Draft:Serbs in Odessa

Serbs in Odessa date to the most recent recorded time. During the 19th and early 20th centuries, the Serbs in the Black Sea port city of Odessa played a significant role in the economic, social, educational and cultural life. Odessa as a city was created at the end of the 18th century, after the expulsion of the Turks from this area of the Black Sea coast.

In ancient times, there was a Greek colony of Odesos on the site of today's Odessa. On the same site, during the time of Kievan Rus', the Kotljubijevo fortress was built, which was destroyed by the Tatars in 1540. At the time of Turkish rule, the Hadjibey fortress was located on the site of today's Odessa. In the Russian-Turkish war, in 1791, it was conquered by the Russian army led by the legendary general Alexander Vasilevich Suvorov. Immediately after the conquest, Suvorov built a new fortress in 1792. By decree of the Russian Empress Catherine II of Russia, in 1795, the city of Odessa was founded, named after the old Greek colony. Numerous Serbs lived in Odessa, or stayed for longer and shorter periods of time.

"Most of them are Russians, followed by Serbs"
Joakim Vujić, a Serbian theater actor and travel writer, in the early forties of the 19th century decided to travel around Eastern European countries, after which he published a book in Belgrade in 1845 under the title: Travels in Hungary, Wallachia, Moldavia, Bessarabia, Kherson and Crimea. In this book, Vujić described Odessa and prominent Serbs in this city.

During the half century that it existed before the arrival of Vujić, Odessa experienced great prosperity. At the time it was liberated from the Turks, it was "just a small shabby town with a few huts and poor huts covered with hay and straw. After the summer of 1794, it began to be built as a town, as well as a pier, and its first founder was General Suvorov, who laid the foundation stone for this new town, and after him came a French prince named Richelieu, who arranged, divided and perfected it according to a new plan, then in the summer of 1795 this town was renamed from Hajibej in Odessa By the Black Sea, and it is a newer town, but in terms of beauty, it ranks third in the entire Russian Empire, in other words: the first is Petersburg, the second is Moscow, the third is the same Odessa," noted Vujić in the mentioned part.

At the beginning of the 19th century, thanks to the privileges of Emperor Alexander I, the rapid growth of this city began, where merchants from various countries came, including Serbs. "There are up to 8,000 houses in Odessa, and 50,000 inhabitants, most of whom are Russians, followed by Serbs, Germans, Italians, French, Spaniards..." He also mentions Tatars and Jews. The first Serb who gained a great reputation among the merchants was Filip Lučić. According to Vujić, this rich merchant built "a beautiful building". Vujić also mentions other prominent Serbian merchants in Odessa. They were: Petar Popović, Drago Koturić, Vid Milutinović, Aleksandar Damjanović, Luka Ožegović, Antonije Kvekić and others.

Many Serbs lived in Odessa, among them scientific, educational and cultural leaders, bankers and merchants who also distinguished themselves as benefactors. Pushkin liked to stay there.

Jovan Riznić, in his time the richest merchant in Odessa, was a patron of the arts. He introduced Italian Opera in Odessa.

A native of Trieste, originally from a family from Herzegovina, he graduated from Dositej's school in Riznić's native Trieste. From there he studied commerce and law in Padua and Vienna. In the 1820s, he came to Odessa and in a short time became wealthy through trade. During the Russo-Turkish war in 1828-1829, for the services he rendered to the Russian army, Tsar Nicholas I Romanov awarded him the Order of St. Vladimir and the rank of court adviser. The following year, in 1830, Riznić left the trade and joined the civil service. He worked for a while in Odessa, and then moved to Kyiv, where he became the director of the State Bank. At that time, he was promoted to the position of State Counselor. In 1853, he left the civil service, retired to his estate Gopčica near Kiev, where he died in 1861.

He donated his rich library to the National Library in Belgrade.

In the home of Riznić in Odessa, in the twenties of the 19th century, there was a well-known literary salon, which was visited by famous people from the political, economic and cultural life of Odessa.

