A drawing of the Crimean Tatar flag on the embankment in Kyiv/Photo: Oleksandra Yefymenko, Hromadske Radio
The sixth Crimean Tatar Dictation is scheduled to take place on the evening of February 21 in Crimea. Organized in dedication to the political prisoners of the Kremlin, particularly members of the Nefes team – Nariman Dzhelal, Asan, and Aziz Akhtemov, this year’s dictation text was composed by political prisoner, journalist, and activist Asan Akhtemov, who sent it from a Russian prison.
Elmaz Akimova, one of the organizers, emphasized the precautions taken due to the circumstances in Crimea, stating:
«We do not see anything prohibited in the dictation, but given the circumstances in which people live in Crimea, we observe certain security measures: we do not discuss organizational issues by phone, do not advertise the location of the dictation, do not invite strangers to the offline dictation».
Every year, Elmaz participated in the Ukrainian radio dictation of national unity and aspired to create a similar event in her native Crimean Tatar language.
«I really enjoy participating in this event, and I thought it would be great to create a similar dictation in Crimean Tatar. The challenge was that no one was organizing it, so we, along with other activists, established the Nefes public initiative and organized online dictations on Mother Language Day ourselves», — expressed Akimova.
International Mother Language Day was declared by the UNESCO General Conference on November 17, 1999, and is celebrated annually on February 21. The organizers encourage participation from everyone, regardless of age, nationality, place of residence, or proficiency in the Crimean Tatar language.
Participants are required to handwrite the dictation legibly in Latin or Cyrillic script. After completion, participants have until 19:00 on February 22 to submit their handwritten text (photo or scan) along with their name, city, contact phone number, and a link to their Facebook or Instagram account to the Nefes email (qrm.nefes@gmail.com).
Entries with illegible handwriting, unreadable photos, and scanned copies will not be reviewed. The text of the dictation in both Latin and Cyrillic will be published on Nefes’ Facebook and Instagram pages after the submission deadline.
Hromadske Radio provides a link to the online dictation.