On May 18, 1944, the Soviet authorities deported over 190,000 Crimean Tatars from Crimea over three days. This was a special operation by the NKVD troops to “liberate” the Crimean peninsula from the indigenous population. We have compiled for you a selection of materials from Public Crimea and the Department of Diversity, Inclusion and Equal Opportunities of Public Broadcasting with eyewitness accounts, stories about life in exile, and a chronology of events.
“Memory/Hatıra”
A documentary project with the stories of three generations of Crimean Tatars: 75-year-old Zera Suleymanova, 57-year-old Erfan Kudusov, and 30-year-old Elzara Galimova. Part of the material was filmed by the team in temporarily occupied Crimea. The authors also analyze how the trauma of deportation affects the Crimean Tatar people today and how the memory of the genocide forms resilience to new challenges. The director of the Frontier Institute, Yevhen Hlibovytsky, the manager of projects on Crimean Tatar identity, Mavile Khalil, and the senior researcher of the Institute of History of Ukraine, NAS of Ukraine, Oleh Bazhan, shared their thoughts.
Cycle “History of the Crimean Tatars”
This is a series of seven materials about the struggle for the right to live on their native land, with memories of the life of Crimean Tatars in exile in the 1960s and the formation of a national movement. The project tells about the return to the Motherland, the first years after returning to Crimea, and the gradual revival of Crimean Tatar culture. The project is in the Crimean Tatar language with Ukrainian subtitles.
The story of Faik Fiziev
Faik Fiziev was seven years old at the time of the deportation. Together with his mother and brother, he survived the journey in a freight car and life in a dugout in the Urals without food or proper conditions. The man is publicly sharing his memories of the deportation of the Crimean Tatars so that the tragedy of 1944 will not be repeated again.
“1944: Chronology of the Deportation of the Crimean Tatars”
The explainer recreates the events related to Crimea on May 18–20, 1944, and shows how the Soviet authorities made and implemented the decision to deport the Crimean Tatars. The video uses archival materials, as well as images created with the help of artificial intelligence based on confirmed facts and eyewitness accounts.
Read also: “We are an important part of world history. We always have been” – an educational project about the history of Ukraine has been launched on Radio Kultura
Niyara Mamutova about the history of her people
“Someone went to Crimea, brought land and distributed it to all the deportees, such was the desire to return home,” says Niyara Mamutova, a Crimean Tatar woman whose entire family was deported from Crimea in 1944. On May 18, the Day of Remembrance of the Victims of the Genocide of the Crimean Tatar People, Niyara feels especially acutely the longing for her relatives in Crimea, who have been under occupation and persecution for more than 10 years, just like her ancestors once did. About the history of the people who still resist the Russian regime, — in the video.
“My Crimea”
With the fixation of mass crimes and kidnappings, we are on the verge of realizing the losses that indigenous peoples suffered when they take away your home and the chance to find out who your relatives were and who you should be. The documentary project “My Crimea” using the stories of representatives of three indigenous peoples of Ukraine – the Kirymly, Krymchaks and Karaites – illustrates the facts of multiculturalism stolen by the Russians in different years as a component of Ukrainian identity. Together with the heroes of the film, go through the years of oblivion and genocide, where the courageous spirit of resistance is recreated, which helps indigenous peoples revive their culture, preserve their traditions and find their place in the world again and again.
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