Compliant Subjects?
Journal: Communist and Post-Communist Studies
Year: 2022

The Crimean Tatars, a Muslim Turkic ethnic group, remain the most oppressed group in Crimea after the 2014 Russian annexation. The Ukrainian public tends to view them as obedient victims forced to accommodate Russian demands, while scholars mainly avoid the issue. My ethnographic fieldwork in Crimea, however, demonstrates that what might seem like obedient behavior from the outside is, in fact, an expression of agency. This reading is based on close-range observations and conversations with peop