Crimea is one of the amazing corners of the Earth. Due to its geographical location it was located at the junction of the habitats of different peoples, standing on the path of their historical movements. The interests of many countries and entire civilizations collided in such a small area. The Crimean Peninsula has more than once become the scene of bloody wars and battles, and was part of several states and empires.

Diverse natural conditions attracted peoples of various cultures and traditions to Crimea. For nomads there were vast pastures, for cultivators there were fertile lands, for hunters there were forests with a lot of game, for sailors there were convenient bays and bays, and a lot of fish. Therefore, many peoples settled here, becoming part of the Crimean ethnic conglomerate and participants in all historical events on the peninsula. In the neighborhood lived people whose traditions, customs, religions, and ways of life were different. This led to misunderstandings and even bloody clashes. Civil strife stopped when there was an understanding that it was possible to live and prosper well only in peace, harmony and mutual respect.

Ancient peoples of Crimea

During the Jurassic period of the Earth, when there was no man yet, the northern edge of the land was located on the site of the mountainous Crimea. Where the Crimean and southern Ukrainian steppes now lie, a huge sea overflowed. The appearance of the Earth gradually changed. The bottom of the sea rose, and where there were deep seas, islands appeared and continents moved forward. In other places on the island, the continents sank, and their place was taken by the vast expanse of the sea. Enormous cracks split continental blocks, reached the molten depths of the Earth, and gigantic streams of lava poured out to the surface. Piles of ash many meters thick were deposited in the coastal strip of the sea... The history of Crimea has similar stages.

Crimea in section

In the place where the coastline now stretches from Feodosia to Balaklava, at one time a huge crack passed through. Everything that was located to the south of it sank to the bottom of the sea, everything that was located to the north rose. Where there were sea depths, a low coast appeared, where there was a coastal strip, mountains grew. And from the crack itself, huge columns of fire burst out into streams of molten rocks.

The history of the formation of the Crimean relief continued when the volcanic eruptions ended, the earthquakes subsided and plants appeared on the land that emerged from the depths. If you look closely, for example, at the rocks of the Kara-Dag, you will notice that this mountain range is riddled with cracks, and some rare minerals are found here.

Over the years, the Black Sea has beaten the coastal rocks and thrown their fragments onto the shore, and today on the beaches we walk on smooth pebbles, we encounter green and pink jasper, translucent chalcedony, brown pebbles with layers of calcite, snow-white quartz and quartzite fragments. Sometimes you can also find pebbles that were previously molten lava; they are brown, as if filled with bubbles - voids or interspersed with milky-white quartz.

So today, each of us can independently plunge into this distant historical past of Crimea and even touch its stone and mineral witnesses.

Prehistoric period

Paleolithic

The oldest traces of hominid habitation on the territory of Crimea date back to the Middle Paleolithic - this is the Neanderthal site in the Kiik-Koba cave.

Mesolithic

According to the Ryan-Pitman hypothesis, up to 6 thousand BC. the territory of Crimea was not a peninsula, but was a fragment of a larger land mass, which included, in particular, the territory of the modern Sea of ​​​​Azov. Around 5500 thousand BC, as a result of the breakthrough of waters from Mediterranean Sea and the formation of the Bosporus Strait, in a fairly short period significant territories were flooded, and the Crimean Peninsula was formed.

Neolithic and Chalcolithic

In 4-3 thousand BC. Through the territories north of Crimea, migrations to the west of tribes, presumably speakers of Indo-European languages, took place. In 3 thousand BC. The Kemi-Oba culture existed on the territory of Crimea.

Nomadic peoples of the Northern Black Sea region of the 1st millennium BC.

At the end of the 2nd millennium BC. A tribe of Cimmerians emerged from the Indo-European community. This is the first people living on the territory of Ukraine, which is mentioned in written sources - Homer’s Odyssey. The Greek historian of the 5th century told the greatest and most reliable story about the Cimmerians. BC. Herodotus.

monument to Herodotus in Halicarnassus

We also find mention of them in Assyrian sources. The Assyrian name "Kimmirai" means "giants". According to another version from ancient Iranian - “a mobile cavalry detachment”.

Cimmerian

There are three versions of the origin of the Cimmerians. The first is the ancient Iranian people who came to the land of Ukraine through the Caucasus. The second is that the Cimmerians appeared as a result of the gradual historical development of the Proto-Iranian steppe culture, and their ancestral home was the Lower Volga region. Third, the Cimmerians were the local population.

Archaeologists find material monuments of the Cimmerians in the Northern Black Sea region, in the Northern Caucasus, in the Volga region, on the lower reaches of the Dniester and Danube. The Cimmerians were Iranian-speaking.

The early Cimmerians led a sedentary lifestyle. Later, due to the onset of an arid climate, they became a nomadic people and mainly bred horses, which they learned to ride.

The Cimmerian tribes united into large tribal unions, which were headed by a king-leader.

They had a large army. It consisted of mobile troops of horsemen armed with steel and iron swords and daggers, bows and arrows, war hammers and maces. The Cimmerians fought with the kings of Lydia, Urartu and Assyria.

Cimmerian warriors

The Cimmerian settlements were temporary, mainly camps and wintering quarters. But they had their own forges and blacksmiths who made iron and steel swords and daggers, the best at that time in the Ancient World. They themselves did not mine metal; they used iron mined by forest-steppe dwellers or Caucasian tribes. Their craftsmen made horse bits, arrowheads, and jewelry. They had a high level of development of ceramic production. Particularly beautiful were the goblets with a polished surface, decorated with geometric patterns.

The Cimmerians knew how to perfectly process bones. Their jewelry made from semi-precious stones was very beautiful. Stone gravestones with images of people made by the Cimmerians have survived to this day.

The Cimmerians lived in patriarchal clans, which consisted of families. Gradually, they have a military nobility. This in to a large extent contributed to predatory wars. Their main goal was to rob neighboring tribes and peoples.

The religious beliefs of the Cimmerians are known from burial materials. Noble people were buried in large mounds. There were male and female burials. Daggers, bridles, a set of arrowheads, stone blocks, sacrificial food, and a horse were placed in men's graves. Gold and bronze rings, glass and gold necklaces, and pottery were placed in women's burials.

Archaeological finds show that the Cimmerians had connections with the tribes of the Azov region, Western Siberia and the Caucasus. Among the artefacts were women's jewelry, decorated weapons, stone steles without an image of a head, but with a carefully reflected dagger and a quiver of arrows.

Along with the Cimmerians, the central part of the Ukrainian forest-steppe was occupied by the descendants of the Belogrudov culture of the Bronze Age, bearers of the Chernoles culture, who are considered the ancestors of the Eastern Slavs. The main source of studying the life of the Chornolisci people are settlements. Both ordinary settlements with 6-10 dwellings and fortified settlements were found. A line of 12 fortifications built on the border with the steppe protected the Chornolistsiv from attacks by the nomids. They were located on areas closed by nature. The settlement was surrounded by a rampart on which a wall of wooden frames and a moat were built. The Chernolesk settlement, the southern outpost of defense, was protected by three lines of ramparts and ditches. During attacks, residents of neighboring settlements found protection behind their walls.

The basis of the economy of the Chornolists was arable farming and homestead cattle breeding.

The metalworking craft has reached an extraordinary level of development. Iron was used primarily for the production of weapons. The largest sword in Europe at that time with a steel blade with a total length of 108 cm was found at the Subbotovsky settlement.

The need to constantly combat the attacks of the Cimmerians forced the Chornolists to create a foot army and cavalry. Many pieces of horse harness and even the skeleton of a horse, laid next to the deceased, were found in the burials. Archaeological finds have shown the existence of a Cimmerian day in the Forest-Steppe of a fairly powerful association of Proto-Slav farmers, which for a long time resisted the threat from the Steppe.

The life and development of the Cimmerian tribes were interrupted at the beginning of the 7th century. BC. the invasion of the Scythian tribes, with which the next stage is associated ancient history Ukraine.

2. Taurus

Almost simultaneously with the Cimmerians, people lived in the southern part of Crimea indigenous people- Tauri (from the Greek word "Tavros" - tour). The name of the Crimean peninsula - Tauris - comes from the Tauris, introduced by the tsarist government after the annexation of Crimea to Russia in 1783. The ancient Greek historian Herodotus in his book “History” said that the Tauris were engaged in cattle breeding on the mountain plateaus, farming in the river valleys, and fishing on the Black Sea coast. . They were also engaged in crafts - they were skilled potters, they knew how to spin, process stone, wood, bones, horns, and also metals.

From the second half of the 1st millennium BC. In the Taurians, like other tribes, property inequality appeared, and a tribal aristocracy was formed. The Tauri built fortifications around their settlements. Together with their neighbors, the Scythians, they fought against the Greek city-state of Chersonesos, which was seizing their lands.

modern ruins of Chersonesos

The further fate of the Tauri was tragic: first - in the 2nd century. BC. - They were conquered by the Pontic king Mithridates VI Eupator, and in the second half of the 1st century. BC. captured by Roman troops.

In the Middle Ages, the Tauri were exterminated or assimilated by the Tatars, who conquered Crimea. The original culture of the Tauris was lost.

Great Scythia. Ancient city-states in the Northern Black Sea region

3.Scythians

From the 7th century to the 3rd century BC. The Scythian tribes, who came from the depths of Asia and invaded the Northern Black Sea region, brought terror to the tribes and states of Eastern Europe and the Middle East.

The Scythians conquered a huge territory at that time between the Don, Danube and Dnieper, part of Crimea (the territory of modern Southern and South-Eastern Ukraine), forming the state of Scythia there. Herodotus left a more detailed characterization and description of the life and way of life of the Scythians.

In the 5th century BC. he personally visited Scythia and described it. The Scythians were descendants of Indo-European tribes. They had their own mythology, rituals, worshiped gods and mountains, and made blood sacrifices to them.

Herodotus identified the following groups among the Scythians: the royal Scythians, who lived in the lower reaches of the Dnieper and Don and were considered the top of the tribal union; Scythian plowmen who lived between the Dnieper and Dniester (historians believe that the descendants of the Chernoles culture were defeated by the Scythians); Scythian farmers who lived in the forest-steppe zone, and Scythian nomads who settled in the steppes of the Black Sea region. Among the tribes named by Herodotus as Scythians proper were the tribes of the royal Scythians and the Scythian nomads. They dominated over all other tribes.

Outfit of a Scythian king and military commander

At the end of the 6th century. BC. In the Black Sea steppes, a powerful state association was formed led by the Scythians - Greater Scythia, which included the local population of the steppe and forest-steppe regions (Skolot). Great Scythia, according to Herodotus, was divided into three kingdoms; one of them was headed by the main king, and the other two were junior kings (probably the sons of the main one).

The Scythian state was the first political union in south-Eastern Europe in the early Iron Age (the center of Scythia in the 5th-3rd centuries BC was the Kamenskoye settlement near Nikopol). Scythia was divided into districts (nomes), which were ruled by leaders appointed by the Scythian kings.

Scythia reached its highest rise in the 4th century. BC. It is associated with the name of King Atey. The power of Atey extended over vast territories from the Danube to the Don. This king minted his own coin. The power of Scythia did not waver even after the defeat from the Macedonian king Philip II (father of Alexander the Great).

Philip II on campaign

The Scythian state remained powerful even after the death of 90-year-old Atey in 339 BC. However, at the border of the IV-III centuries. BC. Scythia is falling into decay. At the end of the 3rd century. BC. Great Scythia ceases to exist under the onslaught of the Sarmatians. Part of the Scythian population moved south and created two Lesser Scythia. One, which was called the Scythian kingdom (III century BC - III century AD) with its capital in Scythian Naples in Crimea, the other - in the lower reaches of the Dnieper.

Scythian society consisted of three main layers: warriors, priests, ordinary community members (farmers and cattle breeders. Each of the layers traced its origins to one of the sons of the first ancestor and had its own sacred attribute. For warriors it was an ax, for priests - a bowl, for community members - plow whitefish. Herodotus says that the Scythians held special honor among the seven gods; they were considered the ancestors of people and the creators of everything on Earth.

Written sources and archaeological materials indicate that the basis of Scythian production was cattle breeding, since it provided almost everything necessary for life - horses, meat, milk, wool and felt for clothing. The agricultural population of Scythia grew wheat, millet, hemp, etc., and they sowed grain not only for themselves, but also for sale. Farmers lived in settlements (fortifications), which were located on the banks of rivers and fortified with ditches and ramparts.

