Haters of the Soviet past, who demolish monuments to V. I. Lenin, for some reason they forget that Ukraine itself, within the borders of 2013, is a product of Lenin's nationality policy, supplemented by a generous Khrushchev gift. Novorossia, claiming which the Kiev authorities do not stop at almost a year's murder of civilians, the destruction of residential areas and the infrastructure of entire regions, was developed and settled exclusively due to the entry of this region into the Russian Empire. Moreover, from the very beginning of the development of Novorossiysk lands, the region was inhabited by a multinational population. Here, on the once practically empty territory, flourishing Greek, Serbian, German settlements appeared. We already talked about the Serbian contribution to the development of Novorossia, but in this article we will talk about the Greeks who made the second most important contribution to the settlement of Novorossiysk lands and their development after the Great Russians and Little Russians.
Even now, the Azov Greeks remain the third largest ethnic group in the region. Greek settlements in the Azov region are the largest in the post-Soviet space, the area of compact residence of the Greek people. As a matter of fact, the Greeks appeared in the region of the Northern Black Sea region in ancient times. Everyone knows about the existence of numerous Greek colonies in the Crimea, in the delta of the river. Don (Tanais). That is, historically, the lands inhabited by the Iranian-speaking Scythian and Sarmatian tribes at that time were considered by the Greeks as a sphere of their economic interests. However, the Greeks began to fully develop the territory of the Donetsk region (DPR) only in the 18th century. Their appearance here was the result of the policy of the Russian Empire to weaken the Crimean Khanate and, at the same time, to strengthen its southern, sparsely populated borders.
Greeks in Crimea, Metropolitan Ignatius and the idea of resettlement
As you know, the Greeks constituted the largest part of the Christian population of the Crimean peninsula, where they lived for more than two and a half thousand years. Despite the gradual Islamization associated with more favorable living conditions for the Muslim population in the Crimean Khanate, by the second half of the 18th century, Christians still constituted the overwhelming majority of the inhabitants in various cities and villages of the Crimea. In addition to the Greeks, Armenians, Georgians, descendants of the Crimean Goths and Alans, Vlachs (Romanians) lived in Crimea. In the Crimean Khanate, non-Muslim communities had their own religious autonomy. In particular, the Orthodox population formed a separate community with its own self-government and judicial system. Since the language of worship was Greek, all residents of Crimea who professed Orthodoxy gradually acquired a Greek identity, which was not so much ethnic as confessional in nature. Historian M. A. Aradjioni believes that during the two centuries of Ottoman rule in Crimea, the descendants of various Crimean Christian ethnic groups have become so close to each other that they have formed a single national community of Crimean Greeks (Aradjioni M. A. e years of the XVIII - 90s of the XX centuries). - Simferopol, 1999.).
The strengthening of the positions of the Russian Empire in the Black Sea region led to a further increase in the interest of the Russian government in the fate of the Christian population of Crimea. The successes of the Russian Empire in Crimean politics fell on the years of the reign of Empress Catherine II. It was during this period that the Russian government began to show the greatest concern about the situation of Crimean Christians. First of all, this was due to fears about the gradual Islamization of the Christian population in Crimea, which did take place. After all, many of the modern Crimean Tatars are descendants of Islamized Greeks, Goths, Slavs, Armenians and other Christians who lived on the peninsula. Under direct or indirect pressure from the Muslim environment, Crimean Christians adopted a significant part of the customs, clothing of the Muslim Turks and even, in part, their language. In the 18th century, almost all Crimean Greeks used the Crimean Tatar language in everyday life, and although the Greek language was still preserved by the Orthodox Church, under the influence of the Turkic-speaking parishioners, the Crimean Tatar language gradually penetrated into the church sphere. So, in the Crimean Tatar language, but in Greek letters, church books, business documents of the metropolis were recorded. Naturally, this situation did not please the church circles and secular authorities.
