Book Description

'In 2014, Crimea was catapulted into the worldwide media following its forcible annexation by Russia. The Crimean Tatars, who were deported en masse in 1944 and who managed to return home in the 1990s, were threatened once again with deportation. Filiz Tutku Aydin's book tells the remarkable story of how in the course of the twentieth century the Crimean Tatars managed to survive the tribulations of exile in foreign lands and how some managed against incredible odds to return home. Aydin's book is truly unique in that it tells us not only about Crimean Tatar exiles in Soviet Central Asia, but also about the little known experience of diasporan communities in Romania, Turkey, and the United States.' -Paul Robert Magocsi, University of Toronto, Canada 'Filiz Tutku Aydın is steeped in the history, language and culture of Crimean Tatars and their tragic history of dispersal. Using careful exegesis of the comparative literature and rich descriptions of Tatars abroad, the author graphically shows how their diaspora was mobilized despite their poignant history of exile and deportation.' -Robin Cohen, Professor Emeritus of Development Studies, University of Oxford, UK 'Filiz Tutku Aydın treats this complex subject with the deep insight of an insider and a sound analysis of a scholar.' -Hakan Kırımlı, Bilkent University, Turkey 'This is a fascinating study of Crimean Tatars as a transnational nation.' -Martin Sökefeld, Luwig Maximilan University of Munich, Germany This book explains the unexpected mobilization of the Crimean Tatar diaspora in recent decades through an exploration of the exile experiences of the Crimean Tatars in Central Asia, Middle East, Eastern Europe, and North America. This book adds to the growing literature on diaspora case studies and is essential reading for researchers and students of diasporas, migration, ethnicity, nationalism, transnationalism, identity formation and social movements. Moreover, this book is relevant both for specialists in Crimean Tatar Studies and for the larger fields of Communist, Post-Communist, Middle Eastern, European, and American studies. Filiz Tutku Aydın is Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science and Public Administration at the Social Sciences University of Ankara, Turkey.