Returning Crimea is returning millennia of history
Sergii Gromenko: «Russia's seizure of Crimea is not just about stealing a territory, though that was obvious to everyone around» (Фото: ua.depositphotos.com/olga.danroz)
The fight to return Crimea under Ukraine’s full sovereignty is about more than restored justice, returned territories, people, and property. It’s a fight to return its history to our state.
This material was prepared as part of the «How We Will Get Crimea Back» project — an initiative of Ukrainian journalists from Crimea. It’s goal is to find instruments and solutions for the de-occupation and reintegration of the peninsula.
AUTHOR: Sergii Gromenko, historian
Back in 2001, Russian researcher Andrei Zorin gave the following answer to the question about the real reasons why Russian people were so in love with Crimea:
«Behind all the explanations, there is an idea that ownership of Crimea is the crown jewel of the Russian historical mission. A world of white houses near the sea, gravel paths between laurel bushes, cypress alleys with plaster vases and statues — this was our ancient Greece, our paradise. Even if it is cleansed, after the war, by the will of the father of nations from the excessive ethnic diversity, (it is) still accessible via a trip voucher provided by a trade union or a ticket from a Pioneer organization.»
Russian political writer, Yegor Kholmogorov, who in the course of several months turned from Russian imperialist into pro-Maidan Ukrainophile and, later, into a dedicated supporter of the annexation of Crimea, confirmed Zorin’s thesis in 2014:
«With Crimea, Russia returned several millennia of its past of particular importance for defining our status in Europe and the world… In 1991, Russia was practically cut off from its classical antiquity, retaining only small ruins near the Sea of Azov and Phanagoria in the Northern Caucasus (where Putin dived for amphorae). By returning Crimea, we arrived from the barbaric periphery, outskirts, to the turbulent centre of the classic antiquity and Byzantium world, becoming its rightful participants.»
Thus, for the Russian imagination, its ownership over Crimea is «a crown jewel of the Russian historical mission,» the determinant of its «status in the world.»
However, the opposite claim is also true. Without Crimea, Ukraine only has Pontic Olbia and Tyras, since the main centres of classical antiquity of the northern Black Sea coast are on the occupied peninsula: Panticapaeum-Kerch, the oldest of the still existing cities in the whole eastern Europe, and Chersonesus — the Troy of Kyivan Rus and the key to Byzantium heritage.
In 2014, therefore, Russia stole from Ukraine — and in a way from the whole world — not just a peninsula, but millennia of history.
Due to the Russian occupation of Crimea, a million people that were against the annexation — including the indigenous people of Crimean Tatars — lost their homes and state. Ukrainians were deprived of their favourite beaches, shale gas, and 2,500 years of European history. The fight to return Crimea under Ukraine’s full sovereignty is about more than restored justice, returned territories, people, and property. It’s a fight to return its history to our state.
*This is a truncated English adaptation of the article. The full original text can be viewed in Ukrainian and Russian.
