Why did Russia leave Crimea to Ukraine as the USSR disintegrated?

What brought the ancient Greeks and Venetians to Crimea? Did any other distant ancient civilizations have an interest in it?

The AskSocialScience Crimea thread - ask about the history, politics and economy of Russia, Ukraine and the Crimea.

What is the history of the Tatars in the region?

i read somewhere that most of the russian history is about getting a warm water port, how acurate is this? when has this happened? why is really that important and how other countries without warm water ports deal with this problem?

When did separate Russian and Ukrainian national identities emerge? And slightly related, did the Russian civilization originate with the rus in Kiev?

Not sure if this is the appropriate spot to ask, but it'll be deleted if not.

My SO's grandmother recently passed and in going through her things we found her passport. During WW2 she was a Ukrainian citizen put into a work camp. Her passport was entirely in German and had a swastika on the cover.

My question is, why would this be her official passport? Why wouldn't the USSR have issued her a new one?

Is there any truth to the suggestion posed here that Turkey may still have a claim over Crimea?

What role does events like the Holodomor (trans. death by famine) in the 1930s and relations between Russia and the Ukraine SSR play in current tensions between the two countries?

Edit: 1930s is not during the cold war. Ukraine was part of the USSR. This what happens before coffee in the morning...

Why was the Crimea granted to an independent Ukraine after 1991? I understand that the decision was contentious, but I was also wondering to what degree has this decision affected Russian and Ukrainian historiography? I imagine the historiography, like the decision to grant Crimea to the Ukraine, has been hotly contested in both languages. Can anyone who specializes/reads in these languages provide more insight?

I read a few years back in an article about Ukraine wanting to join NATO, that a "high ranking Russian government official" stated that Russia will never tolerate that. In fact, he described Ukraine as a core part of Russian national heritage. "Ukraine is more Russian than Russia." That statement surprised me because if thats true, why wouldnt they keep it part of Russia when the USSR broke up. Also, how true was that statement at describing Russian mentality regarding Ukraine?

How closely linked have the Ukraine and Russia been throughout history?

I know that there has been a war in Crimea around 1850 in which the very first photo report from a battle and various meetings of officers. I know also that it was fought by France (and Savoy sent a few troops to get an alliance). Could you expand on what it was for and who were the parts fighting?

Peter Hopkirk in The Great Game described Russia as having a "paranoid dread of invasion and encirclement" going way back (I think) to the Mongols. As though it were a phobia they had developed as a culture, and was in some subconscious way influencing them throughout their history. Not knowing much about the subject, I tend to look at all of Russia's political and military moves through that admittedly simplistic lens.

In your opinion does such an interpretation provide any useful insight into their political and military history in general?

During the late Soviet era, was it obvious to everyone in Crimea who was Ukrainian, Russian, or Tartar and how/why? Could you tell by looking at people? Or would you need to hear them speak?

Were the ethic neighborhoods as distinct as those in Jerusalem? Was there segregation in schools? Would Russian kids have Ukrainian friends?

Was Russian/Ukrainian marriage/mating common?

Does the history of the Crimea region date to the Kievan Rus or prior? what were the stipulations of Kruschev giving Crimea to the Ukraine in the 50s?

What was Crimea like as a Greek city state? When did the Crimea Tarters take over the region? When did Russians become the dominant ethnic group in Crimea?

Why was Crimea and Sevastopol so important and sought after as a Black Sea port when Russia already had Rostov-on-Don on the Sea of Azov and Novorossisk, Sochi and other areas on the eastern coast of the Black Sea?

Growing up, I recall referring to these places as the Ukraine, and as the Crimea. Now we say Ukraine and Crimea with the The. Can someone explain this shift?

How much of the legend of the Battle of Balaclava (the "Thin Red Line," Charge of the Heavy Brigade, Charge of the Light Brigade) has its basis in fact? Was the light brigade really as suicidally heroic as Tennyson and Kipling have portrayed it?

