Crimean Tatar Stories of Deportation and Return (online event)
Date and time:
Thursday 18 May, 2023
18:30 - 20:00
Location:
On 18 May 1944, the Stalinist regime deported Crimean Tatars from Crimea to Central Asia and the Urals. Over one-third of the population did not survive this ethnic cleansing.
To mark the anniversary of the deportation, we will share Crimean Tatar stories of deportation and return, and discuss the evolving politics of memory and disinformation surrounding the past and current events in Crimea.
Ukrainian journalist and photographer Emine Ziyatdinova will present oral histories of people who experienced these tragic events first-hand. She will be joined by Kyiv-based British writer and journalist Lily Hyde, who will discuss her research related to the Crimean Tatars' return to their homeland in the early 1990s, which she conducted for her novel Dream Land, and on Crimea since the 2014 Russian occupation and the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Speaker
Emine Ziyatdinova
Emine Ziyatdinova is a Crimean Tatar documentary photographer, researcher and independent consultant currently working in the non-profit and media development sphere. She was born in Uzbekistan, where her family was deported from Crimea in 1944 by the Stalin regime. Growing up as a member of the Crimean Tatar minority in Ukraine after the Soviet Union’s collapse, she received a first-hand understanding of the various human rights issues that arose with ethnic minorities and with the collapse of the economic and political system in her own country. The desire to advocate for people who are often silenced to voice their concerns brought her to the career paths of soc iology and documentary photography. Having worked in documentary photography and journalism from 2012–-2017 in Ukraine, she relocated to the UK, where she has been working in the non-profit sector, most recently as a media consultant with the Thomson Reuters Foundation. Her work has been supported by a Fulbright Scholarship and a Magnum Foundation Emergency Fund Fellowship and her photography projects have been exhibited in Ukraine as well as internationally.
Speaker
Lily Hyde
Lily Hyde is a British writer and journalist based in Ukraine. Her novel Dream Land, based on first-hand testimony and interviews, is about the return of the Crimean Tatars to Crimea in the 1990s. Published in 2008, it has been translated into Ukrainian and Crimean Tatar. She is currently completing a book about Crimea since annexation. She has written for POLITICO, the Guardian, the Times, Stranger’s Guide, Coda Story, New Eastern Europe, Roads and Kingdoms, and others.
