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The strategically placed city was once a jewel of the Soviet empire and its largest port, thus the Russian leader wants it back
WASHINGTON – A century ago, imperial dreams were common among major nations of the world — Britain, France, Germany, Japan and even the United States all had them.
Most evaporated in the traumas of World War II and its aftermath. Yet the Soviet Union’s multinational empire, subordinating peoples of more than a dozen distinct nationalities to ethnic Russian rule, lived on, until the Soviet collapse of 1991.
The jewel of that Soviet empire was Ukraine, a vast and abundant breadbasket inhabited by more than 40 million people, generating over 10% of the world’s exports of feed grains. With formidable military-industrial capabilities that crucially supported Soviet global power, Ukraine was also home to the Soviet Union’s largest port, Odessa. That ice-free harbor town and naval base also served as the Soviet Union’s southern window on the Balkans, the Middle East and the wider world.
For nearly two centuries, Odessa was literally a crown jewel of the Russian empire, albeit a diverse and cosmopolitan one. The city was founded in 1794 by decree from Empress Catherine the Great, only two years after a major Czarist military triumph over Turkey expanded imperial Russia’s borders southward to the shores of the Black Sea.
For four decades (1819-1859) Odessa served as a free port, attracting a dynamic and diverse mixture of entrepreneurs to Russian shores. By the end of the 19th century, Odessa was the fourth largest city of the entire Russian empire, with a population half Russian, 37% Jewish and only 9% Ukrainian.
Over time, Odessa forged close bonds to Soviet power, in part through its stout resistance to the Nazis. The city resisted a ferocious German and Romanian onslaught for over two months in the summer of 1941, and remained restive throughout the war. Around 100,000 of its Jewish residents were murdered by the Nazis, including close to 30,000 in the infamous Odessa Massacre of October, 1941.
At the war’s end, in a tribute to its fierce resistance, Odessa was one of four locations across the entire country to be first named a Hero City of the Soviet Union, together with Stalingrad, Leningrad and Sevastopol in the Crimea.
Given its history, its past standing as a jewel of the Soviet empire and its current strategic importance, Odessa naturally figures strongly in Vladimir Putin’s imperial dream of reviving the former Soviet Union.
If he can reclaim Odessa, Putin can effectively cut Ukraine off from the sea, dealing a crippling blow to its export potential and long-term prospects for economic independence. That would be a major step toward bringing a defiant Ukraine into subordination to Moscow, although prospects must be clouded by recent demographic shifts in Odessa, which is now over two-thirds Ukrainian and only an estimated 25% Russian.
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/202...ts-odessa/
WASHINGTON – A century ago, imperial dreams were common among major nations of the world — Britain, France, Germany, Japan and even the United States all had them.
Most evaporated in the traumas of World War II and its aftermath. Yet the Soviet Union’s multinational empire, subordinating peoples of more than a dozen distinct nationalities to ethnic Russian rule, lived on, until the Soviet collapse of 1991.
The jewel of that Soviet empire was Ukraine, a vast and abundant breadbasket inhabited by more than 40 million people, generating over 10% of the world’s exports of feed grains. With formidable military-industrial capabilities that crucially supported Soviet global power, Ukraine was also home to the Soviet Union’s largest port, Odessa. That ice-free harbor town and naval base also served as the Soviet Union’s southern window on the Balkans, the Middle East and the wider world.
For nearly two centuries, Odessa was literally a crown jewel of the Russian empire, albeit a diverse and cosmopolitan one. The city was founded in 1794 by decree from Empress Catherine the Great, only two years after a major Czarist military triumph over Turkey expanded imperial Russia’s borders southward to the shores of the Black Sea.
For four decades (1819-1859) Odessa served as a free port, attracting a dynamic and diverse mixture of entrepreneurs to Russian shores. By the end of the 19th century, Odessa was the fourth largest city of the entire Russian empire, with a population half Russian, 37% Jewish and only 9% Ukrainian.
Over time, Odessa forged close bonds to Soviet power, in part through its stout resistance to the Nazis. The city resisted a ferocious German and Romanian onslaught for over two months in the summer of 1941, and remained restive throughout the war. Around 100,000 of its Jewish residents were murdered by the Nazis, including close to 30,000 in the infamous Odessa Massacre of October, 1941.
At the war’s end, in a tribute to its fierce resistance, Odessa was one of four locations across the entire country to be first named a Hero City of the Soviet Union, together with Stalingrad, Leningrad and Sevastopol in the Crimea.
Given its history, its past standing as a jewel of the Soviet empire and its current strategic importance, Odessa naturally figures strongly in Vladimir Putin’s imperial dream of reviving the former Soviet Union.
If he can reclaim Odessa, Putin can effectively cut Ukraine off from the sea, dealing a crippling blow to its export potential and long-term prospects for economic independence. That would be a major step toward bringing a defiant Ukraine into subordination to Moscow, although prospects must be clouded by recent demographic shifts in Odessa, which is now over two-thirds Ukrainian and only an estimated 25% Russian.
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/202...ts-odessa/
