South Ukraine Greek community under revolutionary upheavals and armed conflicts (1917–1920)

Abstract

The revolutionary changes of 1917 contributed to the intensification of the political, national, and cultural life of the Greek community of the entire Black Sea and Azov Sea coasts, where the national states emerged on the shards of the former Russian Empire. In contrast to the Azov Sea region, where the Greeks had an active social and political life and by the end of 1917 had formed the Mariupol Union of the Hellenic People, the Greeks of the Northern Black Sea region were quite apolitical and inactive. Their attitude to the Ukrainian and Soviet powers was rather ambiguous, and during 1917 they maintained, mainly, a wait and see position. Only individual representatives of the Greek people were affiliated with one or another party, which was more an exception than a typical feature of the Greek community. The Greeks fought in the ranks of the Imperial Army, N. Makhno’s Rebel Army, in the Red Army, in regular units and partisan detachments of the Volunteer Army. In contrast to the rural population, which opposed the Volunteer Army and its policies, the urban communities of Odessa, Nikolaev, and Kherson actively supported both the French-Greek Entente troops and Denikin’s Volunteer Army. Most urban Greeks were well-to-do middle-class persons running small and medium businesses (restaurants, hotels, grocery stores, various workshops, etc.) and did not accept the ideas of social and property equality proclaimed by the Bolsheviks. The article draws on the periodical press and undefined documents of the Soviet Special Services to define the role of the Greek communies of the Ukrainian Black Sea Region cities in the revolutionary events. The authors analyze the role of the Greek community members in the military and political events of 1917–1920 and their attitude to the changing powers, participation in the revolutionary struggle, the reasons for the emigration of 1919–1920, and Bolshevik repressions against the Greek ethnos. It is concluded that the Greek community of the Northern Black Sea region suffered the greatest losses as a result of mass emigration, rather than civil confrontation during the revolution time.