Seitumer Emin

Seitumer Emin (, ; 15 May 1921 – 21 March 2004) was a Crimean Tatar writer and poet. A partisan during World War II, he became an active member of the Crimean Tatar civil rights movement in exile.

Early life Emin was born on 15 May 1921 to a Crimean Tatar peasant family in Albat. When he was only seven years old his father died, after which he worked as a shepherd on a collective farm to help his mother. After completing secondary school in Biyuk-Ozenbash, he began writing for the Udarnik Newspaper and later for the newspaper Krasny Krym.

World War II After the start of the German invasion of the Soviet Union, Emin volunteered for the Red army and was deployed to Odessa, where he fought in the defense of the city until he was evacuated to Sevastopol. His experience during the siege of Sevastopol later influenced much of his work. In the final later days of the city's defense, he was wounded and taken to a hospital. After recovering, he was sent to Tuapse, Adgeya. After being wounded multiple times in the Battle for the Caucasus, he was declared unfit for military service. However, he managed to get permission to be sent to Crimea as a partisan, where he worked with other Crimean Tatar leaders and writers including Jebbar Akimov, Refat Mustafayev, and Shamil Aladin. After German troops were expelled from Crimea in April 1944, he continued writing for Qızıl Qırım until 18 May 1944, when he was deported from Crimea due to his Crimean Tatar ethnicity and labeled a "traitor" despite his many military awards from the war.