Transformation

The Crimean War was a watershed event in Russia; it transformed government and society and ushered in the Great Reforms. Russian subjects mobilized to support the home front came out of the war with an expectation of reciprocity; serfs wanted their freedom, while other social estates saw the potential of civil society. In Crimea and the larger province of Tauride, the war created profoundly negative change. Violence disassembled landscapes and altered topography. It remapped roads, and communication networks. War destroyed industry and agriculture. Most significantly, punitive civilian policies combined with the failure of recovery programs led the mass migration of Nogai and Crimean Tatars. The Russian government resettled Christian populations in the spaces vacated by emigrating Tatars and remade the distant borderland into its own image. Crimea never recovered from the Crimean War. Rather, mass scale violence transformed Crimea.