This article needs additional citations for verification .(June 2023) |
Novorossiya [nb 1] is a historical name, used during the era of the Russian Empire for an administrative area that would later become the southern mainland of Ukraine: the region immediately north of the Black Sea and Crimea. The province fell largely within a slightly wider area known in Ukrainian as the Stepovyna "Steppe Land", or Nyz "Lower Land". [1] The name Novorossiya, which means New Russia, entered official usage in 1764, after the Russian Empire conquered the Crimean Khanate, and annexed its territories, [2] when Novorossiya Governorate (or Province) was founded. Official usage of the name ceased after 1917, when the entire area was incorporated in the Ukrainian People's Republic (precursor of the Ukrainian SSR).
Novorossiya Governorate was formed (1764) from military frontier regions and parts of the southern Hetmanate, in anticipation of a war with the Ottoman Empire. [3] It was further expanded by the annexation of the Zaporozhian Sich in 1775. At various times, Novorossiya encompassed the Moldavian region of Bessarabia, the modern Ukraine's regions of the Black Sea littoral (Prychornomoria), Zaporizhzhia, Tavria, the Azov Sea littoral (Pryazovia), the Tatar region of Crimea, the area around the Kuban River, and the Circassian lands.
The modern history of the region follows the fall of the Golden Horde. The eastern portion was claimed by the Crimean Khanate (one of its multiple successors), while its western regions were divided between Moldavia and Lithuania. With the expansion of the Ottoman Empire, the whole Black Sea northern littoral region came under the control of the Crimean Khanate that in turn became a vassal of the Ottomans.[ citation needed ] Sometime in the 16th century the Crimean Khanate allowed the Nogai Horde which were displaced from its native Volga region by Muscovites and Kalmyks to settle in the Black Sea steppes.[ citation needed ]
Vast regions to the North of the Black Sea were sparsely populated and were known as the Wild Fields (as translated from Polish or Ukrainian), Dykra (in Lithuanian) or Loca deserta ("desolated places") in Latin on medieval maps. There were, however, many settlements along the Dnieper River. The Wild Fields had covered roughly the southern territories of modern Ukraine; some[ who? ] say they extended into the modern Southern Russia (Rostov Oblast).[ citation needed ]
The Russian Empire gradually gained control over the area, signing peace treaties with the Cossack Hetmanate and with the Ottoman Empire at the conclusion of the Russo-Turkish Wars of 1735–39, 1768–74, 1787–92 and 1806–12. In 1764 the Russian Empire established the Novorossiysk Governorate; it was originally to be named after the Empress Catherine, but she decreed that it should be called New Russia instead. [4] Imperial Russia’s view of New Russia was described in 2006 by the historian Willard Sunderland:
The old steppe was Asian and stateless; the current one was state-determined and claimed for European-Russian civilization. The world of comparison was now even more obviously that of the Western empires. Consequently it was all the more clear that the Russian empire merited its own New Russia to go along with everyone else's New Spain, New France, and New England. The adoption of the name of New Russia was in fact the most powerful statement imaginable of Russia's national coming of age. [5]
The administrative centre of the Novorossiysk Governorate was at the St. Elizabeth fortress (today in Kropyvnytskyi) in order to protect the southern borderlands from the Ottoman Empire, and in 1765 this passed to Kremenchuk. [4] [6]
After the annexation of the Ottoman territories to Novorossiya in 1774, the Russian authorities commenced a broad program of colonization, encouraging large migrations from a broader spectrum of ethnic groups. Catherine the Great invited European settlers to these newly conquered lands: Romanians (from Moldavia, Wallachia and Transylvania), Bulgarians, Serbs, Greeks, Albanians, Germans, Poles, Italians, and others.[ citation needed ] Catherine the Great granted Prince Grigori Potemkin (1739–1791) the powers of an absolute ruler over the area from 1774, after which he directed the Russian colonization of the land. The rulers of Novorossiya gave out land generously to the Russian nobility ( dvoryanstvo ) and the enserfed peasantry—mostly from Ukraine and fewer from Russia—to encourage immigration for the cultivation of the then sparsely populated steppe.[ citation needed ] According to the Historical Dictionary of Ukraine:
The population consisted of military colonists from hussar and lancer regiments, Ukrainian and Russian peasants, Cossacks, Serbs, Montenegrins, Hungarians, and other foreigners who received land subsidies for settling in the area. [7]
In 1775, the Russian Empress Catherine the Great forcefully liquidated the Zaporizhian Sich and annexed its territory to Novorossiya, thus eliminating the independent rule of the Ukrainian Cossacks.[ citation needed ] The governorate was dissolved in 1783.[ citation needed ] In 1792, the Russian government declared that the region between the Dniester and the Bug was to become a new principality named "New Moldavia", under Russian suzerainty. [8] According to the first Russian census of the Yedisan region conducted in 1793 (after the expulsion of the Nogai Tatars) 49 villages out of 67 between the Dniester and the Southern Bug were Romanian. [9] From 1796 to 1802 Novorossiya was the name of the reestablished Governorate with the capital Novorossiysk (previously and subsequently Ekaterinoslav, the present-day Ukrainian city of Dnipropetrovsk not to be confused with present-day Novorossiysk, Russian Federation) In 1802 it was divided into three governorates, the Yekaterinoslav, Kherson, and the Taurida.[ citation needed ]
From 1822 to 1874 the Novorossiysk-Bessarabia General Government was centred in Odesa. The region remained part of the Russian Empire until its collapse following the Russian February Revolution in early March 1917, after which it became part of the short-lived Russian Republic. In 1918, it was largely included in the Ukrainian State and in the Ukrainian Soviet Republic at the same time. In 1918–1920, it was, to varying extents, under the control of the anti-Bolshevik White movement governments of South Russia whose defeat signified the Soviet control over the territory, which became part of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, within the Soviet Union in 1922.
