DOES THE CRIMEA AFFAIR AMOUNT TO AGGRESSION, TO MILITARY INTERVENTION?

BY PILO ZYBA

Crimea has a population of 2 million, of whom 58% are Russian Christians, 24% Ukrainians, and the rest a mixture. But its territory belongs to the Republic of Ukraine. Why, then, are the Russians determined to possess this territory at any cost? What are their interests, their aims, and what key will open the door to a solution? Will the Russians try to seize this territory by force, as they have dozens of times before, because they could not secure it through diplomacy and now realise what they have lost?

There is much to be said in answer to these questions. Above all, we might ask what role the Albanian and Kosovar questions, and the question of Albanian national territory, play in the Crimean incident. What is hidden behind the curtain on the international stage, and on the Russian, Serbian and Greek stages?

To understand this, we must lay the bitter truths of the past on the writing desk and then, as we make our way through the facts and the suffering, grasp the greater truth. When the Russian Empire was fighting to make Crimea its own, Ali Pashe Tepelena lived and ruled in Janinë, on our national lands. In those days, he too made his contribution, now to one side, now to the other. Aliu pursued his own diplomacy in international affairs, with the sole aim of securing advantages and breaking away from Turkey, but also of enlarging and extending the lands under his influence, which were far from few. When Aliu asked Russia for a pact to wage an all-out war to overthrow Ottoman power, Russia refused him. Why? Now, two centuries later, the facts speak for themselves. Russia preferred a weak Turkey to a Pashalik of Janinë that was growing stronger and expanding at lightning speed, day by day, both in territory and in wealth. The other players at the political card table, such as England and France, did the same. These two seasoned diplomats, who never let anyone see their footwork, undermine every rising power from within. Sometimes they become lions, sometimes hyenas taking their prey from the battlefield, sometimes foxes practising diplomacy and making self-serving exchanges, without expending weapons or men, but wielding their tongs of cunning and guile. In those dark yet glorious days for Aliu, the Great Powers fought by setting their opponents at odds and at war with one another, and when they saw one of them rising, they brought other devilish tricks into play to weaken or destroy him. So it was with the Lion of Janinë, until they achieved their aim and executed him. With the fall of his pashalik, which also meant the territorial collapse of the Illyrian nation, as well as the fall of Turkey, the hyenas and foxes gathered at the negotiating tables and quarrelled, each seeking the largest share. And, as always happens, the loser never counts: every means and every method are turned against him to wipe him out completely. They gave wings to the Greek revolution to achieve both their aims: the fall of Turkey and the fall of the great Pashalik of Janinë.

Crimea, Çamëria, Kosova and Shkupi... the connection between them!

With the fall of the Ottoman Empire, the division of the lands it possessed came to the fore. Unfortunately for my nation, with Aliu’s fall it found itself among the losers, alongside Turkey. For its own interests, the civilised world treated Turkey and Aliu as one. Thus the nearest hyenas, Serbia and Greece, which had emerged victorious from this war, and with the help of third parties too, began biting into the ancient ethnic Illyrian lands. History repeated itself with the fall of Nazi Germany. The seizure of these territories brought a new issue to light: that of nationality, language and history.

The same decision was taken in all the occupied lands. In Crimea, the Russians carried out a terrible genocide, exterminating the population and settling Russian colonists in their place. Russia’s other Slavic brother, Serbia, did the same: it signed and sealed agreements, exterminated people and replaced the Albanian population with Serbian colonists. Greece did exactly the same, replacing the Cham population with Greek colonists. There was one purpose, and one alone: as the years passed, the language would be forgotten and ancient Illyria would be stripped of its national identity. As a result of this barbaric action, Crimea today has a population that is 58% Russian; Greece has wiped out almost the entire Cham people, while Serbia tried, removing thousands of Albanians from the lands of Kosova, but failed to achieve its ultimate aim. And what was the pretext for all these movements? What game was played to make people accept these vile acts?

