While behind Ukraine’s physical front line, the port city of Odesa has become a focal point for the memory war now being waged by Moscow. The varied realities of life in the city over the past few centuries are still threatened by an essentially imperial narrative promoted by the Kremlin.
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As Russia’s missiles strike the historic heart of Odesa once again, reducing UNESCO heritage sites to rubble, the city faces not only the immediate devastation of war but also a more insidious threat: the weight of a post-colonial narrative imposed by Russia since the days of its empire. For centuries, Russian propaganda has framed Ukrainian culture as little more than a regional offshoot of Russian civilization, an idea that has justified successive waves of suppression and forced assimilation. This narrative is not just a relic of history; it is a tool of modern warfare, wielded as effectively as any missile or tank.
I was born and raised in Odesa and spent the first 25 years of my life in the city and its surrounding region. Now, as a displaced Ukrainian journalist and the author of a novel exploring the suppression of Ukrainian language and culture in the USSR, I want to tell a different story – one that does not begin and end with Russian imperial myths. The Odesa I know is not the one so often portrayed in western writing, where it appears as a Russian-speaking enclave, a cosmopolitan outlier, or a place that owes its very existence to the Russian Empire. This version of Odesa, carefully curated by imperial Russian and later Soviet authorities, casts it as a playground for exiled Russian writers, a backwater made relevant only through the presence of figures like Alexander Pushkin and Mykola Hohol.
That narrative is deeply misleading. Odesa’s history, culture and identity were shaped by a far richer and more diverse set of influences than allowed for by Russian colonial mythology. Even today, in the midst of war, Russia’s propaganda machine continues to push the same old story, erasing Odesa’s Ukrainian identity in an attempt to justify its aggression. Understanding this history – and exposing the distortions that sustain Russia’s imperial claims – is not just an intellectual exercise. It is a necessary act of resistance.
The colonial portrayal of Odesa
One of the most persistent myths about Odesa is that it has always been a Russian city, a place whose culture, prosperity and identity stem from its historical ties to the Russian Empire. This image is reinforced by streets lined with memorial plaques commemorating Russian cultural figures who spent mere months in the city. Pushkin, for example, lived in Odesa only briefly while in exile, and Hohol, whose Ukrainian heritage was deliberately erased, was forced to write in Russian due to imperial censorship. Despite this, their presence in Odesa is treated as proof of the city’s supposed Russian essence.
Even today, this version of Odesa is echoed in western commentary. In an article titled “Cancel Culture in Ukraine”, one author ridicules efforts to promote the Ukrainian spelling of Odesa, calling it a political move and mocking the idea that the city should align with standard Ukrainian orthography. The claim is misleading. The spelling of Odesa with one “s” is not a matter of politics but of linguistic accuracy, just as Kyiv, Kharkiv, Dnipro and Lviv follow the standard rules of the Ukrainian language. The question is simple: why should Ukrainian cities be labelled according to Russian conventions?
The same article goes further, arguing that Odesa is fundamentally different from the rest of Ukraine, a place with its “own way of speaking and thinking, its own music, its own humour, even its own gefilte fish”. The implication is that this uniqueness somehow exempts Odesa from national policies aimed at undoing centuries of Russian cultural domination. But this reasoning is as flawed as it is dangerous. Many Ukrainian cities – Kyiv, Lviv, Vinnytsia, Berdychiv – have distinct linguistic traditions, humour, and culinary variations. That does not make them any less Ukrainian. This argument, whether intentional or not, mirrors the very rhetoric Russia has used to justify its annexation of Crimea and the creation of separatist “republics” in Donetsk and Luhansk. By framing Odesa as fundamentally separate, as something apart from Ukraine, the article reinforces a narrative that has long served Russia’s imperial ambitions.
