PONARS Eurasia
  • About
    • Contact
    • Membership
      • All Members
      • Core Members
      • Collegium Members
      • Associate Members
      • About Membership
    • Ukraine Experts
    • Executive Committee
  • Policy Memos
    • List of Policy Memos
    • Submissions
  • Podcasts
  • Online Academy
  • Events
    • Past Events
  • Recommended
  • Ukraine Experts
Contacts

Address
1957 E St NW,
Washington, DC 20052

adminponars@gwu.edu
202.994.5915

NEWSLETTER
Facebook
Twitter
YouTube
Podcast
PONARS Eurasia
PONARS Eurasia
  • About
    • Contact
    • Membership
      • All Members
      • Core Members
      • Collegium Members
      • Associate Members
      • About Membership
    • Ukraine Experts
    • Executive Committee
  • Policy Memos
    • List of Policy Memos
    • Submissions
  • Podcasts
  • Online Academy
  • Events
    • Past Events
  • Recommended
  • Ukraine Experts
DIGITAL RESOURCES
digital resources

Bookstore 📚

Knowledge Hub

Course Syllabi

Point & Counterpoint

Policy Perspectives

RECOMMENDED
  • The Determinants of Assistance to Ukrainian and Syrian Refugees | New Voices on Eurasia with Volha Charnysh (Feb. 16)

    View
  • Conflicts in the North Caucasus Since 1991 | PONARS Eurasia Online Academy

    View
  • Will Ukraine Wind Up Making Territorial Concessions to Russia? Foreign Affairs Asks the Experts

    View
  • Pro-Kremlin Propaganda’s Failure in Ukraine | New Voices on Eurasia with Aaron Erlich (Jan. 19)

    View
  • Kyiv-Washington Relations in Times of Colossal War: The Ultimate Test of a Strategic Partnership

    View
RSS PONARS Eurasia Podcast
  • The Putin-Xi Summit: What's New In Their Joint Communique ? February 23, 2022
    In this week’s PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman speaks with Russian China experts Vita Spivak and Alexander Gabuev about the February meeting between Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, and what it may tell us about where the Russian-Chinese relationship is headed.
  • Exploring the Russian Courts' Ruling to Liquidate the Memorial Society January 28, 2022
    In this week’s PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with scholars Kelly Smith and Benjamin Nathans about the history, achievements, and impending shutdown of the Memorial Society, Russia's oldest and most venerable civic organization, and what its imminent liquidation portends for the Russian civil society.
  • Russia's 2021 census and the Kremlin's nationalities policy [Lipman Series 2021] December 9, 2021
    In this week’s PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with social scientist Andrey Shcherbak about the quality of the data collected in the recent population census and the goals of Vladimir Putin's government's nationalities policy
  • Active citizens of any kind are under threat [Lipman Series 2021] November 5, 2021
    In this week’s PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Alexander Verkhovsky about the Kremlin's ever expanding toolkit against political and civic activists, journalists, and other dissidents.
  • Russia's Legislative Elections followup [Lipman Series 2021] October 4, 2021
    In this week’s PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Tanya Lokot and Nikolay Petrov about the results of Russia’s legislative elections and about what comes next.
  • Why Is the Kremlin Nervous? [Lipman Series 2021] September 14, 2021
    In this week’s PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Ben Noble and Nikolay Petrov about Russia’s September 17-19 legislative elections, repressive measures against electoral challengers, and whether to expect anything other than preordained results.
  • Vaccine Hesitancy in Russia, France, and the United States [Lipman Series 2021] August 31, 2021
    In this week's PONARS Eurasia Podcast episode, Maria Lipman chats with Denis Volkov, Naira Davlashyan, and Peter Slevin about why COVID-19 vaccination rates are still so low across the globe, comparing vaccine hesitant constituencies across Russia, France, and the United States.  
  • Is Russia Becoming More Soviet? [Lipman Series 2021] July 26, 2021
      In a new PONARS Eurasia Podcast episode, Maria Lipman chats with Maxim Trudolyubov about the current tightening of the Russian political sphere, asking whether or not it’s helpful to draw comparisons to the late Soviet period.
  • The Evolution of Russia's Political Regime [Lipman Series 2021] June 21, 2021
    In this week's episode of the PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Grigory Golosov and Henry Hale about the evolution of Russia's political regime, and what to expect in the lead-up to September's Duma elections.
  • Volodymyr Zelensky: Year Two [Lipman Series 2021] May 24, 2021
    In this week's episode of the PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Sergiy Kudelia and Georgiy Kasianov about Ukrainian President Zelensky's second year in office, and how he has handled the political turbulence of the past year.
  • Recommended | Рекомендуем

Why Did Russia Give Away Crimea Sixty Years Ago?

  • March 22, 2014
  • Mark Kramer

(Wilson Center) Crimea was part of Russia from 1783, when the Tsarist Empire annexed it a decade after defeating Ottoman forces in the Battle of Kozludzha, until 1954, when the Soviet government transferred Crimea from the Russian Soviet Federation of Socialist Republics (RSFSR) to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (UkrSSR). The transfer was announced in the Soviet press in late February 1954, eight days after the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet adopted a resolution authorizing the move on 19 February. The text of the resolution and some anodyne excerpts from the proceedings of the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet meeting on 19 February were published along with the very brief announcement. Nothing else about the transfer was disclosed at the time, and no further information was made available during the remainder of the Soviet era.

