The three-year research project is dedicated to the systematic exploration of a collection of several hundred objects and photographs relating to the material culture of the Crimean Tatars, which has so far received little scholarly attention. As one of the largest collections of its kind outside of Russia, it offers unique insights into Crimean Tatar everyday life and cultural expressions – from the period before the First World War up to the 1990s. The aim is to reconstruct the provenance, usage contexts, and collection history of the artifacts and to develop, in dialogue with Crimean Tatar actors, perspectives on a cultural heritage endangered by colonialism, war, and exile.
The Museum Europäischer Kulturen (MEK) holds several hundred objects and photographs related to the material culture and cultural history of the Crimean Tatars. This collection represents the largest of its kind in Central and Western Europe. Many of the artifacts arrived in Berlin about a hundred years ago and document an extraordinarily wide range of everyday life: from household tools and garments to artisanal crafts and religious or festive objects. Despite this diversity and their historical significance, the holdings have so far neither been systematically studied nor publicly presented.
Since the illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014, and even more so since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the cultural heritage of the Crimean Tatars has increasingly been marginalized in favor of the narrative of a "Russian Crimea." While libraries, archives, and museums on the peninsula are now only partially accessible, democratic rights and the constitutionally granted cultural autonomy of the Crimean Tatars are being undermined. Given Russia’s occupation policies in Crimea and the resulting restrictions on Crimean Tatar cultural institutions, museums and their collections outside the region have gained particular importance: they offer spaces for independent research, documentation, and visibility.
The MEK plans to systematically explore, contextualize, and make its Crimean Tatar collection visible to diverse target audiences in the coming years. The cultural-anthropological and historical contexts of the assembled objects, as well as the circumstances of their acquisition, are to be documented. This information will be made available to researchers, Crimean Tatar diaspora communities, and the interested public. In an international and politically charged environment, it is fundamentally important to establish an independent platform for documentation and education that is not subject to Russian state narratives. This will take place in close collaboration with experts from Ukraine and the Crimean Tatar diaspora in exile.
The scholarly investigation will also serve as the basis for a future presentation of the artifacts. Central to this will be the question of the significance of historical objects for Crimean Tatar identity in times of occupation, war, and exile. In this context, contemporary and artistic perspectives by Crimean Tatars are also to be incorporated.
A core objective of the project is collaboration with museums, universities, and civil society organizations in Ukraine as well as within the Crimean Tatar diaspora in Germany and across Europe. Such networking is essential to incorporate local expertise and to critically examine the continued relevance of the historical collections for a contemporary cultural self-understanding.
The MEK seeks to process its collection as a kind of bridge between past and present: it not only brings historical artifacts into focus but also asks how these objects are interpreted today by Crimean Tatar communities within and outside Ukraine. The project thus also positions itself as a contribution against the historical and ongoing marginalization of Crimean Tatar perspectives, in support of the increasingly vital process of decolonizing Ukrainian history.