The 1944 deportation of the Crimean Tatars to Uzbekistan and the making of a community

On 11 May 1944 the USSR State Defence Committee (GKO) issued Decree No. 5859ss, “On the Crimean Tatars,” signed by Joseph Stalin. It ordered the entire Crimean Tatar people to be removed from the Crimean peninsula and resettled permanently as “special settlers” in regions of the Uzbek SSR. The pretext was a collective charge of collaboration levelled at the whole people. (Source: Decree No. 5859ss, Soviet History Archive; Wikipedia — “Deportation of the Crimean Tatars.”)

How the deportation was carried out

The removal was conducted by the NKVD under Lavrentiy Beria on 18–20 May 1944. People were often given only tens of minutes to gather, then loaded onto cattle wagons in 67 train echelons. According to official records at least 191,044 Crimean Tatars (about 47,000 families) were deported. A further GKO decree of 21 May (5937ss) redirected some 31,551 people bound for Uzbekistan north to the Urals instead. (Source: Wikipedia — “Deportation of the Crimean Tatars”; J. Otto Pohl.)

Most were resettled in Uzbekistan

The bulk of the deportees — 151,136 people — were brought to the Uzbek SSR. The rest were dispersed to places such as the Urals (Russian SFSR — 29,846), the Mari ASSR (8,597) and the Kazakh SSR (4,286). In Uzbekistan the Crimean Tatars were settled mainly in the Tashkent, Samarkand and Fergana Valley regions and put to hard labour on cotton collective farms, in construction and in mines. (Source: Wikipedia — “Deportation of the Crimean Tatars”; U.S. Library of Congress — Revelations from the Russian Archives.)

Advertisement

Heavy losses

The deportation and its first years cost many lives. On the journey itself 7,889 people died in the sealed wagons (about 4% of those deported). By the end of 1945 at least 27,000 had perished in exile; various scholarly estimates put total deaths in the early exile years at 34,000–45,000. The causes were starvation, disease and harsh conditions. (Source: Wikipedia — “Deportation of the Crimean Tatars”; Brian Glyn Williams.)

The “special settlement” regime

The deportees were placed under “special settler” status: they could not leave their assigned area and faced restrictions on movement and education. This regime was eased on 28 April 1956, when they were released from administrative supervision — yet return to Crimea remained forbidden. (Source: Wikipedia — “Deportation of the Crimean Tatars.”)

Rehabilitation and the struggle to return

On 21 September 1967 a decree of the USSR Supreme Soviet acknowledged that the treason charge was “unfounded,” but it did not grant the right to return to Crimea. Many Crimean Tatars therefore continued to live in Uzbekistan for decades, while a national movement led by activists such as Mustafa Dzhemilev campaigned from exile for return. Finally, on 14 November 1989 the USSR Supreme Soviet declared the deportations unlawful and criminal and annulled the ban on return. (Source: Wikipedia — “Deportation of the Crimean Tatars”; iccrimea.org — Timeline.)

The mass return to Crimea

Once the ban was lifted, Crimean Tatars began returning to their homeland en masse from the late 1980s; by January 1992 at least 166,000 had returned to Crimea. Even so, part of the Crimean Tatar community that had formed over several generations remained in Uzbekistan and integrated into local life. (Source: Wikipedia — “Deportation of the Crimean Tatars.”)

Remembrance

For Crimean Tatars, 18 May is the day of remembrance for the victims of the deportation. The deportation was part of a wider Soviet policy of forced resettlement applied to a number of peoples (Chechens, Ingush, Karachays, Balkars, Meskhetian Turks, Volga Germans and others), and Uzbekistan became a place of refuge for many of them in that period. (Source: U.S. Library of Congress — Revelations from the Russian Archives.)

Conclusion

The 1944 deportation was one of the gravest tragedies in Crimean Tatar history, and it gave rise to a large Crimean Tatar community in Uzbekistan. After more than half a century of exile and restrictions, the official acknowledgement of 1989 and the changes on the eve of independence opened the way for most to return to Crimea.