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Crimea kraɪˈmia}} or the Autonomous Republic of Crimea (, , ) is an autonomous republic of Ukraine on the northern coast of the Black Sea occupying a peninsula of the same name. The total area of the republic is 26,200 km². Its population has 1,994,300 inhabitants (2005). The capital of Crimea is the city of Simferopol. It is the home of Crimean Tatars, an ethnic minority who now make up 13% of the population. Etymology of the name The name Crimea takes its origin in the name of a city of Qırım (today's Stary Krym) which served as a capital of the Crimean province of the Golden Horde. Qırım is Crimean Tatar for "my hill" (qır - hill, -ım - my). However, there are other versions of the etymology of Qırım. Russian Krym is a Russified form of Qırım. The ancient Greeks called Crimea Taurida (later Taurica). The Greek historian Herodotus (known as "the Father of History", 5th c. BC) mentions that Hercules ploughed that land using a huge ox ("taurus"), hence the name of the land. Early history The earliest inhabitants of whom we have any authentic traces were the Cimmerians, who were expelled by the Scythians during the 7th century BC. The remaining Cimmerians that took refuge in the mountains later became known as the Tauri. According to other historians, the Tauri known for their savage rituals and piracy were the earliest, indigenous inhabitants of the peninsula. In 5th c. BC, Greek colonists began to settle along the Black Sea coast, among those were the Dorians from Heraclea who founded a sea port of Chersonesos outside Sevastopol, and the Ionians from Miletus who landed at Theodosia and Panticapaeum (also called Bosporus). Two centuries later, (438 BC) the Archon, or ruler, of the latter settlers assumed the title of the King of Bosporus, a state that maintained close relations with Athens, supplying the city with wheat, honey and other commodities. The last of that line of kings, Paerisades V, being hard-pressed by the Scythians, put himself under the protection of Mithridates VI, the king of Pontus, in 114 BC. After the death of this sovereign, his son Pharnaces II in 63 BC was invested by Pompey with the kingdom of Bosporus as a reward for the assistance rendered to the Romans in their war against his father. In 15 BC, it was once again restored to the king of Pontus, but since ranked as a tributary state of Rome. During the later centuries, Crimea was invaded or occupied successively by the Goths (AD. 250), the Huns (376), the Bulgars (6th century), the Khazars (8th century), the state of Kievan Rus (10th-11th centuries), the Byzantine Greeks (1016), the Kipchaks (the Kumans) (1050), and the Mongols (1237). In the mid-10th century, the eastern Crimea was conquered by Prince Sviatoslav I of Kiev and became part of the Kievan Russian principality of Tmutarakan. In 988, Prince Vladimir I of Kiev also captured the Byzantine town of Chersones (presently part of Sevastopol) where he later converted to Christianity. An impressive Russian Orthodox cathedral marks the location of this historic event. In the 13th century, the Genoese seized the settlements which their rivals the Venetians had built along the Crimean coast and established themselves at Cembalo, Soldaia, and Caffa. Crimean Khanate Main article Crimean Khanate A number of Turkic peoples, now collectively known as Crimean Tatars, had been inhabiting the peninsula since the early Middle Ages. The ethnicity of the Crimean Tatars is quite complex as it absorbed both nomadic Turkic and European components (in the first place, the Goths and the Genoese) which is still reflected in their appearance and language differences. A small enclave of the Karaims, possibly of Khazar (i.e. Turkic) descent but members of a Jewish sect founded in the 8th c., existed among the Muslim Crimean Tatars, primarily in the mountainous Çufut Qale area. After the destruction of the Golden Horde by Timur, in 1441 the Crimean Tatars founded an independent Crimean Khanate under Haci I Giray, a descendant of Genghis Khan. He and his successors reigned first at Qırq Yer, and from the beginning of the 15th century, at Bakhchisaray. The commercial towns held by the Genoese were conquered by the Ottoman general Gedik Ahmet Pasha in 1475. After 1475, the Crimean Khans ruled as tributary princes of the Ottoman Empire until 1774 when they fell under the Russian influence. In 1783, entire Crimea was annexed by the Russian Empire. Russian Empire The Crimean War (1854 - 1856) devastated much of the economic and social infrastructure of Crimea. Crimean Tatars had to flee from their homeland en masse, forced by the conditions created by the war, persecution and land expropriations. Those who survived the trip, famine and disease resettled in Dobruja, Anatolia, and other parts of the Ottoman Empire. For the first time in their history, Crimean Tatars became a minority in their own land, with the majority spread out as a diaspora. Finally, the Russian government decided to stop the process, as the agriculture began to suffer due to the unattended fertile farmland. During the Russian Civil War, Crimea was a stronghold of the anti-Bolshevik White Army. It was in Crimea that the White Russians led by General Wrangel made their last stand against the invading Red Army