The historian spoke about the South before the imperial…

Ukraine faces the challenge of creating a new national narrative regarding the history of the Black Sea region prior to the imperial conquests. There have already been tentative attempts to include a Turkic component in this narrative, and scholars are actively researching Tatar and Turkish antiquities in these lands.

Historian Valentin Dolgochub discussed this in a comment for Intent.

According to the expert, the issue of Khanate Ukraine is currently being actively researched. This was a political entity dependent on the Ottoman Empire that existed along the Dniester and Yagorlik rivers—that is, on the territory of what is now the northern part of the Odesa region. The region was home to Ukrainians, Moldovans, and Cossacks, who, under certain circumstances, migrated from the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Russian Empire, or the Hetmanate. Scholars are studying Tatar and Turkish antiquities in these lands, as well as archaeological data.

Reports by imperial officials, compiled immediately after the Russian Empire’s conquest of these lands, also serve as sources of information. Valentin Dolgochub cited the example of Serhii Shevchenko’s research, in which he used such documents to trace the history of the town of Berezivka and the surrounding settlements. He established that Tatars and Ukrainians lived in this area.

Ukrainian Cossacks arrived in the Potyligul region after the destruction of the Zaporizhzhia Sich. They established villages on the Tyligul, Khadzhibey, and Kuyalnik estuaries. There is evidence of Cossack settlements in the areas of the modern villages of Usatove and Nerubaiske.

The annexation of the lands between the Southern Bug and the Dniester into the Russian Empire in the second half of the 18th century was the result of protracted wars. It was absolutely clear to the Russian government of the time that these lands were neither uninhabited nor empty, since they had to fight the Crimean Khanate and the Ottoman Empire for them.

The Northern Black Sea region, which had been well-known for two and a half millennia before the arrival of Russian imperial rule, was also quite densely populated by Greeks. The imperial government was aware of this, of course. That is precisely why, when settlements were founded, reestablished, or renamed here, they were generally given Greek names to contrast with the previous Turkic ones. This is how the city of Mykolaiv was founded; this is how Simferopol and Sevastopol were renamed; and, of course, Khadzhibey was renamed Odesa.

Moreover, during the reign of Catherine II, there was a kind of ideological imperial project to transform these lands into a revived “Great Greece.” This idea was linked to the imperial government’s strategic intent to dismantle the Ottoman Empire.

“Catherine II wanted to revive Greece—the very same Greece that is now on the Balkan Peninsula. By supporting rebels, opponents of the Turkish government, and by forming an alliance with a small Orthodox state in the Balkans, the plan was to separate almost the entire European part of the Ottoman Empire from it,” says Valentin Dolgochub.

This was not achieved during her lifetime, but, as is well known, her successor, her grandson Alexander I, did support the Greek uprising and helped secure Greece’s independence. However, in the end, that country never became an ally of the Russian Empire.

Юлія Калабайда

The historian spoke about the settlement of the Black Sea region prior to the imperial conquests

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