We invite you to our Annual Lecture on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples “Claiming the Homeland: Colonial Legacies, Indigenous Resistance, and the Ongoing Struggle of the Crimean Tatars” with Martin-Oleksandr Kisly (Crimean Studies Center, National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy).
This lecture explores the history of Crimea from the Russian annexation of 1783 to the present Russian occupation, focusing on the indigenous Crimean Tatars’ experience of colonization, displacement, and resistance.
The talk examines how Crimea was imagined and transformed by Russian imperial and Soviet authorities and how settler colonial practices reshaped the demographic, cultural, and political landscape of the peninsula.
Special attention is given to the 1944 deportation of the Crimean Tatars, its long-term consequences, and the continuous trauma of exile.
The lecture also addresses the 2014 occupation, highlighting how historical patterns of settler colonialism have reemerged, resulting in new threats, repression, and the marginalization of indigenous memory.
Drawing on oral history interviews and archival research the lecture argues that the struggle of the Crimean Tatars to reclaim their homeland is not just a historical event, but an ongoing fight for justice, recognition, and decolonization.
Martin-Oleksandr Kisly was born in Simferopol, Crimea. He is a historian specializing in the history of Crimea and the Crimean Tatars, with a particular focus on the Soviet and post-Soviet periods. In 2021, he defended his PhD dissertation, “The Return of the Crimean Tatars to Their Homeland, 1956–1989.” His research interests include oral history, memory, trauma, identity, migration, and colonialism.
He serves as an expert on the Council for Cognitive De-Occupation under the Mission of the President of Ukraine in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and is the Executive Director of RUTA – the Association for Central, South-Eastern, and Eastern European, Baltic, Caucasus, Central and Northern Asian Studies in Global Conversation.
🗓 Date: April 29
⏰ Time: 4:15 PM CET
📍 Place: Bergen Global