Crimea natives - who are they?

12 August 1952, according to the verdict of the Special Meeting of the Military Tribunal, almost all members of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee (EAC) were shot. The indictment in the case, which lasted from January 1949, was built on an absolutely fictional scenario about allegedly nationalistic activities of the members of the EAC. One of the important points of accusation was the question of the desire of the JAC to create some kind of autonomous Jewish state education in the Crimea. Curiously, this point was perhaps the only one more or less close to reality.
Even during the Great Patriotic War, the question arose of the Crimea as a possible place for the resettlement of Soviet Jews. Before the war, there were three Jewish national districts, where about 90 collective farms functioned, whose members were Jews. The Germans who occupied the peninsula destroyed all its Jewish population. And at the end of the war were deported to Central Asia and the Crimean Tatars. Crimea, in essence, was empty. And the members of the EAC, taking into account this circumstance and some aspects of ancient history, decided to put forward the idea of ​​Jewish autonomy in Crimea before the leadership of the USSR.
They turned to Vyacheslav Molotov. He accepted Mikhoels, Epstein and Fefer and reacted to this idea with understanding, advised to write a letter addressed to Stalin. The leaders of the EAC have, as they say, raised their spirits, and Mikhoels, during his visit to the United States, even discussed the idea with the leaders of the World Jewish Congress, who promised the full assistance of Jewish autonomy in Crimea, including large financial injections. Stalin discussed this issue during his meeting with US senators.
However, a completely innocent idea of ​​the Jewish Crimea was later put on the shelf and dragged out from there when fabricated accusations of members of the JAC in Zionist-nationalist activities: allegedly they conceived to reject Crimea from the Soviet Union, creating an independent Jewish state there with the help of the USA.
Meanwhile, the idea of ​​autonomy was developed as early as 1920 by the State Committee on the Land Use of Jewish Workers (KOMZET). She was suggested by the head of KOMZET M. Lurie, who cited the fact that Jews in Crimea lived for many centuries and even created their own independent state there. He was supported by the then prominent figures of Soviet Russia, L. Kamenev, N. Bukharin and A. Tsyurupa. However, the project of Jewish autonomy in the Crimea was rejected.
Nevertheless, many Jews in the 20-s and the beginning of the 30-s of the last century moved to the Crimea to engage in agriculture there. On the peninsula, 5 Jewish national districts were formed, in which 213 Jewish collective farms operated. However, the Stalinist repression significantly undermined Jewish agriculture in the Crimea. One reason for this was Stalin's desire to relocate Jews to Birobidzhan. Actually, the Nazis with their own methods only completed the Stalinist purge of the Jewish Crimea.
There is, however, the question of the strange burden of Russian Jews in the Crimea. Perhaps, Lurie was right, and in fact there are some historical reasons that justify their desire to settle on the peninsula? Indeed, at the beginning of the 30s, before the Stalinist purges, they lived there in cities, engaged in farming on collective farms and private farms on 150 000 hectares of land almost 300 of thousands of ethnic Jews, including Karaites and Krymchaks. Modern research confirms: Jews really lived in Crimea for centuries.
Principality of Theodoro
Studies conducted by Ella Isakovna Solomonik, Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor, revealed in the Crimea one more item of the Jewish diaspora, located in Chersonesos. One of the plates found here with an inscription in Hebrew dates back to the 2nd century BC. er The existence of a large Jewish community in Chersonesos was reported by the traveler and enlightener Konstantin, who lived in the community for a long time and studied Hebrew. He is better known as the creator of the Slavic literature Cyril.
According to the historian Efim Makarovsky, at the end of the 5th century AD er in Crimea, the Jews who lived there created the independent principality of Theodoro. It was located in the southwestern part of the Crimean Peninsula, and its northern and northeastern borders reached the Kacha River, while the southern one reached the Black Sea coast and stretched from modern Balaclava to Alushta. The largest cities of this principality were Chufut-Kale (in the Turkic dialect - the Jewish fortress), the port of Kalamita (now Inkerman) and the capital Mangup-Kale, after which the principality was sometimes called Mangup. Located high in the mountains, the main cities were turned into impregnable fortresses and the Jewish troops skillfully and courageously defended them for many centuries.
In 935 year n. er the army of the Khazar Kaganate, pursuing the guards of Prince Igor of Kiev, seized the Crimean peninsula. By that time, the Khazars were ruled by Jews, and a significant part of the population of the Kaganate was converted to Judaism. After the expulsion of the Rus, the Khazars had owned the Crimea for half a century.
Theodoro used his seaside location extensively, and his merchants conducted very profitable trade with Genoa, Milan, Byzantium. The Jews who inhabited cities and towns were the first in the Crimea, and when the Jews from Khazaria appeared there, relations between co-religionists were friendly and allied. Including due to the joint defense against numerous enemies.
