History of Crimea: from ancient times to the present day

The peninsula of Crimea has a rich history, which begins in ancient times. This land was of interest to many nations, so many wars were fought for it.

Archaeological evidence of the settlement of the ancient Crimea people dated Middle Paleolithic. The remains of Neanderthals found in the Kiyik-Koba cave date back to about 80,000 BC. er Late evidence of the presence of Neanderthals here was also found in Starosel and Buran Kaya. Archaeologists have found some of the earliest human remains in Europe in the Buran-Kaya caves in the Crimean Mountains (east of Simferopol). The fossils are about 32,000 years old, artifacts associated with the Gravettianskoe culture. During the last ice age, along with the northern coast of the Black Sea, Crimea was a refuge for people, from where north-central Europe was re-populated after the cold weather ended.

The East European Plain at that time was mainly occupied by the periglacial forest-steppe. Proponents of the Black Sea Flood hypothesis believe that the Crimea became a peninsula relatively recently, after lowering the level of the Black Sea in the 6th millennium BC. er The beginning of the Neolithic in Crimea is not connected with agriculture, but with the beginning of pottery production, changes in the technology of silicon tool manufacturing and the domestication of pigs. The earliest evidence of planting of domiciled wheat on the Crimean peninsula is related to the Chalcolithic Ardych-Burunsky settlement, dating from the mid-4th millennium BC. er

Tavrians began to mix with the Scythians, starting from the end of the III century BC. e., as there are references in the writings of ancient Greek writers. The origin of the Tavrians is unclear. Perhaps they are the ancestors of the Cimmerians, driven out by the Scythians. Alternative theories attribute them to the Abkhaz and Adyghe peoples, who at that time lived much farther west than today. The Greeks who founded the colonies in the Crimea in the archaic period, considered the Taurus a wild, warlike people. Even after the Greek and Roman colonization, the Taurus did not calm down and continued to engage in piracy on the Black Sea. To the II century BC. er they became allies of the Scythian king Skilur.

The Crimean peninsula to the north of the Crimean Mountains was occupied by the Scythian tribes. Their center became the city of Scythian Naples on the outskirts of modern Simferopol. The city ruled a small kingdom, covering the land between the lower reaches of the Dnieper and the Northern Crimea. Scythian Naples was a city with a mixed Scythian-Greek population, strong defensive walls and large public buildings built in accordance with Greek architecture. The city was finally destroyed in the middle of the III century AD. er goths.

The ancient Greeks first called the region Tauris. Since the Taurians inhabited only the mountainous areas of the southern Crimea, at first the name Tavrik was used only for this part, but later it spread to the whole peninsula. Greek city-states began to create colonies along the Black Sea coast of Crimea in the VII-IV century BC. er Theodosius and Panticapaeus were founded by the Milesians. In the V century BC. er Dorians from Heraclea Pontic founded the sea port of Chersonesos (in modern Sevastopol).

The archon, the ruler of Panticapaeum, assumed the title of king of the Cimmerian Bosporus, a state that maintained close relations with Athens, supplying the city with wheat, honey and other goods. The last of this dynasty of kings - Parisad V, was subjected to the pressure of the Scythians and in 114 BCopal under the patronage of the Pontic king Mithridates VI. After the death of the sovereign, his son, Farnak II, was drawn by Pompey to the Kingdom of the Cimmerian Bosporus in 63 BC. er as a reward for helping the Romans in their war against their father. In 15 BC er He was again returned to the king of Pontus, but since then counted among Rome.

For three centuries, Tavrika hosted Roman legions and colonists in Kharaks. The colony was founded under Vespasian in order to protect Chersonesos and other Bosporus shopping centers from Scythians. The camp was abandoned by the Romans in the middle of the III century. Over the next centuries, Crimea was conquered or occupied successively by the Goths (250 AD), the Huns (376), the Bulgars (IV-VIII centuries), the Khazars (VIII century).

In 1223, the Golden Horde under the leadership of Genghis Khan in the Crimea, sweeping away everything in its path. Appearing in modern Mongolia, the Tatars were nomadic tribes, who united under the banner of Genghis Khan and attracted the Turkic people to increase their army, while walking through Central Asia and into Eastern Europe. Known for his ruthlessness, the great Khan could always establish the necessary discipline and order in the army. He introduced laws prohibiting, among other things, blood feud, theft, giving false testimony, witchcraft, disobedience to royal orders and bathing in running water. The latter was a reflection of the Tatars' belief system. They worshiped Möngke Koko Tengre - “Eternal Blue Sky”, the almighty spirit that controls the forces of good and evil, and believed that powerful spirits live in fire, running water and wind.