The decline and then the collapse of Scythia were caused by a number of factors: deterioration climatic conditions, drying out of the steppes, decline in the economic resources of the forest-steppe, etc. In addition, in the III-I centuries. BC. A significant part of Scythia was conquered by the Sarmatians.

Modern researchers believe that the first sprouts of statehood on the territory of Ukraine appeared precisely in Scythian times. The Scythians created a unique culture. Art was dominated by the so-called. "Animal" style.

The monuments of the Scythian era, mounds, are widely known: Solokha and Gaimanova Graves in Zaporozhye, Tolstaya Mogila and Chertomlyk in the Dnepropetrovsk region, Kul-Oba, etc. Royal jewelry (golden pectoral), weapons, etc. were found.

WITH Kifian gold pectoral and scabbard from Tolstoy Mogila

Silver amphora. Kurgan Chertomlyk

Chairman of Dionysus.

Kurgan Chertomlyk

Golden comb. Solokha Kurgan

Interesting to know

Herodotus described the burial ritual of the Scythian king: Before burying their king in the sacred territory - Guerra (Dnieper region, at the level of the Dnieper rapids), the Scythians took his embalmed body to all the Scythian tribes, where they performed a rite of memory over him. In Guerra, the body was buried in a spacious tomb along with his wife, closest servants, horses, etc. The king had gold items and precious jewelry. Huge mounds were built over the tombs - the more noble the king, the higher the mound. This indicates the stratification of property among the Scythians.

4. War of the Scythians with Persian king Darius I

The Scythians were a warlike people. They actively intervened in conflicts between the states of Western Asia (the struggle of the Scythians with the Persian king Darius, etc.).

Around 514-512 BC. The Persian king Darius I decided to conquer the Scythians. Having gathered a huge army, he crossed the floating bridge across the Danube and moved deep into Great Scythia. The army of Daria I, as Herodotus claimed, numbered 700 thousand soldiers, however, this figure is believed to be several times exaggerated. The Scythian army probably numbered about 150 thousand fighters. According to the plan of the Scythian military leaders, their army avoided open battle with the Persians and, gradually leaving, lured the enemy into the interior of the country, destroying wells and pastures along the way. Currently, the Scythians planned to gather forces and defeat the weakened Persians. This “Scythian tactic,” as it was later called, turned out to be successful.

in Darius's camp

Darius built a camp on the shores of the Sea of ​​Azov. Overcoming vast distances, the Persian army tried in vain to find the enemy. When the Scythians decided that the Persian forces had been undermined, they began to act decisively. On the eve of the decisive battle, the Scythians sent the king of the Persians strange gifts: a bird, a mouse, a frog and five arrows. His adviser interpreted the content of the “Scythian Gift” to Darius as follows: “If, Persians, you do not become birds and fly high into the sky, or mice and hide in the ground, or frogs and jump into the swamps, then you will not return to yourself, you will be lost by these arrows." It is not known what Darius I was thinking, despite these gifts and the Scythians who formed troops into battle. However, at night, leaving the wounded in the camp who could support the fires, he fled with the remnants of his army.

Skopasis

King of the Sauromatians, who lived in the 6th century BC. e., the father of history Herodotus mentions in his books. Having united the Scythian armies, Skopasis defeated the Persian troops under the command of Darius I, who came to the northern shores of Maeotis. Herodotus writes that it was Skopasis who regularly forced Darius to retreat to Tanais and prevented him from invading Great Scythia.

This is how the attempt of one of the most powerful owners of the then world to conquer Great Scythia ended shamefully. Thanks to the victory over the Persian army, which was then considered the strongest, the Scythians won the glory of invincible warriors.

5. Sarmatians

During the 3rd century. BC. - III century AD the Northern Black Sea region was dominated by the Sarmatians, who came from the Volga-Ural steppes.

Ukrainian lands in the III-I centuries. BC.

We do not know what these tribes called themselves. The Greeks and Romans called them Sarmatians, which translates from ancient Iranian as “girt with a sword.” Herodotus claimed that the ancestors of the Sarmatians lived east of the Scythians beyond the Tanais (Don) river. He also told a legend that the Sarmatians trace their ancestry to the Amazons, who were taken by the Scythian youths. However, they were unable to master the language of men well and therefore the Sarmatians speak a corrupted Scythian language. Part of the truth in the statements of the “father of history” is: the Sarmatians, like the Scythians, belonged to the Iranian-speaking group of peoples, and their women had a very high status.

The settlement of the Black Sea steppes by the Sarmatians was not peaceful. They exterminated the remnants of the Scythian population and turned most of their country into desert. Subsequently, on the territory of Sarmatia, as the Romans called these lands, several Sarmatian tribal associations appeared - Aorsi, Siracians, Roxolani, Iazyges, Alans.

Having settled in the Ukrainian steppes, the Sarmatians began to attack the neighboring Roman provinces, ancient city-states and settlements of farmers - Slav, Lviv, Zarubintsy culture, forest-steppe. Evidence of attacks on the Proto-Slavs were numerous finds of Sarmatian arrowheads during excavations of the ramparts of Zarubinets settlements.

Sarmatian horseman

The Sarmatians were nomadic pastoralists. They received the necessary agricultural products and handicrafts from their sedentary neighbors through exchange, tribute, and ordinary robbery. The basis of such relations was the military advantage of the nomads.

Wars for pastures and booty were of great importance in the life of the Sarmatians.

Dress of Sarmatian warriors

Archaeologists have not found any Sarmatian settlements. The only monuments they left are mounds. Among the excavated mounds there are many female burials. They found magnificent examples of jewelry made in the “Animal” style. An indispensable accessory for male burials is weapons and equipment for horses.

Fibula. Nagaichinsky mound. Crimea

At the beginning of our era, the rule of the Sarmatians in the Black Sea region reached its highest point. The Sarmatization of the Greek city-states took place, and for a long time the Sarmatian dynasty ruled the Bosporan kingdom.

In them, like the Scythians, there was private ownership of livestock, which was the main wealth and the main means of production. A significant role in the Sarmatian economy was played by the labor of slaves, into whom they turned prisoners captured during continuous wars. However, the tribal system of the Sarmatians held on quite steadfastly.

The nomadic lifestyle of the Sarmatians and trade relations with many peoples (China, India, Iran, Egypt) contributed to the spread of various cultural influences among them. Their culture combined elements of the culture of the East, the ancient South and the West.

From the middle of the 3rd century. AD The Sarmatians lose their leading position in the Black Sea steppes. At this time, immigrants from Northern Europe - the Goths - appeared here. Together with local tribes, among whom were Alans (one of the Sarmatian communities), the Goths carried out devastating attacks on the cities of the Northern Black Sea region.

Genoese in Crimea

At the beginning of the 13th century, after the crusader knights captured Constantinople as a result of the Fourth Crusade (1202-1204), the Venetians who took an active part in organizing the campaign were given the opportunity to freely penetrate into the Black Sea.

storming of Constantinople

Already in the middle of the 13th century. they regularly visited Soldaya (modern Sudak) and settled in this city. It is known that uncle famous traveler Marco Polo, Maffeo Polo, owned a house in Soldai.

Sudak fortress

In 1261, Emperor Michael Palaiologos liberated Constantinople from the crusaders. The Republic of Genoa contributed to this. The Genoese receive a monopoly on navigation in the Black Sea. In the middle of the 13th century. The Genoese defeated the Venetians in the six-year war. This was the beginning of the two-hundred-year stay of the Genoese in Crimea.

In the 60s of the 13th century, Genoa settled in Caffa (modern Feodosia), which became the largest port and shopping center in the Black Sea region.

Feodosia

Gradually the Genoese expanded their possessions. In 1357, Chembalo (Balaklava) was captured, in 1365 - Sugdeya (Sudak). In the second half of the 14th century. the southern coast of Crimea was captured, the so-called. "Captainship of Gothia", which was previously part of the principality of Theodoro - Lupiko (Alupka), Muzahori (Miskhor), Yalita (Yalta), Nikita, Gorzovium (Gurzuf), Partenita, Lusta (Alushta). In total, there were about 40 Italian trading posts in the Crimea, Azov region and the Caucasus. The main activity of the Genoese in Crimea is trade, including the slave trade. Cafe in the XIV - XV centuries. was the largest slave market on the Black Sea. More than a thousand slaves were sold annually at the Kafa market, and the permanent slave population of Kafa reached five hundred people.

At the same time, by the middle of the 13th century, a huge Mongol empire was emerging, formed as a result of the aggressive campaigns of Genghis Khan and his descendants. The Mongol possessions extended from the Pacific coast to the steppes of the Northern Black Sea region.

The cafe is actively developing at the same time. However, its existence was interrupted in 1308 by the troops of the Golden Horde Khan Tokhta. The Genoese managed to escape by sea, but the city and the pier were burned to the ground. Only after the new Khan Uzbek (1312-1342) reigned in the Golden Horde did the Genoese again appear on the shores of the Gulf of Feodosia. By the beginning of the 15th century. A new political situation is emerging in Taurica. At this time, the Golden Horde finally weakens and begins to fall apart. The Genoese cease to consider themselves vassals of the Tatars. But their new opponents were the growing principality of Theodoro, which laid claim to coastal Gothia and Chembalo, as well as the descendant of Genghis Khan, Hadji Giray, who sought to create a Tatar state in Crimea independent of the Golden Horde.

The struggle between Genoa and Theodoro for Gothia lasted intermittently throughout almost the entire first half of the 15th century, and the Theodorites were supported by Hadji Giray. The largest military clash between the warring parties occurred in 1433-1434.

Hadji-Girey

On the approaches to Solkhat, the Genoese were unexpectedly attacked by the Tatar cavalry of Hadji Giray and were defeated in a short battle. After the defeat in 1434, the Genoese colonies were forced to pay an annual tribute to the Crimean Khanate, which was headed by Hadji Giray, who vowed to expel the Genoese from their possessions on the peninsula. Soon the colonies had another deadly enemy. In 1453 The Ottoman Turks captured Constantinople. The Byzantine Empire finally ceased to exist, and the sea route connecting the Genoese colonies in the Black Sea with the metropolis was taken under control by the Turks. The Genoese Republic found itself faced with a real threat of losing all of its Black Sea possessions.

The common threat from the Ottoman Turks forced the Genoese to draw closer to their other irreconcilable enemy. In 1471 they entered into an alliance with the ruler Theodoro. But no diplomatic victories could save the colonies from destruction. On May 31, 1475, a Turkish squadron approached the Cafe. By this time, the anti-Turkish bloc “Crimean Khanate - Genoese colonies - Theodoro” had cracked.

The siege of Kafa lasted from June 1 to June 6. The Genoese capitulated at a time when the means to defend their Black Sea capital had not been exhausted. According to one version, the city authorities believed the promises of the Turks to save their lives and property. One way or another, the largest Genoese colony fell to the Turks surprisingly easily. The new owners of the city took away the property of the Genoese, and they themselves were loaded onto ships and taken to Constantinople.

Soldaya offered more stubborn resistance to the Ottoman Turks than Kafa. And after the besiegers managed to break into the fortress, its defenders locked themselves in the church and died in a fire.

Crimea was like a long-awaited reward for those who, moving from the depths of Russia, managed to overcome the steppes scorched by the heat. Steppes, mountains and subtropics of the South Coast - such natural conditions are not found anywhere else in Russia. However, in the world too...

The ethnic history of Crimea is also unusual and unique. Crimea was populated primitive people thousands of years ago, and throughout its history it has constantly accepted new settlers. But since on this small peninsula there are mountains that more or less could protect the inhabitants of Crimea, and there is also a sea from which new settlers, goods and ideas could arrive, and coastal cities could also provide protection to the Crimeans, it is not surprising that Some historical ethnic groups were able to survive here. Mixings of peoples have always taken place here, and it is no coincidence that historians talk about the “Tavro-Scythians” and “Goto-Alans” living here.

In 1783, Crimea (along with a small territory outside the peninsula) became part of Russia. By this time, there were 1,474 settlements in Crimea, most of them very small. Moreover, most Crimean settlements were multinational. But since 1783, the ethnic history of Crimea has changed radically.

Crimean Greeks

The first Greek settlers arrived on the land of Crimea 27 centuries ago. And it was in Crimea that the small Greek ethnic group, the only one of all Greek ethnic groups outside Greece, managed to survive. Actually, two Greek ethnic groups lived in Crimea - the Crimean Greeks and the descendants of the “real” Greeks from Greece who moved to Crimea at the end of the 18th and 19th centuries.

