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 Greeks in Ukraine | |
| Total population | |
|---|---|
| 91,548 (2001) | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
| Donetsk Oblast | 77,516 (2001) |
| Crimea | 2,795 (2001) |
| Zaporizhzhia Oblast | 2,179 (2001) |
| Odesa Oblast | 2,083 (2001) |
| The rest | 6,975 (2001) |
| Languages | |
| Russian (88.5%),Greek,Ukrainian,Urum,Rumeíka | |
| Religion | |
| Orthodox Christianity | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| OtherGreeks, especiallyPontic Greeks,Northern Greeks (includingMacedonian Greeks) andCaucasus Greeks; other traditionallyCrimean Tatar-speaking peoples, includingCrimean Tatars,Crimean Karaites,Krymchaks,Crimean Roma, andCrimean Armenians | |
Ukrainian Greeks are a Greek minority that reside in or used to reside in the territory of modernUkraine. The majority of Ukrainian Greeks live inDonetsk Oblast and are particularly concentrated around the city ofMariupol.
According to the2001 Ukrainian Census, there were 91,548 ethnic Greeks in Ukraine, or 0.2% of the population. However, the actual percentage of those with Greek ancestry is likely to be much higher due to widespread intermarriage between ethnic Greeks and those Ukrainian citizens who areUkrainian Orthodox, particularly in eastern Ukraine, as well as the absence of strong links to Greece or use of theGreek language by many with Greek ancestry in these areas and who therefore are not classified as Greeks in official censuses.
Most Greeks in Ukraine belong to the larger Greek diaspora known asPontic Greeks. But there are also a small recent group of Greek expats and immigrants to Ukraine.
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AGreek presence throughout theBlack Sea area existed long before the beginnings ofKyivan Rus'. For most of their history in this area, the history of theGreeks in Russia and inUkraine forms a single narrative, of which a division according to present-day boundaries would be an artificial anachronism. Most present-day Greeks in Ukraine are the descendants of Pontic Greeks from the Pontus region between the fall of theEmpire of Trebizond in 1461 and theRusso-Turkish War of 1828–1829.
Greeks established colonies on what are now the Ukrainian shores of theBlack Sea as early as the 6th centuryBCE. These colonies traded with various ancient nations around the Black Sea, includingScythians,Maeotae,Cimmerians,Goths and predecessors of theSlavs. These earlier Greek communities had, however, assimilated into the wider, indigenous population of the region.
The Greek colonies coalesced into theBosporan Kingdom in the 4th century BCE, which lasted as aRoman client state until the 4th century AD. Additionally, theKingdom of Pontus was founded in the 3rd century BC and controlled territory in Ukraine (including the Bosporan Kingdom) until its acquisition by the Roman Empire in the 1st century AD.
After the 13th centuryCuman andMongol-TatarGolden Horde invasion of the steppes of southern Ukraine and Russia to the north, Greeks had remained only in the towns on the southern slopes of theCrimean Mountains and became divided into two sub-groups:Tatar-speakingUrums and Rumaiic Pontic Greeks withRumeíka Greek as their mother tongue.
The CrimeanPrincipality of Theodoro gained independence from theEmpire of Trebizond in the early 14th century and lasted until its conquest by the Ottoman Empire in the 15th century.
The Urums and Rumaiic Pontic Greeks lived among theCrimean Tatars until theRussian Empire conquered the Crimea in 1783. ThenCatherine the Great decided to relocate the Pontic Greeks fromCrimea to the northern shores of theSea of Azov, in an event known as theEmigration of Christians from Crimea. New territory was assigned for them between today's cities ofMariupol andDonetsk, covering the southern portion of theDonetsk Oblast in Ukraine. Ukrainians and Germans, and afterwards Russians, were settled among the Greeks. The Ukrainians mostly settled villages and some towns in this area, unlike the Greeks, who rebuilt their towns, even giving them their original Crimean names. Since this time in Ukraine the names of settlements in the Crimea match names of places in the south of the Donetsk Oblast:Yalta-Yalta,Hurzuf-Urzuf, etc.[citation needed]
TheFiliki Eteria, a Greekfreemasonry-style society which was to play an important role in theGreek war of independence, was founded inOdesa in 1814 before relocating toConstantinople in 1818.[citation needed]
During 1937–1938, the Pontic Greeks endured another deportation by the Soviet authorities known as theGreek Operation of the NKVD.[citation needed]
The Greeks of present-day Ukraine are mainly the descendants of various waves of especiallyPontic Greek refugees and "economic migrants" who left the region ofPontus and thePontic Alps in northeasternAnatolia between the fall of theEmpire of Trebizond in 1461 and theRusso-Turkish War of 1828–1829, although some had settled in Ukraine in the late-19th or early-20th centuries.[citation needed]
Other Greeks arrived in Ukraine even later, particularly, as Greek Communist refugees from mainlyGreek Macedonia and other parts ofNorthern Greece, who had fled their homes following the 1946–1949Greek Civil War and settled in theUSSR,Czechoslovakia and otherEastern Bloc states. However, even among these late arrivals, there were many communist Greek refugees who settled in Ukraine following the Greek Civil War who were in factPontic Greeks orCaucasus Greeks and therefore often had ancestors who had lived within the southern territories of the Russian Empire before settling in Greece in the early 20th century.
By the 2001 census 91,500 Greeks remained, the vast majority of whom (77,000) still lived in the Donetsk Oblast. Higher estimates such as 160,000[1] were reported previously, the fall being explained by assimilation forced by the Soviet government. Other small populations of Greeks are inOdesa and other major cities.
In theprelude to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, theGreek foreign ministry released a statement claiming that three soldiers of theUkrainian Army "murdered" two diaspora Greeks and injured two others in the village ofGranitna in Eastern Ukraine over "a trivial matter".[2] Following the2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, ten diaspora Greeks were killed by Russian airstrikes near the city ofMariupol.[3] In the village ofSartana, outside Mariupol, two diaspora Greeks were killed by Russian airstrikes.[4] The Russian diplomatic mission in Athens published propagandistic material, according to which during theSiege of Mariupol, alleged Greek expatriates from Mariupol claimed that Ukrainian soldiers were trying to prevent them from leaving the besieged city.[5] One Greek expatriate was reported byAFP to have perished in eastern Ukraine, withGreece condemning the Russian attack on Ukraine.[6][7] Following theMariupol hospital airstrike, Greek Prime MinisterKyriakos Mitsotakis tweeted on 18 March 2022 that "Greece is ready to rebuild the maternity hospital in Mariupol, the center of the Greek minority in Ukraine, a city dear to our hearts and symbol of the barbarity of the war".[8]
| Raion | Number of Greeks (2001) | Percentage |
| Mariupol | 21,923 | 4.3% |
| Donetsk | 10,180 | 1.0% |
| Velyka Novosilka Raion | 9,730 | 19.7% |
| Starobesheve Raion | 7,491 | 13.4% |
| Nikolske Raion | 6,223 | 20.0% |
| Telmanove Raion | 6,172 | 17.5% |
| Manhush Raion | 5,882 | 20.1% |
| Old Greek Diaspora | |
|---|---|
| New Greek Diaspora | |
| Traditional areas of Greek settlement | |
| Europe | |
| Caucasus | |
| Central Asia | |
| Middle East | |
| Africa | |
| Latin America | |
| Asia-Pacific | |
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