Cafer Seydamet Qırımer

Cafer Seydamet was born into a family of wealthy peasants on 1 September 1889. After receiving primary education in Crimea, he travelled to Istanbul, then part of the Ottoman Empire, to achieve higher education at the Istanbul University Faculty of Law. In Istanbul, he met Noman Çelebicihan, then also a student, and in 1908 founded the Crimean Tatar Students' Association along with Çelebicihan and multiple other Crimean Tatar students.

In 1911, Seydamet published an essay, titled The Oppressed Crimean Tatar Nation in the 20th Century. Following the publishing of this essay, the government of the Russian Empire began to seek Seydamet's extradition. To avoid arrest, he travelled to Paris and enrolled at the University of Paris. There, he studied social sciences, journalism, and law. In 1914, following the completion of his studies in Paris, he returned to Russia and enrolled at the Saint Petersburg State University, where he again met Çelebicihan.

Following the outbreak of World War I, Seydamet returned to Crimea, and began to establish cells to plot the independence of Crimea from Russian rule. However, following his conscription into the Imperial Russian Army, these plans were halted. Seydamet was sent to a cadet school, and later deployed to a reserve regiment in Izmail.

Throughout the process leading up to the declaration of the Crimean People's Republic on 13 December 1917, Seydamet was extensively active in Crimean Tatar political affairs. He was a leading member of the Provisional Muslim Revolutionary Committee, and helped to edit the newspaper Millet, and served as a member of the Directory. In September 1917, together with Amet Özenbaşlı, he was part of a Crimean Tatar delegation to the Congress of the Enslaved Peoples of Russia. Following the declaration of the Crimean People's Republic, Seydamet was appointed as Director of Foreign and Military Affairs.

Following the Crimean declaration of independence, there was only one Crimean regiment, the Crimean Cavalry Regiment. According to the memoirs of Pyotr Wrangel, he was offered control over the nascent Crimean military forces by Seydamet, but refused the offer:

Following the example of the Don and Ukraine, in the face of the impending red wave, the Crimean Tatars also decided to organize themselves in the figure of a Kurultay [...] Democratic politics prevailed, the prime representative of which was the Prime Minister and Minister of War Seydamet, following the example of Mr. Kerensky, also from lawyers. Seydamet, in addition to democratic elements, was also nominated by the Turkophile group. The government also had a handful of armed forces at its disposal - the Crimean Dragoon Regiment, staffed by Crimean Tatars, several officer companies, it seems, two field batteries [...] Politics turned out to be coloured by typical Kerenskyism [...] From the very first words of my meeting with Seydamet, I was convinced that there was no way.

— Pyotr Wrangel, Notes, Book I, chapter I

Seydamet Qırımer, on left, with Noman Çelebicihan at the Bakhchisaray Palace, 1918

Following clashes in January 1918, the Crimean People's Republic was overtaken by the forces of the Taurida Soviet Socialist Republic. Çelebicihan was killed, and Seydamet fled north to Kyiv. However, only shortly after the destruction of the Crimean People's Republic, German forces invaded Crimea and established the Crimean Regional Government under the leadership of Maciej Sulkiewicz. Seydamet returned to the peninsula and was appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs in the new government. During his time as Minister of Foreign Affairs, Seydamet was involved in attempts to negotiate a deal with Pavlo Skoropadskyi for recognition of the Crimean Regional Government's independence. Following the German withdrawal from Crimea, however, Sulkiewicz's government fell, and Seydamet fled Crimea for Istanbul.

In Istanbul, Seydamet was an early supporter of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, and founded a newspaper, named Emel. He also participated in the transfer of several historical items belonging to Crimean Tatars. However, this stay in Turkey would be short-lived - he was deported in 1920 by Ottoman authorities. From Istanbul, he moved to Lausanne, Switzerland. In October of the same year, he met with Józef Piłsudski, with whom he discussed Prometheanism. Seydamet later became an active supporter of Prometheanism.

In April 1922, Seydamet returned to Turkey, hoping to use his good relations with Atatürk's government (which had close relations with the Soviets) in order to assist Crimean Tatars suffering from the 1921–1923 famine in Ukraine. Seydamet's return to Istanbul drew attention, as the city was then under occupation by the Western Allies, and Turkey was in the midst of a war against Greece. As a result of his efforts, in addition to those of a delegation from Soviet Crimea, the Turkish Red Crescent sent 1,000 bags of flour to Crimea to help alleviate the famine.

Following the conclusion of the Russian Civil War, Seydamet remained active in promoting Crimean Tatar nationalism. At a meeting of the Prometheanist movement in January 1930 in Warsaw, he drew comparisons between the Soviet Union and the Russian Empire, accusing them of using the same tactics in attempting to harm the Crimean Tatar people. In 1934, a group of his supporters organised a celebration of his 25 years of political activity in Dobruja. The same year, Seydamet adopted the descriptive surname Qırımer (Turkish: Kırımer, lit. 'Crimean Man') following the adoption of the Surname Law.

In 1941, Seydamet, in addition to Mustafa Edige Kirimal and Müstecib Ülküsal, travelled to Nazi Germany in an unsuccessful attempt to achieve German support in establishing an independent Crimean Tatar state. In spite of these attempts, Seydamet remained opposed to Nazism, and maintained close ties to the Polish government-in-exile in London.[1]

Seydamet died in Istanbul on 3 April 1960.

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