Greek Project

A 20th-century reconstruction of the proposed Greek Project of Catherine the Great: in red, the "Neo-Byzantine Empire" for her grandson Konstantin, in blue the "Kingdom of Dacia" for Grigory Potemkin, in yellow the compensations for the Habsburg Empire and in blue-green those for Venice.

The colossal Pella Palace on the bank of the Neva River, constructed from 1785 onwards. The name "Pella" referenced the birthplace of Alexander the Great.

The Greek Project (Russian: Греческий проект, romanized: Grecheskiy proyekt) or Greek Plan, an early proposed solution to the Eastern question, was advanced by the Russian empress Catherine the Great in the early 1780s. It envisaged the partition of the Ottoman Empire between the Russian and Habsburg Empires followed by the restoration of the Eastern Roman Empire centered in Constantinople.

Outline

Like her predecessors, Catherine concerned herself with the Orthodox Christians under Ottoman rule; she sponsored the Orlov Revolt in the Morea during the Russo-Turkish War of 1768–1774, and invited many Greeks like Ioannis Varvakis to settle in Russia, mainly in Crimea and New Russia. She conceived that one of her grandsons, born in 1779 and appropriately named Constantine, would become the first emperor of the restored Byzantium. Another important consideration was Russia's goal of free access (especially for the Imperial Russian Navy's Black Sea Fleet, founded in 1783) to the Mediterranean Sea through the Bosphorus, which the Ottomans controlled.

For this plan to succeed, the Great European Powers would need to agree to it and the Danube powers would need to cooperate. In May 1780, Catherine arranged a secret meeting with Joseph II, the Holy Roman Emperor, in Mogilev. In a series of letters from September 1781, Catherine and Joseph discussed their plans to partition the Ottoman Empire and restore the Byzantine Empire. The Austro-Russian alliance was formalized in May 1781.

Prince Grigory Potemkin (1739–1791) masterminded the Greek Project; he gave symbolic Greek-style names to newly-founded and newly-conquered towns in New Russia (e.g., Odessa and Kherson). Byzantine symbolism was highlighted in new churches such as Kherson Cathedral. Another meeting of the Russian and Austrian monarchs was arranged as part of Catherine's Crimean journey of 1787. Both Russia and Austria declared war on the Ottoman Empire later that year. Joseph's death in 1790, followed by the Treaty of Jassy (January 1792 [O.S. December 1791]) and the Treaty of Sistova (August 1791), in which Austria gained little, effectively ended the agreement. Austrian and European interests also had moved westward with the beginning of the French Revolution of 1789; the French situation would occupy European affairs and alliances until the eventual fall of Napoleon in 1815. The new Concert of Europe thereafter was more concerned with maintaining the territorial integrity of the states that occupied the Balkan peninsula.

Cities named after Greek names during this period

The Sophia Cathedral in Tsarskoe Selo was designed as a small-scale replica of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople

The following major cities were given Greek inspired names during this period. Some of them were new settlements, others were renamed.^[1]

Original settlement	New name	"Greek Project" date	Notes
Bilhowice / Bilchowicze	Kherson	1778	after Chersonesus
Kezlev / Kerkinitis	Yevpatoria	1784	from Eupator: Ευ·πατωρ "(of) noble father", after Mithridates VI of Pontus, whose dominions included Crimea
Kalmiuska Sloboda / Domakha [uk]	Mariupol	1780	after Maria Feodorovna
Kyzyiar	Melitopol	1842	after Melita (ancient port city) which existed in the vicinity
Mykytyn Rih	Nikopol	1786	after Nike, the goddess of victory
Hacıdere	Ovidiopol	1793	after Ovidius
Aqyar	Sevastopol	1784	Sebaste (Augustus) after the Pontic port of Sebastopolis
Aqmescit	Simferopol	1784	city of common good
Orlyk	Olviopol (Pervomaisk)	1782	after Ancient Greek colony Olbia (Pontic Olbia)
Khadjibey	Odessa	1795	after Odessos (today Varna) thought to be located in the vicinity
Staryi Krym	Levkopol	N/A	Leukopolis, "White City"
Sucleia (original place)	Tiraspol	1792	after Tyras, the Ancient name for the Dniester river
N/A	Stavropol	1777	stauros (cross)

See also

• Megali Idea

References

1. "Российские города с греческими именами" Archived 2011-07-23 at the Wayback Machine, Sevatopolskaya Gazeta, July 20, 2006 (retrieved August 17, 2014)

Sources

• Catherine's Russia: Catherine the Great's "Greek Project"
• Foundation of the Hellenic World: The Greek plan of Catherine II

