Azov Sea Gateway: Greek Minority and the Rise of Mariupol as a Port City (1780- 1869)
Svitlana Arabadzhy, Postdoctoral fellow, University of Oslo, will present her research as part of the faglunsjer in history at AHKR.
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The Russian Empire's seizure of the territories on the northern coast of the Black Sea, the ability to use the fertile land resources of the Azov Sea region, and the development of a network of ports on the shores of the two seas allowed it to become an important supplier of grain to Western Europe. At the same time, the development of port cities on the shores of the Azov and Black Seas is closely linked to the activities and trade of various ethnic groups that were relocated to the occupied lands or deliberately moved to the cities to develop their trade businesses. The history of Mariupol's development as a port city is linked to the resettlement of Christians, mainly Greeks, from the Crimea to the territory of the modern city Mariupol.
Mariupol port-city was the only one of the eleven ports on the Azov and northern Black Sea coasts on whose territory only the descendants of immigrants from Crimea had official residence for 79 years, and in whose administration for more than 80 years only Greeks participated through the Mariupol Greek Court. With the liquidation of the court in 1869, the next stage of Mariupol's development as a port city began, with the most influential merchants and citizens of various ethnic groups involved in its management.
The research aims to analyze the role of the Greek population in Mariupol and the development of Mariupol as a port-city during the period of special privileges granted to Christians in 1780-1869. The city port is seen as a dynamic unit responding to changes in the political situation and the international trade market, which in turn influenced the hinterland economy.
Svitlana Arabadzhy is a Postdoctoral fellow at the Department of Archaeology, Conservation and History at the University of Oslo, and an Associate Professor at the Department of History and Archaeology at Mariupol State University, where she teaches a course on the history of the Greeks in Ukraine.
Her current research project “Becoming Greek South of Ukraine, 1774-2021: The History of Ukraine through its Greek Minority Between Local and Transnational Contexts (UAGREEKS)”, has received funding through the MSCA4Ukraine project and is financed by the European Union. She is currently working on a monograph on the history of Mariupol as a Port City.
