Thread by @maksymeristavi

my grand-granddad was most likely from a mixed Kyrgyz-Kartvelian family. but his first language was Crimean Tatar. we will never know why and how — russians kidnapped and murdered him in 1930s and the family just never spoke about him since then
#RussianColonialism

russians murdered my grand-granddad right at the offset of the Holodomor genocide, so his wife took three kids and ran away to husband’s relatives in a Qırımlı village — to survive. they sheltered her from the russian-made famine. I am alive today thanks to that kindness

still there’s little or no research about it, but many Ukrainian families from my region found refuge in Qırımlı communities during the Holodomor genocide. there’s a reason why Crimean indigenous people felt so much empathy towards fleeing Ukrainians

Amid the 1917 revolutions in Russia, Qırım left the Russian colonial empire and formed the first democratic Muslim state. Russian empire regrouped, now with the communism label, and invaded Qırım to ’protect the opposition’

Local Qırımlı, Ukrainian, and ethnic Russian communities mobilized in United Crimean Headquarters to defend themselves from the Kremlin invasion, but they were outnumbered. russian invaders punished Crimeans with mass terror, rape, looting, and ethnic pogroms

in 1919 survived Qırımlı leadership asked for anti-colonial solidarity a newly independent Ukraine. Kyiv pushed Moscow out of Qırım at first, but Russians re-invaded it after re-colonizing Ukraine in 1921

babel.ua/en/texts/92691…

So by the time my family sought refuge in Qırım, Qırımlı already survived several ethnic cleansing campaigns by russians, including a 1920s man-made famine to punish Qırım for trying to leave russian colonial empire and set up one of the first Muslim democracies

https://twitter.com/maksymeristavi/status/1569638541927366657

when russians first came to Qırım in 1783, indigenous Qırımlı made up over 95% of the population. systemic violence, pillage and aggressive settler colonialism by russians in a span of just 150 years decreased that to 25% in 1926

https://twitter.com/maksymeristavi/status/1597609614396252160

once the Holodomor genocide was over, my grand-granddad’s family returned up north to our ancestral village in Zaporizhzhia region. little did they know that they won’t see their Qırımlı saviors ever again

https://twitter.com/maksymeristavi/status/1547651845039931392

in 1944 russians deported the entire Qırımlı nation to Central Asia — every 2nd dies in this genocide. moscow offered the cleared lands to russian settler colonists. by 1979 Qırımlı made just 0.1% of Qırım’s population

because russia never got punished for any of this, when it stole Qırım once again in 2014, it restarted ethnic cleansing there. they forced hundreds of thousands to leave and replaced them with up to one million in russian settler colonists

thetrumpet.com/21099-silent-e…

simply existing as Qırımlı became a criminal offense under russian colonial rule in Qırım. thousands disappeared in colonial raids and nobody ever heard of them. hundreds ended up as political prisoners in russian Gulag

opendemocracy.net/en/odr/crimea-…

because of such a long history uniting our families in Zaporizhzhia and Qırım, part of my dad’s family still lives there. they ended up in russian occupation in 2014. despite almost a decade of stalinist-like terror, they never renounced their Ukrainianness

but when the full-scale genocide started, one of my aunts died of a heart attack when realized that her son will be drafted by russians to slaughter the rest of her family across the frontline.

today in Ukraine we mark the Day of Remembrance of the victims of the genocide of the Qırımlı people. the second time we mark this day while going through another russian-made genocide. once again, russians made the existence of Qırımlı and Ukrainians punishable by death

I shared just one of so many untold family stories how Qırımlı & Ukrainians resisted genocidal russian empire together. this is what makes us both Ukrainian. this and the desire to ensure that justice is finally served & russian empire pays for centuries of these crimes, at last