Nowhere is this clearer than in the discussion of Odesa’s so-called “ethno-nationalists”. The article claims that Odesa is under siege not only from Russian missiles but also from Ukrainian activists who threaten its pluralistic identity. The supposed danger? A local campaign to remove a statue of Pushkin. These activists are described as nationalists, a term that carries deeply loaded connotations – especially when deployed in the context of Russia’s war. Since 2014, Putin has justified his military aggression by insisting that Ukraine is overrun by extremists, a claim that western commentators have too often echoed uncritically. The idea that Odesa is uniquely beset by radical nationalism is both false and inflammatory. There are no more nationalists in Odesa than in Moscow, Paris or Vienna. The desire to decolonize public space – to remove symbols of imperial conquest – is not evidence of extremism.
The article acknowledges that Pushkin “celebrated the city as liberal and European”, but it then twists this point, suggesting that his brief presence somehow defines Odesa’s entire cultural identity. This is yet another erasure. Odesa was multicultural long before Pushkin arrived, shaped by Greek, Italian, German, Polish, Jewish and Ukrainian communities, among many others. Yet when discussing the city’s historical diversity, the article stops short of stating who actually made up the majority of Odesa’s population.
More than a century ago, Odesa and its surrounding Kherson Governorate were home to a vast and diverse population. However, the largest single ethnic group was Ukrainians, numbering over 700,000. Moldovans, Jews, Germans, Russians, Albanians, Romanians and Bulgarians also called the region home. The idea that Odesa was primarily Russian is simply ahistorical. Even Nika Virnyanskiy, the article’s main subject and an adviser to the Odesa mayor, acknowledges that his father and grandfather spoke Yiddish and Ukrainian. This is further proof that Odesa’s true linguistic and cultural character was far more complex than suggested by the imperial narrative.
Photographs and newspapers from the late 19th and early 20th centuries confirm this reality. Ukrainian-language publications were common, and many newspapers featured bilingual content, countering the persistent myth that Russian was always Odesa’s dominant language. These images and documents expose the colonial fiction at the heart of Russia’s claims, revealing a city that has always been more than just a footnote in Russian history.
Russification: legacy and trauma
What did it mean to be Ukrainian in Odesa under Soviet rule? Could someone receive an education in Ukrainian? Could they speak Ukrainian in the city centre, on public transport, or in a café without fear of ridicule? The answer, for decades, was no. Russification ensured that Ukrainian was systematically erased, stigmatized as a “peasant language”, something backward and provincial.
This was no accident. The Russian Empire’s policies, from Catherine II’s Valuyev Decree to the Ems Ukaz, explicitly banned the Ukrainian language from public life, education and government. Ukrainian literature was suppressed, with its greatest poets, like Taras Shevchenko, exiled or imprisoned. Even after the empire fell, the Soviet Union continued this repression, cracking down on Ukrainian intellectuals, writers and historians.
In the early 20th century, as Soviet troops crushed the short-lived Ukrainian Republic, Russian General Muravyov oversaw massacres of Ukrainian officers and civilians. It became dangerous to speak Ukrainian on the streets of Kyiv, Kharkiv and Odesa. In one chilling example, a car emblazoned with the slogan “Death to Ukrainians!” drove through the streets blaring Russian nationalist propaganda. This campaign of violence and intimidation was an early form of the cultural genocide that continues today in Russian-occupied territories.
By the time the Soviet Union consolidated its control, Odesa – like many other Ukrainian cities – had been thoroughly Russified. This forced assimilation was not just a matter of language but of identity itself, shaping how generations of Ukrainians saw themselves and their place in the world. The scars of that repression linger, and today, as Russia once again seeks to erase Ukrainian identity, understanding this history has never been more urgent.
The war on Ukrainian identity
Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine is not just a military campaign – it is an assault on Ukrainian identity itself. This war is being fought not only with missiles and artillery but with language, history and memory. In every occupied territory, Russian authorities have wasted no time dismantling Ukrainian culture. Schools are forced to teach from Russian textbooks; Ukrainian street names are replaced with Soviet-era toponyms; and any expression of Ukrainian identity – from literature to folk traditions – is either banned or suppressed. Odesa, though still free, is at the centre of this existential battle.