Of course, the Crimean Greeks, in addition to the descendants of ancient colonists, absorbed many ethnic elements. Under the influence and charm of Greek culture, many Tauris became Hellenized. Thus, the tombstone of a certain Tikhon, originally from Taurus, dating back to the 5th century BC, has been preserved. Many Scythians also Hellenized. In particular, some royal dynasties in the Bosporan kingdom were clearly of Scythian origin. The Goths and Alans experienced the strongest cultural influence of the Greeks.

Already from the 1st century, Christianity began to spread in Taurida, finding many adherents. Christianity was adopted not only by the Greeks, but also by the descendants of the Scythians, Goths and Alans. Already in 325, at the First Ecumenical Council in Nicaea, Cadmus, bishop of Bosporus, and Theophilus, bishop of Gothia, were present. In the future, it was Orthodox Christianity that would unite the diverse population of Crimea into a single ethnic group.

The Byzantine Greeks and the Orthodox Greek-speaking population of Crimea called themselves “Romeans” (literally Romans), emphasizing their belonging to official religion Byzantine Empire. As you know, the Byzantine Greeks called themselves Romans for several centuries after the fall of Byzantium. Only in the 19th century, under the influence of Western European travelers, did the Greeks in Greece return to the self-name “Hellenes”. Outside Greece, the ethnonym "Romei" (or, in Turkish pronunciation, "Urum") persisted until the twentieth century. In our time, the name “Pontic” (Black Sea) Greeks (or “Ponti”) has been established for all the various Greek ethnic groups in the Crimea and throughout New Russia.

The Goths and Alans who lived in the southwestern part of Crimea, which was called the “country of Dori,” although they retained their languages ​​in everyday life for many centuries, their written language remained Greek. A common religion, a similar way of life and culture, and the spread of the Greek language led to the fact that over time the Goths and Alans, as well as the Orthodox descendants of the “Tavro-Scythians,” joined the Crimean Greeks. Of course, this did not happen right away. Back in the 13th century, Bishop Theodore and the Western missionary G. Rubruk met Alans in Crimea. Apparently, only by the 16th century did the Alans finally merge with the Greeks and Tatars.

Around the same time, the Crimean Goths disappeared. Since the 9th century, the Goths ceased to be mentioned in historical documents. However, the Goths still continued to exist as a small Orthodox ethnic group. In 1253, Rubruk, along with the Alans, also met the Goths in Crimea, who lived in fortified castles and whose language was Germanic. Rubruk himself, who was of Flemish origin, could, of course, distinguish Germanic languages ​​from others. The Goths remained faithful to Orthodoxy, as Pope John XXII wrote with regret in 1333.

It is interesting that the first hierarch of the Orthodox Church of Crimea was officially called Metropolitan of Gotha (in Church Slavonic - Gotthean) and Kafaysky (Kafiansky, that is, Feodosia).

It was probably the Hellenized Goths, Alans and other ethnic groups of Crimea that made up the population of the Principality of Theodoro, which existed until 1475. Probably, the Crimean Greeks also included fellow Russians from the former Tmutarakan principality.

However, from the end of the 15th and especially in the 16th century, after the fall of Theodoro, when the Crimean Tatars began to intensively convert their subjects to Islam, the Goths and Alans completely forgot their languages, switching partly to Greek, which was already familiar to them all, and partly to Tatar , which has become the prestigious language of the dominant people.

In the 13th-15th centuries, “Surozhans” were well known in Rus' - merchants from the city of Surozh (now Sudak). They brought special Sourozh goods to Rus' - silk products. It is interesting that even in V. I. Dahl’s “Explanatory Dictionary of the Living Great Russian Language” there are concepts that survived until the 19th century, such as “Surovsky” (i.e., Surozh) goods, and “Surozhsky series”. Most of the Surozhan merchants were Greeks, some were Armenians and Italians, who lived under the rule of the Genoese in the cities of the southern coast of Crimea. Many of the Surozhans eventually moved to Moscow. The famous merchant dynasties of Moscow Rus' - the Khovrins, Salarevs, Troparevs, Shikhovs - came from the descendants of the Surozhans. Many of the descendants of the Surozhans became rich and influential people in Moscow. The Khovrin family, whose ancestors came from the Mangup principality, even received boyarhood. WITH merchant names The descendants of the Surozhans are associated with the names of villages near Moscow - Khovrino, Salarevo, Sofrino, Troparevo.

But the Crimean Greeks themselves did not disappear, despite the emigration of Surozhans to Russia, the conversion of some of them to Islam (which turned converts into Tatars), as well as the increasingly increasing eastern influence in the cultural and linguistic spheres. In the Crimean Khanate, the majority of farmers, fishermen, and winegrowers were Greeks.

The Greeks were an oppressed part of the population. Gradually, the Tatar language and oriental customs spread more and more among them. The clothing of the Crimean Greeks differed little from the clothing of Crimeans of any other origin and religion.

Gradually, an ethnic group of “Urums” (that is, “Romans” in Turkic) emerged in Crimea, denoting Turkic-speaking Greeks who retained the Orthodox faith and Greek identity. The Greeks, who retained the local dialect of the Greek language, retained the name “Romei”. They continued to speak 5 dialects of the local Greek language. By the end of the 18th century, Greeks lived in 80 villages in the mountains and on the southern coast, approximately 1/4 of the Greeks lived in the cities of the Khanate. About half of the Greeks spoke the Rat-Tatar language, the rest spoke local dialects that differed both from the language Ancient Hellas, and from the spoken languages ​​of Greece proper.

In 1778, by order of Catherine II, in order to undermine the economy of the Crimean Khanate, Christians living in Crimea - Greeks and Armenians - were evicted from the peninsula in the Azov region. As A.V. Suvorov, who carried out the resettlement, reported, only 18,395 Greeks left Crimea. The settlers founded the city of Mariupol and 18 villages on the shores of the Azov Sea. Some of the evicted Greeks subsequently returned to Crimea, but the majority remained in their new homeland on the northern shore of the Sea of ​​Azov. Scientists usually called them Mariupol Greeks. Now this is the Donetsk region of Ukraine.

Today there are 77 thousand Crimean Greeks (according to the 2001 Ukrainian census), most of whom live in the Azov region. From among them came many outstanding figures Russian politics, culture and economy. Artist A. Kuindzhi, historian F. A. Hartakhai, scientist K. F. Chelpanov, philosopher and psychologist G. I. Chelpanov, art critic D. V. Ainalov, tractor driver P. N. Angelina, test pilot G. Ya. Bakhchivandzhi , polar explorer I. D. Papanin, politician, mayor of Moscow in 1991-92. G. Kh. Popov - all these are Mariupol (in the past - Crimean) Greeks. Thus, the history of the most ancient ethnic group in Europe continues.

"New" Crimean Greeks

Although a significant part of the Crimean Greeks left the peninsula, in Crimea already in 1774-75. new, “Greek” Greeks from Greece appeared. We are talking about those natives of the Greek islands in the Mediterranean Sea who, during the Russian-Turkish War of 1768-74. helped the Russian fleet. After the end of the war, many of them moved to Russia. Of these, Potemkin formed the Balaklava battalion, which guarded the coast from Sevastopol to Feodosia with the center in Balaklava. Already in 1792, new Greek settlers numbered 1.8 thousand people. Soon the number of Greeks began to grow rapidly due to the widespread immigration of Greeks from the Ottoman Empire. Many Greeks settled in Crimea. At the same time, Greeks came from various regions of the Ottoman Empire, speaking different dialects, having their own characteristics of life and culture, differing from each other, and from the Balaclava Greeks, and from the “old” Crimean Greeks.

Balaklava Greeks fought bravely in the wars with the Turks and during the Crimean War. Many Greeks served in the Black Sea Fleet.

In particular, from among the Greek refugees came such outstanding military and political Russian figures as the Russian admirals of the Black Sea Fleet, the Alexiano brothers, the hero of the Russian-Turkish war of 1787-91. Admiral F.P. Lally, General A.I. Bella, who fell in 1812 near Smolensk, General Vlastov, one of the main heroes of the victory of Russian troops on the Berezina River, Count A.D. Kuruta, commander of Russian troops in Polish war 1830-31

In general, the Greeks served diligently, and it is no coincidence that there is an abundance of Greek surnames in the lists of Russian diplomacy, military and naval activities. Many Greeks were mayors, leaders of the nobility, and mayors. The Greeks were engaged in business and were abundantly represented in the business world of the southern provinces.

In 1859, the Balaklava battalion was abolished, and now most Greeks began to engage in peaceful pursuits - viticulture, tobacco growing, and fishing. The Greeks owned shops, hotels, taverns and coffee shops in all corners of Crimea.

After the establishment of Soviet power in Crimea, the Greeks experienced many social and cultural changes. In 1921, 23,868 Greeks lived in Crimea (3.3% of the population). At the same time, 65% of Greeks lived in cities. There were 47.2% of the total number of literate Greeks. In Crimea there were 5 Greek village councils, in which office work was conducted in Greek, there were 25 Greek schools with 1,500 students, and several Greek newspapers and magazines were published. At the end of the 30s, many Greeks became victims of repression.

The language problem of the Greeks was very complex. As already mentioned, some of the “old” Greeks of Crimea spoke the Crimean Tatar language (until the end of the 30s, there was even the term “Greco-Tatars” to designate them). The rest of the Greeks spoke various mutually incomprehensible dialects, far removed from modern literary Greek. It is clear that the Greeks, mainly urban residents, by the end of the 30s. switched to the Russian language, maintaining their ethnic identity.

In 1939, 20.6 thousand Greeks (1.8%) lived in Crimea. The decrease in their numbers is explained mainly by assimilation.

During the Great Patriotic War, many Greeks died at the hands of the Nazis and their accomplices from among Crimean Tatars. In particular, Tatar punitive forces destroyed the entire population of the Greek village of Laki. By the time of the liberation of Crimea, about 15 thousand Greeks remained there. However, despite the loyalty to the Motherland, which was demonstrated by the vast majority of Crimean Greeks, in May-June 1944 they were deported along with the Tatars and Armenians. A certain number of people of Greek origin, who were considered to be persons of another nationality according to their personal data, remained in Crimea, but it is clear that they tried to get rid of everything Greek.

After the removal of restrictions on the legal status of Greeks, Armenians, Bulgarians and members of their families in special settlements, according to the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR dated March 27, 1956, the special settlers gained some freedom. But the same decree deprived them of the opportunity to receive back the confiscated property and the right to return to Crimea. All these years the Greeks were deprived of the opportunity to study the Greek language. Education took place in schools in Russian, which led to the loss of the native language among young people. Since 1956, Greeks have gradually returned to Crimea. Most of those who arrived found themselves separated from each other in their native land, and lived in separate families throughout Crimea. In 1989, 2,684 Greeks lived in Crimea. The total number of Greeks from Crimea and their descendants in the USSR was 20 thousand people.

In the 90s, the return of Greeks to Crimea continued. In 1994, there were already about 4 thousand of them. Despite their small numbers, Greeks actively participate in the economic, cultural and political life of Crimea, occupying a number of prominent positions in the administration of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, and engaging (with great success) in entrepreneurial activities.

Crimean Armenians

Another ethnic group has lived in Crimea for more than a millennium - the Armenians. One of the brightest and most original centers of Armenian culture has developed here. Armenians appeared on the peninsula a very long time ago. In any case, back in 711, a certain Armenian Vardan was declared the Byzantine emperor in Crimea. Mass immigration of Armenians to Crimea began in the 11th century, after the Seljuk Turks defeated the Armenian kingdom, which caused a mass exodus of the population. In the XIII-XIV centuries, there were especially many Armenians. Crimea is even called “maritime Armenia” in some Genoese documents. In a number of cities, including the largest city of the peninsula at that time, Kafe (Feodosia), Armenians made up the majority of the population. Hundreds of Armenian churches with schools were built on the peninsula. At the same time, some Crimean Armenians moved to the southern lands of Rus'. In particular, a very large Armenian community has developed in Lviv. Numerous Armenian churches, monasteries, and outbuildings are still preserved in Crimea.

Armenians lived throughout Crimea, but until 1475 the majority of Armenians lived in the Genoese colonies. Under pressure from the Catholic Church, some Armenians joined the union. Most Armenians, however, remained faithful to the traditional Armenian Gregorian Church. The religious life of the Armenians was very intense. There were 45 Armenian churches in one cafe. The Armenians were governed by their community elders. The Armenians were judged according to their own laws, according to their own code of justice.

