ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with Crimean Tatars, a deported community who returned to Crimea at the end of the Cold War and sought to establish an autonomous national identity. It also deals with the key actors and the main processes of nation-building before and after the Tatar repatriation in Crimea. The chapter discusses the religious revival and the subsequent paradoxical effects of Islam upon Crimean Tatar identity-building. The Crimean Tatar leadership's response was to introduce the notion of Tatar Islam' as an opposite trend to foreign Islam' defined as fundamentalist, anti-state and anti-democratic. The Tatar national movement is not immune to political power struggles between different Tatar groups, between central and regional authorities, and between pro-Russian and pro-European forces in Crimea and Ukraine. The marginalisation of the Crimean Tatar Mejlis is likely to lead to further radicalisation in Crimea, increasing political instability and the risk of perpetuated conflict in the region.