Further reading

• Brover-Lubovsky, Bella (2013-01-29). "The 'Greek Project' of Catherine the Great and Giuseppe Sarti". Journal of Musicological Research. 32 (1): 28–61. doi:10.1080/01411896.2013.752246. eISSN 1547-7304.
• Bryant, Emily (Fall 2022). "A Third Rome?: Catherine the Great's 'Greek Project'" (PDF). Crimson Historical Review. 5 (1): 54–63.
• Черникова, Татьяна Васильевна. "'Греческий проект' в политической практике и имперской идеологии России в царствование Екатерины II" ['Greek Project' in Terms of Political Practice and Russian Imperial Ideology during the Reign of Catherine II]. Вестник Российского университета дружбы народов: История России (in Russian). 23 (2): 130–142. doi:10.22363/2312-8674-2024-23-2-130-142. eISSN 2312-8690.
• Griffiths, David (1976). "The Greek Project". Modern Encyclopedia of Russian and Soviet History. Vol. 13. Academic International Press. pp. 128–132. ISBN 0875690645.
• Hou, Annabel (Spring 2024). "Catherine's Crimea: Geopolitics and Imperial Messianism". The Birch Journal: 17–21.
• Hösch, Edgar [in German] (July 1964). "Das sogenannte 'griechische Projekt' Katharinas II.: Ideologie und Wirklichkeit der russischen Orientpolitik in der zweiten Hälfte des 18. Jahrhunderts" [The So-Called 'Greek Project' of Catherine II: Ideology and Truth of Russian Oriental Politics in the Second Half of the 18th Century]. Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas: Neue Folge (in German). 12 (2): 168–206. ISSN 0021-4019. JSTOR 41042303.
• Иванов, Сергей (2021-06-21). "Византия Екатерины Великой" [Catherine the Great's Byzantium]. Quaestio Rossica (in Russian). 9 (2): 666–678. doi:10.15826/qr.2021.2.602. eISSN 2313-6871.
• Хруль, Анастасия. "The 'Greek project' of Catherine II in cultural and ideological perspectives". Studia Humanitatis (2). ISSN 2308-8079.
• Kamenskikh, Aleksey (2023). "'Antiquising Imagination' in the Service of Political Expansion: On the Eve of the 'Great Greek Project' of Catherine II". Konštatínove listy. 16 (2): 91–101. doi:10.17846/CL.2023.16.2.91-101. eISSN 2453-7675.
• Kirin, Asen (2012). "The Edifices of the New Justinian: Catherine the Great Regaining Byzantium". Approaches to Byzantine Architecture and its Decoration: Studies in Honor of Slobodan Čurčić. London: Routledge. ISBN 9781315262307.
• Кобищанов, Тарас Юрьевич (2017). "'Греческий проект' Екатерины II и Сирия" [The 'Greek Project' of Catherine II and Syria] (PDF). Вестник Московского университета (in Russian). 13 (2): 3–25. ISSN 0320-8095.
• Маркова, Ольга Петровна (1958). "О происхождении так называемого греческого проекта (80-е годы XVIII в.)" [On the Origin of the So-Called Greek Project (80s of the XVIII Century)]. История СССР (in Russian) (4): 52–78. ISSN 0869-5687. 2nd ed. 1986.
• McBurney, Erin (2014-05-15). "Picturing the Greek Project: Catherine II's Iconography of Conquest and Culture". Russian Literature. 75 (1–4): 415–443. doi:10.1016/j.ruslit.2014.05.018. ISSN 0304-3479.
• Natsvaladze, Mamuka (2020). "Explanation of One Conceptual Subtext of a 'Greek Project'". 11th International Conference 'Science and Practice: A New Level of Integration in the Modern World'. Sheffield: Scope Academic House, B&M Publishing. ISBN 978-0-9898799-4-2.
• Natsvaladze, Mamuka (2020). "'Greek Project' – Clue to the History of Georgia 50-90-ies of XVIII Century". Proceedings of the XVIII International Scientific and Practical Conference 'Social and Economic Aspects in Modern Society'. Vol. 1. Warsaw: RS Global. pp. 38–43. ISBN 978-83-958980-2-0.
• Natsvaladze, Mamuka (2022-10-25). "The Greek Project - For the Reconstruction of the Text". IV International Scientific and Practical Conference 'Theoretical and Empirical Scientific Research: Concept and Trends'. Collection of Scientific Papers 'ΛΌГOΣ'. Cambridge: P.C. Publishing House. pp. 144–162. doi:10.36074/logos-14.10.2022.50. ISBN 978-1-8380555-9-2. Print ISBN 978-617-8037-89-5.
• Ragsdale, Hugh (March 1986). "Montmorin and Catherine's Greek Project: Revolution in French foreign policy". Cahiers du Monde russe et soviétique. 27 (1): 27–44. JSTOR 20170092.
• Ragsdale, Hugh (January 1988). "Evaluating the Traditions of Russian Aggression: Catherine II and the Greek Project". The Slavonic and East European Review. 66 (1): 91–117. ISSN 0037-6795. JSTOR 4209687.
• Smilyanskaya, Elena (2014-05-14). "Russian Warriors in the Land of Miltiades and Themistocles: The Colonial Ambitions of Catherine the Great in the Mediterranean". Higher School of Economics Research Papers WP BRP 55/HUM/2014. SSRN. doi:10.2139/ssrn.2436332.
• Smilyanskaya, Elena (2015-07-15). "Catherine's Liberation of the Greeks: High-Minded Discourse and Everyday Realities". Word and Image in Russian History: Essays in Honor of Gary Marker. Boston: Academic Studies Press. pp. 71–89. doi:10.2307/j.ctt1zxsht1.12. ISBN 9781618114587.
• Зорин, Андрей Леонидович [in Russian] (2014). "Russians as Greeks: Catherine II's 'Greek Project' and the Russian Ode of the 1760s–70s". By Fables Alone: Literature and State Ideology in Late Eighteenth- and Early Nineteenth-Century Russia. Boston: Academic Studies Press. pp. 24–60. doi:10.2307/j.ctt1zxsj45.6. ISBN 9781618118035.