A special place among the guests in the literary salon belonged to A. S. Pushkin. Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin, the great Russian poet, the progenitor of the new Russian literature, stayed in 1823-1824. in Odessa among the Serbs in the home of the Riznić family.

Pushkin got acquainted with advanced ideas at the Lyceum in Tsarsko Selo. In the creativity of the young Pushkin, the patriotic pride and struggle of the Russian people were united, against the oppression and exploitation led by the imperial government.

The social rebellion he expressed in political and anti-religious verses provoked the revolt of Tsar Alexander I who decided to exile Pushkin to Siberia or the Solovetsky Monastery. Under the influence of Pushkin's friends, the tsar replaced the original decision with banishment to Mugh, under the pretext that he was posted to Yekaterinoslav, in the office of General N. I. Inzov. Having stayed in the Crimea for some time due to illness, in September 1820 he arrived in Chisinau, in the office of the aforementioned general, now the viceroy of the Bessarabian region. He stayed here until July 1823 and connected with the revolutionary movement of the Russian intelligentsia and officers.

At the time of Pushkin's stay in Chisinau and Odessa, there were many Serbs in these cities. While in Chisinau, after the failure of the First Serbian Uprising, many insurgents lived in exile with their families, until then in Odessa, in the Serbian trading colony, numerous Serbs lived and created, who were responsible for the culture of their diaspora and new homeland, as well as the people from which they came. .

Many well-known Serbs came to Pushkin, who lived in Chisinau in the house of the Greek merchant Liprandi.

Pushkin was met by the Russian academician, Serb, Atanasije Stojković, rector and professor of the University of Kharkov, Duke Jakov Nenadović, guardian of internal affairs in Karađorđe's Serbia, with his son Jevrem, a hussar imperial officer, as well as Stefan Živković, a writer who introduced Pushkin to works of Vuk Karadžić. The writer Lazar Arsenijević Batalaka also lived in Chisinau at that time and taught the children of richer Serbian refugees. Here Pushkin met Karađorđe's son Alexander Petrović, a Russian imperial officer, and his sisters and mother. He sang one of his "Serbian" songs to Karađorđe's youngest daughter, Stamenka. In his poetry, he introduced the legendary and mythical figure of the leader of the Serbian revolution, leader Karađorđe.

During his stay in Bessarabia, Pushkin also went to Izmail, where he stayed in the home of Serb Nikola Slavić. Here he met Irina, Slavić's cousin, who sang Serbian folk songs for him, translating them into Russian.

Through his friends, Pushkin moved to Odessa in the home of Jovan Riznić in 1823. The soul of the literary salon was Riznić's wife - Amalija, who belonged to the famous Serbian count family Nako from Banat. In her honor, Pushkin sang songs dedicated to "Mrs. Riznić". These warm lyrical poems entered all collections of Pushkin's lyrics, and her portraits drawn by his hand are in the manuscript of "Evgeny Onegin".

In numerous meetings with Serbs, Pushkin got acquainted with their history, folk creativity and actors of the uprising.

"Serbian woman" for three thousand thalers
Sima Milutinović Sarajlija of Sarajevo published his most significant work, Srbijanka (Serbian woman), with the material help of Jovan Riznić. A native of Sarajevo, Sima Milutinović was a forerunner of Serbian romanticism. In the history of Serbian literature, he was marked as the forerunner of Branko Radičević, and he also inspired NJEgoš to "high thought flights and dramatic presentation of historical events".

After the failure of the First Serbian Uprising, Sima Milutinović arrived in Chisinau, where many escaped Serbian insurgents lived. Here he completed the writing of Srbijanka, which represents an extensive poetic history of the First Serbian Uprising, in fifteen thousand verses of folk tenets. It represents the first major attempt to create in the spirit of folk poetry and is among the significant works of Serbian national romantic poetry.

