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Novorossiya[nb 1] is a historical name, used during the era of theRussian Empire for an administrative area that would later become the southern mainland ofUkraine: the region immediately north of theBlack Sea andCrimea. The nameNovorossiya, which means "New Russia", entered official usage in 1764, after the Russian Empire conquered theCrimean Khanate, and annexed its territories,[1] whenNovorossiya Governorate (or Province) was founded. Official usage of the name ceased after 1917, when the entire area (minusCrimea) was annexed by theUkrainian People's Republic, precursor of theUkrainian SSR.
Novorossiya Governorate was formed in 1764 frommilitary frontier regions and parts of thesouthern Hetmanate, in anticipation of awar with the Ottoman Empire.[2] It was further expanded by the annexation of theZaporozhian Sich in 1775. At various times, Novorossiya encompassed the modernUkraine's regions of theBlack Sea littoral (Prychornomoria),Zaporizhzhia,Tavria, theAzov Sea littoral (Pryazovia), theTatar region ofCrimea, the area around theKuban River, and theCircassian lands.
The modern history of the region follows the fall of theGolden Horde. The eastern portion was claimed by theCrimean Khanate (one of its multiple successors), while its western regions were divided betweenMoldavia andLithuania. With the expansion of theOttoman Empire, the whole Black Sea northern littoral region came under the control of the Crimean Khanate that in turn became a vassal of the Ottomans.[citation needed] Sometime in the 16th century the Crimean Khanate allowed theNogai Horde which were displaced from its native Volga region by Muscovites andKalmyks to settle in theBlack Sea steppes.[citation needed]
Vast regions to the North of the Black Sea were sparsely populated and were known on medieval maps asLoca deserta (Latin for 'Desolated Places'),Wild Fields (as translated from Polish or Ukrainian), orDykra (in Lithuanian). There were, however, many settlements along theDnieper River. The Wild Fields had covered roughly the southern territories of modernUkraine; some[who?] say they extended into the modernSouthern Russia (Rostov Oblast).[citation needed]
The Russian Empire gradually gained control over the area, signing peace treaties with theCossack Hetmanate and with theOttoman Empire at the conclusion of theRusso-Turkish Wars of1735–39,1768–74,1787–92 and1806–12. In 1764 theRussian Empire established theNovorossiysk Governorate; it was originally to be named after the Empress Catherine, but she decreed that it should be called New Russia instead.[3] Imperial Russia's view of New Russia was described in 2006 by the historian Willard Sunderland:
The old steppe was Asian and stateless; the current one was state-determined and claimed for European-Russian civilization. The world of comparison was now even more obviously that of the Western empires. Consequently it was all the more clear that the Russian empire merited its own New Russia to go along with everyone else'sNew Spain,New France, andNew England. The adoption of the name of New Russia was in fact the most powerful statement imaginable of Russia's national coming of age.[4]
The administrative center of the Novorossiysk Governorate was at theFortress of St. Elizabeth (today inKropyvnytskyi) in order to protect the southern borderlands from theOttoman Empire, and in 1765 this passed toKremenchuk.[3][5]
After the annexation of the Ottoman territories to Novorossiya in 1774, the Russian authorities commenced a broad program of colonization, encouraging large migrations from a broader spectrum of ethnic groups. Catherine the Great invited European settlers to these newly conquered lands:Romanians (fromMoldavia,Wallachia andTransylvania),Bulgarians,Serbs,Greeks,Albanians,Germans,Poles,Italians, and others.[citation needed] Catherine the Great grantedPrinceGrigori Potemkin (1739–1791) the powers of an absolute ruler over the area from 1774, after which he directed the Russian colonization of the land. The rulers of Novorossiya gave out land generously to the Russian nobility (dvoryanstvo) and theenserfedpeasantry—mostly from Ukraine and fewer from Russia—to encourage immigration for the cultivation of the then sparsely populated steppe.[citation needed] According to theHistorical Dictionary of Ukraine:
The population consisted of military colonists from hussar and lancer regiments, Ukrainian and Russian peasants, Cossacks, Serbs, Montenegrins, Hungarians, and other foreigners who received land subsidies for settling in the area.[6]
In 1775, the Russian EmpressCatherine the Great forcefully liquidated theZaporizhian Sich and annexed its territory to Novorossiya, thus eliminating the independent rule of the Ukrainian Cossacks.[citation needed] The governorate was dissolved in 1783.[citation needed] In 1792, the Russian government declared that the region between the Dniester and the Bug was to become a new principality named "New Moldavia", under Russian suzerainty.[7] According to the first Russian census of theYedisan region conducted in 1793 (after the expulsion of the Nogai Tatars) 49 villages out of 67 between the Dniester and theSouthern Bug were Romanian.[8] From 1796 to 1802 Novorossiya was the name of the reestablished Governorate with the capital Novorossiysk (previously and subsequently Ekaterinoslav, the present-day Ukrainian city ofDnipropetrovsk not to be confused with present-dayNovorossiysk,Russian Federation). In 1802 it was divided into three governorates, theYekaterinoslav,Kherson, and theTaurida.[citation needed]
From 1822 to 1873 the Novorossiysk-Bessarabia General Government was centred inOdesa. The region remained part of theRussian Empire until its collapse following the RussianFebruary Revolution in early March 1917.
