Bathed by the Black Sea, this Ukrainian port city has a very curious history and a strategic importance that is not lost on Vladimir Putin. In fact, if its military incursion into the eastern Ukrainian regions could extend, once its occupation was completed, further west of the Crimean peninsula – which it already occupied in 2014 – to Odessa, perhaps it would end its desire for conquest. , at least for now.
Until the end of the 18th century, what is now Odessa was nothing more than a languid Tatar town called Hadzibey, which at that time was more or less under the power of the Ottoman Empire. But their luck changed when the ambitious tsarina who would be remembered as Catherine the Great decided that her new territorial conquests in Ukraine needed a large port on the Black Sea that would provide an outlet for the export of the enormous amount of grain that was produced in the vast steppes. of the fertile interior.
No sooner said than done. Virtually out of nowhere, a city emerged in record time in which the repressive laws in force in the rest of the Russian Empire were conspicuous by their absence. It was a full-fledged urban explosion, only verifiable with that of San Francisco, half a century later, after the gold rush.
Ethnic and linguistic diversity was its calling card from day one, since given its reputation as a prosperous lawless city, it attracted people from all over eager to start a new life. Of course, Yiddish was the first language of a third of the polyglot population. The Napoleonic Wars encouraged the export of grain to a hungry Europe, as well as to the Russian people themselves. In 1819, it was named a free port. Even so, it was not all smooth sailing: a poor wheat harvest could be the ruin of any local magnate. And although there were opulent theaters and cafes on par with the best in Paris or Vienna, the rapid growth of the city did not even leave time for the paving of its streets.
The numerous taverns were filled with anarchists, free thinkers, thugs and conspirators, but not only against the tsar, but also with fervent Ukrainian, Polish and Bulgarian nationalists. Here Trotsky was born, who would set sail from the same port of Odessa towards the death that awaited him in Mexico, at the hands of the Barcelonan Ramón Mercader. And it was here that the mutiny took place in 1905 that would be immortalized by Sergei Eisenstein in Battleship Potemkin (1925), a true gem of silent cinema.
But what ultimately began Odessa’s decline was not a succession of bad harvests, but the rise of the Soviet Union, which did not tolerate the excesses, much less the freedoms to which the undisciplined Odesians were ill-accustomed. It experienced a brief period of prosperity during World War II when it was occupied by Romanian soldiers, but the atrocities committed by them against the Jewish population were even more horrifying than those of the times of the Tsars or their Nazi masters. Odessa without its Jews was no longer more than a decadent soulless port afflicted by nostalgia for the good old days, forgotten even by a large part of Ukrainians.
And perhaps it would have continued like this if it had not been for the strategic importance it has for Vladimir Putin’s imperialist designs. The invasion of Ukraine has put Odessa back on the map, because if large quantities of grain do not leave its port, many people are condemned to starvation, especially in Africa.
If Putin manages to take Odessa, which has already been bombed several times, it will surely not take long for the Ukrainian oligarchs and their Russian brothers to recover business as usual, for the greater glory of their pockets. The grain of the steppes will once again leave the port unimpeded, and the total conquest of Ukraine, which is currently resisting it, will be the task of new generations of Russians. This is how history is written.
What’s more: a divided Ukraine, no matter how much the Western part manages to enter NATO, will always serve as a lever for Moscow to burst the hinges of the unity of the European Union. It is easy to imagine Putin and Trump raising their glasses in a tavern in the recaptured port city of Odessa, and then being hailed princes of peace under the benevolent gaze of Beijing. Nobody gives a damn anymore who killed Liberty Valance.
