Among the many ethnic groups living in the east of Ukraine, the North Azovian Greeks are perhaps the most unique. Most people in Ukraine and abroad associated the Donetsk oblast with heavy industry and a predominantly Russified population before the Russian Federation’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. But looking at the map one can quickly spot toponyms that sound unusual to Ukrainophones such as Yalta, Urzuf, Kostiantynopil, Ulakly, Komar, Starobesheve, Starolaspa, and Styla. For many this comes as a surprise. How is it possible? What’s the origin of these names? The answer is obvious enough: Crimea. At the end of the 18^th century – after 1779, to be precise – the Russian empress Catherine II forcibly resettled Greeks from Crimea, in what was possibly the first attempt to practice deportation on the territory of today’s Ukraine. These expelled Greeks started to populate the northern coast of the Sea of Azov. Subsequently, the Crimean Greeks founded the city of Mariupol. The city emerged on the former site of the Cossack settlement of Domakh, near Kalmiuska Sloboda, another settlement of the Zaporizhzhian Cossacks. The villages that grew around Mariupol were mostly given names that commemorated  the displaced Greeks’ homeland, Crimea. Today, this area – the northern coast of the Sea of Azov, the southern area of the Donetsk region in Ukraine – is called the North Azovian Region (Nadazovia or Pivnichne Pryazovia in Ukrainian). As for the Greeks who settled there, they are referred to as North Azovian Greeks (in Ukrainian, nadazovski or pryazovski hreky), also Mariupol Greeks. Today, the North Azovian Greeks are the third largest ethnic group in the Donetsk oblast  after Ukrainians and Russians.

When they hear that Greeks live in large numbers in Mariupol and other places in the Donetsk oblast, people often imagine the typical features of Greece that they know through touristic encounters: Greek salad, sirtaki, ouzo. But this assumption is entirely wrong. The North Azovian Greeks are a unique group whose history, culture and language differ significantly from that of other Greeks (yes, even their language differs since more than one kind of Greek is spoken in the world). This is hardly surprising given that the Crimean Greeks formed as an ethnic group in Crimea, where for several centuries they lived next to other peoples inhabiting the peninsula (in particular the Crimean Tatars). The culture of the Crimean Greeks absorbed many elements of these cultures. These influences can be seen in their cuisine (in dishes like kubite, chir-chir, khurabie, buza, etc.), music and dances (for example, khaitarma, the most famous dance of the North Azovian Greeks), as well as their two languages, Roumean and Urum.

Already while living in Crimea, some Greeks switched to a Turkic language, while the rest held onto their native tongue, which had significant Turkic influences. In this way, the Crimean Greeks were divided into two linguistic groups: Roumeans spoke the Roumean language, which is close to Modern Greek, while Urums spoke the Urum language, which is close to modern Crimean Tatar. Both these groups were relocated to the North Azovian region.

The Roumean language (“rumeku glosa”) is the native language of the Hellenophone Greeks (Roumeans) of the North Azovian region. The name of the language is derived from the Greek word Ρομειος, i.e. Roman, which is what the subjects of the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire that once extended all the way to Crimea called themselves.

The Roumean language combines elements inherited from the Greek of the Byzantine era, with borrowings from the Crimean Tatar language and Dimotiki (a modern vernacular form of Greek), as well as numerous Ukrainian and Russian words.

Roumeans have preserved a fairly extensive folklore. Their written literature emerged in the 1920s. No standardised literary Roumean exists yet; five different dialects of Roumean are spoken.Greeks used their own alphabet for millenia. Nevertheless, in the 19^th century Roumean poets resorted to the Russian alphabet, which they supplemented with Greek letters. In the 1920s, a simplified Roumean script based on the Greek alphabet was created. Already in the 1930s, however, it fell out of use due to political repressions. At the time, the Stalinist regime curtailed the policy of indigenisation, that is, the promotion of the cultural and linguistic development of national minorities, and began to brutally persecute minority artists and intellectuals. Greek theatre was destroyed, Greek newspapers and magazines were shut down, Greek schools could no longer teach different languages, and many members of the cultural elite were killed.

In the early 1970s, thanks to the efforts of the Kyiv-based linguist Andrii Biletskyi, a Cyrillic alphabet based on Russian letters was created for the Roumean language. This alphabet is still in use today in the North Azovian region. Recently, there have been attempts to use Ukrainian as well as Greek letters when writing texts in Roumean.

The Urum language (“Urum tili” or “Urum dili”) is the native tongue of the North Azovian Turkophone Greeks (Urums). The name stems from the word “rum/urum”, a Turkicised form of the Greek word Rhōmaîos.

The Urum language of the North Azovian Greeks is of Turkic origin and emerged from Crimean Tatar dialects. Some scholars consider Urum to be an ethnolect of Crimean Tatar. However, it differs from the Crimean Tatar language due to its Greek influences; moreover, Urum includes Ukrainianisms and Russianisms.

