Is there any national memory in multinational and long-suffering Crimea? Who are Crimean Ukrainians and what is Crimean culture now like? Who and how is going to fight against the Russian propaganda on the peninsula? Why is Crimea “indigenously no one’s” but eventually it still belongs to Ukraine? All these questions are going to be discussed with the candidate of historical sciences, member of the Ukrainian Institute of the National memory and the Crimean Sergey Gromenko.
Now it is believed that there is no certain common national culture in Crimea. What are special aspects of Crimean Ukrainians and Crimea?
If we wanted to define any Crimean-wide culture, we would come to the conclusion that it’s absolutely different compared to what we thought it would be. It’s neither Russian nor Ukrainian, not even Crimean Tatar.
Once the question of when Crimeans would become into a certain consolidated group with common self-consciousness was very popular. There is such a group. It is the Soviet one. With all its Soviet consequences like the Olivier Russian salad for the New Year’s table, the Irony of Fate movie, Christian and May-Day holidays. Crimea is a small chip of the Soviet-wide culture. If I was offered to write down a Crimean culture formula, then it would look like 80% of Soviet mentality and 20% of national cultures influence.
Which national cultures have been saved in Crimea?
Unfortunately, no one succeeded to save any separate national culture. However, there are some rare national holidays or traditions. For example, it is to bake pancakes for Maslenitsa.
Of course, the little national groups of Crimean Tatars, Hungarians and Greeks had a subtle sense of their national culture, that’s why their traditions have been saved better. The Crimean Russians and Crimean Ukrainians didn’t save anything.
The Crimean Tatar cuisine influenced the culture of Crimea the most. There have always been a couple of Crimean Tatar cuisine restaurants in Simferopol and they have always been very popular among different inhabitants of the peninsula.
“If I was offered to write down a Crimean culture formula, then it would look like 80% of Soviet mentality and 20% of national cultures influence.”
Which Crimean nationalities are orientated for saving their culture the most?
Even though it sounds banal, but it is certainly Crimean Tatars. There are a lot more of Russians and Ukrainians in Crimea but they barely have anything to stand for. The Russian language is the working language for the both. In addition, the state could intercede for Ukrainians, if anything crops up. All the minority groups, such as Jews, Armenians, Greeks and Hungarians, have their own countries, each of which supports their local expatriate community. Many of them strive for leaving for their historical homeland.
Crimean Tatars don’t have anywhere to leave for, as the peninsula is the only region that legitimately can be called their home. On the other side, they are not so large in number to hold any position due to that fact. There are only 12-15% of Crimean Tatars, which correspondingly can be represented by 7-10 deputies in the Parliament.
Such representation isn’t enough to care about interests of the people to the full extend, so everything what’s left is to make huge efforts directed for support of the unity inside of the group and creation of the governmental organizations like the Majlis.
“After two phases of warfare, the German one and the Soviet one, after the German terror and genocide, after the evacuation and finally the deportation, there were less than 400 thousand people left in Crimea. In 70’s – 80’s military pensioners, KGB officers and other scum have been resettled in Crimea.”
It seems to me that things are easier with the national memory on the mainland since there is someone to remember something. What is about this category in Crimea, especially after all the deportations and resettling?
In Crimea, as well as on the mainland, there is the national memory. Each has its own. The problem is that it is not a common, rather disembodied one. In 1941 there were 1,2 million of people in Crimea. After two phases of warfare, the German one and the Soviet one, after the German terror and genocide, after the evacuation and finally the deportation, there were less than 400 thousand people left in Crimea. In other words, two-thirds of old residents, who had lived on the peninsula since the times of Catherine II, left the peninsula or perished. The rest have been put off remembering any past at all.
Then a new wave of worker and peasants rushed for recovery of industry and agriculture. In 70’s – 80’s military pensioners, KGB officers and other scum have been resettled in Crimea. These were completely different people. They brought fragments of their own traditions but they didn’t have anything in common with Crimea. Moreover, they didn’t live long enough between the 70’s and 90’s to form any common culture on the ground of the pre-war one.
In the past Crimean Russians could understand the Crimean Tatar language very well, because they had lived together on the same land for ages. New settlers couldn’t adopt that culture as all its representatives had been deported. Eventually, the historical tradition terminated. On the other side, there couldn’t be any emptiness, that’s why the space of the culture has been filled with the Soviet surrogate.
Who are Crimean Ukrainians?
They are the minor minority. The thing is that Ukrainians aren’t the native population of the Crimean peninsula. Separate groups appeared in Crimea in the Middle Ages after invasions of the horde and crusades of Zaporozhian Cossacks. But the basic mass is the offspring of migrants of the so called first wave of Ukrainian colonization in the end of XVIII – beginning of XIX century. The second massive wave of migration of the Ukrainians happened in 50s of XX century, already after the inclusion of Crimea to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. 
However, even after that Ukrainians didn’t become the majority in Crimea. They remained the minority among Russians of the peninsula.
Because of the total usage of the Russian language in Crimea, it is very hard to draw the line between Ukrainians and Russians. In 2001 the population census showed there were 24% of Ukrainians. Back then everyone, who didn’t mind and had the Ukrainian surname, was recorded as a Ukrainian. As the matter of fact, there are a lot less of Ukrainians, I personally believe it is only 8-10%.
