The persecution of Crimean Tatars beginning, at least in modern times, during World War II, and continuing through the current invasion and conflict in Ukraine, demonstrates a key facet of the “politics of memory,” the subjective manipulation of objective historical fact in order to achieve political goals. Politics of memory manifests in remembrances of the past that are viewed purposely through the lens of the present, including the prejudices, biases, and hindsight that exist. In other words, as French writer Marcel Proust noted in his 1913 novel In Search of Lost Time, the present “makes itself felt” in the past. Moreover, the vicious cycle of politics of memory is such that the past also makes itself felt in the present, meaning that a past that has been manipulated will continue on as a warped perception of reality. This in turn can be exploited by those who wish to continue a certain narrative for political gain. Crimean Tatars are one example of a group facing the enduring effects of politics of memory, whose history and identity were damaged by a past narrative that is being used for further manipulation today.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is taking advantage of the narrative of “denazification” begun by Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin, and moving one step further. Because Stalin framed Crimean Tatars, an ethnic minority of indigenous Crimeans, as Nazi conspirators during WWII, the Soviet Union was able to strip Tatars of their rights and erase much of their history and identity. Putin is continuing this twisted narrative and expanding it to all of Ukraine. His “denazification” campaign, which has roots in the politics of memory employed in the past, is used as justification for current atrocities and is likely to continue to be used in the future. Thus, the vicious cycle continues.

The Present Makes Itself Felt in the Past

In 1783, Russia conquered the territory of Crimea shortly after the region had been granted independence from both Russia and the Ottoman Empire. The weakened Turks could not stop an empowered Russia from stepping in to quell political upheavals in Crimea, and the annexation of the peninsula into Russia’s sphere followed soon after (Anderson, 1958). At the time, the Tatar ethnic group comprised over eighty percent of the population of Crimea, but subsequent waves of emigration reduced numbers to less than twenty percent over the next century (Wilson, 2013). Crimea remained in Russian hands for more than 150 years.

In 1944, the Deportation of the Crimean Tatars, also called the Sürgün, began at the hands of the Soviet NKVD, the predecessor of the KGB. German forces had occupied the peninsula for more than two years during WWII, and the Tatars were hastily and falsely accused en masse of collaborating with their Nazi occupiers (Aurélie, 2008). Nearly 200,000 Tatars were exiled to remote locations in the Soviet Union. At least one in five people died due to malnutrition, disease, and overcrowding on cattle trains, or harsh conditions in the first few years after deportation. Those who survived were forced to live in repressive “special settlements” for decades (Aurélie, 2008; Emil, 2010; Wilson, 2013).

At the same time, a policy of “de-Tatarization” was launched in Crimea. Soviet authorities destroyed monuments and landmarks reminiscent of Tatar history, removed or burned books about or authored by Crimean Tatars, and Russianized local place names (Aurélie, 2008). The political status of the peninsula was changed from an autonomous Soviet republic to an “oblast” that was part of the Russian republic (and later offered to Ukraine as a symbol of goodwill). After Stalin’s death in 1953, victims of the Sürgün anticipated returning to their homeland and reintegrating into Soviet society under the new Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev’s program of rehabilitation of deported peoples. This was not the case; Tatars’ political rights were not reinstated nor were they authorized to return to Crimea. In fact, it remained forbidden (Aurélie, 2008). This further ostracization finalized the erasure of Tatar history from their native Crimea.

In 1989, a Soviet declaration finally recognized the right of exiled Tatars to return to Crimea. The nearly one hundred thousand people who returned had trouble finding housing, employment, and schooling (Bariiev, 2020). With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Crimea remained part of Ukraine. The peninsula was soon granted autonomy within Ukraine due to its unique historical background and to appease separatists. The rights of the Tatar minority—which now constitutes only 12 percent of the Crimean population—were finally reinstated under Ukrainian jurisdiction (Kowal, 2023). But memory and identity are “intimately linked,” and the group’s history had been rewritten and their sense of identity muddled (Linger, 2003, p. 1).

