From Eugene to Crimea: Reframing the War in Ukraine
Long before Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, anthropologist and University of Oregon alumna Greta Uehling was listening closely to the people who had already seen what was coming. In Decolonizing Ukraine, she returns to Crimea to show why 2014, not 2022, marked the true beginning of the war, and why the voices of the Indigenous Crimean Tatars are essential to understanding both Russia’s occupation and Ukraine’s future.
- You earned your undergraduate degree at the University of Oregon before going on to an impressive career. Looking back, how did your time in Eugene influence your path toward anthropology and your interest in war, displacement, and human resilience?
My time at the University of Oregon in Eugene was absolutely formative for my career. Surrounded by inspiring professors and Oregon’s unparalleled natural environment, I found myself profoundly engaged with ideas and questions that continue to drive my work.
An anthropology course sparked what became a lasting interest in eastern Europe—and the disciplinary home for my PhD research. A geography class opened my eyes to the causes of ethnic tensions in the former Soviet world and the meaning of national identity in this part of the world. Perhaps the most transformative experience was a Russian literature course. It raised big, unsettled questions about moral responsibility under tyranny and the tension between individual freedom and social order. I still remember hearing Russian spoken for the first time in that class; within weeks, I had signed up for Russian. It felt like stepping through a door I hadn’t known was there.
While in Eugene, I wrote a 50-page honors thesis, which felt like scaling a mountain at the time but then seemed more like a hiking trail in retrospect. More than anything, it taught me that even the most daunting projects can be managed one step at a time. That experience laid the groundwork for the books I’ve written since, and it gave me my first taste of the exhilaration that comes with sustained intellectual discovery.
- In Decolonizing Ukraine, you to the beginning of Russia’s war on Ukraine in 2014. What did you learn from the people you interviewed in Crimea that the global public still doesn’t understand about that initial occupation?
For much of the world, Russia’s occupation of Crimea in February 2014 seemed sudden — a geopolitical shock. But for people in Crimea, especially the Indigenous Crimean Tatars, it wasn’t unexpected. Based on Russia’s past behavior, they had long anticipated it. When I began my field research in Crimea in the mid-1990s, it was already clear that the question was not if Russia would move to retake Crimea, but when. Moscow ultimately chose a moment of political turmoil in Kyiv in 2014 to make its claim.
My book takes readers back to that moment, which marked the true beginning of the current war. The occupation of Crimea — weakly resisted by the international community — emboldened Russia to seize parts of eastern Ukraine and, eventually, to launch a full-scale invasion. At its root, this war reflects an acquisitive attitude toward land: the belief that land is something to take and control.
The Indigenous Crimean Tatars offer a radically different worldview. For them, land isn’t a resource to exploit but a responsibility. It’s not they who possess the land, but the land that sustains them, requiring a relationship of mutual care. That perspective, I think, is one the modern world could use more of.
Another lesson my collaborators in Crimea taught me is that the occupation was as much psychological as military. Because it was nearly bloodless, observers may conclude the residents of Crimea simply accepted Russian occupation. Repressive measures like the strict limitations placed on freedom of speech, political opinion, and assembly would not be necessary if everyone supported Putin’s rule. Moreover, genuine political opinions can’t be measured under a regime that punishes divergent political opinions with fines, torture and imprisonment.
A significant contribution of both my recent books (Everyday War and Decolonizing Ukraine) is exploring a little-known aspect of the psychological dimension of occupation: disrupting personal relationships. For example, school children are encouraging to inform on their parents’ media consumption habits, leading to tension. A system of rewards encourages neighbors to inform authorities about any signs of pro-Ukrainian sentiments they witness, and even romantic couples felt their relationships unravel under the pressure of the political climate. These pressures are significant because they shape social life on the Crimean peninsula and help maintain compliance with Russian occupation.
- Why do you think the struggles of the Crimean Tatars have remained so overlooked in Western accounts of the war?
There are many reasons but let me share two that I think are especially important. First, very few books on Eastern Europe focus on Indigenous peoples — and conversely, books on Indigenous peoples rarely include Eastern Europe. It’s just not natural or intuitive for most people to think of “Indigenous” and “Eastern Europe” in the same sentence. My book tries to bridge that gap and to show why, when we think about modern Ukraine, it’s essential to recognize the Crimean Tatars as part of the story.
The Crimean Tatars are one of Ukraine’s ethnic groups, but as I explain in Decolonizing Ukraine, they’re also much more. According to the United Nations, Indigenous peoples are descended from precolonial inhabitants of a region and have endured economic and political marginalization. They remain vulnerable to politically more dominant groups. That means Indigenous status isn’t just an ethnic label — it carries moral weight and entails legal obligations.
These moral implications point to a second reason the Crimean Tatars are often overlooked. Scholars tend to relegate Crimean Tatars to the footnotes because they feel they are too few in number to warrant more attention. I think that logic is problematic because their low numbers are the direct result of policy decisions beginning with imperial colonization, progressing to their 1944 deportation and continuing decisions not to include them in the privatization of formerly state property in independent Ukraine. Small-numbered people can provide a valuable window on patterns in history and imbalances in power.
- You’ve written that the Russian state exercises “epistemic violence,” an attempt to erase the very existence of Ukraine and its Indigenous groups through language and narrative control. How do you see ordinary Ukrainians and Crimean Tatars countering that kind of erasure?
That’s an important question and one that goes to the heart of Ukraine’s struggle for survival. Both Crimean Tatars and Ukrainians have long faced what scholars call epistemic violence: the suppression or distortion of their histories, languages, and perspectives under imperial and Soviet rule, and again under Russian occupation.