At the beginning of 1771, Ignatius (1715-1786) was appointed the new metropolitan of the Gotfei-Kefai diocese. As the historian G. Timoshevsky writes about him, “he was an energetic, independent, domineering person; a politician who understood well the affairs of Crimea and Russia; a patriot in the strictest sense; he decided, using the general state of affairs, to save the flock not only as Christians, but also as Greeks, in whose revival and future he obviously believed - this was the main idea of his life”(Quoted from: L. Yarutskiy, Mariupol antiquity. M., 1991. S. 24.). Ignatius Gozadinov (Khazadinov) was a native of the Greek island of Fermiya. As a youth, he was brought up on Mount Athos, where he took monastic tonsure, was ordained a priest, then became a bishop, archbishop, a member of the Ecumenical Patriarchal Synclite in Constantinople. Ignatius became Metropolitan of Gotfey and Kefai after the death of the previous Metropolitan Gideon. Having familiarized himself with the deplorable situation of co-religionists in the Crimea, Metropolitan Ignatius in September 1771 sent a letter to the Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church, where he spoke about the misadventures of the Crimean Christians. In November 1771, the Metropolitan turned to Catherine II with a request to accept Crimean Christians into Russian citizenship. A second letter from the metropolitan followed in December 1772. The letters from the metropolitan were carefully considered by the Russian government.
However, the real situation began to change only in 1774, following the end of the next Russian-Turkish war. Under the terms of the Kuchuk-Kainardzhiyskiy treaty signed between Russia and the Ottoman Empire, the Russian Empire received the official right to control the position of the Christian peoples of the Ottoman Empire in order to protect their rights and interests. The political influence of Russia in the Eastern Christian world expanded - among the Balkan Slavs and Greeks, Armenians, Georgians, Greeks of Constantinople. Of course, the sphere of interests of the Russian Empire also included expanding its influence on the large Christian population of the Crimean peninsula. The Russian Empire expected, sooner or later, to finally subordinate the Crimean Khanate to its influence, and in solving this problem the Christian population of the Crimean peninsula could play a very important role.
At the same time, speaking of the socio-cultural crisis of the Christian Crimea, which is increasingly undergoing Turkization and Islamization, one should not confuse it with the socio-economic situation of the Christian population of the Crimean Khanate. Economically, the Greeks, Armenians and other Christians of the Crimea did not live in poverty. Moreover, they were one of the key actors in the Crimean economy - the main taxpayers, traders and artisans, farmers. This is evidenced by numerous historical studies devoted to the analysis of the socio-economic situation of the Crimean Christians in the period preceding their resettlement to the lands of the Russian Empire.
The very decision to resettle, although officially pursued the goal of preserving the Christian identity of the Crimean population and delivering Christians from the oppression of the Crimean Khan, was actually dictated by considerations of a political and economic nature. First of all, the Russian Empire hoped to undermine the economic base of the Crimean Khanate by resettling economically active Christians, who were the main taxpayers in the Khanate, to its territory. Secondly, with the help of the settlement by Christians of the southern and underdeveloped territories of the Russian Empire in the area of the former "Wild Field", in the South of Russia, problems of a socio-demographic and economic nature were solved. Finally, as noted by E. A. Chernov, it is likely that the Russian Empire also sought to secure the Crimea annexed to Russia in the future from the possibility of developing autonomist movements of Greeks and other local Christians, who were the indigenous population here and in the event of the liquidation of the Crimean Khanate and the annexation of Crimea to Russia, could well demand autonomy (Chernov E. A. Comparative analysis of the settlement of Greeks in the Crimea and the Azov region //
The idea of resettlement of the Greeks and other Christians of the Crimea to the territory of the Russian Empire was supported by the majority of the highest church hierarchs of the peninsula. It should be noted that in the absence of secular socio-political movements, in the period described, it was the clergy who played a key role in determining the worldview guidelines of the Christian population of the peninsula and were the spokesmen for public interests. And, nevertheless, the idea of resettlement, supported by church hierarchs, demanded popularization among the common population. The nephew of Metropolitan Ignatius, Ivan Gozadinov, began to bypass the Christian villages of the Crimean peninsula, agitating residents for resettlement. Of course, this activity was secret and not made public.
The path from Crimea to Novorossiya
In April and June 1778, the Decree of the Crimean Christians was formulated, authored by Metropolitan Ignatius. Empress Catherine II, having agreed with this decree, determined the territory of residence of Greek Christians - the area between the rivers Dnieper, Samara and Orel. The issues of direct support for the process of resettlement of Greeks to Russian territory were taken over by the Russian Empire. The immigrants were provided with a number of significant benefits designed to help them adapt in a new place - exemption from taxes and recruiting for a period of ten years, the provision of territorial and religious autonomy. The actual executor of the resettlement of the Christian population from the Crimea was Alexander Vasilyevich Suvorov.