The Armenians were engaged in trade and financial activities, among them there were many skilled artisans and builders. In general, the Armenian community flourished in the 13th-15th centuries.

In 1475, Crimea became dependent on the Ottoman Empire, with the cities of the southern coast, where the majority of Armenians lived, coming under the direct control of the Turks. The conquest of Crimea by the Turks was accompanied by the death of many Armenians and the removal of part of the population into slavery. The Armenian population declined sharply. Only in the 17th century did their numbers begin to increase.

During three centuries of Turkish rule, many Armenians converted to Islam, which led to their assimilation by the Tatars. Among the Armenians who retained the Christian faith, the Tatar language and oriental customs became widespread. Nevertheless, the Crimean Armenians as an ethnic group did not disappear. The vast majority of Armenians (up to 90%) lived in cities, engaged in trade and crafts.

In 1778, the Armenians, together with the Greeks, were evicted to the Azov region, to the lower reaches of the Don. In total, according to the reports of A.V. Suvorov, 12,600 Armenians were evicted. They founded the city of Nakhichevan (now part of Rostov-on-Don), as well as 5 villages. Only 300 Armenians remained in Crimea.

However, many Armenians soon returned to Crimea, and in 1811 they were officially allowed to return to their former place of residence. About a third of Armenians took advantage of this permission. Temples, lands, city blocks were returned to them; Urban national self-governing communities were created in Old Crimea and Karasubazar, and a special Armenian court operated until the 1870s.

The result of these government measures, along with the entrepreneurial spirit characteristic of Armenians, was the prosperity of this Crimean ethnic group. The 19th century in the life of the Crimean Armenians was marked by remarkable achievements, especially in the field of education and culture, associated with the names of the artist I. Aivazovsky, composer A. Spendiarov, artist V. Surenyants, etc. Admiral of the Russian fleet Lazar Serebryakov (Artsatagortsyan) distinguished himself in the military field ), who founded the port city of Novorossiysk in 1838. Crimean Armenians are also represented quite significantly among bankers, ship owners, and entrepreneurs.

The Crimean Armenian population was constantly replenished due to the influx of Armenians from the Ottoman Empire. By the time of the October Revolution, there were 17 thousand Armenians on the peninsula. 70% of them lived in cities.

The years of civil war took a heavy toll on the Armenians. Although some prominent Bolsheviks emerged from the Crimean Armenians (for example, Nikolai Babakhan, Laura Bagaturyants, etc.), who played a large role in the victory of their party, still a significant part of the Armenians of the peninsula belonged, in Bolshevik terminology, to “bourgeois and petty-bourgeois elements” . The war, repressions of all Crimean governments, the famine of 1921, the emigration of Armenians, among whom there were indeed representatives of the bourgeoisie, led to the fact that by the beginning of the 20s the Armenian population had decreased by a third. In 1926, there were 11.5 thousand Armenians in Crimea. By 1939, their number reached 12.9 thousand (1.1%).

In 1944, the Armenians were deported. After 1956, the return to Crimea began. At the end of the twentieth century, there were about 5 thousand Armenians in Crimea. However, the name of the Crimean city of Armyansk will forever remain a monument to the Crimean Armenians.

Karaites

Crimea is the homeland of one of the small ethnic groups - the Karaites. They belong to the Turkic peoples, but differ in their religion. Karaites are Judaists, and they belong to a special branch of Judaism, whose representatives are called Karaites (literally “readers”). The origin of the Karaites is mysterious. The first mention of the Karaites dates back only to 1278, but they lived in Crimea several centuries earlier. The Karaites are probably descendants of the Khazars.

The Turkic origin of the Crimean Karaites has been proven by anthropological research. The blood groups of the Karaites and their anthropological appearance are more characteristic of Turkic ethnic groups (for example, the Chuvash) than of Semites. According to anthropologist Academician V.P. Alekseev, who studied in detail the craniology (structure of the skulls) of the Karaites, this ethnic group actually arose from the mixing of the Khazars with the local population of Crimea.

Let us recall that the Khazars ruled Crimea in the 8th-10th centuries. By religion, the Khazars were Jews, without being ethnic Jews. It is quite possible that some Khazars who settled in the mountainous Crimea retained the Jewish faith. True, the only problem with the Khazar theory of the origin of the Karaites is the fundamental fact that the Khazars accepted Orthodox Talmudic Judaism, and the Karaites even have the name of a different direction in Judaism. But the Crimean Khazars, after the fall of Khazaria, could well have moved away from Talmudic Judaism, if only because the Talmudic Jews had not previously recognized the Khazars, like other Jews of non-Jewish origin, as their coreligionists. When the Khazars adopted Judaism, the teachings of the Karaites were just emerging among the Jews in Baghdad. It is clear that those Khazars who retained their faith after the fall of Khazaria could take a direction in religion that emphasized their difference from the Jews. Enmity between the “Talmudists” (that is, the bulk of the Jews) and the “readers” (Karaites) has always been characteristic of the Jews of Crimea. The Crimean Tatars called the Karaites “Jews without sidelocks.”

After the defeat of Khazaria by Svyatoslav in 966, the Karaites maintained independence within the boundaries of the historical territory of Kyrk Yera - a district between the Alma and Kachi rivers and gained their own statehood within a small principality with its capital in the fortified city of Kale (now Chufut-Kale). Here was their prince - sar, or biy, in whose hands was the administrative, civil and military power, and the spiritual head - kagan, or gakhan - of all the Karaites of Crimea (and not just the principality). His competence also included judicial and legal activities. The duality of power, expressed in the presence of both secular and spiritual heads, was inherited by the Karaites from the Khazars.

In 1246, the Crimean Karaites partially moved to Galicia, and in 1397-1398, part of the Karaite warriors (383 families) ended up in Lithuania. Since then, in addition to their historical homeland, Karaites have constantly lived in Galicia and Lithuania. In their places of residence, the Karaites enjoyed the kind attitude of the surrounding authorities, preserved their national identity, and had certain benefits and advantages.

At the beginning of the 15th century, Prince Eliazar voluntarily submitted to the Crimean Khan. In gratitude, the khan gave the Karaites autonomy in religious affairs,

The Karaites lived in Crimea, not particularly standing out among the local residents. They made up the majority of the population of the cave city of Chufut-Kale, inhabited neighborhoods in Old Crimea, Gezlev (Evpatoria), Cafe (Feodosia).

The annexation of Crimea to Russia became the finest hour for this people. The Karaites were exempt from many taxes, they were allowed to acquire land, which turned out to be very profitable when many lands were empty after the eviction of the Greeks, Armenians and the emigration of many Tatars. Karaites were exempt from conscription, although their voluntary participation in military service was welcomed. Many Karaites actually chose military professions. Quite a few of them distinguished themselves in battles in defense of the Fatherland. Among them, for example, are the heroes of the Russian-Japanese War, Lieutenant M. Tapsachar, General Y. Kefeli. 500 career officers and 200 volunteers of Karaite origin took part in the First World War. Many became Knights of St. George, and a certain Gammal, a brave ordinary soldier, promoted to officer on the battlefield, earned a full set of soldier's St. George's Crosses and at the same time also an officer's St. George's Cross.

The small Karaite people became one of the most educated and richest nations Russian Empire. The Karaites almost monopolized the tobacco trade in the country. By 1913, there were 11 millionaires among the Karaites. The Karaites were experiencing a demographic explosion. By 1914, their number reached 16 thousand, of which 8 thousand lived in Crimea (at the end of the 18th century there were about 2 thousand).

Prosperity ended in 1914. Wars and revolution led to the loss of the Karaites' previous economic position. In general, the Karaites as a whole did not accept the revolution. Most of the officers and 18 generals from among the Karaites fought in the White army. Solomon Crimea was the Minister of Finance in the Wrangel government.

As a result of wars, famine, emigration and repression, the number sharply decreased, primarily due to the military and civilian elite. In 1926, 4,213 Karaites remained in Crimea.

Over 600 Karaites took part in the Great Patriotic War, most were awarded military awards, more than half died or went missing. Artilleryman D. Pasha, naval officer E. Efet and many others became famous among the Karaites in the Soviet army. The most famous of the Soviet Karaite military leaders was Colonel General V.Ya. Kolpakchi, participant in the First World War and the Civil War, military adviser in Spain during the war of 1936-39, commander of armies during the Great Patriotic War. It should be noted that the Karaites often include Marshal R. Ya. Malinovsky (1898-1967), twice Hero Soviet Union, Minister of Defense of the USSR in 1957-67, although his Karaite origin has not been proven.

In other areas the Karaites also produced a large number of outstanding people. The famous intelligence officer, diplomat and at the same time writer I. R. Grigulevich, composer S. M. Maikapar, actor S. Tongur, and many others are all Karaites.

Mixed marriages, linguistic and cultural assimilation, low birth rates and emigration mean that the number of Karaites is declining. In the Soviet Union, according to the 1979 and 1989 censuses, there were 3,341 and 2,803 Karaites living respectively, including 1,200 and 898 Karaites in Crimea. In the 21st century, there are about 800 Karaites left in Crimea.

Krymchaks

Crimea is also the homeland of another Jewish ethnic group - the Krymchaks. Actually, Krymchaks, like Karaites, are not Jews. At the same time, they profess Talmudic Judaism, like most Jews in the world, their language is close to Crimean Tatar.

Jews appeared in Crimea even BC, as evidenced by Jewish burials, remains of synagogues, and inscriptions in Hebrew. One of these inscriptions dates back to the 1st century BC. In the Middle Ages, Jews lived in the cities of the peninsula, engaging in trade and crafts. Back in the 7th century, the Byzantine Theophanes the Confessor wrote about the large number of Jews living in Phanagoria (on Taman) and other cities on the northern shore of the Black Sea. In 1309, a synagogue was built in Feodosia, which testified to the large number of Crimean Jews.

It should be noted that mainly Crimean Jews came from the descendants of local residents who converted to Judaism, and not from the Jews of Palestine who emigrated here. Documents dating back to the 1st century have reached our time on the emancipation of slaves subject to their conversion to Judaism by their Jewish owners.

Conducted in the 20s. studies of the blood groups of the Krymchaks conducted by V. Zabolotny confirmed that the Krymchaks did not belong to the Semitic peoples. However, the Jewish religion contributed to the Jewish self-identification of the Krymchaks, who considered themselves Jews.

The Turkic language (close to the Crimean Tatar), eastern customs and way of life, which distinguished the Crimean Jews from their fellow tribesmen in Europe, spread among them. Their self-name became the word “Krymchak”, meaning in Turkic a resident of Crimea. By the end of the 18th century, about 800 Jews lived in Crimea.

After the annexation of Crimea to Russia, the Krymchaks remained a poor and small religious community. Unlike the Karaites, the Krymchaks did not show themselves in any way in commerce and politics. True, their numbers began to increase rapidly due to high natural growth. By 1912 there were 7.5 thousand people. The civil war, accompanied by numerous anti-Jewish massacres carried out by all the changing authorities in Crimea, famine and emigration led to a sharp reduction in the number of Crimeans. In 1926 there were 6 thousand of them.

During the Great Patriotic War, most Crimeans were exterminated by the German occupiers. After the war, no more than 1.5 thousand Crimeans remained in the USSR.

Nowadays, emigration, assimilation (leading to the fact that Crimeans associate themselves more with Jews), emigration to Israel and the United States, and depopulation finally put an end to the fate of this small Crimean ethnic group.

And yet, let us hope that the small ancient ethnic group that gave Russia the poet I. Selvinsky, the partisan commander, Hero of the Soviet Union Ya. I. Chapichev, the great Leningrad engineer M. A. Trevgoda, State Prize laureate, and a number of other prominent scientists, art, politics and economics will not disappear.

Jews

Jews speaking Yiddish were incomparably more numerous in Crimea. Since Crimea was part of the Pale of Settlement, quite a lot of Jews from the right bank of Ukraine began to settle in this fertile land. In 1897, 24.2 thousand Jews lived in Crimea. By the revolution their numbers had doubled. As a result, Jews became one of the largest and most visible ethnic groups on the peninsula.

Despite the reduction in the number of Jews during the civil war, they still remained the third (after Russians and Tatars) ethnic group of Crimea. In 1926 there were 40 thousand (5.5%). By 1939, their number had increased to 65 thousand (6% of the population).

