After the Special Colonies : The mobilization for a return movement of the Crimean Tatars under Khrushchev 1956–1964

Abstract

In the Soviet Union, during World War Two the patriotic resurgence and exaltation of the Russian nation went along with a process of purification of the social body. Thus, a wave of repression targeted the Karachays, the Kalmyks, the Chechens, the Ingushians, the Balkars, and the Crimean Tatars, all of whom were deported to the fringes of the Empire. The majority of the Tatars exiled to Central Asia where they lived under the regime of special colonies. When Stalin died, the penitentiary system was reformed. With the softening of the regime of special colonies, the fortune of those peoples improved. In 1956, after the XXth Congress of the CPSU, they were liberated and soon given back their former lands, with the exception of the Soviet Germans, the Meskhetian Turks and the Crimean Tatars who began a struggle to obtain the right to return. The decision's purpose was to highlight the Tatar community's uniqueness and loyalty and to create a pedagogy of national belonging that would enable the different actors of the movement to unite in the necessity to return to the Crimea. This article revisits the Tatars' decision to speak up in order to gain reparation for what they considered an injustice. It will describe their mobilization through moments that will present the life conditions of the exiled, the intentions of the authorities, the forms of the Tatars' struggle and their argumentation that underlined three points: a nation was natural; national policies had to state the respect of the national rights; Crimean Tatars could be helpful to construct socialism on the Crimea.