Russia was “cleansing” Crimea of Muslims, Serbia was “cleansing” Kosova of Muslims, Greece was “cleansing” Greece of Muslims. The term Muslim was taken to mean Turk, while the term Orthodox was taken to mean Russian, Serb or Greek. How ridiculous, then as now. People had lived, and were living, on the lands of Crimea, Dardania, Albania and Çamëria before religion arrived. They possessed their own language, their own nation, their own history. But the devilish cooks of the history of nations prepared their dish with as much seasoning as possible to keep the truth from being recognised. Defeated Turkey was their blind instrument, coerced on the diplomatic front, but it too had its interests: by taking Albanian settlers from Kosova, Çamëria, Albania or Crimea, along with several million in revenue, it served two interests—populating its deserted lands, such as .... and securing economic gains, which also mattered greatly after the Empire’s economic ruin.

Even today Serbia shouts and barks about the churches and monasteries of Kosova, lamenting, “What will become of our national heritage, our churches, monasteries and parishes?” Enough to make you laugh, or even fart, as though these monasteries and churches stood on Serbian territory and belonged to the Serbian state. The churches stand on Kosova’s national lands and belong to it, built for its own religious needs and by its own hands. They are therefore part of the national heritage of the nation to which they belong. Such actions reveal a contrived intrigue over the problems between states and nations, yet, strangely enough, although the world knows the truth perfectly well, it takes the side opposed to the interests of the country where they were built.

A wonder of our times!

After the arrival of democracy, the Greeks built their churches all over Albania and keep shouting that wherever those churches stand, the land is theirs, the language is theirs and the state is theirs. Let the grave open and swallow me—or rather, let the grave open so we can throw in these windbags, these hounds howling in the name of the master who tosses them a bone to eat. In fact, though, none of them barks for nothing: they bark so the world will hear, and they bark so that the questions of Çamëria, Preshevë, Macedonia, Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina will not be raised. They all see that the Albanian question has been put on the diplomatic and national negotiating tables. And they all fear an Albania of its true dimensions, because they have many sins to atone for, but Albanians are asking for what is rightfully theirs, not revenge.

The “great” are forgiven even their foolishness; otherwise, how could Putin speak like a drunk or a fool: “Crimea is a Kosova on the Black Sea.” It is an astonishing comparison, or parallel. The head of the KGB is either an idiot or is playing the drunk himself, when everyone knows perfectly well that Kosova is a land inhabited by its native Kosovar population, whereas Crimea is the state of that name, cleansed and populated with Russians. But the people of Crimea are returning to their lands, and over these 24 years their numbers have come to represent 15% of the local population, and that is no small number.

For days we have been anxiously following the course of the disputes among the Great Powers in Crimea, that place where the Great Powers that emerged victorious from the Second World War divided up territories and states as though playing cards. They exchanged opinions and decisions as though the world had died and they could bury it with whatever wishes they had for its final resting place. Roosevelt, weak and thin in the “head”, with his forced humour; Churchill, a stout old man with a pipe, looking like the Good Soldier Švejk; and Stalin, his moustache dyed raven-black, in the role of sole victor. All three, at the table in Yalta, Crimea, cut up the great cake of Europe as the victors of the Second World War. Someone will ask, “Why was the Yalta Conference scheduled to take place in Crimea after the end of the war?” And I will answer, “Because the German–Russian war in the Second World War began in Crimea—not to deny the Allies’ role, but because Crimea was the nerve centre for all Europe, and also because the greatest and bloodiest battle had been fought there. That was where the mighty clash with Germany began, marking its downfall.” To keep it brief, Stalin, the greatest victor among them, since he had borne the heaviest human burden of the war, could hardly give up Crimea. That Crimea for which the Russian nation had fought since the earliest times. Crimea fell under Russian influence with the Treaty of Kucuk Kaynarca in 1774, and the whole of Crimea was annexed by the Russian Empire in 1783, but the greatest wars had been fought against Turkey. And so, less than 200 years later, Stalin could hardly give it up. The other two hungry lions, Churchill and Roosevelt, simply pretended to agree that this key, which opens and closes the doors and gateways of the Black Sea, should remain in Russia’s hands. Now the Russians are kicking and flailing over the rights of the Russians in this region, who make up 58% of Crimea’s population.

But what is the truth about the Russian population in Crimea? What is the true history of Crimea?

What connection does the Russian population have with Crimea, and what role does it play there? What is the truth about the language, culture and history of this peninsula in the Black Sea, whose appearance is beautiful and white, and which everyone covets as though it were a goddess?

