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Historians Believe that Dialogue is First Alternative to Violence
05 December 2012
On December 5, 2012 inthe framework of the project, titled “Crimean political dialogue” the journalist met with Crimean historians in Aqmescit (Simferopol).
The permanent participants of the project, titled “Crimean political dialogue” voiced their concern about the risk of the growth of the interethnic tension in Crimea and called all the parties concerned not to let the use of force, because the local accidents could lead to the opposition on the ethnic ground.
The participants of the meeting told the journalists about the initiatives of the historians of the project, titled “Crimean political dialogue”. It is a whole range of the events that would promote both the solidarity of the professional Crimean historians, and consolidation of the society.
“Unfortunately, the history of Crimea is the thing that separates the Crimean society today. Such situation is related to the half-century period of scaled falsification of Crimean history, when in the period after the deportation of 1944 the indigenous people of the peninsular – Crimean Tatars disappeared from the pages of the research works on Crimean local history. Everything positive that was related to the life of Crimean Tatars in Crimea was deleted from the historiography – the well-known Crimean historian, PhD in political science Gulnara Bekirova said. – In conditions of the severest censorship the 19th century and a quarter of century of the existence of the Crimean ASSR were almost left out of the historiography only on the ground that the Crimean Tatar people took an active part at that period in Crimea. The new generation of historians is called to fill in these gaps and restore the “out of joint time”.
Another problem, G.Bekirova continued, is that the professional community of historians – experts in Crimean history, belonging to various ethnic and political groups of the peninsular almost do not communicate with each other and do not seek the joint discussion of the most difficult, controversial topics and understanding of the opponent’s point of view.
Of course, we with our colleagues understand clearly the difficulty of the dialogue on Crimean history in today’s hard situation in Crimea, when the events that not only promote the mutual dialogue, but could blow up the fragile peace in the peninsular take place in Crimea. However, right in these conditions the dialogue is the best alternative to the “cold”, and all the more the real war. We work for the future, for the perspective and we hope that the mutual work of the group of scientists of the project would let to soften the moral climate in Crimea, to sew Crimean society together instead of separating it, even if it would happen in the remote future”.
According to G.Bekirova the first steps and initiatives were already planed for the nearest future. Among the events of the historians of the project, titled “Crimean political dialogue” are the development of the manifest of the historians and creation of the Association of the professional historians that will share its principles; organization of the International conference of historians and humanitarians, aimed to solve the disputable issues of Crimean past. Another important task is the creation of the special courses for the students of the higher educational institutions of the peninsular that would stimulate the students’ critical thought and promote review and new reading of the disputable topics of Crimean history.
How disputable the history and how hard the discussion of the professionals could be, the history shouldn’t became the reason for the civil war and an instrument of division of the society,- such is the main idea of the new initiative of the historians of the project, titled “Crimean political dialogue”.