Crimean Tatars have worked to document and publicly tell the story of the 1944 deportation, known as Sürgünlik, an event Soviet accounts long denied or minimized. Grassroots archives, oral histories, and family testimonies have become vital tools of counter-memory. Ukrainians, too, have been reexamining the Holodomor, Soviet repressions, and Russification through museums, literature, and education reforms — reclaiming their historical agency and decentering Moscow as the default narrator of the region’s past. An important line of inquiry here is revisiting and revising the Russian historiography that portrayed the Crimean Tatars and Ukrainians as arch enemies, an oversimplification that contributed to their larger strategy of divide and rule.
Language itself has also become a form of resistance. Crimean Tatars promote their language through literature, film, online learning platforms, aiming to ensure its survival. Ukrainians have also promoted their language more fully since 2014, as a way of resisting linguistic domination by Russia. A case in point is that writers who have spent their entire lives writing in Russian have transitioned to Ukrainian.
An important effort with regard to language is the plan to remap Crimea using traditional Crimean Tatar place names that predominated before Russia’s first annexation in 1783, when Crimean Tatar comprised over 90 percent of the population and the lingua franca was Crimean Tatar.
There has been something of a cultural renaissance among both Crimean Tatars and Ukrainians who have embarked on musical collaboration, revived and expanded their artistic traditions like filigree jewelry and embroidery as well as notable successes in disseminating new poetry, prose, and film. In my book, I discuss how Crimean Tatar and Ukrainian artists rediscovered their common aesthetics and forged collaborations. All of this prevents their erasure.
Finally, small acts matter a great deal including cooking traditional dishes, maintaining holiday rituals, commemorating the deportation, and tending ancestral graves. These gestures are especially meaningful inside Crimean territory controlled by Russia.
- Your book highlights not only trauma but also humor, art, and collective grieving as forms of resistance. Were there moments during your fieldwork that especially changed how you think about what it means to endure or rebuild after war?
Yes, there were many such moments, but one that stands out — and captures what it means to rebuild amid war — was my interview with Eurovision winner and recording artist Jamala. Her winning song was inspired by her grandmother’s memories of the 1944 deportation of Crimean Tatars from their homeland to Siberia and Central Asia under Stalin’s orders.
The song struck a deep chord with other Ukrainians who had their own collective memories of Soviet oppression. When I spoke with Jamala, she told me she sang the song for the sake of emotion, to help listeners understand the pain of displacement. Her victory became a turning point, in which Ukrainians could more fully appreciate how much they shared with Crimean Tatars in their common oppression under the Soviet and Russian regimes. My private interview with Jamala, as well as conversations with her fans, and ordinary Ukrainians brought into focus how collective grieving can build empathy and a sense of common purpose in political community.
I argue that one of the most significant transformations since the revolution and the beginning of the war has been the growing recognition of Crimean Tatars within Ukraine. In my view, this recognition goes far beyond a shared opposition to Russia. It reflects a rediscovery of common cultural roots and shared values — above all, freedom and democracy. Based on my research, I believe Crimean Tatars and other Ukrainians are positioned to continue building a vibrant, democratic, and free Ukraine after Russian aggression ends.
- As policymakers and citizens outside Ukraine look for ways to help, what do you most wish Americans understood about the Crimean Tatars’ struggle?
I wish more Americans understood the role the United States played in the lead-up to this war. In 1994, under the Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances, Ukraine agreed to give up what was then the world’s third-largest nuclear arsenal in exchange for security guarantees from the United States, the United Kingdom, and Russia.
Russia’s occupation and de facto annexation of Crimea and later, its full-scale invasion of Ukraine are widely seen as clear violations of that agreement. The failure of the United States and other guarantors to come to Ukraine’s aid in a more decisive way feels, to many Ukrainians, like a betrayal of those assurances. It has also weakened global trust in the value of such security commitments.
Crimea represents more than a geopolitical issue. When Americans hear about Crimea, they may think in terms of borders or territorial sovereignty. But for the Crimean Tatars, it also concerns their survival as a people. They are an Indigenous nation of Crimea and the occupation has meant persecution, exile, arrests, and the loss of their homeland all over again. Justice requires recognizing their Indigenous status and upholding their human rights.
In a way, occupation is like a hybrid form of deportation. In 1944, Stalin forcibly deported the entire Crimean Tatar population to Central Asia. A significant proportion of the population died as a result, prompting the Ukrainian government to deem the deportation genocide. The 2014 occupation has revived those same traumas: disappearances, imprisonment of activists, suppression of language and culture, and the banning of their representative body (the Mejlis). What’s happening now is a slow-motion ethnic cleansing through fear, exile, and legal erasure.
Americans can support Ukrainian sovereignty and Indigenous recognition at the same time — the two are integrally connected. There are very tangible ways to help. Americans / Oregonians can support Crimean Tatar cultural and educational institutions in Kyiv and New York, which work to preserve language, art, and history while their homeland remains under occupation. They can also advocate for the release of political prisoners, many of whom are Crimean Tatars detained for expressing their political opinions.
Crimean Tatar voices need to be more evident in policymaking, scholarship, and media discussions about Ukraine. Centering their perspectives helps the world understand not only what has been lost, but what is being defended and what is possible — a multicultural, democratic Ukraine that values Indigenous rights.
As Martin Luther King wrote in his Letter from Birmingham Jail, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”
