Putin says “Crimea is historically Russian land”.Reality: Stalin killed and deported the Natives, Russians moved in, Putin owns.
On the 18th of March 2014, Russia and Crimea signed a deсree about affilation into the Russian Federation. This ended the independence of Crimea: it had lasted only one day, making Crimea the shortest lived state, ever. Just like Hitler, Putin loves historical firsts.
Crimea became the 84th region of super giant Russia, the country that wants to swallow Eurasia (at least that’s what Putin says. He wants to lead a “Eurasian Union” [sic]).
Meanwhile unidentified gunmen attacked a Ukraine military base, and several people got killed, including an Ukrainian officer.
The same day, Putin made a discourse to the Duma and other worthies of his regime. Here is an extract:
“The USSR fell apart. Things developed so swiftly that few people realised how truly dramatic those events and their consequences would be. Many people both in Russia and in Ukraine, as well as in other republics hoped that the Commonwealth of Independent States that was created at the time would become the new common form of statehood. They were told that there would be a single currency, a single economic space, joint armed forces; however, all this remained empty promises, while the big country was gone. It was only when Crimea ended up as part of a different country that Russia realised that it was not simply robbed, it was plundered.
At the same time, we have to admit that by launching the sovereignty parade Russia itself aided in the collapse of the Soviet Union. And as this collapse was legalised, everyone forgot about Crimea and Sevastopol – the main base of the Black Sea Fleet. Millions of people went to bed in one country and awoke in different ones, overnight becoming ethnic minorities in former Union republics, while the Russian nation became one of the biggest, if not the biggest ethnic group in the world to be divided by borders.
Now, many years later, I heard residents of Crimea say that back in 1991 they were handed over like a sack of potatoes. This is hard to disagree with. And what about the Russian state? What about Russia? It humbly accepted the situation. This country was going through such hard times then that realistically it was incapable of protecting its interests. However, the people could not reconcile themselves to this outrageous historical injustice. All these years, citizens and many public figures came back to this issue, saying that Crimea is historically Russian land and Sevastopol is a Russian city.”
Let’s stop Vladimir a moment here. Putin claims Crimea is historically Russian land, but this is mostly due to a very recent Russian directed holocaust. In that particular area, as much as seven million may have been killed. And there are still living witnesses of that holocaust.
Let’s review big history to see how much Putin lies. Crimea was the land the Tauri, and then became Greek. By 500 BCE, Greek colonies extended all along the north shore of the Black Sea, Crimea and the Sea of Azov. So, on the face of it, the entire area belonged to the European Union, way back.
By 100 BCE, Crimea was under Roman administration. Later the invading Scythes became a problem. But Crimea was protected by the Legio I Italica and a detachment of the Legio XI Claudia.
Putin wants to evoke history, he claims Russia owned Crimea. What is the successor state of Rome? Francia, not Russia. And that shows up in Francia’s respect of Roman law, something that escape Putin’s dictatorial mysticism.
Finally Crimea was invaded by the Goths (250 CE), the Huns (376 CE), the Bulgars (4th–8th century). The Franks fought those three, and lethally wounded both the Huns and the Goths. Why do I observe this? Because Europe is a small world, and Stalin-Putin, nouveaux riches.
The Khanate of the Khazars (8th century), occupied Crimea, before turning to Judaism, while being defeated by the state of Ukraine known as Kievan Rus’ (10th–11th centuries). In 988, Prince Vladimir I of Kiev captured the Byzantine town of Chersonesos (present Sevastopol) where he converted to Christianism.
Then, in quick succession, the Byzantine Empire (1016), the Kipchaks (the Kumans) (1050), and the Mongols (1237) occupied Crimea.
Mother Russia in all this? It did not even exist.
Does something that did not exist have historical rights?
Tatars existed, though: they are a complex ethnic mix of European and Asian, using a Turkic language.
In 1346, the bodies of Mongols of the Golden Horde who died of the Black Plague were catapulted over the walls of the besieged Kaffa (now Feodosiya). Genoese ships brought the disease back.
In 1783, the armies of some of the lovers of Catherine the Great, a German princess who had killed her husband the Czar, conquered Crimea. These were the times when Russia became, by far, the world’s largest empire, conquering much of Eurasia and even America (down to California).
The Crimean war of 1853-54 was an attempt to block the Russian push south. It started with a conflict with the French in Jerusalem (where the Russians expected the French to obey them). Although the Franco-British won, the Czarists used the occasion to persecute and expropriate the Crimean Tatars some more.
In 1945, perhaps to reward Stalin to have been allied to Hitler, and thus crushed the Poles and the French, president Roosevelt gave Europe to Stalin up to the red line. (That very “red line” that Putin is now accusing the “West” to have crossed!)
On 18 May 1944, the entire population of the Crimean Tatars was deported in the “Sürgün” (Crimean Tatar for exile) to Central Asia by Stalin. Deportees spent 18 days in freight cars for getting to Uzbekistan. The inhuman conditions were obviously made so that people would die. Over bridges, the trains would stop, and bodies thrown in the water. Others were sent much further, to Siberia.
About 50% of the deportees died during transportation. In June 1944 Armenian, Bulgarian and Greek populations were also deported to Central Asia. By the end of summer 1944, the ethnic cleansing of Crimea was complete, and only Putin’s beloved Russians were welcome. In 1967, a law was passed to ban Crimean Tatars from legally returning to their homeland.
Thus we conclude the following. The historical justification of Putin for annexing Crimea is the mix of ethnic cleansing and holocaust that Russia exerted in the area over a period of a century. Approving annexation is therefore approving a holocaust.
The hysterical nationalistic chanting “Russia, Russia, Russia” mentality is intrinsically racist: it means others are not as worthy as human beings (although Tatars are OK as fish food, see above).
That sort of nationalism invites further massive violations of human rights. It’s intrinsically evil. The Kremlin does not own Crimea, and maximal sanctions and military preparations ought to be applied right away, all the more as, obviously, Putin will be stopped only if he is forced to.
Patrice Ayme