On the recommendation of the Serbs from Chisinau and Odessa, Jovan Riznić provided him with three thousand thalers for printing and another hundred thalers for the next three years, until the book is finished. Sima Milutinović fulfilled his promise to Riznić and the Serbian woman appeared in Leipzig in 1826.

Atanasije Gereski, a rich merchant, public benefactor, was a prominent member of the Serbian colony in Odessa. A native of Eerević in Srem, he studied commerce in Dunafeldvar and in Vienna, before reaching Trieste. After a short stay in this city, among prominent Serbian shipowners, bankers and merchants, he arrived in Odessa at a time when this city began to grow into a strong maritime and trade centre. Through diligence and skill, he acquired enough funds to open an independent shop. Soon, he became one of the richest and largest merchants in Odessa. He was elected to various positions of honour and as a deputy in the Trade Council, and for his economic merits he received high awards.

After half a century of living in Odessa, in the seventies of the 19th century, he returned to his homeland and settled with his wife in Eerević, where he "did many good deeds" for the poor. After the death of his wife, in 1880, he moved to Novi Sad. In his desire to help the "spiritual development of Serbian youth", he gave a huge sum of twenty thousand Russian rubles for the opening of a dormitory next to the Serbian Orthodox High School in Novi Sad under the name Atanaseum. From 1885, when Gereski died, until 1914, when the First World War broke out, about sixty cadets enjoyed the "Athanaseum" scholarship, including the later president of Matica srpska Tihomir Ostojić and the Slavist Radovan Košutić, who completed his studies in Odessa In 1883, he bequeathed his estate to Matica Srpska, with the provision that the Atanasi Gereski Fund was established "for awarding Serbian literary works or for supporting deserving and poor Serbian writers, with occasional or permanent annual support". Among the many writers, support was provided to the great poet Aleksa Šantić, at the time when he was seriously ill.

Ličanin, court adviser
Dimitrije Tirol, the Serbian cultural envoy, left precious records about the Serbs in Odessa and in the Russian Empire. A native of Đakovo, where Dositej Obradović was also born, as a writer and historian, as a respected cultural worker, he wrote books, collaborated in newspapers and magazines, published almanacs and calendars, founded libraries and associations of book lovers. He especially emphasized that he is a "Serbian writer and a member of the learned society in Odessa".

Dimitrije Tirol's stay in Odessa from 1839 to 1841, although short in time, was fruitful in terms of results. He got to know the life of the Serbian diaspora in this Black Sea city. At the same time, he introduced the Russian public to cultural and educational opportunities and the history of the Serbian people. He collected significant historical material about the Serbs in the Russian Empire, which he used to write monographic works.

The most famous work he wrote on the basis of the material collected in Odessa is The Tale of the Ancients of Trebješ. In addition, he also wrote a monograph on Count Mikhail Miloradović.

During his stay in Odesa, he met and worked closely with Dimitrije Maksimović Knjažević, the trustee of the Odesa Scientific District, the founder of the Odesa Society of History and Antiquity. After returning to Belgrade, Tirol dedicated the book Podvizi Dimitrije Maksimović Knjažević to this famous Serb. Dimitrije Knjažević, born in Petrograd, came from a Serbian border family from Lika, where his father immigrated, who raised four sons, including Dimitrije.

Knjažević completed his law studies at the University of Kazan. He became a court adviser, and for four or four years he was in the diplomatic service in Vienna. Upon his return, he became the vice-governor of Petrograd. He is the recipient of several imperial decorations. He became a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences in 1838. In 1838, he was appointed a trustee of the Odessa Scientific District. The powers of this institution extended to several governorates: Kherson, Tavričes, Yekaterinoslav, as well as Bessarabia. Among the educational institutions in this area were: a lyceum, six gymnasiums and about forty secondary schools and colleges. The Odesa Society of History and Antiquity, of which Knjažević became the first president, since its foundation in 1839 became a scientific center for the study of the Ukrainian Black Sea region. In 1844, Knjažević started a magazine called Zapisi, which was the organ of the Society. Contributions from history, archaeology, ethnography, numismatics, geography and statistics were published in it.