Russia, “married” to this pearl with its mild climate, refuses to “divorce”, even though “beloved Crimea” no longer “wants this marriage”, and in fact never did.

Here is its history.

Taurica was Crimea’s name in antiquity. Taurica was inhabited by a variety of peoples. The interior regions were inhabited by the Scythians, and the mountainous southern coast by the Taures, a branch of the Cimmerians. Greek settlers inhabited a number of colonies along the peninsula’s coast, particularly in the city of Chersonesos in modern Sevastopol. Eastern Taurica became part of the Bosporan Kingdom before being incorporated into the Roman Empire in the 1st century BC. During the 1st, 2nd and 3rd centuries AD, Taurica hosted Roman legions and settlers at Charax, Crimea. Taurica was eventually renamed by the Crimean Tatars, from whose language the modern name Crimea derives. The word “Crimea” comes from the Crimean Tatar name Q?r?m, through the Greek Krimea (???????).

In later centuries, Crimea was conquered in succession by the Scythians, Sarmatians, Goths, Huns and Bulgars in the 4th–8th centuries, and the Khazars in the 8th century. By Kievan Rus’ in the 10th–11th centuries, the Byzantine Empire (1016), the Kipchaks (Cumans) (1050), and the Mongols (1237). In the 13th century, the Republic of Genoa seized the settlements its rivals, the Venetians, had built along the Crimean coast and gained control of Crimea’s economy and Black Sea trade for two centuries.

Large numbers of Turkic peoples, now collectively known as the Crimean Tatars, began settling on the peninsula in the early Middle Ages. They dominated the peninsula demographically, though at other times their numbers dwindled (1750–1944) or they disappeared altogether (1944–1991), only to reappear (1991–present). After Tamerlane destroyed the “Golden Horde”, the Tatars established an independent state in Crimea in 1441, under Haki Saj i GIRAY, a descendant of Genghis Khan. The Crimean Tatars controlled the steppes stretching from the Kuban to the Dniester River, though at first they were unable to take control of the trading towns. After capturing the Genoese towns, which had been under Genoa’s rule, the Ottoman sultan Meñli I GIRAY held the rebel Haki captive. He was later released in exchange for accepting Ottoman sovereignty over the Crimean khans and being allowed to rule the princes as a tributary of the Ottoman Empire. Nevertheless, the Crimean khans still enjoyed considerable autonomy from the Ottoman Empire. In 1774, the Crimean Khanate came under Russian influence through the Treaty of Kucuk Kaynarca, and in 1783, the whole of Crimea was annexed by the Russian Empire.

Crimea became part of Russia’s Taurida Governorate and was the scene of much fighting in the Crimean War (1853–1856), between Russia on one side and France, Britain, the Ottoman Empire and Sardinia on the other. Russia and the Ottoman Empire went to war in October 1853 over Russia’s right to protect Orthodox Christians. (The same lamp it holds up today to justify its entry into Crimea) ...author’s note. Russia defeated and destroyed the Ottoman fleet in the Black Sea port of Sinope. To halt Russia’s invasion, France and Britain entered the war in March 1854. Most of the fighting was for control of the Black Sea, with land battles on the Crimean peninsula in southern Russia. The Russians held their great fortress at Sevastopol for over a year. After it fell, peace was arranged in Paris in March 1856. The religious question had already been settled. The main results were that the Black Sea was neutralised—Russia was to have no warships there—and the two vassal states, Wallachia and Moldavia, became largely independent under nominal Ottoman rule. The war destroyed much of the peninsula’s economic and social infrastructure.

Crimea in the 20th and 21st centuries

During the Russian Civil War, after the overthrow of the Russian Empire, Crimea changed hands several times and 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 Nestor Makhno’s anarchist forces and the Red Army in 1920. Around 50,000 White prisoners of war and civilians were shot or hanged after General Wrangel’s defeat in late 1920. This is considered one of the largest massacres of the Civil War.

The Crimean Autonomous Socialist Republic was established on 18 October 1921. It was created as part of the Russian SFSR, which later became part of the Soviet Union. Crimea experienced two severe famines in the 20th century, the famine of 1921–1922 and the Holodomor of 1932–1933.

