Rooted in exile: One young woman’s fight to keep Crimean Tatar identity alive

For Crimean Tatars, whom Russian imperial power has once again deprived of their land, the choice is essentially this: assimilate in a foreign place and forget forever whose children they are, or preserve and nurture their identity from generation to generation so that, when the time comes, they can return and revive a distinctly Crimean Tatar life on their own soil.

Sultaniye’s parents and her grandparents chose the second path. So has Sultaniye.

At 16, Sultaniye Zeynidinova became a co-founder of the civic organization Marifet in Lutsk.

“I had a goal: to create an organization to spread knowledge about the history and culture of Crimea and the Crimean Tatars, as well as other indigenous peoples of the peninsula. Primarily among Ukrainians. So they would understand the importance of Crimea in the Ukrainian context — so they would have no doubts about whether Crimea needs to be returned. So they would understand that Crimea must be returned to Ukraine because it is Ukrainian territory,” Sultaniye says.

This year, the young woman turns 20. No one can predict how many years it will take before she can return to Crimea. For her today, the main thing is to strengthen the national roots of the Kırımlı, whom Russians have once again scattered across the world.

…And home is occupied by Russians

Sultaniye’s mother and father knew from their own parents and relatives that there was a place called Crimea in the world — a promised land where generations of ancestors had lived. They lived in Uzbekistan, studied in Russian schools, and were raised there as Soviet people without ethnic identity. But at home, the family spoke Crimean Tatar, cooked national dishes, and observed their traditions. There were so many relatives that her mother and father did not even need to look for children of other nationalities for play and conversation.

“In my family during Soviet times, any possibility of assimilation among Uzbeks, Russians, or other peoples was always decisively stopped. They tried to raise the children in a Crimean Tatar identity. Relatives supported the movement of Crimean Tatars in Uzbekistan for their return to the homeland. My grandfather even traveled to Moscow for dissident protest actions,” Sultaniye recounts.

Her father’s family returned to Crimea in 1989. They sold their house and all the property they had acquired in Uzbekistan. In a steppe village in Dzhankoy district, the house from which her grandfather had been deported in 1944 was still standing. The people living there would not even let the former owner's descendants onto the yard.

“Not all of those deported in the late 1980s and early 1990s could leave their relatively settled life in Uzbekistan and head into the unknown in Crimea. Crimean Tatars knew that the so-called local residents of the peninsula would meet them with 100% hostility, that no one would return their lost homes and land. My father’s family was able to buy land in the Dzhankoy district’s steppe because it was more accessible and cheaper there. My mother’s family returned much later. For a long time, no one wanted to sell them an apartment, a house, or a plot for construction. I was born in Dzhankoy district in the house that my father’s family built after returning,” Sultaniye adds.

In their native Crimea, they were greeted with the word “panaekhali.”

“I grew up in a village with a mixed ethnic population, most of whom were Russians. Everyone spoke Russian. The school was Russian too. But we had Ukrainian language lessons, and on principle, we watched solely Ukrainian television. Crimean Tatar language was taught as an elective — my older brother and sister still managed to attend it, but then the teacher left the village, and there was no one to teach it. No new teacher was sent. My parents hired a tutor for me in Crimean Tatar, and at home we spoke only Crimean Tatar with relatives. I am very grateful to my grandmother and parents for putting in so much effort so that we, the children, would preserve our identity. It was not easy,” Sultaniye shares.

In 2014, although the Maidan in Kyiv had won, President Viktor Yanukovych fled precisely to Crimea, into the arms of the “little green men.” It became dangerous for Crimean Tatars with a pro-Ukrainian position to remain in occupied Crimea. Russians came again to destroy everyone who did not want to assimilate and accept their rules. Coexisting with them on the same peninsula was unacceptable for Sultaniye’s parents. They chose identity — and lost their Crimea, to which they had returned so recently. They left with the children for Lutsk, where their older daughter was studying at a local university.

To this day, the family lives in rented housing in Lutsk. And their house in Crimea stands half-destroyed and empty.

Do you need an expert in Crimean Tatar?

