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Abstract

My contribution deals with new, kaleidoscopic approaches to the multi-perspective reappraisal of over 1,100 Crimean Tatar objects in the Museum of European Cultures (MEK, Berlin), the ‘Türckische Cammer’ (State Art Collections Dresden, Saxony) and other archives, museums and libraries. These include everyday objects, paintings, jewellery, clothing, music, literature and editions of the Koran. Since the collections in Saint Petersburg and Crimea are currently neither accessible nor usable for Crimean Tatar refugees or scholars in the free world, we are working with Crimean Tatar artists, scholars, restorers and human rights activists to develop concepts for the cross-media, international use of Crimean Tatar treasures.

In my lecture, I analyse the potential and resonance of the diverse object groups by presenting their provenance, materiality and symbolic significance using selected examples. In doing so, I focus on the specific collection contexts of each period and their contextualisation against the backdrop of contemporary ethnographic and museum discourses, ranging from (neo-)nationalist currents to questions of cultural appropriation and current decolonisation debates to new approaches to transcultural cooperation. For the first time, Crimean Tatars from three different migration stratifications will work together in an interdisciplinary manner in a project called ‘Qaytarma’ using a kaleidoscopic approach in the social fields of science, civil society and art – as a symbol of free science and a sign of hope, as an example of bilateral cooperation after annexation and hybrid warfare.