The reason was simple - Crimea in 20-40. was considered not only and so much by Soviet as by world Zionist leaders as a “national home” for Jews around the world. It is no coincidence that the resettlement of Jews to Crimea took on significant proportions. It is significant that while urbanization was taking place throughout Crimea, as well as throughout the country as a whole, the opposite process was taking place among Crimean Jews.

The project for the resettlement of Jews to Crimea and the creation of Jewish autonomy there was developed back in 1923 by the prominent Bolshevik Yu. Larin (Lurie), and in the spring of the following year was approved by the Bolshevik leaders L. D. Trotsky, L. B. Kamenev, N. I. Bukharin . It was planned to resettle 96 thousand Jewish families (about 500 thousand people) to Crimea. However, there were more optimistic figures - 700 thousand by 1936. Larin openly spoke about the need to create a Jewish republic in Crimea.

On December 16, 1924, even a document was signed with such an intriguing title: “On Crimean California” between the “Joint” (American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, as the American Jewish organization that represented the United States in the early years of Soviet power was called) and Central Executive Committee of the RSFSR. Under this agreement, the Joint allocated $1.5 million per year to the USSR for the needs of Jewish agricultural communes. The fact that most Jews in Crimea did not engage in agriculture did not matter.

In 1926, the head of the Joint, James N. Rosenberg, came to the USSR; as a result of meetings with the country’s leaders, an agreement was reached on D. Rosenberg’s financing of activities for the resettlement of Jews from Ukraine and Belarus to the Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. Help was also provided by the French Jewish Society, the American Society for Aid to Jewish Colonization in Soviet Russia, and other organizations of a similar type. On January 31, 1927, a new agreement was concluded with Agro-Joint (a subsidiary of the Joint itself). According to it, the organization allocated 20 million rubles. To organize the resettlement, the Soviet government allocated 5 million rubles for these purposes.

The planned resettlement of Jews began already in 1924. The reality turned out to be not so optimistic.

Over 10 years, 22 thousand people settled in Crimea. They were provided with 21 thousand hectares of land, 4,534 apartments were built. The Crimean Republican Representative Office of the Committee on the Land Question of Working Jews under the Presidium of the Council of Nationalities of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee (KomZet) dealt with the issues of resettlement of Jews. Note that for every Jew there was almost 1 thousand hectares of land. Almost every Jewish family received an apartment. (This is in the context of a housing crisis, which in the resort Crimea was even more acute than in the country as a whole).

Most of the settlers did not cultivate the land and mostly dispersed to cities. By 1933, only 20% of the settlers from 1924 remained on the collective farms of the Freidorf MTS, and 11% on the Larindorf MTS. On some collective farms the turnover rate reached 70%. By the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, only 17 thousand Jews in Crimea lived in rural areas. The project failed. In 1938, the resettlement of Jews was stopped, and KomZet was dissolved. The Joint branch in the USSR was liquidated by the Decree of the Politburo of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks of May 4, 1938.

The massive outflow of immigrants meant that the Jewish population did not grow as significantly as might have been expected. By 1941, 70 thousand Jews lived in Crimea (excluding Krymchaks).

During the Great Patriotic War, more than 100 thousand Crimeans, including many Jews, were evacuated from the peninsula. Those who remained in Crimea had to experience all the features of Hitler's “new order” when the occupiers began the final solution to the Jewish question. And already on April 26, 1942, the peninsula was declared “cleared of Jews.” Almost everyone who did not have time to evacuate died, including most of the Crimeans.

However, the idea of ​​Jewish autonomy not only did not disappear, but also acquired a new breath.

The idea of ​​creating a Jewish Autonomous Republic in Crimea arose again in the late spring of 1943, when the Red Army, having defeated the enemy at Stalingrad and in the North Caucasus, liberated Rostov-on-Don and entered the territory of Ukraine. In 1941, about 5-6 million people fled or were evacuated in a more organized manner from these territories. Among them, more than a million were Jews.

In practical terms, the question of creating a Jewish Crimean autonomy arose during the preparation of the propaganda and business trip of two prominent Soviet Jews- actor S. Mikhoels and poet I. Fefer in the USA in the summer of 1943. It was assumed that American Jews would be enthusiastic about the idea and would agree to finance all the costs associated with it. Therefore, the two-person delegation traveling to the United States received permission to discuss this project in Zionist organizations.

Among Jewish circles in the United States, the creation of a Jewish republic in Crimea did indeed seem quite possible. Stalin did not seem to mind. Members of the JAC (Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee) created during the war years, during visits to the United States, spoke openly about the creation of a republic in Crimea, as if it were something a foregone conclusion.

Of course, Stalin had no intention of creating Israel in Crimea. He wanted to make maximum use of the influential Jewish community in the United States for Soviet interests. As Soviet intelligence officer P. Sudoplatov, head of the 4th Directorate of the NKVD, responsible for special operations, wrote, “immediately after the formation of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, Soviet intelligence decided to use the connections of the Jewish intelligentsia to find out the possibility of obtaining additional economic assistance through Zionist circles... With this The goal of Mikhoels and Fefer, our trusted agent, was assigned to probe the reaction of influential Zionist organizations to the creation of a Jewish republic in Crimea. This task of special reconnaissance sounding was successfully completed.”

In January 1944, some Jewish leaders of the USSR drafted a memorandum to Stalin, the text of which was approved by Lozovsky and Mikhoels. The “Note,” in particular, said: “With the goal of normalizing economic growth and the development of Jewish Soviet culture, with the goal of maximizing the mobilization of all the forces of the Jewish population for the benefit of the Soviet Motherland, with the goal of completely equalizing the position of the Jewish masses among the fraternal peoples, we consider it timely and expedient, in order to solve post-war problems, raising the question of creating a Jewish Soviet socialist republic... It seems to us that one of the most suitable areas would be the territory of Crimea, which best meets the requirements both in terms of capacity for resettlement and due to the existing successful experience in the development of Jewish national regions there... In the construction of the Jewish Soviet Republic, the Jewish people of all countries of the world, wherever they may be, would provide us with significant assistance.”

Even before the liberation of Crimea, the Joint insisted on the transfer of Crimea to the Jews, the eviction of the Crimean Tatars, the withdrawal of the Black Sea Fleet from Sevastopol, and the formation of an INDEPENDENT Jewish state in Crimea. Moreover, the opening of the 2nd front in 1943. the Jewish lobby linked it with Stalin's fulfillment of his debt obligations to the Joint.

The deportation of Tatars and representatives of other Crimean ethnic groups from Crimea led to the desolation of the peninsula. It seemed that there would now be plenty of room for the arriving Jews.

According to the famous Yugoslav figure M. Djilas, when asked about the reasons for the expulsion of half the population from Crimea, Stalin referred to the obligations given to Roosevelt to clear Crimea for Jews, for which the Americans promised a preferential 10 billion loan.

However, the Crimean project was not implemented. Stalin, having made maximum use of financial assistance from Jewish organizations, did not create Jewish autonomy in Crimea. Moreover, even the return to Crimea of ​​those Jews who were evacuated during the war turned out to be difficult. However, in 1959 there were 26 thousand Jews in Crimea. Subsequently, emigration to Israel led to a significant reduction in the number of Crimean Jews.

Crimean Tatars

Since the time of the Huns and the Khazar Kaganate, people began to penetrate into Crimea Turkic peoples, who so far inhabited only the steppe part of the peninsula. In 1223, the Mongol-Tatars attacked Crimea for the first time. But it was only a raid. In 1239, Crimea was conquered by the Mongols and became part of the Golden Horde. The southern coast of Crimea was under the rule of the Genoese; in the mountainous Crimea there was a small principality of Theodoro and an even smaller principality of the Karaites.

Gradually, a new Turkic ethnic group began to emerge from the mixture of many peoples. At the beginning of the 14th century, the Byzantine historian George Pachymer (1242-1310) wrote: “Over time, the peoples who lived inside those countries mixed with them (Tatars - ed.), I mean: Alans, Zikkhs (Caucasian Circassians who lived on the coast Taman Peninsula - ed.), Goths, Russians and other peoples different from them, learn their customs, along with their customs they acquire language and clothing and become their allies." The unifying principles for the emerging ethnic group were Islam and the Turkic language. Gradually, the Tatars of Crimea (who, however, did not call themselves Tatars at that time) became very numerous and powerful. It is no coincidence that it was the Horde governor in Crimea, Mamai, who managed to temporarily seize power in the entire Golden Horde. The capital of the Horde governor was the city of Kyrym - “Crimea” (now the city of Old Crimea), built by the Golden Horde in the valley of the Churuk-Su river in the southeast of the Crimean peninsula. In the 14th century, the name of the city of Crimea gradually passed to the entire peninsula. Residents of the peninsula began to call themselves “kyrymly” - Crimeans. The Russians called them Tatars, like all eastern Muslim peoples. The Crimeans began to call themselves Tatars only when they were already part of Russia. But for convenience, we will still call them Crimean Tatars, even when talking about earlier eras.

In 1441, the Tatars of Crimea created their own khanate under the rule of the Girey dynasty.

Initially, the Tatars were inhabitants of the steppe Crimea; the mountains and the southern coast were still inhabited by various Christian peoples, and they outnumbered the Tatars. However, as Islam spread, converts from the indigenous population began to join the ranks of the Tatars. In 1475, the Ottoman Turks defeated the colonies of the Genoese and Theodoro, which led to the subjugation of the entire Crimea to the Muslims.

At the very beginning of the 16th century, Khan Mengli-Girey, having defeated the Great Horde, brought entire uluses of Tatars from the Volga to the Crimea. Their descendants were subsequently called the Yavolga (that is, Trans-Volga) Tatars. Finally, already in the 17th century, many Nogais settled in the steppes near Crimea. All this led to the strongest Turkization of Crimea, including part of the Christian population.

A significant part of the population of the mountains became Tatars, forming a special group of Tatars known as “Tats”. Racially, the Tats belong to the Central European race, that is, they are externally similar to representatives of the peoples of Central and Eastern Europe. Also, many residents of the southern coast, descendants of the Greeks, Tauro-Scythians, Italians and other inhabitants of the region, who converted to Islam, gradually joined the ranks of the Tatars. Until the deportation of 1944, residents of many Tatar villages on the South Bank retained elements of Christian rituals that they inherited from their Greek ancestors. Racially, the South Coast residents belong to the South European (Mediterranean) race and are similar in appearance to the Turks, Greeks, and Italians. They formed a special group of Crimean Tatars - the Yalyboylu. Only the steppe Nogai retained elements of traditional nomadic culture and retained some Mongoloid features in their physical appearance.

The descendants of captives and captives, mainly from the Eastern Slavs who remained on the peninsula, also joined the Crimean Tatars. Slaves who became wives of the Tatars, as well as some men from among the captives who converted to Islam and, thanks to their knowledge of some useful crafts, also became Tatars. “Tumas,” as the children of Russian captives born in Crimea were called, made up a very large part of the Crimean Tatar population. The following historical fact is indicative: In 1675, the Zaporozhye ataman Ivan Sirko, during a successful raid into Crimea, freed 7 thousand Russian slaves. However, on the way back, approximately 3 thousand of them asked Sirko to let them go back to Crimea. Most of these slaves were Muslims or Thums. Sirko let them go, but then ordered his Cossacks to catch up and kill them all. This order was carried out. Sirko drove up to the place of the massacre and said: “Forgive us, brothers, but you yourself sleep here until doomsday Lord, instead of multiplying for you in the Crimea, among the infidels, on our brave Christian heads and on your eternal death without forgiveness.”

Of course, despite such ethnic cleansing, the number of Tums and Otatar Slavs in Crimea remained significant.

After the annexation of Crimea to Russia, some Tatars left their homeland, moving to the Ottoman Empire. By the beginning of 1785, 43.5 thousand male souls were counted in Crimea. Crimean Tatars made up 84.1% of all residents (39.1 thousand people). Despite the high natural increase, the share of Tatars was constantly decreasing due to the influx of new Russian settlers and foreign colonists to the peninsula. Nevertheless, the Tatars made up the vast majority of the population of Crimea.

After the Crimean War of 1853-56. under the influence of Turkish agitation, a movement for emigration to Turkey began among the Tatars. Military actions devastated Crimea, Tatar peasants did not receive any compensation for their material losses, so additional reasons for emigration appeared.

