in 1931 under the name Sagı¸s (Longing), but before that he dictated them to his students, who spread them across Dobruja. He quickly became loved and well-known among the Crimean Tatars. A cursory examination of his poetry can help us to understand how exactly he connected the diaspora to Crimea. He began by problematizing the relationship between the place he lived and his identity in the poem “How am I?” He forms the metaphor of an “orphan,” who “grew up in darkness,” “who does not enjoy life in the real sense,” “whose laughters are superficial.” He does not understand the reason for his grief. He says, “Where did I get this grief?” This is when he realizes that he is an orphan because he does not have his homeland. He thinks of the homeland, and he burns inside. He explains the process of how he developed an attachment toward the homeland in the poem “Neçün suydim?” (“Why did I love?”) as follows: “After I heard from my mother, I began to see, and I loved my homeland. After I kissed its soil, I grieved” (Karahan, 2003). These verses explain very well that this sorrow and love came only after one learns about it. In the poem “Men Kaydayman” (“How am I?”), he underlines that his sorrow does not emanate from the poet’s immediate situation, but a historical injustice (Karahan, 2003, 28). Mehmet Niyazi is distinguished from the Ottoman poets of the time by his focus on the homeland Crimea. He used concepts like “Green Island” and “Green Homeland” to denote how Crimea is a blessed paradise in the imagination of the diasporic Tatar (“Ye¸sil Ada”). He embellishes the description of homeland further: “It is embroidered by the God” “The waves of the sea kiss its skirts.” Even the name of the poetry collection is “Longing” (“Sagı¸s”). He cites the legend living in folk memory: The Crimean Tatars left the homeland by carrying their hearth’s fire with them with a determination to maintain it forever. In another poem “ Curt Suygisi” (“The Love of Homeland”), he talks about a Crimean Tatar girl who grew up in Istanbul and loved Crimea in her dreams and longs to see it (Karahan, 2003). Another diasporic theme in Mehmet Niyazi’s poetry is nostalgia for “the happiness and glory of old days” in the homeland (“Neçün Süydim?”). He laments the parting from the homeland: “Despite the 9 Many testimonies supporting this fact was given in the documentary prepared by Zafer Karatay and Ne¸se Karatay (2006) titled “Gamalı Haç ve Kızıl Yıldız Arasında” (Between Swastika and Red Star).

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good days, why did they leave poor Crimea? Why did they disperse?” (“Neçün Süydim?”) In a poem called “Kargı¸s” (“Reproach”), he criticizes the historical mistakes which led the Crimean Tatars to leave their homeland. He also understands that the ancestors were forced to leave under unbearable pressure having no other option. He summarizes the dilemma of diaspora as such: “This is us: The people who worry about the homeland from outside the homeland, and probably will die as such” (Karahan, 2003, 28). In his poem “Telesüw”[meaning unclear] he urges a return to the homeland: “why don’t we return to Green Island today? Are our hands and feet tied?” He underlines that the Crimean Tatars of Dobruca (and indeed of the whole diaspora) are also “children of and part of the people of Crimea.” He writes that although “it has been long that they left Crimea,” they are not “getting weary” in exile, and they will return. The return will prove that the exiles were part of the people of the Crimean homeland. Consequently, they will all unite, and the enemy will never be able to divide them again (Karahan, 2003, 14). Nevertheless, even after return, some problems emanate from the captivity of the homeland: Crimea is expressed in the metaphor of a beautiful, sick, hopeless girl who does not smile to the poet. Because of his love of the homeland, the poet returns, but he is still not happy because the homeland is enduring many troubles. (“Öz Curtumda Garipmen”—“ I am alien and destitute in my own homeland”): I am not a stranger to you, I have never been. Even though I wandered outside, I missed you and I cried. I dreamed… I hoped…I made friends outside yet I feel like a stranger coming back to my own homeland. My people are lonely … Please smile Green Homeland, please smile beautiful girl! (Karahan, 2003, 23)

In consequence, Mehmet Niyazi thought of an original frame to think of the Crimean Tatar identity. His story is quite coherent: Mehmet Niyazi insisted that the Crimean Tatars in Dobruca have an existential problem, emanating from a historical injustice. The perpetrators of this injustice were those who conquered Crimea, the Russians. Here in exile, their longing for Crimea would never end, and they would inevitably be miserable. The solution was not only to return but also to save it from those who had taken it from them. Until this is all done, there will be

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no peace for the Crimean Tatars in exile. Mehmet Niyazi offers perhaps the most succinct and perceptive summary of the struggle that awaits the Crimean Tatars, right at the beginning of that struggle, and therefore he still resonates among the twentieth-century diaspora. 4.3.5

Emel and Frame Alignment Processes

Mehmet Niyazi wanted to transform the worldviews of the Crimean Tatars, but he mostly did it individually through his poetry, his teaching, and his periodicals. It was Müstecip Hacı Fazıl, who initiated frame alignment processes among the Crimean Tatars through the publication of Emel , and the nationalist organization he formed around by using that journal. Like other members of his generation, he was influenced by panTurkism, the legacy of the nationalist movement in Crimea, Promethean movement in Europe, and of course, Mehmet Niyazi’s views. In addition to an activist leader, he was also a theorist and contributed to shaping the exile nationalist frame in his considerable number of articles for Emel . When the Crimean Tatars declared their sovereignty in 1917, Müstecip Hacı Fazıl was one of the few youths who applied to go to Crimea to serve during the national movement. Since he was not given a visa, he entered Crimea illegally by hiding in a cargo ship.10 He was only 17, but he became well-versed in the ideas of Crimean Tatar nationalism while he served as a teacher during this period. Like other members of the diaspora, he had to leave Crimea toward the end of 1919 as the famine began (Dobrucalı, 1963, 17). He passed to Central Anatolia where he visited his relatives. Volunteering to work as a teacher in a Crimean Tatar village in Polatlı (Ankara) this time, he observed the situation of the Crimean Tatar communities and a country invaded by Western powers preparing for War 10 Many Tatar officers and soldiers from Dobruja, among them Caliacra mufti Halil Fehmi in the Romanian army passed to Crimea during the war. He was elected to the Qurultay and became vice-president of Religious Affairs. In 1918, 30 Tatar young men between 17 and 22 replied immediately to Bekir Odaba¸s’ request of teachers to work in Crimea. Mehmet Niyazi, and Doctor Mehmet Nuri went to Crimea in 1917. Müstecip Ülküsal notes that in addition to himself, Mehmet Niyazi’s brother Faik, his nephew Rıza and Çolak Faik also served as teachers in Qurultay period (Ülküsal, 2006). Abdurrezzak ˙ Bey met Çelebi Cihan at Vefa Idadisi (High School). He became a soldier in the Romanian army. After the Bolshevik takeover of the Crimean government, by the aid of a Tatar he met in Russian army, he passed to Crimea and began to teach in Zincirli Madrasa in Crimea. Many Tatars from the diaspora had to leave Crimea a while after the Bolshevik invasion and beginning of famine in 1919 and 1920.

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of Independence (1919–1923). Seeing war and chaos everywhere, and being unable to take part in any struggle, he decided that the best path for him would be acquiring high education, even if it had to be in a Romanian institution. He began to study law at the Bucharest University and developed the idea of creating Qurultay, a Crimean Tatar assembly among the young people in the Crimean Tatar villages in Dobruca to deliberate the political problems of Crimean Tatars.11 He founded Tonguç Cultural Association (Tonguç Kültür Cemiyeti) with the Crimean Tatar students attending Romanian schools and Medgidia Seminary in his native village, Azaplar. The graduates of the Medgidia Seminary were already organizing many cultural activities for the Crimean Tatars. For instance, Müstecip Hazı Fazıl’s brother Necip Hacı Fazıl, a seminary graduate organized a theater company to stage plays for tepre¸s and bayram festivals in 1928 and 1929. These were received with great interest by the villagers in Azaplar (Tataru). The teachers and imams who graduated from Medgidia Seminary led similar activities in other localities.12 The desire to create a journal to deal with the social problems of Crimean Tatars was emerging among these educated youth (Yurtsever, 1983, 305–306). Having been annexed to Romania once again in 1918, the old city of Hacıo˘glu Pazarcık (Dobrich) of Southern Dobruca remained a lively center of Turkish-Crimean Tatar cultural life. The population of Crimean Tatars in Pazarcık was 20,000. (Dobrucalı, 1963, 17) Graduated from Bucharest University, Müstecip Hacı Fazıl began to work as a young lawyer in Pazarcık in 1926. He contributed to various Turkish language periodicals published there, presented at conferences, and served in executive committees of Turkish associations to propagate pan-Turkism and so-called Kırımcılık (Crimeanism-nationalist movement in Crimea). In November 1929, twelve Crimean Tatar intellectuals came together13 and 11 Doctor Ragıp Refik from Istanbul, and Safaaddin R. Karanakçı who also studied in Bucharest collaborated him in this period (Dobrucalı, 1963, 17). 12 Pazarcık youth staged “Sahingiray,”“Bora” ¸ (by Halil Kırımman), and “Kurban Bayramı Gecesi” (Yurtsever, 1983). 13 Emel had 12 founders. Re¸sit Aliosman (1899–1967) after finishing Pazarcık Secondary School entered into trades. He joined Pazarcık Türk Kültür ve Spor Cemiyeti. He immigrated to Turkey during the Second World War and settled in Polatlı, Ankara. ˙ Other members were teacher Mehmet Vani, teacher Tahsin Ibrahim, teacher Rıfat Mithat, Necip Hacı Fazıl, a Medgidia Seminary graduate, Kâzım Seydahmet, tradesmen Emin ve Mehmet and Zekeriya (Bektöre) brothers, Abdulhamit Hafız Veli, taylor Huseyin Hacı Abdullah (Ülküsal, 1999).

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published a journal called Emel on the first day of 1930. It seems that ˙ Müstecip Hacı Fazıl’s contact with Ayaz Ishaki (a Kazan Tatar émigré leader) from the Promethean League prompted him to publish a journal. This was an organization of the émigré leaders of the “captive nations” of the Soviet Union which was sponsored by Marshall Pilsudski of Poland. For, Pilsudski viewed the Soviet Union as the most immediate threat to Poland. Pan-Turkism was the master frame most of these émigrés operated in, and Müctecip Ülküsal wished to connect with this organization, and publishing Emel was the first step (see Chapter 5). Mehmet Niyazi was invited to participate in publishing the journal, but being much older by the time, he contributed mostly by sending his articles and advising the young activists. The journal was financed by Crimean Tatar notable, Musa Hacı Abdullah (Dericio˘glu). Emel , without a doubt, was the most important and the longest-living journal of the Crimean Tatar diaspora (Musa Hacı Abdullah Dericio˘glu, 1974, 48). It was published regularly from 1930 until the abolition of the freedom of the press in Romania in 1941. It resumed in 1960 in Turkey and is still published, only with a break of eleven years. In the words of Müstecip Hacı Fazıl, “there has not been a journal like Emel devoted to the history, culture, and politics of the Crimean Tatars in Dobruca before 1878 in the Ottoman era or after this date in the period of Romanian administration, and such a journal was never published by the Crimean Tatars in Turkey” (Ülküsal, 1999, 152–153). In a place such as Dobruca, where various national imaginings such as Ottoman, Muslim, Romanian, Turkish, pan-Turkist, localized Tatar, and Nogay conflict, Emel aimed to promote a framework in which people could imagine themselves as part of a transnational political community of the Crimean Tatars. As Anderson proposed, this was an age newspaper created nations (Anderson, 1991). As if anticipating Anderson, Müstecip Hacı Fazıl wrote, “considering the effects of the newspapers on people, … [Emel ], by publishing articles from Crimea, Turkish and Islamic world, made the readers travel in the spiritual existence of these worlds”(Ülküsal, 1999). Emel propagated the frame represented in Exhibit 4.1.

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Exhibit 4.1: Crimean Tatar exile nationalism frame in Romania (1913– 1948) • The Crimean Tatars are a nation who immigrated from their homeland Crimea to the Ottoman lands due to Russian imperialism. • They are in a minority situation, and their economic and political situation worsens in Romania, who came to rule Dobruca in 1878. • If the Crimean Tatars immigrate to Turkey, like others before them, they will assimilate, and they will lose their identity. • For that reason, they have to join the national movement in Crimea (later national communist government) and mobilize the diaspora to return.

The frame propagated in the articles of Emel involved many aspects that were proposed earlier by Mehmet Niyazi. Though most Crimean Tatars had been settled in Dobruca for two or three generations by the 1930s, the fact that their ancestors were migrants from Crimea was emphasized (frame amplification). The involuntary aspects of migration were noted and tied to the current impoverishment of Crimean Tatars (frame amplification-calling attention to injustice). Crimean homeland was pushed to the center of the Crimean Tatar identity (frame amplification). Emel declared that the ancestral homeland to be the real homeland for the Crimean Tatars. Furthermore, the Crimean Tatars in Dobruca were imagined as part of a larger Crimean Tatar nation. Emel’s authors aimed to unify the population around the goal of an independent Crimea. They attempted to transform the identities of the population, who viewed themselves as nothing other than Muslims, into viewing themselves as Crimean Tatars and exiles. The frame can be observed in Müstecip Ülküsal’s words: Crimean Turks are in a life-or-death struggle wherever they are. In a way, this is beyond a struggle to preserve their spiritual existence, it is a struggle to maintain their physical existence. Crimean Turks were pieces that were torn and dispersed from a whole. All of them are linked to the same root, culture, and belief. They all suffered from the tyranny and tribulation of the same destructive, divisive power. Therefore, all of them must come together in the same ideal and walk together towards the goal of holy salvation and liberty. (Ülküsal, 1976, 2)

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The Crimean Tatars before Emel could not imagine repatriation to Crimea, which was dominated by the Christian Tsar. They also shunned integration into the Romanian society, demonstrated by their complete ˙ isolation from Romanian institutions and society. Just like Ismail Gasprinskiy had done fifty years ago, a handful of intellectuals argued that a different attitude toward the miseries that befell on the Crimean Tatars was possible. Emel tried to stop migration from Romania to Turkey. They argued that if there were a place to migrate, it should be the homeland Crimea. This does not mean they did not demand the improvement of minority rights from the Romanian governor to maintain their cultural and social well-being until they could return. They viewed the major problem to be a lack of modern education among the population. As Gasprinskiy did, Emel’s authors encouraged learning Romanian and receiving education in Romanian institutions. Hoping to integrate its Muslims, Romania was offering scholarships to Muslim students in its major educational institutions and Mustecip Hacı Fazıl believed that Crimean Tatars should take these opportunities. In this manner, cadres will be ready to serve in Crimea on the day of independence. According to Servet Baubec (interview), Müstecip Hacı Fazıl did not consider opening Crimean Tatar schools in Dobruca because he believed that the war would begin soon, and the Crimean Tatars would immigrate to Crimea. For, the end of the Soviet Union was regarded as quite near in the interwar era by many. The intellectuals around Emel also advocated cultural cooperation and political solidarity (frame bridging) with the other Turko-Muslim populations in Romania, Russia, and Turkey, and in the wider Islamic world to form a formidable power in international relations. Emel also counter-framed against the Soviet Union in many articles. As happened to Gasprinskiy, the main source of opposition to the Emel movement was from an old generation of conservative imams, some of whom collaborated with certain Romanian local leaders to weaken the movement. 4.3.6

Transnational Frame Bridging: Frame Bridging with Cafer Seydahmet’s émigré Frame

Around 1930, Cafer Seydahmet who was the former Minister of War of Crimean People’s Republic contacted Emel. He had escaped from Crimea in 1918 after Bolsheviks murdered Çelebi Cihan and terminated the Crimean Tatar Republic. Cafer Seydahmet, representing the right wing of Milli Fırqa of 1917 (National Party) formed the “National Center

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of Crimean Tatars” within the Promethean League (for his activities in Turkey and Europe, see Chapter 5). As Turkey did not permit anti-Soviet, pan-Turkist activity after the Turkish-Soviet Friendship Pact (1925), Cafer Seydahmet was in search of a base for his nationalist activity. Romania’s tolerant regime and a compactly settled Crimean Tatar population, preserving Crimean Tatar language and culture provided the ideal base for recruitment for his cause. On January 28, 1930, he met with prominent Crimean Tatar intellectuals in Dobruca, among them Mehmet Niyazi, Müstecip Hacı Fazıl, and Emel authors, and invited them to join his émigré movement. Mehmet Niyazi had mentioned the name of Cafer Seydahmet to Müstecip Ülküsal before as a candidate who could lead the Crimean Tatar national movement in Romania as Mehmet Niyazi was older and in poor health. Müstecip Hacı Fazıl was much younger than these two men. After knowing Müstecip Hacı Fazıl and the Emel publishers better, and sending a few articles to their journal, Cafer Seydahmet convinced these young activists that Emel should be the official journal of the Crimean Tatar National Center, hence an official Promethean journal. This event has improved the prospects of Emel greatly. The journal could not assume the importance and attain the authority it did if it had not connected with Cafer Seydahmet. Moreover, the movement in Romania could stay only local if Cafer Seydahmet did not connect it to the transnational movement of the Promethean League. Emel became a transnational project of Crimean Tatars and “an organ and center that brings together activity and struggle not only of the Dobrujan Tatars but also of the Crimean Tatars of Poland, Turkey, and Bulgaria” (DobrucaIı, 1963, 19). As civil society organizations, including pan-Turkist and diasporic organizations were prohibited in Turkey at the beginning of the 1930s (the entry of Emel journal into Turkey was banned in 193514 ) several Crimean Tatars with Turkish citizenship participated in Emel and its organization, among them Edige Kırımal and Abdullah Zihni Soysal.15 14 In the “Hakimiyet-i Milliye” newspaper in Turkey, an article was published by Re¸sit Safvet dated November 6, 1930. In this article, it was reported that some Turks of Crimean origin conduct “Tatarcılık” (Tatarism) and in these efforts, they were supported by the Romanian government and received funds from it. He argued that this is a harmful movement. Emel was declared to be totally alienated from the movement of Anatolian Turkism and even against it. Cafer Seydahmet responded this criticism by an article published in Cumhuriyet on November 12, 1930. 15 Among them who sent articles, poems to Emel from Turkey was Ra¸sit A¸ski Özkırım.

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Not only did the participants from Turkey contribute to the journal, but also they traveled to Romania and visited Crimean Tatar villages to recruit participants, and even tried to pass Bulgaria for this kind of frame alignment tours. Emel activists who studied in Poland with Pilsudski’s scholarships even extended their frame alignment activities to the Muslim Lipka Tatars who had settled in this country four hundred years ago.16 The evidence of high transnational activity was that the anniversaries of the convention of the first Crimean Tatar Qurultay were celebrated in Warsaw in 1937, with a conference organized by Crimean Tatars from Dobruca and Turkey (Dobrucalı, 1964a, 45). Another anniversary celebration was planned for Bucharest in 1938 and was canceled only because Turkey’s founding father, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (widely revered by the Crimean Tatar minority in Romania too) died shortly before the event. It was not only that Cafer Seydahmet contributed to the movement transnationalizing it, but also Emel contributed Cafer Seydahmet’s movement by connecting it to local communities. It is obvious that Cafer Seydahmet could not build such a movement coming from Crimea without linking himself to indigenous leaders such as the Emel cadre. Cafer Seydahmet wrote extensively in the journal and was introduced to the people of Dobruca by Emel . Later he spoke at many conferences in Dobruja and began to spend some time in Dobruca every year. His jubilee on April 23, 1933 became an important event there, filling a hall for 2500 people with more standing outside, demonstrating that he became a well-respected leader for the Crimean Tatars in Romania. Perhaps, he was better known in Romania, than in Turkey where he was censured by the Turkish government.

16 The contacts with Tatar and Karaim communities of Poland were strengthened in this period. The Tatar community was the descendants of the soldiers of the Golden Horde, who married and settled in Poland in the fourteenth century. Although the community lost its language completely, Islam became an important cause for the maintenance of identity for this community. The prominent activist, Edige Kırımal, who negotiated the Crimean Tatar interests with Germans during the Second World War was a Polish Tatar. Many Crimean Tatar students studied in Poland in the interwar era. The gratitude of the Crimean Tatars was so much that small number of Tatars offered themselves as soldiers to Poland during the Second World War as a symbol of fraternity.

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4.3.7

The Resonance of the Exile Nationalism Frame Increases

As in the case of the community in the USSR, participation in frame alignment processes in Romania can be organized into three levels: i. Intellectuals and Politicians The first level was composed of a small number of dedicated activists. They published Emel and related publications about Crimean Tatar national identity.17 They also formed a transnational National Center with the Crimean Tatar leaders from the other diaspora settings and the homeland, and undertook certain underground operations for the benefit of the Crimean Tatar national cause. The National Center was not an official organization in any country, and countries such as Turkey, Poland, Germany, and Romania permitted or limited their activities depending on their national interest. For instance, as the members of the National Center, they conducted diplomatic relations and back-door negotiations with Poland, Romania, Germany, and other European states when needed or smuggled Crimean Tatars from Soviet or German-occupied Crimea. The members of the National Center also prepared to take power in Crimea when an opportunity appeared, especially in war or the collapse of the state power. The 1917 experience had shown that the Crimean Tatars needed to have ready educated and professional cadres at all times. As noted before, many, including the Crimean Tatar diaspora in the interwar era, did not predict that the Soviet Union would survive as long as it did and expected its imminent collapse. The opportunity for the National Center to work for the homeland emerged during the Second World War. Edige Kırımal and Müstecip Hacı Fazıl (emigrated to Turkey before the German occupation of Romania and received the surname Ülküsal) went to Germany to lobby the German government for the national rights of the Crimean Tatars (see Chapter 5). In 1941, Müstecip Hacı Fazıl visited Köstence (Constanta) and asked the Crimean Tatar activists to compile a list of volunteers who would be willing to go to Crimea to join the nationalist movement

17 Some publications in interwar era were: Sagı¸s (Mehmet Niyazi, 1931), Tevârih-i Tatar ˙ Han ve Da˘gıstan ve Moskov ve De¸st-i Kıpçak Ülkelerinindir( Kefeli Ibrahim, 1736, ed. ˙ Cafer. Seyyid Ahmed, Pazarcık 1933), Kırım Istiklal Davası (Selim Ortay, 1939) Dobruca ve Türkler (Müstecip Ülküsal, 1940, Emel Publications: Köstence).

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and fight against the Soviet Union (Karahan, 2008, 24). However, the Nazis never permitted this action. Necip Hacı Fazıl, Müstecip Ülküsal’s brother, became the leader of the movement in Dobruca after his brother left. Before the Soviet army reoccupied the peninsula, he organized a committee to smuggle and harbor the Crimean Tatars who acted in Muslim Committees in Nazi-occupied Crimea.18 Necip Hacı Fazıl had to go to Odessa to bring the Crimean Tatars, who could not find transport to enter Romania. The committee made sure that the refugees were well-hidden in several Crimean Tatar villages, and their needs were met (Dobrucalı, 1964b, 16). When the Soviet army entered Romania, NKVD murdered Necip Hacı Fazıl (1948), but some members of the committee continued to work clandestinely to hide Crimean Tatar refugees from the Soviets and to provide them with food and money.19 Amdi Nusret (Orlu) escaped to Turkey to raise funds for the Crimean refugees, together with Müstecip Hacı Fazıl (Karahan, 2008, 24). The elite-level also included prominent Crimean Tatars who mediated between the nationalist movement and the host-state since Emel activists also paid great attention to the issue. Romania in the 1930s was becoming more dictatorial in many ways, as ultra-nationalist and xenophobic consensus emerged between mainstream politicians and legionnaires of the extreme right (Livezeanu, 1995, 4, 18). Therefore, it is all the more significant that Emel , with a nationalist agenda itself, was published without any disturbance (especially when it is banned in Turkey). Romania did not see a problem supporting anti-Soviet activity within its borders, especially coming from a community that was not interested in obtaining territorial autonomy from Romania. Metin Omer pointed out that Romanian animosity toward the Soviet Union, which did not recognize Romanian borders, made Romanian less minful of anti-Soviet activities within its borders (Omer, 2018). It was also true that Crimean Tatar educated elite incorporated in the Romanian elite and even kept good relations with the Iron Guard (Landau, 1995, 112). Landau interprets the communication with Iron Guard as a cooperation, but he does not provide any evidence. This is not possible due to Iron Guard’s ideology. 18 The committee was composed of Mehmet Vani, Mufti Mustafa Ahmet, Tevfik Islâm, ˙ ˙ ˙ Ibadula Abdula, Nazif Abdurahim, Fevzi Ibrahim, Selim Ablakim, Kasap Kâzım, Kasap Sükri, ¸ and Amdi Nusret, the lawyer and publisher of the journal Halk. 19 Ali Bekmambet, Irsmambet Yusuf, Eyup Menali, Ferat Faik, Mehmet Vani, and Müstecip Hüseyin continued committee work.

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What really seems to have happened is communication to protect the ˙ interests of Turkish and Crimean Tatar minorities. Like Ismail Gaspıralı who translated his newspaper into Russian, Müstecip Hacı Fazıl supported the publication of a weekly newspaper Halk- Poporul in Romanian and Turkish (1936) to present the movement in the public sphere and to gain the Romanian public’s, and Turkish minority’s confidence. He aimed to neutralize the Romanian government and to garner the support of Romanian and Turkish bystanders by pursuing frame alignment processes through these means.20 Another journal, Yıldırım was published in Turkish again to reply to critics in the Turkish press in Romania and Turkey. He aimed to explain that the Crimean Tatar cause meant harm neither to the Turkish minority nor to the interests of Turkey. In his efforts of neutralizing the Romanian state, Müstecip Hacı Fazıl was aided by Selim Abdülakim, the first Crimean Tatar lawyer and elected MP, who served four terms in the Romanian parliament. He was not a member of the National Center and was not particularly known for his ardent Crimean Tatar nationalism, but he supported the activities of the Dobruca Turkish Cultural Union, an organization founded by Emel acitivists. Selim Abdulakim’s primary interests were local and focused on establishing quotas for Muslim students to receive education in Romanian institutions and a scholarship fund for supporting these students, later called the Selim Abdulakim Fund. ii. Midlevel activists: Teachers, imams, students In the second level, there were midlevel activists such as Medgidia Seminary graduates, imams or teachers, or graduates of Romanian higher education institutions. The Emel journal found the largest number of supporters among the students and graduates of the Medigidia Seminary. The Young Turks and other nationalist teachers, some of whom were Turkish citizens, have already contributed to the spread of panTurkism among students. The Seminary’s Alumni Association had around 200 members in 1938 (Ülküsal, 1966, 166). The students and graduates of the Seminary subscribed and began contributing to the journal soon after it was published. They sent articles to Emel , collected regional folklore, and read the journal aloud to illiterate villagers in coffee-houses

20 The editor of Halk-Poporul was Amdi Nusret (Orlu) who had to escape to Turkey in 1949 due to communist persecution.

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to communicate Emel ’s nationalist frame to people. They also produced literary works that problematized their situation in the diaspora, featuring heroes experiencing a transformation of consciousness from being a mere Tatar into Crimean Tatar nationalist planning to return to Crimea.21 These works resonated with the population because they featured local language, values, and traditions. This second level of activists also implemented modern ideas, pan-Turkism and Crimean Tatar nationalism in their village schools or mosques. They organized activities for students such as national anniversaries (with mini-conferences), staged plays in tepre¸s and bayram festivals in villages, and invited the villagers. Emin Bektöre learned Crimean folk dances from the Crimean Tatars visiting from Turkey in 1933 (who were 1930s refugees from Crimea) and taught them to Dobrujan youth (Dobrucalı, 1964a, 45). Müstecip Hacı Fazıl regarded this level as a cadre of the future and cadre under training. He classified the leaders of the movement as follows: “The ones who earned the right to be called ‘idealist’ despite their social position or occupation and the ones who work towards adopting the ideal” (Dobrucalı, 1964a, 41). During the Second World War, Müstecip Hacı Fazıl decided to employ his trained cadre in Crimea and requested permission for the imams and teachers to go to Crimea to serve, but unfortunately, he was not able to get permission from the authorities and was not able to attain this goal by other means. iii. Masses In the third level, there were young peasant men and women who were less educated or with no education. The village youth were more open to new ideas and even took part in theater, dance, and music activities. Older peasants constituted the audience for spectacles, subscribed to the journal,

21 Some examples of such works were Cav¸sılık [Family in-law] and Ca¸s Fidanlar [Young Saplings](Necip Hacı Fazıl, 1933), Kırım [Crimea](Necip Hacı Fazıl), Bayram Senli˘ ¸ gi [Eid Holiday] (Müstecip Hacı Fazıl), Kartman Ca¸s arasında [Between Elderly and Young] (Mehmet Vani, 1934), Toy [Wedding] (Mehmet Vani, 1934), Ödelek [Coward] (Mehmet Vani,1934), Kurtulu¸s Bayramı [Liberation Day] (Mehmet Vani, 1934), Kurban Bayram Gecesi (Eid Night] (Mehmet Vani, 1938), Kökköz Bayar [Blue-Eyed Bayar] (Mehmet Vani), Büyülü Cımırta [Magic Egg] (Mehmet Vani), Uyu¸smagan Eki Arkada¸s [Two Friends who don’t fit] (Mehmet Vani), Bora [Storm] (Halil Abdülhakim Kırımman), Çora Batır[A Crimean Tatar Legendary Hero].

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and donated. Support of the third level was critical because of their sheer number and the resources they held. One way of deducing resonance among masses is looking at the circulation of the Emel journal. It was 1500 in 1930, which is a high number for the population of around 20,000 if we consider that Emel is widely recited in village coffee-houses for the people who cannot read. It must be noted that Emel was regularly published only with donations. The biggest limitation for nationalist mobilization was the low level of education among the masses. Therefore, the Emel preached modernization in parallel to the nationalist awakening. It aimed to educate the masses on issues of health, modern agricultural methods, and legal matters that could improve the state of the community and change its worldview. Müstecip Hacı Fazıl and other diaspora leaders regularly visited villages to communicate with people while collecting subscriptions and donations. Another way of deducing resonance at the mass level is by observing the spread of branches of Dobruca Türk Hars Birli˘gi (Dobruca Turkish Cultural Unions-DTHB). Müstecip Hacı Fazıl founded these local organizations by writing letters to the Emel subscribers, teachers, imams, or personally meeting them. The enlightened imams, or teachers, of these villages, were in charge of the activities, such as preparing plays for tepre¸s and bayram festivals, organizing anniversary ceremonies for the Crimean Tatar heroes, and major national events that relate to the Crimean Tatars and Turkey. The organization spread quickly to most of Dobruca between 1933 and 1935. DTHB, at its peak, was organized in 6 towns and 110 of 120 Crimean Tatar villages in Dobruca (Dobrucalı, 1964a, 44). On May 29, 1934, 500 delegates coming from six cities, and sixty-seven of eightyfive Crimean Tatar villages, whereas the sub-organization participated in the General Congress of Dobruca Türk Hars Birli˘gi. In 1934, 400 Quran re-citing ceremony (hatim) for Çelebi Cihan’s martyrdom was organized (Dobrucalı, 1964a, 41). In February 1935, national events were organized during bayram in sixty-five villages. During 1936 Eidal-Adha, nationalist events were organized in 100 villages. In February 1936, the people of 72 villages noted the anniversary of the martyrdom of Çelebi Cihan and prayed for his soul (mevlüt ) (Ülküsal, 1999, 189). These anniversaries and celebrations were repeated in subsequent years until the war. The two most significant dates when events were held were: 26 November (9 December in Gregorian), the day of the convention of Qurultay in Crimea, the day of the declaration of sovereignty, and 23 November, the anniversary of the martyrdom of Çelebi Cihan.

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Hence, we can conclude that the great majority of the population participated in the movement events. My oral history interviews also confirm a high level of knowledge of nationalist history. One interviewee raised in Southern Dobruca in this period cited me a poem on Çelebi Cihan and expressed deep respect for Müstecip Hacı Fazıl and Emel (Sükürzade ¸ Güngören, interview). Almost everyone in Dobruca accepted Çelebi Cihan as the father of the nation by the second half of the 1930s. According to the oral history account of Adeviye Karpat published in Emel, the ceremony of the opening of Mehmet Niyazi’s tomb on September 22, 1935 brought together perhaps 4000 people. (Dobrucalı, 1964a, 45). Mehmet Niyazi’s large-scale tomb was the first modern one with the tamga, the Crimean Khanate’s symbol (appearing also on the Crimean Tatar flag) (Willliams, 2001). According to the memoirs of Müstecip Hacı Fazıl, Ali Bekmambet, and Mehmet Vani (Yurtsever), each one of the educated young male and female Crimean Tatars in Dobruca participated in cultural activities (publications, theater, tepre¸s , folk dances and music, conferences) of Dobruca Turkish Cultural Union’s branches. The Crimean Tatar minority participated in several other related organizations which supported Emel frame alignment processes: Mehmet Niyazi Cultural Association (Mehmet Niyazi Kültür Cemiyeti—1938), and Lt. Major Abdülakim Cultural and Sports Association—(Mülazımevvel Kazım Abdülakim Kültür ve Spor Cemiyeti—since 1916), Turkish University Students Association (Üniversiteli Türk Talebe Cemiyeti—since 1929), Turkish High School Student Association (Liseli Türk Talebe Cemiyeti), Medgidia Seminary Student Organization, (Seminar Talebe Cemiyeti—since 1919) (Ülküsal, 1966, 166–170). A final way of understanding not only the level but also nature of the resonance of the Emel movement was the heroic acts taken during the Second World War when the homeland community came under great danger. The sudden change of political opportunity structures necessitated an increase in the level of mobilization and activity. In this period, Müstecip Hacı Fazıl also collected aid (60,000 leis and food) to be distributed to the Crimean Tatars in Crimea. However, neither Romanian nor German authorities permitted them to enter Crimea. Thus, returning Crimea in large numbers also became out of question. In this period, only Sebat Hüseyin, an imam went to Crimea with Romanian government’s permission to give sermons in mosques and connect with the Crimean Tatars in the homeland (Kirimov, 2013). Soon an opportunity for demonstrating transnational solidarity emerged for the

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Crimean Tatars in Romania. In 1943, Doctor Ahmet Özenba¸slı from Crimea contacted Necip Hacı Fazıl asking him to help the members of the National Committee to escape from Crimea to Romania, as the Soviet army was approaching the homeland. In October 1943, 150 people, including Ahmet Özenba¸slı, came by train to Constanta (Köstence) through Odessa. Necip Hacı Fazıl went to Odessa to bring the second group. Some others, such as Doctor Omerov and his wife Doctor Hayriye, came with the retreating Germans. These Crimean Tatars from Crimea were hosted by the whole villages or towns such as Karamurat (Mihail Kog˘alniceanu), Köstence, (Constanta), Perveli, Ömür¸sa (Valea Seac˘a), Mankalye (Mangalia), Tatlıcak, Bayramdede, Azaplar (Tataru), Kubadin(Cobadin), Musrat, Uzunlar, and others. Most Crimean Tatars collaborated in this endeavor. Taking this risk demonstrated a high level of resonance and strong participation at the mass level. 4.3.8

The End and Consequences of Exile Nationalism

In 1940, King Carol II abdicated due to internal tensions and General Ion Antonescu and Iron Guard took power. Germany sent one million German soldiers under the auspice of military training to Romania to guarantee the territorial integrity of Romania. This meant Romania would side with Germany in the upcoming war against the Soviets. In 1939, many Crimean Tatars were drafted, including Necip Hacı Fazıl and the workers of the Emel printing house. It became impossible to print Emel as the press began to be censured, the use of paper was limited, and a German officer was quartered in the Emel printing office. After paying off Emel’s debts for 1939 by his income, and after consulting Cafer Seydahmet and the National Center, Müstecip Hacı Fazıl decided to immigrate to Turkey for his security and the benefit of the Crimean Tatar cause. In the case of a Soviet invasion of Romania, he would be the first person to be punished as the leader of the Crimean Tatar nationalism in Dobruca. He immigrated in December of 1940.22 Müstecip Hacı Fazıl (Ülküsal) evaluated his work and concluded such in his memoirs: “My work in Dobruca was able to organize and strengthen the nationalism and ‘Kırımcılık’ (Crimeanism, the way 22 Between 1923 and 1949, from Romania 79.287 people migrated to Turkey as “registered” migrants. 43.271 people migrated with “free migrant status.” Due to Southern Dobruja’s transfer to Bulgaria (1939), 8000 Tatars and Turks were left for Turkey in 1952 (Williams, 2001).

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Crimean nationalism was customarily called in Dobruca) movement among the Crimean Tatars in this region.” The Crimean Tatars, despite not being wholly modernized or educated, mobilized to maintain their identity and serve the well-being of the homeland. Emel movement successfully reconnected the previously isolated community to Crimea, Crimean Tatars in the homeland and other parts of the diaspora. If the war did not happen, it was possible for a significant number of Crimean Tatars to return to Crimea. Although communists purged the leaders of this movement, the memory of the movement survived communism and contributed to the rejuvenation of nationalism in the 1990s. This movement advocated the interests of not only Crimean Tatars but all Turkish community, but he was not able to stop emigration from Romania owing to increasing ethnic nationalism in Romania, the attractiveness of Turkey for the Crimean Tatar diaspora as a kinstate and Turkey’s desperate need to import Turko-Muslim population resulting in Turkish Ambassador Hamdullah Suphi Tanrıöver’s successully brokered Turkish- Romanian agreement for easing emigration (1936) (Omer, 2019).

4.4 Territorial Nationalism in the Communist Era (1948–1989) In September 1940, with the Craiova Agreement, Romania was forced to surrender Southern Dobruca to Bulgaria, with its 5000 Crimean Tatars, and 130,000 Turks (Eminov, 2000, 133). After these territorial changes, Crimean Tatars became the most populous Muslim group in Romania. Only a few hundred Crimean Tatars lived in Tulcea, most Tatars lived in Constanta county. While before a very small number of Crimean Tatars had lived in Bulgaria, in the post-war era, with 5000 new Crimean Tatars, Bulgaria became a significant host-state for the Crimean Tatar diaspora. Pazarcık (Dobrich), the most significant center of Crimean Tatar modernization in the Romanian period, remained in Bulgaria. Therefore, in this section, comparisons of the developments of Bulgarian and Romanian parts of the Crimean Tatar community in Dobruca will also be drawn. The question this section will aim to answer is while Crimean communities in Romania, Bulgaria, and the Soviet Union were all repressed by a communist totalitarian government, why did the communities in Romania and Bulgaria not mobilize, creating an opposition movement to communism, and engage in a long-distance nationalist movement as the community in the USSR?

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The interaction of political opportunity structures with the framing processes explains this difference: First, in Romania, once the intelligentsia was purged, sent to prison, and pressured by the secret police, the Crimean Tatar community, which had not completed its modernization and education process, could not produce elites who would re-create the former frame of exile nationalism. Although the Soviet Union destroyed the nationalist elites of Crimea during Stalin, the Crimean Tatars had educated communists among them who could not be purged and who continued to guide the mobilization processes in the Central Asian exile. Before the Soviet invasion of Romania, there were not any communist Crimean Tatar intellectuals, as communism was weak in Romania and imposed only by Soviet force. Opposition to the state frame was made impossible by Ceausescu, who consolidated power in the 1960s. Ceau¸sescu reasserted Stalinist policy and maintained this policy until the end of his regime. Romania virtually had no moderate or organized opposition to communism when compared to the other East European States. No significant dissident movement emerged in Romania due to the security system Ceausescu put into place managed by the largest security organization of Eastern Europe, the Securitate (Departamentul Securit˘at, ii Statului). Even the large Hungarian minority was almost totally suppressed. Bulgaria did not have a credible dissident movement either (Vachudová, 2005). This created a situation wherein the Crimean Tatar leaders in Romania and Bulgaria could not take advantage of the social movement cycles (created by dissident and ethnic movements), as in the USSR. Secondly, Romania introduced an alternative identity frame for the Crimean Tatars in Dobruca by imposing the Kazan Tatar language in “Tatar” schools opened under korenizatsiia (indigenization) policy. As noted in the introduction to this book, in 1923, the Bolsheviks instituted korenizatsiia policy which “recognized distinct national cultures, and pledged central state support for their maximum development” (Martin, 2001, 74). The long-term goal was that “allUnion socialist culture” would “supersede” the “pre-existing national cultures” (Martin, 2001, 75). In Romania, the Crimean Tatars thought that this policy was a conspiracy to keep them ignorant and uneducated, and they largely dropped demands for education in the mother language. Romanian policy was connected to Soviet policy of redefining Crimean Tatars as just Tatars for them to melt among various Tatar groups in the Soviet Union. Remember that the Soviet Union abolished the ethnonym “Crimean Tatar,” calling them “Tatars formerly residing in Crimea.” The

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Soviet government even created alternative homelands in Central Asia for them. Thus, the imposition of artificial “Tatar” identity projects was rejected by both communities and made them wary of any “cultural right” offered by their respective governments. Thirdly, the limited cultural opportunities provided by the regime, and the end of overt pressure in the 1960s caused the Crimean Tatar elite to create a “non-diasporic Tatar identity frame,” attempting for extension of the communist master frame. In this frame, no attachment to Crimea was implied. By the time, in the USSR, the Crimean Tatars no more appealed to the communist master frame but shifted to the democratic one, which boosted the resonance, and strength of their movement. In Bulgaria, korenizatsiia was short-lived, as in Romania, and the high population of Turkish minority vis-a-vis the Crimean Tatars largely made the latter’s developing a distinct Tatar identity harder. 4.4.1

The Radical Change in Political and Discursive Opportunity Structures

The arrest, torture, hard labor sentences, murder of nationalist elites, partial deportation of masses, and threats of mass deportation caused the sudden disappearance of the exile nationalism frame and movement among the Crimean Tatar diaspora in Dobruca. In August 1944, after the Soviet Union invaded Romania, they asked the Romanian authorities to collaborate with them by arresting the Crimean Tatar nationalists. At the request of the Soviet Union, the Romanian authorities arrested more than 600 Soviet citizens (among them the Crimean Tatars) throughout the entire country until May 17–20, 1945 (Oberländer-Târnoveanu and Volker, 2005, 126; Emel 146, 1985, 21). Some of the Crimean refugees escaped (Oberländer-Târnoveanu and Volker, 2005, 126), and some of the refugees who were sent to Buzau by the Germans on 22–23 August were murdered by the Soviet forces who entered the city on the same day (Bekmambet, 2001, 49). The Soviet Union was after not only the Soviet citizen Crimean Tatars who escaped to Romania but also the members of the Crimean Tatar diaspora who helped them. Many Crimean Tatars from Dobruca who sheltered Crimean refugees were captured between 1944 and 1945 (Oberländer-Târnoveanu and Volker, 2005, 126) and were accused most notably of “propagandizing Crimea’s secession from the USSR, sheltering Crimean refugees, having provided money, voluntary labor, propaganda

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materials, to support Crimean liberation and the establishment of the Crimean state.” Necip Hacı Fazıl was captured in October 1948; he was tortured and assassinated by the NKVD (Oberländer-Târnoveanu and Volker, 2005, 127). After Necip Hacı Fazıl, the other leaders, who had formed a committee to smuggle the Crimean Tatars from Crimea to Romania, were arrested. In February of 1952, 15 Crimean Tatars (called Great Tatar Group case, see Karahan, 2008) were brought before the military court under charges of “having provided money, voluntary labor, propaganda materials, to support Crimean liberation and the establishment of the Crimean state, having collaborated with Germans, and sheltering Crimean refugees” (Oberländer-Târnoveanu and Volker, 2005: 127) as well as “spying for Turkey,” “having provided, information concerning Soviet and Romanian military objectives on fortification works in Dobruca and Danube-Black Sea Channel”23 (Oberländer-Târnoveanu and Volker, 2005, 127). On March 11, 1953, they received sentences ranging from hard labor for life to a minimum of seven years in prison, as well as the confiscation of their property (Oberländer-Târnoveanu and Volker, 2005, 127). When they were released at the end of the 1960 s, they were kept under constant scrutiny and forced into blue-collar jobs and poverty. Their families were discriminated against in school and in the workplace. Mehmet Vani was kept in prison and tortured24 between 1952 and 1957, and after his release, he was permitted to be the imam of a small neighborhood; his family also suffered discrimination. They finally migrated to Turkey in the 1970s. One of my interviewee, Negiat Sali’s father Eyüp Menali Sali worked in the Omur¸sa (Valea Seaca) branch of the Crimean Tatar committee, smuggling the co-ethnics during the war. In the communist era, he was accused of being a chiabur (wealthy peasants which are equivalent of kulaks in the Soviet Union) and sentenced to seven years of imprisonment. Not only did this impoverish his family,

23 In fact, some Tatars took part in anti-communist armed resistance between 1949 and 1953, in particular in actions of the Gogu Puiu group (Serif ¸ Serif), ¸ Dumitru Mihailescu group (Selim Rıza, Seyfullah Ömer, and Ekrem Mamut) or the organization Regional˘a Mareav (Ali Osman Bekmambet and Refik Cumali). According to Güner Akmolla, Imam Müstecip Samedin, Imam Ablay, Bucharest Imam Sali Regep, doctor Re¸sat Kamil, teacher ˙ Lütfi, lawyer Osman Nuri, school inspector Sacit Ali Muttalip, Police Chief Sükrü ¸ Ibrahim were also sentenced to hard labor with similar accusations (Emel-Ideal ). 24 “Memoirs from the Prison” (“Cezaevlerinden Hatıralar”) of Mehmet Vani Yurtsever was published in Karadeniz 48–54 in1997.

