Maria Ivanics. Encyclopedia of the Ottoman Empire. Editor: by Gábor Ágoston & Bruce Masters. Facts on File, 2009.
A Turkic-speaking ethnic group that founded a khanate in the Crimea and on the grassy steppes above the Black Sea in the first half of the 15th century, the Crimean Tatars played an important role in Ottoman history. The Tatars, also known as Mongols, originally arrived on the Crimean peninsula along with the Kipchak Turkic tribes. The Kipchak tribes, along with the other local Turkic and Indo-European inhabitants (Greeks, Alans, Goths, Armenians) of the region, had a major impact on the development of the Tatars who swept in around 1238-39. Under Mongol-Tatar domination, the Crimea was an independent unit, both economically and militarily. In the 1440s Hajji Giray (r. 1426-56), a descendant of Genghis Khan’s grandson Toka Temür, created a self-governing khanate with the support of the grand duke of Lithuania and the Crimean Tatar clans. Militarily, the Crimea relied on the inexhaustible human resources of the steppe. Economically, it depended on the peninsula’s strong agricultural and pastoral resources and the taxes paid by the Genoese trading colonies on the southern coast of the Crimea.
Following the death of Hajji Giray in 1466, the Ottomans became embroiled in the struggle for succession. Backed by the Ottomans, Hajji Giray’s younger son, Mengli Giray (r. 1466-74, 1475-76, 1478-1514), seized power by defeating his brother, Nurdevlet (r. 1466, 1474-75, 1476-78), who was supported by the khan of the Tatar Great Horde and the Genoese. The Ottomans took advantage of the distraction caused by the struggle for power, eliminating the peninsula’s Italian commercial colonies and annexing the southern coast of the Crimea that became an Ottoman subprovince, the sancak of Caffa.
The accession of Ottoman-supported Mengli Giray linked the Crimea and the Ottoman Empire on the basis of mutual interest. The Tatars became vassals of Istanbul but remained generally independent in terms of their internal and foreign affairs. The election of new khans, for example, was conducted by the four ruling Tatar tribes, and the results of the elections were generally accepted and acknowledged by the Ottoman sultans. However, the Tatar khans were required to send members of their families to Istanbul as hostages as an act of loyalty to the Ottoman court. As a result, the Crimean Tatars enjoyed the protection of the sultan, and the Ottomans relied on Tatar subsidiary troops during their campaigns against eastern Europe.
The 16th Century
During the first half of the 16th century the Crimean Khanate was a typical nomadic empire, and as such it had several basic goals: restoring the political cohesiveness experienced under Mongol rule, subduing rebellious clans, and collecting taxes originally paid to the Golden Horde by Poland-Lithuania and the Grand Duke of Mus-covy (Russia). The legitimacy of the khan was ensured by his ancestral connection to Genghis Khan. Moreover, the names of the khans were mentioned in the hutbe (the Friday sermon in Islam). The final legitimizing tactic utilized by the ruling Tatars was the practice of minting coins (sikke) bearing the names of the khans.
The administration of the Crimean Khanate was firmly steeped in tradition. The classical division of center, right, and left wings was common, including the khan, his brothers, and often times his sons atop the hierarchy. The leaders of each wing were titled kalga or nureddin. Due to the fact that Tatar succession was not defined, the militarily experienced kalgas and nureddins were well placed to gain the throne. However, power in the Crimea was not achieved through possession of the throne alone. As a ruler, the khan did not hold total power and was forced to seek the support of the Karachi beys of the four ruling Tatar clans: Shirin, Barin, Argin, and Kipchak. Only through the support of the Karachi beys and Ottoman confirmation could power in the Crimea be maintained.
The bulk of the Crimean military strength came from the four ruling clans. The khan also had access to additional manpower in the form of members of the Giray dynasty and their escorts as well as their personal tüfenkçi (musketeers), numbering approximately 500 men. Additionally, from 1532 on, the Ottoman Empire provided the khan with a small, fully funded artillery and army. Crimean military campaigns were also commonly joined by nomadic hordes seeking plunder, but their military value was not significant.
Income for the Crimean Khanate came from three main areas: taxes paid by neighboring states, revenues of the khanate, and subsidies paid by the Ottoman government or Sublime Porte. During the 16th century the Crimean khans were paid a regular tribute (tiyiş) by the Polish king and the Muscovite czar consisting of cash, costly textiles, and fur. Most of the land of the khanate was commonly owned by the ruling clans and was cultivated by free farmers and slaves. The bulk of the khans’ income came from trade in goods and salt. However, a substantial portion also stemmed from plunder, the most lucrative part of which was the slave trade. As an additional supplement, the Porte paid an annuity (salyane) to the khan, as well as the kalga and nureddin, and provided a cash subsidy for military expenses.