The Jews of Crimea at that time had to defend their independence in arms. In the autumn of 1395, Tamerlane's troops, pursuing horsemen of Khan Tokhtamysh, broke into the Crimea. They reached the southern coast and laid siege to the capital of the principality of Mangup-Kale. The siege lasted for nine years, the assault followed the assault, but all the attacks of the warriors of the most powerful army of the time were repelled by the Jews. In 1404, Tamerlane died, and his heirs recalled their troops from the Crimea. The Jews survived for many years of continuous attacks, hunger, thirst, loss of loved ones, but the fortress did not pass. Their feat surpassed the legendary defenders of Troy, sung by Homer, who defended for the same long time, but were eventually defeated.
However, the existence of the Jewish principality came to an end. Turkey, after the capture of Constantinople in 1453, was at the height of its might, and the Crimean Khanate fell into a vassal dependence on it. In the summer of 1475, the combined Turkish-Tatar troops attacked the Genoese colonies in the Crimea and drove the Italians out of all coastal cities.
Then it was the turn of the Jews. The Turks laid siege and took Mangup-Kale. The Jewish principality ceased to exist. And the city itself Mangup-Kale was literally wiped off the face of the earth by order of the Turkish sultan.
Jews avoided assimilation, but in everyday life they began to use the dialect of the conquerors' language and called Krymchaks. Part of the Crimean Jews became Turkic-speaking, and the final design of the Krymchaks as a separate ethnolinguistic group occurred in the XIV – XVI centuries. However, according to the opinion of researchers, in particular, the most authoritative Jewish historian S. Dubnov, there is a direct continuity of this community from the ancient Jewish population of Crimea. The name "Krymchaks" was established only in the XVIII century, after the annexation of the Crimea to Russia, and originates from the documents of the Russian administration.
As we see, the desire of the Jews of Russia to settle on the peninsula and create there something like an autonomous republic, manifested twice in the twentieth century, has deep roots, if you know the history of the principality of Theodoro.
Jews of Crimea in the Great Patriotic War
Most of the Ashkenazi men and Krymchaks with the beginning of the war went to the front, part of the Jewish population was able to evacuate. There are about 50 thousand Jews left in the Crimea. With the arrival of the Germans from the Tatars, in addition to the usual rural and urban police units, by October 1942, the 8 battalions of the auxiliary police number from 260 to 700 police were formed. Their tasks were operations against partisans, search and destruction of Jews. According to German data, in the German armed forces and the police served from 15 to 20 thousands of Crimean Tatars. But in addition, of them, the Tatar Mining and Chasseurs SS brigade was subsequently formed.
The main actions of the destruction of the Jewish population of Crimea were held in 1941 near the village of Mazanka, in Feodosiya, in Kerch. The final act of the tragedy broke out on 18 in January of 1942 near the town of Karasubazar, the ancient center of the Krymchak settlement, where thousands of Jewish survivors — men, women, children, and the elderly — were killed by 2. 26 April 1942 Crimea was declared “cleared of Jews” (judenfray). In total, more than 40 thousands of Ashkenazi Jews and about six thousand Krymchaks were exterminated in the Crimea.
The extermination was avoided only by those Jews who were still partisan in 1942. In the Crimea, until the liberation, there were three partisan units. The largest was Severnoye, which was commanded by Peter Romanovich (Pinhus Ruvimovich) Yampolsky. The Jews mostly fought as part of this compound.
Detachments of Yampolsky committed sabotage on the roads of the Crimea, defeated the 4 large garrison of the Tatar battalions. Particularly intensified in the spring 1944 of the year, before the entry of Soviet troops in the Crimea and in the course of their promotion. They controlled the roads leading from Simferopol to Alushta and Karasubazar, attacked the retreating columns of the Germans, and participated in the liberation of cities. In particular, partisans of the Yampolsky junction seized the town of Old Crimea, cutting off the road to Kerch.
By the way, the main role in the liberation of the Crimea was played by the corps and divisions of the 51 Army commanded by Lieutenant General Jacob (Yankel) Kreyzer. The Soviet newspapers wrote then that in 1941 – 1942. the Germans stormed Sevastopol 250 days, and "the army of Ya. G. Kreizer liberated him in five days." And a lot of soldiers - natives of the Crimea, Ashkenazi Jews and Krymchaks, fought valiantly and fearlessly. According to the well-known researcher Aron Khatskevich, Krymchaks were Heroes of the Soviet Union, Army General Vladimir Kolpakchi and Yakov Chapichev.
After the expulsion of the Germans, profound demographic, administrative and political changes took place in Crimea. In May, the 1944 were evicted by the Tatars, and many Jews who were evacuated at the beginning of the war returned to the Crimea. But even then, the actual liquidation of the Jewish agricultural center in Crimea took place.
According to the Electronic Jewish Encyclopedia, the changes in the Soviet Union at the end of the 1980s - the beginning of the 1990s. in combination with the difficult economic situation and the fear of anti-Jewish excesses contributed to the massive departure of the Jews of Crimea to Israel, the United States and other countries. According to the nationwide census of population 2001, 4,5 thousands of Jews lived in Crimea. According to the same information, of them 1,5 thousand Krymchaks. Almost all of them moved to Eretz Yisrael.