Deportation of the Crimean Tatars

Sürgün (Crimean Tatar and Turkish for "exile") refers to the state-organized forcible deportation of the Crimean Tatars in 1944 to Uzbek SSR and other parts of the Soviet Union. A symbol of Sürgün is a steam engine.

The projects of expelling the Crimean Tatars from the Crimea emerged several times in Russian ruling circles long before the Crimea was annexed by Russia in 1783 though never came to implementation. In 1944 under the pretext of alleged collaboration of the Crimean Tatars with the Nazis during the Nazi occupation of the Crimea in 1941-1944 (although the percent of Crimean Tatar collaborators didn't noticeably differ from that in other ethnic groups) the Soviet government decided the total eviction of the Crimean Tatar people from the Crimea.

The deportation had begun on 17 May 1944 in all Crimean inhabited localities. More than 32,000 NKVD troops participated in this action. 193,865 Crimean Tatars were deported, 151,136 of them to Uzbek SSR, 8,597 to Mari ASSR, 4,286 to Kazakh SSR, the rest 29,846 to the various oblasts of RSFSR.

From May to November 10,105 Crimean Tatars died of starvation in Uzbekistan (7% of deported to Uzbek SSR). Nearly 30,000 (20%) died in exile during the year and a half by the NKVD data and nearly 46% by the data of the Crimean Tatar activists. According to Soviet dissident information, many Crimean Tatars were made to work in the large-scale projects conducted by the Soviet GULAG system.

Crimean activists call for the recognition of the Sürgün as genocide.