And what was the historical basis for the Crimean War? Why were the British besieging Sevastopol in the first place?

A lot of history books tends to ignore Ukraine post WWII until about 1986, with the Chernobyl Disaster.

During the cold war, was Ukraine a "good" SSR, following direction from Russia, or is there pattern towards what starts in Hungary in 1956, visits Prague a decade later, and culminates in the Solidarity movement in 1980s Poland?

I'm most interested in the political and cultural history of the country between 1947 and about 1986. I know that's kind of vague, but I really appreciate it.

Yesterday, and again today, Hillary Clinton said that Hitler used the tactic of saying he was invading to protect an ethnic German minority to justify the actions of Nazi Germany in a manner similar to the way Putin is now claiming that Russia's only interest in Ukraine is to protect the ethnic Russian minority.

How apt is this comparison?

I hope this doesn't violate the 1994 rule; I really am asking more about the past than the present, though of course the question makes no sense without discussing the present!

To what extent did the Crimean War (1853-1856) set in motion events that are playing out in that region today? I know a lot of other things have happened since then that may be more important to the present conflict, but that is the only other reference I have in my brain for this region of the world.

Could someone provide some insight into some research of my interest?

Additional history of the black sea region includes the Germans from Russia. Russia had cleared the native population out of the Volga River basin and needed to resettle it. When Catherine the Great married Peter, she helped repopulate a lot of this area with German settlers. They started to settle in the region in the 1750s. The situation deteriorated for the Germans after Catherine's death when Alexander I took over. I might be a little confused there because it could have been Alexander I's successor that was anti-German (or anti non-Russian).

The wikipedia says the persecution mostly began in 1917 but the conscription of Germans into the Russian military (which they originally said wouldn't happen) started before that and that's when people started "country shopping." I think for whatever reason they couldn't return to Germany at the time. Many decided on USA (But also Canada and Argentina) because under the Homestead Act you were given ownership of the land after fulfilling the requirements of the act, whereas the land in the Ukraine (then Russia) had only been on lease.

A year or so ago I got in contact with my 9th great grandfather's sister's 7th great grandson. He was living in Germany so I asked about his family. He said all of the Germans that stayed behind were killed or deported to Siberia (along with his branch of the family). After a long time in Siberia they were deported to Kazakhstan, and in 1992 they were able to finally move back to Germany (under Perestroika?).

The ironic bit about being deported to Siberia is that before Catherine the Great who brought her German Settlers, being sent to Siberia was reserved for Criminals. It was under her that it was made possible for serfs to be sent there.

How much of a role have the Cossacks played in the history of Ukraine?

Were Tatars autochthonous population of the peninsula, as far as you can possibly track? In other words, which people / tribe settled this region first?

With the Crimean War being fought partially to gain a warm water port for Russia (as is the case in a lot of Russian history), why would Russia then hand the land over to the Ukraine after finally having possession of it?

Sorry for being late, but how was life for the Crimean-Tatars that lived in Central Asia after the deportation?

Why did western powers support the Ottoman Empire against Russia in the Crimean War?

What lessons learned from other Great Power crisis (i.e Hungarian revolution, Poznań 1956 uprising, or anything in the balkans) can be applied here? I've heard it said Putin's hand was essentially forced by domestic Russian opinion, what is the average Russian's view towards the Ukraine and how does their history influence their actions?

Why did Khrushchev give Crimea to Ukraine. And an extension what does "give to ukraine" mean in the context of USSR? Where they not just centrally ruled, so was it just a transfer of labnd between states? and so after 1991 why couldn't crimea just stay with the Russia?

What is a good book which covers Russian and Soviet history? I'm thinking the kind of thing Robert Caro might right if he were obsessed with Russian history.

Why didn't Ukraine ever join NATO? It seems like it would've really helped them out in a situation like this.

Are Tatars the indigenous people of Crimea? Or did they move in with the Horde invasions?