During the Second World War, Crimea was the scene of several bloody battles. Axis forces under the command of Nazi Germany suffered heavy losses in the summer of 1941 as they tried to advance through the narrow Isthmus of Perekop, which connects Crimea to the Soviet mainland. Once the Axis forces broke through, they occupied Crimea except for the city of Sevastopol, which held out from October 1941 until 4 July 1942, when the Germans finally captured it. From 1 September 1942, the peninsula was administered as Generalbezirk Krim (General District of Crimea) und Teilbezirk (and Subdistrict) Taurien. Despite the brutal tactics of the Nazis and their allies, the Crimean mountains remained an unconquered stronghold of local resistance until the day the peninsula was liberated from the occupying forces in 1944.

The Yalta Conference.

“The Yalta Conference in Crimea: Churchill, Roosevelt and Joseph Stalin.

On 18 May 1944, the entire Crimean Tatar population was forcibly deported to Central Asia in the “Sürgün” (Turkish (Crimean Tatar) for exile) by Joseph Stalin’s Soviet government as a form of collective punishment, on the grounds that they had collaborated with the occupying Nazi forces. Around 46% of the deportees died of hunger and disease. On 26 June of the same year, the Armenian, Bulgarian and Greek populations were also deported to Central Asia. By the end of the summer of 1944, the ethnic cleansing of Crimea was complete. In 1967, the Crimean Tatars were rehabilitated, but they were legally barred from returning to their homeland until the last days of the Soviet Union. The Crimean ASSR was abolished on 30 June 1945 and turned into the Crimean Oblast (province) of the Russian SFSR.

On 19 February 1954, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union issued a decree transferring the Crimean Oblast from the RSFSR to the Ukrainian SSR. The transfer of the Crimean Oblast to Ukraine was described as a “symbolic gesture”, marking the 300th anniversary of Ukraine’s becoming part of the Russian Empire. The General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union at the time was the Ukrainian Nikita Khrushchev.

In the post-war years, Crimea flourished as a major tourist destination, with new attractions and spas built for visitors. Tourists came from all over the Soviet Union and from neighbouring countries. Infrastructure and manufacturing also developed, particularly in the seaports of Kerch and Sevastopol and in the oblast’s inland capital, Simferopol.

Following a referendum on 20 January 1991, the Crimean Oblast was upgraded and named the Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic on 12 February 1991 by the Supreme Soviet of the Ukrainian SSR, in independent Ukraine.

With the collapse of the Soviet Union, Crimea became part of the newly independent Ukraine, leading to tensions between Russia and Ukraine. With the Black Sea Fleet based on the peninsula, fears of armed clashes arose from time to time. The Crimean Tatars began returning from exile and resettling in Crimea.

Crimea has a population of 2 million, of whom 58% are Russian Christians, 24% Ukrainian, and the remainder a mixture. But its territory belongs to the Republic of Ukraine. Why, then, do the Russians want to possess this territory at any cost, what are their interests and aims, and what is the key that opens the door to a solution? Will the Russians seek to take this territory by force, as they have done dozens of times before, because they could not get it through diplomacy and now realise what they have lost?

Then the question arises, “Russia lost all those territories, so why is it using Crimea as the key point from which to launch an act of aggression?” There are several reasons, and they are these:

-Crimea is a key economic hub in the Black Sea!

-Crimea and Yalta are the place that gave Russia, as a victorious country, vast territories, but also the place that led Roosevelt and Churchill by the nose: although they emerged victorious from the war, they marched to Stalin’s drum.

-Crimea is the last stop for keeping Russia’s supposed pride and identity aloft, now that it has been utterly discredited politically and economically on the international stage.

-Europe and America have now come closer than ever to Russia’s borders. A few years ago, when NATO wanted a missile base in Poland, the Russians made exactly the same noise as they are making now.

-The Russians have now lost their influence everywhere: the Serbs were destroyed, the Greeks crawl about for a piece of bread, with no identity and no say, Saddam was wiped out, and so were the others in the Middle East. Russia is now like a dog on a chain, living on nothing but a piece of bread from others and barking on moonlit nights, remembering a glorious past that will never return. The aim is not aggression, but making a noise to avoid being pushed back any further.