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It’s often said that history is written by the winners. This is because the winners control the schools, the media, and the publishing houses, i.e. they control the writing and dissemination of knowledge. The Internet is the latest technology to create a more level playing field and help the little guys compete with the powers that be. (Remember the fax machines and Tienanmen Square?) A nice example of the Internet’s power to rewrite history—or fill the blank spaces, as the case may be—is the Home of the Crimean Tatars.
‘History’ has done a good job of hiding the Crimean Tatars even though they trace their history back to the 9th century when Turkic tribes of Kumans and Kipchaks settled the Crimean peninsula. They became truly hidden on May 14, 1944, when all Tatars in Crimea were rounded up and deported to Central Asia and Siberia. It comes as a surprise to many people—even those with a strong interest in the history of the human rights movement in the USSR—to learn that the Crimean Tatars were probably the largest, continuous mass protest movement in the USSR. In 1987 2,000 Tatars demonstrated in Red Square, making it the largest independently organized demonstration to that time since the Bolshevik Revolution.
“Home of the Crimean Tatars” includes several extensive histories of the people, information about Tatarstan, background on the Crimean Tatar National Movement, a profile of the Rebirth of Crimea Foundation—one of the largest NGOs in Ukraine—and an overview of a UN Tatar repatriation project. Hopefully, the Tatars are just the first of dozens of smaller ethinic groups in the NIS to use the Internet to tell their stories to the world.
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| Center for Civil Society International [email protected] | |