The Crimea belonged to the Tatar Empire, stretching from China in the east to Kiev and Moscow in the West. Because of the size of his territory, Genghis Khan could not control the people from Mongolia, and the Crimean Khans enjoyed the existing autonomy. The first Crimean capital was in Kirima (now Old Crimea) and remained there until the 15th century, after which it moved to Bakhchisarai. The breadth of the Tatar empire and the power of the great Khan led to the fact that for some time merchants and other travelers who were under his protection could travel east and west safely for themselves. The Tatars concluded trade agreements with the Genoese and the Venetians, and Sudak and Kaffa (Theodosius) flourished, despite taxes levied on them. Marco Polo landed in Sudak on his way to the court of Khan Kubilai in 1275.

Like all great empires, the Tatar was influenced by the cultures that it encountered during its expansion. In 1262, Sultan Baibars, born in Kirim, wrote a letter to one of the Tatar khans, inviting them to convert to Islam. The oldest mosque in the Crimea still stands in the Old Crimea. It was built in 1314 by the Tatar khan Uzbek. In 1475, the Ottoman Turks seized the Crimea, taking Khan Mengli Giray in captivity in Kaffa. They let him go with the condition that he would rule the Crimea as a representative. For the next 300 years, Tatars remained the dominant force in the Crimea and a thorn for the developing Russian Empire. Tatar khans began to build the Grand Palace, which stands in Bakhchisarai, in the XV century.

In the middle of the 10th century, the eastern part of Crimea was conquered by the Kiev Prince Svyatoslav and became part of the principality of Tmutarakan of Kievan Rus. In 988, Prince of Kiev Vladimir also seized the Byzantine city of Chersonese (now part of Sevastopol), where he later converted to Christianity. This historic event is marked by an impressive Orthodox cathedral at the place where the ceremony took place.

Kiev dominion in the internal territories of the Crimea was lost at the beginning of the XIII century under the pressure of the Mongol invasions. In the summer of 1238, Batu Khan devastated the Crimea and Mordovia, reaching Kiev by 1240.From 1239 to 1441, the Crimean interior was under the control of the Turkish-Mongolian Golden Horde. The name Crimea is derived from the name of the provincial capital of the Golden Horde - a city now known as Old Crimea.

The Byzantines and their hereditary states (the Empire of Trebizond and the Principality of Theodoro) continued to maintain control over the southern part of the peninsula until the Ottoman Empire conquered in 1475. In the XIII century, the Genoese Republic seized settlements built by their rivals by the Venetians along the Crimean coast, and settled in Chembalo (now Balaclava), Soldai (Sudak), Cherko (Kerch) and Caffe (Feodosia), gaining control over the Crimean economy and the Black Sea trade throughout two centuries.

After the defeat of the Mongolian Golden Horde army by Timur (1399), the Crimean Tatars in 1441 founded the independent Crimean Khanate under the control of a descendant of Genghis Khan Haji-Girey. He and his successors reigned first in Kyrk-Yer, and from the XV century - in Bakhchisarai. Crimean Tatars controlled the steppes, which stretched from the Kuban to the Dniester, but they could not take control of the trading cities of the Genoese. After they turned to the Ottomans for help, the invasion led by Gedik Ahmed Pasha in 1475 resulted in Kaffa and other trading cities under their control.

After the capture of the Genoese cities, the Ottoman sultan held Menli and Giray in captivity, and later released them in exchange for adopting Ottoman suzerainty over the Crimean khans. They were supposed to allow them to rule as princes of the Ottoman Empire, but the Khans still had autonomy from the Ottoman Empire and followed their own rules. Crimean Tatars attacked the Ukrainian lands, where slaves were captured for sale. Only from 1450 to 1586, 86 Tatar raids were recorded, and from 1600 to 1647 - 70. In the 1570s, about 20,000 slaves were sold in Kaffa per year. Slaves and freedmen made up about 75% of the population of Crimea.

