The Romanian Naval Forces is the principal naval branch of the Romanian Armed Forces and operates in the Black Sea and on the Danube. It traces its history back to 1860.
The Russian battleship Potemkin was a pre-dreadnought battleship built for the Imperial Russian Navy's Black Sea Fleet. She became famous during the Revolution of 1905, when her crew mutinied against their officers. This event later formed the basis for Sergei Eisenstein's 1925 silent film Battleship Potemkin.
Rostislav was a pre-dreadnought battleship built by the Nikolaev Admiralty Shipyard in the 1890s for the Black Sea Fleet of the Imperial Russian Navy. She was conceived as a small, inexpensive coastal defence ship, but the Navy abandoned the concept in favor of a compact, seagoing battleship with a displacement of 8,880 long tons (9,022 t). Poor design and construction practices increased her actual displacement by more than 1,600 long tons (1,626 t). Rostislav became the world's first capital ship to burn fuel oil, rather than coal. Her combat ability was compromised by the use of 10-inch (254 mm) main guns instead of the de facto Russian standard of 12 inches (305 mm).
The Ekaterina II class were a class of four battleships built for the Imperial Russian Navy in the 1880s; the first such ships built for the Black Sea Fleet. Their design was highly unusual in having the main guns on three barbettes grouped in a triangle around a central armored redoubt, two side-by-side forward and one on the centerline aft. This was intended to maximize their firepower forward, both when operating in the narrow waters of the Bosphorus and when ramming. Construction was slow because they were the largest warships built until then in the Black Sea, and the shipyards had to be upgraded to handle them.
Dvenadsat Apostolov was a pre-dreadnought battleship built for the Imperial Russian Navy, the sole ship of her class. She entered service in 1893 with the Black Sea Fleet, but was not fully ready until 1894. The ship participated in the failed attempt to recapture the mutinous battleship Potemkin in 1905. Decommissioned and disarmed in 1911, Dvenadsat Apostolov became an immobile submarine depot ship the following year. The ship was captured by the Germans in 1918 in Sevastopol and was handed over to the Allies in December. Lying immobile in Sevastopol, she was captured by both sides in the Russian Civil War before she was abandoned when the White Russians evacuated the Crimea in 1920. Dvenadsat Apostolov was used as a stand-in for the title ship during the 1925 filming of The Battleship Potemkin before she was finally scrapped in 1931.
Grigory Mykytovych Vakulenchuk was a Ukrainian sailor in the Imperial Russian Navy. He was born in Velyki Korovyntsi. He served on the Russian battleship Potemkin.
Chesma was the second ship of the Ekaterina II-class battleships built for the Imperial Russian Navy in the 1880s. When the ship was completed she proved to be very overweight which meant that much of her waterline armor belt was submerged. Russian companies could not produce the most advanced armour and machinery desired by the Naval General Staff, so they were imported from the United Kingdom and Belgium. Chesma spent her career as part of the Black Sea Fleet.
Ekaterina II was the lead ship of the Ekaterina II-class ironclad battleships built for the Imperial Russian Navy in the 1880s. Her crew was considered unreliable when the crew of the pre-dreadnought battleship Potemkin mutinied in June 1905 and her engines were decoupled from the propellers to prevent them from joining Potemkin. She was turned over to the Sevastopol port authorities before being stricken on 14 August 1907. She was re-designated as Stricken Vessel Nr. 3 on 22 April 1912 before being sunk as a torpedo target for the Black Sea Fleet.
Georgii Pobedonosets was a battleship built for the Imperial Russian Navy, the fourth and final ship of the Ekaterina II class. She was, however, only a half-sister to the others as her armor scheme was different and she was built much later than the earlier ships. She participated in the pursuit of the mutinous battleship Potemkin in June 1905, but her crew mutinied themselves. However, loyal crew members regained control of the ship the next day and they ran her aground when Potemkin threatened to fire on her if she left Odessa harbor. She was relegated to second-line duties in 1908. She fired on SMS Goeben during her bombardment of Sevastopol in 1914, but spent most of the war serving as a headquarters ship in Sevastopol. She was captured by both sides during the Russian Civil War, but ended up being towed to Bizerte by the fleeing White Russians where she was eventually scrapped.
Imperator Pavel I was one of two Andrei Pervozvanny-class predreadnought battleships built for the Imperial Russian Navy in the first decade of the 20th century. The ship's construction was greatly delayed by design changes as a result of the Russo-Japanese War and labor unrest after the 1905 Revolution, and she took nearly six years to build. Imperator Pavel I was not very active during World War I and her bored sailors were the first to mutiny in early 1917. The ship was laid up in 1918 and she was scrapped in 1923.
