People & Histories
May 1944

The Deportation of the Crimean Tatars (Sürgün)

Stalin deports the entire Crimean Tatar people from their homeland to Central Asia.

Well established soviet ruletraumaidentity

The Crimean Tatars are a Turkic, mostly Muslim people whose Khanate ruled Crimea until Russia annexed it in 1783. In 1775 they still made up about four-fifths of the peninsula’s population.

  • Crimean Tatars (Internet Encyclopedia of Ukraine) — Internet Encyclopedia of Ukraine (signed entries by subject specialists), Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies (2024)
  • Crimea (Internet Encyclopedia of Ukraine) — Internet Encyclopedia of Ukraine (signed entries by subject specialists), Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies (2024)
  • A History of Ukraine: The Land and Its Peoples (2nd ed.) — Paul Robert Magocsi, University of Toronto Press (2010)
Under Russian rule, repression drove mass emigration to the Ottoman Empire, and their share fell steadily: to 35.5% in 1897 and about a quarter by 1926.
  • Crimean Tatars (Internet Encyclopedia of Ukraine) — Internet Encyclopedia of Ukraine (signed entries by subject specialists), Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies (2024)
  • A History of Ukraine: The Land and Its Peoples (2nd ed.) — Paul Robert Magocsi, University of Toronto Press (2010)

In May 1944, as the Red Army retook Crimea, Soviet authorities accused the whole Crimean Tatar nation of collaborating with the Germans. They deported the entire people, mostly to Uzbekistan.

Crimean Tatars call it Sürgün, “exile”. How many died in exile is disputed. A 2017 demographic study estimates about 49,200 excess deaths during the years of special settlement (1944–56), roughly a quarter of the deportees, two-thirds of them in the first four years. An earlier demographic estimate put losses at 18% (1944–52), and the Crimean Tatar community’s own estimate is about 46%.

Their homes were given to settlers from Russia and Ukraine. For decades the Tatars campaigned for the right to go back.

  • Crimea (Internet Encyclopedia of Ukraine) — Internet Encyclopedia of Ukraine (signed entries by subject specialists), Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies (2024)
  • Crimean Tatars (Internet Encyclopedia of Ukraine) — Internet Encyclopedia of Ukraine (signed entries by subject specialists), Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies (2024)
  • A History of Ukraine: The Land and Its Peoples (2nd ed.) — Paul Robert Magocsi, University of Toronto Press (2010)
They were allowed to return only in the late 1980s, and most came home after Ukraine became independent.
  • Crimean Tatars (Internet Encyclopedia of Ukraine) — Internet Encyclopedia of Ukraine (signed entries by subject specialists), Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies (2024)
  • A History of Ukraine: The Land and Its Peoples (2nd ed.) — Paul Robert Magocsi, University of Toronto Press (2010)

Why it matters today

Ukraine

The Crimean Tatars ruled Crimea through their Khanate until 1783. Their exile and return are part of why Ukrainians see Crimea as more than a "Russian" peninsula, and the memory of 1944 shapes how many Tatars viewed Russia's return to Crimea in 2014.