Amet Seid Abdulla oğlu Özenbaşlı (10 February 1893 – 4 December 1958) was a Crimean Tatar politician and writer. A leading member of the Crimean Tatar nationalist movement and a minister in the Crimean People's Republic, he was later involved in the Crimean Tatar community in the Soviet Union. After supporting Crimean Tatar collaboration with Nazi Germany during World War II, he was sentenced to 25 years in prison, but was released in 1955. Following his prison service, he lived in Tajikistan until his death.
In 1918, Özenbaşlı participated in the Crimean Regional Government, and, alongside Maciej Sulkiewicz, was a participant in negotiations with the Ukrainian State in Kyiv. During the Russian Civil War, he was targeted by the White movement and, after the Red Army occupied Crimea, he joined Bolshevik authorities. In 1920, he founded the Şirket agricultural cooperative, which had branches throughout Crimea and included several former members of the Milliy Firqa.[citation needed]
From 1922 to 1924, Özenbaşlı served as a psychology teacher, and head of the psychology department at the Crimean Tatar Pedagogical Institute. In 1922, he graduated from the medical faculty of the Tavrida National V.I. Vernadsky University, receiving a diploma in neuropathology.[2] He was a leading member of the Koç Yardim (lit.'Help for Settlers') programme, which aimed to facilitate the return of Crimean Tatars from Turkey and Bulgaria.[citation needed]
Özenbaşlı's mugshot following his arrest by Soviet authoritiesÖzenbaşlı's tomb in Bakhchysarai
From 1924 to 1927, he served as Deputy People's Commissar of Finance of the Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. Afterwards, he worked as a neuropathologist at the third polyclinic of Simferopol. However, this work would not last long; in April 1928, he was arrested in connection with his work as a member of the Milliy Firqa, and sentenced to death in December 1928. This sentence, however, was soon overturned by ten years of hard labour in the Transbaikal region. From 1931 to 1934, he worked in the construction of the White Sea–Baltic Canal as a doctor for prisoners. In 1934, he was released, and subsequently worked in Novosibirsk and Pavlohrad as a doctor.[1][2]
Amidst World War II, Özenbaşlı returned to Crimea. He collaborated with Nazi forces, and called on Crimean Tatars to join the Nazis to expel the Soviets and create an independent Crimea under German tutelage.[1] As the Germans retreated, he fled to Romania, where he was captured and sent back to Moscow. In 1947, he was sentenced to 25 years' imprisonment. In 1955, however, he was released early, and moved to Leninabad, in the Tajik Soviet Socialist Republic (now Khujand in independent Tajikistan). He lived in Leninabad until his death on 4 December 1958.[3]
On 8 August 1993, his ashes were reburied in the Zincirli Madrasa in Bakhchysarai, next to Ismail Gasprinsky, according to his will.[2]
References
^ abcВипускники Одеського (Новоросійського) Університету Енциклопедичний Словник [Graduates of Odesa (Novorossiya) University, Encyclopaedic Dictionary] (in Ukrainian) (2 ed.). Odesa "Astroprynt". 2010. pp. 150–151.
^Zarubin, V. G. (2006). "Джафер Сейдамет. Штрихи к портрету" [Cafer Seydamet: Portrait Strokes]. Historical Heritage of Crimea (in Russian) (12–13): 46.