Already in 1859, the Nogais of the Azov region began leaving for Turkey. In 1860, a mass exodus of Tatars began from the peninsula itself. By 1864, the number of Tatars in Crimea had decreased by 138.8 thousand people. (from 241.7 to 102.9 thousand people). The scale of emigration frightened the provincial authorities. Already in 1862, cancellations of previously issued foreign passports and refusals to issue new ones began. However, the main factor in stopping emigration was the news of what awaited the Tatars in Turkey of the same religion. A lot of Tatars died on the way on overloaded feluccas in the Black Sea. The Turkish authorities simply threw the settlers on the shore without providing them with any food. Up to a third of the Tatars died in the first year of life in a country of the same faith. And now re-emigration to Crimea has already begun. But neither the Turkish authorities, who understood that the return of Muslims from under the rule of the caliph again to the rule of the Russian Tsar would make an extremely unfavorable impression on the Muslims of the world, nor the Russian authorities, who also feared the return of embittered people who had lost everything, were not going to help the return to Crimea.

Smaller scale Tatar exoduses to the Ottoman Empire occurred in 1874-75, in the early 1890s, and in 1902-03. As a result, most of the Crimean Tatars found themselves outside of Crimea.

So the Tatars of their own free will became an ethnic minority in their land. Thanks to high natural growth, their number reached 216 thousand people by 1917, which accounted for 26% of the population of Crimea. In general, during the civil war the Tatars were politically split, fighting in the ranks of all the fighting forces.

The fact that the Tatars made up a little more than a quarter of the population of Crimea did not bother the Bolsheviks. Guided by their national policy, they went to create an autonomous republic. On October 18, 1921, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR issued a decree on the formation of the Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic within the RSFSR. On November 7, the 1st All-Crimean Constituent Congress of Soviets in Simferopol proclaimed the formation of the Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, elected the leadership of the republic and adopted its Constitution.

This republic was not, strictly speaking, purely national. Note that it was not called Tatar. But the “indigenization of personnel” was consistently carried out here too. Most of the leading personnel were also Tatars. Tatar language was, along with Russian, the language of office work and schooling. In 1936, there were 386 Tatar schools in Crimea.

During the Great Patriotic War, the fate of the Crimean Tatars developed dramatically. Some of the Tatars fought honestly in the ranks Soviet army. Among them were 4 generals, 85 colonels and several hundred officers. 2 Crimean Tatars became full holders of the Order of Glory, 5 - Heroes of the Soviet Union, pilot Amet Khan Sultan - twice a Hero.

In their native Crimea, some Tatars fought in partisan detachments. Thus, as of January 15, 1944, there were 3,733 partisans in Crimea, of which 1,944 were Russians, 348 Ukrainians, 598 Crimean Tatars. In retaliation for the actions of the partisans, the Nazis burned 134 settlements in the foothills and mountainous areas of Crimea, 132 of which were predominantly Crimean Tatar.

However, you can’t erase the words from the song. During the occupation of Crimea, many Tatars found themselves on the side of the Nazis. 20 thousand Tatars (that is, 1/10 of the entire Tatar population) served in the ranks of volunteer formations. They were involved in the fight against partisans, and were especially active in the reprisals against civilians.

In May 1944, literally immediately after the liberation of Crimea, the Crimean Tatars were deported. The total number of deportees was 191 thousand people. Family members of Soviet army fighters, participants in the underground and partisan struggle, as well as Tatar women who married representatives of another nationality were exempt from deportation.

Beginning in 1989, the Tatars began returning to Crimea. The repatriation was actively promoted by the Ukrainian authorities, hoping that the Tatars would weaken the Russian movement for the annexation of Crimea to Russia. In part, these expectations of the Ukrainian authorities were confirmed. In the elections to the Ukrainian parliament, Tatars en masse voted for Rukh and other independent parties.

In 2001, Tatars already made up 12% of the peninsula's population - 243,433 people.

Other ethnic groups of Crimea

Since its annexation to Russia, representatives of several small ethnic groups have also lived on the peninsula, who also became Crimeans. We are talking about Crimean Bulgarians, Poles, Germans, Czechs. Living far from their main ethnic territory, these Crimeans became independent ethnic groups.

Bulgarians appeared in Crimea at the end of the 18th century, immediately after the annexation of the peninsula to Russia. The first Bulgarian settlement in Crimea appeared in 1801. Russian authorities they valued the hard work of the Bulgarians, as well as their ability to farm in subtropical conditions. Therefore, Bulgarian settlers received from the treasury a daily allowance of 10 kopecks per capita; each Bulgarian family was allocated up to 60 acres of state land. Each Bulgarian immigrant was given benefits in taxes and other financial obligations for 10 years. After their expiration, they were largely maintained for the next 10 years: the Bulgarians were subject to only a tax of 15-20 kopecks per tithe. Only after twenty years had passed after their arrival in Crimea, immigrants from Turkey were equalized in taxation with the Tatars, immigrants from Ukraine and Russia.

The second wave of resettlement of Bulgarians to Crimea occurred during the Russian-Turkish War of 1828-1829. About 1000 people arrived. Finally, in the 60s. In the 19th century, the third wave of Bulgarian settlers arrived in Crimea. In 1897, 7,528 Bulgarians lived in Crimea. It should be noted that the religious and linguistic closeness of the Bulgarians and Russians led to the assimilation of part of the Crimean Bulgarians.

Wars and revolutions had a hard impact on the Bulgarians of Crimea. Their numbers grew rather slowly due to assimilation. In 1939, 17.9 thousand Bulgarians lived in Crimea (or 1.4% of the total population of the peninsula).

In 1944, the Bulgarians were deported from the peninsula, although, unlike the Crimean Tatars, there was no evidence of Bulgarian cooperation with the German occupiers. Nevertheless, the entire Crimean-Bulgarian ethnic group was deported. After rehabilitation, the slow process of repatriation of Bulgarians to Crimea began. At the beginning of the 21st century, slightly more than 2 thousand Bulgarians lived in Crimea.

Czechs appeared in Crimea a century and a half ago. In the 60s of the 19th century, 4 Czech colonies appeared. The Czechs were different high level education, which paradoxically contributed to their rapid assimilation. In 1930, there were 1,400 Czechs and Slovaks in Crimea. At the beginning of the 21st century, only 1 thousand people of Czech origin lived on the peninsula.

Another Slavic ethnic group of Crimea is represented Poles. The first settlers were able to arrive in Crimea already in 1798, although the mass migration of Poles to Crimea began only in the 60s of the 19th century. It should be noted that since the Poles did not inspire confidence, especially after the uprising of 1863, they were not only not given any benefits like colonists of other nationalities, but were even forbidden to settle in separate settlements. As a result, “purely” Polish villages did not arise in Crimea, and the Poles lived together with the Russians. In all large villages, along with the church, there was also a church. There were also churches in all major cities - Yalta, Feodosia, Simferopol, Sevastopol. As religion lost its former influence on ordinary Poles, the Polish population of Crimea rapidly assimilated. At the end of the 20th century, about 7 thousand Poles (0.3% of the population) lived in Crimea.

Germans appeared in Crimea already in 1787. Since 1805, German colonies began to emerge on the peninsula with their own internal self-government, schools and churches. The Germans came from a wide variety of German lands, as well as from Switzerland, Austria and Alsace. In 1865, there were already 45 settlements with a German population in Crimea.

The benefits provided to the colonists, the favorable natural conditions of Crimea, and the hard work and organization of the Germans led the colonies to rapid economic prosperity. In turn, news of the economic successes of the colonies contributed to the further influx of Germans to Crimea. The colonists were characterized by a high birth rate, so the German population of Crimea grew rapidly. According to the first All-Russian census of 1897, 31,590 Germans lived in Crimea (5.8% of the total population), of which 30,027 were rural residents.

Among the Germans, almost everyone was literate, and the standard of living was significantly above average. These circumstances were reflected in the behavior of the Crimean Germans during the Civil War.

Most of the Germans tried to be “above the fray” without participating in civil strife. But some Germans fought for Soviet power. In 1918, the First Yekaterinoslav Communist Cavalry Regiment was formed, which fought against the German occupiers in Ukraine and Crimea. In 1919, the First German Cavalry Regiment as part of Budyonny's army led an armed struggle in the south of Ukraine against Wrangel and Makhno. Some Germans fought on the side of the whites. Thus, the German Jaeger Rifle Brigade fought in Denikin’s army. A special regiment of Mennonites fought in Wrangel's army.

In November 1920, Soviet power was finally established in Crimea. The Germans who recognized it continued to live in their colonies and their farms, practically without changing their way of life: the farms were still strong; children went to their own schools with teaching in German; all issues were resolved jointly within the colonies. Two German districts were officially formed on the peninsula - Biyuk-Onlarsky (now Oktyabrsky) and Telmanovsky (now Krasnogvardeysky). Although many Germans lived in other places in Crimea. 6% of the German population produced 20% of the gross income from all agricultural products of the Crimean ASSR. Demonstrating complete loyalty to the Soviet government, the Germans tried to “stay out of politics.” It is significant that during the 20s only 10 Crimean Germans joined the Bolshevik Party.

The standard of living of the German population continued to be much higher than in other national groups, so the outbreak of collectivization, followed by mass dispossession, affected primarily German farms. Despite losses in the Civil War, repression and emigration, the German population of Crimea continued to increase. In 1921, there were 42,547 Crimean Germans. (5.9% of the total population), in 1926 - 43,631 people. (6.1%), 1939 - 51,299 people. (4.5%), 1941 - 53,000 people. (4.7%).

The Great Patriotic War became the greatest tragedy for the Crimean-German ethnic group. In August-September 1941, more than 61 thousand people were deported (including approximately 11 thousand people of other nationalities related to the Germans by family ties). The final rehabilitation of all Soviet Germans, including Crimean ones, followed only in 1972. From that time on, the Germans began to return to Crimea. In 1989, 2,356 Germans lived in Crimea. Alas, some of the deported Crimean Germans emigrate to Germany, and not to their peninsula.

East Slavs

The majority of Crimean residents are East Slavs(let’s call them that politically correctly, taking into account the Ukrainian identity of some Russians in Crimea).

As already mentioned, the Slavs have lived in Crimea since ancient times. In the 10th-13th centuries, the Tmutarakan principality existed in the eastern part of Crimea. And during the era of the Crimean Khanate, some captives from Great and Little Rus', monks, merchants, and diplomats from Russia were constantly on the peninsula. Thus, the Eastern Slavs were part of the permanent indigenous population of Crimea for centuries.

In 1771, when Crimea was occupied by Russian troops, about 9 thousand Russian freed slaves were freed. Most of them remained in Crimea, but as personally free Russian subjects.

With the annexation of Crimea to Russia in 1783, the settlement of the peninsula by settlers from all over the Russian Empire began. Literally immediately after the 1783 manifesto on the annexation of Crimea, by order of G. A. Potemkin, soldiers of the Ekaterinoslav and Phanagorian regiments were left to live in Crimea. Married soldiers were given leave at government expense so that they could take their families to Crimea. In addition, girls and widows were summoned from all over Russia who agreed to marry soldiers and move to Crimea.

Many nobles who received estates in Crimea began to transfer their serfs to Crimea. State peasants also moved to the state-owned lands of the peninsula.

Already in 1783-84, in the Simferopol district alone, settlers formed 8 new villages and, in addition, settled together with the Tatars in three villages. In total, by the beginning of 1785, 1,021 males from among the Russian settlers were counted here. The new Russian-Turkish war of 1787-91 somewhat slowed down the influx of immigrants to Crimea, but did not stop it. During 1785 - 1793, the number of registered Russian settlers reached 12.6 thousand male souls. In general, Russians (together with Little Russians) already made up approximately 5% of the peninsula’s population over the several years that Crimea was part of Russia. In fact, there were even more Russians, since many fugitive serfs, deserters and Old Believers sought to avoid any contact with representatives of the official authorities. Freed former slaves were not counted. In addition, tens of thousands of military personnel are constantly stationed in the strategically important Crimea.

The constant migration of Eastern Slavs to Crimea continued throughout the 19th century. After the Crimean War and the mass emigration of Tatars to the Ottoman Empire, which led to the emergence of a large amount of “no man’s” fertile land, new thousands of Russian settlers arrived in Crimea.

Gradually, the local Russian residents began to develop special features of their economy and way of life, caused both by the peculiarities of the geography of the peninsula and its multinational character. In a statistical report on the population of the Tauride province for 1851, it was noted that Russians (Great Russians and Little Russians) and Tatars wear clothes and shoes, differing little from each other. The utensils used are both clay, made at home, and copper, made by Tatar craftsmen. The usual Russian carts were soon replaced by Tatar carts upon arrival in Crimea.