According to the commander, the Russian government had to: provide the immigrants with transport to move; compensation for houses, property, goods of displaced persons left in Crimea; to build houses for displaced persons in a new place of residence, while providing them with temporary housing at the time of resettlement; provide provisions for the journey and the first time of living in a new place; to ensure the protection of columns of immigrants during their passage through the steppe regions of Crimea with places of Tatar nomads. The Russian government took upon itself the task of ransoming those Christians who were in slavery and captivity by the Crimean Tatars. The former captives were to be released and also join the rest of the settlers.
However, it should be noted that not all Crimean Christians accepted the idea of resettlement to the territory of the Russian Empire with enthusiasm. Like any sedentary inhabitants, they absolutely did not want to leave the land inhabited for thousands of years, which had become dear and so familiar. Moreover, the economic situation of the Christian population in the Crimean Khanate was really not bad, except for the fact that Christians paid a large tax. As for political and cultural issues, such as the transition to the Turkic language or the gradual Islamization of Christians, many ordinary people did not ask such problems - their own material well-being interested them much more.
Nevertheless, the church hierarchs achieved their goal. On May 22, 1778, the Crimean Khan Shagin Girey, in turn, issued a decree allowing the resettlement of Christians without coercion. On July 16, 1778, the Greek clergy published a Manifesto, in which they called on their flock to move to Russia. On July 28, 1778, the first group of Christian settlers moved from Bakhchisarai, consisting of 70 Greeks and 9 Georgians. This is how the famous resettlement of Christians from Crimea to the territory of the Russian Empire began. The process of resettlement itself lasted from July to September 1778. On September 18, 1778, the last group of Christian settlers left the Crimea, with which Metropolitan Ignatius himself was traveling.
In total, during the resettlement organized in July - September 1778 and the subsequent independent resettlement of individual Christian families after September, 31 386 Christians left the Crimea. By the time of arrival at the place of the proposed settlement, the number of displaced persons was estimated at 30,233 people. The approximate ethnic composition looked like this - 15,719 Greeks, 13,695 Armenians, 664 Georgians and 162 Volokhs (Romanians). The bulk of the settlers came from the cities of Kafa, Bakhchisarai, Karasubazar, Kozlov, Stary Krym, Balbek, Balaklava, the villages of Aloati, Shapmari, Komari and others. Significant differences between the figures of those who left Crimea and those who arrived at the place of resettlement are explained by the high mortality rate on the way. The resettlement process itself was poorly organized, primarily due to the unsatisfactory fulfillment of its obligations by the Russian government. The resettlement took place in autumn and winter, in connection with which the resettled experienced a serious lack of warm clothes. Colds began, mortality among the elderly and children increased. While following the resettlement route, many displaced persons expressed dissatisfaction, some chose to simply flee back to Crimea. Historians estimate the losses of the Greeks during the resettlement at quite impressive figures from 2 to 4 thousand people. Difficulties awaited the migrants during their arrival at the wintering place on the territory of modern Dnepropetrovsk and Kharkov regions.
The settlers arriving from the Crimea were registered in the Alexander Fortress (now - the city of Zaporozhye). They were settled in villages and hamlets in the region of the Samara River. The leader of the resettlement, Metropolitan Ignatius, also settled there, in the Desert Nicholas Monastery. Living conditions in the new place left much to be desired. It turned out that the territory that the Crimean settlers originally counted on has already been developed and populated. On the land where the settlers still stayed, there were no sources of water or forests. Only on September 29, 1779, the "Order of Prince G. Potemkin to Lieutenant-General Chertkov regarding the arrangement of Greeks in the Azov province" was issued, according to which new places were allocated for the settlement of immigrants from the Crimea - on the coast of the Sea of Azov. The settlers received 12 thousand acres of land for each village and separately 12 thousand acres of land for the city. It was assumed that the inhabitants of the Crimean villages, accustomed to rural life, would settle in the newly created villages, and the townspeople - in the city.
