Vol 11, No 2 (2024)

The article presents the results of a scientific study of works of Crimean Tatar literature of the late 19th – early 20th centuries on the subject of the use of the ethnonym “Tatars” and words and phrases derived from it in the meaning of “Crimean Tatars” / “Crimean Tatar”. We used poetry and prose as well as examples of drama by almost all the best known Crimean Tatar authors of the specified period. The results of the study clearly show that the term “Tatars” and its derivatives were used in this mea­ning in an absolutely dominant number of cases and by almost all authors. 

Over the past few decades a group of Crimean Tatar intellectuals have been imposing on public opinion the discussion that the self-name of the people “Crimean Tatars” allegedly does not reflect reality, it is “invented” and does not meet their cultural, public and national interests. From their point of view, there is a misunderstanding of the very word combination “Crimean Tatars” by the public, science and international organizations abroad, which creates confusion and “identifies” the indigenous people of Crimea with other peoples. From the point of view of the proponents of this concept, the adequate names are “Crimeans”, “Krymly”, “Crimeans”. At the same time, they claim that the word “Crimeans” synonymous with “Crimeans” is allegedly absolutely not close to it in meaning and cannot be mixed in any form of speech and in different languages. The author has analyzed the public documentation of the following international institutions: the United Nations (UN), the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the Council of Europe (CoE), the European Union (EU), UNESCO for the presence in them of the mentioned words, both in the accepted translation into the languages of these organizations and in the Latin transcription of the words “Crimeans” and “Crimeans” in these languages (in order to avoid reproaches that the proposed words should be used not in their translation, but in their literal form).

Acquaintance with and recording of the number of uses of the centuries-old self-designation of the people, Crimean Tatars, in comparison with the proposed or assumed words “Krymtsy”, “Krym”, “Krymly” (including in the international Latin transcription Kyrymly) shows with full clarity that the self-designation “Crimean Tatars” in the official languages of the most important and influential organizations is widespread, understandable and accepted in official documents, while the expressions “Krymly” and “Krymly” are either absolutely absent or refer to completely different phenomena. The very attempt of renaming is an unfriendly action against the Crimean Tatar people.

Research aim: to reflect the views of Academician V. V. Bartold to the question about the self-name of Crimean Tatars. To show full references to the discussion that unfolded in Crimean Tatar society in the early 1920s on the issue of the name of the people.

Of great interest to us is the III volume of the Works of an outstanding scientist (Works on Historical Geography), which examines the history of individual famous ci­ties, including Crimean ones, the time when the name of the city of Crimea appeared, and which later spread to the entire peninsula.

Instructive for contemporaries who perceive in a simplified way the historical processes of formation of the peoples, the emergence and spread of ethnonyms, are the broad and the most unexpected examples and conclusions made by the academician. Moreover, scientific interest in this topic does not wane, and scientists continue to deepen their research.

After a number of figures advocating the renaming of Crimean Tatars as Crimeans / Kirimlis began to use the works of V. Bartold in their argumentation, often taking words out of context, using incomplete quotations, falsifying the expressed thoughts, it is ne­cessary to reproduce full texts on this issue, and a detailed consideration of the scientist’s examples, judgments and conclusions.

The article examines the problematic of the ethnonym of the Crimean Tatars in the works of the famous socio-political figure, one of the ideologists and lea­ders of the Crimean Tatar national movement of the early 20^th century, J. Seidamet.

The source base of the study consisted mainly of memoirs, journalistic materials, which gave us an idea of the main stages in the formation of the national identity of the Crimean Tatars, various kinds of discussions, both in Crimea and in the diaspora: Turkic-Tatar, Turkic-Ottoman on the path to the formation of the Crimean Tatar identity. One of the topics considered in the article is the question of understanding the term “Kyrymly” (“Crimeans”) in the rhetoric of J. Seidamet and other socio-political figures of that era.

The article presents data on the epigraphic monuments of Crimea (13th–15th centuries) in the inscriptions of which the nisba of Al-Kyrymi is found. Their brief characteristics and geography of detection sites are given. Information and arguments from written sources, indicating that the Al-Kyrymi`s nisba is more of a geographical than an ethnic marker is given.

In the late 19th – first half of the 20th centuries, many Turkic peoples, including the Crimean Tatars, were in the process of developing modern national identity. The legacy of Middle Ages, when a person`s belonging to a certain religion, region, tribe or clan was of primary importance, was gradually becoming a thing of past. Gradually, a secular national identity and a single literary language emerged. The historical past was rethought. In many cases, disputes about a self-designation of a nation could be one of the markers of the processes.

To better understand the social and political processes that took place in Crimea at that time, one should also take into account the historical experience of other Turkic countries and peoples. Moreover, in the 19^th – early 20^th centuries, most of the Turkic peoples were united under the rule of the Russian Empire and, accordingly were in more or less the same socio-political and economic conditions. Having similar interests and common problems, the elites of many Turkic peoples sought to establish interaction with each other.

This article examines the process of formation of national self-conciousness in Azerbaijan, which was accompanied by disputes of how to call the population of the country – Azerbaijani Turks or Azerbaijanis. It also tells about some aspects of the interaction of the Crimean Tatar and Azerbaijani national movement.

This work is a translation from English of the first chapter “The language and preservation of documents” from the second part “A Study in the Crimean and Polish-Lithuanian diplomatics and diplomacy” of the scientific work “The Crimean Khanate and Poland-Lithuania. International Diplomacy on the European Periphery (15th–18th Century). A Study of Peace Treaties Followed by Annotated Documents. The Ottoman Empire and its Heritage” (pp. 223–265). The author of the work is a famous historian, director of the Institute of History of the University of Warsaw, professor of the Institute of History of the Polish Academy of Sciences Dariusz Kołodziejczyk.

In his work Dariusz Kołodziejczyk examines issues related to the language and preservation of documents concerning the history of the Crimean Khanate and its relations with Poland-Lithuania. He analyzes various sources, such as diplomatic treaties, letters, chronicles, travel notes, maps and other original documents published in different collections: official translations kept in the Royal Archives, official copies entered in the Royal and Lithuanian Registers, and copies kept in various collections and written in the languages used by the Crimean chancellery, the Lithuanian and Polish chancelleries – Ottoman Turkic, Crimean Tatar, Polish, German, Latin, Russian, etc. Discussing the problems associated with the translation, transliteration, interpretation and authenticity of these documents, as well as their storage, publication and accessibility to researchers, Dariusz Kołodziejczyk also emphasizes that language and the preservation of documents play an important role in understanding the history of the Crimean Khanate and its international diplomacy on the European periphery.