Until the early 19^th century, Urum was the most commonly used language within the administrative boundaries of Mariupol district (known as povit in Ukrainian and uezd in Russian), where Greeks lived in large numbers. For a period of time, it also served as the language of intergroup communication between the Urums and the Roumeans. Ancient written monuments documenting church and religious life, educational and business activities as well as rich Urum folklore have survived. Since Mariupol was an administrative centre, we can assume that Urum was the language of administrative record-keeping, trade and other spheres up until the 19^th century. Arkhyp Kuiindzhi, the internationally acclaimed artist of Greek origin who was born in the suburbs of Mariupol, also spoke Urum.

The Urums had no written literature until the second half of the 20^th century. No standard literary Urum language exists. Two dialects of Urum are spoken in the North Azovian region (and the Turkic language of the Pontic Greeks is also called Urum); these dialects, Kypchak and Oghuz, break down further into sub-dialects. When the Urums lived in Crimea, as well as during a certain period of their life in the North Azovian region, Urum texts were written using Greek letters. Later, the Urums switched to the Cyrillic alphabet, which they still use today.

***

Neither the Roumean nor Urum languages are codified, used in formal education or in the public sphere, let alone in state administration, political or economic life. They only exist in the form of folklore or oral literary works.

Before the Russian Federation occupied the parts of the Donetsk oblast densely populated by the North Azovian Greeks, local schools offered courses in Modern Greek for Urum and Roumean speakers. Mariupol State University also offered Modern Greek. Even before the occupation, both Urum and Roumean languages were endangered. It is anyone’s guess what will happen to them after the Russian Federation’s invasion of Ukraine. This is a cause of deep concern among people who have championed the survival of the Roumean and Urum languages. In public life, the Greeks of the region mainly use Russian. Native speakers of Roumean and Urum are mostly elderly people. Sadly, local Greek young people are seldom interested in learning the languages of their ancestors; sometimes young Greeks do not even know their names.

Thus, Roumean and Urum are threatened by extinction, and the number of their speakers is declining every year. Activists campaigning for the protection of Roumean and Urum languages have repeatedly sounded the alarm, calling on the public and the state to take precautionary measures to secure their preservation. However, language preservation is a complex, long-term process that requires wider efforts from the community itself, as well as greater attention from the state. Here, we are dealing with a kind of vicious circle that is very difficult to break. Training resources must be created, textbooks and manuals developed, dictionaries are needed, and these languages must start to be taught to those willing to learn them in places where the North Azovian Greeks still live in large numbers. Yet currently there is a shortage of specialists and no one to train them. In addition, no institution where this could be done exists. Furthermore, the demand for Roumean and Urum language tuition among schoolchildren and young people is unknown. This state of affairs has remained unchanged for several decades; before the escalation of the war, there were no signs of a significant improvement in the linguistic predicament of the North Azovian Greeks. The occupation of the region by the Russian invaders has drastically complicated this situation.

Despite the uncertain and difficult prospects faced by both languages of the North Azovian Greeks, the community of their speakers, although not numerous, boasts a creative intelligentsia that in recent years produced works of literature and music. Interestingly, researchers believe that there are fewer literary authors among the Urums, who outnumber the Roumeans, though by a narrow margin (it should also be noted that the population census does not reflect the division into the Urums and the Roumeans, showing only the overall number of Greeks). The most renowned authors are Valery Kior from Staryi Krym, Viktor Borota from Starohnativka, who passed away this year, and his fellow villager Kyrikiia Khavana. All of them are our contemporaries. It seems quite likely that there are other Urum writers too; perhaps they are not yet sufficiently well-known, or perhaps their works have yet to be published.

The constellation of Roumean-speaking writers is much bigger. Heorhii Kostoprav, a victim of the criminal Stalinist regime, is considered the founder of modern Roumean literature. His work was continued by Leontii Kyriakov, Anton Shapurma, Vasyl Bakhtarov and many others. Today, not only established  authors such as Vasyl Papazov, Hryhorii Danchenko, Anna Sahirova write poems in Roumean; there are talented new writers as well. For instance, Mykola Akhbash, in addition to creating his own works, translates Taras Shevchenko, Lesya Ukrainka and Serhii Zhadan from Ukrainian and Russian into Roumean. There is a Greek theatre in Sartana and a theatre studio in Yalta that staged plays in Roumean before the war. Even today, language enthusiasts and language activists among the North Azovian Greeks seek to preserve Urum and Roumean and pass the knowledge of these languages on to future generations.

In 2005, two CDs of recordings of the folklore of the North Azovian Greeks were released. They are Of, mana, vai!, with songs performed by the Sartanski Samotsvity ensemble from Sartana, and the Urum-language Dzhanym by the Byr Taifa ensemble from Staryi Krym. These ensembles also took part in the ethnic music and land art festival Sheshory. In 2008, the first textbook of the Urum language was published. What’s more, in recent years, meetings with Roumean and Urum speakers have been organised to familiarise residents and visitors in Kyiv with the unique North Azovian Greek culture. Other important projects include the publication of a new locally generated Urum alphabet (Kyrikiia Khavana) and Roumean alphabet (Mykola Akhbash), and the creation of a video version of the Urum alphabet voiced by its author, Kyrikiia Khavana from Starohnativka.