Odessa

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Map of the Country of Ukraine and surrounding region.

Odessa is a city and an oblast or province of southwestern Ukraine located along the northern coast of the Black Sea. Its administrative center is the city of Odessa.

Variants

Odesa city

Odesa (also spelled Odessa) is the third most populous city and municipality in Ukraine and a major seaport and transport hub located in the south-west of the country, on the northwestern shore of the Black Sea.

Origin of name Odessa

The origin of the name Odessa is uncertain. The Turkish name for the district was Yedisan, meaning "seven flags", and this might be the source. Alternatively, it is proposed that the city was named after the ancient Greek city of Odessos, which was falsely believed to have been founded at the location of present day Odessa; although Odessa is in fact located in the area between the ancient Greek cities of Tyras and Olbia, Odessos is believed to be somewhere near the present day town of Varna in Bulgaria.

The site of Odessa was once occupied by an ancient Greek colony. Archaeological artifacts confirm links between the Odessa area and the eastern Mediterranean. In the Middle Ages successive rulers of the Odessa region included various nomadic tribes (Petchenegs, Cumans), the Golden Horde, the Crimean Khanate, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and the Ottoman Empire. Yedisan Crimean Tatars traded there in the 14th century.

Name

  • English: Odesa or Odessa /oʊˈdɛsə/ oh-DES-ə[10]
  • Ukrainian: Оде́са, romanized: Odesa [oˈdɛsɐ] (listen)
  • Russian: Оде́сса, romanized: Odessa [ɐˈdʲesə] (listen)
  • Yiddish: אָדעס, romanized: Odes

Odesa is sometimes called the "Pearl by the Sea",[1] the "Southern Capital",[2] "Odesa-mama" and "The Humour Capital", as well as "Southern Palmyra".[3]

In 1795 the city was named Odessa in accordance with the Greek Plan of Catherine the Great. Catherine's Secretary of State Adrian Gribovsky claimed in his memoirs that the name was his suggestion.

Odesa is located between the ancient Greek cities of Tyras and Olbia[4] and it was named as a feminine form for the ancient Greek city of Odessos (Ancient Greek: Ὀδησσός; in Roman times, Odessus). This refers to the second ancient Odessos, founded between the end of the 5th and beginning of the 4th centuries BC (the first one, identified with modern Varna in Bulgaria, is the older of the two, founded c. 610 BC). The exact location of this ancient Odessos is unknown, but modern efforts have attempted to localize it 40 km northeast of Odesa, near the village of Koshary [uk], Odesa Oblast.[5], near the Tylihul Estuary.[6]

"Odessa", a transliteration of the name in Russian, is the traditional English spelling of the city's name still used in the Lexico and Britannica dictionaries (but no longer in Encyclopædia Britannica)[7][8] as the primary name,[9][10] but "Odesa", the spelling of the name in Ukrainian, increasingly appears in dictionaries as the spelling for the Ukrainian city.[11][12][13]Odesa became the internationally standardized Latin-alphabet transliteration of the Ukrainian name according to the Ukrainian National romanization system, which was adopted for official use by Ukraine's cabinet in 2010, approved by the UN Group of Experts on Geographical Names in 2012, and adopted by the BGN/PCGN in 2019.[14] Odessa, meanwhile, is the literal transliteration of the city's Russian name, which was historically favoured until Ukraine's independence (similarly to the spelling of "Kyiv" versus "Kiev").

As noted by the Christian Science Monitor, many in the English-language media outlets historically spelled the city "Odessa", even after changing the spelling of "Kiev" to "Kyiv", but most outlets, since the beginning of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, have been shifting away from Russian transliterations.[15][16]

History

Early history: Odesa was the site of a large Greek settlement no later than the middle of the 6th century BC (a necropolis from the 5th–3rd centuries BC has long been known in this area). Some scholars believe it to have been a trade settlement established by the Greek city of Histria. Whether the Bay of Odesa is the ancient "Port of the Histrians" cannot yet be considered a settled question based on the available evidence.[17]

Archaeological artifacts confirm extensive links between the Odesa area and the eastern Mediterranean.

In the Middle Ages successive rulers of the Odesa region included various nomadic tribes (Petchenegs, Cumans), the Golden Horde, the Crimean Khanate, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and the Ottoman Empire. Yedisan Crimean Tatars traded there in the 14th century.

