The four-volume book presents the ethnic history of the indigenous population of Crimea from ancient times until the 1940s, when, as a result of the deportation of the Crimean Tatars, the peninsula was first deprived of the carriers of the unique culture that developed here. The study is based on published sources and materials of a number of domestic and foreign archives, as well as on works devoted to the history of Crimea and partly countries that were in relations with it of a different nature. The composition is divided into four volumes according to the chronological principle. At the same time, the main part of the first volume is devoted to the period when the Crimean population lived according to the laws of the Khanate