Our team thanks Nadiia for an important initiative and also congratulates the authors of the manual. We asked one of them, Bekir Ablayev, the curator of the program for studying the history of the Crimean Tatars at the Crimean Family Center, about the idea of creating the book and its way of becoming.
Who was the initiator of the creating a tutorial “History of Crimea”? There were 5 authors. Who are they? What was each of them responsible for?
The idea of writing the book about the history of Crimea and the Crimean Tatars has been discussed among the members of the Crimean Tatar cultural-educational centre ”Crimean Family” for a long time. The main reason was the absence of the qualitatively adapted for children information about the Crimean Tatars’ history. The lessons of the Crimean Tatars’ history are regularly conducted in the centre and the famous Ukrainian and Crimean Tatar historians are invited to the celebrations. Soon the team of the real specialists has been organized: prominent historians Hulnara Bekirova, Andrii Ivanets, Serhiy Hromenko, an expert Yuliia Tyshchenko and the curator of the program of the Crimean Tatars’ history learning is Bekir Ablaiev. Each co-author has been working on the topics which were analyzed in their educational researches. Thus, Serhiy Hromenko and Bekir Albaiev studied the early periods and the first people,who lived in the territory of Crimea, Andriy Ivanets analyzed “the black century” of the Crimean Tatars after the annihilation of their state-building, Crimean Tatars’ cultural institutions of the 18-19 centuries as well as Crimean Tatar revolution at the beginning of the 20 century, Soviet period and its influence on the Crimean Tatars ( the war, deportation and a national movement) was investigated by Belnara Hekirova, Yuliia Tyshchenko studied the life of the Tatars in the modern Ukrainian period.
The book is called a tutorial. Are there any educational establishments which are going to work with it or has already ordered it?
I’d like to mention that only 1000 books have been published (500 in Ukrainian and 500 in the Tatar language). They were distributed among the Crimean Tatar educational centers in Odesa, Lviv, Kherson, Novooleksiivka, Chernihiv, Melitopol and other regions. This book can also be found in some regional and school libraries. We negotiate the problem of tutorial distributing with the line Ministry and the other State authorities.
The book was published in contrary to the other ones full of myths and deceitful facts. Is there any information which was not published before?
The main aim was not only to create the tutorial about the history of the Crimean Tatars and Crimea adapted for children, but also to dispel the myths about the native Crimean people, which were created hundreds of years ago and were spread with the help of pseudo educational theories.
Some of the chapters are dedicated to the the birth of a new ethnos – the Crimean Tatars in the territory of Crimea, political relations between the Tatars and the Ukrainians in the Khan period, the problems of collaboration and heroism during the WW II, and also a correct interpretation of the events in Ukraine after the Revolution of Dignity.
What was the most difficult in creation of this tutorial?
On the pages of a small book for children we had to tell about the key events of the Crimean Tatars’ history.
How can the translation into English help, I mean, how are you going to work with the people from abroad? What events are planned to support the book? What are the expectations from the work with the foreigners?
The translation of this book will let the foreigners find out the true history of the Crimean Tatars. It is so called “cultural diplomaсy”. The publication of such books can help to explain the real values of the Crimean Tatars – the home people in the territory of Ukraine. We hope to organize the presentation of this book for foreigners.