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but his children were expelled from high school and university (interview). In the case called Second Tatar Group,25 the members were sentenced ˙ to hard labor camps. Other nationalists such as teacher Tahsin Ibrahim, Doctor Eyüp Musa, Sevket ¸ Musa, Nuri Resul, Necip Resul, Ziya Resul, and Dentist Memedemin Sükri ¸ were arrested individually. In addition to thousands affiliated with the national movement, the notables of the Crimean Tatar society were punished. Through a 1950 list of 4323 “undignifieds,” many Crimean Tatar citizens were accused of being chiabur,“tied to former exploiters,” “members in a bourgeois political party” or “exploiting Russian prisoners” (Oberländer-Târnoveanu and Volker, 2005, 127). The lists were used to “take revenge on personal enemies” because it involved peasants who owned no more than 3– 5 ha of land. In 1951–1952, hundreds of individuals (entire families) were deported from Dobruca to Baragan. As in the USSR, the deported included women, children, and the elderly, and they were given a very short time to prepare a small number of belongings to take with them. After a difficult journey, they were forced to settle in places without accommodation and wells (Oberländer-Târnoveanu and, 2005, 127) The family of Selim Abdulakim, the prominent Crimean Tatar lawyer and MP of Romanian parliament, was destroyed in these years. Intense military preparations in Dobruca between 1949 and 1953, and a highly suspicious census done among the Muslims during which the census-makers tried to identify who is a “Tatar” and who is a “Turk,” and seemed to count only the Crimean Tatars could be the sign that “forced removal of the entire Muslim population…a scenario similar to that was used by the Soviets in Crimea” was being prepared (Oberländer-Târnoveanu and Volker, 2005, 127). Thus, not only national movements, but oppressive regimes can be transnational. The changes in Soviet foreign policy with the death of Stalin could have ended these plans.26 In the second half of the 1950s, the overt pressures on the Crimean Tatar minority decreased, while covert

25 The Second Tatar Group included Salim Cafer, Abdula Ablay, Ablamit Izzet, ˙ Re¸sit Kadır, and Faik Ferhat. 26 Deportation was not uncommon practice of the era. Jews were deported during the war. After the Second World War, thousands of Romania’s ethnic Germans were deported to the Soviet Union. The Romanian Communists later expropriated the ethnic Germans’ land and forced them onto collective farms and into factories. Roma and Yugoslavians were also deported.

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pressures for assimilation continued. Romanian and Soviet secret services ˙ arrested the Mufti of Romania, Sadık Ibrahim on August 23, 1944, and sent him to an internment camp. He was accused of “propagandizing Crimea’s secession from the USSR, of defamation to the highest degree of the Soviet state and army, as well as collaboration with the Gestapo” (Oberländer-Târnoveanu and Volker, 2005, 127). The great muftiate and muftiates of the provinces were abolished, and only one mufti was appointed for all Romania. The status of Muslim religious leaders in Romania deteriorated into a civil service position in the Ministry of Cults (Aksu, 2003, 110). Mehmet Yakup, who was appointed as the mufti in the communist era, served for forty years and was known to be a servant of the Communist Party rather than an advocate of rights of Muslims in Romania. In his era, the mosques and Muslim cemeteries went to ruin. 80 mosques were left by 1989 out of 376 in 1906. The Medigidia Seminary, after losing its status as a pedagogical school in 1948, was reduced to an institution for training only imams. It was eventually closed “due to lack of interest among Tatars to be trained as imams” (Aksu, 2003, 111).27 This was, of course, emanated from lack of job opportunities (as very few operating mosques were left), and strong political pressure over imams. The right to pilgrimage to Mecca (hajj ) was granted only for carefully picked Muslims for propaganda purposes to develop relations and trade with Muslim countries, in parallel to Romania’s search for a more independent foreign policy. In short, these drastic changes in political and discursive opportunity structures in the form of repressive measures effectively put an end to the interwar exile nationalist frame and the movement. 4.4.2

The Imposition of “Volga Tatar” Identity Frame by the Regime

With the Soviet occupation and the establishment of a communist regime in Romania, the Romanian state aligned with the Soviet frame regarding the Crimean Tatars in Romania (see Chapter 3). The Soviet frame denied 27 Several of my interviewees lamented the previous state of muftiate. Indeed religious practice especially in the communal form (such as Hajj, praying in a mosque) drastically decreased under communism due to this controlled nature of Islam and risks of public participation in religious activity for the participants. Medet Nezir, imam of the Bucharest mosque in the communist era told that when he worked as the imam of the Bucharest Mosque, he did not have much of a Muslim jamaat. Mostly foreigners such as Arabs or members of the Turkish consulate attended the prayers. The Muslims continued their private praying, sacrifice rituals, and circumcision (Interview).

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the existence of Crimean Tatars as a separate nation and was adopted in the format shown in Exhibit 4.2. Exhibit 4.2: Soviet-Romanian frame for the Crimean Tatar identity • The Crimean Tatars in Dobruca are part of the Volga Tatars and have the same language as them, therefore, education ought to be in this language. • The Crimean Tatars in Dobruca have no relation with Crimea and have been in Dobruca at least since the tenth century.

In accordance with this frame, the Crimean Tatars were renamed as simply “Tatars.” The utilization of the word “Crimea” in the historical narrations and literary works of Crimean Tatars was outlawed in Romania, as it was in the USSR. All the pre-Second World War Crimean Tatar and Turkish literature in houses and mosques were destroyed as in the Soviet Union. The Crimean Tatar communities in Romania and Central Asia were not permitted to establish any transnational relations, though these two countries are in the same bloc. The aim was that the new generations of the two communities would not have any knowledge of each other, their common history and language, and eventually, they would be alienated. Accordingly, Crimean Tatar children began to be instructed in the Kazan Tatar language with textbooks imported from Kazan (first in the Cyrillic alphabet, later transcribed into Latin) The Medgidia Seminary served to educate teachers of this new Tatar language but they also had difficulty. In 1948 the Romanian government opened the Tatar Pedagogical School for educating teachers and students. Ali Ahmet Naci Cafer played a role in the opening of this school and prepared the “Tatar” alphabet in question. The teachers who worked in this period told me that they had difficulty in understanding this language, let alone teaching the students. Although the Kazan and Crimean Tatar languages have the same root, they developed differently in morphology, syntax, lexicon, and pronunciation over the thousand years during which the Crimean and Volga Tatars evolved apart. Kazan Tatar sounded like a foreign language, and the Crimean Tatars rejected the imposition of this false identity by not sending their children to “Tatar schools,” and sending them to Romanian schools instead. In the USSR, the state did not attempt to impose the Kazan Tatar language on the Crimean Tatars because no ethnic schools were allowed for these “punished people.” Perhaps the Romanian state

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felt the need to proactively design a new identity frame for the Crimean Tatars to replace the exile nationalist frame, still fresh in the minds of the population. This is similar to the attempt of the USSR to create alternative homelands of Mubarek and Baharistan for Crimean Tatars (see Chapter 3). When this attempt backfired, the Romanian communist government ordered the graduates of the Seminary28 and the Tatar Pedagogy School to prepare books in the Crimean Tatar language used in Dobruca to be taught to students. However, when the regime realized there was little difference between the Crimean Tatar and Turkish books, it was again alarmed as the communists also wanted to distance Crimean Tatars from the Turkish language and culture (Ülküsal, 1961: 4; Eminov, 2000). In 1956, the experiment with korenizatsiia ended, as it had for the Soviet Union almost 30 years ago (Ibram, 1998, 173). In 1959, all “Tatar schools“ turned into Romanian educational institutions. The Medgidia Seminary and the Department of Tatar Language and Literature at Bucharest University were closed in 1967 and 1972, respectively. Although the attempts of the regime for creating alternative Tatar identities were not successful overall, it succeeded in alienating the Crimean Tatar people from the idea of education in the mother language. Bulgaria also ended korenizatsiia in 1956. Crimean Tatars there attended Turkish schools but those were merged with Bulgarian. 4.4.3

The Emergence of a Tatar Territorial Nationalism Frame

The Romanian communist repression of the Crimean Tatars changed from being overt to covert at the beginning of the 1960s. The family of former nationalist activists was deprived of jobs, school, communist party membership, but ordinary Crimean Tatars were not unlawfully arrested and persecuted. Unlike Bulgaria, the Romanian regime did not attempt to restrict religious rituals (circumcision, daily prayers, Eid-sacrifice), to prohibit the use of the Turkish language, to change Muslim names,

28 Zeytula Mambet, Ahmet Naci Cafer Ali, Ismail ˙ Ziyaeddin, Mehmet Ablay, Muratça Seytabdula, Ekrem Menlibay Ömer Lütfü, Habib Hilmi, and Mustafa Ahmet worked in this process of preparing a new alphabet and textbooks, as well as educating teachers. ˙ Tahsin Ibrahim, Mehmet Vani, Mustafa Ahmet, and Necip Resul were persecuted in this era.

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or to deny the ethnic identity of Crimean Tatars and Turks, seeking to Romanize them. The Romanian state even permitted visits or in a few cases immigration to Turkey or annual pilgrimage to Mecca (Hajj). For propaganda purposes, the Communist Party continued to employ Crimean Tatars and sometimes raised them to local leadership positions. Crimean Tatars were recruited to the village, town, and city level organizations of PCR and the PSD in Constanta county between 1944 and 1948. PCR’s Constanta and Tulcea county branches established sole Muslim Worker’s Front (FUMM) in 1945 to manipulate the Tatar and Turkish communities in the upcoming elections but Muslims voted for democratic parties. Later, this organization was purged. Until 1989, the representation of Tatars or Turkish party members in governing institutions was lower than their community’s percentage relative to the local population (Oberländer-Târnoveanu and Volker, 2005, 125–126). The Ceausescu regime discriminated against and weakened, but did not destroy minority institutions. It permitted a small number of Turkish schools and indeed, I interviewed Emel Emin and Nihat Osman who taught as Turkish teachers in the 1970s. Small number publications in Crimean Tatar language were also permitted. WhoIly unlike circumstances in Bulgaria, Romania pursued gradual not speedy assimilation for the Crimean Tatar identity. Similar policy of gradual assimilation can be observed even for the strongest and most populated minority: Ethnic Hungarians, initially predominant in the Communist Party, were increasingly excluded from the administrative apparatus of the regime, the officer corps, and economic management at the end of 1960s, and the Hungarian schools and teaching staff was Romanianized in a gradual process continuing until the mid-1980s. The new generation of the Crimean Tatar elite produced a framing process that reflected these modifications to political opportunity structures. Under the communist regime, the Crimean Tatars continued to be socially, economically, and politically discriminated against, but they also developed into an urbanized, and highly educated community that produced nationalist-minded elites as an “unintended consequence’”of forced education in Crimean Tatar language during the earlier korenizatsiia policies. There has never been an education program in the Crimean Tatar language in Romania, even during the Ottoman period, or the ˙ heydays of Crimean Tatar exile nationalism. Still operating with Ismail Gasprinskiy’s pan-Turkist frame, Crimean Tatars in Romania were content with education in Turkish. Under the pan-Turkist master frame, the creation of a common literary language based on the Ottoman Turkish

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language was regarded as the ultimate goal. Education in the Crimean Tatar language was not seen necessary as it was closely affiliated to Turkish and all Crimean Tatars understood Turkish. Moreover, there were no textbooks or books in Crimean Tatar. It was not yet a standardized or literary language to be taught in. One reason for not investing in the Crimean Tatar alphabet and schools is that the leaders planned that the community would return to the homeland. Continuing education in Turkish also served to unite the Turkish and Crimean Tatar minorities in Romania. Indeed, one motivation for the regime for enabling separate education for Crimean Tatars was to divide the Turkish and Crimean Tatar communities (Eminov, 2000). Quite ironically, under the education reform law accepted on August 5, 1948, the Romanian Crimean Tatars acquired for the first time in their history the right to primary and secondary education in their mother tongue. In fact, many former Turkish schools were turned into “Tatar schools.” The number of “Tatar” schools“ rose to 50 primary schools in the localities between 1956 and 1958, and all Crimean Tatar children were registered in school. There was one secondary boarding school in Mecidiye (Medgidia) and two high schools in Mecidiye (Medgidia) and Constanta (Köstence) in the “Tatar” language, and a Tatar Pedagogical School for training teachers. A Tatar Language and Literature Department in the Bucharest University was opened (functioned until 1974). After codifying the “Tatar” alphabet, based on the Crimean Tatar dialect ˙ spoken in Dobruja, Ismail Ziyaeddin and Ahmet Ali Naci Cafer prepared “Tatar” textbooks for these schools (for grades I–VIII) between 1956 and ˙ 1959. The textbooks were composed of translations and poems of Ismail Ziyaeddin (Oberländer-Târnoveanu and Volker, 2005, 129). Almost ten years of education in the Crimean Tatar language left a significant impact on the community. It consolidated the Crimean Tatar dialect spoken by the Crimean Tatars in Dobruca as a literary language, and education in the Crimean Tatar language was proven possible. The Department of Tatar Language and Literature in the university collected Crimean Tatar folk literature. Though this department was closed in 1974, the scholars continued their work in other departments (Turkish or Oriental Studies), and several books and Renkler, a literary journal was published. Education in the Crimean Tatar language contributed to growing ethnic differentiation from the Turkish community, along with the policies of Romania to separate these communities. The state preferred the Crimean Tatars over Turks for Muslim posts such as mufti

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and imams, which also created resentment among Turks. The Tatar Pedagogy School produced a new “movement elite,” determined to maintain the “Tatar” identity because several teachers were graduates of the pre-war Medgidia Seminary, some of whom were the former activists who survived the purges. The nationalist elite newly emerged from the Tatar Pedagogical School designed new frames of identity. Operating under repression, they preferred a master frame extension which means re-contextualizing the communist master frame to fit into their specific concerns. While Romanian communism prohibited the politicization of ethnic identities (sectarianism), it allowed the “cultural” expression of ethnic identity. Accordingly, Turkish but not Tatar schools were re-opened in the 1970s for a few years, and, this enabled frame alignment processes through this time. The Crimean Tatar scholars continuously collected Crimean Tatar folklore and published a limited number of books on folklore until the 1980s. Even Crimean Tatar music was allowed to be broadcasted on state radio, which could never happen in the USSR (For, they were declared non-existent to the public.). All through this time, the Romanian state ensured that “Tatar cultural identity” would not be expressed in the political sphere. For example, the use of the word “Crimea” was not allowed, even when it passes in a folk legend. The legend needed to be censured. Along with the word “Crimea,” the parts of the folk legends which voiced hostility toward Russians were censured. In Romanian versions of the legend, the famous Crimean Tatar hero Çora Batır would not fight with Russians, but Kalmyks instead. The historical narrative connecting Crimea to the Crimean Khanate was prohibited. Therefore, the Crimean Tatars chose to emphasize a historical narrative focusing on the indigenous roots of Crimean Tatars in Dobruca, researching the Turkic etymology of geographic names in Dobruja, and archaeological and historical traces of Turkic settlement in Dobruca. In the introduction of Boztorgay (1980), the author Mehmet Ablay under the title of “who are the Crimean Tatars?” claimed that Dobruca Tatars belonged to one great tribe of Mongolians left after the Batuhan armies, with no refer˙ ence to Crimean Khanate. The authors such as Ismail Ziyaeddin, Acıemin Bavbek, and Yusuf Sarıgöl implied a direct connection with tenth-century Turkic tribes (Cumans, Pechenegs) and contemporary Tatars in Dobruca, bypassing the eight hundred years in between. The arguments about the extension of the territories of Crimean Khanate to Bucak (today’s Tulcea) are stronger for claiming indigeneity in Dobruca, but for only a small part of Crimean Tatars of Nogay sub-ethnic group in Romania. Baubec (2001) and Ülküsal (1980) argued that the Russian oppression in Romania did

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not permit the use of word Crimea in the communist era. This territorially rooted Tatar identity frame was developed as a reaction to state oppression and enabled maintaining cultural aspects of Crimean Tatar identity. We can even argue that it strengthened the feeling of ethnic difference among the Tatars separating them from Turks, and creating consciousness about the Crimean Tatar language, separate from the Turkish language. People generally approved activities that contributed to maintaining their native language and culture.29 In 1956, a Romanian play, translated into Crimean Tatar and performed by the students of the Tatar Pedagogy School was applauded by a large Crimean Tatar audience in Constanta (Köstence) (Kerim, 2000, 11). However, a Dobrujan Tatar identity, disconnected from Crimea was not convincing, and the memory of the ˙ interwar movement was still vivid. Orhan Ibraim, and Tahsin Gamil, who were university students in the 1960s organized the Crimean Tatar spring festival, “tepre¸s ” among Crimean Tatar students in Jassy (interview with ˙ Ibraim) as an expression of maintenance of nationalist identity among youth. As soon as communism collapsed in Romania, the diaspora nationalism frame replaced territorial nationalism frame (Exhibit 4.3) but the latter also continued to influence the new frame with its emphasis on indigeneity, and dual identity as both Crimean Tatar and Dobruca Tatar. Exhibit 4.3: Crimean Tatar territorial nationalism frame in the communist era (1948–1989) • The “Tatars” are indigenous to Romania. They emanate both from Turkic peoples who came to Romania there as early as the tenth century as well as later migrations from Crimea, thus the “Tatars in Romania” have distinct ethnic roots, language, and traditions than the Crimean Tatars in Crimea. • Communism and cultural rights can be reconciled and the Crimean Tatars can achieve total equality in Romania.

29 In 1981, Mehmet Ali Ekrem, a professor at the Department of Turkology, at the

Bucharest University published Bülbül Sesi, a collection of Tatar folk literature. Tahsin Gamil published his doctoral thesis on Tatar history in 1979 by the Academy of Romanian Socialist Republic. The Kriterion Press continued to publish minority folkloric material, such as Boztorgay, Bülbül Sesi, Bozcigit, Ayuw Fulak Batur, Tepegöz- Dobruca Masalları in Crimean Tatar in the 1980s and 1990s.

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4.5 Diaspora Nationalism to Transnationalism in the Post-communist Romania (1989-) Despite the assumptions of assimilation in the communist era, during which the Crimean Tatar identity was reduced to a “cultural minority,” with a low resonance among the population, the mobilization of the Crimean Tatar community in Romania dramatically increased in the 1990s. In this section, I will provide evidence for the claim that Crimean Tatar nationalism rejuvenated in Dobruca and describe how and why. Presenting the change in political opportunity structures, I will explain how activists sought to recontextualize pan-Turkism and synthesized prewar frame with territorial identity frame and as a result formed the diaspora nationalist frame. While civil society began to flourish across Romania, the Crimean Tatars also formed an organization, the Union of Democratic Muslim Turk-Tatars of Romania (UDTTMR) in Bucharest in April 1990. The main purposes of the association are the recognition of the Crimean Tatars as an ethnic minority; maintenance of culture and tradition and transferring them to future generations; increase of opportunities of education in Turkish and Crimean Tatar languages; the approval of statute on minorities in Romania, which defines minorities, and provide them with cultural autonomy; and ethnic representation of Crimean Tatars in governing organs. Later, this organization moved its center to Constanta and formed branches across Dobruca and other places in Romania wherever Crimean Tatars resided. Books in the Crimean Tatar language or on Crimean Tatar history proliferated beginning in the 1980s.30 Karadeniz, a general newspaper, and Ca¸s , a newspaper for the youth, joined Renkler, a literary journal which began to be published in 1987. The UDTTMR organized several regular events commemorating historical figures and “heroes” of Crimean Tatar nationalism in Crimea and Dobruca, whose names were forbidden to pronounce during the communist era. A series of conferences were organized in Constanta on “The Past, Today, and Future of

30 Gemil, Tahsin. 1997. Originea t˘ atarilor. Locul lor in Romania si in lumea turc˘a. Lucr˘arile Simpozionului interna¸tional (Constan¸ta, 17–20 November1994), Editura Kriterion: Bucharest, Mehmet Ali Ekrem, 1994. Din istoria turcilor dobrogeni (From the History of Dobrogean Turks), Bucure¸sti: Kriterion, Ablay, Mehmet. 1997. Din Istoria Tatarilor. De la Ginghis Han la Gorbaciov. Bucure¸sti: Ed. Kriterion.

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Tatars” inviting Meclis members from Crimea and Crimean Tatar Associations from Turkey and Bulgaria. More than seventy participants from outside Romania joined the 2002 meeting and discussed topics such as the unification of international Crimean Tatar associations under a federation and the acceptance of a common Crimean Tatar language across diasporic and homeland communities.31 The UDTTMR organized an annual festival of traditional attire, dance, and music since 1995, to which they invite Turkish and Crimean Tatar groups from Crimea, Turkey, Bulgaria, and Macedonia. The adults began to recover their knowledge of Crimean Tatar and began to speak the mother-tongue more in daily life. The Crimean Tatar language textbooks were prepared, and Crimean Tatar language classes began to be offered for the youth. The Crimean Tatar community began to restore and rebuild mosques and ancestral cemeteries, rejuvenate traditional Islamic practices, and renew their knowledge of Islam. Many Tatars learned to cite Quran in Arabic in the post-communist period (interview Nariman Ibraim). Today there are 63 operating mosques in Dobruca from a few operating ones during communism. The muftiate was reformed. A very young mufti, with a BA and an MA degree from a Turkish university, was elected, as an intentional step away from the older generation of imams, who were criticized as conciliators of the communists. The Muftiate modernized its practices by preparing a website in English, publishing a journal to discuss the modern topics related to Islam and the problems of Muslims, and initiating a program to educate the people on observing religious practices, which the communist regime made them forget (interview with Murat Yusuf)). Similar to the communist era, the muftiate continued to be controlled by the Crimean Tatars, mostly because the Crimean Tatars are more populated and more dominant economically and socially than the Turks. The Mufti himself did not shun away from his attachment to Crimea and his Crimean Tatar national identity. He regarded that the strengthening of Islam in Romania contributes to the strengthening of the Crimean Tatar and Turkish identities in Romania. Museums of Crimean 31 In 1995, 1998, 2002, 2010, the series of conferences on Tatar past, today and futures was organized by the UDTTMR and conference presentations were published as books. Other conferences such as the International Conference on “Preserving the Diversity of Regional and Minority Languages in the Black Sea Region” were organized in Bucharest in December 2008. (Cemilev, and other Crimean Tatars from Crimea and Romania partic˙ ipated.) Conferences on Müstecip Ülküsal, Ismail Gasprinskiy, Hamdi Giraybay, and Necip Hacı Fazıl were also organized.

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Tatar ethnography are now opened in Cobadin and within UDTTMR branches. Several dance ensembles emerged to perform Crimean Tatar traditional dance. The Crimean Tatar dance was practiced in pre-war era, was forgotten in the communist era, and was rejuvenated in the 1990 through bringing instructors from Crimea and Turkey. Traditional festivals such as tepre¸s , navrez, hıdırellez, and Eid (Bayram) began to be celebrated with the involvement of a large number of the Crimean Tatars all across Romania. Almost a hundred representatives of the Romanian Crimean Tatars (more than Crimean Tatars from Turkey or the United States) began to regularly join the 18 May Deportation Day meetings in Crimea, and their representatives made public speeches since the early 1990s. In 1995, the Crimean Tatars in Romania organized an aid campaign for the repatriates in Crimea led by Ali Bekmambet, a wartime Crimean Tatar committee member (Bekmambet, 2001). The visits flow, and networks increased between the homeland and Dobruca. The Crimean Tatar museum in Crimea collected a large number of traditional Crimean Tatar handicrafts and embroidery from Romania. Since the traditional artwork and belongings of the Crimean Tatars were stolen by the Soviet state or simply taken by the people who moved into Crimean Tatar homes after the deportation, Romanian and Turkish diaspora communities who maintained these traditional crafts became significant sources for learning about this aspect of Crimean Tatar culture. An internet community of Romanian Crimean Tatars emerged, and the latter actively participated in worldwide Crimean Tatar lists, communicating in Crimean Tatar, Turkish, and English. The linkages between the Romanian community and Turkish, Bulgarian, American diaspora communities also increased. The Crimean Tatars, who emigrated in the early 1990 s from Romania, formed the basis for the Canadian Crimean Tatar community and interacted with the diasporic communities in the United States and Turkey. The Romanian community also actively participated in the World Crimean Tatar Congress. All this evidence suggests that there is a “rise” in the mobilization of the Crimean Tatar community. Many of my interviewees agree with the rejuvenation of the Crimean Tatar culture in Dobruca in the 1990s. According to Eminov too, the Turks and Crimean Tatars in Bulgaria “are more content about themselves and feel greater pride in whom they are when compared with the recent past” (Eminov, 2000, 157). Thus, the perspectives asserting the assimilation of Crimean Tatars in the Romanian diasporic setting, due to loss of traditional culture, language, and collective memory of the myth

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of homeland, do not appear empirically valid. The evidence demonstrates that losses in cultural and linguistic areas are compensated by significant political developments, which led to a cultural reawakening. 4.5.1

Changes in Political and Discursive Opportunity Structures

The end of the Cold War and economic globalization created global structural changes that introduced liberalization of politics and democracy to the host lands of the Crimean Tatars. Former inequalities and oppression suffered by the Crimean Tatar community in Romania waned, which was interpreted as the emergence of political opportunity by the Crimean Tatars and other minorities. Romania entered the European Union, and this required the state to provide cultural rights to its minorities. Romania also signed the Council of Europe’s Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities and the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. A Council for National Minorities was created in Romania to implement those agreements. Romania requested assistance of monitoring bodies, such as the OSCE on minority protection. The state was also compelled to provide more robust minority rights due to the pressures of its powerful Hungarian minority; the Crimean Tatars and other minorities benefited from the concessions given to this larger minority. The expansion of democracy in the contemporary era, created a possibility of cultural existence for the Crimean Tatar community even better than the interwar era when the community leaders thought the return to Crimea as the most significant a solution to marginalization in Romania. In my interview with him, Amed Aladin, the present Crimean Tatar MP in the Romanian parliament, expressed that the community does not plan to return to Crimea in the near future. Aladin is content with the tolerance and supports Romania demonstrates toward the cultural, educational, and religious affairs of Crimean Tatars. Romania offered quotas of one parliamentary seat each for Crimean Tatar and Turkish communities. Moreover, it granted rights of education in mother tongue at primary and secondary levels to all minorities (Aksu, 2003, 92). Romania and the European Union also encouraged philanthropic foundations (wakf ) and civil society activity for the development of minorities. One of these foundations ˙ was Insanlık Vakfı (Fundatia Humanist, Culturel, Scientifique) which not only undertakes several projects for multiculturalism in Romania, but also publishes a journal, organizes activities for Crimean Tatar children in

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mother language, and seminars for youth for starting a business, manages ethnographic museum for Crimean Tatar and other minorities, stages cultural theater, and commemorates the local important figures in the history of Crimean Tatars in Romania. The state also provides funds to UDTTMR beginning from 1996. In 1991, Turkish Language and Literature Department was opened in Ovidius University, Constanta. In 1994, religious education for Muslims began in Mecidiye (Medgidia) in Nicolae Balcescu High School. With a Romanian-Turkish protocol on July 13, ˙ 1995, Kemal Atatürk Ilahiyat ve Pedagoji Lisesi (Kemal Atatürk Religious and Pedagogical High School) was opened in 1996 with 327 studentscapacity and 7 teachers from Turkey. It was financed partly by the Turkish government and involved a dormitory. A three-year pedagogy college was added in 2001. These developments contributed the re-emergence of a form of Crimean Tatar diasporic nationalism that varies from the older exile nationalism ideology. An exile nationalism, which emphasizes return, would no longer have high empirical fidelity among the Crimean Tatar population, who were enthusiastic about becoming EU citizens, and believed in prospects of prospering in Romania. The Crimea seemed to be still stuck in post-Soviet uncertainty. More importantly, the return goal, without even having been widely accepted by the Crimean Tatar masses, became largely forgotten due to the discontinuity of the pre-Second World War frame in the communist era. Moreover, Amed Aladin believes Romania provided them almost as good an opportunity as well in Crimea to protect their identity. For Amed Aladin, assimilation in Crimea is as strong as a possibility as in Romania, given the small number of Crimean Tatar schools and the minority position of the Crimean Tatars among Slavs in the peninsula (interview). Now the Crimean Tatars in Crimea are under oppressive authoritarianism. Additionally, Romania’s toleration toward the Islamic community was noted by the Mufti of Muslims in Romania, Murat Yusuf (Cihan Haber Ajansı, 6 June 2010). After 1989, Bulgaria also recognized citizens of non-Bulgarian origin (not national minorities) and recognized their right to education in the mother tongue, as well as the right to maintain culture and religion as part of accession to the European Union (Eminov, 2000, 157). In that respect, both Romania and Bulgaria were more progressive than Greece, a longtime European Union member, where serious problems in minority education, government interference in Muslim religious affairs, and restrictions on freedom

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of expression exist (Eminov 2000, 158). Consequently, diaspora nationalism, which ensures the maintenance of identity in the diasporic setting, was regarded as a real option for the Crimean Tatars in the 1990s and 2000s. Despite this enthusiasm, Romania did not become a multicultural society, which guarantees the maintenance of their national identity by small minorities. Romania continues to be a “nationalizing state” (Brubaker, 1995, 109), in which assimilation is still a strong possibility, especially for small nationalities.32 Hence, there are difficulties in the implementation of minority rights, demanded as a condition by the EU. For example, during my interview, Bekta¸s Behic explained that Romanian school principals in Mecidiye (Medgidia) are not willing to support Turkish language classes (interview). The insufficient number of classrooms and unavailability of textbooks for some grades and subjects is a significant problem. The problem of implementation is also significant for minorities in Bulgaria. We can conclude that both states implicitly favor gradual assimilation for Tatar and Turkish minorities. The situation in worse for the Crimean Tatar language as it is not taught officially, but could only be learned through courses offered in associations. 4.5.2

The Re-emergence of Pan-Turkist Master Frame

Previously, transnational links and flows between the Muslims in Romania and Turkey were purposefully limited by the communist government. With the developments in communication technologies in the global era, Turkey’s cultural influence and a master frame of pan-Turkism spread to Muslim minorities in the Balkans with satellite TV, Turkish periodicals, and the internet. With the ease of transportation in the global

32 Romania did not permit the use of the Turkish school textbooks beginning from 1995. Therefore, Crimean Tatar scholars Bektas Behic, Servet Baubec, and Ya¸sar Memedemin prepared Turkish textbooks for Romanian schools. Turkish schools, which are operated and supported by Turkey are not still recognized as equivalent to Romanian schools with 10 years of compulsory education. For, Turkish and Tatar children, education in mother language (Turkish) is not recognized as compulsory but voluntary. There is no financial support for education in mother tongue. The government does not pay salaries of teachers instructing mother tongue classes. Turkish language education is scheduled to Saturday or Sunday, or to an extra hour after school, which makes students reluctant to attend. (Interview).

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era, economic, touristic, family, and religious visits to Turkey became commonplace. The end of the Cold War coincided with the rise of pan-Turkist foreign policy in Turkey, during which Turkey tried to become a patron of Turko-Muslim minorities abroad (Kushner, 1997). The Crimean Tatars in Romania were legally designated as a Turkish minority (in addition to Turks in Romania), hence the Turkish state and societal organizations revived pan-Turkism through their activities in Romania. The Turkish embassy and the consulate in Constanta (Köstence) became involved in community matters, especially in urging for the unification of Turkish and Crimean Tatar community associations in Romania.33 Turkish diaspora policy involved the following activities: increase in Turkish investment in Romania, and opening of Turkish schools s offers of scholarships to study in Turkey, and sending of religious personnel facilitated transnational cultural flows from Turkey to Muslim minorities in Romania (Turks, Crimean Tatars, and even to the Christian Turkic minorities such as Gagauz). Turkey also actively supported the Turkish-Crimean Tatar minority in Bulgaria and hosted almost 300.000 Turks and Crimean Tatars, deported from Bulgaria in 1989. In an attempt to develop their repressed identity, the Crimean Tatars and Turks in Romania and Bulgaria looked toward Turkey for resources to renew their identity. Until 1995, they sent teachers to Turkey to learn Turkish, and Turkish school books could legally be taught and used in Romania. Until 2000, Karadeniz was mostly published in Turkish and Romanian, with a few articles in Crimean Tatar. The Turkish language is still highly preferred as it enables the Crimean Tatars in Romania to read the publications of the Crimean Tatar diaspora in Turkey and various other publications with pan-Turkist content. However, Crimean Tatar

33 In 1990, Turks and Tatars formed a common organization, the Union of Democratic Tatar-Turk Muslims of Romania. (UDTTMR) However, in 1991 this organization was divided into Turkish and Tatar organizations due to conflict of interest among the elites. Turkish elites, who believed that they deserve a higher political power due their kinstate and who have more population than Tatars did not want to be dominated by Tatars who generally have higher social status and traditionally dominated in Muslim and societal organizations in Romania. More importantly, if there were two separate ethnic organizations, they could each receive 300,000 Euros from Romania instead of sharing that money. Moreover, there is one Tatar and one Turkish parliamentarian in the parliament now, instead of one representing both communities (anonymous interviewee).

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politicians occasionally conflict with the Turkish Embassy, or other representatives who do not appreciate the Crimean Tatars’ effort to maintain Crimean Tatar identity along with Turkish, and their aspiration to maintain an equivalent connection to both Crimea and Turkey. For instance, Turkish academician Ali Aksu visiting Romania summarizes the Turkish state’s view as a “Tatar” identity being an unreal and unnecessary claim (Aksu, 2003, 45, 49). Still, Crimean Tatar diaspora nationalists regard pan-Turkism as a useful master frame, which provides ideational tools for the development of a Crimean Tatar nationalist frame, and reject any attempt to assert domination over Crimean Tatars by Turks feeling a slight on the part of Turkey. One activist articulates as such: We do not reject that we too are Turks or Muslim. …In Romania, we [Crime an Tatars work more [than Turks themselves] to elevate Turkishness, but when it is time to reap the benefits of what we sowed, we are portrayed as non-Turks… Being a [Crimean] Tatar means working for Turkishness (Türklük). Nevertheless, the meaning of our Turkishness [for us] is Crimean Tatar nationalism (interview).

According to Nihat Osman “Although the roots of Turks and [Crimean] Tatars are the same, it still means a lot to me to be able to say that I am a Tatar” (interview). We must note that not all Crimean Tatars agree on this issue, and the “Crimean Tatar nationalist frame” is not uniformly resonant. Bekta¸s Behic argues: “Some want to rejuvenate ‘Kırımcılık’ (Crimeanism-the term for Crimean Tatar exile nationalism of the interwar period). It is Turkey who helps us now. We should not alienate Turkey” (interview). Cenan Bolat and Leman Ali, who were selected to represent Crimean Tatars in the Romanian bureaucracy, endorse the Turkish language rather than Crimean Tatar, finding it more practical and beneficial for the community. However, they were criticized by those with a “Crimean Tatar nationalist frame” in the UDTTMR for holding these attitudes (Kerim 2000, 11). 4.5.3

The Legacy of Pre-war Exile Nationalism Frame

The exile nationalist frame of the pre-Second World War era, which was repressed by the communists, was maintained in the collective memory even during the communist era. This frame was never willingly abandoned by the community, but it was repressed by the communist

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regime. This case demonstrates that frames can re-emerge. In the post˙ communist period, the proponents of this frame were Ismail Ziyaeddin, Ya¸sar Memedemin, Altay Kerim, Nevzat Yusuf, Hagi Emin Bavbeg, Kiyaseddin Uteu, and Servet Bavbeg. First of all, the opening of the Securitate archives revealed the extent of violence perpetrated against the Crimean Tatar nationalists by communists, and this caused the remembering of collective trauma. Ali Osman Bekmambet, a survivor of the Crimean Tatar national committees established to help the Crimean Tatars in the homeland, was given an award for his service to the nation in Constanta (Köstence) on May 10, 2002. Convention of a conference on Mehmet Niyazi as early as 1990 demonstrates that communism was not able to make Crimean Tatars forget the legacy of pre-war nationalists. Indeed, Mehmet Niyazi’s poetry influenced many contemporary poets, including Ya¸sar Memedemin in their use of themes of homeland in literary works (Baubec, 2001, 6). Even the statute of post-1990 UDTTMR was based on the statute of the interwar organization, “Dobruca Türk Hars Birli˘gi” (Dobruca Turkish Cultural Association). A regular commemoration of the February 23rd, Çelebi Cihan’s death, was initiated, as it was before the Second World War (interview with Nihat Osman). The emergence of oral histories and the discovery of publications belonging to that period also contributed to remembering. Mehmet Niyazi’s and Mehmet Vani’s works could be published only after 1990. ˙ Mehmet Niyazi continued to be an inspiration. Ismail Ziyaeddin, and Ya¸sar Memedemin narrated imaginary conversations with Mehmet Niyazi. In the 1990s, a few surviving graduates of the Medgidia Seminary, and their students (unofficially or at Tatar Pedagogical School) were still alive. Indeed, a hundred graduates of Seminary came together in 2001. The old generation who was educated in the village schools of interwar Dobruca explained “Crimeanism” (Kırımcılık) they were taught. They have published the poems and songs they memorized in interviews, in Karadeniz, and in books. The Emel journals of the 1930s, which were mostly preserved in Turkey, were read. This excavated exile nationalism frame influenced the emergence of diaspora nationalism, particularly its devotion to an independent Crimea, and counter-framing against the Soviet Union and its legacy. The difference was that the new frame of diaspora nationalism did not emphasize return.

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4.5.4

The Legacy of Territorial Nationalism Frame

It was thanks to the elite nationalism of the Crimean Tatar teachers and scholars during the communist era that some kind of Tatar national iden˙ tity survived in Romania (interview with Ismail Kerimov in Crimea) A few publications about the history, ethnology, and folklore of the community in the 1980s became a resource that could be utilized to regenerate a Crimean Tatar cultural consciousness in the 1990s. In my fieldwork in Dobruca, I saw retired teachers educated in the pedagogical schools in the communist era and taught Crimean Tatar and later Turkish at every point of the national movement. They were editing newspapers, journals, writing textbooks, articles, poems, books, organizing public activities, events, conferences, tending the reparation of mosques, and hosting visitors from other diasporas and homeland. After all, pre-war nationalists were left a few and very old, professionals and engineers were busy adapting to capitalism and young people could not speak the Crimean Tatar language. We could easily say if they had not been there, the chain of the national movement would be broken, and diaspora could very well disappear. One of these teachers, Nihat Osman, edited Karadeniz. In our interview, he told me he was working very hard to switch the focus of the UDTTMR to teach the mother tongue. He criticized the use of resources to teach Turkish, leaving less time for them to learn Crimean Tatar. After all, Turkish was more attractive for young people, as they could work in Turkey if they knew the language. However, the native language, the only remaining attribute of this assimilating minority needed some affirmative action. Thus, teachers educated in the communist era including Ya¸sar Memedemin, Servet Baubec, and Nihat Osman founded the Necip Hacı Fazıl Association for the development of Crimean Tatar language and literature in 1994. They were joined by Negiat Sali, the Crimean Tatar MP in the Romanian parliament and son of the Second World Warera national activist, and collected more than 200 signatures to begin Crimean Tatar classes in the UDTTMR in 1999 (interview). Under the influence of this group, Karadeniz began to be published predominantly in Crimean Tatar in 2000. Several articles on the necessity to maintain the Crimean Tatar language were published in Karadeniz (Kerim, 2000, 11). A number of authors such as Altay Kerim, Kiyaseddin Uteo, Selma Khalil Ra¸sit, Raime Nasipali, Cevat Rasit, Enver Mahmut, and Necibe Sukuri ¸ voiced support for education in Tatar language (Mustafa,

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2000, 9). Textbooks in the Crimean Tatar language were written, and classes in native language for children in the community-building were initiated. A Crimean Tatar language-daycare was opened in Constanta (Köstence). Peer pressure emerged to speak in Crimean Tatar in the meetings of associations (interview with Nariman Ibraim). In all the meetings I was a participant observant, Crimean Tatar language was the main working language with occasional lapse into Romanian. Those who could not speak Crimean Tatar were criticized. The Crimean Tatar language spoken in Dobruca was also endorsed by a large number of descendants of the Crimean Tatar immigrants from Dobruca to Turkey. For example, a Tatar language journal, Emel (Ideal) was sponsored by an immigrant from Dobruca to Turkey, Nurettin Mahir Altu˘g. Nedret and Enver Mahmut’s articles also regularly appeared in the Crimean Tatar journal Kırım (1992–) published in Turkey (This was an example of transnational frame bridging on the issue of Dobrujan or “Çöl” dialect between Enver and Nedret Mahmut and Kırım journal circle in Turkey). In 2008, the Crimean Tatar language began to be taught as a subject in Romanian schools, and 5 May was declared as the “Tatar Language Day” by “the Romanian Parliament in 2011” (Bayramaliyev, 2008). We must note that when the teachers say native language, they mean a Crimean Tatar dialect spoken in Dobruca. As we explained in the previous section, for its complex reasons, the Romanian communist state invested a lot in institutionalizing this dialect, with the alphabet, books, schools, teachers, research agendas, and universities. Being a product of such a policy, “teachers” defended a frame that accepts both Crimea and Dobruca as legitimate homelands for Crimean Tatars and Crimean Tatars as the indigenous people of Dobruca as well as Crimea. They supported the Crimean Tatars in the Crimean homeland but did not want to abandon Dobruca or their sub-ethnic dialect. Whether the school texts would be written in the Crimean Tatar dialect spoken in Dobruca or the Crimean Tatar officially accepted by the Qurultay in Crimea became a heated debate, especially in the previously mentioned 2002 conference, attended by scholars and politicians from Crimea. The co-ethnics from Crimea, among them Mustafa Cemilev, alleged that the Crimean Tatar language in Dobruca is impure being mixed with Turkish, and based on a non-standardized dialect (interview). Crimean Tatar dialect spoken in Dobruca largely relies on Turkish today for linguistic support, and there is not a completely a standardized version of this dialect (see Eker, 2006). Moreover, the future of “Dobrujan” Crimean Tatar as a

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language is unclear, as young Crimean Tatar poets and writers use Romanian. Amet Aladin and Rüstem Seitabla are famous Crimean Tatar poets writing in Romanian. Rüstem Seitabla, an offspring of WWII refugees from Crimea who grew up in inner Romania hiding, isolated from the Tatar community, could not speak Tatar, but expressed that he touches diasporic themes, and attachment to Crimea in his poetry and this is what makes his poetry Tatar, not the language, in my conversation during a conference (September 6, 2005). It must be noted that the difference between the Crimean Tatar dialect spoken in Dobruca from the Crimean Tatar language presently spoken in Crimea is exaggerated, and conciliation is recently taking place. The “teachers” understand the value of having a common language between Crimea and Dobruca, and Meclis and scholars in Crimea understand that Crimean Tatars in Dobruca want to be recognized for their experiences, and achievements, and identity. They do not want certain unique words or concepts that they developed in their long course of diasporic history, almost the only legacy left from forefathers to be forsaken. This discussion speaks to the larger discussion about what kind of transnational nation the Crimean Tatars envisage. 4.5.5

Transnational Frame Bridging with the Crimean Tatar Repatriate Community in Crimea and the Diaspora Community in Turkey

Previously, the Soviet and Romanian communist regimes blocked all connections to the homeland or between their two Crimean Tatar communities. By deporting all remaining Crimean Tatars in 1944, and even repressing the Crimean Tatar nationalists in Romania, the Soviet government aimed to dissolve the links between the Crimean Tatars and Crimea forever. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the transition to democracy in Romania and Ukraine, and the developments in communication technologies, the transnational communication and relations between the homeland Crimea and the host-states of the Crimean Tatar diaspora rapidly developed. The Meclis and the General Center of Crimean Turks Culture and Aid Associations in Turkey (KTKYDGM) sought frame bridging among the Romanian and the American communities. As noted before, Mustafa Cemilev visited the Romanian community for an international conference where a disagreement about language and the alphabet occurred. However, politically the Romanian community swiftly declared allegiance

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to the political orientation of Mustafa Cemilev and he was appointed as the Head of the UDTTMR as Meclis’ representative in Romania. Next, a representative from the UDTTMR was invited to the Qurultay and 18 May meetings, and the World Crimean Tatar Congresses. UDTTMR conducts official visits to the Ukrainian Embassy to advocate for the interests of the Crimean Tatars in Crimea or organizes protests in front of the Russian Consulate. In 1998, the Crimean Tatars diaspora lobbied Ukrainian Embassy in Bucharest for the attainment of voting rights in Crimea on behalf of the Crimean Tatars there. The Crimean Tatars in Romania organized various meetings to protest the Russian occupation of Crimea after 2014 (“Köstence’de Rus konsoloslu˘gu önünde protesto,” 2017). Similar links between the Crimean Tatar community in Romania and the Ankara and Istanbul Crimean Tatar Associations emerged early in the 1990s. Kiyaseddin Uteu, Servet Baubec, and Ya¸sar Memedemin wrote several articles on their interactions with Crimean Tatars from Turkey and Crimea. Kiyaseddin Uteu admired the attachment to Crimea among the Crimean Tatar nationalists visiting from Turkey. He said, “Since we have hibernated during communism, by communicating with Crimean Tatars from Turkish diaspora, we are going to learn and gain a lot” (Uteu, 2001, 7). Nariman Ibraim, a teacher visiting Turkey, pointed out that the words of the Head of Istanbul organization influenced Romanian Crimean Tatar women visiting Turkey. He said, “Ask yourselves: what did you do for Crimea?” (interview) The Romanian community was the approaching party and sought frame alignment with the Bulgarian Crimean Tatar community by inviting, occasionally financing, their participation in many nationalist events in Dobruca, and visiting their communities in Bulgaria. According to Negiat Sali, the acceptance of Romania and Bulgaria to the European Union meant the reunification of Dobruja, hence the Crimean Tatar populations of northern and southern Dobruca (interview). Consequently, with the multiplication of communication between politicians, academicians, artists, youth, civil society organizations, exchange of periodicals, books, and other cultural material, visits, conferences, seminars, and festivals, today a tight-knit transnational space exists among the communities Crimea, Romania, Turkey, Bulgaria, and recently Ukrainian mainland.

