As the majority of European countries Ukraine also has national minorities and not a few. We should emohasize that the legislature in the field of national and ethnic minorities is really ancient. So we could say that there are over 100 nationalities registered in Ukraine. The biggest part of that demographic pie belongs to the russian national minority (15-20%). But rights now I would like to speak about those groups of people who face the biggest problems. They could be devided into two groups: romas(gipsies) and Crimean tatars. The problem of the roma people is widly known in Europe so their situation in Ukraine is not easier. But in the contrary I would like to talk about the Crimean tatars as little of you may know anything about them.
Crimean tatars are indigenous population (one of the youngest ethnic groups in Europe) of the Crimean peninsula( which is one of the most ancient stage of human dispersion in Europe). From the history of Ukraine we learn that the Crimean peninsula is part of the Ukrainian Republic only since 1954 (when Nikita Khrushtchev gifted this territory to Ukraine as a commemoration signe to the 300th anniversary of the Russia –Ukraine condord ), and was inhabited by people of asian origin. To this point there was little problem with these people although in the history they appeared as enemies to the slavic peoples.
Today’s problem originate in the WWII. When some of the Crimean tatars under Hitler oppresion joined his batalions and some started guerrila war against the germans. When in 1944 the Crimean peninsula was liberated by the red army it’s population was accused in collaboration with the natzies (some surly on good reasons). But then under personal command of Stalin (dated May 11,1944) in two days (May 18-19, 1944) more than 238.500 people were mobilized into Central Asia (Uzbekistan, Kazakhistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tadzhykistan and inner-Russia).
How did it happen? Previously we say that there were 218.179 Crimean tatars in 1939 and 20.000 in 1989.So in:
- May 1944 an additional 188. 626 Crimean tatars were depopulated;
- June 1944 - 14.368 greeks;
- 12 075 bolgars;
- 11 296 azerbaijdzhanies;
- June 24, 1944 – 3 652 foreign citizens were deportated in the same regions (among them 3531 people of Greek nationality, 105 from Turkey and 16 Iranian citizens);
- October 1,1948 additional 7219 people were depopulated among those who were demilitirized, demobilized or repatriated from Germany, Austria and faced similar charges;
- March 1949- 257 ukrainian;
- 1280 russian;
- 427 german;