Mariupol district
At the beginning of the summer of 1780, Greek settlers under the leadership of Metropolitan Ignatius began the construction of a city and villages on the territory of the Azov coast allocated to them. The city itself was built in the area of the Kalmiusskaya palanca of the Zaporizhzhya Sich (the Zaporizhzhya Sich was divided into palanques - districts). Palanka occupied the territory from the upper reaches of the Volchya River to the coast of the Sea of Azov and performed the functions of protecting the region from possible raids by the Crimean Tatars or Nogais. In terms of the number of Cossacks, it was the smallest palanca of the Zaporozhye Sich - its army numbered no more than 600-700 Cossacks. In 1776, on the site of the abolished fortress Domakha, the Kalmiusskaya Sloboda was formed, inhabited by former Zaporozhye Cossacks, Little Russians, Great Russians and Poles. Its population was small and in 1778 there were 43 men and 29 women. In 1778, the city of Pavlovsk was founded near the settlement, which was to become the center of the district. However, in 1780, it was in its place that it was decided to create a city for Crimean settlers. It was decided to relocate the few residents who lived here to other settlements, compensating them for the cost of housing and property. On March 24, 1780, the planned Greek city received the final name "Mariupol" - in honor of Maria Feodorovna, the wife of the heir to the imperial throne, Tsarevich Paul (future Emperor Paul I).
In July 1780, the arrived Greeks settled in the city - immigrants from the Crimean Kafa (Feodosia), Bakhchisarai, Karasubazar (Belogorsk), Kozlov (Evpatoria), Belbek, Balaklava and Mariam (Mairem). Twenty resettlement villages arose around Mariupol. Nineteen villages were Greek, settled by settlers from the Crimean Greek villages. One village - Georgievka (later - Ignatievka) - was settled by Georgians and Vlachs (Romanians), who arrived together with Greek settlers. As for the Crimean Armenians, places for their compact settlement were allocated in the lower reaches of the Don - this is how the city of Nakhichevan appeared (now part of the Proletarsky district of Rostov-on-Don) and several Armenian villages that are now part of the Myasnikovsky district of the Rostov region (Chaltyr, Sultan- Sala, Big Sala, Crimea, Nesvetay).
On August 15, 1780, a solemn ceremony was held in Mariupol in honor of the completion of the resettlement of the Crimean Greeks, after which Metropolitan Ignatius consecrated the construction sites of Orthodox churches in the city. Greek settlers settled in the houses of residents of former Pavlovsk, which were bought by the Russian government from their previous owners. Thus, Mariupol became the center of compact settlement of the Crimean Greeks. Metropolitan Ignatius, who went down in the history of the church and the country as Ignatius of Mariupol, managed to obtain permission for the separate residence of the Greeks on the territory of Mariupol and the surrounding lands, in connection with which the eviction from the section of the Azov coast allocated to the Greeks of the Great Russians, Little Russians and Zaporozhye Cossacks who had previously lived here was carried out. …
The city of Mariupol and the surrounding Greek villages became part of the special Mariupol Greek district, which, in accordance with the resettlement agreement, assumed a compact settlement of Greeks with their own autonomy in the internal affairs of the community. Two groups of Greeks settled on the territory of the Mariupol Greek District - Greek-Rumei and Greek-Urum. Actually, they live in this territory at the present time, which does not allow us, despite the historical nature of the article, to speak in the past tense. It is significant that both ethnonyms go back to the same word "Rum", that is - "Rome", "Byzantium". Both Rumei and Uruma are Orthodox Christians, but the key differences between the two groups lie in the linguistic plane. Greeks - Rumei speak the Rumian dialects of the Modern Greek language, dating back to the Greek dialects of the Crimean peninsula widespread during the Byzantine Empire. The Rumei settled in a number of villages on the Azov coast, and in Mariupol they settled in an urban suburb called the Greek Companies. The number of Rumei increased due to later migrants from the territory of Greece proper, which remained in the period under the control of the Ottoman Empire and, accordingly, was the source of the emigration of Greeks to the Russian Empire - to the first Greek autonomous entity on the territory of Novorossia.
The Urum speak the Turkic Urum language, which was formed as a result of the centuries-old residence of the Greeks in the Crimea in a Turkic-speaking environment and goes back to the Polovtsian dialects, which were then supplemented by the Oguz dialects, akin to the Turkish language. In the Urum language, the Kypchak-Polovtsian, Kypchak-Oguz, Oguz-Kypchak and Oguz dialects are distinguished. In Mariupol, the Oguz dialect was widespread, which is explained by the settlement of the city by immigrants from the Crimean cities, who used the Oguz dialects of the Crimean Tatar language, very close to the Turkish language. Residents of rural areas to a greater extent spoke the Kypchak-Polovtsian and Kypchak-Oguz dialects, since in the Crimea in the countryside, the Kypchak dialects of the Crimean Tatar language were in use.
