Change in the Status of the Crimean Tatars: from National Minority to Indigenous People?

Starting from the 1950s the term “indigenous peoples” has gained a tenacious worldwide popularity thanks to growing academic focus on the rights of Indian and Inuit peoples. Contiguous normative efforts of some influential international organizations such as International Labour Organization, World Bank, and United Nations also encouraged the instrumentalization of the term by some right-seeking disadvantaged groups. Since the 1990s, the Crimean Tatars have also strived to be recognized as “indigenous people of Crimea”. They eventually seemed to have reached their goals. Ukrainian parliament gave the status of indigenous people to Crimean Tatars after Russian Federation’s seizure of Crimea in March 2014. However, the seizure itself prevented the implementation of the parliament act. This article mainly focuses on the reasons behind Tatar claims for gaining the indigenous people status as well as Ukraine’s and Russian Federation’s reactions to those claims. The main objective of the article is to identify historical changes in the status of the Crimean Tatars