Latest / The Romanov Dynasty: Rise, Power, and Bloody End — Fexingo History / Catherine the Great's Greek Project and the Birth of New Russia
Transcript
- Lucas: So, we've talked a lot about Catherine the Great — her reforms, her wars, the partitions of Poland. But there's one grand ambition of hers that often gets overlooked, maybe because it was so audacious it never fully came to pass: the Greek Project. Luna: The Greek Project — that's the plan to revive the Byzantine Empire, right? Lucas: Exactly. Catherine dreamed of driving the Ottomans out of Europe entirely and restoring a Christian Greek empire under her grandson — whom she literally named Constantine, after the city's founder. She even had coins minted with his profile and a picture of Hagia Sophia in the background. Luna: Wait, she was planning this before he was even born? Lucas: Pretty much. From the moment her second grandson was born in 1779, she had him raised with Greek nurses and tutors, teaching him the language and Orthodox liturgy. The whole project was intertwined with her war with the Ottomans and her partnership with Grigory Potemkin. Lucas: Potemkin was the great architect of what they called New Russia — the vast steppe lands north of the Black Sea that Russia had recently won. He founded cities like Kherson in 1778, and later Sebastopol, which became the base of the Black Sea Fleet. Luna: So this was about more than just a dream — there was actual infrastructure. Lucas: Absolutely. The Greek Project had a very practical side. Catherine and Potemkin were building a whole new province, settling it with colonists — Greeks, Serbs, Bulgarians, even Germans and Jews. They wanted a populated, prosperous buffer zone against the Ottomans, and a springboard for future expansion. Lucas: The key treaty was Küçük Kaynarca in 1774, which gave Russia a foothold on the Black Sea coast and a vague right to protect Orthodox Christians in the Ottoman Empire. That was the legal wedge. Then in 1783, Russia annexed Crimea outright, after maneuvering the last Crimean khan, Şahin Giray, into a position where he had to abdicate. Luna: Şahin Giray — he was a reformer, wasn't he? Trying to modernize the khanate? Lucas: He was. He tried to centralize power, build a standing army, introduce Western-style taxes — but he alienated the nobility and the clergy. Potemkin skillfully used that instability to push for annexation. Şahin ended up fleeing to Russia, and later was exiled to Rhodes and executed by the Ottomans. Lucas: So by 1783, Russia had the entire Crimean coast. Potemkin immediately started building the Black Sea Fleet at Sebastopol, using the natural harbour that was ice-free year-round. The fleet was crucial for any future war against the Ottomans. Luna: And the fleet actually performed well in the next war — the Russo-Turkish War of 1787–92. Lucas: It did, under admirals like Fyodor Ushakov. But the war itself was partly provoked by Catherine and Potemkin's grand tour of New Russia in 1787, the one that gave rise to the myth of Potemkin villages — fake settlements built to impress the Empress and foreign dignitaries. Luna: So was it all a Potemkin village? The whole Greek Project? Lucas: That's the fascinating question. The myth says Potemkin erected facades along the Dnieper to fool Catherine into thinking the region was prosperous. Modern historians largely debunk that — there were real towns, real settlements, and Catherine was too sharp to be fooled. But the myth captures something true: the gap between imperial propaganda and reality. Lucas: The Greek Project itself had a huge propaganda component. Catherine wrote plays and operas celebrating the conquest, and had a triumphal arch built at Tsarskoye Selo with the inscription 'The Way to Byzantium'. But militarily, the project was never fully executed. After Potemkin's death in 1791, the momentum faded. Luna: And Constantine never became emperor of a restored Byzantium. He ended up as governor of Poland, didn't he? Lucas: He did. Grand Duke Constantine Pavlovich — he served as the de facto viceroy of Poland, but he was a harsh ruler, and his marriage to a Polish noblewoman didn't help. The Greek Project essentially died with Potemkin. But it left a lasting legacy: the cities of Kherson, Sebastopol, and the whole infrastructure of New Russia, which later became the heartland of Ukraine. Lucas: It also set a precedent for Russian imperial ambition in the Balkans and the Straits. The dream of controlling Constantinople — Tsargrad, as Russians called it — persisted well into the twentieth century. Luna: It's almost tragic — all that energy and vision, and in the end it was just another failed grand plan. Lucas: But that's part of what makes history so human, isn't it? The gap between what leaders dream and what they achieve. Though in Catherine's case, the achievements were still enormous: Crimea, the Black Sea coast, a fleet, new cities. The Greek Project was the dream that drove it all. Luna: And speaking of that dream, if today's episode gave you a clearer picture of how that ambition played out, and you'd like to see more deep dives like this without any ads, listener support is what makes it happen. You can find us at buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. Lucas: Yeah, it's a small way to keep these conversations going. And it really does help us cover the stories that don't fit into a quick summary. Lucas: So back to the Greek Project — one more detail I love: Catherine actually had a medal struck in 1787 with her profile on one side, and on the other, a map of the Black Sea with a cross above Constantinople. It was literally a blueprint on a coin. Luna: That's incredible. So the project was never just a private fantasy — it was public, official policy, stamped in metal. Lucas: Exactly. And it shaped Russian foreign policy for generations. The tension between expansion and consolidation, between enlightenment ideals and imperial force — that's the Romanov story in miniature.