Melnychne, Crimea

The settlement was established in 1878 as a joint Lutheran-Mennonite colony by ethnic German settlers under the German name of Alexanderfeld (Russian: Kumyuke Nemetskoye).^[1] As of the first Soviet census in 1926, the village had a total population of 116 inhabitants, of whom 109 were ethnic Germans, 4 Ukrainians and 3 Jews.^[2] As the result of the Second World War, the German population was ethnically cleansed from the settlement, and subsequently deported to the territory of the Kazakh SSR.^[3]

On 27 February 2014, following the Revolution of Dignity, which ousted the Russia-friendly Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, unmarked Russian troops invaded and occupied the Crimean peninsula. On 16 March, Russian-installed authorities conducted a referendum, which was overwhelmingly considered to be sham vote. The vote resulted in the unilateral annexation of the entirety of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, yet the annexation remains vastly unrecognized.^[4]

As of the 2001 Ukrainian census, Melnychne had a population of 391 inhabitants, a negligible decrease from 392 in 1989. The settlement is mostly Ukrainophone, while large Russian-speaking and Crimean Tatar speaking minorities exist in the village. In terms of ethnicities, it is estimated that ethnic Ukrainians constitute a large majority in Melnychne, while ethnic Russians, Crimean Tatars and Belarusians make up significant minority groups.^[5] The exact native language composition was as follows:^[6]