Favorite literature, Vuk proverbs
Platon Simonović, professor of the Richelieu Lyceum in Odessa, state adviser, came from a distinguished Serbian family. Dimitrije Tirol talks about him in a letter to Vuk Karadžić in 1840, which he sent to him from Odessa. In the letter, he emphasizes that "this learned husband, Mr. Simonović, appreciates and respects you more than any other Serbian literati". On the occasion of Vuk's conflict with Jovan Hadžić, regarding the reform of the Serbian language and spelling, Tirol informs Karadžić that Simonović "these days read your review of Hadžić and his reaction to your review and says that you wrote the fundamentals". In the same letter, Tirol emphasizes that Serbs in Odessa and Srpsko Selo (Serbian village) near Odessa enjoy reading his works. In this regard, he cites the example of Obrenija Mihajlovna, "who is married to Miloš, the son of Archpriest Rade Simonović, lives in Srpsko Selo and often reads your folk proverbs. You should also renumber her and send her a copy of your poems as a gift, because she will she likes it, rather than anyone giving her God knows what".

The career of a "monumental" actor
Vasilije Lučić Dalmatov, a prominent drama artist, came from the Serbian Lučić family, one of the most respected merchant families in Odessa. He started acting in his native Odessa as a student at the Richelieu Lyceum, and as a young man he ended up in Moscow, at the Taneyev and Ursov Theatre. He stayed here until 1873, to continue his acting career at the Pushkin Theater. He reached the pinnacle of his artistic career when he moved to Petrograd in 1884, to the most famous Alexandrine Theater in the capital. Here he got big roles and became the favourite champion of the Petrograd audience. It was written about him: "The drawing of those roles was distinguished by its inner content, richness and depth, brightness, juiciness, monumentality."

As a versatile theater intellectual, he participated in the founding and work of the Petrograd Literary-Artistic Circle, which grew into the Circle Theatre Company, and later again into the Theatre of the Artistic Society, and eventually turned into the Suvorin Theatre. Those who knew Vasilije Lučić Dalmatov considered him extremely intelligent, and at the same time very charming. His motto was: "An actor must always have a suitcase ready and profess the philosophy of stoicism." He remained loyal to the Alexandrine Theatre until the end of his life (1912). For many reasons, Vasilije Lučić Dalmatov was rated as "one of our compatriots who achieved the most in his field on the side".

Great War
The First World War represented a major turning point in the history of the Serbian people. Against their will, Serbs from the territory of Austria-Hungary found themselves on the Eastern Front. Not wanting to fight for the interests of the Habsburg Monarchy against Slavic and Orthodox Russia, many Serbs, as well as other Slavs, surrendered to the Russian army, demanding that they join the Serbian army as volunteers, which fought bravely against the forces of the Central Powers, taking of the war, two great victories in battles of Cer and Kolubara. The largest number of prisoners was in the territory of Ukraine. Their center was the Kiev prison camp in Darnica. Apart from Kiev, tens of thousands of prisoners of Serbs and other Slavs were also in Odessa, Kharkiv and Yekaterinoslav provinces. The desire of these prisoners to fight on the side of the Serbian army was accepted by the Russian government. In the summer of 1915, in an agreement with the Serbian government, the organized transfer of volunteers from Ukraine, across the Danube to Serbia, began. By the end of August 1915, about 3,500 volunteers were transferred to Serbia. Bulgaria's entry into the war on the side of the Central Powers in October 1915, however, made it impossible to further transfer volunteers to Serbia with Serbian command. The gathering centre became Odessa. Here, at the organized gathering of volunteers, the most important role was played by the Serbian consul Marko Cemović and the representative of the Serbian government, Milan Šainović. In November 1915, a Serbian volunteer detachment was formed in Odessa, which at the beginning of 1916 had about a thousand soldiers and officers. Accepting the request of the Serbian government to form volunteer units from volunteers in Russia, the Russian high command agreed with Tsar Nicholas II allowed the Serbs, and with them other Yugoslavs who were in POW camps in Russia, to gather in military commands, under the leadership of officers of the Serbian army, as an integral part of it.

