russia has been destroying mariupol and razing ukrainian donbas to the ground for more than a month now, and it is directly related to greece and hellenic studies.
after russian empire de facto occupied crimean khanate in the 1770s, it was decided to deport local christians from the peninsula, among them dozens of thousands of crimean greeks. they were resettled to north azov region, a mostly uninhabited by that time steppe land. in the new homeland, greeks founded dozens of settlements, including a city (πόλις) at the mouth of the river kalmius called marianopol, now mariupol.
living in crimea, greeks were traditionally bilingual, speaking both hellenic and turkic languages. this is the trait they saved after leaving the peninsula. modern azov greeks (whose settlements are now administratively belong to donetsk region) are divided in two groups. there are rumey greeks who speak rumaic language, a hellenic variety also called mariupolitan dialect and there are urum greeks who speak urum language, a turkic language similar to crimean tatar.
late imperial and soviet industrialization forced azov greeks to forsake their agricultural way of life and began to undermine their cultural identity. they started to switch to russian language in public life, and their dialects, that didn’t have any written tradition, functioned only as colloquial. in the early soviet union, “korenization” policy was imposed. it was meant to promote local cultures and languages, integrating them into public life and government, but even here greeks experienced some problems. for example, there wasn’t any education in local dialects, instead azov greeks were exposed to dimotika greek and crimean tatar, languages they didn’t understand very well.
nevertheless, “korenization” ended in the 1930s and the most violent wave of russification in history began. soviet greeks experienced it very painfully. schools and cultural institutions were closed, national districts and village councils were liquidated. many ethnic greeks were repressed because they were seen as potential enemies of the soviet government. there was the whole “greek operation”, often called πογκρόμ (pogrom) by greeks themselves, when soviets killed and deported dozens of thousands of greeks all over the ussr.
the relative liberalization of public life in the 1950s and early 1960s stopped the waves of terror and repression, but there was no return to a democratic solution to the national question. it was believed that the ussr had already formed a new national community, the soviet people, thus national differences were considered insignificant and temporary. as a result, there was a significant reduction in the number of azov greeks and especially greeks who would consider traditional idioms their mother tongues. in 1926 104,5 thousand greeks lived in ukraine, of which 83% considered “greek” their native language. in 2001 91,5 thousand ethnic greeks lived in ukraine, 77,5 thousand of them were azov greeks from donetsk region. only 5.4% of those greeks called “greek” their mother tongue, the rest called russian.
in independent ukraine greeks got the ability to breathe more freely. without any restrictions and with the help of greece they began to create institutions to research and preserve local culture. nevertheless, donbas remained one of the most russified regions of ukraine, and it was a “bad tone” to show your ukrainian identity in urban areas, not to say about identities like greek.
after the war in donbas started in 2014 most of traditionally greek settlements remained under ukrainian control. but now russia re-invaded and it has more urge and weapons to destroy this beautiful region. they are wiping out mariupol from the face of earth, causing humanitarian catastrophes and committing war crimes in greek villages like sartana, yalta, manhush, urzuf and others, and be sure, there won’t be any space for greek culture under the occupation. because of russia, azov greek community may cease to exist. remember what we’re loosing.
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