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4.5.6

Diaspora Nationalism to Transnationalism? (1989–)

The transition to democracy and acceptance of minority rights in the EU accession process in Romania provided opportunities for frame transformation for the Crimean Tatar community. The re-emerging pan-Turkist master frame reinforced the creation of a nationalist frame in Dobruca. The diaspora nationalist frame was formed through a synthesis of (i) prewar exile nationalist, (ii) communist-era territorial nationalist frame, and (iii) Meclis frame developed by returning co-ethnics in the homeland. The rejuvenation would not take the current form had it not been for transnational influences; in turn, transnational influences were mediated by locally developed legacies of nationalism. Exhibit 4.4 summarizes the diaspora nationalism frame of the post-communist period. Exhibit 4.4: Crimean Tatar diaspora nationalism frame in Romania • The Crimean Tatars in Romania agree with Crimean Tatar Meclis in Crimea in its interpretation of Crimean Tatars history as a struggle against Russian colonization, the biggest tragedy being the deportation of the Crimean Tatars en masse from their homeland in 1944. This is the culmination of earlier attacks on the Crimean Tatars nation which caused them to leave their homeland and settle in Dobruca and Anatolia. • The deported Crimean Tatars have a right to return to their homeland, and the successors of the Soviet Union have an obligation to facilitate this politically and financially. • Crimea is the homeland of all Crimean Tatars, and all Crimean Tatars including diaspora are obligated to do their best to work to establish their sovereignty in Crimea, the ways to this goal to be decided by Qurultay/Mejlis, supreme representative organizations of the Crimean Tatars • In addition to Crimea, CrimeanTatars in Romania are also indigenous to Dobruca and require full cultural rights from Romania.

In his opening speech of the symposium on September 6, 2005, in which I participated, the president of UDTTMR, Saladin Acakay, characterized Crimean Tatars in Romania as a “diaspora.” The evidence for diaspora identity can be found in several literary works. The Crimean Tatar poet and politician Ya¸sar Memedemin celebrated his and his people’s newly found attachment to the homeland:

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The complaints that we do not have a homeland have disturbed me all my life The days are coming that I will say “here is our homeland, here is our people. (Selam Saga Ye¸sil Ada (Regards to you Green Island))

Even mention of homeland is such an advancement when compared to the work created in the communist era. He says the dandelion sphere was a strong image for Mehmet Niyazi depicting diaspora Tatars, and he always wanted to write a book under this title, but he could not. Instead, Ya¸sar Memedemin wrote a book entitled Koyanak (“Dandelion sphere”) and traces the story of dispersal almost haphazardly, under the whim of fortune, like a dandelion sphere despite once having strong roots, historical existence, and great civilization: “We come from history. Our name, our fame is well -known” (Memedemin, 2004, 3). He continues to explain the process of dispersion, and the difficulty of having a new life when one continues to long for the homeland. Like a dandelion sphere, the wind swept away those emigrants… How can a new life start when one continues to long?

According to Memedemin, the emigrants saw their separation as hopeless and incapable of being remedied. They never felt belonging unlike other people in their host lands (Memedemin, 2004, 4). Memedemin also provides a solution to the existential problem of diaspora and states that it is possible to be ideologically united even if members of a people are geographically dispersed and do not reside in one homeland. We are Tatars. Confident Tatars We cannot hate history that treated us badly We need unity. To get Crimea back.

Recovering our primary ways, our primary thinking, let’s move toward the future world. Don’t make me wait, if you are one of us… Let’s come together. You will find consolation in my words (Memedemin, 2004, 19)

According to Servet Baubec, Ya¸sar Memedemin synthesizes Mehmet ˙ Niyazi, who lived with a longing for Crimea, and the poems of Ismail Ziyaeddin, which express feelings of home for Dobruca (Baubec, 2001:

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˙ 6). However, despite the themes of his communist-era texts, even Ismail Ziyaeddin began to freely express attachment to Crimea in the 1990s, …That torch [nationalism] did not go away, it still burns in our hearts Your people do not forget ancestral homeland … We hope that that Crimean Tatar flag Will be waved in the Green Land’s sky! (Baubec, 2001, 6)

˙ ˙ Irfan Ismail portrays the diaspora nationalist frame in Romania particularly well: …Around 200,000 Crimean Tatar-Turks who live in the Russian Federation and other Turkish-Tatar independent republics, if they have suitable conditions intend to return to the homeland and come together to establish the Crimean Tatar Autonomous Republic within Ukraine. Despite very difficult circumstances, all world Turk-Tatars, primarily those who live in Turkey, and the world democratic and Muslim public support their pristine and humanly wish. We Romanian Turk- Tatars from the beginning tried to help our Crimean co-ethnics in all areas, and we were with them in their struggles with however small power and capabilities we had, and we will ˙ always be. (Ismail, 2001)

Today articles on contemporary and historical Crimean politics encompassing the new frame regularly appear in Romanian periodicals. Karadeniz publishes the Crimean Tatar literature developed in the Soviet Union, classifying them as “classical Crimean Tatar literature” (Memedemin, 2000a, 2000b, 6; Karadeniz, October 2000). Under the new frame, Ali Bekmambet organized an aid campaign to Crimea in 1995–1996. Karadeniz also publishes many articles on the national history of the Crimean Tatars. For example, many articles appeared on Numan Çelebi Cihan (Karadeniz, 60). A youth organization named after ˙ Ismail Gaspıralı emerged in the early (1990s), which showed the alignment of young people to the now transnational Crimean Tatar identity frame. In the 4th Qurultay in Crimea, Negiat Sali stated that “the Crimean Tatars in Dobruca have always accepted themselves as part of the Crimean Tatar society in the homeland. Didn’t their fathers and grandfathers help the Crimean Tatars in Crimea in the difficult times during the Second World War? They paid this with lengthy imprisonment and untimely death”. Negiat Sali pointed out that he and the other two Crimean Tatar

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MPs that preceded and succeeded him in the Parliament of Romania understood their duty to be propagating the struggle of the Crimean Tatars to the world. 4.5.7

Frame Resonance

(i) Politicians, Scholars, Authors, Teachers The intelligentsia at the first level took part in some of the political events in Romania during the transition from communism to democracy. They established Unionea Democrata a Tatarilor Turco-Musulmani Din Romania-UDTTMR. Among the founders of this organization, Ya¸sar Memedemin was a poet; Ekrem Menlibay was an author; Negiat Sali34 was the son of a veteran of the interwar nationalist movement; Tahsin Gamil35 was a professor of Crimean Tatar history; Enver Mahmut is a graduate of Medgidia Seminary and graduate of Kazan University, Department of Kazan Tatar Language; Nihat Osman was an instructor of Crimean Tatar language in the communist era. They all participated in the activities for the maintenance of national culture during communism. They were examples of the level which became the leaders of the diaspora nationalist movement due to their relationship with the pre-war nationalist movement. Previous frames influence the future ones through individuals who appropriate the past frames and carry elements of it for the reconstruction of new frames. In Romania, these leaders at the top level of the pyramid devised the frames and did the main intellectual work. Those Crimean Tatars who became businessmen, engineers, and bureaucrats of democratic Romania are also considered to belong to the first level. These are the newly emerging businessmen of the capitalist economy who became well-off, prestigious, and well-connected in the post-communist era.36 Their organizational capabilities and the ability for 34 Negiat Sali also founded Ömür¸sa ((Valea Seac˘a) and Hasan¸sa(Valu lui Traian) branches. He served as the president of the UDTTMR between 1997 and 2000. 35 Tahsin Gamil was born in 1943. He studied history at Bucharest “Nicolea Iorga” Romanian Akademy and received his Ph.D. in 1976. He worked at the University of Constanta. He became an MP and represented the UDTTMR in the Romanian parliament. 36 Saladin Acakay, Ömer Kenan, Kerim Necadin, Tekin Amed, Naci Geafer are some of the Tatar businessmen.

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fundraising make them leaders. Negiat Sali and Amed Aladin, the Crimean Tatar MPs; Cenan Bolat, and Leman Ali, bureaucrats in the Ministry of Culture and Education, the Mufti with his diplomatic position in Romanian and international society, the representatives of Crimean Tatars in municipalities function at this level too. These leaders play a role in maintaining the relations of the community with the host-state. These two leader groups cooperate for common purposes.37 (ii) Young Professionals, Teachers, and Students The midlevel activists are formed of retired and working teachers, imams, and women branches who work in the local associations and newspapers. They organize festivals, as well as youth, associational, and local activities, and are particularly active in leading the local framing processes. They could be heads of local branches. The younger activists can rise to a higher leadership level in the future. Amed Aladin, who started to work in a youth organization in 1990, became a Crimean Tatar MP in the parliament in 2005. Between 260 and 300 people participate as delegates in the Congresses to elect the governing council of the UDTTMR (Statute of the UDTTM). One hundred representatives visiting Crimea annually on 18 May could be regarded as operating at this level. Until 1996, representatives from the Crimean Tatar community in Romania funded their participation in the 18 May Deportation Day in Crimea (interview with Tekin Amed). Another member operating in this level teaches children traditional folklore, prepares a Crimean Tatar program for the radio, and writes for a Crimean Tatar newspaper, bulletin, and even a journal in Turkey, thus providing examples of how this level works. Youth and women who participate in dance troops, contests, expeditions, festivals, museums, and cooking contests comprise the bulk of the third level. These are the people who participate in activities at the 37 local branches (Siclitaru, 2017).

37 The presidents of the UDTTMR were Tahsin Gamil, Sükri ¸ Bavbek, Menlibay Ekrem, Mambet Ünal, Negiat Sali, Yusuf Temuçin, and Acakay Seladin. Tatar MPs were Tahsin ˙ Gamil, Saganay ¸ Nusret, Negiat Sali, Amet Aladin. Izzet Menan, Mambet Ünal, Ekrem Gaffar, and Menan Samir represented UDTTMR in the local governments.

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(iii) Masses The third level is composed of people from villages. The level of resonance can be understood by the number of those attending the annual Crimean Tatar festival. In 2003, 400 people, in 2006, 760 people participated in the annual Crimean Tatar festival. In addition to that, the festival troops visit Mecidiye, Mankalye, Tekirgöl, Nurbat, and Tuzla to reach the local people. The third level also contributed to aid campaigns for Crimea in 1995. The mobilization of this level has greatly increased when compared to the communist era, but it is still much behind the mobilization in the USSR. In my fieldwork in Dobruca, I met many Crimean Tatars who are not very interested in associational activities, knew very little about Crimea or the Crimean Tatar identity, and only occasionally participated in ethnic activities, if at all. That is very different from the Crimean Tatar community Müstecip Hacı Fazıl described in the interwar era. Communism seems to have been effective in alienating the masses from the Crimean Tatar identity. However, the frame alignment processes continue, and this frame could achieve higher resonance in the future.

4.6

Movement Consequences and Conclusion

Despite the changes in transnational political opportunities (i.e., when the deported returned, and the Soviet Union collapsed), why did not the diaspora community in Romania return? Why, at the same time, did this community still experience a rise in nationalist mobilization? How can we identify this form of long-distance nationalist mobilization? The different outcomes are best explained as being the result of divergent historical paths, which were shaped by different framing processes. The community in Romania underwent different framing processes than the community in the USSR. This community had a collective return frame in the interwar period, and this period could be characterized as exile nationalism, equivalent to the type of nationalism developed in the USSR after deportation. However, the emergence of a new political threat structure with the establishment of communism in Romania caused the disappearance of that frame by force. The Crimean Tatar frame, which emerged in the communist era, emphasized the Dobrujan identity, and aligned to

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the communist master frame (master frame extension), and entered into a course of territorial nationalism, just like any minority. The drastic changes in the transnational political opportunities (i.e., the end of communism) in the late 1990s unsettled the existing frame and created a frame transformation. The post-1990 diasporic nationalist frame emerged as a result of the negotiation of previous frames, and frames learned from the homeland and diasporic communities. Thus it was a negotiation of “local” and “transnational.” Why didn’t this community return? For the diaspora, the nationalism frame does not involve a program for the return of the Dobrujan community and situates the Dobrujan community as a mere supporter of the Crimean Tatars’ struggle in Crimea. However, why has there been a “rise” in national mobilization? Unlike in the communist era, this new frame was firmly connected to the community to Crimea. Similar to the frame in Turkey, this new diaspora nationalist frame underlined that it would be more realistic to work toward the return of the deported community to Crimea, rather than their own return. However, the role of the diaspora was more actively defined in the fate of the homeland in comparison with the territorial nationalism frame in the communist era. With the emergence of more opportunities for transnationalism and the advance of minority rights in Romania, it seemed possible for the community to maintain its identity in diasporic settings and to support the homeland from outside. Nationalism and especially transnational ties were viewed as necessary, because Romania, as other nation-states still invokes other policies and practices that threatened the maintenance of identity. Most interestingly, the diaspora communities in Turkey, Romania, and the United States, along with the repatriates in Crimea, engaged in a new framing process to form a transnational nation. Both frame transformation within the community and influences from the homeland and other diaspora frames, particularly a new project of forming a transnational unity, increased resonance for the Crimean Tatar identity, and this paved the way for the observation of increased mobilization.

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Özenba¸slı, A. (2004). Çarlık Hakimiyetinde Kırım Faciası. [The Tragedy of ˙ Otar, Trans.), Eski¸sehir Kırım Halk Bilimi Crimea under Tsardom] (I. Ara¸stırma Gençlik ve Spor Klubü. Siclitaru. (2017, 22 May). https://www.ziuaconstanta.ro/stiri/politic/contes tatarii-vor-organiza-si-ei-alegeri-congres-cu-final-asteptat-la-udttmr-gelil-ese rghep-a-fost-ales-presedinte-631384.html. Accessed 10 February 2021. Uehling, G. (2004). Beyond memory: The Crimean Tatars’ deportation and return. Palgrave Macmillan. Ülküsal, M. (1961). Komunistler ve Romanya ve Bulgaristan Türkleri. [Communists and Romanian and Bulgarian Turks], Emel 7 , pages. Ülküsal, M. (1966). Dobruca ve Türkler [Dobruca and Turks]. Türk Kültürünü Ara¸stırma Enstitüsü. Ülküsal, M. (1976). 1976 yılına girerken [Starting 1976]. Emel, 92, 1–7. Ülküsal, M. (1999). Kırım yolunda bir ömür: Hatıralar [A life spent for Crimea: Memories]. Kırım Türkleri Kültür ve Dayanı¸sma Derne˘gi Genel Merkezi Yayınları. Ülküsal, M. (2006). Sair ¸ ve ö˘gretmen Mehmet Niyazi. Fikirde Birlik 5. Cannot be accessed online. My private archive. Uteu, Kıyaseddin. (2001). Katekayıp bir korü¸sme[A meeting]. Karadeniz, 100, 7. Vachudová, M. A. (2005). Europe undivided: Democracy, leverage, and integration after communism. Oxford University Press. Vozgrin, V. E. (1992). Istoricheskie sud’bi Krimskikh Tatar. [Historical fate of the Crimean Tatars]. Izdatel’stvo “Misl’. Williams, B. (2001). The Crimean Tatars: The diaspora experience and the forging of a nation. Brill. Yurtsever, M. V. (1983). Kırım’ın Rusya’ya ilhakının 200. yıldönümü Dobruca’daki Kırımlılar. [The Crimeans in the 200th anniversary of the Russian annexation of Crimea] Emel, 135, 303–308.

CHAPTER 5

Crimean Tatar Community in Turkey (1908–): From Émigré to Diaspora Nationalism

5.1

Introduction

The Crimean Tatars in Turkey present a unique case of long-distance nationalism. The Crimean Tatars made approximately one-tenth of the population of Turkey in 1923 when this new state emerged after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. The word “assimilation” does not sufficiently describe the incorporation of the Crimean Tatars into Turkey, because, as many other Muslim ethnic groups such as Turkomans, Circassians, and Laz, they formed the fundamental stones in the formation of Turkish ethnic identity. Crimean Tatars, being a highly educated population, are well represented in Turkish secular elite and military and civil bureaucracy, and one of the top leaders of Democrat Party was Hasan Polatkan, a Crimean Tatar from Eski¸sehir. Turkey’s world famous ˙ ˙ Ottoman historians Halil Inalcık, Ilber Ortaylı, Kemal Karpat, and renown ˙ Sumerologist Muazzez Ilmiye Çı˘g self-identified as Crimean Tatars along with their Turkish identity. Turkey’s one of top business tycoons, Sabri Ülker was of Crimean Tatar descent. Crimean Tatars are well represented in media, arts, literature, and sports scene in Turkey. According to many Crimean Tatars, it is problematic to accept themselves as a diaspora, since Turkey is not just a receiving country. As one activist put it, Turkey is a “fatherland” while Crimea is the “motherland.” However, when we come to the 1980s, it outwardly appears as if some Turks became Crimean © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 F. T. Aydın, Émigré, Exile, Diaspora, and Transnational Movements of the Crimean Tatars, Palgrave Studies in Citizenship Transitions, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-74124-2_5

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Tatars. At a time when they had largely forgotten the language and traditional customs, the children of “Crimean Turks” began to self-identify as “Crimean Tatar diaspora.” Today, more than forty associations have emerged across Turkey which regard themselves as part of the Crimean Tatar diaspora, and have been trying to develop transnational relations with the Crimean Tatars in Crimea and other diaspora communities. The branches of the Crimean Tatar Associations, led by their General Center of Crimean Turks Culture and Aid Associations (Kırım Türkleri Kültür ve Yardımla¸sma Derne˘gi Genel Merkezi- KTKYDGM ),1 recently played an active part in the convening of the World Congress of the Crimean Tatars. The Crimean Tatar diaspora community has three to five million potential members, considerable wealth, political influence, and highly educated human resources. As they continue to mobilize, they potentially could constitute the most influential factor in Crimean Tatar politics. This chapter traces the emergence, development, and outcomes of the Crimean Tatar nationalism in Turkey throughout more than a century to investigate the causes and nature of the rising diaspora mobilization of the Crimean Tatars in Turkey beginning from the late 1980s. The Crimean Tatar movement will be divided into three periods, pre-Second World War, 1945–1980, and a more recent period, beginning from the 1980s until the Russian occupation of Crimea. The case will be examined not only in terms of emergence, development, and consequences of longdistance nationalism in Ottoman Empire and Turkey but also each stage of the movement will be regarded as mini-cases which has a beginning and an end in themselves.

5.2

Application of Theoretical Framework: Émigré to Diaspora Nationalism

The estimated 1,800,000 Crimean Tatars who emigrated to Turkey between 1783 and 1922 (Karpat, 1985, 66) represented one-tenth of Turkey’s population in the 1920s. Despite this great proportion, it is hard to say that the Crimean Tatars formed a distinct community in Turkey. Emigrations from Crimea spanned over 150 years, creating a margin for significant disparities among the cultural and ethnic identities of Crimean

1 Most associations have the ethnonym “Crimean Turkish” in their titles (Kırım Türkleri Kültür ve Yardımla¸sma Cemiyeti).

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Tatar immigrants. Moreover, they did not occupy a specific ethnic space within Anatolia as they did in Dobruca. The Ottomans settled immigrants amid the native populations as much as possible, especially in Anatolia. Either the Crimean Tatar villages were scattered among the local villages and villages of other immigrants, or the Crimean Tatar immigrants were settled inside the villages of the latter. Without modern communication and transportation, familial ties, connections between migrants of the same wave, or of the same place of origin eroded. The local Turkish and Sunni Muslim-dominated Anatolian traditions were very close to those of the Crimean Tatars, and therefore, the ways of life of the locals did not threaten the survival and reproduction of Crimean Tatar traditional communities (perhaps they even guaranteed the survival of Crimean Tatar traditions). Except for certain places in Anatolia, many descendants of Crimean Tatars intermarried with the local population, began to speak local languages, and acculturated into local ways. Until the end of the 1950s, the Crimean Tatars were mostly peasants and the level of education was low, as it was among most of Turkey’s population. Based on a similar type of observation, Fisher (1978), Williams (2001), and Bezanis (1994) argue that we cannot talk about the Crimean Tatar identity or diaspora in twentieth-century Turkey. The descendants of the Crimean Tatar immigrants gradually lost their language, traditional culture, and collective memory of the homeland; thus, they do not merit a study. However, the judgment that the descendants of immigrants from Crimea in Turkey assimilated could be too hasty. Firstly, there is not sufficient anthropological or historical research on the identities of the Crimean Tatar immigrants in Turkey in the nineteenth or the twentieth century, so most judgments are based on anecdotal information. Considering my ethnographic expeditions, and oral history interviews, I am aware that the immigrants of larger waves such as 1860 immigrants from Crimea, or 1878 immigrants from Dobruca, could be identified as to have formed certain ethnic spaces across Anatolia. Today Eski¸sehir ˙ and its thirty-nine Crimean Tatar and Nogay villages, Derince (Izmit), Sehremini, ¸ Ta¸slıtarla, and Karagümrük of pre-1980s Istanbul, fourteen Nogay and Crimean Tatar villages in Konya, and the town of Hamidiye, ten Crimean Tatar villages around Polatlı (Ankara) and the neighborhoods of Polatlı, fourteen Crimean Tatar and Nogay villages and neighbors in Adana and the town of Ceyhan, and numerous Crimean Tatar neighborhoods in various cities and towns (Kırımlı, 2012, xiii–ix) can be identified as ethnic spaces. In these places, the Crimean Tatars settled

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densely for decades and maintained their language, culture, and traditions through endogamy.2 Those Crimean Tatar families which stayed in Dobruca for decades before re-migrating to Anatolia were able to maintain Crimean Tatar customs, language, and endogamy much longer. Dobruca is remembered with nostalgia as much as (perhaps more than) Crimea by some of the Crimean Tatar migrants (Kırımlı, 2012; Aydın & Aydın, 2005). The collective memory of Crimea can also be observed in folk literature. The ethnic spaces noted above began to change in the 1960s and 1970s with increasing urbanization and internal migration. This process led to attempts of reconstructing the Crimean Tatar identity in the urban settings. The fact that there has always been a small group of Crimean Tatar nationalist activists in Turkey throughout the twentieth century challenges the “assimilation thesis.” In the words of Hakan Kırımlı, “the fire of Crimean Tatar national idea never totally died in Turkey, even though it was sometimes as small as candlelight” (interview). The Crimean Tatar nationalists were not always émigrés that carried nationalism in the homeland to the diaspora settings, either. They were native-born descendants of immigrants who turned to nationalists. They generally came from uneducated peasant families, who considered themselves as Muslims rather than “Crimean Tatars.” We can easily assume that they were not exposed to the ideas of Crimean Tatar nationalism developing in the homeland directly. This book aims to investigate what made these diaspora members develop Crimean Tatar national identity despite the lack of the above pre-conditions. First representatives of diaspora-originated nationalists were teachers descended from Crimean Tatar immigrants, who rushed to Crimea to teach in semi-secular schools for the Muslims at the beginning of the twentieth century. Their speaking of the local Crimean Tatar language and being familiar with the Crimean Tatar customs proved to be an asset (Altu˘g, 2005, 29; Kırımlı, 1996, 152).3 While the Fatherland Society was composed of students from Crimea, Osman Kemal’s Crimean Muslims Association (Kırım Müslümanları Cemiyeti), Tatar Charitable 2 Recently, Crimean Tatars in Polatlı constructed Sekerevler, ¸ an apartment building bloc for primarily Tatar families in order to live together while maintaining their traditional ties in an urban envirinment. A similar project was proposed by Fikret Yurter in Long Island in the 1970s. (Interview with author, Long Island, 24 April 2009.) 3 Some of these teachers were Yusuf Ziya, Ömer Sami (Arbatlı), Ethem Feyzi (Gözaydın), Sevki ¸ (Bektöre), and Fevzi (Altu˘g).

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Society (Tatar Cemiyet-i Hayriyesi) and Cafer Seydahmet’s The National Center (Milli Merkez)4 in Turkey in the post-1918 period had members born and raised in Ottoman/Turkish diaspora. Emel , the longest diaspora journal in Turkey, has been published by the Crimean Tatars from Romania and Turkey collaboratively. Last, but not least, the ethnonym “Crimean Tatar” is increasingly pronounced beginning from the 1980s. For instance, Müstecip Ülküsal’s entitling of his book as “Kırım Türk-Tatarları” (“The Crimean TurkTatars”—1980) can be interpreted as an attempt for transition from “Crimean Turk” to “Crimean Tatar” identification (Aydın, 2000). These all point to the conclusion that the concept of assimilation must be reconsidered. Even if the Crimean Tatars have assimilated, it may be reversible. How else can we explain the rise of the Crimean Tatar associations from three to forty by the 2000s? How can we explain the publication of four long-term journals and many bulletins and books in the last decades? How can we explain the increasing number of participants of the Crimean Tatar movement in Turkey, multiplication of transnational flows, relations, and networks between Crimea and Turkey; and the strengthening of the Crimean Tatar lobby in Turkey and its obtaining significant gains on behalf of the Crimean Tatar co-ethnics in the homeland? Behind the assimilation thesis about the Crimean Tatars in Turkey, there lies the primordialist view. When language, tradition, and collective memory of the homeland are lost to a nation, and when new attributes of the host-state nation are gained these immigrants are assumed to have irrevocably assimilated. However, from a constructivist point of view, ethnic identity can be reclaimed politically despite the loss of these “objective” attributes. The language can be revived, and the myth of the homeland and ethnic culture and traditions can be reconstructed through human will. The very loss of traditions and language could give rise to nationalism. The Turks of Crimean Tatar descent realized that modernization processes could destroy their identity and mobilized to reconstruct their identity in a way that will be adaptable to modern circumstances. 4 Cafer Seydahmet represented the right wing of National Party (Williams, 2015, 64). The National Party activities were conducted under National Center, initially linked to Promethean League after 1926. Another group of nationalists including Seit-Celil Hattat, Bekir Çobanzade and Ahmet Özenba¸slı also claimed to represent National Party in Crimea, which went under the ground after 1920, while the former member from ˙ leftist wing of the National Party, Veli Ibrahimov became the Head of Crimean ASSR in line with Bolsheviks’ korenizatsiia policy (Khayali, 2009).

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Another point is that acculturation in Turkish identity may not conflict with the Crimean Tatar identity as dually strong identities are possible. A more important question is why there has not been a large-scale mobilization before the 1980s. This fact contrasts with the Crimean Tatars in Romania, who share the same sub-ethnic origins, and cultural makeup as the diaspora in Turkey. I will investigate deeply the processes of mobilization for the Crimean Tatar diaspora from the 1980s on, and I will try to find out how we can characterize this type of mobilization.

5.3 Cafer Seydahmet and Emergence of Emigré Nationalism Frame (1908–1945) 5.3.1

The Emergence of Political and Discursive Opportunity Structures After the Revolution

Just after the Tsar closed the Duma and rescinded the civil liberties of the population, a constitutional revolution happened in Turkey (1908). Turko-Muslim nationalists who were suppressed in Russia began to settle in Istanbul to develop their ideologies and nationalist movements in the liberalized atmosphere fostered by the Young Turk Revolution (see Chapter 4 for the influence of pan-Turkism on Crimean Tatar nationalism). During the same period, the prohibition of Muslim Turkic schools in Crimea led the Crimean Tatars in Crimea to send their children to Turkey. In 1908, similar to other Muslim students from Russia, the Crimean Tatar students in Istanbul (approximately 250 in population) established a “Crimean Students Association” for mutual solidarity and engaging in cultural and educational activities (Kırımlı, 1996, 159). However, the Ottoman Empire under the Young Turks was certainly not a democracy. Both the circumstances in Turkey and Russia’s demand to suppress the activities of its Muslim subjects in Istanbul provided limited opportunities for nationalist activity. For instance, when Çelebi Cihan and Cafer Seydahmet wanted to introduce “the development of the civilization and social level of our people in Crimea and its selfdetermination” (Kırımer, 1993, 58) as a purpose of the association in their by-laws, several members objected, finding this purpose too political. This was the reason behind the foundation of the clandestine Fatherland Society (1909) with some “trusted” members of the Crimean Students

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Association (Kırımlı, 1996, 169; Otar, 1960).5 Similarly, when the leaders of the Fatherland Society told Talat Pasha about their purpose, the prominent leader of the Young Turk Revolution supported them “not with his words but with his eyes” as Cafer Seydahmet wrote in his diary. Young Turk support to Crimean Tatars was covert. After Cafer Seydahmet wrote his manifesto on Russian imperialism, the Russian Embassy asked Ottoman officials to arrest him. He then fled to Paris. Therefore, the émigré movement was necessarily limited to a small circle and had most of its grassroots members in Crimea, rather than in the diaspora setting. Instead of mass protests or campaigns in Turkey, the movement leaders focused on diplomacy, intelligence, and negotiations behind closed doors with officials of relevant states. The purpose was to secure the necessary resources and favorable diplomatic relations for the right moment. A leading cadre was being trained in Istanbul to take power in Crimea at an opportune moment. Indeed, the émigré nationalists got into action during both the First and Second World Wars. The contribution of émigré nationalism to the national movement in the homeland was very significant. According to Kırımlı “[w]ell into the mid-1930s, a large proportion of the Crimean Tatar intellectuals who played prominent roles in political, social, cultural, and literary life were those who had their education in Istanbul before the First World War” (Kırımlı, 1996, 167). He also adds that “[A]t a time when the national reform movement [in Crimea]…reached the limits possible under the circumstances, they were complemented by a new source from Istanbul” (Kırımlı, 1996, 167–168). Edige Kırımal (1952) underlines that the final and the decisive stage of the Crimean Tatar nationalist movement was prepared and organized in Turkey, thus the diaspora setting. This movement was then “transplanted later into the Crimea” (Kırımlı, 1996, 167). Accordingly, the Crimean Tatar national parliament of 1917 was composed of largely Crimean Tatar students educated in Turkey and participated in the émigré movement (Kırımlı, 1996, 167). Both the teachers from the diaspora who came to Crimea after 1905 and Crimean Tatar émigrés who spent several years in Istanbul played an important role in the development of Crimean Tatar nationalism (Kırımlı, 1996). 5 Members of the Crimean Students Association included Abdülhakim Hilmi, Alimseyit Cemil, Abdürrahim “Sukuti”, Abdi Zekai Tölev, Hamdi Bekirzade, Abdullah Velit, Yakup Seytabdullah “Kerçi,” and Habibullah Temircan Odaba¸s. Members of the Fatherland Society included Çelebi Cihan, Cafer Seydahmet, Yakup Kerçi, and Ahmet Sükrü. ¸

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5.3.2

Frame Amplification: Emphasis on Homeland Crimea as the Center of Identity

The Crimean Tatar émigré nationalism frame (1908–1921) can be best understood in contrast to the frame of “Tatar Charitable Society” (Tatar Cemiyet-i Hayriyesi), a Crimean Tatar Association founded in Istanbul in 1909. Kırımlı points out the distinction between the immigrant minded Tatar Charitable Society and the émigré organization Fatherland Society as such: Tatar Charitable Society…promoted a quasi-historical and cultural “Tatar” concept transplanted into contemporary Turkey…roughly the turn of the twentieth century constituted an intellectual turning point…the intellectuals…which came to Turkey prior to this time mostly considered themselves as immigrants in a new home, while those who had been acquainted with the intellectual reform drive in the Crimea and developing national consciousness were likely to consider themselves as émigrés in Turkey. (Kırımlı, 1996, 164)

One critical point here is that the émigré consciousness cannot be explained only by the modernization of the Muslim community in Russia that was initiated by the Gasprinskiy reforms. While these are necessary causes for the emergence of any nationalism, territorial or émigré, they are insufficient. For example, another organization of more recent immigrants, the Mutual Aid Association of the Crimean Muslim Immigrants (1921) (Kırım Müslüman Muhacirlerinin Teavün Cemiyeti), which involved individuals from the upper strata of the Crimean Tatar society, emphasized their non-émigré identity: “[their] main concern was the welfare of their people in Turkey, not the politics of the country they left behind” (Altan, 2002). Hence, they were not involved in the political activities of the Crimean Tatar student organization, Fatherland Society, during the first two decades of the twentieth century. Even in the 1930s, immigrants from Crimea did not demonstrate a strong nationalist consciousness, apart from efforts to maintain solidaristic networks. Some of them seemed to have engaged in nationalism but this mostly seems to be because of the influence of Cafer Seydahmet rather than because of their nationalist upbringing in Crimea. Altan (2002) stated that immigrants of the 1930s did not engage in activism as much as the refugees of the 1940s who came from a Crimea where national movements rose during wartime. I suggest that the “émigré consciousness” was rather

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a product of the diasporic experience. It is the Fatherland Society, and particularly Cafer Seydahmet in his later activities who developed “the émigré nationalism frame” and hence émigré identity. After explaining that émigré identity is not just a consequence of macro-sociological changes in Crimean Tatar society, let us specify how the émigré frame constitutes a transformation of the previous “immigrant” frame. The Tatar Charitable Society was an apolitical immigrant association, engaging in philanthropy and aiming to maintain solidarity among the vaguely defined Tatar immigrants. The Fatherland Society did not deal with philanthropic activities related to the Crimean Tatar immigrants in Turkey. It was a clandestine political organization that aimed for the national mobilization of the Crimean Tatars in Crimea. The émigré nationalists distributed their manifestos mainly in Crimea, less so among the Crimean Tatars in Turkey (Kırımlı, 1996, 175; Otar, 1991, 13). When they perceived that political opportunities had ripened and the end of Tsarism would soon arrive, they carried their organization from Turkey to Crimea in the 1910s. In the words of Cafer Seydahmet: In 1909 there were Arab, Kurdish, and Albanian Societies established. Some Crimean (Tatar) emigrants, who had emigrated here earlier, established Crimean Charity Organization [Tatar Charitable Society] and began to publish a newspaper entitled Tonguç. We investigated that Society and even registered as members, but we could not find anyone there to attract us intellectually. Also, they were interested neither in us nor in the Crimea. (cf. Altan, 2002)

The views of the Tatar Charitable Society were represented in the newspapers Tonguç and Çolpan. According to Kırımlı, they resembled ordinary Ottoman newspapers, but they occasionally published articles about Muslims in Russia, mostly excerpts from Tercüman and other Turkic papers from Russia (Kırımlı, 1996, 163). Only Abdürre¸sid ˙ Ibrahim, a Siberian Tatar who contributed a few articles to Çolpan, had direct connections with Russian Muslims. The members of Tatar Charitable Society had a vague idea about distinctiveness from the majority of Ottoman society (Kırımlı, 1996, 162, 163, 165). They did not have “a territorial conception of Tatarness,” but they mostly underlined “dialect” and “folkways” as bases of identity (Kırımlı, 1996, 163). They applied the term “Tatar” to any Turkic-Muslim individual from the Russian Empire (Kırımlı, 1996, 163). In comparison, the émigré nationalists are clear of

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their own identity or the specific kind of people their activities target: the people in Crimea. The rest of the Turko-Muslim peoples in Russia were beyond their purview. Cafer Seydahmet explained his and Çelebi Cihan’s process of creating the émigré frame before the foundation of the Fatherland Society as follows: In 1908, in a quiet corner of Istanbul, in a small room, two intellectuals were speaking to each other, being excited with the Young Turk revolution… They were thinking about Crimea and wishing for a revolution in Russia, and thinking that the people in Crimea must be prepared for this. (Kırımer, 1993, 19)

It is not necessary to emphasize that by now Crimea had clearly become the fatherland in a nationalist sense, while the Tatar Charitable Society did not have such a conception. While Cafer Seydahmet mentions the possibility of national autonomy in a federated new Russian state in 1913, the purpose of the Fatherland Society evolved into national sovereignty by 1917 (Otar, 1991, 14). 5.3.3

Pan-Turkism as a Master Frame

It was Muslims of Russia who first developed pan-Turkism as a response to pan-Slavism. One of the fathers of pan-Turkism in Russia was a Crimean ˙ Tatar, Ismail Gasprinskiy. The manifesto of pan-Turkism was written by Yusuf Akçura, a Muslim from the Russian Empire. Pan-Turkism soon became the dominant ideology which played a role in the transformation of the Ottoman Empire (Georgeon, 2005; Hanioglu, 2001, 67; Landau, 1995, 36). Thus, the foundations of Crimean Tatar nationalism were laid down by Gasprinskiy’s pan-Turkism and the version of (pan-) “Turkism” (developed as an alternative to Ottomanism and Islamism) of the Ottoman Empire (Kırımlı, 1996, 195). In other words, the Fatherland Society was influenced by Pan-Turkism as a master frame and sought to reshape the master frame around their specific grievances related to Crimea (master frame extension). The influence of a master frame on a certain frame is not standard. Actors interpret master frame. Pan-Turkist tenets such as the dignity of the Turkic peoples and the maintenance of Turkic language, culture, and political unity supplied necessary ideological tools for elaborating the Crimean Tatar identity. Kırımlı states that

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Whenever Crimean history’s symbols and traditions which would fit the contemporary needs were inaccessible or unavailable in purely Crimean sources, they could be substituted by borrowings from the repository of general Turkic history and mythology available in the Turkic sources in Istanbul. (Kırımlı, 1996, 196)

Examples include the azure flag and the symbolic institution of Kurultay. Halim Giray Sultan’s Gülbün-ü Hanan, which was published in Ottoman Turkey, provided much-needed material for a Crimean Tatar historical narrative. They also squared the emphasis on Crimean Tatarspecific identity with the emphasis on Pan-Turkic brotherhood in the master frame. One of the activities of the Crimean Tatar Students Association, which shows their spectrum of interest, is an aid campaign for the earthquake in Turkestan (Karao˘guz, 2007; Otar, 1991, 13). 5.3.4

Counter-Framing the Russian Imperialism Frame

The struggle for the independence of Crimea must have been connected with the struggle for independence in all Turkic-Muslim nations in Russia and later in the Soviet Union. Frame-bridging with the struggles of those peoples was seen as significant for the weakening of the common enemy, Russia. For that purpose, the émigré nationalists also bridged frames with Socialist Revolutionaries in Russia, who recognized most of the national autonomy demands of minorities. When Cafer Seydahmet [Kırımer] was in Paris between 1911 and 1913, he sought to contact several anti-Tsarist circles. He wrote in his diary: “All initiative damaging the Tsarism and which creates strong resistance against Tsarism was holy for me…The ones who work for this purpose were my allies” (Kırımer, 1993, 14). It is important to emphasize that pan-Turkism was not a fascist, ultra-nationalist or radical right ideology, in fact many Pan-Turkists in this period had anti-colonial and socialist economic programs. Not surprisingly, the émigré nationalists counter-frame the Russian colonialist frame. In “Yirminci Asırda Tatar Milleti Manzumesi” [The Composition of the Tatar Nation in the Twentieth Century] (Kırımer, 1993, 74), Cafer Seydahmet [Kırımer] calls for revolution, and the destruction of the Tsarist government for Crimean Tatars to develop their educational and civilizational institutions, to reform the religious institutions, and to reclaim the waqf property (Kırımer, 1993, 74). As noted before, the Russian ambassador asked for his arrest to Istanbul government as a result of this brochure and Cafer Seydahmet [Kırımer] had to

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escape to Paris (Otar, 1991, 13). Cafer Seydahmet [Kırımer] also translated Seignobos’ Russian government or the Rule of Whip and published it in Istanbul (Kırımer, 1993, 13). These words reflect Cafer Seydahmet [Kırımer]’s frame well: If the revolution occurred, there would be a democratic Russia, the national rights of the nationalities would be recognized, economic development would be strengthened, from now on neither Russification nor deportation would be a threat. Perhaps Russia would be re-constituted on the principle of federal states and Crimea would be accorded territorial autonomy. For this to happen, first of all, Tsardom needed to collapse. …I was going to Crimea to become a worker in the revolution and struggle for rights… . (cf. Otar, 1991, 14)

Exhibit 5.1: Crimean Tatar emigré nationalism frame in the Ottoman Empire/Turkey (1908–1980) • The Crimean Tatars have a right to self-determination because Russia breached the international treaty and annexed the Crimean Tatars’ historical homeland and forced them to leave. • The Crimean Tatars showed their opposition by declaring their sovereignty in 1917, but Bolsheviks terminated the Crimean Tatar Republic and basically retained Russian imperialistic policies in Crimea. • The émigré Crimean Tatars aim to end the Russian rule in Crimea and establish Crimean Tatar sovereign state in Crimea, in which they will respect the ethnic rights of minorities in Crimea.

5.3.5

Frame Resonance of émigré Nationalism

Émigré nationalism became resonant among the larger elite in Turkey, other than just students from Crimea between 1917 and 1920 when the struggle for sovereignty and later famine took place in Crimea. By 1917, a number of “descendants of immigrants” even went to Crimea to participate and serve in the national movement. They were mostly teachers, and some of them had visited Crimea earlier, at the turn of the century. Yusuf Ziya, Ethem Feyzi, Ömer Sami, Fevzi Altu˘g, and Sevki ¸ Bektöre were among them. The émigré nationalism frame affected former immigrants’ organizations such as the Tatar Charitable Society. Even though this association

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did not engage in politics, they now had a more specific idea of who they were, and the “Crimean” identity began to take hold among them by the 1920s. During the famine, the Tatar Charitable Society demonstrated a strong attachment to their homeland. While most Crimean students left Turkey in this period, this association seemed to have the best communication with Crimea and the Turkish people about the extent and horrors of famine and starvation in Crimea (Kırımlı, 2003, 54). It organized a campaign to collect aid for the starving people in Crimea and applied to Ottoman Red Crescent for that purpose. Tatar Charitable Society also provided aid for a few thousand refugees, who attempted to escape the famine (Kırımlı, 2003, 55, 62). Hacı Mesud Efendi, the president of the Tatar Charitable Society, personally attended the distribution of aid in Crimea to make sure that aid reached the Crimean Tatars. The Crimean Tatars welcomed him and appreciated the gesture of solidarity (Kırımlı, 2003, 64). 5.3.6

The Shrinking of Political and Discursive Opportunities in Turkey and Moving the Movement Base to Europe

When political opportunities were perceived to emerge for the selfdetermination of the Crimean Tatars during the First World War, the émigré nationalists approached the Turkish public more openly. According to Müstecip Ülküsal (1979), not only Crimean Tatars themselves but whole Istanbul press was busy narrating the heroism and national revival of the Crimean Tatars in accordance with the foreign policy of the Unionist (CUP) government. On April 20, 1918, Cafer Seydahmet [Kırımer] arrived in Turkey as the Foreign and War Minister (Director) of the Crimean Tatar National Government to inform the Turkish government circles and the press about the nature of recent events (Kırımlı, 1998a, 204–205). He also lobbied Enver Pasha to meet Hasan Sabri Ayvazov, the Chairman of the Qurultay. Ayvazov requested the recognition of the independence of Crimea (Kırımlı, 1998a, 206). Cafer Seydahmet [Kırımer] also lobbied in this period in Berlin against the Ukrainian annexation of Crimea, with the support of Talat Pasha (Kırımlı, 1998a, 207). Another émigré nationalist activity in this period was Osman Kemal Hatif’s founding of the Kırım Müslümanları Cemiyeti (Crimean Muslims

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Association)6 in 1918 with approval of the Ottoman government (CUP) (Kırımer, 1993, 312; Kırımlı, 1998b, 10). Osman Kemal Hatif was a ˙ former member of the Crimean Tatar National Government (Milli Idare). This association formed an influential lobby in the Ottoman Empire and acted like a Crimean Tatar agency by informing the press thanks to its direct connection to Crimea. It also published Kırım Mecmuası (Journal of Crimea) between 1917 and 1918 as well as a book titled Gök Bayrak altında Milli Faaliyet (“National Movement under the Blue Flag”) to openly advocate for the Crimean Tatar cause to the Ottoman public (Kırımlı, 1998b, 10). After the Bolshevik destruction of the Crimean Tatar government by murdering Çelebi Cihan, Cafer Seydahmet [Kırımer] escaped to Istanbul (1919). He was assigned as the “fully empowered representative” by the falling Crimean Tatar parliament (Kırımer, 1993, 318). Since then, he represented the “right-wing of Milli Fırka [National Party]” (antiBolshevik, and more sympathetic towards liberal democracy) continued in exile while the Bolshevik Party was accepted to have absorbed the “leftwing of Milli Fırka [National Party]” in Crimea (some members of Milli Fırka such as Özenba¸slı continued underground liberation movement in Crimea and organized national movement in the Second World War). The Crimean Tatars that remained in Crimea endeavored nation-building behind the socialist facade until Stalin purged them in the late 1920s and 1930s. Between 1919 and 1923, Cafer Seydahmet attempted to rally support for the Crimean cause in Turkey and Europe. Though the Ottoman Empire collapsed in October 1918, he continued to contact with the former members of the Ottoman government. However, he also established communication with Mustafa Kemal’s rebellious Anatolian government, which turned out to be the seed of modern Turkey. The British, who had occupied Istanbul, did not tolerate these activities, and Cafer Seydahmet was exiled by 1919. He settled in Geneva, Switzerland, where he continued lobbying European governments and informing the press. In 1922, Cafer Seydahmet once again came to Turkey to meet

6 The declaration of the organization was published in Ikdam ˙ on 23 March 1918. The founders of the association were Osman Kemal, Bekirzade Hamdi, Mahmut Ekrem, Sevki ¸ Bektöre, Bekir Muhittin, Feyzi, Sudi, Nurettin Hüsamettin, and Mehmet Kahraman (Kırımer, 1993, 312). This organization later took the name Crimea and Kazan Aid Association (Kırım ve Kazan Cemiyet-i Hayriyesi).

