Document Type
Honors Project
Abstract
The Crimean Tatars exist within a framework of historical and modern Russian settler colonial oppression. By examining their preferred form of identification, this thesis argues that claiming indigeneity holds promise for combating this colonial structure. Further, it identifies the construction of collective memories of the Sürgün (1944 deportation of the Crimean Tatars) in virtual museum project Tamirlar’s oral histories as a form of discursive decolonization—the reclamation of cultural, linguistic, and historical representation and primacy on the land. Novel analysis of fifty interviews with Sürgün survivors preserves indigenous Crimean identity and challenges the retrospective settler colonial construction of Crimea as “Russian.”
Recommended Citation
Clarkson, Milo A., "Unmaking and Remaking Crimean Tatar Identity Stalin’s Deportation, Sürgün Stories, and the Claiming of Indigeneity" (2026). International Studies Honors Projects. 46.
https://digitalcommons.macalester.edu/intlstudies_honors/46
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Eastern European Studies Commons, Indigenous Studies Commons, Oral History Commons, Social History Commons, Soviet and Post-Soviet Studies Commons
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