Since the middle of the 13th century the city's territory belonged to the Golden Horde domain.[18] On Italian navigational maps of 14th century on the place of Odesa is indicated the castle of Ginestra, at the time the center of a colony of the Republic of Genoa (more Gazaria).[19] At times when the Northern Black Sea littoral was controlled by the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, there existed a settlement of Kotsibijiv (Khadjibey) which was first mentioned in 1415 in Polish chronicles by Jan Długosz — a ship with grain was shipped from Kotsiubijiv to Constantinople. By the middle of 15th century the settlement was depopulated.[20]

During the reign of Khan Hacı I Giray of Crimea (1441–1466), the Khanate was endangered by the Golden Horde and the Ottoman Turks and, in search of allies, the khan agreed to cede the area to Lithuania. The site of present-day Odesa was then a fortress known as Khadjibey (named for Hacı I Giray, and also spelled Kocibey in English, Hacıbey or Hocabey in Turkish, and Hacıbey in Crimean Tatar).

Scythian culture

The culture of Scythian tribes inhabiting the Black Sea littoral steppes is represented by finds from settlements and burial grounds at several places. There are weapon items, bronze cauldrons, other utensils, adornments. By the beginning of the 1st millennium A.D. the Sarmatians displaced the Scythians. In the 3rd–4th centuries A.D. the tribal alliance, represented by the items of Chernyakhov culture, was created. Since the middle of the first millennium the formation of Slavic people began. In the 9th century they were united into a state with Kiev as a centre. The Khazars, Polovtsy, echenegs were the Slavs' neighbours during the different times. The period of the 9th–14th centuries is reflected by the materials from the settlements and cities of Kievan Rus', Belgorod, Caffa-Theodosia, Berezan Island.

Since the modern history period it was known as the Dnieper Provice (Ozu Eyalet) ruled by the Ottoman Empire and was unofficially known as the Khanate of Ukraine. In Russian historiography it was referred to as the Ochakov Oblast. The territory of the Odessa oblast was passed to Russia during the Russian southern expansion towards the Black Sea at the end of 18th century. Since then Russians heavily colonized the area establishing new cities and ports. In less than hundred years the city of Odessa grew from a small fortress to the biggest metropolis of the New Russia.

Namesake

Jat Gotras Namesake

Jat History

External links

References

  1. ↑ Note: "Pearl by the Sea" comes from the popular song "Ах, Одесса, жемчужина у моря" ("Ah, Odessa, a pearl by the sea") written by Odessa-born composer Modest Tabachnikov [ru]
  2. ↑ Nicknamed "Southern Capital" by an analogy with the nickname "Northern Capital" for St. Petersburg, see Biblioteka dli͡a chtenii͡a, Volume 42, October 1840, p. 19 (a non-OCR text, so you will need to scroll and scroll and scroll... until you notice a verse " Одесса , южная столица , Владычица эвксинскихъ водъ , Стоитъ какъ гордая царица , Вѣнець ей свљтимый небосвод")
  3. ↑ Note: "Southern Palmyra" is an apposition to St. Petersburg nicknamed "Northern Palmyra".
  4. ↑ Isaac, Benjamin H. (1 January 1986). The Greek Settlements in Thrace Until the Macedonian Conquest. BRILL. ISBN 9004069216 – via Google Books.
  5. ↑ Papuci-Władyka, Ewdoksia, et al. "Greek settlement on the northern Black Sea coast: Polish-Ukrainian excavations in Koshary (Odessa province): third preliminary report: seasons 2000-2003." (2006), pp. 354, 355 (footnote 4), 356
  6. ↑ Herlihy, Patricia (1986). Odessa : a history, 1794-1914. Cambridge, Mass.: Distributed by Harvard University Press for the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute. p. 7. ISBN 0-916458-08-3. OCLC 15649318.
  7. ↑ Odessa". Encyclopedia Britannica.
  8. ↑ "Odesa". Encyclopedia Britannica.
  9. ↑ "Odessa Definition & Meaning". Britannica Dictionary.
  10. ↑ "ODESSA | Meaning & Definition for UK English". Lexico Dictionaries | English. Archived from the original on 7 February 2022
  11. ↑ "Definition of ODESA". Merriam-Webster.
  12. ↑ "Definition of Odesa". Dictionary.com.
  13. ↑ "Odesa". Collins Dictionary.
  14. ↑ "United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names" (PDF). 2–6 May 2011.
  15. ↑ "Kyiv, Odesa, and what's in a name". Christian Science Monitor. 29 March 2022
  16. ↑ "Russia's invasion of Ukraine has sparked questions over why Ukrainian cities have historically been transliterated after their Russian versions". YSA Today.
  17. ↑ "The Greek Colonisation of the Black Sea Area: Historical Interpretation of Archaeology," December 1998, Tsetskhladze, Gocha R. (ed.), Franz Steiner Verlag, p. 41, n. 116.
  18. ↑ Vermenych, Ya. Odessa (ОДЕСА). Encyclopedia of History of Ukraine. 2010.
  19. ↑ "Історія Одеси. Що робить її справжнім українським містом?". Радіо Свобода (in Ukrainian).
  20. ↑ Vermenych, Ya. Odessa (ОДЕСА). Encyclopedia of History of Ukraine. 2010.

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