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Turkish statesmen and publicize the famine in Crimea (Kırımlı, 2003, 55). According to Kırımlı, he “hoped to make use of the good relations of Ankara with Soviet Russia to obtain political concessions from the latter for the Muslims there, especially for the Crimean Tatars” (Kırımlı, 2003, 56). Although Mustafa Kemal Pasha received the Crimean Tatar representatives who came from the Soviet Crimea at the same time warmly, he did not accept Cafer Seydahmet Kırımer. Mustafa Kemal Pasha from the beginning made it clear that his government will not support an anti-Soviet Crimean Tatar independence movement. The Turkish government would only be supportive of a Crimean Tatar National Government within the Soviet state structure (Kırımlı, 2011, 940–941). According to Tevfik Rü¸stü Aras, the reason for that seems to be not only the political interests of Turkey, but also Turkish leaders’ view that an independent Crimean Tatar republic is unrealistic, especially since Turkey does not have the ability to support an independent Crimea (Poslednyaya rukopis Sabri Ayvazova delo partii “Milli Firka,” 104–105, cf. Kırımlı, 2011, 943–944).7 After 1923, the leaders of the new Turkish republic, despite embracing “Turkish nationalism,” limited the pursuit of this ideology beyond Anatolia. This signaled a change in discursive political opportunities for the Crimean Tatar émigré nationalists in Turkey; therefore, previous effort for extension of pan-Turkist master frame to include the Crimean Tatar cause had to come to an end.8 After the signing of Turkish-Soviet Friendship Pact in 1925, Tatar Charitable Society (Tatar

7 He returned to Europe after two months and continued his efforts to find relief from international organizations and various states. During the Lausanne Conference in 1922, he lobbied for both Crimea and Turkey (Kırımlı, 2003, 56). 8 The major pan-Turkist association, Türk Ocakları, was closed in 1927, and its journal Türk Yurdu also ended its publication in 1931. Renown pan-Turkists from the Russian Empire such as Zeki Velidi Togan were insulted in the First Turkish Historical Congress (1932), while those “‘Turkists’ that emphasized an Anatolia-focused Turkish nationalism” such as Ziya Gökalp increased their influence (Kushner, 1997, 226). For Atatürk, “PanTurkism carried with it the danger of overstretched commitments to distant lands and what was more, it could annoy friendly Soviet Russia” (Kushner, 1997, 226). Publication of various émigré journals was banned in the beginning of the 1930s, and by 1935, Emel was prohibited to be imported from Romania to Turkey. Landau points out that “[D]uring the first two decades of the Republic, pan-Turk periodicals published … in Turkey prudently kept to the cultural level…” (Landau, 1995, 80) See also Hostler (1957) and Atmaca (2020).

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Cemiyet-i Hayriyesi) was shut, and actions of all anti-Soviet émigré organizations were prohibited (Landau, 1995, 93).9 Consequently, Cafer Seydahmet limited his public activities to the “cultural” and philanthropic sphere. He occasionally gave conferences at the National Turkish Student Union (Milli Türk Talebe Birli˘gi), but not on issues directly related to Crimea. In 1931, Cafer Seydahmet was permitted to publicize the second famine in Crimea, but that was all. Limited Crimean Tatar cultural activity was conducted in the framework of the “People’s Houses,” which were institutions for the state-controlled civil society. Still, Cafer Seydahmet was able to recruit and train a strong cadre of younger Crimean Tatar nationalists, who were mostly the descendants of Crimean Tatar immigrants in Turkey. These “diaspora-born” members enabled Crimean Tatar National Party (Milli Fırqa) to survive outside Crimea. In the 1920s, Cafer Seydahmet decided to transfer the center of his open activities to Europe. In the interwar period, some of this cadre studied in Poland, under the initiative of Cafer Seydahmet, and using scholarship offered by Marshall Pilsudski. A cadre was being prepared for the collapse of the Soviet Union, which was perceived as imminent. This ˙ ˙ cadre included Abdullah Zihni Soysal, Edige Kırımal, Ibrahim, and Ismail Otar, Ali Kemal Gökgiray, Sabri Arıkan, and Selim Ortay (see Appendix D). The members of the Crimean Tatar National Party (Milli Fırqa) also formed a close relationship with the Crimean Tatar movement in Romania and participated in the publication of Emel , which could not even be imported to Turkey after 1935. The Crimean Tatars from Turkey went to Romania and toured Crimean Tatar villages and attempted to enter Bulgaria to mobilize the Crimean Tatar people. However, they neither attempted to mobilize the Crimean Tatar villages in Turkey, nor did they attempt to publish a journal, or to found an association there. After the Second World War, Müstecip Ülküsal, Emin Bektöre, Yusuf Uralgiray, and Muallim Tahsin who published Emel in Romania in the interwar period 9 The local pan-Turkists of Turkey engaged in pan-Turkist activity in Turkey during the Second World War. Unlike pan-Turkist émigrés, Turkish pan-Turkists were influenced by Hitler to develop an ultra-nationalist and fascist ideology. For a brief period, both pan-Turkist groups were tolerated by the Turkish government in case Germany wins and the First World War plans of Turkish expansion in the Soviet-dominated Turko-Muslim areas can be revived. The failure of Hitler brought persecution of all pan-Turkists in Turkey, including émigrés. Émigré nationalists such as Cafer Seydahmet Kırımer were also prosecuted although Kırımer was openly objected by Hitler because of his friendship with Marshall Pilsudski of occupied Poland.

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immigrated to Turkey, and therefore, the nationalist cadre in Turkey grew. Yusuf Uralgiray studied in Egypt and became a representative of the National Party in the Middle East. 5.3.7

Frame-Bridging with émigré Movements in the Promethean League

In the 1930s, the Crimean Tatar émigrés moved their activities and focus to Europe. The émigré nationalists joined with the other émigré movements within the framework of the Promethean League, an allied political front of non-Russian nationalities of the Soviet Union in Europe. These nationalities had already begun to bridge frames in 1916 when a conference was convened in Lausanne by the non-Russian members of the Duma (von zur Mühlen, 1984, 20) and the League of Oppressed Nations of Russia was established (Snyder, 2005, 41–42). In the late 1920s, this league became known as the Promethean League, established “to free the non-Russian nationalities (the so-called “captive nations”) from the Soviet domination” and to form “a federation of independent states” replacing the Soviet Union (Levy, 2006, 167). Several anti-Soviet governments in exile and the nationalist organizations for Ukraine, Georgia, the Don, and Kuban Cossacks, Ingushetia, Idil-Ural (Volga-Ural region), Azerbaijan, Yakutistan, Armenia, Crimea, Karelia, and Komi were united to form a unified resistance against the Soviet Union. Poland, which aimed to form a federalist structure in East-Central Europe as a counter-balance against the Soviet Union, became the major sponsor of the Promethean League (Levy, 2006, 168). The Promethean movement was mainly centered in Poland but it had branches in Prague, Istanbul, Bucharest, Helsinki, and Paris. Many members of anti-Soviet nationalities were incorporated into the Polish army (Levy, 2006, 172). The Promethean League formed relations with the British and French secret services, as well as the Czech and Weimar German governments, and received funding from these sources, who hoped to prevent the spread of communism (Levy, 2006, 169–170). According to Levy, a neglected aspect of the Promethean League is its connection to Pan-Turkism. Several Muslim shadow governments (“National Centers”) in the League were financed by Poland. Crimean National Center was represented by Cafer Seydahmet. The Paris branch of the League published a journal named Le Prométhée, which had a section on “Turkestan.” Other Promethean periodicals focused on Crimea, Volga-Ural, Kalmyks, and Azeris were financed by Poland (Levy,

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2006, 174). The one that focused on Crimea was Emel , but articles on the Crimean Tatars appeared in sister journals as well (Landau, 1995, 81). The transnational network of Crimean Tatar nationalists in Turkey, Romania, and Poland published Emel .10 Emel openly counterframed against the Soviet Union while presenting the case of the rights of the Crimean Tatars to independent nationhood in various articles. The Oriental Institute in Cracow hosted Crimean Tatar cultural activities (Palij, 1995, 186). In 1935, the celebration of the jubilee of Cafer Seydahmet in Cracow with activities organized by the Crimean Tatars from Turkey and Romania was a major statement about the strong level of networks, organization, and coordination of the Crimean Tatar émigré movement. The Muslim Tatars of Poland, the members of the Promethean League, and many diplomats were present at this jubilee. The Promethean League sponsored various activities to bridge frames, such as meetings, lectures, articles in the foreign press, and publishing books and periodicals. It lobbied the League of Nations and individual Western governments intensively, protesting their inaction against the cruelties of the Soviet state. Many letters of this sort were published in the Crimean Tatar journal Emel in this period. Most importantly, the Promethean movement had a conspiratorial and underground dimension to prevent itself from Bolshevistic infiltration and provocation. This seems to have made Crimean Tatar émigré nationalism, more closed toward the Crimean Tatar masses. As Vatan Cemiyeti [Fatherland Society], the Milli Fırka [National Party] formed a mechanism for not easily accepting individuals into its close circle and requiring them to pass trials to demonstrate their character. This tradition continued until the 1980s.

10 12,000 Tatars lived in Belarus, Lithuania, and Poland after the First World War. In 1925, the Crimean Tatars in Poland organized a conference in Vilnius, founded a muftiate for their religious affairs, and elected Doctor Yakup Sinkiewicz as mufti. They also established the governing committee for Cultural and Educational Society of Tatars of Poland. A national museum was founded in 1929; a national archive was founded in 1931. A youth association was founded in 1936 and began to teach folk dances and songs in 20 localities Tatar lived. They published several journals and books on their history in the 1930s. They joined the Polish army as a separate “Tatar battalion” in 1936, which was destroyed during the Second World War. The number of Tatars in Poland was 6000 after WWII and they lived in Bialistok, Vilno, Novogredek, and Polesie districts (M.Y. 1962, 11–15).

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The Rise of Emigré Nationalist Activism During the Second World War

Before accounting how émigré nationalism achieved to re-connect with co-ethnics in Crimea for the first time since 1917, it is necessary to provide an overview of the rejuvenation of the Crimean Tatar nationalist movement during the German occupation of Crimea. It is not possible to do justice to this complex historical period in this limited space, especially since this period is still highly contested between Russian and Crimean Tatar historians, let alone the public. In this section, I will demonstrate how Crimean Tatars viewed the process of the Second World War as an opportunity to save what is left off from their national identity after Stalin’s previous attack on their nation. In the first months of German occupation, unaware of the true nature of the regime, and thinking that nothing could surpass Bolshevik repression, most of the population of the Soviet Union including Russians and Ukrainians welcomed the German rule and joined the German side to fight against the Soviet rule (Khodarkovsky, 2019). Being devoted Muslims, Crimean Tatars appreciated the reopening of fifty of their mosques and the ability to practice their religion. The Germans allowed the Crimean Tatars to establish national-local committees called “Muslim committees “with authority over cultural and religious matters, but these committees were not given any political power and they did not have Crimea-wide authority because the Nazi administration opposed Crimean Tatars’ forming a united power in the peninsula. Besides, Germans allowed the Crimean Tatars to form “protection squads” (their militia), to publish the newspaper Azat Kırım (Free Crimea), and the journal Anayurt (Homeland), and to operate a theater company (Müller & Ueberschär, 2002, 227). These developments seemed in conflict with the Nazi theory which considered Tatars Untermenschen deserving no national autonomy, and with the fact that Crimea and Baltics were designed to be Nazi settlement areas (Müller & Ueberschär, 2002, 227). There were simply other strategic considerations that moved Germans to concede these rights to the Crimean Tatars (von Zur Mühlen, 1984, 185). In the words of Alan Fisher: … The German command believed that sufficient pressure could be brought upon the Turkish government to bring it into the war on the

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side of the Axis… this meant that the Germans had to handle the Crimean Tatar question delicately, for of all the Soviet nationalities, the Crimean Tatars had excited the Turkish interest the most intensely. For this reason and no other, the German officials decided against the early transfer of the Crimean Tatars out of Crimea. Von Papen, the German ambassador in Ankara, pleaded with his government after the completion of the Crimean campaign, to establish there an administration in which the Crimean Tatars would participate. This, he felt, would have a strong political effect in Turkey. (Fisher, 1978, 152)

Once “Muslim myth”—“the notion that Muslim populations of USSR can be used against it”—was reinforced by the events in the Caucasus, Germany permitted the Crimean Tatars to establish their own “Central Muslim Committee” in Simferopol (Werth, 1999, 220). Taking advantage of their strategic value for the Nazis, the Crimean Tatars sought to revitalize their nation as much as possible and despite German opposition. Only with their own initiative, the Simferopol Muslim Committee achieved unofficial political power and claimed to represent all Crimean Tatar interests. The strength of the 1917 nationalist legacy and continuity of allegiance to the purged Milli Fırka (National Party) among the Crimean Tatar people were the main causes of the power of the Simferopol Committee (von Zur Mühlen, 1984, 187–188). For instance, Ahmet Özenba¸slı, who was the elected Chairman of the Muslim Committee of Simferopol in mid-1942, was a former member of Qurultay and the National Party (Milli Fırqa) and continued to work secretly for liberation under the Soviet regime. This can easily be observed with the rejuvenation of 1917 demands, such as the return of the Crimean Tatar diaspora, the return of the waqf property, and the establishment of national and religious autonomy (von Zur Mühlen, 1984, 188). He was also a strong opponent of the German occupation regime and used his position on the Committee to work toward obtaining the national and political rights of the Crimean Tatars. Throughout Crimea, Muslim Committees were largely composed of the surviving members of the intelligentsia, linked to the purged National Party (Milli Fırqa). Apart from political representation, the Simferopol Committee administered the majority of six Crimean Tatar battalions and fourteen companies (Nekrich, 1979, 15–16). Without German encouragement, the committee managed publications, religious and cultural institutions, and organized cultural activities (von Zur Mühlen, 1984, 187).

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When Crimea was occupied by Germany, the members of the Crimean National Center functioning across Turkey and Europe decided that a political opportunity for Crimean Tatar autonomy has arrived. Being informed about the emergence of Muslim committees in Crimea, the Crimean Tatar émigrés applied to Prof. Gerhard von Mende, a German orientalist, and Franz von Papen, Germany’s ambassador to Turkey. Taking also several Turkish military officials on board who had developed close relations with German military during the First World War (Cwiklinski, 2008, 68), the Crimean Tatars were able to get permission from the German central administration for two of their members to visit Germany for “assisting in the formulation of Nazi policy towards Crimea and the Turkic peoples of the Soviet Union” (von zur Mühlen, 1984, 81, 119). The two members were Edige Kırımal, a Lipka Tatar (from Poland) and a member of Promethean League, and Müstecip Ülküsal who previously published Emel in Romania. Both were of course members of Cafer Seydahmet’s émigré National Party. Müstecip Ülküsal was later replaced by another member, Abdullah Zihni Soysal. Cafer Seydahmet could not go himself because of his close friendship with occupied Poland’s Marshall Pilsudski, and his declared protest of the Nazi regime. Von Papen also distrusted Cafer Seydahmet Kırımer as he believed he was an agent of Sikorski (von zur Mühlen, 1984, 67). Though Cafer Seydahmet did not change his position about the Nazi regime until the end of the war, he prudently directed his cadre to negotiate with the Germans (von zur Mühlen, 1984, 67). After occupying Poland, Germany appropriated the Promethean coalition for use against the Soviet Union (Levy, 2006, 174). The Prometheans had no choice but to agree as they did not want to be returned to the Soviet Union. Moreover, they saw cooperation with the Germans as their only chance to save their respective nationalities and perhaps to attain political autonomy. Replicating earlier Promethean units, the émigrés established “national representations” (later became “committees”) under German authority. The national committees formed national regiments out of selected prisoners of war (POWs) of their own nationality, the so-called “Eastern Legions”.11 They saw the latter as 11 These were 1.2 million Muslim or Caucasian captives in 1942. These legions are estimated to be composed of 275,000 to 350,000 of soldiers (Altschtadt, 1992, 156– 157). In 1944, the number of soldiers increased (von zur Mühlen, 1984, 55). Almost all POWs volunteered to escape the camps where death rate ranged from 30 to 95%

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national armies for the emancipation of their homeland, imbuing them with their symbols, and flags and publishing newspapers for propaganda among them. The Muslim soldiers were mainly motivated to stay alive when joined to these divisions and responded to nationalist calls only gradually (von zur Mühlen, 1984, 60–61). Although some argue that national committees were mini-Quislings, von zur Mühlen disagrees and states that the national committees “have acted as the spokesperson for the interests of Eastern nations in negotiations with Germany” (von zur Mühlen, 1984, 88). Moreover, most Prometheans had social democratic or socialist views and this continued even when the war started (van zur Mühlen, 1984, 21, 135, 136). The national committees were occasionally able to affect decisions concerning their nationalities due to clashes among German institutions, or vacillation, and they lobbied to block or postpone certain decisions (von zur Mühlen, 1984, 131–132). The crucial point is that many lives would have been lost if émigrés did not engage with and seek a dialogue with the German authorities in this manner. When in Berlin, unlike other nationalities, the Crimean Tatars were not permitted to form their national committee until the second half of 1944. In negotiations with German central command, Prof. Gerhard von Mende, based on his knowledge of Turko-Muslim peoples defended the Crimean Tatar autonomy but the Nazi center had plans for complete Germanization of Crimea and thus had no place for Crimean Tatar autonomy (von zur Mühlen, 1984, 83–86). Short of autonomy, the émigré nationalists demanded from the German authorities the following: a collection of the Crimean Tatar POWs in the same camp (von zur Mühlen, 1984, 119), their better treatment, and the “return” of the Crimean Tatars from Romania, from Lithuania, and from Belarus to Crimea as a measure of increasing their percentage in the Crimean population (von zur Mühlen 1984, 123). Prof. Mende also supported the latter plan (von zur Mühlen 1984, 76). The Crimean Tatar national representatives also asked permission to visit Crimea to coordinate with the Muslim Committees (von zur Mühlen, 1984, 123). In November 1942, Edige Kırımal and Halim

(Altschtadt, 1992, 157; von zur Mühlen, 1984, 57), but not all POWs were found sufficiently fit to join. Although non-Germans can be officers in these legions, they have no authority over Germans of the lower rank. The non-Germans had special signs on their uniforms to distinguish them from German soldiers (von zur Mühlen, 1984, 54).

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Baliç, two Crimean Tatar national representatives, were permitted to visit Crimea and meet with Ahmet Özenba¸slı, the Head of Simferopol Muslim Committee, and committee members. The meeting took place in Russian language, in the presence of SD officials. Edige Kırımal and Halim Baliç notified Özenba¸slı that 25,000 technically trained Crimean Tatars would return Crimea from the diaspora to settle. I could not find information about the specifics of this plan and who these Tatars were or from where they were recruited. More could be learned, if Cafer Seydahmet’s letters and diaries were made available to researchers. The Simferopol Committee agreed and elected Kırımal and Baliç to membership of their committee. This bestowed the Crimean Tatar national representatives the quality others lacked: They represented not only the National Party-inexile but also the Crimean Tatars in their homeland, officially recognized by Ostministerium. Thus, Edige Kırımal became both a member of the Milli Fırka [National Party] in exile and the unofficial Milli Fırka [National Party] in Crimea, uniting the émigré and homeland nationalism for the first time since 1917 (von zur Mühlen, 1984, 124). As the occupation progressed, German and Crimean Tatar interests appeared to be irreconcilable. Germans often brutally murdered Tatars, who were suspected of collaboration with the partisans. For this reason, they burned more than a hundred villages. (Some partisans also burned Crimean Tatar villages accusing them of collaboration with Nazis.) Forcible transfer of children between the ages of fourteen and eighteen to be used as Ostarbeiter (read slave laborer) in Germany and Austria created opposition among the people (von zur Mühlen, 1984, 188).12 In 1943, Germans made one last attempt to gain the support of Muslim peoples, particularly those in Turkey and the Arab world, by re-establishing the Muslim mufti in the Crimea. The Crimean Tatars in Berlin were enthusiastic about this decision as they pressed the choice to be Özenba¸slı. However, Özenba¸slı, who understood long ago that Germans never really intended to provide Tatars with their demands, conflicted with the German orders. He openly attempted to use the Muslim committee for political purposes. When he heard he would be

12 Ostarbeiter were to compensate the factory and farm workforce in Germany and Austria after the conscription of native German workers. Some of the Crimean Tatar Ostarbeiter formed the Arbeitsfront which constructed roads, were used in fires and emergencies, removed the wounded and dead bodies under the bombed buildings, and carried the important documents to safer areas (Fevzi Yurter, 2003, 233).

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arrested, he fled to Romania with the help of the Crimean Tatars in Romania and the Romanian Secret Service (von zur Mühlen, 1984, 188–189). In the end, the main benefit of émigré activity in Germany had been saving hundreds of nationalist Crimean Tatars from the approaching Soviet army. Between October 1943 and April 1944, the members of Muslim Committees began to escape, and Kırımal brought them to Germany. He also attained permission papers from the Ostministerium and traveled to Odessa several times to enable their acceptance in vehicles, but this was a difficult task as the Germans were busy evacuating their wounded soldiers (Feyzi Yurter, 2003, 176). Kırımal also offered employment to twenty activists from Crimea in the bureau of Crimean Tatar National Representation in Berlin. He even went to Bucharest to offer a position to Özenba¸slı, but he did not want anything more to do with the Germans. Unfortunately, Özenba¸slı was arrested in the course of the invasion of Romania by the Soviet army and sent to a prison camp (von zur Mühlen, 1984, 127). Perhaps one of the greatest contributions of the Crimean Tatar National Committee was toward saving the Karaims (indigenous people of Crimea who speak Crimean Tatar language but practice Judaism) from the “final solution” (von zur Mühlen, 1984, 138). To recapitulate, the Crimean Tatar nationalist activists were able to take advantage of the unique political opportunities that emerged in wartime Crimea and could put a respirator mask on their suffocating national identity. For that, they have been recognized as brave and ingenious members of their nation in Crimean Tatars’ collective memory. However, the nationalist activists were a minority, around 20,000 among the population of approximately 250,000 Crimean Tatars. The remaining Crimean Tatars were only busy with ensuring their basic subsistence. Thousands of them also fought with partisans or supported them by various means. Almost all young males were fighting in the Soviet army against the Nazis. Nevertheless, nine days after the Soviet army reached Crimea, on May 18, 1944, instead of arresting the nationalist Crimean Tatars, the Soviet government deported the whole Tatar population from Crimea, on the pretext of collaboration with Nazis. 5.3.8.1 Refugees in the Post-war Era When the war ended, a large number of Crimean Tatars became refugees in Europe. The first major group of refugees among the Crimean Tatars was POWs, some of which were recruited to the Eastern legions or used

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as forced laborers. The second major group of refugees was the members of the Muslim committees and paramilitary organizations. The last group of Crimean Tatar refugees was the ones who served as Ostarbeiter or in the Arbeitsfront until the end of the war (Yurter, 2003, 203). According to the Yalta Agreement, all former Soviet citizens needed to be repatriated regardless of their wishes. Almost 3 million refugees were forcibly returned to the Soviet Union between 1945 and 1946 (von zur Mühlen, 1984, 230). The members of the Eastern Legions and the members of the national committees were accused of betrayal by the Soviet Union. When they were returned, the main figures were executed and lesser figures were sent to prison camps.13 In order not to be returned to the Soviet Union, many people escaped from the allied refugee camps, threw themselves from trains and ships, and one imam burned himself. Some legionnaires did not view themselves as traitors and voluntarily returned; nevertheless, they were often punished as well (von zur Mühlen, 1984, 230–231). Many Ostarbeiter teenagers returned to the Soviet Union to rejoin their families. They could meet them only after two years of interrogation (Yurter, 2003). The members of the national committees, among them Edige Kırımal and Cafer Seydahmet Kırımer, lobbied the Allied Powers and international organizations for Soviet citizens not to be forcibly returned. The Crimean Tatar émigrés saved many Crimean Tatar refugees from being returned to the Soviet Union and secured their safe passage to a third country, preferably Turkey. One-third of the Crimean Tatar refugees claimed to be Turks and to have families in Turkey through false documentation provided by the Crimean Tatars in Turkey (von zur Mühlen, 1984, 231). Hamza Göktay and Cafer Gülümo˘glu, who immigrated to Turkey in the 1930s, played a significant role by preparing a list of false relatives with signatures from Turkey for the Crimean Tatars in camps. By 1948, forcible repatriation stopped, and resettlement of refugees to several countries, including the United States, Canada, European, and South American countries, began (Isajiw et al.,1992, xviii–xix). Between 1947 and 1951, 90% of the Crimean Tatars in refugee camps in Germany, Austria, France, and Switzerland immigrated to Turkey. Some Crimean Tatars continued to

13 The Soviet Union declared a general amnesty in 1955, but people continued to be tried for betrayal until the 1970s (von zur Mühlen, 1984, 231–232).

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live in Bavaria and other parts of Europe. A smaller number immigrated to the United Kingdom, the United States, Australia, Canada, and Brazil.14 5.3.9

Consequences of émigré Nationalism

Contrary to previous hopes of émigrés, it became clear that the Soviet Union would remain intact for the foreseeable future. The Soviet Union emerged from the war stronger and greatly advanced its sphere of influence in Eastern Europe. The international community, notably the UN, offered no protest to Soviet territorial advances. These events showed that the discursive and political opportunity structures in Europe drastically changed, and Promethean-type anti-Soviet organizations of émigrés were no longer befitting with the new post-war structures. The Promethean League was briefly reactivated by a congress at the Hague on April 20, 1946. As they criticized the League of Nations before, they criticized the United Nations for its lack of action against Soviet injustices, warning of third, Soviet initiated, world war. In June 1946, the Prometheans sent an “open letter to the United Nations” to protest the deportations of the Crimean Tatars, Chechens, Ingush, Kalmyks, Volga Germans, and the Karaims. The national organization of refugees in Europe continued until 194815 but by the 1950s most émigré leaders were very old and began to die. Cafer Seydahmet Kırımer directed Edige Kırımal from Turkey through letters and provided him funding from resources in Turkey to continue his international lobbying. As the remaining Promethean

14 Ne¸se Sarısoy Karatay documented the plight of Crimean Tatar and other Soviet Muslim POWs, Ostarbeiter, and refugees through oral history interviews with living members (Karatay, Ne¸se Sarısoy. 2011. Gamalı Haç ve Kızıl Yıldız Arasında Türkler. ˙ Istanbul: Sinemis Yayınları). Zafer Karatay and Ne¸se S. Karatay made a documentary titled Gamalı Haç ve Kızıl Yıldız Arasında [Between Swastika and Red Star] featuring ˙ the living witnesses of this tragedy sponsored by TRT Istanbul Televizyonu in 2005. 15 In 1948, Anti-Bolschewistiches Block Der Nation, an anti-Russian umbrella organization was founded and received support from the British state. Americans formed Koodinationszentrum Des Anti-Bolschewistischen Kampfes (KZAK) but non-Russian groups protested the existence of Russian groups in this organization. They formed the oppositional Paris Bloc in 1952. The Paris Bloc mostly involved refugees of the First World War and the former members of the Promethean League, while KZAK involved mostly refugees from the Second World War. To force fractions to unite, the Americans stopped providing finances. This weakened these groups further (von zur Mühlen, 1984, 233–235).

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leaders, Kırımal worked in the American-supported think tank organizations such as the Institute for Learning the Soviet Union in Munich and published Dergi (Journal) on the politics of the Soviet Union. Despite successes such as saving many Crimeans Tatars’, Muslims’, and Karaims’ lives, the émigré nationalists were unsuccessful in attaining their main purpose of national autonomy for the Crimean Tatars in Crimea, mostly due to the circumstances beyond their control. They could not do anything to prevent or reverse the deportation of the Crimean Tatars in 1944. Cafer Seydahmet Kırımer was personally devastated when the news about the deportation of the Crimean Tatars reached him. His health worsened during the 1950s until he died in 1960.

5.4 Stagnation of Emigré Nationalism (1945-Early 1980s) 5.4.1

Refugees Challenge the Emigré Frame

From 1948 on, the refugees settled in major Turkish cities such as Ankara, ˙ Eski¸sehir, Izmir, Bursa, and Konya, as opportunities for employment were greater. There were not many state resources to aid them in the beginning and the corrupt state offices failed to transfer $600 assigned to each refugee by the UN (Yurter, 2003, 8). The Crimean Tatar diaspora community did not sufficiently attend to their needs, partly because there was no solidaristic or cultural association of the Crimean Tatars to help them (Yurter, 2003). Only the immigrants of the 1930s had formed informal solidaristic networks in Istanbul, and they aided the newcomers most in the process of immigration and settlement. The older Crimean Tatar diaspora living in their introverted communities in rural Turkey had a low level of education. Soon it became obvious that the newcomers had a different frame of Crimean Tatar identity. They had a more urbanized and educated background, higher national consciousness, and greater experience in societal activism. They desired a communal organization that would not only facilitate the settlement and adaptation process but would also enable them to maintain their national identity in exile. After all, they paid high prices for desiring to maintain their identity during the Second World War. A few years spent in refugee camps in Europe also entrenched their identity as ironically they were at last completely free to found organizations and

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engage in activities to maintain their identity. They formed a tightly-knit community during the time they spent in the camps.16 In the 1950s, Turkey democratized more by transitioning to a multiparty regime, and civil society began to emerge. In 1952, the refugees founded the Crimean Turkish Cultural Association (Kırım Türk Kültür Derne˘gi) by convincing some émigré leaders of their need for a Crimean Tatar cultural, philanthropic, and solidaristic organization.17 This association became a member of the Federation of Turkish Immigrant and Refugee Associations (Türk Göçmen ve Mülteci Dernekleri Federasyonu), founded in 1954.18 This federation was an attempt of the Turkish state to manage the immigrant political activism. In the 1950s, refugees organized tea parties in Istanbul and Eski¸sehir. Derviza, the Crimean Tatar traditional harvest festival, and kure¸s , the festival for the Crimean Tatar traditional wrestling, were cultural activities. They invited Cafer Seydahmet Kırımer to their events in Istanbul as their honorary guest because of his role in making their immigration to Turkey possible. When the newcomer Crimean Tatar refugees approached him with a request for an association solely for the needs of refugees and Crimean Tatar diaspora in Turkey, Cafer Seydahmet warned the refugees that “all the institutions related to Crimea must have been tied to the National Center, if not there would be disunity in our front, and that would damage our cause” (from 16 Isajiw and Palij noted the same phenomenon in Ukrainain refugee experience too (Isajiw at al., 1992, 20). 17 The associations of Crimean Tatars were entitled as Crimean Turkish for the sake of being politically correct. The state would probably not permit “Crimean Tatar,” as Crimean Tatars were not a legally recognized ethnic identity. Members included Sevket ¸ ˙ Mangut, Ismail Hakkı Okday (28 October 1881–10 October 1977), Ali Nuri Okday, ˙ Haydar Gasprinskiy, Ismail Noyan, Re¸sat Hayri Örlük, Aptullah Corgunlu, Ali Uzar, Burhaneddin Güler, Cafer Gülümo˘glu, Cevher Çibi¸s, Enver Malcan, Ejder Varansu, Fazıl ˙ ˙ ˙ Özarna, Hamza Göktay, Hasan Maytapar, Ismail Güçlü, Ismail Otar, Ibrahim Otar, Kemal Çelik, Mehmet Göktay, Re¸sat Akçura, Re¸sit Türker, Selim Ortay, Turgut Teberdar, Yusuf Büyüksu, Aziz Bozgöz, and Sabri Cansever. 18 Federation of Turkish Immigrant and Refugee Associations (Türk Göçmen ve Mülteci Dernekleri Federasyonu) was founded in 1954 but ended in mid-1970s. The Federation ˙ was composed of associations of North Caucasian, Crimean, Idil-Ural, Azerbaijani, Turkistani, Kerkük, Cypriot, Bulgarian, and Bayr-Bucak (Syrian) ‘Turks.’ They were encouraged for complying with the state ideology through this organization. The biggest sin has been tribalism (kabilecilik)—emphasizing the distinctness of ethnic identities—because it was interpreted as dividing the great Turkish nation. This federation was not successful in any sense, and even could not form a platform among the migrants (Bezanis, 1994, 81–82).

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his diary entry on January 23, 1954, Kırımer, 2003, 3). He explained that they knew little about the Turkish political context, and émigrés had a special arrangement with the state to defend the Crimean Tatar national cause without damaging the interests of the Turkish state.19 Notwithstanding their gratitude for Kırımer, some of the refugees still thought the émigré nationalist frame drawn by Kırımer was too narrow to serve their political aspirations.20 Thus, the refugees founded another association of their own in Ankara in 1955, entitled Crimean Turks Culture, Aid and Folklore Association (Kırım Türkleri Kültür, Yardımla¸sma ve Folklor Derne˘gi).21 This association not only organized balls but also intended to pursue Crimean Tatar nationalism openly. They published a journal entitled Crimea (Kırım) in 1957 (for a year, and resumed in 1960 for another year), and in the first issue, they announced that they will organize anniversaries for the martyrdom of Çelebi Cihan in 1917 (Kırım, 1957a).22 Mehmet Sevdiyar, who had worked in Azat Kırım (Free Crimea), the Crimean Tatar newspaper published in German-occupied Crimea, financed and edited Kırım. Sevdiyar had escaped before the Soviets re-occupied Crimea, and after staying in a refugee camp in Italy, he came to Ankara in the second half of the 1950s. He began to work as a Russian-Turkish translator for a state agency. The émigrés regarded Sevdiyar with suspicion for a reason unknown to us. One of the members of the National Center, Emin Bektöre even wrote a play entitled Mülteci (Refugee), criticizing

19 “The émigré leaders who live in Turkey have instituted a special structure for struggling against the Soviet Union more efficiently” (Kırımer, 2003, 2, footnote 9). Note ˙ that footnotes were written by Ismail Otar. Though he had a first-hand knowledge of the matter, being a member of that structure, he cited Ablemito˘glu for this fact. 20 They had warm feelings for Cafer Seydahmet, who assisted them greatly in their struggle for settlement, as depicted in their card addressed to him in 1956. In his diary, Cafer Seydahmet states that he replied them pleasantly but also advised them about their conduct in Turkey (3 January 1956) (Kırımer, 2003, 97). 21 Members included Mehmet Muhiddin Sevdiyar, Mahmut Oktay, Isa ˙ Kara¸say, Cafer Ortalan, Kemal Kuvat, Server Trupçu, Hediye Kırımman, Kemal Ortaylı, Mehmet Çokakta¸s, Aziz Akta¸s, and Niyazi Kırımman. 22 Authors included Cafer Ortalan, Mehmet Sevdiyar, Mustafa Çorbacı, and Sermet Arısoy. In the first issue of the journal, Server Kırımlı, Halil Inalcik, and Servet Arısoy contribute with articles. Kemal Kuvat, Rüstem Be¸sev, Halil Be¸sev, Mehmet Çokakta¸s, ˙ Vehbi Öztekten, Nuri Akyar, Ibrahim Dülber, and Raif Gence contributed money.

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newcomers (Yurter, 2003, 222).23 My anonymous interviewee, who was very close to the émigré circle in the period, stated that the émigrés viewed that Kırım had a different perspective on the Crimean Tatar cause and it did not follow the path of those established Qurultay. However, in their first issue, they commemorate the martyrdom of Çelebi Cihan. What really happened was Kırım challenged the émigré frame with a new frame which amplified Crimea in their identities and which aims to mobilize the Crimean Tatar masses for a national liberation movement. This is evident in their publishing of a map of Crimea in the 8th issue, which was unimaginable for the Crimean Tatar émigrés in Turkey. The émigrés were careful not to face accusations of irredentism or singling out Crimea’s liberation, because a pan-Turkist was supposed to work for the overall emancipation of Turkic lands and people, not on a particular “tribe.” The refugees openly published on purely “Crimean” topics, instead of packaging Crimean issues in a pan-Turkist cover. These included their historical experiences under the Crimean ASSR and during the Second World War; the communist persecution; the themes of Crimean Tatar ˙ nationalism developed in the 1920s and 1930s; Veli Ibrahimov’s policies; aid from Crimea to Turkey during the Balkan Wars; legends of Crimea and novels of Cengiz Da˘gcı, a refugee Crimean Tatar writer who wrote on themes of attachment to a homeland. This updated information was like a breath of fresh air from Crimea to diaspora in Turkey. In parallel to their amplification of homeland in their identity, the authors followed the Soviet newspapers more closely and counter-framed against them. (Only Edige Kırımal in Germany from the émigré circle could follow Soviet newspapers at that period.) For example, in the 7th issue of Kırım, the authors defended Cafer Seydahmet against the Soviet accusation of being dictatorial (Kırım, 1957b, 198). Moreover, the authors of Kırım wanted to construct an identity for the larger Crimean Tatar people in Turkey and in the world. In the first issue of their journal Kırım, they presented their aim as “working to prevent our brethren who are spread in the four corners of the world and foreign places from forgetting their national being, and to preserve our national, culture, moral values, and traditions intact, and to look towards the future with optimism and belief” (Kırım, 1957a, 2). This statement represents the first emergence of an idea about a Crimean Tatar transnational nation. 23 The role of Mehmet Sevdiyar in Crimean Tatar history, and an analysis of the great volumes he wrote on the ethnogenesis of Crimean Tatars, still awaits for further research.

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The political and discursive opportunities in Turkey were not as large as refugees imagined them to be. The most vivid example is that Mehmet Sevdiyar preferred the ethnonym Crimean Tatar, but he was warned by a Turkish security official not to use that ethnonym in the name of the association and the journal. This meant the nationalist refugees would have a hard time in frame alignment processes with the Crimean Tatar population. Mehmet Sevdiyar and a part of the nationalist refugees soon left for the United States, where the political and discursive opportunity structures allowed the development of their own frame. In his diary, on December 20, 1958, Cafer Seydahmet wrote he was content that “those with the wrong ideas” went to the United States (Kırımer, 2003, 192). Even after Mehmet Sevdiyar’s departure, Kırım was published for a year in 1960, now openly claiming the legacy of Milli Kurtulu¸s Merkezi, established in Crimea in 1942. In the 17th issue, Kırım editorial argued that “after the Soviet domination was established, the ones who belonged to the main political party of the Crimean Tatars, Milli Fırqa clandestinely continued their operations, and became successful to help alleviate the pain of the bloody scars of people of the nation, by way of locating their members to the key offices of the government [of the Crimean ASSR]… continued without dropping the flag of [national] struggle and consequently in 1942 founded National Liberation Center…[This center] for some time continued outside of the Iron Curtain, but after noticing that Cafer Seydahmet has been conducting the national struggle, remained silent for some more time, but this year [after Cafer Seydahmet died] it increased the pace of the struggle by electing Sevki ¸ Bektöre24 as their leader” (Kırım Türkleri Milli Kurtulu¸s Merkezi, 1960, 92) Accordingly, they rejected Müstecip Ülküsal and Edige Kırımal’s representation of the Crimean Tatars in the conference of the Paris Bloc (Kırım Türkleri Milli Kurtulu¸s Merkezi, 1960, 92; Ortalan, 1960, 7). However, Sevki ¸ Bektöre, originally a Crimean Tatar from Karakaya village (near Polatlı) in Turkey, who spent decades of his life in the Soviet Union and gulag, and finally returned to Turkey in the 1950s did not agree and stated his purpose to be uniting two political organizations (Sevki ¸ Bektöre ile Yapılan Mülakat, 1960, 29). Most of the political challengers immigrated to the United 24 Sevki ¸ Bektöre was a Crimean Tatar born in Romania and raised in Turkey, who migrated to Crimea to participate in the national struggle in 1917 and could only return to Turkey in 1957 using his former Ottoman citizenship after twenty-five years of imprisonment in the USSR (Bektöre, 1965).

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States in the 1960s and eventually the two associations united. From a retrospectively, we can argue that emigré nationalists in Turkey were prejudiced against the Crimean Tatars coming from the Soviet Union (even until the 1980s) as they were scared of Soviet conspiracy against their movement. Rival frames prevented any transnational connection between the refugee activists in the United States and the émigré activists in Turkey. 5.4.2

The Persistence of Emigré Nationalism Frame

The challenge posed by Kırım showed the émigrés the need for frame alignment processes among the refugees. In 1954, the émigrés founded an association titled Kırım Türkleri Yardımla¸sma Birli˘gi (Crimean Tatar Mutual Aid Union) to marginalize certain rebellious refugees who founded an association in 1952.25 Cafer Seydahmet used his authority to encourage resignations from the Crimean Cultural Association to join the new Association and advised about the title, executive board, and areas of activity. He recommended that the executive board must be composed of those who can influence people easily and who can also operate in the official realm (diary entry, November 24, 1954, Kırımer, 2003, 35). Despite Cafer Seydahmet’s authority, the nationalist refugees demonstrated émigrés that mobilizing a larger number of people was possible by using a new frame. On August 13, 1958, Cafer Seydahmet admitted in his diary that the émigré movement was dying “not only for the Crimean Tatars but for also other Russian Muslim émigrés due to lack of new blood, lack of former idealism, lack of financial or diplomatic support from other states” (Kırımer, 2003, 191). According to Nurettin Mahir Altu˘g, Cafer Seydahmet considered that the émigré cadre was getting old, a new cadre was required to be trained, and an association could be an instrument to reach out to the youth (interview). Therefore, in 1960, before his death, he tried to convince both associations in Istanbul to unite, by using his strong authority among both

25 Members included Aptullah Çorgunlu, Ali Uzar, Burhanettin Güler, Cafer Gülümo˘glu, Cevher Çibi¸s, Enver Malcan, Ejder Varansu, Fazıl Özarna, Hamza Göktay, ˙ ˙ ˙ Hasan Maytapar, Ismail Güçlü, Ismail Otar, Ibrahim Otar, Kemal Çelik, Mehmet Göktay, Müstecip Ülküsal, Re¸sat Akçura, Re¸sit Türker, Sabri Cansever, Selim Ortay, Turgut Teberdar, Yusuf Büyüksu, and Aziz Bozgazi.