The Past Makes Itself Felt in the Present

Recently, dangerous sentiments have resurfaced. The Russian invasion of Crimea in 2014 drew startling parallels to Tatar persecution in the mid-twentieth century. The group has been targeted disproportionately by Russian officials, comprising more than twenty percent of the two hundred Ukrainian “prisoners of conscience”—peaceful demonstrators and activists who have been detained—despite their minority status. Dozens of abductions, disappearances, and extrajudicial killings plagued Tatar communities (Anti-Discrimination Centre, 2022). During the official announcement of the annexation, Putin guaranteed the protection of all Crimean ethnic groups and highlighted mutual respect and good relations between Crimean Tatars and Moscow (Washington Post, 2014). Meanwhile, Crimean Tatar media outlets were closed or used for Russian state propaganda, the local language was forced out of public communications and schools, and the government body representing Crimean Tatars, the Mejlis, was disbanded after being labeled an extremist group (European External Action Service, 2022). The blatant hypocrisy between Putin’s statements and his government’s actions reveals again how politics can twist historical memory. His recorded words suggest an upstanding relationship between Russia and Crimean Tatars while the actions of Russian officials (which are hardly well-recorded) tell a more accurate story of ethnic persecution.

Russian rhetoric regarding “denazification” during the current war in Ukraine is even more alarmingly reminiscent of the faulty reasoning behind the Sürgün that not only disrupted the lives of Crimean Tatars at the time but also triggered a rewriting of Crimean history. By evoking strong historical memories of the Soviet fight against Nazi Germany; Putin purposely attempts to align Russia with the good actors and Ukraine with the bad as a justification for the war he is waging. The accusation of nazism is disturbingly familiar to Crimean Tatars, and the narrative developed in the past is rearing its ugly head in the present.

In February 2023, a year after the most recent invasion of Ukraine, sixty-four percent of Ukrainian political prisoners illegally held by Russia were Crimean Tatars (The Kyiv Independent, 2023). Numerous reports have surfaced of Tatar activists being threatened, abducted from their homes, and questioned mercilessly about other thought leaders in the community, presumably so Russian forces could gain information on whom (which “Nazis”) to target next (e.g., Pikulicka-Wilczewska, 2022). These actions fit with the narrative of denazifying Ukraine, and because Crimean Tatars have been the victims of such groundless schemes in the past—Russia has never apologized for the Soviet-era Sürgün—they remain easy targets for Putin.

The decades-long plight of Crimean Tatars offers a clear picture of the enduring ramifications of malicious manipulations of historical memory. A warped collective memory surrounding the history of Crimean Tatars persists today. Both perpetrators and victims are impacted by collective memory, albeit differently. The term “denazification” can be thought of as a verbal “icon” for past historical memories revolving around the Sürgün. An icon, though commonly a photograph or other physical trigger, is anything that elicits collective memory on a subject. Understandably, references to Nazism are inherently triggering, but coupled with renewed efforts to intimidate and oppress Crimean Tatars, it takes on a stronger shared meaning not only for Tatars but for Ukrainians as a whole, who recognize the repeated rhetoric as a means of politicizing memory and altering history. For Putin and Russian officials, this icon is used as a justification for the current war and persecution, just as it was by Stalin.

As evidenced in this case, the politicization of historical memory is not a singular event affecting only one time period or group of people. On the contrary, it is a constantly evolving social exchange. Repeated reproduction of politicized sentiments and historical representations contributes to a stronger collective memory, regardless of how misshapen the objective truth has become.

Restructuring the past for political purposes has drastic implications for the future. The politics of memory played into Soviet-era oppression, and current Russian schemes exploit this as “justification” for the invasion and continued persecution. Putin, by using “denazification” rhetoric, contributes to the further twisting of Ukrainian and Crimean history by reinforcing the narrative of an inaccurate past. Close attention must be paid to the use of this weaponized tool because just as memory manipulation served Stalin and the Soviet Union in 1944, it serves Putin and Russian authorities in 2023. The politics of memory at the hands of Putin poses a threat to the future of Ukrainian history, however paradoxical it seems.

Natalie Petit is a recent graduated with a Master's in Public Policy from the Hertie School in Berlin, Germany. She also earned an MA in International Relations from Syracuse University in New York and has interned for the Brookings Institution and Wilson Center in Washington, DC.

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