The reigns of the two most important Tatar khans of the 16th century, Sahib Giray (1532-1551) and Devlet Giray (r. 1551-77), were marked by competition against Muscovy (known later as Russia). Although the Giray dynasty established khans in both Kazan and Astrakhan on the Volga River, by the middle of the century the Muscovite czar, Ivan IV, had annexed both khanates to his empire. Hoping to get Astrakhan back, the Ottomans attempted to build a canal between the Volga and the Don rivers in 1569, but the plan failed. In response, Dev-let Giray launched a campaign against Moscow in 1571 and burned the city. He failed, however, to retake the two Muslim khanates. Having been forced out of the area originally held by the Golden Horde, the Tatars sought closer relations with the Ottomans. During the period from 1578 to 1590, Tatars fought for the Ottomans in the Persian War, and from 1591 to 1606 Crimean troops also participated in Ottoman campaigns against the Habsburgs in Hungary.
The 17th Century
During the 17th century the prestige of the khans declined as a result of increased submission to the Ottoman Empire. The sultan’s name was recited before that of the khan in the hutbes, and the Sublime Porte often dismissed the khans, exiling the former rulers to the island of Rhodes in the southeastern Aegean Sea. The Karachi beys managed to maintain their influence throughout the khanate’s existence. However, the election of the khan became more and more of a formality.
The Crimean Khanate was plagued by internal strife during this period as well, facing dissension on the part of the Nogay Tatars, the Cossacks, and the Kalmyks. The Nogays came under Crimean suzerainty after the Volga region fell into Russian hands. The khan offered them Budjak, the southern part of Bessarabia (in the Odessa province of present-day Ukraine), but the Nogays preferred the idea of Ottoman suzerainty. The struggle for control led to many bloody conflicts between the khans and their Nogay subjects seeking to break away in the first half of the 17th century. The Cossacks, moreover, were a continual threat to the Crimea from about the middle of the 16th century. Using light, quick riverboats, the Cossacks would descend the Dnieper River attacking settlements, ransacking merchants, and taking prisoners. Moreover, both the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and Mus-covy utilized the Cossacks as a shield to deflect Tatar raids. The Buddhist Kalmyks, speakers of a Mongolian language, settled on the lower Volga during the beginning of the 17th century. Originally, the Kalmyks were in the service of the czar, and they served a similar function as the Cossacks.
The Tatars were active militarily in the second half of the 17th century. During the uprising against the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth led by the Ukrainian hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky, the Crimean khan, Islam Giray III (r. 1644-54), was a key ally of the Cossacks. On the other hand, Islam Giray’s successor (and predecessor) Mehmed Giray IV (r. 1641-44, 1654-66) mediated between the Commonwealth and the Cossacks. The Tatar khan also joined the Northern War for hegemony over the Polish lands bordering Baltic Sea. After Ukraine joined Russia (1654) the Tatars backed the hetmans who were against Russia. In 1672, the khan Selim Giray (r. 1671-78, 1684-91) participated in the occupation of the southeastern borderlands of the Commonwealth (Podolia). In 1683 the Tatars, led by Murad Giray (1678-83), were defeated outside Vienna (see Vienna, sieges of) while fighting on the Ottoman side, but during the second reign of Selim Giray his Tatars continued to support the Ottoman army against the advancing Habsburg troops until the Treaty of Karlowitz in 1699.
The 18th Century
By the early 18th century, the Crimean administration was beginning to encounter some serious problems. The Treaty of Istanbul in 1700 declared that the Polish king and the Russian czar would no longer pay tribute to the Crimean khans; it also left the castle of Azak, which had been occupied by the Don Cossacks, in Russian hands. Pillaging and taking prisoners became more difficult for career soldiers as a result of the treaties. The decline in these acts of freebooting caused a severe economic crisis in the Crimea, and the poorly armed Tatar army was no longer able to repulse Russian attacks. The result of this military ineffectiveness was that, in 1736, Russian General Münnich reached the Crimean capital of Bakhchisa-rai and burned it. Administrative reform and political compromise became inevitable for the Crimean Tatars. Shahin Giray (r. 1777-83), who had been educated in Europe, set these changes in motion with the support of the Russians. These reforms however, were too extreme for Tatar society and provoked resistance among the religious leaders (ulema).
With the end of the Russo-Ottoman War of 1768-74, the Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca declared the “independence” of the Crimean Khanate. However, this new independence was short-lived as Russia annexed the Crimea in 1783, organizing a new province called Tavrida. Following the Russian annexation, vast numbers of Tatars migrated to Ottoman territories. A second huge wave of migration took place following the Crimean War (1853-56). During the early part of the 20th century, a movement to reform the Tatar society and language, led by Ismail Gaspirali (1851-1914), arose. In 1917 the Crimea became independent for a brief period; in 1944 the Soviet government deported the native Tatars to Uzbekistan, wrongly accusing them of collaborating with Nazi Germany. Approximately half of the Tatar population died as a result of Soviet deportation, and it was only in 1989 that the Tatars were permitted to return to the Crimea. Today significant Tatar communities can be found in Turkey, Romania, Bulgaria, Germany, and the United States.