Education Frontlines
John Richard Schrock
Getting Crimea right
The Western press often refers to the return of Crimea to Russia in 2014 as being a violent event similar to the Russian invasion of the Ukraine. This is wrong and a total failure of our press to do its homework.
Crimea had long been a part of Russia, beginning in 1783. Tsarist Russia had annexed it after defeating Ottoman Turk forces. But in February of 1954, the Soviet government removed Crimea from the Russian Soviet Federation of Socialist Republics and added it to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. This was done under Nikita Khrushchev, the new general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Why?
Harvard historian Mark Kramer explains: “In the 1950s, the population of Crimea — approximately 1.1 million — was roughly 75 percent ethnic Russian and 25 percent Ukrainian. … Hence, in 1954, Crimea was more ‘Russian’ than it had been for centuries. Although Crimea is briefly contiguous with southern Ukraine via the Isthmus of Perekop, the large eastern Kerch region of Crimea is very close to Russia. The peninsula did have important economic and infrastructural ties with Ukraine, but cultural ties were much stronger overall with Russia than with Ukraine, and Crimea was the site of major military bases from Tsarist times on, having become a symbol of Imperial Russian military power against the Ottoman Turks.”
Kramer suggests that Khrushchev was catering to Ukrainian leaders for supporting his rise to general secretary. But there is also evidence that adding the mainly Russian population of Crimea to the Ukrainian Soviet Republic would keep Ukraine more aligned with Russian culture and politics. There was a large minority of Russians in Ukraine, and by fusing Crimea with Ukraine, the 860,000 Russians in Crimea would increase Russian influence in Ukraine. In 1954, Khrushchev had no reason to foresee the collapse of the Soviet Union, so his hubris seemed reasonable at that time.
But in 1991, the Soviet Union did collapse. Ukraine was now independent, with Crimea as an autonomous republic within its borders.
It is important to realize that Sevastopol, the largest city in Crimea, has long been an important naval base, Russia’s equivalent of our Pearl Harbor. And if you held an election in pre-state Hawaii, you could readily see how the many active and retired military service members would vote to join the United States.
Ukraine experienced an “Orange Revolution” in 2004 and moved up in the Democracy Index by several government reforms, but still had problems of influence, corruption, etc.
A popular Maidan Revolution, from Nov. 21, 2013, through mid-February 2014, occurred after the Ukraine government refused to sign an economic agreement with the European Union that had been approved by its Parliament. This ousted Ukraine President Yanukovych.
This disruption also spurred the Parliament of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea to vote to secede from Ukraine and be annexed by the Russian Federation. A referendum was held in Sevastopol on March 16, 2014, with nearly 90% participation and over 95% of voters choosing to join Russia. Insofar as this was a majority Russian city and naval base, the outcome was logical and there were not claims of voter fraud. Some nations still refused to accept Crimea as now divorced from the Ukraine.
Sevastopol had been home to the Black Sea Fleet since it was built in 1804. After Ukraine became independent with the fall of the USSR in 1991, Sevastopol was also the main base for the Ukrainian navy. Russia used a lease agreement with Ukraine to allow the Russian Black Sea Fleet to continue stationing in Sevastopol. But after Crimea returned to Russia in 2014, Russia ended that lease agreement since Crimea was now Russian territory.
Back in May 1992, Russia had already reconsidered Khrushchev’s transfer of Crimea to the Ukraine. Russia’s Parliament ruled the 1954 transfer invalid. According to a report in the Los Angeles Times, the “Russian Parliament declared that Soviet leader Nikita S. Khrushchev’s ‘gift’ of the Crimea to Ukraine 38 years ago ‘lacked legal force’” and “called for negotiations on the future of the choice hunk of land.”
The press in 1992 did its homework. Today, major news outlets do not.