The Predicament of the Crimean Tatars, Past and Present
Journal: Bilkent University Institutional Repository (Bilkent University)
Year: 2016

This article demonstrates how, with the rise of Russia as a major power in Caucasia and the Black Sea regions, the people of Crimea lost their independence and homeland. In the fifteenth century, two centuries after its conquest by a grandson of Genghis Khan, the Crimea came to house an independent Khanate. Inner struggles in the Khanate and its rivalry with the Genoese traders along the coast led to its vassaldom to the Ottomans. The rivalry that subsequently developed with Russia caused the co