The public discussion “Battle for the Truth: the History of Odesa vs. Russian Propaganda Myths,” devoted to the fight against pro-Moscow imperial myths circulating in the Odesa region and the importance of counter-propaganda in times of war, was focused on the situation with imperial myths in the southern city and their pre-war and post-war dynamics. The discussion also featured a video “Odesa – a City of Ukraine: The Truth about Its History,” created as part of a special study “Myths and Narratives of Russian Propaganda that Destroy Ukrainian Identity in the South and East of Ukraine. Debunking and Exposure,” which was conducted by UCMC experts based on a survey of historians, local historians, journalists, and civic activists in each of the nine regions covered by the project. The event was held within the framework of the project “Strengthening Information Resilience in Ukraine” in partnership with the International Practitioners’ Partnership Network (Estonia) with the support of the European Union.
In Odesa, as well as in other cities of Southern Ukraine, Moscow’s propaganda has been working for over two centuries. Therefore, myths are quite persistent and often only historians can determine the date of their origin and refute them with facts. For example, there is a myth that the culture of the city belongs to the ‘Russian world’. However, even the architectural ensemble of Odesa, including its sea facade, is not a monument of ‘Russian wooden architecture.’ It is European neoclassicism, typical of Europe. Although its construction took place during the Russian Empire, it was carried out by Ukrainians from local building materials, with due regard for the city’s unique landscape. Similar to other cities like Cape Town, New York or Rio de Janeiro, Odesa developed under conditions of the colonial past, but that does not make it ‘primordially’ Russian.
Another persistent myth in toponymy is the cult of the Russian poet Alexander Pushkin, which was long promoted in Odesa by the imperial and Soviet authorities, and then reinforced by various Russian foundations in the independence period. Moreover, along with the myth of Odesa’s connection with Pushkin, there is also a myth of the monument to the Russian poet. According to it, the money for the monument was raised by Odesans all over the world. Or rather, this is what Moscow curators planned. But after several years of active fundraising, Odesans managed to raise only a quarter of the amount that the monument cost. The rest was covered by entrepreneurs who played on the Odesa Stock Exchange and the city budget. So, when we learn the historical details, all the pomp of the myth vanishes.
Taras Honcharuk, Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor at the Department of History of Ukraine at Odesa National University, is convinced that we must promote true history and true historical knowledge. Ukraine has always been comfortable only with the truth. In his opinion, it is great that such projects are emerging and allow us to communicate true history to the masses.
The historian said that there were a lot of figures who promoted true ideas in Odesa, but their voice was insignificant, as they had no audience. “Unfortunately, our true ideas are promoted very gradually, because we do not have the means to spread them. These ideas are true, and they reach those who reason, who think, who analyze. And Russia has been using harsh aggressive propaganda.”
Serhiy Hutsalyuk, Head of the Southern Interregional Department at the Ukrainian Institute of National Memory, stated that pro-Russian myths in Odesa were promoted earlier and are still alive today, largely thanks to the people who are currently in local governments.
“All decolonization issues have been resolved at the state level. However, in both Odesa and Poltava we encountered fierce resistance from the circles representing current local authorities. Because their political career is built on the ‘Russian world’ ideologies, the myths featured in the UCMC video. That’s why they are trying various ways to slow down the process that Ukrainian society has agreed to implement through the law of the Verkhovna Rada.”
But, according to Serhiy Hutsalyuk, Odesa has undergone dramatic tectonic changes over the past three years following the invasion. Primarily, due to civic engagement.
Journalist and regional coordinator of the Odesa region from the Institute for Central European Strategy Svitlana Bondar described her own observations on the dynamics of the spread and perception of pro-Moscow myths in the city. In 2022, the greatest consolidation was observed in the search for historical pro-Ukrainian truth, whereas now a certain rollback can be seen. Those who constitute a socially active minority, due to fatigue, do not seek to engage in debate with undereducated apologists of the ‘Russian world.’ At the same time, according to Svitlana Bondar, numerous public educational events held in the city, including at the Odesa Music and Drama Theater named after V. Vasylko, contribute to the spread of the pro-Ukrainian narrative. For example, the text of the famous leader of the Odesa community of the 19th-20th centuries, Mykhailo Komarov, about the monument to Pushkin, voiced at the 2024 celebrations, made Odesans take a new look at this propaganda symbol. We cannot help quoting a passage of the text: “… As expected, the monument turned out to be not just non-majestic, but completely unimpressive, because one could hardly have built something better for the money: The monument is a bust (statue) of the poet, placed on an unreasonably low pedestal, and given that the poet’s head is made too large, the neck is also somewhat too long and all this is on a low and thin bust without arms, the monument looks absolutely ridiculous. Well, but it is original, you might say. Indeed, it is very original! There is probably nothing like it anywhere in the world! Look: at the bottom of the pedestal, one and a half or two arshins high from the ground, four fountain jets are gushing from four horns; and there is a kind of star between the pedestal and the bust above the lyre, which is illuminated from the inside. As you can see, the monument is both a fountain and a lantern. This is truly Odesa-style: if we have to put up a lantern and make a fountain, it is better to do it all in one go with the monument – it will cost less and look original together. It is a pity that they did not think of putting a barrel-organ or some other musical machine into the monument, then it would have been even more original and there would have been no need to hire music for the boulevard where that monument stands and where city music plays for the strolling public every day.