In 1769, during the last major Tatar raid that took place during the Russian-Turkish war, Crimean Tatars as an ethnic group entered the Crimean Khanate. This nation comes from a complex mixture of Türks, Goths and Genoese. Linguistically, they are associated with the Khazars, who invaded the Crimea in the middle of the VIII century. In the 13th century, a small enclave of Crimean Karaites, people of Jewish origin, practicing Karaism, was formed, which was later adopted by the Turkic language. It existed among the Muslims - the Crimean Tatars primarily in the highlands of Chufut-Kale.

In 1553-1554, the Cossack hetman Dmitry Vishnevetsky gathered a group of Cossacks and built a fort, designed to counter the Tatar raids on Ukraine. With this action he founded the Zaporizhian Sich, with the help of which he was to begin a series of attacks on the Crimean peninsula and the Ottoman Turks. In 1774, the Crimean khans came under Russian influence under the Kyuchuk Kainarka treaty. In 1778, the Russian government deported many Orthodox Greeks from the Crimea to the environs of Mariupol. In 1783, the Russian Empire appropriated the entire Crimea.

After 1799, the territory was divided into counties. At that time there were 1,400 settlements and 7 cities:

• Simferopol;
• Sevastopol;
• Yalta;
• Evpatoria;
• Alushta;
• Theodosius;
• Kerch

In 1802, in the course of the administrative reform of Paul I, the Novorossiysk Governorate, annexed to the Crimean Khanate, was again abolished and divided. After the development of the Crimea was confined to the new Tauride province with the center in Simferopol. Catherine II played an important role in the return of the peninsula of the Russian Empire. The province included 25,133 km2 of Crimea and 38,405 km2 of adjacent territories on the mainland.In 1826, Adam Mickiewicz published his fundamental work, The Crimean Sonnets, after traveling along the Black Sea coast.

By the end of the XIX century, the Crimean Tatars continued to live on the territory of the peninsula. Russians and Ukrainians lived together with them. Among the local were Germans, Jews, Bulgarians, Belarusians, Turks, Greeks and Armenians. Most Russians were concentrated in the Feodosia district. The Germans and Bulgarians settled in the Crimea at the beginning of the XIX century, receiving large plots and fertile lands, and later rich colonists began to buy land in Perekop and Yevpatoria counties.

After military operations in the Danube principalities and on the Black Sea, Allied forces landed in the Crimea in September 1854 and laid siege to the city of Sevastopol, the base of the tsarist Black Sea Fleet. After long battles, the city fell on September 9, 1855. The war destroyed most of the economic and social infrastructure of the Crimea. Crimean Tatars had to massively flee from their homeland due to the conditions created by the war, persecution and expropriations of land. Those who survived the journey, famine and disease, moved to Dobrudja, Anatolia and other parts of the Ottoman Empire. Finally, the Russian government decided to stop the war, as agriculture began to suffer.

After the Russian Revolution of 1917, the military-political situation in Crimea was as chaotic as in most of the territory of Russia. During the ensuing Civil War, Crimea repeatedly changed hands and for some time was a stronghold of the anti-Bolshevik White Army. In 1920, the whites, led by General Wrangel, last opposed Nestor Makhno and the Red Army. When resistance was crushed, many of the anti-communist militants and civilians fled aboard to Istanbul.

From October 18, 1921, the Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic was part of the Russian SSR, which, in turn, joined the Soviet Union. However, this did not protect the Crimean Tatars, which at that time on the peninsula among the population was 25%, from the repression of Joseph Stalin of the 1930s. The Greeks were another people who suffered. Their lands were lost in the process of collectivization, in which the peasants did not receive wage compensation.

From 1923 to 1944, attempts were made to create Jewish settlements in the Crimea. At one time, Vyacheslav Molotov proposed the idea of ​​creating a Jewish homeland. In the twentieth century, Crimea experienced two strong famines: the years 1921-1922 and 1932-1933. A large influx of Slavic population occurred in the 1930s as a result of Soviet regional development policies. These demographic innovations forever changed the ethnic balance in the region.

During World War II, Crimea was the scene of bloody battles. The leaders of the Third Reich sought to conquer and colonize the fertile and beautiful peninsula. Sevastopol lasted from October 1941 until July 4, 1942, as a result, the Germans finally captured the city. From September 1, 1942, the peninsula was under the control of the Nazi Commissioner-General Alfred Edward Frauenfeld.Despite the tough tactics of the Nazis and the help of the Romanian and Italian troops, the Crimean mountains remained an invincible stronghold of local resistance (partisans) until the day when the peninsula was liberated from the occupying forces.

