In the Crimean mass-media started active polemic round an opus of the Ukrainian writer Oles' Buzina "Unknown Crimean Khanate" in which the author tries to understand how "the tiny Tatar horde for 500 years kept in awe half of Eastern Europe, being engaged only in racket and slave-trade".
"Hardly anyone would sympathize to the people with this reputation", writes the Crimean-Tatar publicist Mamut Churlu on the pages of weekly journal "Peninsula" in an article "We should learn to Stand up for ourselves". This image of the enemy-Tatar continues to take root into consciousness of many people on the post-Soviet territory".
Unfortunately, as it states the author of the article, this stereotype lives in consciousness of the Crimean Tatars, too.
Buzina "asks a question which for a long time we had to ask. To answer with the help of our historians, soldiers, economists, philologists, critics".
According to Churlu, the Crimean Khanate played an important role in the history of Europe because it met all modern requirements to, at least, a regional super-state.
The Crimean Khanate was a famous medieval MIC - the Bakhchsarai guns were considered as one of the best in the world. The Crimean horse army moved with unsurpassed speed at that time, capable to take any opponent unawares on wide operative open space. Due to it even the Turkish sultan was scared of the Tatar cavalry.
The Crimean Khanate was characterized by "high educational level, universal literacy, blossoming of poetry, philosophy, music, decorative arts".
Concerning the issue of cruelty of the Crimean Tatars, the publicist confirms that fact that they took captives and practiced slavery. But, he reminds, soldiers did not enslave those who hid in churches. The person who became slave of a Muslim, according to Shariat, had to be set free in five-seven years. "And if the captive converted to Islam he had to be set free immediately".
Churlu is convinced that in the veins of modern Crimean Tatars flows blood of the Greeks, the Goths, and the Genoeses - for some centuries the descendants of Chingiz-Khan could transform multi-national population of Crimea into a uniform nation. To this point of view an outstanding Russian poet and artist of the Silver Age Maksimilian Voloshin adhered, too.
Considering all of that, believes Churlu, there is a necessity to create a popular historical directory on history of the Crimean Khanate.
"I am sure that such a book would become the best seller. This work, apparently, could be done only by the collective of authors - experts in various areas of a science and culture", concludes the publicist.
By the news agency "New Region"
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