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émigré nationalists and refugees. This happened with a symbolic handshake between Sevki ¸ Bektöre and Müstecip Ülküsal at Abdullah Efendi ˙ Otar and Selim Ortay, the Hall in Beyazıt, Istanbul in 1960.26 Ibrahim members of Cafer Seydahmet’s émigré nationalist circle, also endorsed compromise with refugees. The refugees demonstrated to the émigré nationalists that greater activity could occur inside Turkey’s political and discursive opportunity structures. The émigrés attempted to increase resonance by republishing the journal Emel to counter-frame Kırım and organizing tepre¸s in a modern setting to rival the derviza of the refugees. Tepre¸s was an element of steppe sub-ethnic culture, coinciding with summertime harvest of steppe crops and continued to be celebrated in the diaspora throughout the nineteenth century, especially in Dobruca. Derviza was traditionally celebrated during the fall vineyard harvest of central and coastal subethnic group of Crimean Tatars (Mountain Tats and Yalıboyu Tats ). Thus, a mild sub-ethnic cultural clash also took place until both communities merged in a short while. After the most active refugees left for the United States, frame competition ended. Leaving the politics of the issue to the émigré nationalists, the immigrants of the 1930s and the refugees of the 1940s and 1950s were mostly contained through the “cultural” activities of these associations.27 This was a reproduction of the frame in the pre-Second World War era: The Crimean Tatar politics was confirmed to be an elite endeavor, under the proviso of a formal cadre of National Centre/National Party in exile. The refugees became active in the “Crimean Turkish” Associations in Ankara, Istanbul, and Eski¸sehir (founded in 1971), revitalized the Crimean Tatar cultural life, with the new choreographies of the Crimean Tatar dances, and new music they brought from the interwar Crimea. Even before the arrival of refugees, Eski¸sehir, where Tatars compactly settled, was selected as a diasporic space for the cultivation of Crimean Tatar culture by the émigrés—a second Dobruca. Emin Bektöre, who emigrated from Romania to Turkey in 1940, was an active participant 26 Abdurrahman Benlio˘ ˙ glu, Nurettin A˘gat, Ismail Hakkı, and Ali Nuri Okday also played an important part in uniting two associations (Kırımer, 2003, 53, 184). 27 Feyzi Yurter, Fikret Yurter’s brother, led the attempts of some refugees to prepare claims of compensation from Germany and Austria for being Ostarbeiter. However, most refugees in Turkey preferred to stay apolitical and deemphasize their past.

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of the Müstecip Ülküsal’s Crimean Tatar movement in Romania and was engaged in Crimean Tatar music and dance teaching. He was encouraged to settle in Eski¸sehir by Cafer Seydahmet, as this city has the largest Tatar population, therefore most suitable for cultural and folkloric activities. He began teaching all children of Tatar and non-Tatar ancestry Crimean Tatar music and dance in People’s Houses in Eski¸sehir and initiated a tradition of diasporic Crimean Tatar folk music and dance.28 He managed to register Crimean music, dance, and folklore under Eski¸sehir’s local folklore. At the Eski¸sehir Folklore Ball (August 16, 1968), he said, Since even one Crimean Tatar is not left in Crimea today, we thought that Crimean Tatar dances, songs, and folklore now belongs to Eski¸sehir…Both to support our brethren, and to protect this valuable cultural treasure, we took Crimean dance and folk songs to Eski¸sehir’s repertory. (Emel, 1968, 39–42)

Thus, he sought official state recognition of Crimean Tatars’ “cultural difference.” One consequence of these “cultural” activities was the increased resonance of Crimean Tatar nationalist frame among the refugees and Crimean Tatar diaspora in Turkey. As liberalization progressed in Turkey in the 1960s and 1970s, several Crimean Tatar books were published and Crimean Tatar plays were staged.29 Crimean Tatars demanded more cultural rights for radio and television, which they regarded as means for reproducing the Crimean Tatar identity in urban settings, considering speedy urbanization and assimilation among their co-ethnics. Certainly, the most consequential activity of this period was the publication of Emel . Even though it was presented as the continuation of the 28 Emin Bektöre was born in Dobruja. He was the youngest member of Emel movement in Romania. He learned Romanian folklore at high school. He learned Crimean Tatar dances from Crimean refugees in Romania such as pharmacist Bekir. He immigrated to Turkey in 1940. Later newcoming refugees such as Halil Haksal and Cemalettin Tengiz also contributed the revival of Crimean Tatar folklore activities in Turkey. People’s Houses hosted the earlier activities until Eski¸sehir Crimean Association is founded in 1972 (Yalkın Bektöre, Interview by author, 26 December 2006, Eski¸sehir). 29 Istanbul Crimean Association’s young members staged Mehmet Vani Yurtsever’s “Eid Night” (“Kurban Bayramı Gecesi”) in Istanbul, Eski¸sehir and Polatlı and a large audience watched this play in the late 1970s (Yurtsever, 1983, 307). Note that this event brings together four different waves of immigration.

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journal published in Romania in the pre-war era, and a similar cadre, some of whom had emigrated from Romania contributed to it, it did not play the same mobilizing role it played in Romania.30 Why didn’t Emel kindle return-oriented strong “exile nationalist” movement among the Crimean Tatar community in Turkey? While we can easily point out the different structural contexts, the persistence of the émigré nationalism frame also mattered. This frame precluded Müstecip Ülküsal to even consider stirring the movement into the direction of “exile nationalism.” The same Müstecip Ülküsal who was so concerned about Crimean Tatars’ losing of mother tongue in Romania was not at all concerned when they were losing it in Turkey. This could only be explained by changing his frame after immigrating to Turkey. There is evidence to this argument throughout the articles in Emel . Emel’s world is fixated on events of 1917–1920, though those were no longer the main reference point for Crimean Tatar politics. The Soviet deportation and oppression of the Crimean Tatar nation had reached new levels which needed to be a real concern, especially as it was taking place at the moment. Unlike the co-ethnics in the Soviet Union, Emel authors did not align their movement with the human rights master frame, at a time when the Helsinki process was unfolding. That is, they did not present their “national cause” as a human rights issue. The émigré nationalists declared the foundation of the “National Centre” in Turkey as a continuation of their Promethean National Center31 with the endorsement of the Turkish state. After observing the trend of revival in the Crimean Tatar and other émigré movements in the 1950s, some agents of the state seemed to have decided to influence these movements for the interests of the Turkish state (anonymous interviewee). Emel included plentiful news about the activities of other National Centers of “captive Turks” operating in Europe and Turkey, as a weak continuation of the Promethean cause, and supported by European states in the context of anti-communism. While these organizations mainly engaged in the diplomacy of writing

30 First eleven issues Bulgaria-1967 Ankara), Istanbul–1974 Ankara) and it was financed by 5–8).

of Emel were published in Ankara, by Niyazi Kırımman (1911 Halil Be¸sev (1896 Crimea-1973 Ankara), Mahmut Oktay (1912 in collaboration with the National Center members in Istanbul Kırımman. Later, Emel was transferred to Istanbul (A.K., 1978,

31 As mentioned earlier, the right wing of National Party formed en émigré organization under the framework of Promethean League, called Crimean National Center.

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many protest letters to certain international organizations or Soviet officials, they did not have much influence. For instance, Müstecip Ülküsal, in the name of Crimean National Center, sent a telegraph to Kosigin who visited Ankara: “The millions of Crimean Turks who live outside the homeland request the permission and support for the return of the Crimean Tatars whose innocence was accepted and declared” (December 27, 1975) (Ülküsal, 1976, 7). By 1967, it became clear that the Crimean Tatars had consolidated a strong nationalist dissident movement in the USSR. Because of Iron Curtain, it was challenging to form communication with the co-ethnics; however, émigré nationalists did not overly exert themselves to form transnational relations with co-ethnics either (interview with Hakan Kırımlı). Edige Kırımal, residing in Germany, followed Soviet publications but they did not involve any information on the political movement. According to young activists at the time Hakan Kırımlı and Yalkın Bektöre (Emin Bektöre’s son), there was not any communication with the co-ethnics in the USSR until 1979, and the Crimean Tatar émigrés in Turkey could not even follow the official, Soviet Crimean Tatar newspaper, Lenin Bayra˘gı. One reason was the lack of a cadre who can read and transcribe from Cyrillic, as Crimean Tatar samizdat was in Crimean Tatar language but Cyrillic alphabet. Only in the early 1980s, Saim Osman Karahan began to transcribe texts from Cyrillic in Emel . As I will discuss in the next chapter, in the same period, the refugees in the United States (also because they spoke Russian) kept contact with the coethnics in the USSR and received the most updated information about their situation. Instead, taking advantage of political opportunities that emerged with the acceptance of Turkey into NATO, émigré nationalists followed a strategy of frame-bridging with Turkish ultra-nationalists. While Finnin argues that Crimean Tatars, “captive” in the Soviet Union, provided “rationale for Cold War era pan-Turkist irredentism” (Finnin, 2014, 297), along with Gasimov, I argue that both the Crimean Tatar and other Turkic and Muslim émigrés (particularly Azeris) re-contextualized (Swart, 1995, 469) ultra-nationalist frame to fit with their own émigré frames. Gasimov (2012) and Atmaca (2020) suggest that anti-Soviet émigrés had already integrated anti-communism, and anti-Soviet attitude into Turkish ultra-nationalism before the 1950s (Gasimov, 2012, 6). Finnin (2014) demonstrates well how this anti-communist propaganda waged by Emel and other similar journals was exalted by Turkish military in the late 1960s and 1970s who approached pan-Turkist-ultra-nationalist

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movement to fight against the twin threats of the Soviet Union and revolutionary activism of the Left inside the country. Kırımlı describes the framing activity of Emel movement in this period: Terminology derived from the general nationalist [ultra-nationalist] movement in Turkey began to be used for the issues, and themes of the Crimean Tatar national movement. The Crimean Tatar nationalists used the same discourse with the nationalists [Turkish ultra-nationalists] although they might not agree on everything. (interview)

As a result, both the Turkish ultra-nationalist right and émigré nationalists bridged frames and agreed that the treatment of Crimean Tatars was a symbol of the inferiority of communism. Émigrés argued that as a necessary consequence of the anti-leftist struggle, Turkish ultra-nationalists must take up the cause of Turko-Muslim peoples in the Soviet Union. In the eyes of at least rightist and Kemalist publics and Turkish military, Crimea was placed on the map of the “Turkish” lands that need to be liberated from communism. Mustafa Cemilev was presented as a pan-Turkist hero in Turkey, because of his opposition to the Soviet Union. This was quite different than how Cemilev regarded himself as he mainly self-identified as a democrat and human rights activist at the time (unbeknownst to the Turkish public).32 Necip Hablemitoglu, a pan-Turkist ultra-nationalist Crimean Tatar academic, published a journal Unity (Birlik) in the 1990s to propagate Mustafa Jemilev’s struggle. Hablemito˘glu [Ablemito˘glu] had a network with the apolitical American

32 First appearance of Cemilev was in the 90th issue of Emel in 1975. 93rd issue of Emel announced Jemilev’s martyrdom, but he turned out to be alive. The false news of his death increased the support for the Crimean Tatars, especially among the ultranationalists. Istanbul Ülkü Ocakları, an ultra-nationalist organization left black wreath at the USSR consulate on 6 February 1976. Ülkücüler Derne˘gi, another ultra-nationalist organization organized a commemoration for Cemilev on 13 February 1976 in Ankara. Ahmet Demiryüce, a Turkish senator, went on five days of hunger strike. A silent protest march took place in Adana. A thousand letters were sent to the president and prime minister. Donations to Emel multiplied. Hakan Kırımlı points out that “Cemilev was introduced as a hero of the Turkishness in the 1970s. Mustafa Aga, ‘legendary outside Turk’ suited to the ultra-nationalist ideology. Mustafa Aga [Cemilev]’s so-called parka, paternoster, and boots [symbolic accessories of ultra-nationalists in the 1970s] were sold in Ünye.” (Interview Ankara).

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Association of Crimean Turks (AACT)33 ; thus, they also demonstrated interest in the fate of Mustafa Cemilev. Sefik ¸ Gürdemir, the head of the Association in that period, said: “We heard that Mustafa Cemilev had died. Either we heard it here or from Istanbul. Ablemito˘glu was active during the period. He was disseminating news. We published his articles which narrated how the Crimean Tatars in Turkey left black wreath to the Russian consulate” (interview). (The AACT did not support the protests organized against the Soviet Union by Mehmet Sevdiyar and Fikret Yurter in the United States at the same time because their frames differed.) One unintended consequence of the above frame-bridging was that many Turkish ultra-nationalists of Crimean Tatar origin developed an interest in the particular Crimean Tatar cause and joined the Crimean Tatar movement in the 1980s when it transformed into an identity movement, distancing itself from Turkish ultra-nationalism. On the other hand, this close affinity with ultra-nationalists deterred many Crimean Tatars on the left from supporting the Crimean Tatars’ struggle. One Crimean Tatar leftist could not support Müstecip Ülküsal’s movement even though he was Ülküsal’s relative due to ideological polarization: Müstecip Ülküsal was the head of the National Center. …He told us what they [the Soviet Union] have done to the Crimean Tatars but we didn’t believe … They played Tatar folklore in the Ankara People’s Houses. But there was the current of Anatolianism then. It was not appropriate to express ethnic identities. We were ashamed to say we were Tatars…Until the 1990s, we could not say it comfortably. Then Russia collapsed. Taboos collapsed. The ones who escaped[from Crimea] via Germany in 1952 [the refugees], they knew a little bit what was done to the Crimean Tatars [deportation], diaspora largely did not know. (interview)

Summarily, the émigré movement, which was relatively effective within the conditions before 1945, became detached from the reality of Crimea in Turkey because it did not attempt to form transnational connections to Crimea. The émigrés perceived that a diasporic collective identity movement would not be permitted in Turkey and therefore did not try to mobilize of Crimean Tatar masses. The émigrés were succumbed into ideological polarization in the 1970s in Turkey hoping to raise public 33 The “Turk” instead of Tatar in the name of the Association demonstrated alignment with the identity frame of the Turkish state and frame-bridging with Crimean Tatar movement in Turkey.

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awareness of their cause. When that polarization ended with 1980 military coup, the émigrés who were getting older realized that without offering an appealing identity project for the masses, the Crimean Tatar national movement in Turkey was about to die. This forced a frame change for the émigré movement.

5.5 Diaspora Nationalism to Transnationalism (the 1980s–) 5.5.1

The Emergence of Transnational Political and Discursive Opportunities

The diasporas before the 1980s were seen as suspicious by the nationstates. In the 1980s, global interconnection, the permeability of borders, and the retreat of nation-state began to modify this paradigm. Many former and new migrants openly claimed loyalties or attachment beyond their host-state and proudly identified themselves as “diasporas,” indicating a global master frame transformation. In addition to these global discursive changes, Turkey in the 1980s was characterized by increasing liberalization. This provided political and discursive opportunity structures for expressing ethnic identities in the political sphere. Alternative nationalist projects began to challenge the conventional type of Turkish nationalism “limited to Anatolia,” and allegiances displayed toward “outside Turks” ceased to be a taboo for the Kemalist governing elite. Niyazi Elitok explains as such: “Before 1990, it was regarded almost a crime to mention external Turks. This was the psychology of the Crimean Tatars. Everybody was apprehensive about the Soviet Union. We did not guess that this country would collapse in the 1990s” (interview). Additionally, the Crimean Tatar communities were compelled to take action for preserving their national culture. The Crimean Tatar communities who had been able to maintain their traditions and language until the 1970s in their introverted villages faced the emergent “problem of assimilation” introduced by modernization and urbanization. For instance, in some villages in Polatlı (Ankara) in the 1950s, the teachers struggled to teach reading in Turkish, because the children could not speak Turkish. The teachers overcame this problem by persuading the parents to speak more Turkish at home instead of Crimean Tatar. By the 1980s, however, the rate of speaking Tatar among the new generation had greatly decreased, and the community leaders reemphasized speaking Tatar in household settings.

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5.5.2

Transformation from Emigré into Diaspora Frame

According to Hakan Kırımlı, “the [emigre] close cooperation with the Turkish state policies, and the policy of having narrow cadres began to be shaped in the 1950s and this comatose state continued up until the 1970s…” He noted that “the Crimean Tatar nationalism in this period developed in a sandbox circumscribed by the state, but had this sandbox not existed, we would not be who we are now” (interview). Emel , being too cautious, had been the émigré journal that was published the longest in Turkey. It was not even shut during the 1980 coup. It reached many Crimean Tatar villages in the 1970s and continued to attract the young generation who discovered their roots when they became educated. One interviewee said: “In 1982, I came to Ankara for university. Through a friend, I found the address of the journal Emel . I used to go to this office on Saturdays” (interview with Nail Aytar). In the urban centers, Emel and the Associations were instrumental in bringing people together. By the 1980s, most members of the small remaining émigré movement were in their 70s,34 and young blood was in need to publish the journal Emel , and most importantly to carry on the informal émigré organization, the National Party/National Centre. At this period, Emel functioned as a recruitment tool. The personal qualities of young potential members were scrutinized during their internship in the journal, and those deemed to be trustworthy were taken into the inner circle. Later old and new generation established Emel Türk Kültürünü Ara¸stırma ve Tanıtma Vakfı (Emel Foundation for Research and Propagation of Turkish Culture) for ensuring the continuity of the journal.35 The consequence of this necessary generational change in émigré cadres was a frame transformation in the movement beginning in the 1980s. Hakan Kırımlı, Zafer Karatay, Ünsal Akta¸s, Muzaffer Akçora, Mükremin Sahin, ¸ Zuhal Yüksel, Yalkın

34 I interviewed with the three members of the National Center from the older generation; however, two of them did not permit me to publish their words, reflecting the continuing tradition of utmost caution in displaying views in this generation. Nurettin Mahir Altu˘g (1924–2015) permitted his name to be published. Altu˘g was a lawyer and the former editor of Emel (1983), former head of Crimean Turks Aid Association (1965), and former head of Emel Kırım Vakfı. 35 The founders of Emel Foundation were Müstecib Ülküsal, Ismail ˙ Otar (Ba¸skan), Nurettin Mahir Altu˘g (Genel Sekreter), Safiye Nezetli, Dr. Niyazi Elitok (Muhasipveznedar), Zafer Karatay (Ba¸skan Vekili), Serdar Karatay, and Ünsal Akta¸s ve Mükremin Sahin. ¸

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Bektöre, Tuncer Kalkay and Nail Aytar took over publishing Emel in Ankara beginning from 136th issue (1983). They prepared the journal at a rented office in Bahçelievler, Ankara. This location continued to be headquarters of this informal group of activists who aimed to reinvigorate Emel and Crimean Tatar movement in Turkey. This small circle of young leaders and a few others added later to this circle36 continued to set direction and build vision for all formal Crimean Tatar organizations in the next period. When the young cadre37 began to direct the movement, the first thing they did was reframing the relationship between homeland and homeland community. The new generation of Crimean Tatar nationalists was very curious about the Crimean Tatar frame in the USSR and when they found out the particulars of the movement in the USSR, they immediately recognized how much two paths of nationalism differed. Kırımlı stated that “…there was a line of nationalism separate from the one developed in the Soviet Union. It was so difficult to find a common point” (interview). By comparing both, the new generation ceased to believe in the frame in Turkey. The émigré frame lost empirical credibility. Notwithstanding the claims of émigré nationalists, the legitimacy of the National Center to represent the Crimean Tatar national cause could not be compared to the legitimacy of the national movement in the Soviet Union. Many activists of the movement in the Soviet Union made a heroic struggle and even sacrificed their lives for their rights and the whole world, and eventually, the former Soviet state recognized their civil and national rights. Their legitimacy is further entrenched with the establishment of democratic representative institutions such as Second Qurultay (National Congress, the first being in 1917) and Meclis (National Parliament) and holding internal elections. Upon return to Crimea, the Crimean Tatars there declared sovereignty, and their representative institutions are de facto recognized by Ukraine and the international society. The National Party/National Center, though contributed greatly during the Second World War, was obsolete presently. Reading the new discursive opportunity structures better, the urban and educated post-war generation of Crimean Tatars reconstructed the Crimean Tatar identity in Turkey as

36 Ertu˘ grul Kara¸s, Namık Kemal Bayar, Tuncay Kalkay, Bülent Tanatar, Özgür Karahan, Timur Berk, and Serkan Sava. 37 Later this original group of activists parted ways due to internal political conflict.

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a “diaspora community.” Various aspects of frame transformation and ensuing new frame can be seen in Exhibit 5.2. Exhibit 5.2: Crimean Tatar diaspora nationalism frame in Turkey (1980–) • The Crimean Tatars lost their independence unjustly in violation of the international treaty between Russia and Crimean Tatars. As a result, the Crimean Tatars were colonized and their population was forced out, or subjected to assimilation. This policy of gradual deTatarization of Crimea culminated in the deportation of the Crimean Tatars en masse from their homeland in 1944. • The Crimean Tatars in the USSR and the world have a right to return to their homeland, and the successors of the Soviet Union have an obligation to facilitate this politically and financially. • Crimea is the homeland of all Crimean Tatars, including diaspora and the members of diaspora are obligated to do their best to work to support the return of the co-ethnics, to establish sovereignty in Crimea and ultimately when conditions allow to return.

5.5.3

Frame Amplification: Renewed Emphasis on Homeland as the Center of Identity

The émigré nationalists mostly concerned themselves with the past and the imagined future of Crimea. They had little understanding of the contemporary Crimea, and they did not seek knowledge about it. Hakan Kırımlı, one of the prominent activists of the new generation, explains: “We wanted to say that there is also ‘there,’ the homeland. It was forgotten in many senses.” He adds: “They were saying we were utopian.” From another perspective, he states “Crimea was not thought to have an existence independent of the ‘all-Turkic nation’…. When we came to the movement, this was an established school” (interview). Zafer Karatay emphasizes how the centrality of Crimea is the focus of the new identity they were constructing: “We spoke at the 2002 World Crimean Tatars Conference in Romania. They view themselves as Romanian Tatars, as a population indigenous to Dobruca. This was wrong. Our Mecca is Crimea” (interview). The new generation of activists formed the slogan “Homeland Crimea” (“Vatan Kırım”) as a tool for building

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this consciousness in Turkey (interview). The frame transformation was reflected in the journal Emel , which began to be published as a whole by the new generation after 1983. The cover of the journal henceforth was presented as such: “The voice of the Crimean Tatars.” They put the Crimean Tatar flag and Crimean map on the cover. Older émigré nationalists, who have always been careful not to display publicly their ethnic identities or attachment to Crimea, protested vehemently (interview). Hakan Kırımlı who was one of the main theoreticians of the diaspora movement explained their thinking as such: Had the Crimean Tatars not returned, had our movement not been fed from the Crimean source, diaspora would have ceased. Diaspora was on the verge of assimilation. We would remain as a symbolic diaspora. Just like Irish in America. Our purpose was to revitalize the source of life. Without a functioning homeland, the diaspora has no meaning…. The Crimean Tatar identity is lost in Romania and Turkey. Identity by nature can only be produced in the homeland, and later it can be canned and sent to the diaspora. Therefore, we need to make the homeland to continue to produce, it should not dry out. Then, you can go and take from that source whatever culture you like. One can marry a Christian but one can still watch a Crimean Tatar movie. What is the best status you can get in Romania? It is minority status…Identity can disappear in the diaspora, that is not as important. The important thing is the survival of an idea like a homeland. … It [Homeland] is not going to adapt to you [diaspora], but you are going to adapt to it. Thus, our purpose is to pull diaspora under the influence of Crimea, and to make diaspora adopt the identification “Crimean Tatar” (interview).

Similarly, Nail Aytar stated: A nation needs a territory to root. Otherwise, it is just a flower in a vase. It assimilates very quickly. (interview)

Interestingly, the diaspora nationalists emphasized the return of coethnics, but not the return of the diaspora in Turkey. For Hakan Kırımlı, “return is not the solution. Diaspora must be the source that feeds the homeland. The Crimean Tatars have real power in Turkey. We need to use it…In any case, under the circumstances, any mass return to the Crimea from Turkey was simply hard, if not impossible” (interview). However, return in temporary forms became almost obligatory for most Crimean

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Tatars in Turkey. Being a Crimean Tatar now also meant visiting Crimea at least once, and if your means allow, as many times as possible or for as long as possible. It was also praiseworthy to form and maintain relations with the members of the community in Crimea. Niyazi Elitok explains as such: “What could be done after return to the homeland? That was our purpose. What preparations, what could we do?…[Starting] with bank and hospital, we planned to establish all the institutions a state needed” (interview). Zafer Karatay interpreted that their major contribution could be the propagation of the just cause of the Crimean Tatars: “We wanted to help their voice to be heard” (interview). They used Emel to disseminate the samizdat in Turkey by translating it into Turkish or Latinizing the original Tatar text. Hakan Kırımlı, who works for Radio Liberty in Germany during this period, sent the articles from Lenin Bayra˘gı and Yıldız to be translated and published in Emel (interview with Hakan Kırımlı). 5.5.4

Formation of Transnational Relations with the Homeland

A necessary consequence of the redefinition of the role of homeland in identity is the formation of transnational links with co-ethnics in the Soviet Union, which began to return by the late 1980s. As mentioned before, the émigré nationalists did not seek to and could not establish regular communication with co-ethnics in the Soviet Union, because of the limitations of their frame. They thought that transnational communication might damage the Crimean Tatar cause, as the host Turkey would see this attempt as damaging to its relations with its Soviet neighbor. Hakan Kırımlı says this was mostly a myth by the 1980s, as he as a young student easily connected with Mustafa Jemilev, the leader of the Crimean Tatar movement in the USSR by simply writing a letter to his official address. Cemilev replied to the letter and no big trouble followed. Hakan Kırımlı narrates the first connection as such: The only connection with Crimea was Ìsmail Otar’s conversation with Safter Nagayev in a meeting at Budapest in 1979. But the latter was not a member of the national movement, and this was not a critical connection. …Ay¸se Seytmuratova was exiled in 1979. She came to Ankara on 27 October 1980. It was an incredible event. For the first time, somebody could go out of the Soviet Union, moreover, a person from the national movement. But, she was not one of the main leaders…In December 1980,

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the first letter was written to Cemilev [by the new generation], and the first telegraph was sent. At the end of 1980, direct connection with Mustafa Aga was established. (interview with Hakan Kırımlı)

Surely, before the 1980s, the Soviet officials were more stringent about international communication. Nevertheless, it is also true that the émigré nationalists never attempted this simple act because of their selfcensoring frame: “The ones in Istanbul [the émigré nationalists] were careful not to give the impression that the Crimean Tatars in Turkey have outside connections” (anonymous interviewee). Through Radio Liberty, the Voice of America, samizdat and tamizdat publication, the Soviet newspaper Lenin Bayra˘gı and journal Yıldız as well as letters and telephone to activists, the new generation became knowledgeable about co-ethnics’ national movement, and cultural production. Zafer Karatay argues that “Our policy while publishing Emel was such: To establish a connection with the movement in the Soviet Union, in Crimea… The number of articles on contemporary Crimea increased after we entered the editorial of the journal…We strengthened the cotton thread ties with Crimea” (interview). The new publishers turned Emel into a translator and publisher of samizdat in Turkish in 1984 and 1985. Hakan Kırımlı states that “Mustafa Aga [Jemilev] was sending information to Yelena, Sakharov’s wife, Yelena was sending to samizdat, and I was getting the information from samizdat …In 1984 and 1985 the samizdat began to be published in Emel.” He also provides another example. Sabriye Seutova transcribed a letter in Crimean Tatar into Arabic letters and gave it to an Arabic student in Tashkent. When this student went back to Jordan, he mailed the letter from Jordan to Turkey. In this manner, they became the first in the world who published this samizdat (interview). Thus, the new generation of Crimean Tatar activists reminded homeland to the activists in Turkey and diaspora to the activists in the Soviet Union. The linking between diasporic organizations and the OKND (Crimean Tatar National Movement Organization) took place not long after repatriation. Mustafa Cemilev met Zafer Karatay one young activist of the Crimean Tatar diaspora in Simferopol, who visited Crimea with a tour. In this meeting, the first institutional links between the repatriated community and Turkish diaspora were formed, by declaring Zafer Karatay, a leader of diaspora organization to be the official representative of OKND (later Meclis ) in Turkey. The diaspora organizations began to

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act as embassies of Meclis in Turkey. At this point, Müstecip Ülküsal, who was 90 years old at the time, formally recognized Cemilev as the contemporary leader of the Crimean Tatars in Turkey as well as in the world, relinquishing his and by extension émigrés’ claims to leadership of Crimean Tatar national movement. This ceremony was organized by the KTKYDGM as a symbolic frame-bridging event between the two communities. The first visit of Mustafa Cemilev to Turkey formed a crucial turn in the transnational relations, rendering the homeland less fictional and ˙ more real for the diaspora in Turkey. Ahmet Ihsan Kırımlı, the head of the KTKYDGM, played an important role in Mustafa Cemilev’s reception as a state leader in Turkey, with his political connections in the Turkish elite. This contributed to the propagation of Cemilev’s cause in both Turkish and foreign publics, as well as among the Crimean Tatar diaspora. Cemilev visited many diaspora centers and met leaders and common people from the diaspora, creating momentum for diaspora mobilization. His visits became regular to the localities around Turkey, simulating a leader touring his constituency. Society-level transnational relations first started with aiding and hosting students from Crimea. Bursa Crimean Tatar Association has been the most active in this arena. Adnan Süyen, Head of the Association, explains how he tried to connect with students coming from Crimea to study in Turkey and ensure their well-being. His background in Islamic brotherhoods also colored his approach to students: Up until now, I worked with 367 students. I regard it a success if I could win over 5% of the 600 students coming to Turkey from Crimea each year. I organize the students and have them elect a leader. I meet the students when they first come to Bursa and assist with their accommodation. They can study, or engage in leisure activities in the association building. The teachers in the Turkish classes in TOMER notify me about their progress. I talk with students who do not follow the classes. Here, the female students visit Crimean Tatar women at their homes. The families volunteer to host students. …My philosophy is investing in people in the long run… My work is cultural, not political. …Currently, I have 40 students. …These students are a part of our national cause. …Ukraine is assimilating our youth. The students advocate Ukraine as if it is the homeland for centuries….My student … works in the Russian consulate. I have students working in a Turkish company in Ukraine….I have not been to Crimea since 1997, but I have the best contacts, news, and information about Crimea through my students. I talk on the phone with Crimea two

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or three times every week. … The students who go to big cities such as Ankara, Izmir, Istanbul are lost. When they were distributing students, I called Kredi ve Yurtlar Kurumu (Institution of Credit for Students and Dormitories) and had students directed to Bursa. (interview)

In Eski¸sehir, each student had a foster Crimean Tatar family who provided them with scholarship. The 49 students of that period now returned to Crimea. The Eski¸sehir Association also found local Crimean Tatar teachers to tutor the students from Crimea (interview with Ferruh Ayhün). More and more ordinary Crimean Tatars transnationalized in the sense that they began to visit Crimea regularly or often, and transported many medicine, clothing, and funds, as well as cultural items such as Quran and religious books. They also invested in or started businesses, intermarried, received a university education, and sponsored students. A small number of diasporic Tatars even settled in Crimea or bought vacation houses. Similarly, visits from homeland singers, dancers, artists, academists, students, and politicians to the Turkish diaspora increased. First, internet websites and email lists, and then social media played a major role in frame alignment processes and fostering the transnational frame. The discussion lists such as Crimea-L, Kırım Haber, later websites such as International Committee of Crimea, vatanqırım.net; internet journals, such as Bahçesaray, Fikirde Birlik and digitized Emel ; digital media such as Qırım Haber Ajansı (Crimean News Agency) have been significant mediums initiated by diaspora members and facilitated an online transnational political space (Karahan, 2019). Financial flows are the most consequential aspect of transnational relations. The KTKYDGM formed the Kırım Foundation (registered as Qırım Fond in Ukraine) for collecting and transferring funds to Crimea and made the Meclis, the main distributor of this aid. Kırım Foundation built an hospital [in Crimea], also contributed to national schools, and Meclis spending. Foundations were preferred as it is hard to raise fund or buy property through the association. During the 1980 coup, state nationalized all property of the associations. Moreover, the founders have more control in the legal structure of foundations (anonymous interviewee). The diasporan Crimean Tatars initiated a printing house to publish material in the Latin Alphabet. Crimean News Agency (Qırım Haber Ajansı) ˙ was founded by Ismet Yüksel, a diasporan Tatar, and Gayana Yüksel, a

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Crimean Tatar journalist from Crimea to provide sustained and regular venues of communication between the homeland and diaspora. Niyazi Elitok explained how they lobbied Turkish government for the project of financing one thousand houses for repatriates: In the beginning of the 1990s, we took forty important [Turkish] politicians and bureaucrats to Crimea. We toured the tent cities together. They received information about house prices. It was possible to buy an apartment for 2-3000 dollars. The village houses were around 500 dollars. If we had been prepared as a state, we could buy great amount of land in Crimea. We missed this opportunity. (interview)

˙ After two years of lobbying and with the help of Ahmet Ihsan Kırımlı’s personal relations with the president Süleyman Demirel, the Turkish state promised to build one thousand houses for the Crimean Tatars. However, by that time, house and land prices in Crimea multiplied and “[T]he recent cost of the project was 80 million dollars. The project could only afford village houses” (interview with Niyazi Elitok). The Crimean Tatar activists also lobbied Turkish state agencies for directing Turkish foreign aid to Crimea. As a result, the Turkish International Cooperation Agency (TICA) undertook several development projects for the Crimean Tatars. TICA also contributed to the restoration of Gasprinskiy’s printing house, and Zincirli Medrese (historical Crimean Tatar university), as well as reparation of Crimean Khanate archival documents, and establishment of the Crimean Tatar library. The Turkish state developed a project to sponsor 10,000 students from Turkic states and communities of the former Soviet Union to study in Turkey in the 1990s. According to the project, the states could send more students than communities without an independent state. The Crimean Tatar activists lobbied to increase the number of Crimean Tatar students to the state level (interview with Namık K. Bayar). 5.5.5

Diaspora Nationalism Frame’s Resonance

The resonance can be examined by looking at the three levels of participants: elites, middle strata, and masses. As noted before, this did not point to a hierarchical relationship but rather a division of labor. As in New Social Movements (Melucci, 1989), the Crimean Tatars began to operate more in a horizontal comradeship in diaspora and homeland

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settings in the 1980s and 1990s. The first level is mainly composed of the new young cadre who began to publish Emel in the early 1980s. They largely produced the main lines of the diaspora frame in articles and editorial policy of Emel . They also used the Crimean Tatar associations for frame alignment processes. Tuncer Kalkay confirms that: “The position of the Association today was shaped by [the new young cadre of] Emel ….” (interview). However, the middle strata also qualified the frames during the alignment work. Unlike the émigré nationalist frame, the new frame focused on the Crimean Tatar masses. Previously, the members of the diaspora had considered the Crimean Tatar identity as a cultural identity limited to the private domain, while their political identity was Turkish. The young leaders now began to construct a political Crimean Tatar identity for the public sphere. It was understood that the Crimean Tatar movement could not have any power or resources if it continued as a small elite circle; therefore, it needed to become a grassroots movement. In this way, large resources could be mobilized to aid the Crimean Tatars in the Soviet Union, who are in dire need. Therefore, the proponents of the new frame undertook several strategies to increase participation. Zafer Karatay points out that the participants increased immensely when compared to the period before 1980 (interview). Another activist explained the transformation which himself, the Crimean Tatar elite and the community went through vividly: The change of mindset in the Crimean Tatar community came in 19841985. Before them, çibörek [traditional Crimean Tatar food] cultural activity, ball, tepre¸s , and people thought the problem was solved. There was not a dimension of the Crimean national cause. We showed that there is much more beyond this circle……In those years, I understood in a real sense that I am a Crimean Tatar… We wanted the Crimean Tatar Association to function as an embassy…Now the mindset has changed. The one who comes to the Association already knows about the national cause. Before they came to meeting people and cultural activities. [Now] the heads of the associations are obligated to work for the national cause. They are obligated to visit Crimea. (interview)

Defining obligations such as serving for the national cause, demonstrating attachment to Crimea, and viewing associations as embassies of the Crimean Tatar cause all point to a frame transformation toward the construction of a political diaspora identity.

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The middle strata of activists, which emerged in the late 1980s, contributed the most to the aligning of elite and mass frames. They were educated and professional participants. With the encouragement of the leaders, these students, young professionals, and women’s branches played an active role in the newly politicized associations or the preparation of journal Emel or associational bulletins.38 After training and service, the successful and interested members of this level could join the main leaders. Nail Aytar explains the particular frame alignment processes they engaged in. “We had our Thursday meetings at Emel . We have these meetings to educate the new participants. Everybody presents a topic, questions are asked and discussions take place” (interview). Tuncer Kalkay says: “On my second day of working in Emel , I learned how to read Cyrillic. We developed ourselves by reading Lenin Bayra˘gı and Yıldız.” Tepre¸s , the traditional Crimean Tatar spring festival, began to be utilized as a tool for frame alignment processes among the young, educated, and professional people of Crimean Tatar origin. Kalkay continues: Tepre¸s became different in the 1980s. It was mostly the youth who came. There were 100-150 people. …We wanted people to get to know each other without alcohol. We wanted to explain to new participants the Crimean Tatar national cause… The association organized tepre¸s at the village Lezgi (of Ankara). We sat around a circle. Everybody introduced themselves. We spoke all in Tatar. Then we had a remembrance moment for the holy martyrs. We played Kaytarma, Crimean songs, and did ¸sınla¸sma (traditional Tatar verse-citing competition) among youth in tepre¸s .

During tepre¸s , Kalkay had such an interaction with newcomers: “They asked us. What kind of Tatar language do you speak? It does not sound Tatar. It was the literary language. They did not know it” (interview). He continues to explain the process through which frames of participants united. After learning frames from the first level, this group led frame alignment processes among the mass level, that is the third level. In this process, the Crimean Tatar associations gained new functions. Zafer Karatay stresses “when we came to the leadership positions, we followed an open structure. We accepted anybody who wanted to help. There

38 Nurten Camcı, Nur Seker, ¸ Dilek Sahin, ¸ Oya Baydar Sahin, ¸ and Necla Kalkay played significant role in organizing women’s and youth activities.

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was not a hierarchical structure. Our names were not on the governing committees of the journal, or the association” (interview). Nail Aytar explains that “the Crimean associations before did not mobilize the people much. This happened after 1980. This is because the associations were viewed as not political or social but folkloric” (interview). This is because the émigré nationalists viewed the national cause as the prerogative of the Milli Fırka (National Party), not the associations. However, with the frame transformation, associations began to engage in “politics” and increased participation in the movement. An anonymous interviewee ˙ pointed out that “for Müstecip Bey, and Ismail Otar [émigrés nationalist leaders he met], the association was always in the second place.” Niyazi Elitok was head of the Istanbul Association in the late 1980s and explained this matter as follows: The ones who got used to the old system did not understand it. They did not think of the national cause as the responsibility of the Associations…In 1987, The Crimean Tatars held a great demonstration in Red Square. I was the head of the Association. Zafer[Karatay] and Hakan[Kırımlı] were in Germany. They called me. [They said] This has to be shown on Turkish TV to the Turkish people, but the TV does not show it. The people of the old mindset in the Association did not care. I went to all newspapers and the TV. Only one newspaper, Tercüman published it on the front page, others gave it as a side note. ..They [the émigré nationalists] criticized me saying that this is politics. But politics is our primary job as a Crimean Tatar Association, isn’t it? (interview)

Tuncer Kalkay noted: “Before even citing poetry was considered politics, thus off-limits” (interview). According to Nail Aytar, many new people were registered to the association in the 1980s: “I used to go to many Tatars’ houses and invite them to activities. We were trying to tell people about Crimea with the pictures, maps, brochures in our suitcases” (interview). New associations were opened in other cities and small towns of Anatolia with the initiative of these new groups of diaspora nationalists. Niyazi Elitok explains that he engaged in processes which can be characterized as the trans-local frame alignment: ˙ I am the first person who went to Bursa. Konya and Izmit are the first communities that we invited to our movement. We agreed with Mesut ˙ Kırgız in Bursa, Fevzi Sarıkamı¸s in Konya, and Taner Tonguç in Izmit. We

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organized a ball [fundraising event] in Konya. We took there our Istanbul folklore assembly for a show. (interview)

Cengiz Kırgız, one of the founders of the Bursa Association, narrates how Tatars in Bursa joined the Crimean Tatar movement: We invited Zafer and Niyazi Elitok to Bursa. We copied their by-laws and founded an association. It was 1987. Before the Crimean Tatars in Yenimahalle wanted to found an association but they could not. Nail Yenice provided us space. We organized a ball and tepre¸s festival. I typed the first bulletin of our association on the typewriter. (interview)

Giray Karalezli narrates how they engaged in local frame alignment activities through an association they founded in Konya and how to frame resonance rose as a result of their activities: The associational activities contributed the popularization [of Crimean Tatar identity]. …After 1989, the Crimean Tatars in Konya learned Crimean Tatar songs and ¸sın [traditional Crimean Tatar poetry]. …There were Tatars who visited Crimea or who went there for education. They sent money [to Crimea] for ceremonial sacrifices in Eid. The association has 15-20000 regular participants. The association bought a building…The Crimean Tatars materially helped the students from Romania and Crimea. …some of the shows of theatre assemblies from Crimea were very crowded. The association also especially contributed [in ticket sales.]…In 1993 we met with Cemilo˘glu (Cemilev) with kalpak [Crimean Tatar traditional headwear] and Kökbayrak [sky-blue Crimean Tatar flag] as 600-700 people.

He adds that the Crimean Tatar Association became the most active civil society organization in Konya (interview). Ahmet Gökdemir explains how they recruited people to open branches in one location where Tatar immigrants settled but they did not previously opt to politicize their ethnic identity: “In Hamidiye, Aksaray, I visited all coffee houses all day long, and distributed our bylaws” (interview). Ferruh Ayhün also notes similar activities in Eski¸sehir, such as tepre¸s , çibörek feasts, Eidsacrifice campaigns, and other Eid-related activities related to Crimea and Tatars in Eski¸sehir, bulletin publishing, transnational visits, hosting the students from Crimea, and the provision of scholarships. He points out the numbers they reached: Three hundred and fifty cars full of people met with Cemilev when he came to visit Eski¸sehir. (interview).

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According to Namık K. Bayar in Ankara, “[t]his is a revolution in the diaspora. We see the re-appearance of a bond with Crimea in the remotest village in Turkey. In 1992, three thousand cars full of people welcomed Cemilo˘glu [Cemilev] in Kırıkkale. This did not happen on its own. Cemilo˘glu is well-known in Turkey because we worked hard for it” (interview). Bursa Association also began to publish a journal, Kalgay. According to the publisher, Adnan Süyen, the journal has three thousand subscriptions across Turkey and the world. He also points to increasing participation and how he managed to find time for the movement, which exemplifies how the frame can strongly mobilize people, who did not participate before the 1980s: The reason for publishing the journal is that the periodicals of the Crimean Tatars in Turkey are insufficient…Media is important in publicizing our cause. After us, several associational bulletins emerged. …. I spend my time on the journal at home every day after work. (interview)

The Ankara Association also emphasized recruiting youth who could be considered as members of the third level. For that purpose, a youth bulletin was published. Namık Kemal Bayar narrates the event as such: “In 1993 we published Kırım [the bulletin of Ankara Association] with ˙ Ahmet Gökdemir, Ismet Yüksel, and Recep Aktaran. … It was a sister to Emel . To prepare writer cadre for Emel. … We prepared a column called “Our youth in Diaspora”” (interview). This was one of the first instances “diaspora” self-identification emerged in periodicals. This means young people actively participated in framing their diasporic identity. The activity in which the largest number of Crimean Tatar people participated was expanded tepre¸s festivals. If we are to measure “resonance” with tepre¸s participation, we can say thousands would participate in this yearly gathering in the late 1980s and in the mid-1990s, the number reached ten thousands in many places such as Bursa, various ˙ places around Ankara, Istanbul-Çatalca and later Polatlı, Kocaeli, Izmir, Ceyhan, Konya, and various places in the Eastern Thrace. Thirtythousand people participated in the mid-1990s. Thirty-five thousand people joined the tepre¸s in Eski¸sehir in 1995 (interview with Ferruh Ayhün). I participated in several of them in the 2000s and observed how they provided space for the Crimean Tatars, in which they can celebrate their identity. The Crimean Tatar flag was visible, the Crimean Tatar anthem was played, and the Crimean Tatar cultural activities and

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traditional rituals were rejuvenated. Tepre¸s became a significant means of reaching people who would not prefer to read journals or participate in associational activities. Another way to recruit the masses was the organization of philanthropic campaigns to collect donations, designed by activists in the first level and conducted by the activists in the second level. Examples of campaigns include “Give us Back our Home” (“Evimizi Geri Verin.”), “Do not let children die in Crimea” (“Kırım’da çocuklar ölmesin”). Ertu˘grul Kara¸s points out that for strengthening the national movement, “we need to make everybody at least a figurant as in the ‘Sponsor a Child’s Education’ campaign or Sister Schools Project. They must transform from audience to stables. No need for a big role for anybody” (interview). In the 1990s, the Crimean Tatar associations across Turkey proliferated and soon united under a common structure, accepting the Ankara Association as the General Center of Crimean Tatar Associations (KTKYDGM). ˙ Ahmet Ihsan Kırımlı played a significant role in securing the “organization for public good” status and hence a regular state funding for the General Center. This funding contributed to the upkeep and proliferation of its branches across Turkey. At this period, the number of branches reached 25 and today 40. The Istanbul branch of this association has developed a large number of successful programs as it has to respond to the needs of a greater number of the Crimean Tatars coping with the challenges of a metropolitan city, or the needs of the large number of Tatars from Crimea who pass through Istanbul for purposes of work, business, health and education. The other branches of the KTKYDGM did not have continuous services but organized regular meetings and activities, including annual tepre¸s , annual fundraising balls, commemorations, folk dance and music classes, day trips for youth, conferences, and so on. These branches played a significant role in reaching out to far-away communities. The significance of a new idea such as diaspora became very clear when I learned the story of how a Crimean Tatar association was established in Kaman, a remote town in the middle of Central Anatolian steppe. Kemal Seyitgazio˘glu, after participating in a tepre¸s in Crimean Tatar village Darıözü by the association of the neighboring city of Kırıkkale, tried to found an association in 1995. He was able to found an association in 2001, by collecting signatures of his relatives. His was

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the only civil society organization except for the state-funded Red Crescent (Kızılay) in this sleepy small town. His association was sustained by support from the KTKYDGM at the time of my visit, and Seyitgazio˘glu told me that recruiting people was difficult and it was taking time, but his enthusiasm could be found in several small towns across Anatolia (interview). Hakan Kırımlı shared many stories of “Turkomans,” “Laz” or “Balkan immigrants” whom he met during his fieldwork and who enthusiastically began hanging Crimean Tatar flag and symbols around their house once they learn their village was first founded by Crimean Tatars from him. Thereby, Kırımlı’s more than ten years of fieldwork for discovering Crimean Tatar and Nogay villages across Anatolia caused raise of consciousness in many localities in Turkey as a by-product (Kırımlı, 2012). Similarly, Zuhal Yüksel opened the path for studying Crimean Tatar dialect spoken in Turkey as a field of its own (not as a dialect of Turkish spoken outside Turkey) and contributed greatly to the establishment of Crimean Tatar language and literary studies in Turkey, which flourishes today (Sava 2014, 2018; Yüksel, 1989, 1999, 2005). Joining this new path, several Crimean Tatar dictionaries were written by members of diaspora. A wiki dictionary initiative was initiated (Evirgen, 2017, vikisözlük; Karahan, 2012). Apart from this unified structure, many associations emerged in several cities and towns of Turkey, which were not connected to the KTKYDGM. These singular associations organized types of activities similar to the KTKYDGM and financed them solely out of pocket. Youth conventions and internet played a major role in frame alignment processes and fostering the transnational frame among new generations. Young members of the KTKYDGM participated in Crimea-L (managed by Fevzi Alimo˘glu of International Committee of Crimea, 1998–2012) and later Kırım Haber (list for Crimean Tatars who speak Turkish, 2003–) groups. These discussion lists have been very effective in recruiting younger and middle-aged Turks of Crimean Tatar ancestry. Vatankirim.net, association and foundation web pages, qirim.net, Crimean Tatar Wikipedia, online journals, campaigns for sponsoring schoolchildren in Crimea, annual campaigns for Eid-sacrifices conducted through the internet, blogs, and social media platforms expanded the reach of the movement among youth and continue to expand it.