In 1944, Sevastopol came under the control of the troops of the Soviet Union. The so-called "city of Russian glory", once known for its beautiful architecture, was completely destroyed, and it had to be rebuilt stone by stone. Due to the huge historical and symbolic significance for the Russians, it was important for Stalin and the Soviet government to restore its former glory as soon as possible.

On May 18, 1944, the entire population of the Crimean Tatars was forcibly deported by the Soviet government of Joseph Stalin to Central Asia. as a form of collective punishment. He believed that they allegedly collaborated with the Nazi occupying forces and formed pro-German Tatar legions. In 1954, Nikita Khrushchev gave the Crimea to Ukraine. Some historians believe that he donated the peninsula on his own initiative. In fact, the transfer took place under pressure from more influential politicians because of the difficult economic situation.

On March 19, 1993, the Crimean deputy and member of the National Salvation Front, Alexander Kruglov, threatened members of the Crimean-Ukrainian Congress not to let them into the building of the Republican Council. A couple of days later, Russia created an information center in Sevastopol. In April 1993, the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine appealed to the Verkhovna Rada to suspend the 1992 Yalta Agreement on the division of the Black Sea Fleet, followed by a request from the Ukrainian Republican Party to recognize the fleet as either fully Ukrainian or a foreign state in Ukraine.

On October 14, 1993, the Crimean parliament established the post of President of Crimea and agreed on the quota of representation of the Crimean Tatars in the Council. In winter, the peninsula was shaken by a series of terrorist attacks, including the burning of the Mejlis’s apartment, the shooting of a Ukrainian official, several hooligan attacks on Meshkov, a bomb blast in the house of the local parliament, an assassination attempt on a communist presidential candidate and others.

On January 2, 1994, the Mejlis initially boycotted the presidential elections, which were subsequently canceled. The other Crimean Tatar organizations later took over the boycott itself. On January 11, the Mejlis declared his representative Nikolai Bakhrov a speaker of the Crimean parliament, a presidential candidate. On January 12, some other candidates accused him of violent methods of campaigning. At the same time, Vladimir Zhirinovsky called on the people of Crimea to vote for the Russian Sergey Shuvaynikov.

In 2006, protests erupted on the peninsula after US marines arrived in the Crimean city of Theodosius to participate in military exercises. In September 2008, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Vladimir Ogryzko accused Russia of issuing Russian passports to the population of Crimea and called it a “real problem” given the Russian policy of military intervention abroad to protect Russian citizens. During a press conference in Moscow on February 16, 2009, the mayor of Sevastopol Sergey Kunitsyn said that the population of Crimea opposes the idea of ​​becoming part of Russia.

On August 24, 2009, anti-Ukrainian demonstrations of ethnic Russian residents took place in Crimea. Chaos in the Verkhovna Rada broke out on April 27, 2010 during a debate on extending the lease of the Russian naval base. The crisis unfolded at the end of February 2014 after the Euromaidan revolution.On February 21, President Viktor Yanukovych agreed on a trilateral memorandum that would extend his authority to the end of the year. Within 24 hours, the agreement was violated by Maidan activists and the president was forced to flee. He was dismissed the next day by a legislative body elected in 2012.

In the absence of the president, the newly appointed Speaker of the Legislative Assembly, Alexander Turchinov, became acting president with limited powers. Russia called it a “coup d'état,” and later began calling the government in Kiev a “junta,” since armed extremists were involved in running the country, and the legislative body elected in 2012 was not yet in power. The election of a new president without opposition candidates was scheduled for May 25th.

On February 27, unknown persons seized the building of the Supreme Council of Crimea and the building of the Council of Ministers in Simferopol. The aliens occupied the building of the Crimean parliament, which voted for the dissolution of the Crimean government and the replacement of Prime Minister Anatoly Mogilev by Sergei Aksenov. On March 16, the Crimean government stated that almost 96% of those who had voted in Crimea supported joining Russia. Voting did not receive international recognition and, except for Russia, no country sent official observers there.

On March 18, 2014, the self-proclaimed independent Republic of Crimea signed an agreement on reunification with the Russian Federation. Actions were recognized internationally by only a few states. Despite the fact that Ukraine refused to accept annexation, the military left the territory of the peninsula on March 19, 2004.

See how the Crimea joined Russia in 2014, see the following video.