Ethnic maps of Crimea showing the percentage of Crimean Tatars in the peninsula by subdivision. The first map is based on data from the Russian Empire census (1897) − those who indicated Crimean Tatar as their native language, the second one is 1939 Soviet census before the deportation of Crimean Tatars in 1944, and the third from the 2014 Russian census.

The de-Tatarization of Crimea (Crimean Tatar: Qırımnıñ tatarsızlaştırıluvı; Russian: Детатаризация Крыма, romanized: Detatarizatsiya Kryma; Ukrainian: Детатаризація Криму, romanized: Detataryzatsiya Krymu) was initiated by the Russian Empire and perpetuated by the Soviet Union. Following the Russian Empire's annexation of the Crimean Khanate in 1783, a variety of legal and practical measures were implemented to subjugate the indigenous Crimean Tatars, who are a Turkic ethnic group. This process of "de-Tatarization" manifested in many ways throughout Crimea, intensifying significantly during the Soviet Union's Stalinist era: the Crimean Tatar language was suppressed and supplanted by the Russian language, especially by renaming Crimean toponyms; the government settled Russians and other Slavs in the region and promoted Tatarophobia amongst them, such as by describing Crimean Tatars as traitorous "Mongols" with no authentic connection to the peninsula; and, ultimately, as many as nearly half a million Crimean Tatars were deported in a campaign of ethnic cleansing and cultural genocide.^[1]

The vast majority of districts, raions, villages, and geographic features in Crimea bearing Crimean Tatar names were given Slavic and communist names shortly after the deportation of the Crimean Tatars by the Soviet regime, per a decree of the Crimean Regional Committee mandating such renaming. Most places in Crimea still bear the post-deportation names, many redundant, that were imposed in the 1940s to remove traces of Crimean Tatar existence. Very few localities – Bakhchysarai, Dzhankoy, İşün, Alushta, Alupka, and Saky – were given their original names back after the fall of the Soviet Union.^[2][3][4]

Soviet party officials in Crimea indoctrinated the Slavic population of Crimea with Tatarophobia, depicting Crimean Tatars as "traitors", "bourgeoisie", or "counter-revolutionaries", and falsely implying that they were "Mongols" with no historical connection to the Crimean peninsula (despite their Greek, Italian, Armenian, and Gothic roots).^[5] A 1948 conference in Crimea was dedicated to promoting and sharing anti-Crimean-Tatar sentiments.^[6]

The attempts to paint Amet-khan Sultan as a Dagestani contrary to his Crimean origins has faced backlash from the Crimean Tatar community. Despite the flying ace being born in Crimea to a Crimean Tatar mother and always identifying himself as Crimean Tatar, the Russian Federation named a Dagestani airport after him while naming Crimea's main airport after Ivan Aivazovsky instead, ignoring numerous petitions from the Crimean Tatar community requesting that the airport bearing Amet-khan's name be in his homeland.^[7][8][9]

• Russian imperialism
  • Russification
• Population transfer in the Soviet Union

• Williams, Brian (2001). The Crimean Tatars: The Diaspora Experience and the Forging of a Nation. Boston: BRILL. ISBN 9004121226. OCLC 803626761.
• Williams, Brian (2015). The Crimean Tatars: From Soviet Genocide to Putin's Conquest. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0190494711. OCLC 928643532.
• Allworth, Edward (1998). The Tatars of Crimea: Return to the Homeland: Studies and Documents. London: Duke University Press. ISBN 0822319942. OCLC 799694940.

• Crimean Tatar language names of places in Crimea