On the history of PREsent 25% of tatar population in crimea

Аgatangel Krimskyi

We know from the official USSR “reference books” (which also include data from the most recent population census of the Soviet period) that out of 714,081 residents of Crimea, the Crimean Tatars constitute about 178,000, or 25% of the peninsula’s population. The rest of population are Russians (42%), Ukrainians (11%) and others (as Jews, Germans, Greeks, Armenians, Bulgarians)¹. Such numerical superiority of the Russians and Ukrainians over the Tatars is not only due to the fact that when Russia conquered Crimea at the end of the XVIII century there was many unpopulated steppes where a lot of Russians could be resettled. Mass emigration of Moslem Tatars from the peninsula to religiously kin Turkey was another important reason. One such emigration took place at the end of the XVIII century, as soon as Crimea became Russia’s possession. The second mass Tatar emigration took place after the Crimean War, at the beginning of 1860s. Local historians researchers and chroniclers of Crimea, including well-known researcher on Crimea Ars. Iv. Markevych, have often focused on the history of these Tatar expulsions to Turkey. Makarevych aptly summarized all facts at the researchers’ disposal in the 1928 Leningrad “Izvestiya of the Academy of Sciences of USSR,” ² and we should note a few thing from it.

XVIII century Swedish historian and geographer Tunman published his special work on Crimea in the Bushengov geographical series.³ In this work he confirmed that in 1777, before the Russian occupation, the population in the Crimean Khanate, which included all of the Crimean peninsula and steppes outside Crimea, was about 400,000 people (Tatars and non-Tatars). At the same time, the Russian academician V. F. Zuyev in his studies from 1780s that he wrote when Crimea was annexed to Russia⁴ noted that Crimean population was about 200,000 persons. It is clear where such discrepancy in numbers in comparison with Tunman’s work is coming from. Obviously, 200,000 persons is the population not of the whole Khanate, but of the peninsula only - without Budzhak and Northern sub-Caucasus. Clearly, the round number of 200, 000 persons is only an approximation.

With the transfer of Crimea to the Russian control, a lot of new people arrived here from the north, increasing Crimea’s population. At the same time, however, original population began to decrease. After Turkey finally renounced all claims to Crimea in favour of Russia (this happened under Yaskyi Treaty from 6 January 1792), the above mentioned massive exodus of Muslim Tatars to Moslem Turkey began, which was the first emigration. On the basis of the Russian population censuses of 1790s, and partially from the records of contemporaries to these events, one can conclude that some 100,000 Crimean Tatars left their motherland, while only about 80,000 remained. In particular, the inhabitants of the southern coast and the highlands, who were until recently direct subjects of the Turkish sultan, have emigrated at that time. Comparing the number of the remaining Tatars to the total population of Crimea in the population censuses (where the numbers were likely not always accurate), those 80,000 remaining Tatars constituted not even half, but about 40 per cent of Crimea’s total population.

In the middle of the XIX century P. Keppen, the author of “Ethnographical Map of Russia” (1852), gave combined number of the Tatars and the Nogai in the whole Tavriyskaya province (not only Crimea) as 275,822 people (a little more than 225,000 Tatars, and a little less than 50,000 Nogai).⁵ Tatars lived mainly on the peninsula, that is, in Crimea itself.⁶ After the Crimean War that did not separated Crimea from Russia, in 1860 they began to worry, and, in the course of several months, almost all Nogai spontaneously left for Turkey. As for the Tatars, about 131,282 of them left (at least these are the figures reflected in the passport information). All together, almost 180,00 people left their Motherland. During the second emigration, it were mostly inhabitants of the steppes and mountain foothills who left Crimea, while the inhabitants of the southern coast and the highlands this time stayed where whey were. After this, 102,997 Tatars remained in Crimea. This number constituted 50 percent of Crimea’s total population - of all ethnic groups (the total population was then close to 194,000).

Population of other nationalities has been growing since then. Towns grew in Crimea, and towns dwellers were mainly newcomers from elsewhere. The newcomers also settled in communities around the peninsula. Finally, it resulted in a situation when the Crimean Tatars, the original owners of the Crimea, now constitute only one forth of Crimea’s total population - 178,000 Crimean Tatars out of 714,081 residents of the Crimean Republic.

¹ See “Vse respubliki I avtonomnyie oblasti SSSR” (Lening., 1928, p. 63).

² A. I. Markevich: “Pereseleniie krymskikh tatar v Turtsiiu v svyazi s dvizheniiem naseleniia v Krymu”-“Izvestiia” (Department of humanitarian sciences) 1928 № 4-7 p. 375-405 (article 1).

³ J.Thunmann: Die Taurishe Stathalterschaft oder die Krim 1787. Bьshing’s Erdbeschreibung t. I, Hamburg.

⁴ “Msiatseslov istoricheskii i geographicheskii” 1783; “Puteshestvennyia zapiski” - 1787 and other.

⁵ The figure is approximate, but in any case not smaller, because in 1860 there were 46,229 Nogai.

⁶ Shortly afterwards on the basis of the 1854 census Keppen revised the number of all people on the peninsula (Tatars and non-Tatars) to 307.807 persons. This was half of the total population of the whole Tavriiskaia province.