For centuries, Russia has sought to erase the Ukrainian character of Odesa. The Soviet Union continued the work of the Russian Empire, ensuring that Ukrainian culture remained either invisible or marginal. Even in the decades following Ukraine’s independence, Odesa was burdened by this colonial legacy. Ukrainian-language education was underfunded, and Russian remained the dominant language of the city’s politics and public life. It is only in recent years – particularly since 2014 – that a genuine effort to reclaim Odesa’s Ukrainian identity has gained momentum. This has not been an easy process, nor has it been without controversy.
Some of the most visible efforts have centred on decolonizing the city’s monuments and public spaces. The removal of the Catherine II monument, which had loomed over the city centre for more than a century, was a particularly charged moment. Russian propaganda decried it as “historical vandalism”, while some local voices echoed these concerns, calling it an attack on Odesa’s “multicultural past”. But whose past was really being erased? Catherine’s statue was never a neutral historical marker. It was a symbol of Russian imperial conquest, erected to celebrate the annexation of Ukrainian lands. To leave it standing in a Ukrainian city, at a time when Russia is attempting to destroy Ukraine as a nation, would be an act of submission.
This process of reclaiming Ukrainian history is often misrepresented as an attack on Odesa’s diverse heritage. Critics insist that de-Russification threatens the city’s pluralistic identity, ignoring the fact that Russian imperialism was itself the force that most aggressively sought to homogenize Odesa’s culture. The city’s Ukrainian history has never been in opposition to its multiculturalism. On the contrary, it is the very foundation of Odesa’s historical openness. The Ukrainians, Jews, Moldovans, Greeks and Poles who built Odesa did so despite, not because of, Russian rule.
Today, as Russia bombards Odesa under the pretext of “liberation”, its missiles are destroying the very things it claims to cherish. The Spaso-Preobrazhensky Cathedral, one of Odesa’s most iconic religious sites, has been severely damaged by Russian strikes. The irony is impossible to ignore. Built in the early 19th century, the cathedral is a powerful symbol of Odesa’s religious and cultural heritage. It is Russian weapons that have turned it to ruins. This is the reality of Russia’s so-called “protection” of Russian-speaking Ukrainians: the obliteration of their cities, their history, and their future.
The battle for Odesa’s future
Odesa today is a city at war, but it is also a city in transformation. The question is not whether Odesa will remain Ukrainian – that much is already clear. The question is how it will navigate its identity in the aftermath of centuries of Russification and the brutal realities of this war. The process of reclaiming Ukrainian language and culture is not about erasing history. Instead, it is about setting the record straight. It is about restoring a narrative that was deliberately buried, making space for the voices that Russian imperialism sought to silence.
For decades, the myth of Odesa as an inherently Russian city has gone unchallenged in western discourse. This myth persists not because it is true, but because it has been repeated so often. It is a colonial narrative, one that serves Russia’s strategic interests and diminishes Ukraine’s sovereignty. Yet the people of Odesa have already answered the question of where they stand. They fought for Ukraine in 2014, resisted Russian sabotage and subversion, and now, in 2024, they are enduring missile barrages rather than accepting Russian rule. That is the reality the world must recognize.
Odesa has always been more than a footnote in Russian history. It is a Ukrainian city, and it always has been. No amount of imperial nostalgia can change that.
Nina Kuriata is a journalist, editor, and media consultant with over 20 years of experience in Ukrainian and international media, including previously leading the BBC News Ukrainian Service (2011–2019). She currently works as Ukraine and Defence editor at Tortoise Media, producing analysis and podcasts, while also being a media trainer and author, having published three poetry books and the novel Dzvinka (2023). She is a 2025 Eurasia Democratic Security Network fellow, hosted by the Democratic Security Institute.