Eighty years ago Stalin deported the Crimean Tatars out of their home country Crimea. Today, while Russia is a threat to Crimean Tatars again, we commemorate this almost forgotten history with the screening of the documentary 1944. Crimea. Deportation. Before the screening we speak with Crimean Tatars – who had to flee their homeland after the Russian invasion – about past and present.
In 1944 the Soviet regime deported more than 200 000 Crimean Tatars from their homeland to Central Asia and several other regions in USSR. This act of ethnic cleansing is one of the most evil crimes committed by the Soviet regime, yet the topic of Crimea and Crimean Tatars is almost absent in historical and political discussions.
1944. Crimea. Deportation tells about deportation of Crimean Tatars through real stories and memories of three people who survived the exile accompanied by famine, diseases and inhumane living conditions. On 18th of May 1944 Crimean Tatars were woken up in the middle of the night, packed into freight cars and taken primarily to Central Asia, Siberia, and the Urals. More than 200 000 people were deported, almost half of them died. The stories of deportees are remembered and passed from generation to generation. After the Russian occupation of the Crimean Peninsula in 2014, it became more important than ever to talk about this tragedy.
Before the screening, we will talk with project manager at the Crimean Institute for Strategic Studies Elmira Ablyalimova-Chiyhoz and Crimean Tatar journalist Elmaz Asan. Why is it so important to keep memories alive? How do memories help to work through collective trauma? And how are the tragedy and trauma of the past connected with the present?
About the speakers
Elmira Ablyalimova-Chiyhoz is an expert in cultural studies and project manager at the Crimean Institute for Strategic Studies which monitors and documents Russian crimes against cultural heritage in the Crimea and other occupied territories. Before 2014 she was a member of a local council and a vice head of Bakhchysarai district state administration, she was also public activist. In 2015 Elmira’s husband Ahtem Chiyhoz was arrested and imprisoned by Russian occupation authorities. He was charged with organization and taking part in rally and sentenced to 8 years in prison. In 2017 with help of president of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko and president of Turkey Recep Erdoğan he was freed and could come back to Ukraine.
Elmaz Asan is a Crimean Tatar journalist for the Ukrainian Crimean Tatar TV channel ATR. After Russian occupation of Crimea in 2014, she and the channel had to move to Kyiv to be able to continue to cover the aftermath of the annexation of Crimea and tell about the life of Crimean Tatars under the occupation. Elmaz also makes documentary programs that show the challenges people experience after 2014 and publishes articles in Al-Jazeera, Open Democracy and Pearls and Irritations. In 2022 Elmaz Asan became a visiting research fellow at the University of Cambridge where she studies the history of Crimea and works on her research project ‘British travellers on the Russification of Crimea at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries’.
Sprekers
Tijdens de slotbijeenkomst van Aan de landbouwtafel met… gaan we in debat over de toekomst van de Nederlandse landbouw. Hoe verder met het kleine lage land met de grote ambities?
Tijdens de 30ste editie van de Den Uyl-lezing zullen drie vooraanstaande sprekers hun inzichten delen: econoom Sandra Phlippen, geograaf Josse de Voogd en politiek wetenschapper Sarah de Lange.
Wat doe je als je buurman een chemische fabriek is? Dit najaar onderzoekt de redactie van De Balie Live Journalism samen met AT5 de dilemma’s tussen de overlastgevende industrie en oprukkende woningbouw.