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5.5.6

Re-definition of the Relations with the Host-State/Society

The émigré nationalists viewed the Crimean Tatar identity as a subset of Turkish national identity. The new diaspora frame emphasized the Crimean Tatar as a distinct political identity, which must be regarded to be on equal footing with the Turkish identity, if not taking precedence. When you come to the Association, you must leave your party jacket at the entrance. Crimean Tatar cause ought not to be means [to other ends]. (interview with Tuncer Kalkay)

This does not mean activists did not want to rally support among the host society (frame alignment with bystanders), for instance through visits to newspapers every 18 May (interview with Tuncer Kalkay). Zafer Karatay states: “We organized a letter campaign in 1984. The anniversary of sürgün made the first page in a [major Turkish] newspaper like Tercüman. This did not occur automatically. This never happened before. We did it. We worked for it” (interview). It must be noted that a single ˙ person, Ahmet Ihsan Kırımlı, the Head of KTKYDGM for 24 years, has been especially influential not only in raising funds from the Turkish state resources for Crimea but also in raising the profile of the movement ˙ within the Turkish political sphere. Ahmet Ihsan Kırımlı identified himself as a “Turkish nationalist” (in the pan-Turkist sense) but he was influenced by younger activists such as his son Hakan Kırımlı, Zafer Karatay, and other young activists in undertaking activities that could be classified as diaspora nationalism. Another way of engagement with Turkish society took place when the surviving émigrés frame-bridged with the Crimean Tatars from the newly emerging Eurasianist-neo-nationalist (ulusalcı) circles in Turkish political sphere (ultra-nationalism being in sharp decline in the 1980s and 1990s). We must note that the émigré nationalist frame did not die, though weakened after some young activists took over Emel , Emel ’s Foundation, and put a distance between themselves and a few remaining members ˙ of the émigré circle. Some surviving émigrés Ismail Otar, Sabri Arıkan, and Nurettin Mahir Altu˘g connected with Turkish neo-nationalists of Crimean Tatar origin (some of whom broke ways with KTKYDGM’s Emel, some of whom were Crimean Tatars from the Left, and Necip Ablemito˘glu was a Crimean Tatar who published an ultra-nationalist panTurkist journal, Birlik in the 1970s) that emerged in the 1990s to publish

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the journal Kırım in 1991.39 Kırım (“Emel’imiz Kırım” [Our Aspiration in Crimea] after 28th issue) claimed the legacy of the émigré Emel as activists argued that General Center’s Emel went out of its original émigré direction and turned almost into a samizdat and later a scientific journal. Kırım brought together the members of some strong Crimean Tatar associations which were not linked to KTKYDGM (Polatlı, Eski¸sehir, Düzce, Bursa, Konya, Adapazarı). Kırım definitely did not intend to be a peer-reviewed academic journal and fulfilled the need for a thought journal for diaspora for almost 15 years. It replicated pre-1980 Emel in terms of style and approach, featuring many opinion pieces, poems, articles based on émigré archive, and even hagiographic pieces. On April 21, 1998, the Crimean Development Foundation (Kırım Geli¸sim Vakfı) was founded for the purpose of improving the education of the Crimean Tatars both in the homeland and in the diaspora, and accelerating the cooperation between Crimea and Turkey. Another aim was to publish Kırım and books about Crimean Tatars, such as Cafer Seydahmet Kırımer’s diary and a book on Milli Fırka [National Party] featuring Cafer Seydahmet Kırımer’s letter (Aydın, 2000). Emel’imiz Kırım could not escape succumbing to the contemporary ideological struggle between military and political Islam on the agenda of Turkey as happened with older Emel, but even émigrés found some articles unrelated to the Crimean cause. These articles showed that some authors did not register into an émigré or diaspora frame, being unable to break from their engagement with Turkish politics. Their identity can be understood to be more of a Crimean Tatar-Turkish identity (Aydın, 2000), rather than a dual Crimean Tatar and Turkish identities. Other articles suffered from the framing inconsistency due to heterogeneity of targets. As Aktürk (2015) notes, Eurasianism is a pro-Russian ideology at the end of the day and attempting to reconcile Crimean Tatar nationalism with Eurasianism damaged narrative fidelity of articles in Kırım. When Kırım opposed the Orange Revolution (because the Eurasianist neo-nationalists

39 Kırım (Crimea) is a three-monthly journal, which started to be published in Polatlı

(Ankara) at the end of 1992. It was owned by Ünsal Akta¸s until December 1993 and after January 1996. In between, the publishing of Kırım was transferred to the “Crimean ˙ and Caucasian Research Institute.” Ismail Otar, Sabri Arıkan, Necip Hablemito˘glui Ünsal Akta¸s, Muzaffer Akçora, Tezcan Ergen, Ufuk Tavkul, Hasan Aydın, and Besim Yüksel were main authors of the journal.

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in Turkey believed in the conspiracy theory that George Soros staged it to shape the region according to the American interests), this situated Kırım in opposition to the Crimean Tatar Meclis and on the side of Viktor Yanukovich’s Eurasianists. Because of these inconsistencies and decline of neo-nationalism in Turkey, Kırım ceased to be published after 2007 and émigré nationalist frame has ceased in Turkey as all members of émigré generation were deceased by the 2010s. Interestingly, there are signs that emigre legacy is re-claimed by Emel and KTKYDGM recently which shows that frames, which is deemed to have died, can rejuvenate. The annexation of Crimea in 2014 necessitated putting internal feuds between KTKYDGM (and Emel Vakfı), Kırım Geli¸sim Vakfı and nonaligned associations behind. Led by Eski¸sehir Association and KTKYDGM, all Crimean Tatar organizations (except for a crypto organization supported by Russia as part of hybrid war tactics) came together to form the “Crimean Tatar Platform” to facilitate and enable common action against annexation (Kaya, 2019). Joining the platform did not necessarily require to agree on all aspects of Crimean Tatar politics and largely saved the diaspora from disruptive internal politics of last thirty years. This initiative became successful as it organized the World Crimean Tatar Congress in 2015 which laid out the project of transnational nationbuilding for Crimean Tatars to counter further assault of their national identity by Russia. 5.5.7

Frame-Bridging with the Collective Return Movement in the Soviet Union and Transnationalism

The transformation from émigré into diaspora frame was taking place along with frame-bridging with the co-ethnics’ frame in the Soviet Union. This could easily be seen in the next quote from Hakan Kırımlı: “I was sending articles from Yıldız and Lenin Bayra˘gı [to be published in Emel ]. We were trying to adapt everything to theirs [the community in the Soviet Union]... we were trying to carry what is there to here” (interview). Namık K. Bayar imagined their diaspora movements as “natural branches of the movement there.” He states: We have to obey Qurultay and Meclis decisions. Our fundamental organ of government is Qurultay. The ones who live in Crimea always know better. Our role is just showing support to the decisions of Qurultay … [it is important to give] an impression of unity globally for the benefit of our cause, especially in a time when enemies of the Crimean Tatar nation are looking forward to possible divisions. (interview)

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The KTKYDGM bridged frames with the Meclis frame in various topics. In accordance with the pro-Ukrainian stance of the Meclis, the leaders of the KTKYDGM established diplomatic relations with the Ukrainian Embassy and founded the Turkish-Ukrainian Friendship Association. This also contributed toward Ukraine’s approval for the Crimean Tatar diaspora’s transnational relations with Crimea. In this period, Fevzi Sarıkamı¸s (from the Crimean Association in Konya) for the first time organized the students to study in Crimean universities. In 2001, at the tenth anniversary of independence of Ukraine, Ukrainian Embassy and KTKYDGM organized a conference. In response, a cocktail was orga˙ nized on 18 May of the same year by the Embassy. Ahmet Ihsan Kırımlı was honored with Ukrainian state’s medal. Bayar states that “We became a bridge between Ukraine and Turkey” (interview). Throughout the late 1990s and early 2000s, agreeing on the official Crimean Tatar dialect became another aspect of bridging identity frames. The KTKYDGM again deferred to the homeland, accepting Ba˘gçasaray dialect, which was the officially accepted dialect in the language congress in Crimea in 1940. The same went with the adoption of the Crimean Tatar Latin alphabet. In the 2002 conference in Constanza, the Crimean Tatars in Romania insisted on maintaining their dialect, or at least adding the letter “w,” “˘a,” and “î” in the Crimean Tatar alphabet (as they have been doing for the last decades in their publications in Dobruca though inconsistently), but in the end, the Crimean version of the alphabet (which is almost the same as on Turkish alphabet except for the letter q) was accepted by the great majority of the members of diaspora and homeland (Köstence’de Milletlerarası Sempozyum, 2002) . Hakan Kırımlı puts it as follows: Ba˘gçasaray was the place where everything in the name of Crimean Tatarness emerged. Orta Yolak [Ba˘gçasaray dialect] was chosen as the literary language of the Crimean Tatars. This does not mean I am not for preserving all dialects of the Crimean Tatar language wholeheartedly. But we need common values. When writing to each other, we must write in the Ba˘gçasaray dialect. Everybody must agree to use that. Our touchstone is Crimea. (interview)

The diaspora activists also aimed to create unity in concepts. For instance, sürgün (exile in Crimean Tatar language) was suggested for the deportation tragedy of the Crimean Tatars.

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It was hard to get people [in diaspora] to use the word sürgün. They rejected saying that this was politics and our journal, the association is not political, it was merely cultural. It was not the layperson but the leaders who resisted. Now we have consensus at least in concepts, and ideas. The mindset has changed. (interview with Zafer Karatay)

Sürgün is now well established and even there is a webpage for the commemoration of this event prepared by the diaspora (surgun.org). Another example was the replacement of the ethnonym “Crimean Tatars” instead of “Crimean Turks” in the 1990s. This came partly after realizing that co-ethnics in the USSR were denied to use this ethnonym by the Soviet regime. Therefore, the argument to use “Crimean Tatar” identification in Turkey became stronger. This was not initially accepted by some members of the diaspora, who prioritized the possible reaction of the Turkish state. In time, it became accepted wisdom. On the other hand, “Crimean Turk” is still used, without carrying a heavy connotation about Crimean Tatars’ ethnic sameness with Turks (Aydın, 2000). There is a limit of deferring homeland though. As the claim to indigenous status in Ukraine brought discussions about getting rid of “Tatar” for its settler connotation altogether and use “Qırım” to emphasize indigeneity as ethnonym instead (supported by Dostluq Qırım newspaper, Bizim Qırım organization, and Rustem Khayali and others), the diaspora realizes that it has its own identity and interests. For, after relinquishing “Turk,” relinquishing “Tatar” might mean forfeiting links to the pan-Turkish alliance, as well as Turkish national identity altogether. The ultimate transnational frame-bridging took place with the convention of the World Crimean Tatar Congress in 2009 with delegates from 13 countries (“Dünya Kırım Tatar Kongresi Kiev’de toplandı”, 2017). According to Nail Aytar, the congress aimed to “actively attract the Crimean Tatars abroad into the internal issues of the homeland.” He also noted: Until now the diaspora organizations have not been agenda-setter, decision-maker in Crimean Tatar politics. In the process of the convening of the first world Crimean Tatar Congress, the diaspora organizations are excited to be able to voice their opinions. Until now, the accepted policy was to agree with the decisions of the Crimean Tatar Qurultay /Meclis and implementing them. Indeed the idea was that we do not live in Crimea therefore we may not understand the realities of the homeland as well as those who live there. (interview)

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All Crimean Tatar groups from different corners of the world were invited to the congress, provided that they recognize the Meclis as the ultimate representative institution of the Crimean Tatars. Since the members of the diaspora cannot officially be represented in the Qurultay /Meclis, the World Crimean Tatar Congress (WCTC) aimed to provide a platform for the diaspora to voice their opinions, concerns, and suggestions. This signaled a frame transformation toward a transnational nation as common project of both diaspora and homeland rather than diaspora deferring to homeland. After all, why was there a need for WCTC if Meclis/Qurultay were already common institutions of all Crimean Tatars including the diaspora? According to the report on December 11, 2007, in Crimean News Agency, the WCTC was designed to be autonomous from the Meclis/Qurultay, without establishing it as an equal body and without contradicting the authority of the Meclis (Mustafa, 2007). It would not be surprising to argue that the Meclis leaders viewed WCTC as a way of reinforcing Meclis’ central authority among diaspora as well as a way of securing the resources of diaspora. However, Meclis understood that this cannot be realized without providing diaspora significant recognition and representation. In sum, WCTC emerged as a mechanism for better incorporating the diaspora Tatars, providing them some autonomous power and representation, without challenging Meclis’ supremacy. The WCTC was successful in incorporating various oppositional organizations, or previously unincorporated, groups into its framework as it intended. Cemilev suggested that: The conclusion of the Congress reflected the unification of the heads Crimean Tatar organizations worldwide to form constructive engagement on Crimean Tatar issues and collaborate within these frameworks to build consensus and unify on how it can address the issues facing the Crimean Tatar people and their communities in Crimea. (cf. Baybeke, 2009)

He added, “It was the start of the unification of our diaspora.” The significance of such a congress is that diaspora can become a resource to increase the economic development and political power of co-ethnics in the homeland. If Crimean Tatars are conceptualized as a transnational nation, then they are more than just the population of 300, 000 in the homeland, but their numbers would amount to millions.

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After the occupation of Crimea in February 2014, the prominent members of Meclis were exiled to Kyiv, as Russia banned their entry into Crimea and outlawed the Mejlis. Thirty to sixty thousand Crimean Tatars became IDPs in mainland Ukraine. The discussion of multiple effects of the annexation of Crimea for the Crimean Tatars inside and outside of Crimea and the new reconfiguration of Crimean Tatar politics are beyond the limits of this book. We will just discuss the new role of the World Crimean Tatar Congress as one of the major institutions in the struggle to “return Crimea to Ukraine,” and end the Russian occupation, and thereby how diaspora became an inalienable part of this struggle. This predicament necessitated the convention of a second congress to strategize the struggle against the Russian occupation and symbolized a further increased transnational nature of Crimean Tatar nationalism as even Cemilev, Çubarov, and Meclis were in exile now. The Second World Crimean Tatar Congress convened on July 31–August 2, 2015, in Ankara, with the participation of 430 delegates from 184 organizations coming from 14 countries in the world. Refat Çubarov, who was also the Head of the Crimean Tatar Meclis, was elected as the Head of the Congress, endorsed by Cemilev (“Dünya Kırım Tatar Kongresi Koordinasyon Yönetim Kurulu’na Eski¸sehir’den 2 Üye”, 2015). Cemilev’s speech defined the course of the struggle of the newly emerging Crimean Tatar transnational nation: There are special efforts used by the occupation authorities to eliminate the representative body of the Crimean Tatar People, the Meclis of the Crimean Tatar People and to create instead of its own puppet Crimean Tatar structure to split the Crimean Tatars, to win over by various methods (bribery, threats, and blackmail) some number of the Crimean Tatars to own side. Since they are not very successful, and it is unlikely for them to succeed, there is every indication, that the occupiers will try to eliminate the system of national self-government of the Crimean Tatar People with the help of conventional violent methods. In these circumstances, the role of the World Congress of the Crimean Tatar People and its structures in all countries, where they live, highly increases. All activities of the structures of the World Congress should be fully focused on the protection of the rights of the Crimean Tatars People, who are under occupation, and on the provision of comprehensive support.…One of the major tasks of the World Congress and our many-millioned diaspora in all over the world should be conducting intensive work to expose the false and multilingual Russian propaganda in all countries, to mobilize world public opinion

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against the criminal actions of the Russian Putin regime towards Ukraine, for the immediate liberation of the occupied territories and bringing to justice those responsible for the deaths of thousands of citizens of both Ukraine and Russia… The governing structures of the World Congress of the Crimean Tatar People, once elected, will need to develop a set of measures aimed at de-occupation of Crimea, the security and development of their people, and then, in close coordination with the Meclis of the Crimean Tatar people will immediately begin to implement them. (“Mustafa Abdülcemil Kırımo˘glu’nun DKTK’de yaptı˘gı konu¸sma”, 2015)

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin also demonstrated Ukraine’s taking Crimean Tatar diaspora seriously by presenting a roadmap for providing territorial autonomy for the Crimean Tatars in the congress. Ukraine without a doubt aimed to get Turkey and Turkish society on board in its struggle against Russia with this move. Apart from underlining the transnational liberation movement, Cemilev brought a possibility of transnational citizenship claiming that the Crimean Tatar diaspora will be granted with the right to have double citizenship after the liberation of Crimea from the occupation, which has precedence in the Ukrainian Law concerning Ukrainians abroad (Aydın & Sahin, 2019). Since 2017, Ukraine agreed to extend the “Status of Ukrainian Living Abroad” for the Crimean Tatars who can document the arrival of their ancestors directly from Crimea to Turkey, and provide them with “Diaspora Identity Card” which functions as a permanent resident card (Kaya, 2021). Unlike the 2009 Congress, 2015 Congress established a permanent executive council to implement the decisions taken by the congress until the convention of the next one. The executive council was composed of twenty-three members, who were citizens of different countries. This council fulfilled its duty as it met fourteen times in the last five years to conduct various tasks and projects. Some of these projects included transferring diaspora and host land aid to Crimean Tatar IDPs, and Crimean Tatar prisoners in Crimea, supporting Crimean Tatar cultural institutions in Ukraine, working toward forming an alternative religious authority for the Crimean Tatars as Mufti in Crimea chose to collaborate with Russia, and organizing public diplomacy of the Crimean Tatar cause (“Dünya Kırım Tatar Kongresi Ukrayna’da toplanıyor”, 2019). One of the most significant projects was the material support of the Crimean Tatars IDPs concentrated in the Kherson region because these refugees

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thought that living together in their own linguistic and religious environment would increase the possibility of maintaining their national identity, and this would allow demanding national schools and religious institutions from the government or building them by their own sources. The Meclis leaders also encouraged this move, believing that this would facilitate their easy return to their homeland after the occupation of Crimea ceased. The Crimean Tatar settlement could also dilute the Russian influence in the region, which was identified as part of “Novorossiya” by the neo-imperialist masterminds in Moscow. The economic development of the region was needed to ensure peace and harmony among residents of different nationalities in the area (Aydın & Sahin, 2019). The last point to note was the Russian counter-framing against the Second WCTC. Sputnik heavily criticized the congress, by deploying certain Crimean Tatars from the diaspora in Turkey. Most importantly, ˙ Ervin Ibragimov, a delegate of the congress from Crimea, was lost under dubious circumstances in Crimea. The WCTC forms the recent attempt to reinforce Meclis’ central authority in leading all Crimean Tatar people, especially in a situation when Meclis is banned in Crimea, and prominent leaders of the Meclis, including Çubarov and Cemilev, are forced to exile in mainland Ukraine. The body also offers an alternative representative institution in case the elections for Meclis by Crimean Tatars in Crimea cannot be held due to increasing repression. Due to the impossibility of cutting transnational communication and travel between the Crimean Tatars in Crimea and the rest of the world, Congress could perform the role of representation. Congress certainly increased its potential executive powers and functions since the majority of Meclis members remained in occupied Crimea. It is still early to judge whether Congress will prove to be a decisive institution for Crimean Tatar national struggle and whether the Crimean Tatar transnational identity movement will transform into a Crimean Tatar transnational nation par excellence. The alternative project of Russia to form a Crimean Tatar diaspora and homeland community in support of Russia’s goals has a low possibility of earning a great following despite the propaganda. More serious alternative transnational project claiming for Crimean Tatar loyalties could be transnational ummah, supported by Islamic radicals and interestingly by Russia, as anything luring Crimean Tatars away from nationalism would serve Russia’s centuries-old purpose of subduing Crimean Tatars. Therefore, Crimean Tatar transnational nationalism is not a fanciful and far-flung global identity project for

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Crimean Tatars, but it can be the real alternative for survival in the face of Russian encroachment of their nation in the twenty-first century.

5.6

Movement Consequences and Conclusion

Despite the changes in transnational political opportunities (i.e., when the deportees returned, and the Soviet Union collapsed), why didn’t the diaspora community in Turkey return? Why did this community still experience a rise in nationalist mobilization and what kind of nationalist mobilization is it? The variation in outcomes is best explained by results of divergent historical paths which were shaped by variant framing processes. The communities in post-Second World War Romania and Turkey experienced different framing processes than the ones in the USSR. Neither émigré nor diaspora nationalism posited a return goal for the majority of people. Since its inception, émigré nationalism remained as an elite movement, and most of the time voluntarily so. Between 1945 and 1980, the émigré nationalism frame continued because of the lack of credible challenges to it. They demanded the return of deported Crimean Tatars or perhaps Crimean Tatars from Romania, Poland, or Belarus, but not from Turkey except for a few émigré leaders. In the 1970s, the advance of the modernization of Crimean Tatar peasant communities brought a loss of language, culture, and traditions and created the perception of assimilation. This provided reasons for the rejuvenation of the identity movement of the Crimean Tatar diaspora, but for it to take the form of diaspora nationalism was due to certain ideas constructed by the Crimean Tatar activists in the early 1980s. Unlike exile nationalism in Romania, and Central Asia, it did not project a collective return to the homeland, but it positioned the diaspora community as supporters of their co-ethnics’ return to Crimea and re-building of the national institutions there. This community also bridged frames with the community in Romania and the United States, both of which developed various forms and degrees of diaspora nationalism, beginning in the 1990s. In the late 1990s, the Crimean Tatars in the homeland and the diaspora contexts entered into a process of another frame transformation, through which a transnational nation frame began to be constructed, and consecutively, frames in the homeland and the diaspora were bridged. The WCTC forms the recent attempt for transnational nation-building

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to include the points of view of both diaspora and the homeland while reinforcing its central authority in leading all Crimean Tatar people. With this congress, the Crimean Tatar diaspora of Turkey and to a lesser extent those in Romania and the United States reached their goals of partaking in the fate of their homeland through attaining more recognition and representation.

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˙ [Ibrahim]. ˙ Otar, I. (1960). Cafer Seydahmet Kırımer. Emel, 1, 18. https:// emelvakfi.org/emeldergisi/cafer-seydahmet-kirimer-1889-1960/. Accessed 2 February 2021. ˙ (1991). Cafer Seydahmet Kırımer (1889–1960). In C. S. Kırımer (auth.) Otar, I. Nurlu kabirler. Türk Dünyası Ara¸stırmaları Vakfı. Palij, M. (1995). The Ukrainian Polish defensive alliance, 1918–1921: An aspect of the Ukrainian revolution. Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies Press. Sava, I. I. (2014). Siirde ¸ Ana Dil Vurgusuna Örnek: Sakir ¸ Selim’in Siirlerinde ¸ Kırım Tatarcasının Yeri [A case of emphasis on mother-tongue in poetry: The role of Crimean Tatar language in Sakir ¸ Selim’s poems]. Gazi Türkiyat Türkoloji Ara¸stırmaları Dergisi, 1(14), 145–156. Sava, I. I. (2018). 18 Mayıs 1944 Sürgününden Günümüze Kırım Tatarcasının Durumu [The situation of Crimean Tatar language since the 18 May 1944 exile]. Rumeli’de Dil ve Edebiyat Ara¸stırmaları Dergisi, Special Edition, 4, 153–161. Sevki ¸ Bektöre ile Yapılan Mülakat [The Interview with Sevki ¸ Bektöre]. (1960). Kırım, 2(14), 25–29. Snyder, T. (2005). Sketches from a secret war: A Polish artist’s mission to liberate Soviet Ukraine. Yale University Press. Swart, W. J. (1995). The League of Nations and the Irish Question: Master frames, cycles of protest and “master frame alignment”. Sociological Quarterly, 36(3), 465–481. Ülküsal, M. (1976). 1976 yılına girerken [While starting 1976]. Emel, 92, 1–7. Ülküsal, M. (1979). 1917’de Kırım istiklali ve Istanbul matbuatı (III) [Crimean independence and Istanbul press in 1917]. Emel, 111, 1–2. Ülküsal, M. (1980). Kırım Türk-Tatarları (Dünü-bugünü-yarını) [Crimean TurkTatars: Yesterday-today-tomorrow)]. Baha Matbaası. ˙ von zur Mühlen, P. (1984). Gamalıhaç ile kızılyıldız Arasında: Ikinci Dünya Sava¸sı’nda Sovyet Do˘gu halkları’nın milliyetçili˘gi [Between the swastika and red star: Nationalism of the Soviet Eastern nationalities during the Second World War]. Mavi Yayınları. Werth, N. (1999). A state against its people: Violence, repression and terror in the Soviet Union. In G. P. Albert, S. Courtois, N. Werth, A. Paczkowski, J. Panné, K. Bartosek, & J. Margolin (Eds.), Black book of communism: Crime, terror, repression (M. Kramer, Ed. of English Trans.). Harvard University Press. Williams, B. (2001). The Crimean Tatars: The diaspora experience and the forging of a nation. Brill. Williams, B. (2015). The Crimean Tatars: Soviet genocide to Putin’s conquest. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Yurter, F. R. (2003). Kırım diyasporası [Crimean diaspora]. Self-Publication.

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Yüksel, Z. (1989). Polatlı Kırım Türkçesi A˘gzı [Polatlı Crimean Tatar Dialect]. Türk Kültürünü Ara¸stırma Enstitüsü. Yüksel, Z. (1999). Kırım Türk-Tatar Edebiyatı [Crimean Turk-Tatar Literature] Türkiye dı¸sındaki Türk edebiyatları antolojisi 13. Kültür Bakanlı˘gı Yayınları. Yüksel, Z. (2005). Kırım Tatar Türkçesi grameri [Crimean Turkish-Tatar Grammar]. Semih E˘gitim Kültür Yayınları. Yurtsever, M. V. (1983). Kırım’ın Rusya’ya ilhakının 200. yıldönümü Dobruca’daki Kırımlılar [The Crimeans in the 200th anniversary of the Russian annexation of Crimea] Emel, 135, 303–308.

CHAPTER 6

Crimean Tatar Community in the United States (1960–): From Émigré to Diaspora Nationalism

6.1

Introduction

The Crimean Tatar community in the United States originated from the 1930s immigrants and the Second World War refugees who settled in Turkey for one to four decades and departed to the United States when they were offered citizenship (due to their refugee status). Some political Crimean Tatar refugees challenged the frames of émigré nationalists but limited political opportunities in Turkey made them decide to immigrate to the United States. In the United States, they bridged frames with the post-1967 Edict collective return movement. Not all refugees who immigrated to the United States were political though. Some were content with maintaining their culture and solidarity, and they continued to bridge frames with the contemporary émigré movement in Turkey. These two streams engaged in a framing contest, which largely ended with the end of the Cold War, the collapse of communism, and the return of the co-ethnics to the homeland. Today, the Crimean Tatar community is more unified and on the path of developing a diaspora nationalism and increasing resonance among the members of the community.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 F. T. Aydın, Émigré, Exile, Diaspora, and Transnational Movements of the Crimean Tatars, Palgrave Studies in Citizenship Transitions, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-74124-2_6

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6.1.1

Immigration of Refugees to the United States

I consider the Crimean Tatar refugees in the United States as the hybrid child of the parent community in Crimea and Turkey’s community. On the one hand, they had the most vivid memories of Crimea being the most recent emigrants from the homeland. Almost all of them had families left in the former Soviet Union; it was the only Crimean Tatar community with family ties to the homeland. On the other hand, they had incorporated easily into the Crimean Tatar community in Turkey during several decades of stay and maintained close ties even after immigrating to the United States. Even those few Crimean Tatar refugees, who never came to Turkey had a strong identification with Turkey, exemplified in Cengiz Da˘gcı who wrote his novels in Turkey at his home in London. Between 1960 and 1970, eighty-five percent of approximately 2,000 refugees, who had mostly settled in Turkey previously, went to the United States (Yurter, 2003, 68). Ninety percent of these immigrants settled in New York, the rest in Detroit, Chicago, California, Florida, and the District of Columbia. After 1965, the immigrants of the 1930s also joined the refugees in the United States, and soon their numbers far surpassed the refugees (interview with Mübeyyin B. Altan). Altan states that the total population of the Crimean Tatar diaspora in the United States is estimated to be seven thousand, and many of the Crimean Tatars reside in the Brooklyn-Queens section of New York (Altan, 2001).

6.2

Crimea Foundation’s Émigré Nationalism

The first generation of immigrants and refugees could only attain bluecollar jobs due to their lack of English language skills. Their segmented assimilation into the large and resourceful Turkish community postponed full integration into American society by learning the language. Until the 1980s, endogamy continued. Earlier immigrants assisted the later ones, and on November 22, 1961, the immigrants formed the American Association of Crimean Turks, Inc. (Kırım Türkleri Amerikan Birli˘gi) for ˙ mutual help. Ibrahim Dülber and Mehmet Sevdiyar prepared the bylaws, but they were not yet American citizens; therefore, the five Crimean Tatars who got citizenship became the legal founders of the association.1 According to Mübeyyin Altan:

1 Members of Executive Board incuded Feride Yakup, Rıfat Ibrahim, ˙ ˙ Safiye Ibrahim, ˙ ˙ ˙ Ismail Ibrahim, Talat Ibrahim, Mehmet Sevdiyar, Sevket ¸ Dolan, Ethem Çelebi, Rıfat ˙ Ilkson, and Mustafa Altıner (Kırım Türkleri Amerikan Birli˘gi, 2005).

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The American Crimean Tatars’ involvement in the Crimean Tatar National movement began in 1969 when the details of the ‘Tashkent Trials‘ became available to those Crimean Tatars concerned about their relatives in the Soviet Union. They wanted their organization, the American Association of Crimean Turks, Inc., to take a more active political role in helping their compatriots in Uzbekistan. (Altan, 2001)2

Mübeyyin B. Altan narrated that in 1970, when politically minded Fikret Yurter, Mehmet Sevdiyar, and Mübeyyin Altan came together in the executive committee, the Crimean Association began to have a political role. He notes that “this created a friction within the community because the majority of them believed that as a cultural organization the ‘Association’ should not get involved in political activities.” Some refugees were apprehensive about retribution levied on the family in Crimea if they were affiliated with an anti-Soviet movement. Soon, Mehmet Sevdiyar, Fikret Yurter, and Mübeyyin Altan officially established the alternative organization, National Center of Crimean Tatars—The Crimea Foundation in 1976. Mehmet Sevdiyar was the informal leader of such a movement, though officially, Fikret Yurter was the center’s head. (interview with Mübeyyin Altan) Fikret Yurter lived in Crimea until he was eleven years old. His father worked in a Muslim Committee in Crimea during the war. He grew up in refugee camps and Turkey. He studied in Germany and spoke German fluently. He was dedicated to political activism and had worked in several Turkish immigrant organizations before founding the National Center. He remembered handing out pamphlets on the persecution of Crimean Tatar nationalists in the Soviet Union in Turkey in 1969. He immigrated to the United States in 1970. Mübeyyin Altan was a newborn when his family left Crimea and studied in Turkey and the United States during the war. With his fluent English and academic background, he formed links of the Crimean Tatar refugees with the American and international society. Mehmet Sevdiyar contributed the most to this organization’s frame by publishing several books, including his two volumes of Etudy Ob Etnogeneze Krimski Tatar (A Study of Crimean Tatar Ethnogenesis). In this book, he elaborated on the indigenous identity of the Crimean Tatars. This seems to have relation with

2 Supporters of the Crimea Foundation were around 15. These included Ibrahim ˙ Altan, Abdulhakim Saraylı, Kara¸say family, Yunus Molbayli, Mustafa Altan, Yakup Çilen, Ramazan Aytan, and Dursun Giray (Mübeyyin Altan, Interview by author, by letter, 15 April 2009).

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having the korenniy narod status under the Soviet Union, and indigenous identity was also endorsed by the deported community in the USSR (Williams, 2001). Mübeyyin Altan stated Mehmet Sevdiyar’s political purpose to be “the recognition of the national identity of the Crimean Tatars by the world society, including the Soviet Union and the very Crimean Tatar diaspora itself.” He emphasized that people’s ethnonym ought to be the “Crimean Tatar” (interview). The members of the Crimea Foundation, having spent time in Turkey, were aware of the strength of the pan-Turkism master frame and were not, in fact, in conflict with it ideologically. They also did not want to alienate Turkey, as Turkey was one of the states with the greatest interest in the Crimean Tatars’ well-being (Yurter, 2008). Mübeyyin Altan notes that refugees and 1930 immigrants had a deep attachment for Turkey. The Turkish Embassy occasionally, as in Romania, warned Crimea Foundation against using the ethnonym “Tatar,” to which Crimea Foundation skillfully responded that they did not want to endanger Turkey’s relation to the Soviet Union by claiming they are Crimean “Turks” as they actively supported the dissidents in the Soviet Union (interview). 6.2.1

Frame-Bridging with the Collective Return Frame in the USSR

From the very beginning, the Crimea Foundation bridged frames with the Soviet Union’s movement by founding “The Committee for the Return of Exiled Crimean Tatars in the Soviet Union.” They connected with the Crimean Tatars in the Soviet Union through letters and by telephone and communicated sometimes with coded words to escape Soviet intelligence. Mübeyyin Altan (2001) described the process as such: Members of the Crimean Tatar National Center gathered once a month, depending on the accessibility of the dissidents, to contact Mustafa Cemilo˘glu, Resat Cemilo˘glu, Fuat Ablamit and others via telephone to find out the status of the national movement. …Since the telephones were tapped, and the KGB likely listened to conversations, special code words were used to find out how things were progressing. For example, “How are the carnations growing in your garden?” meant, “How is the national movement going?” Carnation symbolized the national movement.

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Altan adds that occasionally some Crimean Tatars were permitted to travel outside the Soviet Union, and the Crimean Foundation received information by secretly meeting them (Altan, 2001). The members of the Foundation followed their publications, including their newspaper, Lenin Bayra˘gı (Lenin’s Flag). They occasionally distributed samizdat or contributed its publication or distribution. For instance, they resent the letter written by Re¸sat Cemilev to the King of Saudi Arabia, which could not be sent by him directly from the USSR. The Crimea Foundation also participated in the tamizdat activity, that is The Crimean Tatars in New York published the smuggled Crimean Tatar documents under the title Emel in 1978 and 1979, both in Russian and Turkish. The Russian version was smuggled into the Soviet Union to be distributed there.3 Indeed for Mübeyyin Altan, these activities give the Crimea Foundation a special place in diaspora communities. In the pre-internet era of the Crimean Tatar national movement, only the Crimean Foundation had contact with the movement in the USSR and communicated fresh news to the rest. Mehmet Sevdiyar played a significant role in translating samizdat documents. He taught Russian to the new generation in the United States to facilitate communication with the co-ethnics in Crimea. 6.2.2

Alignment with the Human Rights Master Frame

As the USSR movement, the émigré movement in the United States extended its frame toward the human rights frame. They believed that appeals for human rights and democracy and international law’s abidance were the most effective way to attain rights. This extension constituted the master frame in American society and international society, especially after the Helsinki Accords. Their movement methods reflected their frame. They conducted hunger strikes to support hunger strikes in the USSR (Sevdiyar, 1974). They strove to save Mustafa Cemilev from Soviet persecution by aiding his emigration effort. Indeed, Yurter’s organization was classified as anti-Soviet by the Soviet Union, and Yurter’s invitations to 3 The major tamizdat published by the Crimea Foundation include: Grigorenko, A. (1977) A Kogda Mi Vernemsya [And When We return]; Serdar, M. (Ed.) (1980). Shest Dnei-Belaya Kniga. [Six Days-The White Book], Cemilev, R. (Ed.) (1986b). Jivoi Fakel [Human Torch]; Cemilev, R. (1986a). Musa Mamut: Human Torch. The Crimea Foundation also contributed the publication of the Taskentsky Protses in 1976, one of the most extensive tamizdat compiled on the Crimean Tatar National Movement and mainly sponsored by the Herzen Foundation (Altan, 2001).

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Cemilev were accepted as evidence in the latter’s trial (“18 Mayıs 194418 Mayıs 1984,” 1984, 6). Although these small number of activists could not effectively lobby in the United States due to lack of funds and community support, they were able to inform American and world politicians, academics,4 civil society, media, and public opinion, especially through the samizdat publication and by forming an information agency, the “Crimean Tatar Research and Information Center.” Mübeyyin Altan noted that “[U]nder normal circumstances all these activities enabled the Crimean Tatar Diaspora in New York to reach a small audience, 500 to 1000 at the most.”5 They appealed to American presidents, the State Department, congressmen, and contacted the Chicago Tribune. Peter Reddaway, expert on Soviet peoples, considered the Crimean Tatars in America the smallest but most vocal diaspora community.6 Mübeyyin Altan himself published the first English language journal in Crimean Tatar history with updated information about the co-ethnics, entitled Crimean Review between 1986 and 1996. Mübeyyin Altan states that the Crimean Review’s circulation increased to 500 in time. He explains as such: It was primarily mailed to members of the United States Congress who were involved in foreign affairs, the president of the United States, embassies of nations thought to be sympathetic to the Crimean Tatar cause, international organizations, such as the UN, and major universities and individuals who requested it. It continued until December 1995, on the eve of Internet’s arrival”. (Altan, 2001)

In 1986, the Crimean Foundation also erected the first Crimean Tatar national monument honoring the Crimean Tatar martyrs who perished in the course of the Sürgün in Washington Memorial Park on Long Island, New York.

4 The members of the Crimean Foundation contacted with Peter Reddaway, Edward Allworth, Alan Fisher, Alexandre Bennigsen, and Anne Sheehy. 5 Mübeyyin Altan, Interview by author, by letter. 15 April 2009. 6 Mübeyyin Altan, Interview by author, by letter, 15 April 2009 and Inci ˙ Altu˘g

Bowman, Interview by author, by letter, 26 March 2009.

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American Association of Crimean Turks

Ironically, the members of the Crimea Foundation created another elite nationalism as the émigré nationalism they challenged. However, unlike the National Center (Milli Merkez) in Turkey, the Crimea Foundation did not choose to be an exclusive organization. The refugees organized several demonstrations in front of the UN in New York between 1971 and 1989, to which they invited other community members. Mübeyyin Altan provides details: This event began in 1970 when the details of mass deportation were learned. A small group of Crimean Tatars launched a demonstration at Dag Hammarskjold Plaza near the United Nations in New York City, carrying placards denouncing the Soviet treatment of the Crimean Tatar people. “May 18, 1944 deportation, 46.2% of the total Crimean Tatar population perished;” and “Free Mustafa Dzhemilev and Gen. Pyotr Grigorenko,” were some of the placards used during this demonstration. A small group of 10 to 15 dedicated people showed up for this event. Fliers indicating the importance of May 18, (a total of 150 fliers) were also distributed. After the demonstration, a brief ceremony was held in the Crimean Tatar Community center in Brooklyn, New York, where a religious service was also conducted for the Crimean Tatar martyrs”. (Altan, 2001)

18 May Commemoration at the community center and at the Crimean Tatar sürgün monument at Washington Memorial Park became a tradition for the community in the United States. The members of the Crimea Foundation also wrote letters to the political leaders, and more signatures under these petitions could increase the success of such tactics.7 However, the lack of resonance among their constituents can largely be attributed to refugees‘ perception that this frame lacked empirical credibility. The refugees perceived their situation still precarious in the United States and felt that they have to keep a low profile to integrate into American society. The majority of refugees did not, for example, wish to be publicly 7 Mübeyyin Altan offers extensive detail on these correspondences: “Letters of appeal were sent to such individuals as Senator James Buckley of New York on January 17, 1976; Senator Edward M Kennedy of Massachusetts on December 16, 1986; Soviet Ambassador Yuri Dubinin on December 16, 1986; King Khalid Ibn Abdulaziz of Saudi Arabia on February 15, 1979; Chairman Egil Aarvik of the Nobel Peace Prize Selection Committee on January 22, 1986; President Ronald Reagan on October 21, 1985; President George Bush on October 1, 1989; and President Bill Clinton on April 25, 1998” (Altan, 2001).

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exposed and misunderstood as compliant assistants of the Nazis, based on their forced labor during the war. As noted earlier, some Crimean Tatars rejected attempts of the Crimea Foundation to demand compensation from Germany and Austria for their suffering and forced labor during the war because they thought their relatives in the USSR might fall into danger. For the Crimean Tatars who emigrated from Crimea in the 1930s, this frame had little narrative fidelity as they did not experience war, the rebirth of nationalism in Crimea, Ostarbeiter status, POW, or refugee camps. In any case, only after the fall of communism, Yurter was successful to attain compensations from Austria. The limited resonance of the Crimea Foundation’s frame can also be attributed to this fact: Though this group published several books on Crimean Tatar history, politics, and literature, they did not have a specific program for the identity-management of the Crimean Tatars in the United States, particularly concerning the maintenance and reproduction of the Crimean Tatar identity in the United States. This refugee intelligentsia did not envision the return of the Crimean Tatar community to Crimea. They focused on representing the Crimean Tatars to the outside world and playing the role of agency and advocacy. The Crimea Foundation was “founded solely to disseminate facts concerning the cruel and unjust deportation of Crimean Tatars and their continuous struggle to return to Crimea and to regain their human and national rights” (interview with Mibeyyin B. Altan). In this manner, the Crimea Foundation remained an elite movement, like the Emel movement in Turkey in the post-war era. The majority of the 1930s immigrants and refugees preferred to be identified as “Turks.” This description was the policy of the “Crimean Turkish” associations in Turkey. Crimean Tatar society also achieved segmented assimilation into the Turkish community in the United States. The Crimean Tatar Association became a cherished member of the Federation of Turkish Associations, celebrated Turkey’s national days, ˙ and received support from the Turkish Embassy. The Ismail Gasprinskiy School within the Association taught in Turkish, teaching children in Tatar was never even an issue, unlike the Crimean Tatars in Romania, who went to great pains to teach in Tatar. This position was enforced by the Turkish Embassy, which has some power to provide financial support and offer diplomatic protection to the Tatar community (see “Kırım Türkleri Amerikan Birli˘gi,” 1961).

