THE LAWS OF CLOSE NEIGHBORS

The image of Crimean Tartars in Ukrainian textbooks and mass consciousness bears the imprint of the idea of Christian-Islamic confrontation reinforced by the anti-Tartar invectives of Soviet historiography aimed at justifying the 1944 mass deportation. The stereotype of “treacherous” Tartars is still common in popular literature, so the purpose of this article is to give a brief account of the results of recent scholarly research allowing us to shed new light on the historical relationship between Ukraine and the Crimea.

A MULTITUDE OF CULTURAL LINKS

The long coexistence of the two peoples has been reflected in their cultures. Long ago, Mykola Lysenko noted the resemblance between the Ukrainian bandura (also kobza, stringed musical instrument — Ed.) and the Crimean Tartar bzura, while modern researchers think that emergence of the first Ukrainian kobzas was the result of Crimean cultural influence. Buckwheat appeared in Ukraine under the name of tatarka. The researches of Yaraslav Dashkevych also prove essential Tatar influence on the glorious image of Cossack Mamai.

The economic relations of Ukraine and the Crimea first of all dealt with such a product as salt. Crimean khans used to inform the Cossacks about the time salt settled and invite them to come and take some. The Cossacks in turn allowed the Tartars to graze cattle in the Dnipro steppes in case of a poor harvest in the Crimea. As modern Orientalist Oleksandr Halenko claims, the Ukrainian Cossacks grasped Oriental culture at the level of not only images but also ideas. This is testified to by the symbols of bow and rifle, by adopting the combat tactics of janissaries, etc. We mostly know about Tartar expeditions against Ukraine, but in 1624 the Cossacks received the rebellious Crimean khans Mehmed and Shagin Girei and mounted an expedition to the Crimea to intervene in the fight for the khan’s throne.

Of course, this idyllic picture of the two peoples’ neighborhood does not reflect the real state of affairs, but it would also be a gross simplification to describe it as eternal confrontation. It would be wiser to try to understand the viewpoint of each side instead of jumping to conclusions.

THE PROBLEM OF RAIDS INTO UKRAINE

Opposition between the settled (land tilling) and nomadic ways of life is one of the most ancient. In fact, neither of them is better nor worse than the other: both of them are historically conditioned. In addition, the idea that the Tartars lived only off raids on their neighbors is wrong. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries the Crimea exported bread, being, to use S. Bakhrushin’s phrase, “the granary of Constantinople.” It should be noted that the Crimea was populated not only by the Crimean Tartars. The steppe- bound part of the peninsula was inhabited by the Nogays. The Genoese prefect of Caffa, D’Ascoli, writes in 1634 about the differences in the economy of these peoples: “The Crimean Tartars plow, sow, and eat common wheaten bread, while the Nogays do not sow or plow, feeding on semi-raw meat.”

Russian historian Valery Vozgrin put forward a provocative thesis in his book The Historical Destinies of Crimean Tartars (1992) that the bulk of those who participated in the forays for yasyr (capture of slaves) was made up by the Nogays rather than the Crimean Tartars many of whom, in turn, paid a special tax to secure the right to avoid such expeditions in order to tend their farms. For some reason this bold and rather controversial conclusion has not become an object of scholarly discussion. Yet, it is difficult to deny the participation of Crimean Tartars in yasyr expeditions, although it is important to understand that those forays were caused by nomadic cattle- breeding, the Crimea’s prevailing economic method, rather than by any bloodthirsty and belligerent qualities. Moreover, such expeditions were no Tartar monopoly, but this fact has not been accepted by those who are in the thrall of a stereotype (which, particularly, is confirmed by the destiny of Zinayida Tulub’s novel The People Hunters, in which the author tried to part with the deeply-entrenched opinions).

SLAVE TRADE

The traditions of the slave trade were established in the Crimea by Russian and Genoese merchants long before the Crimean Tartars. It is fundamentally unfair to identify this business with the Tartars alone, as well as to apply modern human-rights ideas to times to which they were foreign. Almost every textbook writes about the slave market in Caffa but it is almost never mentioned that the city belonged to Genoa and was not subordinated to the khan. French engineer Guillaume de Beauplan (first half of the seventeenth century) writes the following about Caffa: “There are few Tartars living here, most of local residents being Christians.” He also notes there were 12 Orthodox, 32 Armenian, and 1 Catholic church in the city.