The territory became part of the short-livedRussian Republic for one year, then in 1918 it was largely included in theUkrainian State and in theUkrainian Soviet Republic at the same time. In 1918–1920 it was, to varying extents, under the control of the anti-BolshevikWhite movement governments ofSouth Russia, whosedefeat signified the Soviet control over the territory, which became part of theUkrainian Soviet Socialist Republic within theSoviet Union in 1922.
Following theSoviet Union's collapse on 26 December 1991 and concurrent with the lead-up toUkrainian independence on 24 August 1991, a nascent movement began in Odesa for the restoration of Novorossiya region; it however failed within days and never defined its borders.[9][10][11] The initial conception had not developed exact borders, but focus centred on theOdesa,Mykolaiv,Kherson, andCrimean oblasts, with eventually otheroblasts joining as well.[11][12]
The name received renewed emphasis whenRussian PresidentVladimir Putin stated in an interview on 17 April 2014 that the territories ofKharkiv,Luhansk,Donetsk,Kherson,Mykolaiv andOdesa were part of what was called Novorossiya.[13][14][nb 2] In May 2014, the self-proclaimedDonetsk People's Republic andLuhansk People's Republic proclaimed the confederation ofNovorossiya and its desire to extend its control towards all of southeastern Ukraine.[17][18][19] The confederation had little practical unity and within a year the project was abandoned: on 1 January 2015 the founding leadership announced the project had been put on hold, and on 20 May the constituent members announced the freezing of the political project.[20][21][22]
Anna Nemtsova forecast this disintegration in August 2014, and she predicted the 2022Russian invasion of Ukraine then too.[23]Oksana Yanyshevskaya, a Ukrainian government official, in a July 2014 interview with her said that Novorossiya "is some sort of artificial idea that lives only in the minds of people in theKremlin."[23]
In 2016Marlène Laruelle wrote thatAlexander Prokhanov formed theIzborsky Club around the Novorossiya meme.[24][25]
Gerard Toal opines that "In breaking apart a sovereign territorial state, it is helpful, if not always necessary, to have an alternative geopolitical imaginary at the ready and for this ersatz replacement to have some degree of local credibility and support." The Novorossiya idea is just thisportmanteau.[26][27]
The idea of Novorossiya goes hand-in-hand with the erasure of Ukrainian statehood,[28] or asVladislav Surkov said in his defenestration interview in February 2020, "There is Ukrainian-ness. That is, a specific disorder of the mind. An astonishing enthusiasm for ethnography, driven to the extreme." Surkov claims that Ukraine is "a muddle instead of a state. […] But there is no nation. There is only a brochure, 'The Self-Styled Ukraine', but there is no Ukraine."[29]
During theWagner Group mutiny in June 2023, President Putin used the phrase in a speech responding to the mutiny, praising those "who fought and gave their lives to Novorossiya and for the unity of theRussky Mir".[30]
In an interview in August 2025, Russian Foreign MinisterSergey Lavrov used the term to refer to an area separate from the Donbas and Crimea, alleging that, despite Russia's invasion, "Neither Crimea, nor Donbas, nor Novorossiya as territories have ever been our goal."[31]