Not until 1992, just after the Soviet Union was dissolved, did additional material about this episode emerge. A historical-archival journal, Istoricheskii arkhiv (Historical Archive), which had been published in the USSR from 1955 until 1962, began appearing again in 1992 with transcriptions of declassified documents from the former Soviet archives. The first issue of the revived Istoricheskii arkhiv in 1992 contained a section about the transfer of Crimea that featured documents from the Russian Presidential Archive and from a few other archives whose collections are now housed at the State Archive of the Russian Federation (GARF). Unfortunately, these documents do not add anything of substance to what was published in the Soviet press 38 years earlier; indeed, they are mostly identical to what was published in 1954. (Apparently, the editors of Istoricheskii arkhiv were unaware that the scripted proceedings of the USSR Supreme Soviet Presidium meeting had already been published in 1954.) The documents do confirm that the move was originally approved by the Presidium of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) on 25 January 1954, paving the way for the authorizing resolution of the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet three weeks later. But the declassified files reveal nothing more about the motives for the transfer, leaving us with just the two official rationales that were published in 1954:

(1) the cession of Crimea was a “noble act on the part of the Russian people” to commemorate the 300th anniversary of the “reunification of Ukraine with Russia” (a reference to the Treaty of Pereyaslav signed in 1654 by representatives of the Ukrainian Cossack Hetmanate and Tsar Aleksei I of Muscovy) and to “evince the boundless trust and love the Russian people feel toward the Ukrainian people”; and

(2) the transfer was a natural outgrowth of the “territorial proximity of Crimea to Ukraine, the commonalities of their economies, and the close agricultural and cultural ties between the Crimean oblast and the UkrSSS.”

Neither of these ostensible justifications holds up to scrutiny. Even though 1954 was the 300th anniversary of the Treaty of Pereyaslav, there is no connection between that treaty and the Crimean peninsula. Pereyaslav, in central Ukraine not far from Kyiv, is nowhere near Crimea, and the treaty had nothing to do with the peninsula, which did not come under Russian control until 130 years later. Moreover, the description of the treaty as having produced the “unification of Russia and Ukraine” is hyperbolic. The treaty did provide an important step in that direction, but years of further struggling and warfare had to take place before full unification occurred. In retrospect the Treaty of Pereyaslav is often associated (inaccurately) with Russian-Ukrainian unity, but it is hard to see why anyone in the USSR would have proposed celebrating the 300th anniversary of the document by transferring Crimea from the RSFSR to the UkrSSR. […]

See the full article © Wilson Center

Related Topics
  • Crimea
  • Kramer
  • Russia
  • Ukraine
Previous Article
  • In the News | Hовости

Цена Крыма: Москва найдёт новых партнёров (видео)

  • March 20, 2014
  • Mikhail Troitskiy
View
Next Article
  • Recommended | Рекомендуем

Video: Marten, Haass, Graham on the Charlie Rose Show Discuss Crimea

  • March 24, 2014
  • PONARS Eurasia
View
You May Also Like
View
  • Recommended | Рекомендуем

The Determinants of Assistance to Ukrainian and Syrian Refugees | New Voices on Eurasia with Volha Charnysh (Feb. 16)

  • PONARS Eurasia
  • January 30, 2023
View
  • Recommended | Рекомендуем

Conflicts in the North Caucasus Since 1991 | PONARS Eurasia Online Academy

  • Jean-François Ratelle
  • January 27, 2023
View
  • Recommended | Рекомендуем

Will Ukraine Wind Up Making Territorial Concessions to Russia? Foreign Affairs Asks the Experts

  • PONARS Eurasia
  • January 24, 2023
View
  • Recommended | Рекомендуем

Pro-Kremlin Propaganda’s Failure in Ukraine | New Voices on Eurasia with Aaron Erlich (Jan. 19)

  • PONARS Eurasia
  • January 17, 2023
View
  • Commentary | Комментарии
  • Recommended | Рекомендуем

Kyiv-Washington Relations in Times of Colossal War: The Ultimate Test of a Strategic Partnership

  • Volodymyr Dubovyk
  • January 11, 2023
View
  • Recommended | Рекомендуем

Russia’s war in Ukraine threatens students daily and forces teachers to improvise

  • Kristina Hook
  • January 11, 2023
View
  • Commentary | Комментарии
  • Recommended | Рекомендуем

Prevailing Soviet Legacies

  • Irina Busygina and Mikhail Filippov
  • December 27, 2022
View
  • Commentary | Комментарии
  • Recommended | Рекомендуем

In Russia’s Nuclear Messaging to West and Ukraine, Putin Plays Both Bad and Good Cop

  • Simon Saradzhyan
  • December 23, 2022

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

PONARS Eurasia
  • About
  • Membership
  • Policy Memos
  • Recommended
  • Events
Powered by narva.io

Permissions & Citation Guidelines

Input your search keywords and press Enter.