Crimea has Russian majority: dirty story
Modern Russian-Ukrainian war started in 2014 when Russia annexed Crimea — which by that time was part of Ukraine for 60 years. And it was internationally recognized so, even by Russia.
Nowadays we can hear voices that since Crimea has Russian majority then maybe it makes sence to give it back to Russia. But how exactly Russians became a majority in Crimea though? There is a pretty dirty story behind.
Long-long time ago Crimea was populated by Scythians. Historical maps suggest that Scythia occupied territory roughly similar to modern Ukraine. Not that I want to connect ancient Scythians with modern Ukrainians, even if tempting, but if someone wants to go for “historical roots”, then historically Crimea should be part of Ukraine.
Let’s skip all the complicated Crimean history and fast forward to 1443 when it became a heart of Crimean Khanate and it remained so for more than 300 years.
When in 1783 Crimea became part of Russia, about 85% of population were Crimean Tatars. Since then Russian and Ukrainian share increased over time due to immigration. This was a common strategy of Russian empire — to send its representatives to the occupied lands and Crimea was not an exception to the rule. In 1939 Crimean Tatars constituted about 20% of population and there were about 50% of Russians and 14% of Ukrainians.
Horrible thing happened in 1944 on May 18th. Starting from this day in just a few days all the Crimean Tatar population was forcefully deported from their motherland. Many of them died during the deportation or shortly thereafter. After this Crimean Tatars population in Crimea dropped to 0%. This act of genocide is named Sürgünlik — exile. Since then Russian population became a clear majority.
Only after Ukraine gained independence from USSR and could finally doing their own policy, Crimean Tatars were allowed to return to their motherland and many did. Nowadays about 15% of population in Crimea are Crimean Tatars. Many of them did not return and stayed in Uzbekistan — the place where they were originally deported to. Numbers suggest that if genocide never happened, Crimean Tatar population would have much higher share in Crimea and maybe they would constitute a majority of population.
History does not operate with “if-statements”. We don’t know what would happen if there was no genocide. However the current situation when about 70% of population are of Russian descent has a bloody history. Today Crimean Tatars are again repressed in Crimea after Russian annexation. This did not happen when Ukraine governed the territory. Is it a wonder that Crimean Tatars are pro-Ukrainian?
Crimean Tatars flag. Symbolically colors are similar to Ukrainian flag.
Scythian maps found here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scythia#/media/File:Scythian_kingdom_in_the_Pontic_steppe.jpg, made by Antiquistik.
https://uk.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%A1%D0%BA%D1%96%D1%84%D1%96%D1%8F#/media/%D0%A4%D0%B0%D0%B9%D0%BB:MapU_5.jpg, public domain