Andrei Pervozvanny was an Andrei Pervozvanny-class predreadnought battleship built for the Imperial Russian Navy during the early-1900s. The ship's construction was greatly delayed by design changes as a result of the Russo-Japanese War and labor unrest after the 1905 Revolution, and she took nearly six years to build. Andrei Pervozvanny was not very active during World War I and her bored sailors joined the general mutiny of the Baltic Fleet in early 1917. She was used by the Bolsheviks to bombard the rebellious garrison of Fort Krasnaya Gorka in 1919 during the Russian Civil War and was torpedoed by British Coastal Motor Boats shortly afterwards, as part of the Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War. The ship was never fully repaired and was scrapped in 1923.
The Russian battleship Sinop was a battleship built for the Imperial Russian Navy, being the third ship of the Ekaterina II class. She was named after the Russian victory at the Battle of Sinop in 1853. The ship participated in the pursuit of the mutinous battleship Potemkin in June 1905 and towed her back to Sevastopol from Constanța, Romania, where Potemkin had sought asylum. Several proposals were made for Sinop's reconstruction with modern guns and better quality armor during the 1900s, but both were cancelled. She was converted to a gunnery training ship in 1910 before she became a guardship at Sevastopol and had her 12-inch (305 mm) guns removed in exchange for four single 203 mm (8.0 in)/50 guns in turrets. Sinop was refitted in 1916 with torpedo bulges to act as "mine-bumpers" for a proposed operation in the heavily mined Bosphorus. Both the Bolsheviks and the Whites captured her during the Russian Civil War after her engines were destroyed by the British in 1919. She was scrapped by the Soviets beginning in 1922.
NMS Elisabeta was a small protected cruiser built for the Romanian Navy during the 1880s by Armstrong in Britain as Romania lacked the ability to build the ship itself. Serving mainly as a training ship, she represented Romania at the opening of the Kiel Canal in 1895. She helped protect Romanian interests in Constantinople during the First Balkan War in 1912–1913, but played no significant part in the Second Balkan War and was partially disarmed during World War I. Employed as a barracks ship after the war, the ship was scrapped in 1926.
Afanasy Nikolayevich Matushenko, was a non-commissioned officer in the Russian Black Sea Fleet, revolutionary socialist, and ringleader of the mutiny on the Russian battleship Potemkin.
Ippolit Giliarovsky was the second in command as a frigate captain of the battleship Potemkin during the mutiny. He held key responsibility for the uprising due to his brutal treatment of the sailors. Giliarovsky was killed during the mutiny.
Vekha was a military transport ship of the Black Sea Fleet that briefly joined the Potemkin mutiny. It was commanded by a colonel, Baron P P Eikhen. On 28 June [O.S. 15 June] 1905, Vekha approached Odessa where the mutineers were burying their fallen leader Grigory Vakulinchuk. Eikhen was unaware of the mutiny so he obeyed a semaphore message telling him to come aboard. Fifteen armed sailors arrested him. He dropped his sabre and was locked up with the officers. The remaining two officers and the doctor were signaled to come aboard, and after their arrest Vekha was ordered to stay by the battleship. The revolutionaries then took it over easily. Its 60 sailors pleaded successfully for the officers' lives, and the officers were set ashore with the others in Odessa.
Red Mutiny: Eleven Fateful Days on the Battleship Potemkin is a 2007 book by American writer Neal Bascomb. It was released on May 17, 2007 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. The book focuses on the events of the Battleship Potemkin uprising.
Grigoriy Pavlovich Chukhnin was an officer of the Imperial Russian Navy during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In 1904, when he was director of the Kuznetsov Naval Academy, he was nearly offered command of the Second Pacific Squadron before the command was ultimately given to Admiral Rozhestvensky. Rozhestvensky later requested his replacement by Chukhnin during the Pacific voyage, but was denied. In late 1904, Chukhnin was appointed to command of the Black Sea Fleet. He commanded the Black Sea Fleet in 1905 during the mutiny on the battleship Potemkin. "Chukhnin had dealt cruelly with the sailors of the Red Battleship [the Potemkin]: four were shot, two hanged, several dozen were sent to hard labor[...] but he failed to instill terror in anyone, and succeeded only in intensifying the mutinous feelings within the navy." In November 1905 he helped crush the Black Sea Fleet uprising. He was assassinated in July 1906, after an earlier attempt in February 1906 failed.
Russian Empire 