The Ukrainian media speak about either Crimean Tatars or Crimean Ukrainians as political categories but not ethnical. Why is it so?
What is an ethnos in essence? It is following traditions. Ukrainians are united into an ethnos by the “nightingale language”, vyshyvankas, Ukrainian songs, very strong anarchic position and willingness to live in a small family. There is a classical writing by Nechuy-Levytskyy on this topic – the Kaydash’s Family. This is the unique cultural code.
Ukrainians in Crimea didn’t have this cultural code. They use the Ukrainian language on rare occasions and don’t know Ukrainian songs. At the same time, “Crimean Ukrainians” as a political phenomenon include not only ethnical Ukrainians. It is very important. Many Russian and Jewish people describe themselves politically as Crimean Ukrainians. That’s why, there is a certain sense to speak about Ukrainians of Crimea as a political and not ethnical category. The ethnical group of Ukrainians is very small.
Was there any Ukrainian informational policy since 1991?
It’s impossible to say, there wasn’t any. Of course, it didn’t differ by any certain systemacity and eventually turned out to be stillborn, but it was. It was wavy. For example, it is opening of the Ukrainian gymnasium in Simferopol, which became a very important Ukrainian heritage concentration center. All the official markings were doubled in the Ukrainian language and the paperwork was also maintained in Ukrainian. From time to time, something was done, but it was not systematically and ineffectively. In the first turn, Crimea always was a tourist region for the Ukrainian government and it didn’t have time for its social and cultural development.
Of course, every time the President came, girls wearing vyshyvankas have meet him. So, it seemed as if everything was alright in Crimea.
“We should not play with Russians without having the home court advantage and by their rules”
We actively say that Crimea should be returned to Ukraine, but we do not explain why Crimea is Ukrainian. Now Russia is so actively proving “indigenous Russianness” of Crimea that it does not even give any space for Crimean Tatars. What should Ukraine do?
Only within the last year I was shown six or seven books devoted to that subject. But we should not play with Russians without the home court advantage and by their rules. They assert that the majority of the population is Russians now, what means that Crimea should belong to Russia. Especially because Russia conquered Crimea in 1783 and anything else is distortion.
As for us, we rely on arguments of another kind. Crimea is Ukrainian because it was absolutely legally ceded from the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic to Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1954. No matter what Russians say about that, this cession has been consequently confirmed in the Constitutions of Ukraine and Russia in 1978. Correspondingly, all the talks about legitimacy or illegitimacy of cession of Crimea are the talks to feed the poor.
In 1994 Budapest Memorandum guaranteed the inviolability of borders of Ukraine. In 1997 Russia abandoned all claims for Crimea and Sevastopol in particular entirely and permanently in the special Big Treaty on Friendship and Cooperation. So, if ever Ukraine decides to refuse from Crimea, it is going to be strictly its right, as from the legal angle, Crimea is exceptionally Ukrainian. We don’t need any other arguments in order not to get involved in fruitless fight of some historical rights, because, eventually, Crimea would have to be given to Greeks and Mongols. That would be fun.
As a matter of fact, all those talks about ethnic composition and historical rights should not influence on the real politics in the XXI century. «Dura lex, sed lex» (the law is strict but it’s the law – the author’s note).
Does the Institute of the National memory have any plan of actions regarding Crimea now?
Everything we can do is to coordinate the state policy in the sphere of humanitarian discourse concerning Crimea. There will be journalistic articles concerning the Crimean history for sure. We have plans for publishing collection of such articles.
For the future, we hope to arrange conferences and round tables concerning that subject. In such a way, we support the interest to the peninsula.
Later, there will be one or two books on that subject to answer the Russian propaganda. Sure, we will not be able to outdo their scale, as all the system in Russia is adjusted for propaganda, but in Ukraine it is only a defensive reaction.
At least, we will be able to formulate the Ukrainian vision of the situation. 
Our important mission is to fight against different myths. In general, it is against the Russian ones, but also against Ukrainian and Crimean Tatars ones in olden times.
“Crimea is the least Ukrainian region from the ethnic point of view, but it became a part of Ukraine completely legally and should remain it in the very same legal way.”
What are the most popular myths about Crimea nowadays?
It’s the one about the more ancient population of the peninsula. Ukrainians say those are Trypillian and Huns, Russians prove that their ancestries lived in the principality of Tmutarakan and Crimean Tatars claim that they are the offspring of Tauri.
All of this is not so. Archeologists proved that there was no resident Slavic population in Crimea up till the XI-XIII century. Sometimes they came as it happened during the siege of Chersonesus by Vladimir the Great. But it was to no effect. They just came, ravaged the city and left. Another myth is about the principality of Tmutarakan that allegedly spread for the territory of Kerch. It is not true. Tmutarakan has never reached Crimea since the principality was only on the Taman Peninsula.
So, do you consider that such a kind of myths is possible to fight against?
Be sure. Of course, in theory, some myths can take over the other ones but there will be no serious grounds for that. Only the truth can make us free, so our task is to face up the real things. Yes, Crimea is the least Ukrainian region from the ethnic point of view, but it became a part of Ukraine completely legally and should remain it in the very same legal way.