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A frame contest between the Crimea Foundation and the American Association of Crimean Turks took place. Crimea Foundation was explicitly political and bridged their frame with the post-1967 Edict democratic Crimean Tatar frame in the USSR as well as international and Soviet dissident movements. This frame could not achieve resonance among most of the community. The frame of the American Association of Crimean Tatars in Brooklyn was apolitical. They preferred to focus on the maintenance of culture in diaspora settings. They bridged frames with Crimean Associations of the 1960s and 1970s in Turkey (remember how refugees remaining in Turkey had to leave politics to a small circle of émigrés), and with Turkish organizations in the United States. Politically, they bridged frames with Emel in the 1960s and 1970s.8 As Emel , in their association journal, the Crimean Tatar refugees did not go beyond the extension of Turkish ultra-nationalist frame, that is presenting Crimean Tatar motifs within the ultra-nationalist ideology. As the émigré nationalist movement did in Turkey, both the Crimean Tatar Association in the United States and Emel journal continued to criticize the Crimean Foundation’s frame, specifically their use of Tatar identification. The majority of the Crimean Tatar community in the United States preferred a cultural movement because they thought emphasizing their transnational connections would prevent their integration in the United States. They perceived their host country to be not very inclusionary with regard to different identities. In conclusion, AACT tried to establish and maintain links to the United States, Crimea, and Turkey (including Turkish diaspora in the United States and Crimean Tatar émigrés) at the same time. This community was paralyzed under heterogeneity of framing targets and therefore could not construct a coherent identity frame. Underlying this hesitation was unquestioned and unhealed trauma—an inability to speak about the past without the fear of being labeled. In the next section, we will look at how Cengiz Da˘gcı chose to deal with the trauma by constructing a diaspora identity. He was precocious in the sense that he will have to wait until the 1980s to receive the interest he deserves from the Crimean Tatar diaspora.

8 Their journal Birlik donated to Emel 5000 Turkish Liras in November 1975.

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We must note that Ay¸se Seytmuratova, a Crimean Tatar Soviet dissident who arrived in the United States, is identified as the major representative of the “American Diaspora of the Crimean Tatars” by Eldar Seydahmetov (2008). For our purposes, she remained a part of the USSR community’s exile nationalist movement. She concentrated on her work for Radio Liberty and giving presentations at universities and media to propagate the movement in the USSR, and did not even distract herself with trying to recruit people to his struggle in the United States or Turkey. As far as our theoretical framework is concerned, she just moved her activism where political and discursive opportunities are perceived to be more beneficial for propagating her frame. Cafer Seydahmet also moved his activism from Turkey to Romania and Europe. Diasporas have the flexibility to move where the grass is greener. The Crimean Tatar communities in Turkey and the United States supported her activities, but the fact that she preferred to work separately from the Crimea Foundation or any other Crimean Tatar organization in the United States or Turkey demonstrates that she was not in any way interested in life in the diaspora, but she was an “exile nationalist.” Altan explains this issue as follows: We were glad that Ay¸se Seytmuratova wished to come to America, and provided her the support she needed… We took her to Washington and joined the meetings together. We introduced her to Paul Goble, the political analyst at Carnegie Endowment. However, she preferred not to work within the framework of our institution, and represent the Crimean Tatar cause separately in the United States. (interview with Altan)

˘ 6.4 Cengiz Dagci: Birth of Crimean Tatar Modern Diaspora Consciousness Among the refugees who emerged after the Second World War, Cengiz Da˘gcı was distinctive as he created a diasporic identity frame through his literary production. He became a POW during the war and later was recruited as an officer to the Eastern legions. After the war, he settled in London with his Polish wife, whom he met during the war. While he operated a restaurant to earn his living, in the evenings, he wrote his twenty-two novels, continuing his passion for literature, which started during his youth in Crimea. He had strong diasporic themes, such as attachment to homeland and longing for the homeland while in exile.

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It was the beginning of 1936, I think, the passport law was enacted and I, after being checked by two doctors in Gorsovet building of Akmescit (today Simferopol): with my Cengiz Da˘gcı- 9 March 1920, date of birthpassport, without any trial, was sentenced to forget Gurzuf and Kızılta¸s, and leave forever for my infinite immigrant life, without Gurzuf and Kızılta¸s…Gurzuf’s sea, and Kızılta¸s’ vineyards had been the source of our life…for centuries…We were the nature of Kızılta¸s: we were flowers and herbs, branches and leaves, air and water; we received our food from its soil and existed. We would dry off without Gurzuf and Kızılta¸s. (Da˘gcı, 1998, 14)

Another rare major example of this type of literature is Mehmet Niyazi. Unlike Mehmet Niyazi, Da˘gcı never revisited Crimea but stayed in exile in London throughout his life. He opted not to write in English but Turkish. He claimed many times that the diaspora was a prison, but he also lamented that Crimea is no more the Crimea of yesterday. He preferred living with nostalgia for bygone days. Neither return nor forgetting was an option for him, in his words: “After his arm is amputated, one feels that his arm is still tied to his shoulder and from time to time he would look for his lost arm with his [other] hand. Crimea has been my amputated arm” (Da˘gcı, 1998, 258). In another text, he clearly explains this feeling: For fifty years, Crimea has been what makes my heart happy, what makes my heart suffer; and on some nights, with a pen in my hand, what makes me cry sitting on my desk. Crimea has been a scar for me. A scar that bleeds continuously. Now the scar is closed without healing. …I have consoled myself by the thought that I will explore other territories, and that I will find peace and tranquility in other climates…Why can’t I write a novel without Crimea? …[however] the English story [I have written] [Mr. Markus Burton’s Dog] did not satisfy me. I could not find myself, really myself in it. [But]I needed to find it[myself]…I could not look into the future… I would only look at past… (Da˘gcı, 1998, 9–10)

Another main theme in Da˘gcı is engaging in honest self-criticism in the name of the Crimean Tatars (and all Soviet Muslims) regarding their behavior, policies, and strategies during the Second World War. While criticizing, he provides the context for some of the mistakes and underlines how complicated this issue is. According to Da˘gcı, the story begins with the violation of the Crimean Tatars’ rights by the communist regime.

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Secondly, Da˘gcı provides the whole context of how Soviet oppression forced some Tatars to seek national emancipation by cooperating with Nazis in several ways, such as Eastern legions. The POW Crimean Tatars had little choice but to enroll the legions as they faced a high probability of death if they remained in camps. Eastern Legions cannot be construed as “cooperation with Germans.” German command constantly humiliated Muslims but the latter endured it because of their hopes for Turkistan’s emancipation.9 This is how he narrates the thinking of soldiers in Eastern Legions: …The [German] officers told us that Turkistan would be a great and strong state of Asia…I want to laugh while writing this…they slowly began to take us inside…They taught us how to behave in society, how to use a fork and knife at the table, how to greet ladies…They wanted to make us civilized as them before we became officers…Could we find them bad after they gave us those ideals?…They talked about our Turkistan, they offered us freedom. When they speak this way, could we find them bad? (Da˘gcı, 1996, 46)

Thirdly, Da˘gcı (1996) explains the consequent self-hate emerging in the souls of people who fell into this situation (Da˘gcı, 1996, 36–37). One of his heroes think as such: “We, the soldiers of freedom, with our rifles, as we carried the holy future of Turkistan on our shoulders…we followed the trails of those wild corporals who were not human anymore… I am writing these words with a large feeling of responsibility, and I am afraid to mix my dear people’s clean soul to the bad things we have done. But I am not going to run away from all the bad things we have done…

As a whole, the Crimean Tatar situation during the war amounted to a tragedy. Da˘gcı points himself out as the best person to write on the Crimean Tatars’ tragedy during the war as he suffered from it. The tragedy of Crimea is the greatest tragedy of the 20th century. It is a real genocide, a tragedy of the dissolution of a nation. To say just “rest in 9 Many testimonies supporting this fact was given in the documentary titled “Gamalı Ha¸c ve Kızıl Yıldız Arasında” (Between Swastika and Red Star) (Karatay and Karatay 2005). See http://www.gamalihac-kizilyildiz.com/.

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peace” to the death of a people, to forget the tragedy would be forgetting the possibility of repetition of similar tragedies in the future. For that reason, I am not only the writer of Crimea. However, I am the only one who can write the tragedy of Crimea with all of its reality and sincerity. (Da˘gcı, 1998, 250)

In the end, Da˘gcı is reconciled with his situation by developing a diasporic identity frame. There are ways with no return. In a peaceful and humanistic world, ways should not be without return. I went out of Crimea fifty seven years ago, and once I went out, I found myself in the way of no return. I knew that the way [to Crimea] would not open for me…Therefore, if I returned, I would return only through my dreams and thoughts. If I did not return with my thought, I would stay in prison throughout my life. But I returned. Many times. Throughout the 60 years, there has not been a day or night that I did not return to the land I was born and raised. …My visits [to Crimea] were not imaginary. My visits never ceased to connect with reality. We had there villages and towns established by the hands of grandfathers of a thousand years ago; houses with whitewashed walls, red rooftops, patios, and balconies full of flowers; vineyards and orchards which were planted by the hands of grandfathers of a thousand years ago. My people’s souls never left those houses and gardens. They would watch my every return there. (Da˘gcı, 1998, 12–13)

This is not just a personal solution; Da˘gcı suggested this for the other Tatars in exile as well. “When I returned there, I wanted others to see and hear me” (Da˘gcı, 1998, 12). That is why he writes his novels. In another commentary, he says: …with the publication of this work [Korkunç Yıllar], I felt that Gurzuf and Kızılta¸s had born in my soul anew and (anew in my soul). I felt the happiness of living together with the people of Gurzuf and Kızılta¸s who were thousands of kilometers far from me and from whom I was separated forever. (Da˘gcı, 1998, 245)

Interestingly, refugees in the United States did not embrace Cengiz Da˘gcı’s diasporic frame. Although many of them had been with him in the legions or the refugee camps, they seemed not to share similar diasporic feelings with him. Some of them preferred not to mention their past under Nazi occupation at all. As noted before, the refugees felt that

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Da˘gcı’s frame does not fit very well with their effort for integration in the United States in the middle of the Cold War. Refugees did not consider the Western post-war environment equipped to understand the complex human tragedy that Soviet nationalities experienced. Instead, the great majority of the Crimean Tatars preferred segmented assimilation to the Turkish diaspora in the United States and were grateful to pass as just “Crimean Turks” just like the Crimean Tatars in Turkey did in the same period. Cengiz Da˘gcı wrote in Turkish, rather than in Crimean Tatar. Regardless of his attempt to build a readership in Turkey, where a large number of descendants of the Crimean Tatars resided, he had to wait until the 1980s and 1990s to be appreciated by them too. In his interviews and letters, he has often stated his disappointment about the immigrant Crimean Tatars’ lack of interest in his novels. I argue that the diasporic frame proposed by Da˘gcı in his novels did not fit in the political and discursive opportunities in Turkey in the 1970s. As a result, his novels could not instigate diasporic thinking until the 1980s. Still, a very small number of Crimean Tatar youth who read his novels became genuinely interested in Crimea. In the 1980s, a younger generation of Emel authors appeared to be strongly influenced by his description of Crimea as well as his attachment to the homeland (interview). They used the power of his literary work to disseminate ideas of longing for the homeland. After all, they had never been to Crimea, and Da˘gcı described the “Tatar Crimea” most vividly. As with Mehmet Niyazi, even the strongest diaspora frames need a diaspora nationalist organization to disseminate those frames through frame alignment processes. Cengiz Da˘gcı’s frame was disseminated only when the political and discursive opportunity structures changed, and frame transformation took place in the movement in the 1980s.

6.5

Diaspora Nationalism to Transnationalism

As the Cold War was over and the political environment became more tolerant in the United States, a larger part of refugees and their children reconnected with relatives in Crimea and visited the homeland. In the 1990s, with a change in political opportunity structures, old feuds became irrelevant, and the US diaspora became a more united community, adopting a common frame of diaspora nationalism, influenced by simultaneous developments in Turkey and Romania. This is

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when Da˘gcı began to appeal to the refugees and their offspring in the United States. As the work in the style of Crimean Foundation became obsolete, Mübeyyin Altan joined with a group of Crimean Tatar intel˙ ˙ ˙ ligentsia (Inci Altu˘g Bowman, Idil Noyan Izmirli, Fevzi Alimo˘glu) to establish International Committee of Crimea, an NGO for propagating the Crimean Tatar cause through disseminating high-quality academic work for increasing awareness on the situation of Crimean Tatars. It was also an early attempt to utilize the internet for the national movement. American Association Crimean Association in New York developed transnational relations with Meclis in Crimea and the KTKYDGM in Turkey. As in Romania, the head of the organization was appointed as the Meclis representative. The latter also attended World Crimean Tatar Congress (WCTC). It was Ayla Bakkallı, a Crimean Tatar advocate of indigenous rights in the United States, who attended the Congresses in 2009 and 2015. After receiving stronger mandates from the Second Congress, Bakkallı has been thereby advocating Crimean Tatar indigenous rights in the UN platform and assisting Cemilev and Meclis members to navigate in their visits to the United States and UN. As the diaspora in Romania, the Crimean Tatars in the United States demanded recognition from Qurultay and Congress for their identity, experiences, and trauma. Mübeyyin Altan summarizes this view succinctly after his attendance in the first WCTC. I would like to see the people in the homeland and in the diaspora to be in a mutually respectful relationship. I am against the idea that “We suffered the most; therefore, we have the final say.” I cannot speak conclusively about the ones in Turkey, but we too, as refugees, suffered greatly; we tried to survive under the bombs and suffered through great economic difficulties. Our bleeding scars have not been healed yet. Therefore, our closeness to the Crimean Tatar cause is more than other diasporas. It is my duty to criticize those in Crimea when they are not serving our people well enough as a refugee and as a person who worked for the Crimean Tatar cause since a young age. (interview)

References Altan, M. B. (2001). The Crimean Tatar National Movement and the American diaspora, International Committee of Crimea. Accessed http://www.iccrimea. org/scholarly/source-materials.html. Accessed 24 January 2020.

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Cemilev, R. (Ed.) (1986a). Musa Mamut: Human torch. New York: Crimea Foundation. Cemilev, R. (Ed.) (1986b). Jivoi fakel [Human Torch]. New York: The Crimea Foundation. Da˘gcı, C. (1996). Yurdunu Kaybeden Adam [The man who lost his homeland]. Ötüken. Da˘gcı, C. (1998). Hatıralarda [In memories]. Ötüken. Grigorenko, A. (1977). A kogda mi vernemsya [And When we return]. New York: Crimea. Karatay, N. S., & Karatay Z. (2005). Gamalı haç ve kızıl yıldız arasında ˙ ˙ [Between swastika and red star] Documentary DVD. Istanbul: TRT Istanbul Televizyonu. Kırım Türkleri Amerikan Birli˘gi [Crimean Turks American Association]. (1961). https://kirimny.org/about/. Accessed 2 February 2021. Mayıs 1944-18 Mayıs 1984. (1984). Emel, 141–145, 3–6. Seidametov, E. (2008). Rol A˘ıshe Seitmuratovo˘ı v dvizheniia solidarnosti krymskotatarsko˘ı diaspory SShA za vozvrashchenie sootechestvennikov na istoricheskuiu rodinu — Krym. Kul tura narodov Prichernomor ia. Krims ki˘ı naukovi˘ı tsentr NAN Ukra|ni i MON Ukra|ni (№ 144). Serdar, M. (Ed.). (1980). Shest dnei: belaya kniga [Six days: the white Book]. New York: Crimea Foundation. Sevdiyar, M. (1974). Açlık Grevimiz. Birlik 103, 5. Sevdiyar, M. (1997). Etudy Ob Etnogeneze Krimski Tatar (A study of Crimean Tatar ethnogenesis). Crimea Foundation. Tashkentskiy Protses [Tashkent Case]. (1976). Amsterdam: Herzen Foundation. Williams, B. (2001). The Crimean Tatars: The diaspora experience and the forging of a nation. Leiden: Brill. Yurter, F. (2008, 21 Decembe). Kırım sorunu panelleri [Crimean problem panels], Kırım Tatar Dernekleri Federasyonu. Accessed 10 August 2021. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0TLEq5-glM&ab_channel=Mus tafaSansal. Yurter, F. R. (2003). Kırım Diyasporası. Self-Publication.

CHAPTER 7

Comparison of Cases and Conclusion: Toward a Crimean Tatar Transnational Nation?

In this last chapter, firstly, I will review the main findings of the case studies. Comparing the cases by emphasizing generalizations that are emerging, the book will be concluded with the concluding remarks on the present and future of Crimean Tatar diaspora politics.

7.1

Review of Cases

In the case study of the Crimean Tatar community in the USSR, I identified the form of long-distance nationalism to be exile nationalism as the community was fixated on the collective return and was not oriented to integration in places of settlement. This movement emerged when the Crimean Tatars interpreted the newly emerging master frame of “deStalinization“ as an opportunity to create their movement frame toward the end of the 1950s. They explained that Lenin granted the Crimean Tatars their autonomous republic. A return to Lenin’s policies would require the collective return of the Crimean Tatars and the reestablishment of their national autonomy. However, by 1967, it became clear that the regime never intended full de-Stalinization. The Crimean Tatars modified their frames because of these unfavorable political and discursive opportunity structures. They began to counter-frame against the Soviet communist master frame by aligning themselves with the rising © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 F. T. Aydın, Émigré, Exile, Diaspora, and Transnational Movements of the Crimean Tatars, Palgrave Studies in Citizenship Transitions, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-74124-2_7

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international “democratization and human rights“ master frames, which also brought close collaboration (frame-bridging) with the dissident movements in the USSR. I deny the argument that the Crimean Tatars returned because the Soviet state allowed them to return or because it collapsed. My main argument was that when the Soviet frame transformed into a democratization frame in the late 1980s, the Crimean Tatars already had a frame that fits this frame well. As the Crimean Tatars suggested in the 1980s, if the Soviet Union would be democratized, democratization would require reversing deportation’s consequences through the collective return of Crimean Tatars and the establishment of national autonomy. Gorbachev and the regime took several steps to prepare for the state-sponsored collective return of Crimean Tatars, but the Soviet Union collapsed abruptly. Still, the massive return organized by the Crimean Tatars movement was viewed as their right by Soviet society and Ukraine, so their massive relocation did not produce much resistance. The self-organized collective return also demonstrated a high resonance of their frame for these community members, which was typical for the exile nationalist movement. None of the other deported peoples in the USSR could undertake a collective return, since, arguably, none of them persistently had made a case of collective return as persistently for their members and Soviet society as the Crimean Tatars. Therefore, when opportunities changed, this was not an option on the table. Greta Uehling also concluded as such after comparing the Crimean Tatars with other communities (Uehling, 2004). I concluded that the collective return was the consequence of the framing path the Crimean Tatar movement entered once it defined its goal as such. The other Crimean Tatar diaspora communities did not define their movement’s goal as returning to their homeland for various reasons, including the different opportunity structures. The case of Crimean Tatars in Romania is so impressive because, unlike the community in Turkey, its indigenous members developed long-distance nationalism, utilizing Gaspıriskiy’s vision and their ethnic consciousness. Their minority position in Romania can be regarded as an important factor for them to develop long-distance nationalism earlier than the community in Turkey, and reach higher resonance in such an early stage. According to Omer, remaining in Dobruca or immigrating to Turkey were default options for Crimean Tatars (Omer, 2019), therefore Emel ’s convincing people to pursue their Crimean identity was

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counter-intuitive. Unintended consequences of state policies in communist Romania were ensuring the survival of Crimean Tatar national identity by giving Crimean Tatars their first alphabet, schools, language classes, teachers, textbooks, a folkloric research program in all diasporas, and thereby greatly contributing to the emergence of Tatar identity different than Turks. At the same time, the Romanian communist regime was partially successful in “indigenization” and contributed to the emergence of a strong Dobruca Tatar identity. Presently, Dobruca-Tatar and Crimean Tatar identities are in a contest and it is possible that a hybrid Dobruca-Crimean Tatar identity will emerge in the future. The case of Crimean Tatars in Dobruca was divided into three minicases. The first period continued from the beginning of the twentieth century until the Second World War. The marginalization of the Tatar community in Romania’s nation-building and modernization processes and its reluctance to integrate into a non-Muslim society and culture precipitated the emergence of a nationalist movement in Romania. In the case of the Romanian community, framing was an elite invention. The resonance of this idea among the rest of the community came later through organizational activities. However, it reached remarkable levels in the interwar era for a community that has been in a diaspora setting for more than a hundred years. The migrants to Romania came in continuous waves throughout the nineteenth century. However, it was interesting that the national movement suggested a collective return to the “homeland Crimea,” as a solution to uneven consequences of modernization in Romania. All these factors contributed to identifying the movement in this period as exile nationalism. Note that this was an earlier period than the development of exile nationalism in the former USSR (post-1944). Lack of modern education prevented easy adoption of nationalist ideas. The movement in interwar Romania did not result in collective return, unlike the USSR movement because of the unexpected and grand changes in political opportunity structures brought by the Second World War. The ensuing communist regime in Romania prosecuted the major long-distance nationalists and their supporters in Romania and suppressed the movement. The communist regimes established transnational ethnic oppression regimes in which the deportation of the Crimean Tatars in the USSR brought the punishment of their co-ethnics in Romania as well. The next mini-case took place under the communist regime (1945– 1989) and was identified as territorial minority nationalism instead of a type of long-distance nationalism. The Crimean Tatar communities

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under the communist regimes of Romania and the USSR were interesting to compare. The community in Romania seemed to break off their ties to their homeland Crimea, as a way of maintaining their identity in the context of oppressive political structure. Although such a framing attempt also emerged in the USSR, it was overtaken by the exile nationalism frame. Territorial nationalism could take root in Romania because the previous era’s elites not quite finished the alignment of their constituency’s frames toward collective return when the war came. Still, it was not the majority of the population, but teachers who were educated in Tatar Pedagogical School or who taught Tatar or Turkish language aligned to territorial nationalism frame more. Romania by training teachers, preparing alphabets, books, and schools institutionalized Dobruca-Tatar identity and dialect, and this policy created advocates among the Crimean Tatars. Whatever the intentions of the communist regime, this policy enabled the survival of Crimean Tatar nationalism at least among intellectuals. The third mini-case of the Romanian community began with the end of communism in Romania and the transition to democracy, which brought a change in the political opportunity structures. The tolerant minority policy in new Romania, the legacy of previous framing processes, and transnational influences contributed to a rising “diaspora” identity. Participants increased greatly compared to the previous level, and links to Crimea were firmly established. Nonetheless, the return was not a preferred option, unlike for the interwar “exile nationalism.” This situation is due to opportunities to maintain identity in democratic Romania. These are seen as not entirely impossible, and transnational links are utilized to combat assimilation forces in the host-context. However, mostly due to contradictory policies of the Romanian state, the community needs to take initiative if it wants to maintain its identity. Turkey pushed the Crimean Tatars to indifference about maintaining their language and culture because of their privileged status in society. The lesson is that grievances, unequal and disruptive processes of modernization and discrimination feeds nationalism and identity politics. Without fulfilling structural pre-requisites for nationalism, the longdistance nationalism in Turkey owes its whole existence to one single individual, Cafer Seydahmet Kırımer. If he had not mentored a small group of intelligentsia around Emel journal that carried the movement until the 1980s, possibly there would not be any diaspora nationalism rising in Turkey, even with the transnational influences of brethren

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returning to Crimea. With that logic, Crimean Tatars in Turkey and the Turkish state would not support the Crimean Tatars as strongly in their process of return and demanding indigenous rights. Therefore, even though Cafer Seydahmet Kırımer died in despair thinking that his whole struggle came to nothing with the deportation of his people in 1944 he contributed greatly to their rebirth. In sum, transnational influences were significant for the emergence of Crimean Tatar nationalism in Turkey. Apart from Cafer Seydahmet, Müstecip Ülküsal’s Emel journal symbolized a slow but long-term work for socializing the community into Crimean Tatar cause. Pan-Turkism enabled synthesizing Turkish nationalism and Crimean Tatar nationalism, but ultimately Turkish ultranationalism (and its neo-nationalist version) emerges as a distraction and did not serve well for the long-distance identity movement in Turkey. Attachment to democratic principles served the best for Crimean Tatar nationalism in all diaspora settings. Cafer Seydahmet Kırımer and Emel being the most significant influences, the present diaspora revival must be largely credited to a small circle of post-war generation intellectuals who made the journey from Turkish ultra-nationalist circles to Crimean Tatar diaspora nationalism in the 1980s, led the mobilization of diaspora, carried out effective lobbying, and supported the rejuvenation of Crimean Tatar identity in the homeland in considerable ways and transformed the movement into a transnational mode presently. The case of the Crimean Tatar community in Turkey was also divided into three mini-cases. I began by noting how in the literature, it was declared that the Crimean Tatar diaspora in Turkey ceased, and this population was considered assimilated by many. Then, I pointed out the counter-intuitive rise of the Crimean Tatar nationalist movement in the 1980s. I explained the lack of strong mobilization among the Crimean Tatars in Turkey before 1980 and why they mobilized in the 1980s. This shift was explained by the fact that the Crimean Tatar nationalism developed as an émigré nationalist movement before the Second World War in Turkey, mainly because the political and discursive opportunities in Turkey were interpreted to be limited by the émigré leaders. Unlike the Crimean Tatars in Romania, the Crimean Tatars were not structurally discriminated against in Turkey; thus, the structural preconditions for exile nationalist mobilization did not exist. However, the community could not freely engage in Crimean Tatar nationalism because the Ottomans, and later Turkey strove to be on good terms with Russia/Soviet Union. The only support the government could give to

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Crimean Tatar nationalism was a clandestine one, as in the case of the Committee of Union and Progress government of the Ottoman Empire. Therefore, the most effective method to advance the Crimean Tatar interests was émigré nationalism. After all, mobilizing the masses would be counter-productive by provoking Russia to ask for the suppression of Turkey’s movement. In the interwar era, better political and discursive opportunities in Europe offered by the organization of the Promethean League and the relatively tolerant regime of the Romanian Kingdom caused the émigré leaders to channel their recruitment work to these geographical locations. The opportunity windows were not completely closed in Europe during the Second World War since Germany permitted the Crimean Tatar and other anti-Russian national activity. The émigré leaders formed a Crimean Tatar lobby in Berlin to influence German policy-making with regard to Crimea, and émigré leader Edige Kırımal was even permitted to go to German-occupied Crimea to meet the Crimean Tatar nationalists. In the end, the Crimean Tatars failed to attain most of their goals because of circumstances beyond their control. Still, they contributed to saving many Crimean Tatar nationalists from Crimea, POWs from camps, helped Ostarbeiter and nationalist refugees seek asylum in Turkey and the West. The second mini-case of the Turkish community took place between the end of the Second World War and the beginning of the 1980s. Despite ineffectiveness and low resonance, the émigré nationalist frame survived until the 1980s due to the lack of credible alternatives. Thus, the Crimean Tatar masses in Turkey had never politicized for the cause of Crimea either until the 1980s, explaining why many scholars pronounced the Crimean Tatars as assimilated in Turkey. The masses agreed to leave Crimean Tatar politics to a small group of émigré leaders. They were content with opportunities to maintain their language and folkways in their private spheres while adopting a Turkish national identity in the public sphere, similar to what many other ethnic groups have done in Turkey. The last mini-case of the Crimean Tatar nationalism in Turkey corresponds to the post-1980s. The loss of language, culture, and traditions by the 1970s, both due to increased education, mobility, urbanization, and internal migration, created the perception of the danger of assimilation among the Crimean Tatar masses (even in their private spheres) and provided pre-conditions for nationalism. The educated Crimean Tatars, just like the members of other ethnic groups in Turkey, began to view recognition of the Crimean Tatar “diaspora” identity in the public realm

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as necessary to thwart assimilation. The political and discursive opportunity structures in Turkey and the emergence of a transnational space between the Crimean Tatars in Turkey and the Soviet Union after glasnost’ enabled the learning of the Crimean Tatar framing processes in the USSR. The diaspora frame targeted the masses, unlike the previous émigré frame. This diaspora frame’s emergence can explain my main question about the recent counter-intuitive “rise“ in diaspora mobilization. For the first time in Turkey, the Crimean Tatar masses were provided with roles supporting the homeland and the national cause. However, unlike exile nationalist movements (in Romania and the USSR), it did not go as far as projecting a collective return to the homeland, simply because the diaspora community still accepted maintenance of identity as possible in Turkey, since Turkey began to liberalize more. The last mini-case is the Second World War refugees’ long-distance nationalism, who immigrated to the United States after a few decades of residence in Turkey. In the 1950s, one group of the Crimean Tatar refugees challenged the long-surviving émigré nationalism frame in Turkey, but they were hampered by the existing political and discursive threat structures. The refugees soon left for the United States because they thought a Western democracy must offer better political and discursive opportunities. Founding an organization, titled Crimean Foundation, they bridged frames with the movement in the Soviet Union. They framed the Crimean Tatar cause as a cause of human rights, focused on representing the Crimean Tatars to the outside world, and played the role of advocacy. The limitation was that these refugees‘ movement (or had to be) took the shape of émigré nationalism because it largely remained an elite movement with low resonance. The larger part of refugees preferred not to mention their past as forced labor under the Nazis as the postwar political environment in the United States was not perceived to be ready to capture the complex human tragedy the Soviet nationalities went through. This past could prevent their successful integration. They underwent segmented assimilation into the Turkish community in the United States. Therefore, Cengiz Da˘gcı (a refugee himself), the most significant, and perhaps the sole representative of diasporic literature, did not receive much attention from the Crimean Tatars in the United States because the author’s diaspora identity was embraced neither by the Crimean Tatars in the United States nor the ones in Turkey. He was finally appreciated as an ideologue of diaspora nationalism in the 1980s because his ideas fit with the newly emerging political opportunities.

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The Crimean Tatar community in the United States is perhaps the least understood of all diaspora communities. This community was almost as severely traumatized as the deported community in the USSR, but unlike the latter, they could not resolve it. The Crimean Tatars in the USSR psychologically addressed their trauma by collective return movement process and by returning. Because of their stigmatization in Russian and general historiography, the historical injustice committed against the refugees of the Second World War, the ones who were deceived by the Nazis to acquiesce with them or were forced to serve them has not been yet addressed. I expect this forgotten trauma to be addressed by the new generations of Crimean Tatar-Americans and Crimean Tatar long-distance nationalism in the future. Transnational frame-bridging and master frame extensions among major agents of the Crimean tatar organizations and journals are summarized in Figure 7.1.

Fig. 7.1 Frame alignment processes of Crimean Tatar extra-territorial agents and organizations

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7.2 Comparison of Cases and Theoretical Conclusions The comparative case-study research design was selected for this study. The case study fits best to the exploratory stages of political phenomena. The comparison enables us to determine patterns of interactions to explain the phenomena. 7.2.1

Movement Emergence

If movements emerge through frames, how frames are constructed became the central subject of my inquiry. First, I must answer the question of who constructs the frames. Elites, leaders, or intellectuals can suggest frames, or the frames can emerge through a collective process. In the Soviet and the recent case of the building of the Crimean Tatar transnational nation, the frame is more the outcome of collective production. In Romania, Mehmet Niyazi, in Turkey Vatan Cemiyeti and primarily Celebi Cihan and Cafer Seydahmet, and in the Turkish-American diaspora Mehmet Sevdiyar and Cengiz Dagci created long-distance nationalism frames. The frames suggested by individuals or groups of individuals may or may not gain resonance in the wider community. This situation contributes to determining the form of long-distance nationalism that would develop in a particular community. Certainly, long-distance nationalism limited to a small group of individuals is possible, and I identified this case as émigré nationalism. Frames with more considerable internal consistency, empirical credibility, and narrative fidelity had more resonance. I also identified some of the ways of increasing frame resonance, including changing frame and changing the master frame referred to. Certainly, there is a need for more research as to more dimensions of frame resonance. I continued to research how frames are constructed by looking for the ideational sources of them. I demonstrated my theoretical propositions that frames derive their ideational toolkit from the already available master frames. In the USSR case, I was able to identify two master frames that inspired the Crimean Tatar long-distance nationalism frame: first the Soviet communist frame, and later the human rights master frame. The frames in Romania and Turkey were formulated based on pan-Turkism, though the content of the master frame of pan-Turkism was not stagnant throughout the twentieth century. One part of the Turkish–American

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diaspora of the Crimean Tatars also utilized the human rights master frame, while the other part utilized the pan-Turkist master frame. Frames are constructed when relatively tolerant political conditions— political-discursive opportunities—exist or emerge in settlements. The émigré nationalism frame emerged after the revolution of 1908 in Istanbul when the Sultan accepted reforms toward liberalization, a constitution, and a people’s elected assembly. Freedom of opinion and organization for pan-Turkist and other groups are marked features of post-1908 Istanbul, especially when compared to Russia in the same period. These privileges paved the way for the emergence of émigré nationalism in Ottoman Turkey. In the interwar era, the Romanian kingdom was quite tolerant and non-interfering toward minorities compared to many other states in that period, certainly compared to the succeeding communist regime, which is when long-distance nationalism flourished among the Tatar minority in Romania. In the Soviet Union, the Khrushchev thaw’s relatively tolerant atmosphere was quite a contrast with the previous heavy-handedness of the Stalin era. It provided the discursive-political opportunities for the emergence of long-distance nationalism in the Central Asian exile. What is the relationship of the long-distance nationalism frame with the territorial nationalist frames? Is long-distance nationalism discourse merely a reproduction of territorial nationalism discourse? I will argue that long-distance nationalism discourse, including the arguments about being indigenous to Crimea, was greatly influenced by the framing processes of the exile experience. One of the significant points of this study is that diaspora experience transforms a national movement and even nationalism can emerge as a result of this experience. Today, the most significant justification for the Crimean Tatar demands of collective rights is the nonviolent struggle for collective return and its achievement after 50 years, demonstrating a great sacrifice for returning to the homeland. Similarly, however elitist, the émigré tradition in Turkey today laid the stones for the growth of diaspora nationalism in Turkey and its integration with the movement in the homeland. Unfortunately, the Crimean Tatars continue to be studied as if there is no diaspora or its diaspora does not matter. Nationalism developed in the homeland soil also influences the course of long-distance nationalism. Mehmet Niyazi was influenced by ˙ Ismail Gasprinskiy’s movement in constructing his long-distance nationalist frame. The nationalist discourses of the Crimean ASSR and the wartime nationalism in Crimea are also apparent in Mehmet Sevdiyar’s

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long-distance frame outlined in his book Etudy Ob Etnogeneze Krimski Tatar (A Study of Crimean Tatar Ethnogenesis) (1997). Nationalism must be studied in a transnational work in which homeland and diaspora’s mutual interactions will be traced. This is more needed as most nations develop into transnational nations, with active diasporas and sending states and societies seeking to transform their diasporas. 7.2.2

Movement Development

To explain how diaspora movements change is among the purposes of this study. To answer this question, I conducted a longue durée study of the Crimean Tatar diaspora communities. This study enables comparison both across space and time. Therefore, it can be argued that we have more than four cases to understand how frames transform. The minicases could also be regarded as “within-case comparisons.” Movements enter into an ideational path when a frame is chosen, and these movement traditions can only change when frames change. Thus, it is better to ask how frames change. A change in frames is generally prompted by a perception of a change in political-discursive opportunity structures, that is public discourses and political conditions that are perceived to be open or closed by movement agents. This study did not produce generalizations about diaspora mobilization regardless of the context. Instead, it demonstrated how the interplay of similar ideologies, ethnicities, traumas, grievances, resources, and organizations produced different movement paths depending on the context (context involves changes in the homeland and host land political situation). The succinct illustration is that Müstecip Ülküsal created two different types of movements in Romania and Turkey with almost identical movement cadre, ethnic culture (steppe Tatar), ideology (panTurkism). He was concerned about the maintenance of the Crimean Tatar language in Romania, but after migrating to Turkey he was not anymore. He was organizing a collective return movement in Romania, and after immigrating to Turkey, he dropped this goal. This tells so much about how structures influence individual agency. Mehmet Sevdiyar has a different vision for the Crimean Tatar diaspora in Turkey than his vision for Crimean Tatar refugees after immigrating to the United States. The refugees’ determination to leave the past behind to begin a new life in the United States limited his project for identity politics. These examples

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demonstrate that ideologies, ethnic identities, resources and organizations, and even political structures do not determine movements, but agents constantly make-meanings and negotiate different interests and ideas. As a general tendency, when new windows are perceived to be opened in the host land, homeland, or both, frames tend to transform. However, this does not mean that when political-discursive opportunity windows are not perceived as open, diaspora movements cease. Depending on the context, diaspora movements can move to other host lands to perceive better political and discursive opportunities. Therefore, it is crucial to study diasporic movements in a transnational context because of their flexibility and mobility. When the single-party Turkish regime restricted his movement, Cafer Seydahmet (Kırımer) decided to shift the base of his long-distance nationalism movement to Europe, mainly Romania and Poland. The Second World War refugees also left for the United States, where they were freer to develop their version of long-distance nationalism. When the Soviet Union invaded Romania, Müstecip Ülküsal emigrated to Turkey, where he continued his long-distance nationalism. This book makes the case that ideas matter, and it is important to trace when an idea first emerged, and how it became embedded with organizations and institutions to create change. Ideas are studied through frames, and frames are conceptualized as inter-subjective, socially constructed phenomena and have a certain level of control over an individual’s motivations. Frames are not transformed easily and that makes them a causal variable. Frames can change when opportunities change, credible alternative frames emerge, and alignment with other empowering master frames becomes possible. Note that not all non-resonant frames are changed automatically. Existing frames can survive due to a certain interpretation of political structures, or due to lack of creativity. This kind of non-resonant survival happened in Turkey as the next credible alternative framing emerged only in the 1980s under the influence of the community in the USSR. Alternative frames could not be formed when all indigenous sources of alternative framing were effectively destroyed as happened in totalitarian Romania. Frames can also have unintended consequences. The strictly nondiasporic frame promoted by the communist regime in Romania to integrate the community ended up maintaining its national identity until the community could re-connect to the homeland in the post-communist era. If frames are not abandoned by the community but destroyed by

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other powers, as happened to pre-war frames in Romania, they can reemerge when political-discursive opportunity windows re-appear. Pre-war frames re-emerged after the end of communism. This emergence can happen when the written materials involving the frame survive and are recovered by new generations, or oral history accounts of the era are given. Even though they lose resonance, frames do not necessarily disappear but linger on, and perhaps can be revived with a new take. Therefore, it is vital to study the dynamics of continuous meaning-making processes to understand identity movements. 7.2.3

Movement Consequences

The most important consequence of the Crimean Tatar long-distance nationalism is the collective return to the homeland. My initial question was why only one of the Crimean Tatar communities returned to the homeland even though many obstacles were removed after the collapse of the Soviet Union. This work suggests that this cannot be just explained based on the lack of political opportunities or assimilation of the Crimean Tatars outside the Soviet Union. Variation in movement consequences is the result of different movement paths. The “goal of return” is part of the exile nationalism frame. The social exclusion in the former Soviet Central Asia or interwar Romania also did not give the communities much of an option except for collective return. In a way, exclusion caused high cohesion, high resonance, and the strength of these movements, which involved profound sacrifices, not in the leadership but also at mass levels. Exclusion in pre-war Romania was not as high as in the Soviet state and that was one of the reasons the collective return movement in Dobruca was not as strong. Apart from setting return as a goal, the Soviet community returned because their long-time movement frame “keyed” so well into the USSR’s emerging master frame of democracy and human rights. For newly emerging post-Soviet political actors predominantly acknowledged the Crimean Tatars’ return as their right, which helped remove obstacles for their self-organized return. Therefore, it was a wise strategy for the Crimean Tatars to adopt a democracy and human rights frame early in the 1960s and develop coalitions with such movements in the USSR and the world. Return goal is not a natural conclusion springing from grievance, but it is a certain interpretation. It was not defined among the movements’

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goals in the communities in Turkey, Romania, and the United States. We must look at the historical context and the dynamics of a movement to understand why the return was not set as a goal hence did not take place. The community in Romania in the interwar period was identified as a case of exile nationalism; thus, it had a collective return frame, but the Second World War and the establishment of a communist regime in Romania disrupted its development toward the goal. Limitations of political and discursive structures, the influence of master frames or transnational frames, or the legacy of earlier frames also may play a role in determining goals and frames. The émigré nationalism movement in Turkey did not set collective return as a goal because it did not view itself as a collective movement but an elite movement. Therefore, it did not have collective projects. The limitations of political and discursive opportunities in Turkey paved the way to the perception that an elite struggle for Crimea is the most effective option. The émigré nationalism movement in the United States could not form a collective project because of the special social psychology of its community. In the context of the 1990s, the diaspora nationalists in Turkey, Romania, and the United States again viewed return not as a primary task because they did not have movement tradition harboring that goal. They defined a different mode of connecting with the homeland through political support. They interpreted that maintaining a hyphenated identity (including both allegiances to hostland components and homeland components) matters for them. The truth is diasporas adore their homeland, but they have gained an equally valuable richness in their experiences in the host land which they want to keep. Their initial identity changed through the diaspora experience. This is usually summarized in the phrase that return is impossible for some, for the place they would return is no more the place they left and they are not the ones who left anymore. Regarding my initial question about the simultaneous “rise“ of the diaspora movements in recent decades, I will conclude that the change of transnational political opportunities in the late 1980s, including developments in communications technology and ease in transportation prepared the background for the rising wave of diaspora nationalism. These changes not only created a discursive opening for diaspora identities and empowered diaspora communities but also accentuated the latter’s possible assimilation in the processes of speedy cultural homogenization. Nationalism increasingly became the language of a struggle of migrant communities to maintain their identities. The re-established link

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to community waging strong nationalist struggle induced the communities outside the USSR to update their frames to keep up with the homeland frame and this resulted in “diaspora nationalism.” Framing processes such as transnational frame-bridging is another significant cause of simultaneity in the rise of Crimean Tatar diaspora communities. Diaspora nationalism involved a role for the masses in terms of supporting the struggle of the re-patriated co-ethnics in the homeland. Therefore, diaspora activists strove to expand resonance through various framing processes, and this movement work created a rise in diaspora mobilization and activists’ number. Though the participants did not cover all of the diaspora members, it still constituted a significant rise in quantity, diversity, and dynamism after émigré nationalism in Turkey and the United States and territorial nationalism in Romania. The Crimean Tatar identity in diaspora owes its contemporary survival to political transnationalism. Had they not formed these close political links to their homeland, this identity in Turkey could disappear. The communities in Turkey with weaker political links to the homeland, such as Nogays, and Balkan Turks do not demonstrate similar rejuvenation. The Crimean Tatars in Crimea also owe greatly to transnationalism and their political links to the diaspora that could convince Turkey to support the Crimean Tatars. The power of transnational identity comes from attachment to homeland, and transnational nationalism is not deterritorialized or cosmopolitan. Without positing any determinism, we suggest that diaspora nationalism movements might develop toward transnational nationalism, which envisages membership of the nation regardless of location. The transnational nation is now institutionalized with the World Crimean Tatar Congress, creating an innovative political organization model for all stateless nations. Moreover, the powerful homeland (Mejlis) frame is mediated by the need for representation and recognition of the diaspora’s different viewpoints in this common frame, hence pointing out to a trend toward forming a more civic or multicultural Crimean Tatar identity (also, see Wilson, 2017). This process is still unfolding and will be interesting for future research.

7.3

Concluding Remarks on the Crimean Tatars

The political significance of the recent attempts to construct the transnational Crimean Tatar nation can only be understood in the light of the previous lack of progress in terms of the recognition of collective rights

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of the Crimean Tatars in Ukraine and present suppression of them in Russian-occupied Crimea. As a result of series of historical injustices, Crimean Tatars lost the great majority of their population and fell into an impoverished situation. The Russian government who perpetrated these crimes took further advantage of their minority position and disempowered the situation to commit further injustices by occupying their homeland and forcing them to either submit or leave. Transnational nation project for the Crimean Tatars means making the argument that they are not a minority, even though historically Russia did everything to reduce them into a minority, and even destroy their identity. Claim for the transnational nation means they take the initiative into their hands and re-define their community to include all diasporic Tatars, whose number is estimated to be in millions. As the ancestors of the diaspora were forced out of the homeland unjustly, the modern generations of diaspora preserve their right to return, or at least the right to have a say on the homeland’s future. In a situation when Russia shuts the Crimean Tatar representative organ in the peninsula, the Crimean Tatars began to bolster their transnational organization into a level of transborder representative organization and government. Russian occupation of the peninsula necessarily shifted a significant Crimean Tatar political struggle to exile again. In the words of Cemilev current oppression of the Russian state surpasses the Soviet Union (except for the Stalinist era) but many Crimean Tatars object to Russian rule. Even mere staying in Crimea is a national struggle now. I also would like to make some policy suggestions for Crimean Tatar leaders. In an era when the territorial nation-building processes are deconstructed, and the multiculturalism of existing nations are exposed, it is ultimately in vain to strive for a united, monolithic nation in the transnational sphere. The Crimean Tatars are “diasporic” forever; meaning it is not possible to return its bygone “authenticity” when every member of the nation lived in the homeland. Authenticity is a myth and historical research demonstrates the multiplicity of belongings even within the Crimean Khanate if that could be accepted as the previous form of the ˙ Crimean Tatar nation. Ismail Gasprinsky’s famous motto, oft-quoted in everyday conversations of the Crimean Tatars, “Unity in Language, Idea, and Deeds” must be interpreted not as a lack of opposition or difference but as a search for commonalities among the diverse identities and lifestyles in the homeland and diaspora, as a call for multicultural citizenship. Qurultay and WCTC are unique achievements and institutions

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with great potential for that. I will caution the homeland and diaspora communities against entering into a race of authenticity and hence legitimacy. Instead, they must recognize all communities in the homeland or the diaspora, asymmetrically located in terms of space, power, population, historical legacy, institutional density, culture, ideology, identity, grievances, and traumas and find mechanisms of recognition, just representation, meaningful political participation and collective healing for all. Several nations with diasporas at least have their states. The challenge of the Crimean Tatars is to construct a transnational nation without having access to their own state instruments. Their greatest aids are multiculturalism in host societies, international institutions, and their transnational community organizations. Another possible source of future power is recognition of the rights of the diasporic populations in international law and achievement of ethnocultural justice for diasporas. Ultimately, the Crimean Tatars must rely on their power and their own people’s support for changing their fate.

