Putin is not the only Russian leader who has had expansionist ambitions. In the eighteenth century, Empress Catherine the Great had a plan to take over parts of the declining Ottoman Empire around the north shore of the Black Sea; the stolen territories to then be divided between the Russians, the Austrian Hapsburg Empire, and a re-formed Greek Byzantine Empire. To further this, once the area had been successfully annexed, Greeks were encouraged to move in and settle as part of Catherine’s ‘Greek Project.’
Much of this area is now Ukraine – and, once again, Russia is flexing its expansionist muscles in the region.
If we did not know before, regular broadcasts about recent events have informed us that there are two major languages used in this area: Russian and Ukraine. The Ukraine president himself learnt Russian as his first language. What is not so well known is that, due to the considerable number of Greeks who have remained in the area, there are still large communities who speak a distinctive dialect of Greek, particularly in and around the city of Mariupol.
Mariupol means ‘city of Maria.’ It was named after the Russian princess Maria Fyodorovna. But the Greek influences in the area are revealed by the addition of pol (the ancient Greek for city is polis, the modern Greek = poli).
Many other towns and cities in the area show the same Greek connection, for example, Sevastopol, Simferopol (both of which are also in Ukraine – or at least they were until Russia annexed Crimea in 2014) and Tirasopol in neighbouring Moldovia.
But it is Mariupol that has recently borne the brunt of Russian aggression, with some districts already taken and many citizens killed, including at least ten of the local Greek community.
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