Compliant Subjects?

The Crimean Tatars, a Muslim Turkic ethnic group, remain the most oppressed group in Crimea after the 2014 Russian annexation. The Ukrainian public tends to view them as obedient victims forced to accommodate Russian demands, while scholars mainly avoid the issue. My ethnographic fieldwork in Crimea, however, demonstrates that what might seem like obedient behavior from the outside is, in fact, an expression of agency. This reading is based on close-range observations and conversations with people who speak and behave in ways that initially appear as compliant acts, but which do in fact challenge Russian authorities—arguably more so than other overt forms of resistance in this context. I argue that the ability to decipher many Crimean Tatars’ behavior as tactics of resistance, depends on our understanding of authorities’ contrary expectations. Portrayed as religious fanatics and a security threat, Crimean Tatars are stereotyped as terrorists, likely to engage in extremist activity. In light of this, Crimean Tatars’ compliant behavior, expressed through patience and etiquette, festivity and humor, proves that narrative wrong. Furthermore, other seemingly compliant behaviors—such as accepting Russian passports in order to remain in Crimea—should be interpreted as an act of resistance to the political aims of state actors. By undermining the state’s aim to push out Crimean Tatars and increase the Slavic population, the decision to remain in Crimea in fact challenges state power, rather than affirms it.