References Omer, M. (2019). Why did they leave? Perceptions on the Turkish emigration from Dobrogea to Turkey (1918–1940). International Journal of Political Science and Urban Studies, 7 (1), 42–54. Uehling, G. (2004). Beyond memory: The Crimean Tatars’ deportation and return. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Wilson, A. (2017). The Crimean Tatar question: A prism for changing nationalisms and rival versions of Eurasianism. JSPPS, 3(2), 1–45.

Appendices

Appendix A: Petro Grigorenko’s Speech A nationality has disappeared. But discrimination has remained. You did not commit the crimes for which you were expelled from Crimea, but you are not permitted to return there now. Why have your people been so discriminated against? Section 123 of the Soviet Constitution reads: ’Any direct or indirect limitation on rights… of citizens because of their racial or national membership… is punishable by law.’ Thus the law is on your side. [Stormy applause] But still, your rights are being flouted. Why? We believe that the main reason behind this is the fact that you underestimate your enemy. You think that you are dealing with honest people. But this is not so! What has been done to your people was not done by Stalin alone. And his accomplices are not only alive—but they occupy responsible positions. You are appealing to the leadership of the party and the state with conciliatory written requests. But that which belongs to you by right should not be asked for but demanded. [Stormy applause and cries of agreement] So begin to demand. And demand not just parts, pieces, but all that was taken from you unlawfully—demand the reestablishment of the

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 F. T. Aydın, Émigré, Exile, Diaspora, and Transnational Movements of the Crimean Tatars, Palgrave Studies in Citizenship Transitions, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-74124-2

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Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic! [Stormy applause and cries of “Hail the Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic”] Don’t limit your actions to the writing of petitions. Fortify them with all of those means which the Constitution provides you—the freedom of speech and the press, of meetings, assemblies, of street marches and demonstrations. A newspaper is published for you in Moscow. But the people behind that newspaper do not support your movement. Take the newspaper away from them. Elect your editorial board. And if people hinder you in doing this, boycott that newspaper and create another one—your own! A movement cannot develop normally without its press. And in your struggle do not shut yourselves in a narrow nationalist shell. Establish contacts with all the progressive people of other nationalities of the Soviet Union. Do not consider your cause to be solely an internal Soviet matter. Appeal for help to the world progressive public and international organizations. What was done to you in 1944 has a name. It was genocide. The agreement adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations on December 9, 1948, referred to genocide as follows: ’…actions carried out with the intent of destroying fully or in part some national, ethnic, racial or religious group…’ by various means and in particular by the intentional establishment ’for them of conditions of life which have as their purpose its complete or partial physical extermination’ [of the group]. Such actions, that is, genocide, ’from the point of view of international law are a crime which is to be condemned by the civilized world and for committing which the principal persons guilty and their accomplices are subject to punishment.’ As you can see, international law is also on your side. [Stormy applause] And if you fail to solve this question inside the country you have the right to appeal to the U. N. and the International Court. Stop asking! Get back that which belongs to you by right but was unlawfully taken from you! [Stormy applause. People jumped up and cried: “The Crimean ASSR! The Crimean ASSR!] And remember: In this just and noble struggle, you must not allow the enemy to seize with impunity the warriors who are marching in the first ranks of your movement. In Central Asia, there has already been a whole series of trials at which fighters for the national equality of the Crimean Tatars have been illegally convicted of false charges. Right now in Tashkent, a trial of the

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same stature is being prepared against Enver Mametov, Yuri and Sabri Osmanov, and others. Do not permit them to be judicially repressed. Demand that the trial be public in accordance with the law. Demand and get a public trial, go to it en masse, and do not permit the courtroom to be packed with a specially chosen audience. Courtroom representatives of the Crimean Tatar people must be seated in the courtroom. To the brave and unbending fighters for national equality, to Alexei Kostyorin, to the successes of the Crimean Tatar people, and a reunion in the Crimea, in the reestablished Crimean Autonomous Republic! (An excerpt from Grigorenko, P. (1982). Memoirs. [T. P. Whitney transl.] New York: W.W. Norton, pp. 352–353. The entire text of “Speech at a Banquet to Celebrate the Seventy-Second Birthday of A.E. Kosterin” is included in The Grigorenko Papers: Writings by General P.G. Grigorenko and Documents on his Case. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1976, pp. 58–63). Appendix B: Open Letter of Russian Friends of Crimean Tatars The Crimean Tatars are judged. In Uzbekistan, one lawsuit follows another. They judge the Crimean Tatars. For what they judge them? Let’s remember how the Crimean Tatars came to be in Central Asia. In April 1944, Soviet Army liberated Crimea from Germans. On the night of the 18th of May, the Crimean Tatars, in cities and villages, each in their homes met with automatic weapons. “15 minutes for packing. Only take those which you can carry.” This is how the expelling of the Crimean Tatars began from Crimea… …This was a way towards slow death in the baggage train. …This road trip took 3–4 weeks…They carried red partisans of Crimea, fighters of Bolshevik underground… …They brought the Crimean Tatars in reservations in Ural, Kazakhstan, and mainly in Uzbekistan. This is how these people emerged in Uzbekistan. The deportation ended, but the extermination of the nation just began. The local population which received propaganda from the authorities welcomed the new settlers with sullen estrangement. The foreign land welcomed them with a burning sun, malaria, and dirty water, which after freshest Crimean water created in hungry and weakened people diseases. After living in barracks… a more humane life started. Later with a lot

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of work, they built new homes. However, this all happened later. And in 1944–1945, many died in exile settlements. … ….As such in one and a half year, less than half of the Crimean Tatars dies, often corpses lying among the living. This was a genocide, nation-killing. Genocide! The death among the Crimean Tatars reached 46%. In the year 1956… the Edict of the Presidium of High Soviet of USSR appeared with regards to the Crimean Tatars and several other nationalities recognizing the genocide. In the first part… “special settlers to be liberated from administrative obligations of the organs of MVD.” In the second part… “…the removal of limitations from special settlers …does not involve the return of the property, confiscated before relocation and they do not have the right to return to places where they were departed from” At that time, the struggle of the Crimean Tatar people for full rehabilitation …and the right to return to their homeland began. ’ Everything was done to eradicate all traces of the national life of the Crimean Tatars and even memory of their existence. Their houses were demolished, and their vines and orchards allowed to become wild and overgrown. The Crimean Tatars’ cemeteries were plowed up and their ancestors’ remain torn out of the ground…Everything is written and printed in the Crimean Tatar language was burned, from ancient manuscripts to the classics of Marxism-Leninism. The history of the Crimea was falsified by hacks with diplomas’ But the Crimean Tatar movement for national rebirth enlarged every day. Edict of the Presidium of High Soviet of USSR on 5 September 1967 rehabilitated, finally the Crimean Tatar nation removing the hardest accusation of betrayal. But in that, the question of return was avoided. …it is as if the Crimean Tatar people have never existed with its territory, language, culture, and statehood. In thousands and thousands of letters to authorities …there is one wish: “Return us to the homeland!” Organized return to Crimea (in few years) compact settlements and rise of autonomy – these are mostly just demands of the Crimean Tatars who “laid roots in Uzbekistan.” Those whom those demands are directed decided the restless people to “lay roots” that is cutting their roots as a nation. What they mean is not

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physically cutting roots just as in Stalin’s period, but cutting roots ethnically, strong assimilation and artificial preservation of conditions through which the national language, national culture, and national traditions die. ….All documents which include information about natural movement of the Crimean Tatars …is regarded by local authorities as a document of anti-Soviet content and including criminal nature and those who prepare and keep those documents are adjudicated ….Peaceful demonstrations and meetings of the Crimean Tatars are regarded as “massive disorder”…they disperse them, beat them …and put in vans [to take to headquarters] And anew arrests and courts after courts… Moscow, January 1969. [translated by Robert Conquest] (cf Conquest, R. 1970. Nation killers: Soviet deportation of nationalities, London: Macmillan, p. 107.) Appendix C: The Declaration of the World Crimean Tatar Congress (22 May 2009, Simferopol) We, as the representatives of the 162 civil society and social, political organizations in 14 countries, to the World Crimean Tatar Congress, came together in Crimea, the historical homeland of the Crimean Tatar people. Based on the following: The rights of the Crimean Tatar people to fully realize the rights and freedoms recognized by the Statute of United Nations, Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Declaration on the Rights of the Indigenous Peoples, and the norms of the international law related to peoples’ and human rights. Expressing incredible worry because of the lack of robust change in a positive direction on the subject of the return of the rights of the Crimean Tatar people on their own land Crimea. Being aware of the direct danger of prolonging the acceptance of immediate and efficient solutions for the political, economic, and cultural development of the Crimean Tatar people. Being sure of the fact that the return of the Crimean Tatars people’s rights will contribute to the development of harmonious relations between Ukraine and Crimea’s local people, which will be founded on cooperation and based on the principle of justice, respect for human rights, non-discrimination, and honesty.

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Understanding that the removal of the consequences of the genocide committed against the Crimean Tatar people on 18 May 1944, and the exile continued for tens of years is not possible only by Ukraine’s efforts, and therefore this must be the topic of special attention and guardianship of the UN, European Council, European Union, and other international organizations. Carrying strong will for providing the greatest help for the strengthening of peace and understanding among the world peoples and nations, and the development of mutual understanding, cooperation, and friendship between Ukraine and the countries where the civil society organizations of the Crimean Tatars operate. Aiming for the goal of directing all power, energy, and knowledge for the benefit of the Crimea and Crimean Tatar people’s freely determination of their own political status and free realization of their own economic, social, and cultural development. WE DECLARE THE BELOW: The establishment of the “World Crimean Tatar Congress” organization as the organ unifying the Crimean Tatar organizations, which were founded in various countries and declared their will to mutually cooperate based on the principles, goals, and duties expressed in this declaration. The location of the central organs of the World Crimean Tatar Congress is Crimea, Ukraine. WE STATE: The Crimean Tatar Qurultay and its organs are the highest authorized representative organ of the Crimean Tatar people for the World Crimean Tatar Congress and the Crimean Tatar organizations that joined the World Crimean Tatar Congress with the principle of equality and respect regardless of their numbers or the country or region where they operate. The Crimean Tatar Qurultay and its organs and authorized personnel develop relations based on the principle of equality and respect with the Crimean Tatar organizations that joined the World Crimean Tatar Congress regardless of their numbers or the country or region where they operate. WE ACKNOWLEDGE: Our all efforts that we show for the benefit of the Crimean Tatar People is based on the principle of non-violence, justice, democracy, and strict observation of the economic, cultural, religious, and other legal rights of all people regardless of their nationality. Accepted in on 22 May 2009 in Akmescit [Simferopol] Crimea.

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Appendix D: Short Biographies of Top Cadre of Emel Journal (in Turkey) and Member of Crimean Tatar National Center (Kırım Milli Merkezi) Sabri Arıkan was born in Bursa in 1911. His articles appeared in Emel , published in Romania in the 1930s. He studied in Poland in 1935. His articles continued to appear under the pseudonym, M. Alaç, in Emel , published in Turkey after 1960. He edited and contributed publishing the works of Cafer Seydahmet Kırımer and Edige Kırımal in Turkish. He translated and published Gasprinskiy’s articles from Tercüman. He died in 2013. Emin Bektöre was born in Pazarcık (then part of Romania) in 1906. He organized several Crimean Tatar folk dance ensembles, wrote, and staged didactic plays in Crimean Tatar. He immigrated to Turkey in 1940 and settled in Eski¸sehir. He continued teaching Crimean Tatar folk dance and songs until his death in 1995. Edige Mustafa Kırımal was born in Ba˘gçasaray in 1912. His family had moved from Poland to the Crimea. He finished Pedagogical Institute in Akmescit (Simferopol’), Crimea. He escaped to Turkey after the revolution. Cafer Seydahmet recruited him to his émigré nationalist circle and made him the representative of the Crimean Tatar National Center in Europe. He went to Poland, where his relatives lived and graduated this time from Vilnuis University School of Political Science in 1939. During the Second World War, he assisted the Crimean Tatar POWs. He settled in Germany after the war. In 1952, he wrote his doctoral book, which became the best account of the Crimean Tatar national movement, based on interviews with the participants of the 1917 national movement when they came to Germany. He worked for the Institute for the Study of Soviet Union and became the editor of Dergi (Journal), a Turkish journal, published in Germany, specializing in Soviet studies. He wrote in German one of the best accounts of the Crimean Tatar national movement. He died in Munich in 1980. ˙ ˙ Ibrahim (1913–1986) and Ismail Otar (1911–2005) were sons of a Crimean Tatar who emigrated Turkey from Otar village of Ba˘gçasaray, ˙ Crimea. They were born in Bursa. Ibrahim Otar completed his education in Poland and Turkey and became a lawyer. He was employed in Warsaw as a member of the Crimean Tatar National Center. He proposed a cultural foundation to collect the historical and ethnographic materials about the Crimea, which was realized with the founding of Emel Vakfı.

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˙ After he died in 1986, his brother, Ismail Otar instituted a private library ˙ involving the archival collection of Cafer Seydahmet Kırımer and Ibrahim Otar. Ali Kemal Gökgiray’s family had emigrated from Canköy, Crimea to Dobruca in 1833. They remigrated to Turkey in 1900, where Ali Kemal was born in 1914. He was a military officer and a graduate of Istanbul Law Faculty. He owned and directed Emel , and wrote many articles under the pseudonym, Kırımsar. He died in 1983. Mehmet Selim Ortay (1908–1967) Born in Istanbul. Graduated from Istanbul Technical High School. Studies engineering in Warsaw in 1930 and graduated as electrical engineer in 1935. He worked for the Crimean Tatar cause for two more years in Warsaw. He specialized on Eastern European and Russian politics and spoke in many conferences on these subjects in Turkish political institutions. He wrote a short book on Crimean Liberation Movement in Polish and Turkish. He wrote many articles in Emel and also contributed consciousness-raising and mobilizing work in Dobruca’s Crimean Tatar villages. Abdullah Zihni Soysal was born in Kerç, Crimea in 1905. He immigrated to Turkey in 1920. After graduating from Istanbul University, he received his Ph. D. in Turkology from the Krakow University, Poland. In 1941, he went to Berlin to work with Edige Kırımal and Hüseyin Baliç to find aid for Crimean Tatar prisoners of war (POWs). He died in Istanbul in 1983. ˙ Muallim Tahsin (Ibrahim) was a teacher, journalist, and author. He was in the founding cadre of Emel in 1930, and for his nationalist activity, he was sentenced to 4 years by the communist government in 1954. Later, his poetry and short stories entered into curriculum into the Crimean Tatar schools in the communist era. He died in 1972. Yusuf Uralgiray was born in Topraisar village of Constanta, Romania. He graduated from Al-Azher University in Cairo. He worked in Ankara and Riyad Universities. He was the representative of Crimean Tatar National Center to the Middle East. He wrote an Arabic book called Tragedy of Crimea. In 1970, he joined the Asian Muslims Congress in Pakistan to represent the Crimean Tatars. In 1978, he spoke at Luzern Conference on Crimean Tatars cause. He contributed to the establishment Emel Foundation. His several translations and articles were published in Emel . He died in 1986.

Index

A Abdülakim, Selim, 152 Adana, 195, 229 Akimov, Cebbar, 108 Aladin, Amed, 172, 173, 180, 186 Alphabet, 163, 179, 180, 228, 239, 251, 284 Crimean Tatar alphabet, 166, 251, 283 Altan, Mübeyyin Altan, 200, 266–271, 274, 279 Anderson, B., 21, 25, 38, 41, 145 Andijan, 84, 85 Ankara, 2, 144, 181, 195, 207, 212, 219, 221, 225, 227–229, 231–233, 236, 239, 245, 249, 254 Anthem, 2, 245 Çelebi Cihan, 2 Assimilation, 4, 34, 35, 43, 45, 95, 132, 137, 162, 165, 169, 171, 173, 174, 193, 197, 226, 235,

257, 266, 272, 278, 284, 286, 287, 293, 294, 303

B Ba˘gçasaray, 97, 111, 251, 305 Baharistan, 110, 111, 164 Baharistan Akiqatı, 111 Baliç, Halim, 215, 306 Bayram (Eid), 144, 153, 154, 171 Bekmambet, Ali, 155, 171, 177, 184 Bektöre, Emin, 153, 208, 221, 225, 226, 305 Benford, R., 44, 46, 49 Brown, David, 41 Brubaker, Rogers, 9, 22, 42 Bulgaria, 3, 6, 16, 17, 129, 133, 134, 149, 157–159, 164, 165, 170, 171, 173–175, 181 Southern Dobruca, 134, 144, 155, 157, 181 Bursa, 219, 238, 239, 243–245, 249, 305

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 F. T. Aydın, Émigré, Exile, Diaspora, and Transnational Movements of the Crimean Tatars, Palgrave Studies in Citizenship Transitions, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-74124-2

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INDEX

C Cafer Seydahmet (Kırımer), 8, 11, 55, 59, 138, 147–149, 156, 197–210, 213, 215, 217–220, 222–226, 249, 274, 284, 285, 289, 292, 305, 306 Ca¸s , 169 Ceausescu, Nicolae, 158, 165 Cemilev Kırımo˘glu, 94, 101 Mustafa Cemilev, 12, 15, 74, 91, 94, 96, 98, 103, 104, 112, 179–181, 229, 230, 237, 238, 269 Re¸sat Cemilev, 100, 104, 105, 108, 269 Chiabur, 160, 161 Chirchik demontration, 92, 101 Cihan Çelebi, Noman, 2, 8, 147, 154, 155, 177, 184, 198, 202, 206, 221, 222 Collective memory, 23, 36, 58, 60, 71, 122, 129, 130, 132, 133, 138, 171, 176, 195–197, 216 Collective return, 4, 5, 18, 24, 26, 57, 59, 69–71, 87, 88, 90, 99, 109, 111, 119, 121, 122, 128, 257, 281–284, 287, 288, 290, 291, 293, 294 collective return frame, xxi, 54, 57, 60, 71, 72, 75–77, 85, 109, 112, 113, 117, 120, 187, 268, 294 return to homeland, 15, 18, 27, 52, 54, 69, 91, 99, 121, 122, 138, 142, 166, 184, 293 Communications technology, 294 Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), 78 20th Party Congress, 73 23rd Party Congress, 83 24th Party Congress, 104 25th Party Congress, 104

26th Party Congress, 104 Central Committee, 75, 80, 86, 91 Communists, 73, 74 Constanta, 134, 139, 140, 150, 156, 157, 165, 166, 168, 169, 173, 175, 177, 179, 306 Constructivism/construction, 23, 39, 40, 42, 52, 118, 241 Crimea Crimean ASSR, 8, 11, 75, 76, 84, 88, 89, 110, 120, 222, 290 homeland, 4, 141, 146, 147, 180, 200, 234, 283, 284 occupation of, 10, 28, 121, 181, 194, 211, 254, 256 Crimean Muslims Association, 196, 206 Crimean Tatar nationalism, 8–10, 18, 128, 129, 135, 138, 143, 152, 153, 156, 169, 176, 194, 196, 198, 202, 221, 222, 232, 249, 254, 284–286 Crimeanism, 144, 156, 176, 177 Crimean Tatar National Movement Organization Crimean Tatar national parliament, 199 Mejlis, 182, 254, 295 Organizatsiia Krimskotatarskogo Natsional’nogo Dvijenya (OKND), 237 Qırım Milliy Areket Te¸skilatı (QTMHT), 117 Qırım Tatar Milliy Meclisi (QTMM), 19 Çubarov, 254, 256 Refat Çubarov, 254 D Da˘gcı Cengiz Da˘gcı, 222, 266, 273, 274, 277, 278, 287 Timur Da˘gcı, 77, 78, 82, 84, 104

INDEX

Department of Tatar Language and Literature, 79, 110, 164, 166 Deportation, 1, 2, 9–12, 15, 18, 54, 69–76, 82, 84, 89–92, 94, 96, 98, 99, 109, 114, 116, 118, 159, 171, 187, 218, 219, 234, 272, 283, 285 Deportation Day (18th May), 171, 186, 271 Derviza, 220, 225 De-Stalinization, 87, 281 Diaspora Cohen, Robin, 22, 36–39 Jewish, 34, 37, 38, 40 mobilization, 5, 19, 25, 27, 33, 34, 37, 39, 41, 52, 70, 194, 238, 287, 291 nationalism, 26, 27, 55, 57, 60–63, 129, 133, 168, 169, 174, 177, 182, 231, 240, 248, 257, 265, 278, 284, 285, 287, 290, 294, 295 new diasporas, 4, 188, 248 old diaspora, 141, 278 post-structuralists, 34, 36 rise in, 5, 19, 24, 287, 294, 295 theories of, 4, 23, 25, 33, 34, 37 Dissident, 57, 71, 92–94, 99, 100, 102, 118, 122, 158, 228, 273, 274, 282 Dobruca, 6, 16, 26, 128–133, 135, 138, 139, 142, 146–149, 151, 155–158, 160, 163, 164, 166, 167, 169, 179–184, 187, 195, 196, 225, 234, 251, 282, 283, 293 Romania, 6, 132, 134, 146, 169–171, 178, 179 southern Dobruca, 134, 144, 155, 157, 181 Dobruca Türk Hars Birli˘gi (DTHB), 154, 177

309

Dobruca Turkish Cultural Union, 152, 154 Dobruca Türk Hars Birli˘gi (DTHB), 154, 177 Dostluq, 111, 117 Dünya Kırım Tatar Kongresi (DKTK), 252, 254, 255

E Eastern Legions, 213, 216, 217, 274, 276 Edict, 74, 76, 86, 90, 96 1967 Edict, 87–90, 94, 100, 106, 114, 265, 273 1967 decree, 90 Education schools, 13, 37, 39, 80, 87, 91, 106, 110, 134, 136, 138, 144, 153, 163, 165, 166, 177–179, 196, 239, 256, 283 Tatar schools, 15, 147, 158, 163, 164, 166, 167, 173, 306 university, 52, 81, 91, 136, 161, 168, 239 Emel , 52, 55, 133, 143, 145–152, 154–157, 177, 179, 197, 208, 210, 213, 225–229, 232, 233, 235–237, 239, 241, 242, 245, 248–250, 269, 272, 273, 278, 282, 284, 285, 305, 306 Emigration, 6, 7, 16, 127, 130, 134, 135, 157, 269 émigré, 8, 10, 11, 17, 21, 26–28, 56–60, 63, 121, 130, 145, 148, 196, 199–202, 204, 207–210, 213–218, 220–222, 224, 225, 227, 228, 230–233 émigré nationalism, 27, 55–57, 59, 60, 62, 199, 200, 204, 210, 211, 224, 227, 257, 271, 286, 287, 289, 290, 294, 295

310

INDEX

Empirical credibility, 49, 122, 233, 271, 289 Eski¸sehir, 193, 195, 219, 220, 225, 226, 239, 244, 245, 249, 305 Ethno-symbolism, 36 Smith, Anthony, 36, 38 Exile nationalism, 26, 55, 58–62, 70, 122, 132, 138, 150, 156, 158, 165, 173, 176, 177, 187, 227, 257, 281, 283, 284, 293, 294 Experiential commensurability, 49 F Fazıl, Necip Hacı, 144, 151, 156, 160 Fazıl, Rıza, 74, 79, 80 Fire, 2, 107, 130, 141, 196 eternal flame, 2 Flag, 2, 214 azure flag, 203 Crimean Tatar flag, 2, 14, 155, 235, 245, 247 Frame(s)/framing collective return frame, xxi, 54, 57, 60, 75, 76, 85, 99, 109, 112, 113, 117, 120, 187, 294 counter-framing, framecontests, 44, 46, 53, 56, 71, 90, 96, 122, 177, 256 frame alignment, 23, 44–46, 50, 52, 53, 58, 61, 77, 78, 81, 82, 88, 89, 105, 143, 150, 155, 167, 181, 187, 223, 224, 239, 241–244, 247, 248, 278 frame amplification, 45, 46, 54–56, 92, 146, 200, 234 frame bridging, 45, 46, 53, 99, 179 frame extension, 45, 46, 48, 54, 78, 79, 91, 94, 167, 188, 202 frame resonance, 22, 23, 25, 48, 51, 57, 58, 60, 204, 244, 289 frame transformation, 22, 45–47, 50, 53, 54, 57, 90, 92, 93,

108, 111, 118, 182, 188, 231, 232, 234, 235, 241, 243, 253, 257, 278 master-frame, 22, 23, 26, 44, 46–48, 52–57, 71–74, 79, 84, 87, 88, 90, 92, 98, 99, 102, 108, 109, 111, 112, 116–118, 122, 137, 138, 145, 159, 165, 174, 176, 182, 188, 202, 203, 207, 227, 268, 269, 281, 282, 289, 290, 292–294 movement frames, 23, 25, 26, 46, 77, 81, 82, 281, 293 non-resonant frame, 50, 292 transnational frame-bridging, 55, 57, 147, 180, 252, 295

G ˙ Gasprinskiy, Ismail Bey, 7, 8, 137, 138, 147, 165, 200, 202, 240, 290 Genocide, 9, 15, 40, 41, 69, 91, 94–96, 100, 101, 133, 276, 300, 302, 304 historical injustice, 105, 141, 142, 288, 296 Germany/German, 3, 9–11, 56, 57, 72, 82, 86, 92, 114, 150, 156, 209, 211–217, 222, 228, 230, 236, 243, 267, 272, 276, 286, 305 Gestapo, 162 Nazi, 9–11, 59, 92, 115, 151, 211–216, 272, 276, 277, 287, 288 Gorbachev, Mihael, 70, 72, 86, 112, 113, 120, 122, 282 Gorbachev-Reagan summit, 103 Great Tatar Group case, 160 Grievances, 41, 45, 71, 135, 202, 284, 291, 293, 297

INDEX

Grigorenko, Pyotr, 92–94, 100, 102, 103, 271 H Hıdırellez, 19, 171 Halk-Poporul , 152 ˙ Hayırov, Izzet, 78, 85, 97, 109 Homeland attachment to, 18, 274, 295 coast, 127 fatherland, 72, 84, 89, 106, 193, 202 Green Land, 130, 184 motherland, 76, 99, 193 relations to, 63 soil, 141, 290 territory, 38, 61 Host land, 27, 52, 53, 58–60, 131, 172, 183, 255, 291, 292, 294 discrimination, 40, 70, 88, 90, 91, 94–96, 101, 160, 284, 299 host-society, 45 host state, 248 multiculturalism, 25, 172, 296, 297 Human rights, 15, 26, 46, 57, 96, 98–103, 105, 113, 118, 227, 229, 269, 282, 287, 289, 290, 293, 303 human rights movement, 11, 54, 71, 83, 93, 99–101, 103, 108 Hunger strike, 98, 103, 107, 112, 269 I ˙ Ibrahim, Tahsin, 161 Ideology, 21, 26, 41, 44–46, 95, 137, 138, 151, 173, 202, 207, 249, 273, 291, 297 ideas, 20, 24, 44, 52, 136, 137, 139, 143, 153, 196, 223, 252, 257, 278, 283, 287, 292

311

pan-Turkism, 46, 55–57, 136–139, 143–145, 152, 153, 169, 174–176, 198, 202, 209, 268, 285, 289, 291 Immigration/immigrant, 6, 7, 35, 38, 45, 56, 70, 109, 132, 133, 165, 179, 195–197, 200, 201, 208, 219, 220, 225, 244, 265–268, 272, 278 Incorporation, 21, 35, 58, 129, 132, 193 Indigenous people, 1, 12, 15, 97, 179, 216, 303 korenizatsiia, 71, 97, 158, 159, 164, 165 Initiative groups, 81, 82, 103, 107, 112, 117 Instrumentalism, 39 Intellectuals, 2, 44, 51, 78, 109, 113, 136–138, 144, 147, 148, 185, 199, 200, 202, 284, 285, 289 cadre, 59, 138, 140, 147, 150, 153, 199, 208, 224, 228, 232, 233, 241, 245, 291, 306 elite, 51, 77 intelligentsia, 9, 26 intelligentsia, 77, 100, 136, 158, 185, 212, 272, 279, 284 Young Tatars, 8 Young Turks, 136, 137, 139, 152, 198 Iron Guard, 151, 156 Romania, 151 Islam, 7, 170, 249 Eid, 171, 244, 247 hajj , 162, 165 mosques, 106, 131, 134, 153, 155, 162, 163, 170, 178, 211 Muslim, 6–8, 10, 11, 17, 103, 114, 131, 133–137, 140, 145–147, 152, 161, 162, 164–166, 173, 174, 176, 184, 193, 196, 198,

312

INDEX

201, 202, 207, 211, 212, 214, 215, 219, 228, 276 Istanbul, 8, 17, 135–139, 141, 181, 195, 198–200, 202, 203, 205, 206, 209, 219, 220, 224, 225, 230, 237, 239, 244, 246, 290, 306 ˙ Izmit, 195, 243 J Journal Emel , 55, 143, 145, 148, 149, 152, 154, 177, 179, 197, 210, 225, 228, 232, 236, 242, 273, 284, 285, 305 Kırım, 179, 221–225, 245, 249, 250 Kalgay, 245 Yıldız, 80, 236, 237, 242, 250 K Kırımal, Edige, 8, 11, 148, 150, 199, 208, 213–215, 217, 218, 222, 223, 228, 286, 305, 306 ˙ Kırımlı, Ahmet Ihsan, 238, 240, 246, 248, 251 Kırımlı, Hakan, 129, 196, 228, 232, 234–237, 247, 248, 250, 251 Kadiyev, Rollan, 95, 102, 104 Karadeniz, 169, 175, 177, 178, 184 Karaim, 216, 218, 219 Karamurat, 156 Karatay, Zafer, 232, 234, 236, 237, 241, 242, 248 Kazan Tatar, 137, 145, 158, 163, 185 ˙ Kerimov, Ismail, 78, 80, 97, 111, 178 KGB, 77, 79, 95, 97, 103, 105, 268 Khanate Crimean Khanate, 6, 93, 155, 167, 240, 296 Gerays, 130, 131

Khrushchev, 12, 62, 71, 73, 76, 112, 290 Konya, Turkey, 195, 219, 243–245, 249, 251 Korenizatsiia, 71, 97, 158, 164, 165 korenniy, 97, 99, 116

L Language Crimean Tatar language, 6, 13, 51, 72, 79, 80, 96, 110, 117, 148, 163–166, 168–170, 174, 178–180, 185, 196, 216, 228, 251, 291 dialect language, 6, 251 native tongue, 91, 110, 168, 178, 179 Russian language, 86 Turkish language, 144, 164, 166, 168, 173–176, 284 Lenin Bayra˘gı, 79, 80, 111, 117, 228, 236, 237, 242, 250, 269 Leninism/Leninis, 46, 73, 76, 87, 302 Literature Cengiz Da˘gcı, 274, 287 Crimean Tatar literature, 79, 184 folk literature, 166, 168, 196 Mehmet Niyazi, 139, 275 poems, 166 poetry, 74, 140, 143 songs, 49, 177 Lobbying, 11, 59, 60, 76, 104, 120, 206, 218, 240, 285 long-distance nationalism, 5, 18, 21, 22, 25–27, 34, 35, 43, 52, 55, 58–61, 132, 193, 194, 281–284, 287–290, 292, 293 forms of, 58, 62 typology of, 21, 26, 34, 63

INDEX

M Madrasa, 136 Mecidiye Madrasa, 136 Mecidiye Medresesi, 136 Mankalye/Mangalia, 156, 187 Mecidiye/Medgidia Mecidiye Madrasa, 136 Medgidia Seminary, 144, 152, 155, 163, 164, 167, 177, 185 Mejlis, 254, 295 Crimean Tatar National Parliament, 102 Memedemin, Ya¸sar, 177, 178, 181–183, 185 Migration/migrants, 3, 16, 21, 34, 35, 37, 39–41, 43, 45, 52, 129, 130, 135, 146, 147, 195, 196, 231, 286, 294 Millet system, 128, 131 Minority rights, 7, 25, 147, 172, 174, 182, 188 Mobilization, 3–5, 19, 22, 25, 28, 33, 34, 37, 39–44, 50, 58, 61, 62, 70, 71, 81, 84, 127, 154, 155, 158, 169, 171, 187, 188, 198, 201, 257, 285, 295 of by-standers, 88, 99 of constituents, 49 Moscow, 72, 81–86, 90–93, 97, 100, 101, 106, 109, 112, 113, 115, 140, 256, 300 Moscow square, 100 Red Square, 81, 85, 104, 113, 243 mosque, 106, 131, 134, 153, 155, 162, 163, 170, 178, 211 Movement grassroots-based, 58, 241 movement consequences, 25, 53–55, 57, 187, 257, 293 movement development, 54–56, 71, 291 movement elites, 51, 52, 167

313

movement emergence, 25, 52, 54–57, 289 movement goals, 26, 50, 53, 58 movement participants, 61, 84 movement success, 157 Movement participation by-stander, 88, 99 mid-level activists, 81, 82 movement leader, 44, 46, 50, 51, 71, 77, 80, 199 recruitment, 45, 148, 232, 286 Mubarek, 110, 111, 116, 164 Musa Mamut, 107, 108 Muslim committee, 9, 115, 151, 211–217, 267 Central Muslim Committee, 212 WWII, 135, 150

N Narodnii Komissariat Vnutrennikh Del (NKVD), 151, 160 Narrative fidelity, 49, 50, 249, 272, 289 Nation ethnicity, 25, 36–38, 40, 42 indigenous people, 12, 216 minority, 296 sub-ethnic, 55 theories of ethnicity and nationalism, 2 National Center, 150, 152, 156, 197, 209, 213, 220, 221, 227, 230, 232, 233, 267, 271 Crimean Tatar National Center, 148, 268, 305, 306 Promethean League, 56, 148, 197, 209, 227 Nationalism diaspora nationalism, 26, 27, 55, 57, 60–63, 129, 133, 168, 174, 177, 182, 231, 248, 257,

314

INDEX

265, 278, 284, 285, 287, 290, 294, 295 émigré nationalism, 27, 55–60, 62, 63, 199, 200, 204, 210, 211, 224, 227, 257, 271, 286, 287, 289, 290, 294, 295 exile nationalism, 26, 55, 58–62, 70, 122, 132, 138, 150, 158, 159, 165, 173, 176, 177, 187, 227, 281, 283, 284, 293, 294 long-distance nationalism, 5, 18, 21, 22, 25–27, 34, 35, 43, 52, 55, 58–61, 63, 64, 132, 193, 194, 281–284, 287–290, 292, 293 minority nationalism, 61, 62, 283 territorial nationalism, 18, 61, 121, 132, 164, 168, 178, 188, 284, 290, 295 transnational nationalism, 21, 26, 28, 58, 61, 256, 295 National Party, 8, 197, 206, 209, 210, 212, 213, 215, 225, 227, 232, 233, 249 Milli Fırqa, 8, 208, 212 nation-building, 9, 14, 17, 35, 40, 59, 62, 63, 206, 250, 257, 283, 296 Navrez, 19, 171 newspaper Baharistan Akiqati, 111 Çolpan, 201 Karadeniz, 160, 169 Lenin Bayra˘gı, 79, 80, 111, 117, 228, 236, 269 Tonguç, 201 New York, 104, 266, 269–271, 279 Niyazi, Mehmet, 55, 133, 138–143, 145, 146, 148, 155, 177, 183, 275, 278, 289, 290 Nogays, 127, 295

O Omskii Protses , 82, 103 organization clandestine organization, 201 coherent organization, 58 elite organization, 45, 81 formal organization, 70, 105 Milli Fırqa, 223 movement organization, 46 National Party, 232 Orgnabor, 108, 109, 116, 117 Osmanov, Bekir, 78, 106, 108 Ostarbeiter, 10, 11, 215, 217, 286 ˙ Otar, Ibrahim, 225, 305, 306 Ottoman/Ottoman Empire, xxi, 1, 6–8, 16, 56, 72, 127–138, 140, 141, 145, 146, 165, 193–195, 197–199, 201–204, 206, 223, 285, 286, 290 Özenba¸slı, Ahmet, 156, 206, 212, 215, 216 P pan-Turkism, 46, 55–57, 136–139, 143–145, 152, 153, 169, 174–176, 198, 202, 207, 209, 268, 285, 289, 291 Pazarcık, Dobrich, 140, 144, 157, 305 Poland, 56, 145, 148–150, 208–210, 213, 257, 292, 305, 306 Lipka Tatar, 149, 213 Polish Tatar, 149 Political opportunity/threat structures discursive opportunity structures, 23, 25, 33, 34, 46–48, 52, 53, 55, 56, 162, 223, 225, 231, 233, 278, 281, 287, 291 emergence of, 58, 70, 172 shrinking of, 27, 205 Primordialism, 37 prison

INDEX

gulag, 223 labor camps, 160 prison sentences, 11 prison terms, 25, 101, 103, 107, 108, 158, 160, 216, 217, 275, 277 prisoners of war (POWs), 11, 213, 214, 216, 218, 286, 305, 306 Promethean League, 56, 145, 148, 209, 210, 213, 218, 286

Q Qırım Milliy Areket Te¸skilatı (QTMHT), 117 Qaytarma Music Assembly, 79 folk dances, 155, 246, 305 Qurultay, 19, 144, 149, 154, 179, 181, 184, 205, 212, 233, 250, 253

R refugees, 4, 9, 16, 27, 39, 56, 57, 59, 151, 153, 159, 160, 200, 205, 216–226, 228, 230, 255, 265–268, 271, 273, 274, 277–279, 286, 287, 291 WWII, 27, 47, 56, 287, 292 religion ˙ Imam, 217 Islam, 137, 211 Mehmet Yakup, 162 Mufti, 173, 255 Muftiate, 136, 162, 170 Murat Yusuf, 170, 173 Resonance, 26, 48, 50, 55, 83, 84, 105, 106, 111, 112, 117, 122, 150, 159, 169, 187, 188, 225, 226, 240, 245, 272, 273, 282, 283, 286, 287, 293, 295

315

frame resonance, 22, 23, 25, 48, 51, 57, 58, 60, 185, 204, 244, 289 level of, 55, 58, 60, 85, 156, 187 Romania, xxi, 2–6, 9, 11, 16, 17, 19, 20, 24, 26, 27, 47, 52, 53, 55–58, 60–62, 64, 85, 121, 127–129, 132–136, 139–141, 144–152, 156–163, 165–176, 178, 180–182, 184–188, 197, 198, 207, 208, 210, 213, 214, 216, 223, 225–227, 234, 235, 244, 251, 257, 258, 268, 272, 274, 278, 279, 282–285, 287, 289–295, 305, 306 Russia, 1, 6, 8, 12, 14–16, 39, 93, 99, 129, 130, 133, 137, 147, 198, 200–204, 207, 209, 230, 234, 250, 254–256, 285, 286, 290, 296 Russian imperialism, 56, 146, 199, 203 S Sakharov, Andrei, 101, 103, 237 Sali, Eyüp Menali Sali, 160 Sali, Negiat, 160, 178, 181, 184–186 samizdat, 81, 82, 94, 101, 103, 106, 108, 228, 236, 237, 269, 270 schools, 2, 13, 24, 35–37, 39, 80, 87, 91, 96, 100, 105, 106, 109, 110, 117, 134–136, 138–140, 144, 153, 160–166, 168, 174, 175, 179, 196, 198, 226, 234, 239, 246, 256, 272, 283, 284 Tatar schools, 15, 147, 158, 164, 166, 167, 173, 306 Second Tatar Group case, 161 Securitate Romanian Secret Service, 216 Self-determination

316

INDEX

indigenous people, 12 national autonomy, 106, 121 territorial autonomy, 204 Sevdiyar, Mehmet, 104, 221, 223, 230, 266–269, 289–291 Seytmuratova, Ay¸se, 75, 77, 91, 99, 100, 104, 105, 236, 274 Simferopol, 80, 84, 86, 95, 102, 106, 115, 117, 212, 215, 237, 275, 303–305 Simferopol Muslim Committee, 212, 215 Smith, Anthony, 36, 38 Social movement theory, 22, 23, 25, 33, 42 Soviet Union Bolshevik, 27, 158, 211 Crimean ASSR, 8, 11, 75, 76, 84, 88, 89, 223 former Soviet, 17, 217, 240, 266 Soysal, Abdullah Zihni, 148, 208, 213, 306 Stalinism, 71, 73, 76, 87, 99, 112 state-building, 39 Sultan, Ahmet Han, 79 Sürgün, 248, 251, 252, 270, 271 T Tamga, 155 Tamizdat , 94, 102, 103, 108, 237, 269 Tashkent, 79, 85, 91, 94, 98, 102, 103, 110, 112, 117, 237, 300 Tashkentskii Protses , 95, 97, 98, 102 Tashkent Trial, 95, 97, 102, 267 Tatar Charitable Society, 197, 200–202, 204, 205, 207 Tatar Pedagogical School, 163, 166, 167, 177, 284 Tepre¸s , 2, 19, 144, 153–155, 168, 171, 225, 241, 242, 244–246 Totalitarianism, 72, 73, 87

Transnationalism translocal, 61 transnational identity, 256, 295 transnational nation, 3, 18, 24, 27, 28, 54, 57, 61, 62, 180, 188, 222, 253, 254, 256, 257, 289, 291, 295–297 transnational nationalism, 21, 26, 28, 58, 61, 256, 295 transnational networks, 129, 210 transnational social field, 35 transnational solidarity, 155 transnational ties, links, 3, 4, 21, 60, 133, 135, 188 trial Cemilev, 96, 98, 102, 103, 269, 270 Omskii Protsess , 96 Shest Dnei, 96, 103 show-trial, 95 Tashkentskii Protses , 95, 98, 102 Tashkent Ten, 102 Tulcea, 134, 157, 165, 167 Turkey Anatolian nationalism, 56 Kemalism, 56, 138 Turkish language, 144, 164, 166, 168, 173–176, 284 Turkish nationalism, 137, 138, 207, 231, 285 War of Independence, 144 Turkish minority, 152, 159, 175 typology, 21, 26, 34, 63 of long-distance nationalism, 21, 26, 34, 63 U Ukraine/Ukranian, 11–16, 18, 19, 95, 102, 107, 112, 117, 118, 120, 121, 180, 184, 209, 233, 238, 239, 251, 252, 254–256, 282, 296, 303, 304

INDEX

Ülküsal, 139, 145, 146, 150, 152, 154–156, 164, 167, 228, 230 Müstecip Hacı Fazıl, 143–145, 147, 148, 150–156, 187 Müstecip Ülküsal, 47, 138, 143, 146, 148, 150, 151, 170, 197, 205, 208, 213, 223–228, 230, 238, 285, 291, 292 Union of Democratic Muslim TurkTatars of Romania (UDTTMR), 169–171, 173, 176–178, 181, 182, 185, 186 United States (USA), 3–5, 9, 16, 17, 19, 20, 27, 47, 52, 55, 57–60, 62, 64, 104, 121, 129, 171, 188, 217, 218, 223–225, 228, 257, 258, 265–267, 269–274, 277–279, 287, 288, 291, 292, 294, 295 American, 59, 171, 217, 270 Uzbekistan/Uzbek, 11, 15, 16, 84–87, 97, 98, 107–111, 117, 267, 301, 302 V Vatan Cemiyeti, 8, 210, 289 Volga Tatars, 88, 140, 163 Von Papen, Franz, 212, 213

317

W World Crimean Tatar Congress (WCTC), 3, 18, 55, 57, 61, 171, 250, 252–254, 279, 295, 304 World War II, 16, 194, 211, 283, 286, 288 Crimea, 9, 17, 69, 199 Da˘gcı, 274 Great Patriotic War, 73, 92 Muslim committee, 9, 115, 151, 211–217, 267 Ostarbeiter, 10, 11, 215, 217, 272, 286 partisans, 75, 100 POW, 272, 274, 276 refugees, 9, 219 Second World War, 9, 55, 72, 100, 128, 208, 222, 233, 265, 275, 285, 286, 305 veterans, 75

Y Yıldırım, 152 Yıldız, 80, 236, 237, 242, 250 Yurter, Fikret, 104, 230, 267, 269, 272 Yurtsever, Mehmet Vani, 155