Russo-Japanese War 1904-1905 in the Folk Songs of Crimean Tatars

Abstract

In the late 19th century, Europe's most powerful states increased theirinfluence over China and tried to take control over some parts of thiscountry. At the end of the 19th century and at the beginning of the 20thcentury, the mandates of Britain, France and Germany on the Chineseterritory had been finalized. The Russian Empire was also involved inthis struggle over China, trying to have a non-icy harbour in the PacificOcean. The main interests of Russia were concentrated in Manchuria.This was not appropriate for the interests of the Japanese Empire. Thus,the Manchurian region of China became a place where the interests of thetwo countries clashed. As a result of this, at the beginning of 1904, thewar known as the 1904-1905 Russo-Japanese War occurred between thetwo countries. At that time, the Russian Empire sent thousands of soldiersliving in different parts of Russia to the Far East to fight against theJapanese. Among these soldiers, there were many Turkic-Muslims livingwithin the borders of the Russian Empire. There were also a significantnumber of Crimean Tatar soldiers among them. What happened duringthis war, which resulted in the victory of the Japanese, has been thesubject of Crimean Tatar folk literature products and especially folksongs. These folk songs were first included in the studies of researcherssuch as Olesnitskiy and Samoylovich. In this study, the events mentionedin the Crimean Tatar folk songs were evaluated in the light of historicalinformation.