This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (April 2014) |
Following the Soviet Union's collapse on 26 December 1991 and concurrent with the lead-up to Ukrainian independence on 24 August 1991, a nascent movement began in Odesa for the restoration of Novorossiya region; it however failed within days and never defined its borders. [10] [11] [12] The initial conception had not developed exact borders, but focus centred on the Odesa, Mykolaiv, Kherson, and Crimean oblasts, with eventually other oblasts joining as well. [12] [13]
The name received renewed emphasis when Russian President Vladimir Putin stated in an interview on 17 April 2014 that the territories of Kharkiv, Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson, Mykolaiv and Odesa were part of what was called Novorossiya. [14] [nb 2] In May 2014, the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic and Luhansk People's Republic proclaimed the confederation of Novorossiya and its desire to extend its control towards all of southeastern Ukraine. [17] The confederation had little practical unity and within a year the project was abandoned: on 1 January 2015 the founding leadership announced the project had been put on hold, and on 20 May the constituent members announced the freezing of the political project. [18] [19] During the Wagner Group mutiny in June 2023, President Putin used the phrase in a speech responding to the mutiny, praising those "who fought and gave their lives to Novorossiya and for the unity of the Russian world". [20]
The ethnic composition of Novorossiya changed during the beginning of the 19th century due to the intensive movement of colonists who rapidly created towns, villages, and agricultural colonies. During the Russo-Turkish Wars, the major Turkish fortresses of Ozu-Cale, Akkerman, Khadzhibey, Kinburn and many others were conquered and destroyed. New cities and settlements were established in their places. Over time the ethnic composition varied.[ clarification needed ]
Multiple ethnicities[ clarification needed ] participated in the founding of the cities of Novorossiya (most of these cities were expansions of older settlements [21] ). For example:
According to the report of governor Shmidt, the ethnic composition of Kherson Governorate (which included the city of Odesa) in 1851 was as follows: [22]
Nationality | Number | % |
---|---|---|
Ukrainians | 703,699 | 69.14 |
Romanians (Moldavians and Vlachs) | 75,000 | 7.37 |
Jews | 55,000 | 5.40 |
Russian-Germans | 40,000 | 3.93 |
Great Russians | 30,000 | 2.95 |
Bulgarians | 18,435 | 1.81 |
Belarusians | 9,000 | 0.88 |
Greeks | 3,500 | 0.34 |
Romani people | 2,516 | 0.25 |
Poles | 2,000 | 0.20 |
Armenians | 1,990 | 0.20 |
Karaites | 446 | 0.04 |
Serbs | 436 | 0.04 |
Swedes | 318 | 0.03 |
Tatars | 76 | 0.01 |
Former Officials | 48,378 | 4.75 |
Nobles | 16,603 | 1.63 |
Foreigners | 10,392 | 1.02 |
Total Population | 1,017,789 | 100 |
With regard to language usage, Russian was commonly spoken in the cities and some outside areas, while Ukrainian generally predominated in rural areas, smaller towns, and villages.[ clarification needed ]
The 1897 All-Russian Empire Census statistics show that Ukrainian was the native language spoken by most of the population of Novorossiya, but with Russian and Yiddish languages dominating in most city areas. [23] [24] [25]
Language | Kherson Guberniya | Yekaterinoslav Guberniya | Tavrida Guberniya |
---|---|---|---|
Ukrainian | 53.4% | 68.9% | 42.2% |
Russian | 21.0% | 17.3% | 27.9% |
Belarusian | 0.8% | 0.6% | 6.7% |
Polish | 2.1% | 0.6% | 0.6% |
Bulgarian | 0.9% | – | 2.8% |
Romanian | 5.3% | 0.4% | 0.2% |
German | 4.5% | 3.8% | 5.4% |
Jewish (sic) | 11.8% | 4.6% | 3.8% |
Greek | 2.3% | 2.3% | 1.2% |
Tatar | 8.2% | 8.2% | 13.5% |
Turkish | 2.6% | 2.6% | 1.5% |
Total Population | 2,733,612 | 2,311,674 | 1,447,790 |
The 1897 All-Russian Empire Census statistics: [26]
Language | Odesa | Yekaterinoslav | Mykolaiv | Kherson | Sevastopol | Mariupol | Donetsk district |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Russian | 198,233 | 47,140 | 61,023 | 27,902 | 34,014 | 19,670 | 273,302 |
