(January, 2019) Crimea - Almost an Island? Shima: The International Journal of Research into Island Cultures (original) (raw)
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More than two and a half years after its annexation, Crimea is more reminiscent of an island than a peninsula, and its population`s impeded access to the mainland is adversely affecting its conditions and quality of life. Regardless of the transport and social problems, the vast majority of the population have remained on the peninsula adapting to the new situation. They are willing to blame the present difficulties on sanctions, the West’s policies and the Ukrainian diversion. This attitude has been reinforced by Moscow’s policy of ‘facts on the ground’, its harsh rhetoric, its refusal to consider revising the status quo, and Kyiv’s lack of determination to restore its jurisdiction over Crimea. If this situation does not change, within a generation the peninsula may be fully integrated with Russia, due to the bridges being constructed over the Kerch Strait, as well as the expansion of Russian media and cultural ties. Crimean Tatars as a community have suffered most as a result of the annexation. Their representative body, the Mejlis, has been recognised as an extremist organisation in Russia, which prevents it from operating on the peninsula.
Europe-Asia Studies, 2019
This article uses interviews with inhabitants of Crimea to analyse individual-level narratives surrounding the annexation of the peninsula by Russia and locate these narratives in relation to recent research on changes in Ukrainian identity discourse. It investigates how the trauma of the 2014 political change affected respondents' identifications and led to the reworking of earlier identity narratives as a means of reestablishing the subjects' ontological integrity. As a result, three narratives (those of supporters of the change, non-supporters and ambivalent respondents) were established. The narratives of pro-Russian and ambivalent Crimeans were found to be similar, highlighting a sense of trauma that the imagined unity between Ukraine and Russia had been undermined. The narratives of pro-Ukrainian Crimeans focused on the loss of unity within the Crimean community. IN 2014, A DRASTIC POLITICAL CHANGE OCCURRED IN THE Autonomous Republic of Crimea in Ukraine: following a Russian military intervention leading to the installation of pro-separatist leaders, a controversial referendum was held in March that year, formalising Crimea's incorporation into Russia. This point became a milestone in the historical narratives of Ukraine and Russia: while the former declared itself the victim of an unprecedented betrayal and violence, the latter perpetuated the belief that Crimea had 'come home'. These actions gave rise to a crisis in relations between the two countries, accompanied by an ongoing war between Ukraine and Russia-backed separatists in the Donetsk and Luhansk, a crisis within the EU over how to handle Russia's actions, and a wider crisis in relations between Russia and the West (Mangasarian 2014). Considerable debate continues to surround the nature and outcome of the 2014 referendum and, more broadly, the attitude and role of Crimea's population with regard to the political change it brought about. As Ukraine, Russia and other relevant geopolitical actors attempt to manage the implications of the annexation, the place itself-Crimea-and its population have become objectified, stripped of much of their real-life attributes, with little attention given to the
Ukraine's Autonomous Republic of Crimea is a highly contested territory both culturally and politically. With an ethnic Russian majority and a sizeable population of indigenous Crimean Tatars living alongside ethnic Ukrainians within Ukrainian territory, national identities are particularly salient in Crimea. However, a strong sense of Crimean regional identity has also been shown to persist among members of all of Crimea's ethno-national communities. Using survey data collected in the region, I demonstrate how the territory of Crimea itself figures prominently in competing narratives of national identity in the region and how Crimean regional identities are differentially negotiated and constructed through these narratives. I focus primarily on Crimea's ethnic Russian population in order to define a sense of "Crimean-Russian" identity as one that denotes an attachment to Crimea as viewed through a Russian "national lens" and understood through Russian national narratives. With this study I address the need to examine more critically the relationships between ethnic/national identities and the formation of territorially-based identities at scales below and across the nation-state. iv
The Crimea Question: Identity, Transition, and Conflict
2007
Regional diversity such as Ukraine’s often embodies potential for friction and conflict, in particular when it involves territorialized ethnicity and divergent historical experiences. Political elites interested in stability and conflict prevention must find ways either to accommodate or control this diversity. In the early to mid-1990s, the Western media, policymakers, and academics alike warned that Crimea was a potential center of unrest in the aftermath of the Soviet Union’s dissolution. However, large-scale conflict in Crimea did not materialize, and Kyiv has managed to integrate the peninsula into the new Ukrainian polity. This book explores the factors that led to the largely peaceful transition and places the situation in the larger context of conflict-prevention studies, explaining this critical case in which conflict did not erupt despite a structural predisposition to ethnic, regional, and even international enmity.
The 2014 Russian Invasion of Crimea: Identity and Geopolitics
Revista Brasileira de Política Internacional (RBPI), 2023
The following paper aims to unveil the reasons behind the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014. Based on the hypothesis that Moscow’s decision was the result of the combination of strategic and ideational drivers, the study demonstrates how President Vladimir Putin’s political project has: (i) deepened Russia’s rivalry towards the West, strengthening the threat posed by NATO’s expansion; (ii) and highlighted the role of memory in the state’s identity, putting Ukraine in a privileged position in the Kremlin’s political agenda.
"Homeland vs. Our Land: Crimean Conflicts of Identity and a Way Forward"
Crimea has been-and is-many things to many people: a homeland, a premier vacation destination, a key strategic location, an integral part of independent Ukraine, the jewel in the crown of the Russian Empire, a site of ethnic cleansing, a major battlefield, an idealized monument of multiethnic harmony, lost territory, conquered land, a distant memory, a beauty to behold, a wart on Russia's nose. Today, the Autonomous Republic of Crimea (ARC) is the only administrative region of Ukraine with an ethnic Russian majority and a sizable non-Slavic indigenous minority-the Crimean Tatars. Throughout its history, Crimea has always retained a special status, a separate identity, comprised of many other identities. Paradoxically, both its specialness and separateness have been the source of and the means of avoiding conflict. Even today, we see both of these forces at work in Crimea.