At first, they hoped for a quick return home. Later, they realized they would not smell the Crimean steppe anytime soon. And in Lutsk, they began to hold on the way they once did in Uzbekistan: wherever Crimean Tatars live, they must remember their roots.

Her father created the organization “Crimean Tatars in Volyn,” which united the few Crimean Tatar families who had become displaced persons in Volyn Oblast. And Sultaniye, when she grew up, organized Marifet with her friends — the name translates from Crimean Tatar as “art.”

“When we talked, my girlfriends and I, who became activists of the organization, found out that young people today do not have the necessary knowledge about Crimea — because of the Russian occupation, Ukrainian schoolchildren and students do not visit the peninsula, and educational institutions spread very little information about Crimea. From my own experience, I knew that young people are interested in Crimea, and that there is demand for certain knowledge in youth circles. That is why my friends and I created Marifet, to satisfy this demand as much as possible. And if Ukrainians discover Crimea for themselves through our educational events, then Crimean Tatars discover themselves,” the young woman says.

According to her, she especially enjoys live conversations with high school students in an informal setting at a youth space, where they learn about the history and culture of Crimea not from teacher-mentors but from young lecturers who are almost their peers, with whom they understand each other perfectly. And then, when the event ends, they ask what books about Crimea are worth reading, what useful things they can do for Ukrainian Crimea, and so on.

“Often at these meetings, we suggest that young people write letters to Crimean young people imprisoned by Russians. We tell them that Russia does not want to return these prisoners to Ukraine or exchange them for collaborators because it calls them its citizens. Although many of them did not have Russian citizenship. In general, during such events, we want to convey that occupied Crimea is fighting, and this is part of the all-Ukrainian struggle against Russia,” Sultaniye notes.

There are many videos with her on YouTube: here she speaks to Volyn schoolchildren in youth spaces, here she answers journalists’ questions in a studio — so touchingly young and so maturely purposeful.

A young Crimean Tatar woman, a representative of the Crimean Tatar intelligentsia. Are many of her peers — Crimean Tatars — positioning themselves today as a generation that has taken responsibility for preserving the national identity of its people, who have once again been left without a homeland?

Three years ago, Sultaniye began studying in the Crimean Tatar philology department at Taras Shevchenko Kyiv National University. According to the young woman, only three representatives of her people are studying across all courses in the department, from the first year of the bachelor’s program to the final year of the master’s program.

“On territory controlled by Ukraine, Crimean Tatar language can be studied at two universities: KNU and Taurida National University. We have small groups in general; in mine, for example, there are four students, and the maximum can be 12. But 12 people were probably recruited only when the department had just opened. And ultimately, where can we, Crimean Tatar philologists, be placed? Who needs such specialists? Therefore, to earn a good living, a Crimean Tatar philologist has to work several jobs: teach, translate, and look for any opportunity to stay afloat. Since there is no stable state support, we do not have jobs in any state projects. For example, when the Ministry of Reintegration existed, there was a website that posted materials in Crimean Tatar, which provided jobs for philologists. Now there is neither the ministry nor the website nor, accordingly, the jobs. But among Crimean Tatars, there are many who are ready to finance projects to attract specialists in Crimean Tatar philology, history, and culture,” Sultaniye says.

According to her, Crimean Tatar youth know their people's history relatively well. But the situation with the language is more complicated. Often, when Crimean Tatars gather, conversation takes place in Russian or Ukrainian because they simply do not know Crimean Tatar.

“I believe that the mother tongue is an important part of identity. One should master the mother tongue at least at an everyday level. But learning the language and improving speech require effort. Not everyone is ready to do this, not everyone has the time and opportunity, and so on. As for schools for Crimean Tatars, for example, in Kyiv, the Crimean Tatar language is taught as an elective in one private school; another private school operates near Kyiv, where they study the language and literature from first to 12th grade. Parents also hire tutors in Crimean Tatar for their children. Recently, olympiads in Crimean Tatar language have begun to be held among schoolchildren across Ukraine,” Sultaniye says about the language situation.

According to the young woman, even in occupied Crimea, Crimean Tatars are losing the opportunity to study their native language in school. For example, in Bakhchysarai, before 2014, the Crimean Tatar language was taught five times a week; now, schoolchildren have one lesson per week in which the language is taught alongside Crimean Tatar literature.