I'm surprised at the apparent peaceful handling of Ukraine's nuclear arsenal during the 1990s. During the Soviet era, who essentially "owned" what would later become Ukraine's nuclear arsenal in the 1990s? Were these Russian SR or jointly USSR warheads stationed on Ukrainian soil that Ukraine inherited de facto after the USSR dissolved? Was there any debate during USSR dissolution about whether the missiles should be Russian? Or was this considered a Ukrainian arsenal separate from ones located on Russian soil where Ukrainian ownership was uncontested? I'd be very interested in any books or articles on this issue if anyone can help.

What stance would Japan have on the situation involving Crimea?

EDIT: Missed the part about the 20 year window, but I'm still wondering: did Yeltsin just not care about the Crimea and the chance an "anti-Russian" power would do something with it? Why would he be so much less interested than Gorbachev in keeping the Crimea within Russia (I'd say Putin, but he's post-1994)?

I’ve seen references to the Crimea being a minor Silk Road terminus (and even to Sogdian colonies being established there). Did it continue to get much trade from East Asia after Russia took control of the steppes?

Is there consensus on Stepan Bandera's genocide among historians?

Talk to me about the history of the Jewish people in the Ukraine. I know the Khazars, then later Jewish communities like in 'Fiddler on the Roof', but between Stalin, the Holocaust, Israel and immigration West it seems like the Ukraine went from a relative safe haven for Jews to a place full of hate.

During the period of Russian history while the Russians were ruled over and isolated from the world by the Mongolians, how much marriage and breeding occurred between the Russian and Mongolian peoples?

What is it with Germany and Crimea? Many historians speculate Germany would have wanted Crimea especially in a WWI victory. Is it simply the Germans who settled there under Catherine, strategy (Black Sea), or is there a deeper history here?

This is my understanding of some of the relevant history of the area:

Germany was going through a depression exasperated by harsh conditions of the Versailles treaty. The Nazis declared Jews inferior as a pretext to confiscating their wealth and used that to finance the German military. They declared Slavs and Poles inferior, as pretext to exterminate them and confiscate their land.

After WWII, due to being unsuccessfully ethnically cleansed the paranoid USSR felt it necessary to control bordering countries to insure this could never happen again. This has always been one of USSR's main defensive strategies and they have never made any serious attempts to control other countries besides those.

Is this correct?

Is there any precedence of a country annexing territory for ethnic reasons like we are seeing in Ukraine right now? The only other example I can think of is Hitler/Germany and the Sudetenland.

Russia and Ukraine (and the former USSR in general) seem to have quite a complex system of "provinces" of varying degrees of autonomy. So: why was Crimea made an "autonomous republic" (which almost sounds like a completely independent country), and what makes it different from other types of "province" within Ukraine? Has strong provincial autonomy historically been a major part of Russian, Slavic, or Soviet government?

Just wondering if there are any good english language docos on the history of Moscow, the expansion of Moscow/Russia after the fall of the Golden Horde or the history of the Black Sea around the same time period (say 1000-1900).

So I learned recently that Crimean Peninsula is actually made up of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the City of Sevastopol which is administered separately. But at the same time, Sevastopol is still the capital of Crimea (or so it seems).

So in reading up on what all that meant, I'm still confused. Can someone talk about what this actually translates to in the real world and/or relate it to another similar situation I may be more familiar with?

To me it seems like a country within a country sort of like the Navajo Nation in the US along with a free city state kind of like The Vatican City.

And I am mentioning it just because I thought it was pretty interesting so it would spark the interest of others.

What were the local long and short term consequences from the Crimean War? Did the British and French leave any significant cultural impact during their time there?

What was the significance of the Crimea to the ancient Romans, and why was it only made a province relatively later on?

I have a question that's a little off topic, so mods feel free to direct me to a more appropriate sub.

About a hundred years ago my great grandfather was born in Kiev. He was the son of a rabbi, and after his father died he immigrated to Leeds, England, then to America.