This is how Slavic figures explain the idea of the monument: the fountain jets flow quietly and gurgle, like those sweet-sounding poems of Pushkin, and the star illuminates everything around, just as Pushkin’s poetry has been shining for people. However in reality it turns out something completely different: the water somehow does not flow out in a stream, but splashes in all directions and therefore not all of it gets into the vases and reservoirs (ponds), and the splashes fly further and make a circle around the monument, just like a puddle, and as for the star, when it is illuminated, the monument itself is not visible at all, because the light comes from the inside, and that monument appears like some kind of pillar with a lantern. Surely, the creators of this project themselves noticed that the implemented idea turned out to be inappropriate, because after a few days they started letting the water flow in a much smaller stream, which barely gurgles into those vases, and the ponds stick out uselessly and look like some annoying dusty holes, and now they don’t light that lantern at all. In short, neither the idea nor the the monument correspond to the majesty of the poet and the intentions that the project creators had in mind.”
Odesa journalist Volodymyr Henyk, expressing gratitude to the UCMC for its work on demythologizing the historical and local history space, focused on another oral myth that is still voiced by the city leaders – about the city’s multinationality. Despite the fact that during independent Ukraine, different nationalities for the first time in the history of the Odesa region received the most rights to education and the realization of their own cultural interests, the pro-Russian part of society has always played them as a card to support the Moscow language, arguing that it is easiest for different nationalities to use it for interethnic communication.
“The Russian language is the language of interethnic unity, therefore it must be in Odesa. This dangerous narrative, which needs to be debunked, was actively promoted by “Rossotrudnichestvo”, the Russian Consulate, etc. As soon as the topic of Ukrainians came up, they immediately said that it is a multinational city, etc.”
As for the language issue, which Kremlin propagandists like to appeal to, it should not be applied to Odesa at all. The city and the entire region as a whole have experienced a huge number of migrations and resettlements over the centuries. And back in the 1850s, linguist Kostiantyn Zelenetsky, who first studied this issue, wrote that the language of Odesa residents is certainly Russified, but there are so many “Little Russianisms and Galicianisms” that the question of whether it is Russian or Little Russian (Ukrainian) has no final answer.
And not only Ukrainian and Russian, but also Yiddish, which was brought by Jews, who at one time in history numbered up to 30% of the city’s population, German and even French created a mixed language that linguists jokingly call the ‘Odesa language.’
The so-called Russian-speaking Odesa is a product of total Russification during the Soviet era. Indeed, after Odesa was conquered by the Bolsheviks and even more so after World War II, there was a queue of eager ‘young specialists’ who wanted to move from the vast expanses of Trans-Urals, Siberia or the Far East to a resort city. And the recovery of Soviet enterprises provided such an opportunity. At the same time, fully Russian-language schools were opened. Therefore, as of 1987, there were 90 Russian-language schools in Odesa, seven mixed-type schools (i.e., actually Russian-language, but with one or two classes taught in Ukrainian) and only three purely Ukrainian schools. Teaching in Ukrainian was out of the question in vocational schools, technical schools or universities. And almost two dozen higher education institutions, including the most prestigious in the USSR, trained ‘Russian-speaking’ specialists.
But, in addition to this absurdity, as Volodymyr Henyk noted, the statement about the number of nationalities in Odesa is also false, because more than a hundred of this list constitute less than one percent of the population, which cannot equate their importance in the development of the city to Ukrainians, who constitute more than sixty percent of the population.
Being a key seaport on the Black Sea and a crossroads of trade routes, Odesa and the Odesa region attracted people of various occupations from all over the world. Thus, the complexity of the city’s history had a certain impact on the complexity of the region’s formation. At different times, the territory of the Odesa region was part of the Bulgarian Kingdom, the Kingdom of Moldova, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and, ultimately, the Crimean Khanate. And today, just like a few centuries ago, the Odesa region is home to representatives of more than two dozen nationalities. This is aa irrefutable a fact as well as the fact that in ancient times the Greek city-polis Miletus founded colonies in the Odesa region in the late 6th – early 5th century BC: Thira (on the territory of present-day Bilhorod-Dnistrovskyi) and Nikonium (near the village of Roksolany, Ovidiopol district). Other Greek colonies on the Odesa coast were: Skopeli, Luzanivske Horodyshche, Havan-Istrian, Asiakiv (Havan-Yako), Neoptolemia (with a lighthouse), Kremniski, Antifilia, Achileia.
During the time of early Rus in the 9th century, the area was inhabited by the Slavic tribes of Ulychi and Tyvertsi, who later migrated northward between the Dniester and the Danube.
Only after the Kuchuk-Kaynadzhyr peace treaty between the Russian and Ottoman empires in 1774, when the south of present-day Ukraine fell under Russian rule, did the first large-scale wave of Russian resettlement take place. The second one took place after the Crimean War of 1853-1856, which was triggered by the Russian Empire’s demand to take control of all the territories of the Northern Black Sea Region, where ‘Russian subjects’ allegedly lived, and the reason for this was the seizure of ports for grain export.
As a result of the discussion, experts agreed that the positive dynamics in the city are observed both due to the cessation of the activities of pro-Russian television channels and due to the impact of the losses inflicted on the city by the military aggression of Muscovites. In addition, a significant amount of materials produced by local researchers and activists, together with a social media campaign by the UCMC and other decolonization initiatives, should eventually change the cultural orientation of residents of the Odesa region to a completely pro-Ukrainian one.