The Crimean Tatar Question and the Present Ethnopolitical Situation in Crimea

Abstract

The complicated ethnopolitical situation existing on the Crimean peninsula now, in 1994, is a product of the clash of several different and, at times, diametrically opposed forces. On the one hand, there is a powerful pro-Russian movement, bringing together several parties and groups, as well as the masses of unorganized inhabitants of Crimea. Its participants are not only Russians, who constitute a large majority of the Crimean population (67 percent in 1989 and 61.6 percent in 1993), but also representatives of many other ethnic groups, including some Russified Ukrainians who favor union with Russia and Greeks, Armenians, Bulgarians, Belarusians, and other minorities.¹ During the campaign for the election of the first president of the Crimean Republic this movement crystallized most obviously in the Russia electoral bloc, and on 30 January 1994, it brought victory in these elections to Iurii Meshkov (he garnered 73 percent of the votes). It is based on a precarious social situation; mass dissatisfaction with an economic situation verging on financial collapse and critical food shortages, in which Crimea has found itself as part of the independent Ukrainian state; and discontent caused by the breakdown of traditional ties with Russia and other regions of the former USSR, which brought Crimea relative prosperity as a holiday resort area (the "all-union health resort") and provided a market for the southern agricultural products that flowed unimpeded north to Russia. A powerful factor fueling this movement is the position of the military forces (most of the command and the rank-and-file of the Black Sea Fleet). The epicenter of pro-Russian (anti-Ukrainian) state orientations and moods is Sevastopol, the "city of Russian military glory." Sevastopol has taken a clear separatist course of secession from Ukraine, which it is determined to achieve, at least for itself (using the argument that it was given a special status in 1948 as a city directly under republic jurisdiction, on which account, it is alleged, the handing over of Crimea to Ukraine in 1954 did not pertain to Sevastopol) and at most for all Crimea.