From the second half of the 19th century centuries, the main wealth of Crimea - its nature, made the peninsula a center of recreation and tourism. Palaces of the imperial family and influential nobles began to appear on the coast, and thousands of tourists began to arrive for rest and treatment. Many Russians began to strive to settle in the fertile Crimea. So the influx of Russians into Crimea continued. At the beginning of the 20th century, Russians became the predominant ethnic group in Crimea. Considering high degree Russification of many Crimean ethnic groups, the Russian language and culture (which had largely lost their local characteristics) absolutely prevailed in Crimea.

After the revolution and the Civil War, Crimea, which turned into an “all-Union health resort,” continued to attract Russians. However, Little Russians, who were considered a special people - Ukrainians, also began to arrive. Their share of the population in the 20-30s increased from 8% to 14%.

In 1954 N.S. Khrushchev, in a voluntaristic gesture, annexed Crimea to the Ukrainian Soviet Republic. The result was the Ukrainization of Crimean schools and offices. In addition, the number of Crimean Ukrainians has increased sharply. Actually, some of the “real” Ukrainians began to arrive in Crimea back in 1950, according to the government’s “Plans for the resettlement and transfer of the population to the collective farms of the Crimean region.” After 1954, new settlers from the western Ukrainian regions began to arrive in Crimea. For the move, the settlers were given entire carriages, which could accommodate all their property (furniture, utensils, decorations, clothing, multi-meter canvases of homespun), livestock, poultry, apiaries, etc. Numerous Ukrainian officials arrived in Crimea, which had the status of an ordinary region within the Ukrainian SSR. . Finally, since it became prestigious to be Ukrainian, some Crimeans also turned into Ukrainians by passport.

In 1989, 2,430,500 people lived in Crimea (67.1% Russians, 25.8% Ukrainians, 1.6% Crimean Tatars, 0.7% Jews, 0.3% Poles, 0.1% Greeks).

The collapse of the USSR and the declaration of independence of Ukraine caused economic and demographic catastrophe in Crimea. In 2001, Crimea had a population of 2,024,056. But in fact, the demographic catastrophe of Crimea is even worse, since the population decline was partially compensated by the Tatars returning to Crimea.

In general, at the beginning of the 21st century, Crimea, despite its centuries-old multi-ethnicity, remains predominantly Russian in population. During its two decades as part of independent Ukraine, Crimea has repeatedly demonstrated its Russianness. Over the years, the number of Ukrainians and returning Crimean Tatars in Crimea has increased, thanks to which official Kyiv was able to gain a certain number of its supporters, but, nevertheless, the existence of Crimea within Ukraine seems problematic.

Crimean SSR (1921-1945). Questions and answers. Simferopol, "Tavria", 1990, p. 20

Sudoplatov P. A. Intelligence and the Kremlin. M., 1996, pp. 339-340

From the secret archives of the CPSU Central Committee. Tasty peninsula. Note about Crimea / Comments by Sergei Kozlov and Gennady Kostyrchenko // Rodina. - 1991.-№11-12. - pp. 16-17

From the Cimmerians to the Crimeans. The peoples of Crimea from ancient times to the end of the 18th century. Simferopol, 2007, p. 232

Shirokorad A. B. Russian-Turkish wars. Minsk, Harvest, 2000, p. 55

We bring to the attention of readers of our site an ethno-historical excursion by Igor Dmitrievich Gurov regarding the issue of the rights of a particular nationality to the Crimean peninsula. The article was published in 1992 in the small monthly "Politics", published by the deputy group "Union". However, it still remains relevant, especially now, when, during the period of the most acute political crisis in Ukraine, the issue of broad autonomy for Crimea, which was frozen in the same 1992, is being resolved.

Despite the fact that Kyiv and some Moscow newspapers and television programs today proclaim the Crimean Tatars as the “only indigenous” people of the Crimean peninsula, and the Russian Taurians are portrayed exclusively as invaders and occupiers, Crimea remains Russian.

Let's turn to real historical facts. In ancient times, Crimea was inhabited by tribes of Cimmerians, then Tauris and Scythians. From the middle of the 1st millennium BC. e. Greek colonies appear on the coast of Tavria. In the early Middle Ages, the Scythians were replaced by German-speaking Goths (later mixed with the Greeks in the chronicles of the “Greek Gothfins”) and Iranian-speaking Alans (related to modern Ossetians). Then the Slavs also penetrate here. Already in one of the Bosporan inscriptions of the 5th century, the word “ant” is found, which, as is known, Byzantine authors called the Slavs who lived between the Dnieper and the Dniester. And at the very end of the 8th century, the “Life of Stefan of Sourozh” describes in detail the campaign of the Novgorod prince Bravlin to Crimea, after which the active Slavicization of Eastern Crimea began.

Arab sources of the 9th century report one of the centers of Ancient Rus' - Arsania, which, according to most scientists, was located on the territory of the Azov region, Eastern Crimea and North Caucasus. This is the so-called Azov, or Black Sea (Tmutarakan) Rus', which was the support base for the campaigns of Russian squads in the 2nd half of the 9th - early 10th centuries. on the Asia Minor coast of the Black Sea. Moreover, the Byzantine historian Leo the Deacon, in his story about the retreat of Prince Igor after his unsuccessful campaign against Byzantium in 941, speaks of the Cimmerian Bosporus (Eastern Crimea) as the “homeland of the Russians.”

In the 2nd half of the 9th century. (after the campaign of Prince Svyatoslav and his defeat in 965 Khazar Khaganate) Azov Rus' finally entered the sphere of political influence Kievan Rus. Later, the Tmutarakan principality was formed here. Under the 980 goal in the "Tale of Bygone Years" the son of Grand Duke Vladimir the Saint is mentioned for the first time - Mstislav the Brave; It is also reported there that his father endowed Mstislav with the Tmutarakan land (which he owned until his death in 1036).

The influence of Rus' is also strengthening in Western Taurida, especially after Prince Vladimir in 988, as a result of a 6-month siege, took the city of Chersonesos, which belonged to the Byzantines, and was baptized there.

The Polovtsian invasion at the end of the 11th century weakened the Russian princes in Taurida. The last time Tmutarakan was mentioned in the chronicles was in 1094, when the prince who ruled here, Oleg Svyatoslavovich (who bore the official title of “Archon of Matrakha, Zikhia and all Khazaria”), in alliance with the Polovtsians, came to Chernigov. And at the beginning of the 13th century, the lands of the former Tmutarakan principality became easy prey for enterprising Genoese.

In 1223, the Mongols made their first raid on Taurica, and by the end of the 13th century, after the defeat of the Kirkel principality created by the Hellenized Alans, the administrative center of the region became the city of Crimea (now Old Crimea), which from 1266 became the seat of the Mongol-Tatar Khan .

After the Fourth Crusade (1202-1204), which ended with the defeat of Constantinople, first Venice, and then (from 1261) Genoa were able to establish themselves in the Northern Black Sea region. In 1266, the Genoese bought the city of Cafa (Feodosia) from the Golden Horde and then continued to expand their possessions.

The ethnic composition of the population of Crimea during this period was quite diverse. In the XIII-XV centuries. Greeks, Armenians, Russians, Tatars, Hungarians, Circassians (“Zikhs”) and Jews lived in the Cafe. The Kafa Charter of 1316 mentions Russian, Armenian and Greek churches located in the commercial part of the city, along with Catholic churches and a Tatar mosque. In the 2nd half of the 15th century. it was one of the largest cities in Europe with a population of up to 70 thousand people. (of these, the Genoese made up only about 2 thousand people). In 1365, the Genoese, having secured the support of the Golden Horde khans (to whom they gave huge cash loans and supplied mercenaries), captured the largest Crimean city of Surozh (Sudak), inhabited mainly by Greek and Russian merchants and artisans and maintaining close ties with the Moscow state.

From Russian documents of the 15th century. It is also known about close contacts between the Orthodox principality of Theodoro (another name is the Mangup Principality), located in the south-west of Crimea, which arose on the ruins of the Byzantine Empire, with the Moscow state. For example, the Russian chronicle mentions Prince Stefan Vasilyevich Khovra, who emigrated to Moscow with one of his sons in 1403. Here he became a monk under the name Simon, and his son Gregory founded a monastery named Simonov in honor of his father. His other son, Alexei, ruled the principality of Theodoro at that time. From his grandson - Vladimir Grigorievich Khovrin - came famous Russian families - the Golovins, Tretyakovs, Gryaznys, etc. The connection between Moscow and Theodoro was so close that the Grand Duke of Moscow Ivan III was going to marry his son to the daughter of the Theodorite prince Isaac (Isaiko), but This plan was not realized due to the defeat of the Principality of Theodoro by the Turks.

In 1447, the first attack of the Turkish fleet on the shores of Crimea took place. Having captured Cafa in 1475, the Turks disarmed its entire population, and then, according to the anonymous Tuscan author, “On June 7 and 8, all the Wallachians, Poles, Russians, Georgians, Zichs and all other Christian nations, except the Latins, were captured, deprived clothes and partly sold into slavery, partly chained." “Turkova took Kafa and many of the Moscow guests, killed many of them, captured some, and robbed others to pay off the davash,” Russian chronicles report.

Having established their power over the Crimea, the Turks included in the Sultan’s lands only the former Genoese and Greek confluences, which they began to intensively populate with their fellow tribesmen - the Anatolian Ottoman Turks. The remaining areas of the peninsula went to the predominantly steppe Crimean Khanate, which was a vassal state of Turkey.

It is from the Anatolian Ottoman Turks that the so-called origins originate. “South Coast Crimean Tatars”, who determined the ethnic line of modern Crimean Tatars - that is, their culture and literary language. The Crimean Khanate, subordinate to Turkey, in 1557 was replenished with representatives of the Little Nogai Horde, who migrated to the Black Sea region and the Steppe Crimea from the Volga and Caspian Sea. The Crimean and Nogai Tatars lived exclusively by nomadic cattle breeding and predatory raids on neighboring states. The Crimean Tatars themselves spoke in the 17th century. to the envoys of the Turkish Sultan: “But there are more than 100 thousand Tatars who have neither agriculture nor trade. If they do not raid, then how will they live? This is our service to the padishah.” Therefore, twice a year they carried out raids to capture slaves and loot. For example, during the 25 years of the Livonian War (1558-1583), the Crimean Tatars made 21 raids on the Great Russian regions. The poorly protected Little Russian lands suffered even more. From 1605 to 1644 the Tatars carried out at least 75 raids on them. In 1620-1621 they managed to ruin even the distant Duchy of Prussia.

All this forced Russia to take retaliatory measures and fight to eliminate this constant source of aggression in its south. However, this problem was solved only in the 2nd half of the 18th century. During the Russian-Turkish war of 1769-1774. Russian troops captured Crimea. Fearing retaliatory religious pogroms, most of the indigenous Christian population (Greeks and Armenians), at the suggestion of Catherine II, moved to the area of ​​Mariupol and Nakhichevan, Rostov. In 1783, Crimea was finally annexed to Russia and in 1784 it became part of the newly formed Tauride province. Up to 80 thousand Tatars did not want to stay in Russian Taurida and emigrated to Turkey. In their place, Russia began to attract foreign colonists: Greeks (from Turkish possessions), Armenians, Corsicans, Germans, Bulgarians, Estonians, Czechs, etc. Great Russians and Little Russians began to move here in large numbers.

Another emigration of Tatars and Nogais from Crimea and the Northern Black Sea region (up to 150 thousand people) occurred during the Crimean War of 1853-1856, when many Tatar murzas and beys supported Turkey.

By 1897 there had been significant changes in ethnic composition population of Taurida: Tatars made up only about 1/3 of the population of the peninsula, while Russians made up over 45 percent. (of which 3/4 are Great Russians and 1/4 are Little Russians), Germans - 5.8 percent, Jews 4.7 percent, Greeks - 3.1 percent, Armenians - 1.5 percent. etc.

After the February Revolution of 1917, the nationalist pro-Turkish party “Milli Firka” (“national party”) arose among the Crimean Tatars. In turn, the Bolsheviks held a Congress of Soviets and in March 1918 proclaimed the creation of the Taurida SSR. Then the peninsula was occupied by the Germans, and the Millifirka Directory gained power.