Jewish (sic) | 124,511 | 39,979 | 17,949 | 17,162 | 3,679 | 4,710 | 7 |
Ukrainian | 37,925 | 17,787 | 7,780 | 11,591 | 7,322 | 3,125 | 177,376 |
Polish | 17,395 | 3,418 | 2,612 | 1,021 | 2,753 | 218 | 82 |
German | 10,248 | 1,438 | 813 | 426 | 907 | 248 | 2,336 |
Greek | 5,086 | 161 | 214 | 51 | 1,553 | 1,590 | 88 |
Total Population | 403,815 | 112,839 | 92,012 | 59,076 | 53,595 | 31,116 | 455,819 |
Many of the cities that were founded (most of these cities were expansions of older settlements [21] ) during the imperial period are major cities today.
Imperial Russian regiments were used to build these cities, at the expense of hundreds of soldiers’ lives. [21]
Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, is an oblast (province) in southeastern Ukraine, the most important industrial region of the country. It was created on February 27, 1932. Dnipropetrovsk Oblast has a population of about 3,096,485, approximately 80% of whom live centering on administrative centers: Dnipro, Kryvyi Rih, Kamianske, Nikopol and Pavlohrad. The Dnieper River runs through the oblast.
The Crimean Khanate self-defined as the Throne of Crimea and Desht-i Kipchak and in old European historiography and geography known as Little Tartary, was a Crimean Tatar state existing from 1441–1783, the longest-lived of the Turkic khanates that succeeded the empire of the Golden Horde. Established by Hacı I Giray in 1441, it was regarded as the direct heir to the Golden Horde and to Desht-i-Kipchak.
The Zaporozhian Sich was a semi-autonomous polity and proto-state of Cossacks that existed between the 16th to 18th centuries, including as an autonomous stratocratic state within the Cossack Hetmanate for over a hundred years, centred around the region now home to the Kakhovka Reservoir and spanning the lower Dnieper river in Ukraine. In different periods the area came under the sovereignty of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Ottoman Empire, the Tsardom of Russia, and the Russian Empire.
Zaporizhzhia or Zaporozhzhia is a historical region in central east Ukraine below the Dnieper River rapids, hence the name, literally "(territory) beyond the rapids".
Azov Cossack Host was a Cossack host that existed on the northern shore of the Sea of Azov, between 1832 and 1862.
Yedisan was a conditional name for Özi [Paşa] Sancağı of Silistra Eyalet, a territory located in today's Southern Ukraine between the Dniester and the Southern Bug (Boh), which was placed by the Ottomans under the control of the Nogai Horde in the 17th and 18th centuries and was named after one of the Nogai Hordes. In the Russian Empire, it was referred to as Ochakov Oblast, while the Ottoman Turks called it simply Özü after the city of Ochakiv which served as its administrative center. Another name used was Western Nogai.
Taurida Governorate was an administrative-territorial unit (guberniya) of the Russian Empire. It included the territory of the Crimean Peninsula and the mainland between the lower Dnieper River with the coasts of the Black Sea and Sea of Azov. It formed after Taurida Oblast was abolished in 1802 during the course of Paul I's administrative reform of the territories of the former Crimean Khanate which were annexed by Russia in 1783. The governorate's centre was the city of Simferopol. The name of the province was derived from Taurida, a historical name for Crimea.
Oleshky, previously known as Tsiurupynsk from 1928 to 2016, is a city in Kherson Raion, Kherson Oblast, southern Ukraine, located on the left bank of the Dnieper River with the town of Solontsi to the south. It is the oldest city of the oblast and one of the oldest in southern Ukraine. It is known for its proximity to the Oleshky Sands, a large desert region. Oleshky is the site of artist Polina Rayko's home, a national cultural monument of Ukraine. It also hosts the administration of Oleshky urban hromada, one of the hromadas of Ukraine. It had a population of 24,124.
