Sürgün, Vatana Dönüş ve Kültürel Canlanma: Kırım Tatarlarında Kültürel Melezlik
Deportation Repatriation and Cultural Revival: Rebulding ‘Authentic’ Culture and Cultural Hybridity Among Crimean Tatars

Summary/Abstract: Treaty was signed at the end of the Ot-toman Russian War in 1774. Crimea was annexed and the Crimean Khanate was abolished by Russian Empire in 1783. After the annexa-tion, the Crimean Tatars started to migrate to the Ottoman Empire. These migrations especially increased after the Crimean War (1853-1856). The Crimean Tatars who deported to the Central Asia and Si-beria after World War II, however, obtained right to repatriate to their homeland in 1989. This paper focuses on the interaction of the Crimean Tatars with other ethnic groups both in Central Asia during the deportation years and in Crimea following their return to the homeland, and the impact of interaction with other ethnic groups on the Crimean Tatars’ ethnic identity and culture is examined. In this paper, a constructionist approach is adopted, with special attention given to the role of interaction with different cultures and state poli-cies in shaping ethnic and cultural identities. Emphasizing the neces-sity of distinguishing ethnic and national identities from cultural iden-tity, I argue that ‘hybridity’, as one of the new concepts aiming to chal-lenge static and essentialist approaches to ethnicity and culture, is more useful in explaining cultural content rather than the notion of the ethnic boundary.

• Details
• Contents