From Exile to Homecoming: Collective Memory as a Source of Resilience of the Crimean Tatars

• In Event: Homeland in Exile: Navigating Belonging in the Soviet Union

Abstract

This research analyzes the layered yet intertwined structure of the Crimean Tatar collective memory and how it became a source of resilience and determination for their homecoming movement. history of the Crimean Tatars (Qirimtatarlar) from their forced deportation in 1944 to Central Asia (known as Sürgünlik, or ‘Exile’) to the fall of the Soviet Union and early 1990s. It examines the the Crimean Tatars (Qirimtatarlar) forced deportation in 1944 to Central Asia (known as Sürgünlik, or ‘Exile’) to the fall of the Soviet Union and early 1990s, focusing on Kremlin's reasons for the exile, the experience of the Crimean Tatars during their life in Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and Siberia, and the discriminatory Soviet policies towards them. At the same time, it looks into the resilience of Qirimtatarlar, their process of political organization and civil rights struggle throughout these years, despite the continuous oppression.

Author

• Lev Pavlenko, U of Toronto (Canada)