It is indicative that, despite the commonality of the Rumei and Urum as parts of the same people of the Crimean and later Azov Greeks, a certain distance was maintained between them. Thus, the Urum preferred not to settle in the Rumian villages, the Rumei in the Urum villages. Perhaps it's not just language differences. Some researchers argue that the Urum, by their origin, are not so much descendants of the Greek population of Crimea as the descendants of other Crimean Christian communities - Goths and Alans, who simply lost their national languages and adopted Turkic dialects, but retained the Orthodox faith. The Gothic and Alanian communities in the Crimea were quite numerous and could hardly have disappeared without a trace, so this point of view seems, if not entirely justified, then worthy of attention.
By 1782, 2,948 inhabitants (1,586 men and 1,362 women) lived in Mariupol, there were 629 households. The population of the Mariupol district was 14,525 people. The local population concentrated in their usual fields of activity. First of all, these were trade, leather dressing and candle making, brick and tile production. Fishing, processing and sale of fish became one of the main sources of income for the local population. Nevertheless, in 1783, when Crimea was annexed to Russia, some of the Greeks chose to return to their old place of residence. It was they who revived the traditions of Greek culture on the Crimean peninsula and re-formed the imposing Greek community of the Russian Crimea.
However, most of the immigrants remained in the Mariupol district, since a sufficiently developed economic infrastructure began to form here and, accordingly, the welfare of the local population grew. On October 7, 1799, a customs outpost was established in Mariupol, which testified to the increasing importance of the city for the Russian Empire and its economic life. Administrative functions in Mariupol were performed by the Mariupol Greek Court, which was both the highest administrative and judicial instance. Law enforcement policing was also in charge of the court. The first chairman of the court was Mikhail Savelievich Khadzhi. In 1790, the Mariupol City Duma was created with a city head and six vowels (deputies).
In 1820, the tsarist government, in order to further expand the economic development of the Azov region and increase the population of the region, decided to further settle the southeastern part of Novorossiya by German colonists and baptized Jews. This is how the Mariupol colonist and Mariupol Mennonite districts appeared, and in the vicinity of Mariupol, in addition to Greek villages, German settlements arose. In Mariupol itself, originally built as a purely Greek city, Italians and Jews were allowed to settle, in accordance with the permission of the Russian government. This decision was also made for reasons of economic feasibility - it was assumed that representatives of the two trading nations would make a major contribution to the development of trade and crafts in Mariupol and the surrounding area. Gradually, Mariupol lost its purely Greek face - since 1835 Great Russians and Little Russians got the right to settle in the city, in connection with which the city began to change the ethnic composition of the population. In 1859, the government decided on the final liquidation of Greek autonomy. A Greek district was created as part of the Aleksandrovsky district of the Yekaterinoslav province, and in 1873 the Mariupol district of the Yekaterinoslav province was created.
According to the 1897 census, 254,056 people lived in the Mariupol district. Little Russians numbered 117,206 people and accounted for 46, 13% of the population of the district. The once titular Greeks moved to the second position in terms of number and totaled 48,290 people (19.01% of the population of the county). In third place were the Great Russians - 35 691 people (14.05% of the population). To other more or less large national communities of the Mariupol district at the turn of the XIX - XX centuries. Tatars belonged to 15,472 people (6.0% of the population of the district), Jews - 10,291 people (4.05% of the population of the district) and Turks - 5,317 (2.09% of the population of the district). The appearance on the territory of the Mariupol district of a significant number of Little Russians and Great Russians, who together constituted the majority of the population, contributed to the intensification of the processes of assimilation of the Azov Greeks in the Slavic environment. Moreover, the local Ruman and Urum dialects were unwritten, and accordingly, the representatives of the Greek population were taught in Russian. However, even in spite of this factor, the Azov Greeks were able to preserve their own national identity and unique culture, moreover, to carry it up to the present time. This was due to the presence of a significant number of villages where the Greeks lived compactly - Rumei and Urum. It is the countryside that has become a "reserve" for the preservation of national languages, Greek culture and traditions.
