i want this post to be weighty and meaningful enough, so it wasn't written in one day. now when i have some sort of platform (?) here, in my opinion i should use it to speak about something important to me. something that i want people to know about.
today, on 18th of may in 1944, crimean tatar people were deported by the soviet government from our homeland crimean peninsula, our only homeland. we call it sürgün or sürgünlik which directly means exile.
the official reason for the collective punishment of the soviet government was "collaboration with the army of nazi germany during occupation of crimea". except crimean tatar people, another nine minorities were "punished" as well. (according to wikipedia, only 20,000 of crimean tatars agreed to work with germany. it opposes to 40,000 crimean tatars that were fighting against fascism and nazism in the red army.)
within three days around 192,000 of crimean tatar people have been transferred in cattle trains to central asia and ural mountains. mostly to uzbek soviet socialist republic. around 8,000 of them perished due lack of food and water and harsh living conditions in exile. houses, farms, acres of land were left abandoned.
we were allowed to return to our homeland only in the late 80s - early 90s. crimean tatars — my family included — had to rebuild everything almost from scratch during the 90s. in 2004 we made 12% of the crimean population. mind you, before exile we were 20% and before russian empire annexation of crimea in 1783 we were 90% of population. after annexation in 2014, we make only 10%.
there are many theories why the soviet government actually deported us. but it's confirmed that this is a genocide, an ethnical cleansing of autochthonous population of crimea.
currently sürgünlik is recognised as genocide by ukraine, lithuania, latvia, poland, the czech republic, canada and the netherlands.
this tragedy shaped us, this is the trauma my people carry throughout the generations. right now russian federation attempts to erase us and our heritage all over again. in crimea, crimean tatars are getting arrested, accused of being "terrorists". our national schools are closing, general education schools are slowly getting rid of our native language lessons.
half of my generation can't speak and think in our language as it gets forgotten and our dialects get lost.
so no, russian war against ukraine isn't just about ukraine for me. it's about my people's identity not being erased by the imperialist state we suffer from since the 18th century, it's about bringing them to historical justice and condemning their actions (not only towards crimean tatars, but towards everyone they've harmed)
biz unutmadıq ve biz unutmacamız (we didn't forget and we won't forget)