in 1920. After the resistance was crushed, many of the anti-Communist fighters and civilians had to board the ships and escape to Constantinople. Hundreds of thousands of Russian patriots who chose to remain were executed by the Communists. Soviet Union In 1921 the Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic was created as part of the Russian SFSR. Crimea was a scene of some of the bloodiest battles in World War II. The leaders of the Third Reich were anxious to conquer and colonize the fertile and beautiful peninsula as part of their policy of resettling the Germans in Eastern Europe at the expense of the Slavs. The Germans suffered heavy casualties in the summer of 1941 as they tried to advance through the narrow isthmus of Perekop linking Crimea to the Ukrainian mainland. Once the German army broke through (Operation Trappenjagd), they occupied most of Crimea, with the exception of the city of Sevastopol (it was awarded the honourary title of Hero City after the war). Sevastopol held out from October 1941 until 4 July 1942 when the Germans finally captured the city. From 1 September, 1942, the peninsula was administrated as the Generalbezirk Krim (general district of Crimea) und Teilbezirk 'and sub-district' Taurien by the Nazi Generalkommissar Alfred Eduard Frauenfeld (b. 1898 - d. 1977), under the authority of the three consecutive Reichskommissare for the entire Ukraine. In spite of heavy-handed tactics by the Nazis and the assistance of the Romanian and Italian troops, the Crimean mountains remained an unconquered stronghold of the patriotic resistance (the partisans) until the day when the pensisula was freed from the occupants. In 1944, Sevastopol was liberated by the Soviet troops. The City of Russian Glory once known for its beautiful architecture was entirely destroyed and had to be rebuilt stone by stone. Due to its enormous historical and symbolic meaning for the Russians, it became a priority for Stalin and the Soviet government to have it restored to its former glory within the shortest time possible, and so it happened. On 18 May, 1944, the entire population of the Crimean Tatars were forcibly deported to Central Asia by Stalin's Soviet government as a form of collective punishment on the grounds that they had collaborated with the Nazi occupation forces. On 21 May, 1944, the ethnic cleansing of Crimea was complete. An estimated 46 % of the deportees died from hunger and disease. In 1967, the Crimean Tatars were rehabilitated, but they were banned from legally returning to their homeland until the last days of the Soviet Union. The Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic was abolished in 1945 and transformed into the Crimean Oblast (region) of the Russian SFSR. In 1954, it was transferred from the Russian SFSR to the Ukrainian SSR. As it stated in the Supreme Soviet Decree the transfer was caused by close (1) geographic, (2) economic, and (3) cultural ties to the Ukrainian SSR. The transfer was also meant by the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev as a symbolic gesture to mark the 300th anniversary of the Treaty of Pereyaslav that unified Russia and the Ukraine. Autonomy in independent Ukraine With the collapse of the Soviet Union, Crimea became part of the newly independent Ukraine, a situation largely unexpected by its population that was ethnically and culturally Russian for the most part. That led to tensions between Russia and Ukraine. With the Black Sea Fleet based on the peninsula, worries of armed skirmishes were occasionally raised. Crimea proclaimed self-government on May 5, 1992 , but later agreed to remain within Ukraine as an autonomous republic. Following the ratification of Ukrainian-Russian 1997 treaties on friendship and division of the fleet, the international tensions slowly have eased off. Government and politics Crimea is a parliamentary republic that has no president. The legislative body is a 100-seat parliament, the Supreme Rada of Crimea (which should not be confused with the national Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine). The executive power is represented by the Council of Ministers, headed by a Prime Minister who is appointed by the Supreme Rada. Administrative divisions
Geography
Economy The main branches of the Crimean economy are tourism and agriculture. Industrial plants are situated for the most part in the northern regions of the republic. Demographics By 2005, the total population of Crimea is 1,994,300. According to 2001 Ukrainian Census, the population of Crimea comprised the following self-reported ethnic groups: Even though the Ukrainian language is the single official state language countrywide, and is therefore the sole language of government elsewhere in Ukraine, this does not apply in Crimea, where government business is still carried out in Russian. Limited attempts to expand the usage of Ukrainian in education and government affairs have so far been less successful in Crimea than in other largely Russophone areas of the nation. Another language widely spoken is Crimean Tatar. According to the census mentioned above 77% of Crimean inhabitants named Russian as their mother tongue, 11.4% - Crimean Tatar and 10.1% - Ukrainian. See also Trivia | |||||||||||
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