COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF MUSLIM NATIONS CULTURES OF THE CRIMEA AND NORTHERN TURKEY

Abstract

According to data for 2014, Crimean Tatars occupied the third place in the rating of nations by population of the Republic of Crimea after the peninsula became the part of the Russian Federation. They are Turkic people, historically formed in the Crimea and the Northern Black Sea coast; along with small Karaites and Krymchaks, Crimean Tatars belong to the indigenous population of the Crimea. Also, Crimean Tatars live in the regions of Russia adjacent to the Crimea (2.4 thousand, mainly in the Krasnodar Territory) and in the adjacent regions of Ukraine (2.9 thousand, mainly in the Kherson region), as well as in Turkey, Romania (24 thousand, mainly in the County of Constanta), Uzbekistan (90 thousand, estimates from 10 thousand to 150 thousand), Bulgaria (3 thousand). There is no official number of Crimean Tatars in Turkey, yet some researches state that there are 100,000 speakers of Crimean Tatar language in Turkey, at the same time some Crimean Tatar activists estimate a figure about 6 million people. The activists have reached this number by taking one million Tatar immigrants to Turkey as a starting point and multiplying this number by the birth rate in the span of the last hundred years. Another source claims that 5-6 million people live in Turkey, whose ancestors at different times (from the end of the XVIII to the beginning of the XX century) moved to this country from the Crimea. This gives an opportunity to Crimean Tatar public organizations of Turkey to assert that several millions of Crimean Tatars live in the country. However, most of the descendants of Crimean Tatar immigrants in Turkey assimilated and consider themselves Turks. The actual number of Crimean Tatars in Turkey is unknown, since data on the ethnic composition of the country's population in Turkey have not been published since 1965. Crimean Tatars have a strong cultural connection with the inhabitants of Northern Turkey, i.e. the Turks of the southern Black Sea coast, which is expressed in the community of etiquette, religion, relations to the family and children, peculiarities of the wedding.