The Yugoslav program in the "Slovenian South"
The first Serbian volunteer division was formed on April 16, 1916 in Odessa. It consisted of nearly 10,000 volunteers, and its commander was Colonel Stevan Hadžić. During May 1916, Serbian volunteers in Odessa were visited by Nikola Pašić, Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Serbia. By the decision of the Russian Supreme Command, the First Serbian Volunteer Division was included in the 47th Russian Corps and sent to the front in Dobruja. At that time, there were close to 20,000 volunteers in this division.

In cooperation with Russian and Romanian troops in the battles against Bulgarian, Turkish and German units that lasted from August 24 to October 16, 1916, half of the formation was thrown out of service. Over 2,000 of them lost their lives or disappeared.

In October 1916, the division was withdrawn to the rear. Despite heavy losses, the influx of volunteers enabled the formation of the Second Serbian Volunteer Division in Odessa, which included over 11,000 volunteers. In the fall of 1916, the Serbian Volunteer Corps was formed, whose commander was General Mihailo Živković. On the eve of the February Revolution of 1917, it had about 40,000 volunteers. The corps headquarters was located in Odessa; the headquarters of the First Division in Voznesensk, and the Second Division in Aleksandrovsk. On April 17, 1917, the newspaper "Slovenski jug" was launched in Odessa, which was published until 1918. The newspaper presented a program, which advocated the creation of a single state of the South Slavs, with "the possession of the entire territory inhabited by the South Slavs since ancient times." In the conditions of the growing revolutionary mood, revolutionary ideas began to spread among the volunteers within the Serbian Volunteer Corps. ideas. The revolutionary movement became massive after the February Revolution of 1917. At the end of March 1917, the initiative for the creation of military soviets within the Volunteer Corps came from the ranks of lower officers. The initiative was supported and encouraged by the revolutionary soviets of the Ukrainian population in the area between Odessa and Voznesensk, where units of the Serbian Volunteer Corps were stationed. The command of the Volunteer Corps tried to prevent the penetration of revolutionary ideas among the volunteers. In this sense, General Živković, by order of April 18, 1917, introduced company, regimental and divisional councils, as well as the Corps Assembly, with the intention of influencing the political mood in the units through them, but achieved little results. Of committed volunteers in Odessa proclaimed "Federative Yugoslavia as an ideal".

Federative Yugoslavia
It was pointed out that "the Russian revolution and the victory of Russian democracy mean a new era in the history of mankind, and therefore the Russian revolution cannot remain only Russian". Alliance organizations were created among Yugoslav volunteers throughout Ukraine. Supporters of the revolutionary movement began to leave the volunteer corps. There was a breakdown of its composition. In the summer of 1917, the Volunteer Corps, compared to the situation before the February Revolution, was halved. There were about 20,000 volunteers in it. At the time of the October Revolution in 1917, volunteers actively participated in the battles in the units of the Red Army. At the end of the summer of 1917, the First Serbian Volunteer Division was again sent to the front in Dobrudja, but due to the dissatisfaction of the army, it was soon withdrawn. The second, with part of the first division, was sent via Arkhangelsk to the Thessaloniki front, where it arrived in December 1917. Part of the volunteers remained in Russia, where they were caught by the outbreak of the October Revolution. They were sent via Siberia to Dayren in the Far East, from where they were transferred by British ships to the Thessaloniki front, where they arrived in February 1918. In this way, around 12,500 Yugoslav volunteers from Russia found themselves on this front. As part of the allied units, they participated in the breakthrough of the Thessaloniki front and the liberation of the homeland in 1918.