The Christians accounted for a considerable share of not only the slaves but also the buyers and sellers on slave markets. Spaniard Pedro Tafur, who visited Caffa in 1438, pointed out,: “The emperor of Tartarstan (the Crimean khan — Author) could have already captured and destroyed it (Caffa — Author) several times over, but the nobility and the common people of the adjacent countries would not have agreed to this because they use this place to indulge their sinful habits.” The same author added that if slaves of different nationalities are in the market, the price for a Tartar man or woman was a third more than the others, “for it is considered here that no Tartar will ever betray his master.” Frenchman Pierre Chevalier also notes the loyalty of Tartars in his History of the War of Cossacks against Poland (1663), “I saw Polish nobles who trusted, with great confidence, keys to money or valuables depositories to young Tartars.”

THE ROLE OF CRIMEAN TARTAR TROOPS IN KHMELNYTSKY’S UKRAINE

The accusation that the Crimean Tartars “betrayed” Bohdan Khmelnytsky and skimped on their military aid to the Hetman have become almost an axiom (incidentally, brilliantly depicted in Jerzy Hoffman’s film With Fire and Sword). This leaves us wondering why this Tartar aid, supposedly so unimportant for Khmelnytsky, led to the defeat of Ukrainian warriors as soon as the Tartars “betrayed” the Hetman and why Bohdan never began a battle until the Tartar troops came.

Recent research by military historian Ivan Storozhenko has proven that the alliance between Khmelnytsky and the Crimea was aimed at liquidating the operational and tactical superiority of the Polish Army by bringing together the Cossack infantry and the Tartar cavalry (it is the absence of cavalry capable of confronting the Polish cavalry that caused the defeats of previous Cossack uprisings). Both Khmelnytsky and the Poles were very well aware of the importance of Tartar cavalry. It is appropriate to quote here the words from the diary of an anonymous Pole who participated in the Battle of Pyliava, “We could only save ourselves by a quick action against the enemy (the Cossacks — Author), without waiting for them to unite with the Tartars.”

A comprehensive analysis of the situation near Zboriv and Berestechko allowed Storozhenko to identify the reasons for the Tartars’ behavior usually referred to as treason. It was found, in particular, that the Battle of Berestechko coincided in time with the Kurban-bairam religious feast, during which it is prohibited to wage war. Following Khmelnytsky’s requests, the Tartars finally came on the battlefield but, after Khan Amurat was killed and fell with his head to the side opposite to the enemy’s ranks, they began to flee to rescue, interpreting this as the sign from Allah for immediate retreat.

Let us answer the fundamental question: what was the Crimean Khanate guided with in concluding an agreement with Khmelnytsky? In all probability, the aim was to preserve a very delicate balance of forces between Rzeczpospolita, Muscovy, and the Ottoman Empire in the region. Later on, the alliance of Khmelnytsky with the Russian tsar decisively strengthened the positions of Moscow, which resulted historically in the step-by-step liquidation of the Hetmanate (1764), Zaporozhzhian Sich(1775), Crimean Khanate (1783), and Polish-Lithuanian Rzeczpospolita (1795).

It is also within the concept of balance of power that one must consider the role of the Crimean Tartar troops in the rout Ivan Vyhovsky inflicted on the Muscovite Army near Konotop (1659), the adoption of Pylyp Orlyk’s Constitution (1710) (“...the laws of close neighbors will inseparably link and closely unite the fate of the Cossack people with the Crimean state”), and the underlying meaning of Samiylo Velychko’s Chronicle (1720) statement, “The Polish slave yoke will be cut off and destroyed by Cossack and Crimean sabers.”

UKRAINIANS IN THE CRIMEA

It is quite well known about the Crimean Tartar origin of the eminent Ukrainian intellectuals Ahatanhel Krymsky and Mykhailo Tuhan- Baranovsky, but far less known are the results of a general Crimean census conducted in 1666-1667. According to the census, 187,000 Tartars lived next door to 920,000 Ukrainians, i.e., the Ukrainians accounted for 4/5 of the Crimea’s population.

Velychko’s Chronicle says that in 1675 the Cossacks with Ivan Sirko at the head carried out a raid into the Crimea and took many Ukrainians from there. Then Sirko asked them if they wished to go back to the Crimea. About 3000 said yes: they said they had nothing in Ukraine but had a farm of their own in the Crimea. So Sirko immediately ordered then set free and massacred. As Yaroslav Dashkevych points out, “This shortsighted, if not outright cruel and stupid,” policy by Sirko “threw the Crimean Ukrainians... into the Islamic and Turkic embrace.”

To sum up, I will note that the history of Ukrainian-Crimean Tartar ties (as any other bilateral ethnic contacts) cannot be reduced to either eternal confrontation or eternal friendship. With this in view, I have tried at least to come closer to a balanced approach, trying to shed light onto the side of the coin ignored in most of our contemporary textbooks.

№16 May 23 2000 «The Day»
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