At the end of April 1919, the “Crimean Soviet Republic” was created here, but already in June it was liquidated by units of General Denikin’s Volunteer Army.

From that time on, Russian Taurida became the main base White Movement. Only on November 16, 1920, Crimea was again captured by the Bolsheviks, knocking out the Russian Army of General Wrangel from the peninsula. At the same time, the Crimean Revolutionary Committee (Krymrevkom) was formed under the leadership of the “internationalists” Bela Kun and Rosalia Zemlyachka. On their instructions, a bloody massacre was organized in Crimea, during which the “fiery revolutionaries” exterminated, according to some information, up to 60 thousand Russian officers and soldiers of the White Army.

On October 18, 1921, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars published a decree on the formation of the Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic as part of the RSFSR. At this time, 625 thousand people lived in Crimea, of which Russians made up 321.6 thousand, or 51.5% (including Great Russians - 274.9 thousand, Little Russians - 45.7 thousand, Belarusians - 1 thousand .), Tatars (including Turks and some Gypsies) - 164.2 thousand (25.9%), other nationalities (Germans, Greeks, Bulgarians, Jews, Armenians) - St. 22%.

From the beginning of the 1920s, in the spirit of the Bolshevik-Leninist national policy, organizations of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) began to actively pursue a course towards the Turkification of Crimea. Thus, in 1922, 355 schools were opened for the Crimean Tatars, and universities were created with teaching in the Crimean Tatar language. Tatars were appointed to the posts of chairmen of the Crimean Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars of the Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic - Veli Ibraimov and Deren-Ayerly, who pursued a nationalist policy covered by communist phraseology. Only in 1928 were they removed from their posts, but not for nationalism, but for connections with the Trotskyists.

By 1929, as a result of the campaign to disaggregate village councils, their number increased from 143 to 427. At the same time, the number of national village councils almost tripled (these were considered village councils or districts in which the majority of the national population was 60%). In total, 145 Tatar village councils were formed, 45 German, 14 Jewish, 7 Greek, 5 Bulgarian, 2 Armenian, 2 Estonian and only 20 Russian (since Russians during this period were classified as “great-power chauvinists”, during administrative delimitation it was considered normal to give advantage to others nationalities). A system of special courses for training national personnel at government agencies was also created. A campaign was launched to translate office work and village councils into “national” languages. At the same time, the “anti-religious struggle” - including against Orthodoxy and Islam - continued and intensified.

In the pre-war years, there was a significant increase in population (from 714 thousand in 1926 to 1,126,429 people in 1939). By national composition the population was distributed in 1939 as follows: Russians - 558,481 people (49.58%), Ukrainians, 154,120 (13.68%), Tatars - 218,179 (19.7%), Germans 65,452 (5.81%), Jews - 52093 (4.62%). Greeks - 20652 (1.83%), Bulgarians - 15353 (1.36%), Armenians - 12873 (1.14%), others - 29276 (2.6%).

The Nazis, having occupied Crimea in the fall of 1941, skillfully played on the religious feelings of the Tatars and their dissatisfaction with the militant atheism of the Bolsheviks. The Nazis convened a Muslim congress in Simferopol, at which they formed the Crimean government ("Tatar Committee"), headed by Khan Belal Asanov. During 1941-1942. they formed 10 Crimean Tatar SS battalions, which, together with police self-defense units (created in 203 Tatar villages), numbered over 20 thousand people. Although there were Tatars among the partisans - about 600 people. In punitive operations with the participation of Crimean Tatar units, 86 thousand were exterminated civilians Crimea and 47 thousand prisoners of war, about 85 thousand more people were driven to Germany.

However, measures of retribution for crimes committed by the Crimean Tatar punitive forces were extended by the Stalinist leadership to the entire Crimean Tatar ethnic group and a number of other Crimean peoples. On May 11, 1944, the State Defense Committee of the USSR adopted a resolution according to which 191,088 Tatars, 296 Germans, 32 Romanians and 21 Austrians were resettled from Crimea to Central Asia during May 18-19. On June 2, 1944, another GKO resolution followed, according to which 15,040 Greeks, 12,422 Bulgarians and 9,621 Armenians were evicted from Crimea on June 27 and 28. At the same time, foreign nationals living in Crimea were expelled: 1,119 Germans, Italians and Romanians, 3,531 Greeks, 105 Turks and 16 Iranians.

In July 1945, by Decree of the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet, the Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic was transformed into the Crimean region within the RSFSR, and on February 19, 1954, N. S. Khrushchev donated Crimea to Radyanskaya Ukraine, apparently in memory of his many years of secretaryship in the Communist Party (b)U .

With the advent of “perestroika,” the Moscow and Kyiv media began to portray the Tatars as the only “indigenous” inhabitants of the peninsula, its “original” owners. Why? "Organization of the Crimean Tatar national movement" declared as its goal not only the return of up to 350 thousand Tatars - natives of sunny Uzbekistan and other Central Asian republics to Crimea, but also the creation of their own "national state" there. To achieve this goal, they convened a kurultai in July 1991 and elected a "Majlis" "of 33 people. The actions of the OKND, led by the ardent Turkophile Mustafa Dzhamilev, were enthusiastically greeted by the Kyiv “Rukh” and former communist leadership, acting on the principle “everyone who is against the damned Muscovites is good.” But why did Dzhamilev need to create his own “national state”? in Crimea?

Of course, the thirst for revenge among the Tatar new settlers offended by Stalin is understandable. But still, the OKND gentlemen, who so diligently call for the Turkification of Crimea, should remember their Anatolian and Nogai origins: after all, their true ancestral home is Turkey, Southern Altai and the hot steppes of Xinjiang.

And if you create some kind of “national states” in Taurida, you will have to satisfy the aspirations of the Great Russians, Ukrainians, Karaites, Greeks, and all other indigenous inhabitants of the peninsula. The only real prospect for Crimea is the peaceful coexistence of the ethnic groups living here. Dividing the population into “indigenous” and Russian is a historically untenable and politically dangerous task.

Igor Gurov
Newspaper "Politics", 1992, No. 5

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Before the capture of Crimea by the Mongol-Tatars and the reign of the Golden Horde here, many peoples lived on the peninsula, their history goes back centuries, and only archaeological finds indicate that the indigenous peoples of Crimea settled the peninsula 12,000 years ago, during the Mesolithic. Sites of ancient people were found in Shankob, in the Kachinsky and Alimov canopies, in Fatmakoba and in other places. It is known that the religion of these ancient tribes was totemism, and they buried their dead in log houses, placing high mounds on top of them.

Chimerians (9th–7th centuries BC)

The first people that historians wrote about were the ferocious Chimerians who inhabited the plains of the Crimean Peninsula. The Chimerians were Indo-Europeans or Iranians and practiced agriculture; The ancient Greek geographer Strabo wrote about the existence of the capital of the Chimerians - Kimeris, which was located on the Taman Peninsula. It is believed that the Chimerians brought metal processing and pottery to the Crimea; their fat herds were guarded by huge wolfhounds. The Chimerians wore leather jackets and trousers, and pointed hats crowned their heads. Information about this people exists even in the archives of the king of Assyria Ashurbanipal: the Chimerians more than once invaded Asia Minor and Thrace. Homer and Herodotus, the Ephesian poet Callinus and the Milesian historian Hecataeus wrote about them.

The Chimerians left Crimea under the pressure of the Scythians, part of the people joined the Scythian tribes, and part went to Europe.

Taurus (VI century BC, - 1st century AD)

Tauris - this is what the Greeks who visited Crimea called the formidable tribes living here. The name may have been related to the cattle breeding they were engaged in, because “tauros” means “bull” in Greek. It is unknown where the Taurians came from; some scientists tried to connect them with the Indo-Aryans, others considered them Goths. The culture of dolmens – ancestral burial grounds – is associated with the Tauri.

The Tauri cultivated the land and grazed livestock, hunted in the mountains and did not disdain sea robbery. Strabo mentioned that the Tauri gathered in Symbolon Bay (Balaklava), formed gangs and robbed ships. The most evil tribes were considered the Arikhs, Sinkhs and Napei: their war cry made the blood of their enemies freeze; The Taurus stabbed their opponents and nailed their heads to the walls of their temples. The historian Tacitus wrote how the Tauri killed the Roman legionnaires who had escaped from a shipwreck. In the 1st century, the Tauri disappeared from the face of the earth, dissolving among the Scythians.

Scythians (VII century BC – III century AD)

The Scythian tribes came to Crimea, retreating under the pressure of the Sarmatians, here they settled down and absorbed part of the Tauri and even mixed with the Greeks. In the 3rd century, a Scythian state with its capital Naples (Simferopol) appeared on the plains of Crimea, which actively competed with the Bosporus, but in the same century it fell under the blows of the Sarmatians. Those who survived were finished off by the Goths and Huns; the remnants of the Scythians mixed with the autochthonous population and ceased to exist as a separate people.

Sarmatians (IV-III centuries BC)

The Sartmats, in turn, replenished the genetic diversity of the peoples of Crimea, dissolving into its population. The Roksolani, Iazyges and Aorses fought with the Scythians for centuries, penetrating into the Crimea. With them came the warlike Alans, who settled in the southwest of the peninsula and founded the Goth-Alans community, converting to Christianity. Strabo in “Geography” writes about the participation of 50,000 Roxolani in an unsuccessful campaign against the Pontic people.

Greeks (VI century BC)

The first Greek colonists settled the Crimean coast during the time of the Tauri; here they built the cities of Kerkinitis, Panticapaeum, Chersonesos and Theodosius, which in the 5th century BC. formed two states: Bosporus and Chersonesos. The Greeks lived by gardening and winemaking, fishing, trading and minting their own coins. With the coming new era the states fell under the control of Pontus, then to Rome and Byzantium.

From the 5th to the 9th century AD In Crimea, a new ethnic group “Crimean Greeks” arose, whose descendants were the Greeks of antiquity, Taurians, Scythians, Goto-Alans and Turks. In the 13th century, the center of Crimea was occupied by the Greek principality of Theodoro, which was captured by the Ottomans at the end of the 15th century. Some of the Crimean Greeks who have preserved Christianity still live in Crimea.

Romans (1st century AD – 4th century AD)

The Romans appeared in Crimea at the end of the 1st century, defeating the king of Panticapaeum (Kerch) Mithridates VI Eupator; Soon Chersonesus, which had suffered from the Scythians, asked to come under their protection. The Romans enriched Crimea with their culture, building fortresses on Cape Ai-Todor, in Balaklava, on Alma-Kermen and left the peninsula after the collapse of the empire - professor of Simferopol University Igor Khrapunov writes about this in his work “The Population of Mountain Crimea in Late Roman Times.”

Goths (III–XVII centuries)

The Goths lived in Crimea, a Germanic tribe that appeared on the peninsula during the Great Migration. The Christian saint Procopius of Caesarea wrote that the Goths were farmers and their nobles held military positions in the Bosporus, which the Goths took control of. Having become the owners of the Bosporan fleet, in 257 the Germans launched a campaign against Trebizond, where they captured countless treasures.

The Goths settled in the north-west of the peninsula and in the 4th century formed their own state - Gothia, which lasted for nine centuries and only then partially became part of the Principality of Theodoro, and the Goths themselves were obviously assimilated by the Greeks and Ottoman Turks. Most of the Goths eventually became Christians; their spiritual center was the Doros (Mangup) fortress.

For a long time, Gothia was a buffer between the hordes of nomads pressing on the Crimea from the north, and Byzantium in the south, survived the invasions of the Huns, Khazars, Tatar-Mongols and ceased to exist after the invasion of the Ottomans.

Catholic priest Stanislav Sestrenevich-Bogush wrote that back in the 18th century the Goths lived near the Mangup fortress, their language was similar to German, but they were all Islamized.

Genoese and Venetians (XII–XV centuries)

Merchants from Venice and Genoa appeared on the Black Sea coast in the middle of the 12th century; Having concluded a treaty with the Golden Horde, they founded trading colonies that lasted until the Ottomans captured the coast, after which their few inhabitants were assimilated.

In the 4th century, the cruel Huns invaded the Crimea, some of whom settled in the steppes and mixed with the Goth-Alans. Jews and Armenians who fled from the Arabs also moved to Crimea, Khazars, Eastern Slavs, Polovtsians, Pechenegs and Bulgars visited here, and it is absolutely no wonder that the peoples of Crimea are not similar to each other, because the blood of a variety of peoples flows in their veins.