The recorded history of the Crimean Peninsula, historically known as Tauris, Taurica, and the Tauric Chersonese, begins around the 5th century BCE when several Greek colonies were established along its coast, the most important of which was Chersonesos near modern day Sevastopol, with Scythians and Tauri in the hinterland to the north. The southern coast gradually consolidated into the Bosporan Kingdom which was annexed by Pontus and then became a client kingdom of Rome. The south coast remained Greek in culture for almost two thousand years including under Roman successor states, the Byzantine Empire (341–1204), the Empire of Trebizond (1204–1461), and the independent Principality of Theodoro. In the 13th century, some Crimean port cities were controlled by the Venetians and by the Genovese, but the interior was much less stable, enduring a long series of conquests and invasions. In the medieval period, it was partially conquered by Kievan Rus' whose prince Vladimir the Great was baptised at Sevastopol, which marked the beginning of the Christianization of Kievan Rus'. During the Mongol invasion of Europe, the north and centre of Crimea fell to the Mongol Golden Horde, and in the 1440s the Crimean Khanate formed out of the collapse of the horde but quite rapidly itself became subject to the Ottoman Empire, which also conquered the coastal areas which had kept independent of the Khanate. A major source of prosperity in these times was frequent raids into Russia for slaves.
The Wild Fields is a historical term used in the Polish–Lithuanian documents of the 16th to 18th centuries to refer to the Pontic steppe in the territory of present-day Eastern and Southern Ukraine and Western Russia, north of the Black Sea and Azov Sea. It was the traditional name for the Black Sea steppes in the 16th and 17th centuries. In a narrow sense, it is the historical name for the demarcated and sparsely populated Black Sea steppes between the middle and lower reaches of the Dniester in the west, the lower reaches of the Don and the Siverskyi Donets in the east, from the left tributary of the Dnipro — Samara, and the upper reaches of the Southern Bug — Syniukha and Ingul in the north, to the Black and Azov Seas and Crimea in the south.
Southern Ukraine refers, generally, to the territories in the South of Ukraine.
Novorossiya Governorate was an administrative-territorial unit (guberniya) of the Russian Empire, which existed in 1764–1783 and again in 1796–1802. It was created and governed according to the "Plan for the Colonization of New Russia Governorate" issued by the Russian Senate. It became the first region in Russia where Catherine the Great allowed foreign Jews to settle.
Administrative divisions development in Ukraine reviews the history of changes in the administrative divisions of Ukraine, in chronological order.
During its existence from 1919 to 1991, the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic consisted of many administrative divisions. Itself part of the highly centralized Soviet Union, sub-national divisions in the Ukrainian SSR were subordinate to higher executive authorities and derived their power from them. Throughout the Ukrainian SSR's history, other national subdivisions were established in the republic, including guberniyas and okrugs, before finally being reorganized into their present structure as oblasts. At the time of the Ukrainian SSR's independence from the Soviet Union, the country was composed of 25 oblasts (provinces) and two cities with special status, Kiev, the capital, and Sevastopol, respectively.
Azov Governorate was an administrative-territorial unit (guberniya) of the Russian Empire, which existed from 1775 to 1783. Its capital was in Belyov Fortress and later in Yekaterinoslav.
Ottoman Ukraine, Khan Ukraine, Hanshchyna is a historical term for right-bank Ukraine, also known by its Turkic name Yedisan. The first recorded use of the term Khanska Ukraina are traced to 1737 when the Russian secret-agent Lupul urged Empress Anna of Russia to attack Ottoman Ukraine.
The administrative division of Ukraine in 1918 was inherited from the Russian Empire, and based on the largest unit of the gubernia with smaller subdivisions county or district, and rural district.
Novorossiya or New Russia, also referred to as the Union of People's Republics, was a project for a confederation between the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) and the Luhansk People's Republic (LPR) in Eastern Ukraine, both of which were under the control of pro-Russian separatists.
A variety of social, economical, cultural, ethnic, and linguistic factors contributed to the sparking of unrest in eastern and southern Ukraine in 2014, and the subsequent eruption of the Russo-Ukrainian War, in the aftermath of the early 2014 Revolution of Dignity.
This is a list article about flags that have been used by pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine and in areas occupied by Russia and Russian-controlled forces during the Russo-Ukrainian War.
A Russian ethnic republic in Ukraine was named Novorossiya and was proclaimed in 1992 but fell some days after.
{{cite journal}}
: |issue=
has extra text (help){{cite journal}}
: |issue=
has extra text (help){{cite journal}}
: |issue=
has extra text (help){{cite journal}}
: |issue=
has extra text (help)