What's was it like a hundred years ago in Kiev? Would my ancestor have been persecuted for being Jewish?

Also, should I consider myself part Russian or part Ukrainian? How often did the city move between borders?

What was the role of Zhaprosia in Ukrainian history?

Recently I've been trying to develop a comprehensive understanding of how Germany's U-boat campaign during WWI effected diplomatic and foreign policy as well as public opinion. That being said, I understand how the U.S and Britain reacted, but I was hoping that some of the flaired users could explain how (if at all) Russia was effected during Germany's policy of unrestricted submarine warfare.

Is there any political, social, geographical significance to referring to the country as "the Ukraine" as opposed to "Ukraine"?

According to the Wikipedia article about the demographics of Ukraine, there is currently a minority population of ethnic-Russians (or, those with Russian as a first language) in the Crimea and in areas of southern and eastern Ukraine.

What is the history of these people? When did Russian speakers first settle near the sea of Azov and on the Crimean peninsula? Did industrialization in the 19th century and reconstruction after World War 2 increase these populations of ethnic Russians/Russian speakers?

The name of Russia's most famous cossack conquistadore, Yermak, is only present in the modern day descendants of the Sarmatian language spoken far away from where the Tsardom of Russia used to be.

This implies there were still pockets of Sarmatian culture left scattered somewhere through the early modern European steppes.

Do we have any hints on how the language situation developed in the cossack territories, i.e. in Krasnodar and in Eastern Ukraine?

It is a loaded issue over there right now because the Western radicals claim these territories (now Russophone) spoke Ukrainian at some point in their history and have to be returned to this blissful state. The Eastern radicals claim that Ukrainian has never been spoken outside from where it is spoken now, that is, outside of the boundaries of medieval Rus although they do concede that their ancestral Russian dialect was tinted by Ukrainian as well as by the languages of the steppe.

A recent (2009) Der Spiegel article reported that when the Berlin Wall fell in 1989-1990, the USSR was hesitant about allowing unified Germany to join NATO. Eventually, Gorbachev relented but only after given verbal assurances from James Baker that NATO would not expand further east.

Is that account accurate? Is there more to the story?

Are there any pertinent parallels in Imperial Russian expansion of the 18th and 19th Centuries which match this current occupation?

Do the people in Crimea actually feel Russian? I know that they are mostly native russian speakers, but which country do they feel more patriotic towards?

Ok, I've had a look at the Geneva Conventions from 1949, and from my memory there was something in there about non-uniformed combatants. I can't seem to find the exact text.

In what way does this apply to the current "russian" forces in Crimea, whom are not wearing insignia on their uniforms. Can they be considered "enemy combatants"? What difference does this make in this situation? What is the reason behind not wearing insignia on their uniform?

Did Genoans really conquer the island of Crimea? What significance did the island hold in the 15th century?

Has the history of Russian military action in Ukraine, specifically in the way the Red Army treated the black army and in the way the Cheka and Bolsheviks treated the Nabat, influenced the way that Ukrainians see Russia? Is it just a historical footnote to them, or is it something which is embedded in Ukrainian thinking and politics?

Crimea is presented as "traditionally Russian". What proportion of these Russian inhabitants were settled there to replace population loss from ethnic cleansing, eg from the Crimean War in 1853 or the Holodomor?

Why did Kruschev give Crimea to Ukraine

How did all the Soviet republics become independent when the USSR fell? I understand that their independence was just legal fiction and they were de-facto Russian provinces, and controlled from Moscow.

So why was the fiction allowed to become reality when the USSR broke up, did nobody in Moscow care that they lost control on a lot of land and half the population? By 1991, had Moscow lost control over the governments of the republics?

Now Putin seems to try to reverse that to some extent, which causes the current crisis, so this question is relevant.

How severe was the Holodomor (The Great Famine of the early 1930s) and what evidence is there in favor and against the claim that it was intentional?

Are the Ukrainians or the Russians the true descendants of Kievan Rus?