Crimea – from the Khanate to the present day

Crimea has always been a heterogeneous region in national terms. Neither the genocide carried out by the Nazis on the peninsula between 1941 and 1944 nor the deportations ordered by Stalin following the Second World War – whose victims included Crimean Tatars, Bulgarians and Greeks – could change this. Even under Empress Catherine II, the Crimea was regarded as the ‘Pearl of the Empire’. Today, it is de facto part of Russia, but politically it still belongs to Ukraine. This lecture sheds light on the eventful history of this peninsula – from the Khanate to the present day.