Repatriating Culture: Crimean Tatar Museums, Art, and History after Return

• In Event: Museums as the Locus of Identity Discourse in the Countries of the Former Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc

Abstract

This paper focuses on the efforts of Crimean Tatars to reassert their heritage and identity through art exhibits, theater, and historical exhibits from the late Soviet period to the present (including the current Russian occupation). After Joseph Stalin’s ethnic cleansing in May 1944, Crimean museums became a key site of Soviet efforts to erase the Crimean Tatar heritage of Crimea and build in its place what Stalin referred to as a “New Russian Crimea.” As Crimean Tatar return accelerated in the late 1980s, Crimean Tatars and allies reclaimed museum and cultural spaces through a wide variety of artistic and academic endeavors. This paper will assert that Crimean Tatars first concentrated on correcting the historical record of WWII and the Soviet period before placing a greater focus on cultural and artistic production in the late 1990s. Specifically, this paper will examine the Crimean Tatar Bakhchisaray Palace Museum (a UNESCO site), the Gasprinskii Library, several art studios, and other raion-level museums and exhibits throughout Ukraine. I will also engage with the works of visual artist including Mamut Churlu, Feride Usmanova, and other artists working in the "Crimean Style." Much of the other visual materials will include the preservation and restoration of Crimean Tatar art and architecture from the Khanate period. Theater and performance will also be important, especially in the immediate post-Soviet period.

Author

• Andrew Dale Straw, Independent Scholar / U of Texas at Austin