The Crimean Italians : a history of mobility and individual agency on the Black Sea

Abstract

Following the second revolution of republican Ukraine, Crimea was annexed by the Russian Federation in February 2014. The annexation, which took place via a rapid and smooth military operation, was confirmed by a controversial referendum held on 16 March. A few days later, when browsing the Internet for updates about the Crimean ‘crisis’, I came across a blog post where recent political events were commented upon by a group of people in Kerch, who signed themselves as ‘Crimean Italians’ (in Russian Krymskie ital’iantsy, in Italian Italiani di Crimea). The post’s authors looked on Crimea’s new government with hope in terms of the potential official recognition of the Crimean Italians as an oppressed people of the Soviet regime, a request the Ukrainian authorities had neglected. Eventually their hopes were fulfilled. With decree no. 458, on the Rehabilitation of Repressed Peoples (2015), the Italians were immediately, and without any historical discussion, recognised officially as both a national minority of Crimea and victims of the Soviet regime, alongside the Armenian, Bulgarian, Greek, Tatar and German peoples.1 It was not the political implications that captured my attention, but rather the authors: who were these Crimean Italians? Diving into the very scarce initial information available on their history, I conceived of the research topic that developed into the present dissertation.