The ethnic composition of Novorossiya changed during the beginning of the 19th century due to the intensive movement of colonists who rapidly created towns, villages, and agricultural colonies. During theRusso-Turkish Wars, the major Turkish fortresses ofOzu-Cale,Akkerman,Khadzhibey,Kinburn and many others were conquered and destroyed. New cities and settlements were established in their places. Over time the ethnic composition varied.[clarification needed]
Multiple ethnicities[clarification needed] participated in the founding of the cities of Novorossiya (most of these cities were expansions of older settlements[32]). For example:
According to the report of governor Aleksandr Shmidt (ru), the ethnic composition ofKherson Governorate (which included the city ofOdesa) in 1851 was as follows:[33]
| Nationality | Number | % |
|---|---|---|
| Ukrainians (Malorussians) | 703,699 | 69.14 |
| Romanians (Moldavians andVlachs) | 75,000 | 7.37 |
| Jews | 55,000 | 5.40 |
| Russian-Germans | 40,000 | 3.93 |
| Great Russians | 30,000 | 2.95 |
| Bulgarians | 18,435 | 1.81 |
| Belarusians | 9,000 | 0.88 |
| Greeks | 3,500 | 0.34 |
| Romani people | 2,516 | 0.25 |
| Poles | 2,000 | 0.20 |
| Armenians | 1,990 | 0.20 |
| Karaites | 446 | 0.04 |
| Serbs | 436 | 0.04 |
| Swedes | 318 | 0.03 |
| Tatars | 76 | 0.01 |
| Former Officials | 48,378 | 4.75 |
| Nobles | 16,603 | 1.63 |
| Foreigners | 10,392 | 1.02 |
| Total Population | 1,017,789 | 100 |
With regard to language usage,Russian was commonly spoken in the cities and some outside areas, whileUkrainian generally predominated in rural areas, smaller towns, and villages.[clarification needed]
The 1897All-Russian Empire Census statistics show that Ukrainian was the native language spoken by most of the population of Novorossiya, but with Russian and Yiddish languages dominating in most city areas.[34][35][36]
| Language | Kherson Guberniya | Yekaterinoslav Guberniya | Tavrida Guberniya |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ukrainian | 53.4% | 68.9% | 42.2% |
| Russian | 21.0% | 17.3% | 27.9% |
| Belarusian | 0.8% | 0.6% | 6.7% |
| Polish | 2.1% | 0.6% | 0.6% |
| Bulgarian | 0.9% | – | 2.8% |
| Romanian | 5.3% | 0.4% | 0.2% |
| German | 4.5% | 3.8% | 5.4% |
| Jewish (sic) | 11.8% | 4.6% | 3.8% |
| Greek | 2.3% | 2.3% | 1.2% |
| Tatar | 8.2% | 8.2% | 13.5% |
| Turkish | 2.6% | 2.6% | 1.5% |
| Total Population | 2,733,612 | 2,311,674 | 1,447,790 |
The 1897All-Russian Empire Census statistics:[37]
| Language | Odesa | Yekaterinoslav | Mykolaiv | Kherson | Sevastopol | Mariupol | Donetsk district |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Russian | 198,233 | 47,140 | 61,023 | 27,902 | 34,014 | 19,670 | 273,302 |
| Jewish (sic) | 124,511 | 39,979 | 17,949 | 17,162 | 3,679 | 4,710 | 7 |
| Ukrainian | 37,925 | 17,787 | 7,780 | 11,591 | 7,322 | 3,125 | 177,376 |
| Polish | 17,395 | 3,418 | 2,612 | 1,021 | 2,753 | 218 | 82 |
| German | 10,248 | 1,438 | 813 | 426 | 907 | 248 | 2,336 |
| Greek | 5,086 | 161 | 214 | 51 | 1,553 | 1,590 | 88 |
| Total Population | 403,815 | 112,839 | 92,012 | 59,076 | 53,595 | 31,116 | 455,819 |
Many of the cities that were founded (most of these cities were expansions of older settlements[32]) during the imperial period are major cities today.
Imperial Russian regiments were used to build these cities, at the expense of hundreds of soldiers' lives.[32]
A Russian ethnic republic in Ukraine was named Novorossiya and was proclaimed in 1992 but fell some days after.
Media related toNovorossiya at Wikimedia Commons47°30′N34°30′E / 47.5°N 34.5°E /47.5; 34.5
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