There is no talk of teaching all subjects in the native language for Crimean Tatars — neither in occupied Crimea nor on territory controlled by the Ukrainian government.

“In Ukraine, outside Crimea, there are places of compact residence for Crimean Tatars — in Kyiv Oblast, for example, or in Lviv Oblast. We even have textbooks on history, physics, chemistry, and other subjects translated into Crimean Tatar. But, unfortunately, we do not have specialists who could teach these disciplines in Crimean Tatar because they received their education in Ukrainian or Russian,” Sultaniye explains.

She talks about another language problem that effectively divides Crimean Tatar displaced persons and those who live under occupation. The fact is that in April 2025, the Ukrainian government officially approved a new spelling of the Crimean Tatar language, based on the Latin script. The Latin alphabet was developed in accordance with the decisions of the 1991 Qurultay of the Crimean Tatar people. The Qurultay recognized that the transition to the Latin script would help overcome the Russification of Crimean Tatars and revive their cultural identity. But Crimean Tatars in Crimea, if they study their native language at all, do so using Cyrillic textbooks.

Start with the children

“The occupation of Crimea and the forced departure of part of our people from the peninsula are dividing Crimean Tatars. We lack funding, and there are certain problems within our community. We do not even know the exact number of Crimean Tatars in Crimea as of 2014. We do not know exactly how many of us became internally displaced persons after 2014 and 2022, how many left beyond Ukraine’s borders. And we still need some time to, so to speak, get our bearings on how to preserve identity under such conditions,” Sultaniye says.

According to her, Crimean Tatar youth meetings are taking place in many countries around the world right now. For example, last year on the anniversary of the deportation of Crimean Tatars, Sultaniye traveled to a youth Qurultay that took place in Turkiye. Crimean Tatars came from Romania, Bulgaria, Lithuania, Britain, and other countries. Crimean Tatar gatherings were held in Germany and Kyiv.

“The goal of our gatherings is not to lose connection with one another and to organize educational work among Crimean Tatars in different countries. For example, in Turkiye, we discussed how to preserve Crimean Tatar identity, specifically in children. There was talk about the need to publish children’s books in Crimean Tatar because no publishing house in Ukraine is doing this right now, and about organizing children’s camps where schoolchildren could communicate with one another and be among their own,” Sultaniye says about the plans of Crimean Tatar activists.

Sultaniye has long defined her personal plans as a Crimean Tatar educator. She sees herself as a translator — she is already creating the Crimean Tatar version of Ukrainian texts for Ukraïner. She wants to continue tutoring Crimean Tatar. She writes poetry in Crimean Tatar and dreams of developing as a poet. She does not rule out a scientific career for herself and is currently working on modern medical terminology in Crimean Tatar. Sultaniye is reorganizing Marifet — she wants the organization to focus on popularizing Crimean Tatar literature.

“At first glance, it seems that Crimean Tatar literature is literature of pain because our writers reflect a lot on the deportation. But the wound of deportation is so deep that we still need these reflections. However, if you look a little deeper, Crimean Tatar literature is literature of hope, life, and justice. Works of our literature were written to awaken in the people a desire for self-improvement and resistance, to instill certain moral principles in them. Pain and hope coexist in our literature. I want Crimean Tatars to know their literature and for Ukrainians to know our literature — because our peoples experienced the same oppression from Russians,” Sultaniye explains the new tasks of her organization.

She says that, to preserve Crimean Tatar roots, she is not sacrificing her own interests at all — because preserving national identity is her greatest interest.

“My grandmother returned to Crimea 45 years after the deportation and preserved her identity. I am not afraid of losing my Crimean Tatar identity, even if it takes me just as long to return to Crimea. I have an optimistic example — for instance, the old Crimean Tatar diaspora in Romania, whose ancestors left Crimea more than a hundred years ago, or the diaspora in Lithuania that has existed there since the 16th century. They do not forget their language — we communicate freely with them in Crimean Tatar. They do not forget their traditions; they are still in the Crimean context. And that inspires me,” Sultaniye says.

This article was created with the support of the Fund for Local Cooperation of the Embassy of Finland in Ukraine.