Greeks in the Soviet and Post-Soviet Periods
The attitude towards the Azov Greeks in the Soviet period of Russian history varied significantly, depending on its specific segment. So, in the first post-revolutionary years, the policy of "indigenousization", which provided for the development of national cultures and self-awareness among the country's numerous national minorities, helped to improve the situation of the Azov Greeks. First of all, three Greek national regions were created - Sartan, Mangush and Velikoyanisolsk, which received administrative-territorial autonomy. Secondly, work began on the creation of Greek-language schools, a theater, and the publication of periodicals in the Greek language. A Greek theater was established in Mariupol, and teaching in rural schools was carried out in Greek. However, in the issue of school education, a tragic mistake was made, which had a negative impact on the problem of the preservation of the national culture of the Azov Greeks. Teaching in schools was conducted in the New Greek language, while in families children from Greek families of the Azov region spoke Ruman or Urum. And if the Rumeian was related to the Modern Greek, then the children from the Uruman families were simply not able to understand teaching in the Modern Greek - they had to learn it from scratch. Therefore, many parents chose to send their children to Russian-language schools. The majority (75%) of Greek children in the second half of the 1920s - early 1930sregion studied in Russian-language schools.
The second period of the national history of the Soviet era was characterized by a change in attitudes towards the Greek national minority. In 1937, the closure of national educational institutions, theaters, and newspapers began. Autonomous national regions were liquidated, repressions began against representatives of the Greek intelligentsia, and then against ordinary Greeks. According to various sources, about 6,000 Greeks were deported from the Donetsk region alone. The leadership of the NKVD of the USSR ordered to pay special attention to the Greek national minority living in Donetsk and Odessa regions of Ukraine, Crimea, Rostov region and Krasnodar Territory of the RSFSR, Georgia and Azerbaijan. Mass arrests of representatives of the Greek community began - not only in the indicated regions of the country, but also in all major cities. Many Greeks were deported to Siberia and Central Asia from their traditional places of residence.
The situation changed only in the Khrushchev period, but the linguistic and cultural assimilation of the Azov Greeks, despite their interest in the ethnographic features of this unique people, continued in the 1960s - 1980s. However, the Soviet Greeks did not harbor any grudge against the USSR / Russia, which had long become their homeland, despite all the political vicissitudes and sometimes erroneous actions of the authorities. During the Great Patriotic War, a large number of Greeks fought in the ranks of the regular army, in partisan detachments on the territory of the Crimea and the Ukrainian SSR as a whole. From the territory of the Azov region, 25 thousand ethnic Greeks were drafted into the ranks of the Red Army. The Greek village of Laki in the Crimea was completely burned by the Nazis for supporting the partisans.
It is difficult to deny the great contribution of the Azov Greeks to the political history, economy and culture of the Russian state. Among the outstanding representatives of the Azov Greeks, who gained fame in various fields, it is necessary to name the artist Arkhip Kuindzhi, the first rector of Kharkov University Vasily Karazin, the designer of the engine of the legendary T-34 tank Konstantin Chelpan, the famous first woman - tractor driver Pasha Angelina, test pilot Grigory Bakhchivandzhi, General Major - Head of the Military Communications Directorate of the Main Naval Staff of the USSR Navy during the Great Patriotic War Nikolai Kechedzhi, Hero of the Soviet Union, platoon commander Ilya Takhtarov and many other amazing people.
The post-Soviet reality also turned out to be unhappy for the Azov Greeks. Many emigrated to Greece, where, as the famous song sang, "everything is there." However, the majority remained in post-Soviet Ukraine, with its growing nationalism and the policy of “Ukrainization” of the entire non-Ukrainian population. When in 2013-2014. there was a confrontation on the "Maidan", which ended with the overthrow of President Viktor Yanukovych and the coming to power in Ukraine of pro-American politicians posing as Ukrainian nationalists, the population of the eastern and southern regions of the country, speaking mainly Russian and historically and politically alien to the Galicians, who have become support of the new regime, expressed unwillingness to live under the rule of the Kiev government. The independence of the Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics was proclaimed, a bloody war began. In this tragic situation, many Azov Greeks remembered their long-standing religious, historical and cultural ties with Russia and the Russian world, about the rich traditions of the anti-fascist resistance of the Greek people. Many Greeks joined the DPR militia. So, in the ranks of the militia there was and was killed the war correspondent Athanasius Kosse. Despite all the political differences, one thing is clear - no nation wants to live in a fascist state, the purpose of which is to discriminate against people of other nationalities and build their own identity by opposing neighboring countries and peoples.
The article uses a map of the settlement of the Greeks in the Azov region based on the materials: Chernov E. A. Comparative analysis of the settlement of the Greeks in the Crimea and the Azov region.
