June 26 marks Crimean Tatar Flag Day in Ukraine—one of the national symbols of the Crimean Tatars.
This annual unofficial holiday, observed since 2010 by decision of the Crimean Tatar people’s self-governing bodies, symbolizes the unity and continuity of generations of Crimean Tatars and their struggle for freedom and the right to self-determination.
The Crimean Tatar flag was first raised in 1917, following the February Revolution. And in 1919, the Crimean Tatar Parliamentary Bureau adopted the “Regulations on the Cultural and National Autonomy of the Muslims of Crimea,” which established the image of the tarak-tamga as the national coat of arms and a gray-and-blue banner as the flag. This is the first documented mention of the status of the Crimean Tatars’ national coat of arms and flag in their current form.
Due to the Soviet Union’s repression of the Crimean Tatars and the establishment of the communist regime, the flag was not used. In 1929, the communist authorities declared the blue flag “bourgeois-nationalist” and banned its use. In the places where Crimean Tatars were deported after 1944, possession of the flag was considered a crime against the Soviet authorities. By the 1970s and 1980s, a significant portion of Crimean Tatar youth were unaware of their flag.
It was not until 1991, following the restoration of the Kurultai—the Crimean Tatar national governing body—that a resolution was adopted regarding the national flag and anthem of the Crimean Tatar people. The sky-blue flag flew over Crimea alongside the Ukrainian flag.
On August 29, 2010, at the third session of the Fifth Kurultai of the Crimean Tatar people, a decision was made to celebrate National Flag Day on June 26—the day the Second Kurultai opened.
After the annexation of Crimea in 2014, the Crimean Tatars were once again forced to leave their homeland, as Russia continued the repressive policies of the Soviet Union on the peninsula. The Crimean Tatar flag has become a symbol of the struggle for Crimea not only for the Crimean Tatars but for all of Ukraine. This flag symbolizes the Crimean Tatar people’s resistance against all those who have ever sought to destroy their culture.
Today, the Crimean Tatars, as representatives of the Ukrainian political nation, are bravely fighting against the Russian aggressor in the ranks of the Ukrainian Defense Forces alongside all the other free peoples of our country. Courage and bravery, love of freedom, humanity, and self-respect have two colors in Ukraine, and they are shared by the flags of both our peoples—the Ukrainian and the Crimean Tatar.
June 26 is the day when the blue flag with the golden tamga became a symbol of shared pain, shared struggle, and the inevitable shared victory of Ukraine and the Crimean Tatar people.