Latest / The Romanov Dynasty: Rise, Power, and Bloody End — Fexingo History / Catherine the Great's Secret War: The Greek Project
Transcript
- Lucas: So we've talked a lot about Catherine the Great's domestic reforms and her wars, but there's one grand strategy that she kept close to her chest for years — something that, if it had succeeded, would have completely redrawn the map of Europe and the Near East. Luna: The Greek Project, right? Lucas: Exactly. The Greek Project — or as it was sometimes called, the 'Greek Plan.' In essence, Catherine wanted to drive the Ottoman Empire out of Europe and restore the Byzantine Empire under Russian control. And she had a very specific candidate for the throne: her second grandson, born in 1779, whom she named Konstantin — after Constantine the Great, the founder of Constantinople. Luna: She named a baby for a city she planned to conquer. That's bold. Lucas: It's audacious, but it's also deeply strategic. The idea started crystallizing after the first Russo-Turkish War, 1768 to 1774. The Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca gave Russia a foothold in the Black Sea region and a vague protectorate over Orthodox Christians in the Ottoman Empire. Catherine and her foreign minister, Nikita Panin, began to see an opportunity. Lucas: The key figure who pushed the project forward, though, was Grigory Potemkin. He had this sprawling vision of a Russian-dominated classical revival in the south. He founded the city of Kherson in 1778, named after the ancient Greek colony of Chersonesus, and he built up Sevastopol as a naval base. These weren't just military outposts — they were statements. Luna: So Potemkin was literally building a new Greece on the Black Sea coast. Lucas: That's exactly how he saw it. He even had a plan to repopulate the region with Greeks and other Christians from the Ottoman Empire. The imperial court minted coins with the image of Hagia Sophia and the cross rising over Constantinople. Catherine herself wrote to Voltaire about liberating the Greeks and restoring their ancient glory. Luna: But this wasn't just about culture. It was about geopolitics too, right? Lucas: Absolutely. The Greek Project was Catherine's answer to the so-called 'Eastern Question' — what to do about the decaying Ottoman Empire. She envisioned a new Byzantine state that would include Greece, Thrace, Macedonia, and maybe even parts of Anatolia. It would be a buffer between Russia and the Ottomans, but also a satellite state, with Konstantin as a puppet emperor. Lucas: In 1781, Catherine and Potemkin drafted a secret memorandum outlining the plan. They even secured a tentative alliance with the Austrian Emperor Joseph II, who was promised parts of the Balkans in return. In 1782, they signed a formal agreement — the Austro-Russian alliance — which included a clause about dividing the Ottoman Empire. Luna: But it never happened. What went wrong? Lucas: A few things. First, the other European powers — especially Britain and Prussia — were alarmed. They had no interest in seeing Russia dominate the eastern Mediterranean. Second, the Ottoman Empire wasn't as weak as Catherine hoped. When a new war broke out in 1787, the Russians and Austrians struggled. Joseph II's army performed poorly, and by 1790, Austria was forced to make a separate peace. Lucas: And then there was the French Revolution. From 1789 onward, all of Europe's attention shifted west. Catherine herself became preoccupied with events in France and the threat of revolutionary ideas. The Greek Project was shelved, though it never died entirely in her mind. Luna: It's interesting how the name Konstantin kept echoing. The actual Grand Duke Konstantin was raised with Greek nurses and taught to speak Greek, right? Lucas: He was. Catherine hired Greek tutors for him, and he grew up with a sense of destiny about Constantinople. Later, in the 1820s, during the Greek War of Independence, there was a brief revival of the idea — but by then, Russia's policy had shifted. Konstantin himself became a controversial figure; he eventually renounced his claim to the throne and died in obscurity. Lucas: You know, it's funny — we spend so much time talking about Catherine's grand plans, and this one always fascinates me because it's so revealing of her character. She was an Enlightenment thinker who believed in reason and progress, but she was also an imperialist who thought nothing of carving up other people's countries. The Greek Project is both idealistic and cynical at the same time. Luna: And it's a reminder that history is full of roads not taken. If the Greek Project had succeeded, the modern Middle East and Balkans would look completely different. Lucas: Exactly. And on that note — and I want to say this because it's true — this show exists because a small group of listeners chips in a few dollars each month. We don't run ads, we don't take corporate money, it's just people who enjoy these conversations and want to keep them going. If you've been following along with the Romanov series, or any of our shows, and you find yourself thinking 'I'd like to support this,' you can do that at buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. No pressure, genuinely — it's just what keeps the lights on. Luna: And it really does make a difference. We're able to spend more time on research, dig up those obscure details, and keep the show ad-free for everyone. Lucas: Right. So back to Catherine and her Greeks — after the failure of the 1787 war, Potemkin died in 1791, and with him went much of the momentum. Catherine lived another five years, but the Greek Project became more of a nostalgic dream. She died in 1796, and her son Paul I immediately reversed many of her policies. Luna: Did Paul even know about the Greek Project? I mean, he was her son, but they had a fraught relationship. Lucas: He knew, and he hated it. Paul was a Russophile who saw Catherine's Greek ambitions as a dangerous overextension. He recalled the troops from the Caucasus, made peace with Persia, and generally tried to undo his mother's southern expansion. But the infrastructure stayed — the ports, the cities, the Black Sea fleet. Those became the foundation for Russia's later wars with the Ottomans. Lucas: One legacy that's often overlooked is the cultural impact. Catherine and Potemkin sponsored translations of ancient Greek texts, built churches in a neo-Byzantine style, and even had a plan to establish a Greek university in St. Petersburg. Some of those efforts outlived the political project. Luna: So in a way, the Greek Project was more than a military plan — it was a whole worldview. Lucas: Exactly. It tied together Catherine's love of classical antiquity, her ambition for Russia, and her rivalry with the Ottomans. And it shows how deeply the idea of Constantinople — Tsargrad, as Russians called it — ran in the Russian imagination. That dream would surface again in the 19th century, and even into the 20th. Lucas: But for Catherine herself, it remained unfinished. She never saw her grandson crowned in Hagia Sophia. Still, the Greek Project is one of those 'what ifs' that tells us so much about the age — the Enlightenment, imperialism, and the brutal realpolitik behind the philosophy. Luna: It makes me wonder what other secret plans Catherine had that we don't know about. Lucas: Oh, there are plenty. But those are stories for another episode.