On 31 May the IIIT Lectures series for CIS countries included a lecture on "The influence of Islam on the ethnic formation of Crimean Tatars" by Elvira Kemal, a historian and specialist in the history of Crimea and Crimean Tatars.
Elvira Kemal described the groups of Crimean Tatars. Traditionally they are divided into three subethnic groups, this division is more geographical. Therefore the history of Crimean Tatars in general should be viewed locally:
- Steppe Crimean Tatars (or Nogais) spoke a purely Kipchak language, which is closely related to Tatar, a Kazakh language.
- The highlanders (Tats), those who lived in the central region, spoke a mixed language, which included a melange of vocabulary from the Kipchak-Turkic and Oguz-Turkic languages.
- The South Bank (Yaliboyu) Crimean Tatars who lived on the southern coast of Crimea, their language was purely Oghuz language and belonged to Osmanli (Ottoman).
Also during the lecture, Elvira Kemal presented many illustrations and photographs of historical buildings in Crimea, and the history of their creation.
The participants were interested in books about Crimean history, the fate of individual buildings on the peninsula, and the impact of various events on Crimean Tatar religion. The lecture was attended by 26 participants. More than 90 participants from Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Germany registered for the event.
The next lecture will be given by Kamal Gasimov of the University of Michigan, USA.
