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Sevastopol as the "City of russian Defeat"

A concept refuting the imperial and Soviet propaganda myth of Sevastopol as the "city of russian glory" ("gorod russkoy slavy"). Historical analysis highlights Sevastopol as the focal point of catastrophic military defeats, strategic mistakes, and destructions of the russian empire and the USSR from the Crimean War to the 20th century.

Overview

The historical and journalistic analysis by Valeriy Verkhovskyi in the study "City of russian Misfortune" debunks the artificially constructed myth of the "city of glory of the russian navy". Instead of triumphs, the history of Sevastopol shows a chain of ignominious defeats that systematically haunted russia due to overconfidence, military-technical backwardness, incompetent command, and the distortion of its own history.

Furthermore, the imperial myth ignores the fact that over 60% of the land forces and crews of the Black Sea Fleet in Crimea were ethnic Ukrainians. At the same time, conscious Ukrainians fought against the russian empire on the side of the Ottoman Empire and the Western coalition — notably the Danubian Cossacks led by Mykhailo Chaikovskyi (Mehmet Sadyk Pasha).

Key Details / Subtopics

  • Defeat in the Crimean War (1853–1856): The 349-day defense of Sevastopol ended with the scuttling of their own ships, the fall of the bastions, and the surrender of the city in September 1855. The russian army suffered defeat due to technical backwardness (only 3–4% of the troops had rifled muskets compared to 33–50% in the coalition), lack of land defense from the rear, and incompetent frontal tactics of the generals.
  • Charge of the Light Brigade at Balaclava (1854): An episode of the October battle of 1854, where due to a misinterpreted order from General Raglan by Captain Nolan, 600 British horsemen charged the positions of a russian artillery battery, forcing the Ural Cossacks to flee. Despite losing 365 cavalrymen, such a decisive attack forced the russians to retreat. The incident led to hearings in the British Parliament and the resignation of Prime Minister Aberdeen. The feat of the cavalry entered world culture (poems by Alfred Tennyson "The Charge of the Light Brigade", Rudyard Kipling, the song by Iron Maiden "The Trooper"), while the russian empire was forced to accept humiliating terms of the Treaty of Paris as a result of the war.
  • World War I and the Scuttling of the Fleet (1918): The consequence of the war was the German occupation of Crimea and another scuttling of the Black Sea Fleet ships by the Bolsheviks, which shattered russia's geopolitical ambitions regarding the Black Sea straits.
  • World War II and the Collapse of the Fleet (1941–1942): Sailors of the Black Sea Fleet were forced to fight as regular infantry due to the loss of ships and inept command, and the city was completely destroyed and surrendered to the enemy for the second time in history.
  • Historical Lesson and the Curse of Distorted History: The distortion of history and boasting of defeats under the guise of "victories" led to Sevastopol becoming a hub of systemic historical disasters for russia ("a city of ignominious defeats, a city of russian misfortune").