"Through the National Lens": Nationality, Territory, and the Formation of "Crimean-Russian" Identity

Abstract

Ukraine's Autonomous Republic of Crimea is a highly contested territory both culturally and politically. With an ethnic Russian majority and a sizeable population of indigenous Crimean Tatars living alongside ethnic Ukrainians within Ukrainian territory, national identities are particularly salient in Crimea. However, a strong sense of Crimean regional identity has also been shown to persist among members of all of Crimea's ethno-national communities. Using survey data collected in the region, I demonstrate how the territory of Crimea itself figures prominently in competing narratives of national identity in the region and how Crimean regional identities are differentially negotiated and constructed through these narratives. I focus primarily on Crimea's ethnic Russian population in order to define a sense of "Crimean-Russian" identity as one that denotes an attachment to Crimea as viewed through a Russian "national lens" and understood through Russian national narratives. With this study I address the need to examine more critically the relationships between ethnic/national identities and the formation of territorially-based identities at scales below and across the nation-state.