The Institute for Cultural Research of the National Academy of Arts of Ukraine took part in the International discussion “Decolonizing perceptions of the history of the Crimean Tatar people as the foundation for the politics and culture of Crimea’s future“, which was held in late September 2026 at the Ukraine Crisis Media Center.

The discussion was organized by the NGO Crimean Family as part of the cultural project “EVİM / MY HOME. The Future of Our Crimea”, with the support of the Representative Office of the President of Ukraine in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the Ukrainian Cultural Foundation.

The participants discussed the decolonization of perceptions of the historical and cultural heritage of the Crimean Tatar people. This process involves analyzing narratives about their history imposed by imperial historiography and deconstructing colonial stereotypes about Crimean Tatar culture. The discussion also addressed Russian epistemic violence and the state of culture in Crimea following the occupation in 2014, including the destruction of elements of secular and sacred cultural heritage, the establishment of colonial and conquest-related symbols, and the production and dissemination of distorted knowledge about key historical events and phenomena.

The discussion was attended by Refat Chubarov (Chairman of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar People), Denys Chystikov (Representative Office of the President of Ukraine in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea), Liliia Derman (Department of Design and Fine Arts, Mykhailo Drahomanov Ukrainian State University), Volodymyr Tylyshchak (Ukrainian Institute of National Remembrance), Yuliia Tyshchenko (National Platform for Resilience and Cohesion), Natalia Shpylova-Said (Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, Harvard University), Iryna Dryha (Department of Turkology, Educational and Scientific Institute of Philology, Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv), Andrii Ivanets (National Museum of the Holodomor-Genocide), Anife Kurseitova and Bekir Ablaiev (Crimean Family).

The discussion was moderated by Nadia Honcharenko, Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Cultural Research of the National Academy of Arts of Ukraine.