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Chornomorske

Chornomorske (in antiquity — Kalos Limen, before 1944 — Ak-Mechet) is an urban-type settlement in Ukraine, the administrative center of the Chornomorske Raion of the AR Crimea, located on the Tarkhankut Peninsula in the west of the Crimean Peninsula.

Overview

The history of Chornomorske reaches back to the 4th century BCE, when Greek colonists founded the city of Kalos Limen ("Beautiful Harbor") here. In the 3rd century BCE it became part of the Chersonesian state. During the period of the Crimean Khanate the settlement bore the name Ak-Mechet (1443–1783). After the annexation of Crimea by the russian empire in 1783, the colonization of the region began and it was settled by migrants from Ukrainian and russian lands. Documentary materials of the local history museum attest to the significant role played by the Ukrainian peasantry in the restoration and development of the settlement's economy in the 18th–20th centuries.

Key Details / Subtopics

  • Antiquity (Kalos Limen): In the 4th century BCE, Greeks from the Lower Buh region and Ionians founded the city of Kalos Limen here. From the 3rd century BCE it belonged to the agrarian Chersonesian state, whose citizens swore an oath of loyalty to the State and undertook to export grain only to Chersonesus.
  • The Middle Ages and the Crimean Khanate period: After the decline of antiquity, Scythians, Huns, Khazars, Byzantium, the retinues of the princes of Kievan Rus, and the Cumans passed through these lands. From 1443 to 1783 the settlement was part of the Crimean Khanate under the name Ak-Mechet.
  • First Ukrainian settlers (18th–19th centuries): After 1783 the lands of Ak-Mechet became part of the Yevpatoria County (in 1864 there were 1,046 migrant households recorded here). Among the first settlers were the Ukrainian families of Ivan Sharpylo, Peretiatko, and Ikho (a photograph of the Ikho family's white daub hut is preserved in the museum). The estates of Popov and Count M. Vorontsov, which supplied thousands of sheep fleeces to the market, were developed through the labor of serf-migrants.
  • The collective-farm period and the interwar era: The 1940 grain-delivery register of the Chornomorske collective farm named after the October Revolution consists predominantly of Ukrainian surnames (Overchuk, Myronchuk, Tykhovod, Voronka, Milkevych, Kovalenko, Romaniuta, Lupynos, Pasichnyk, Vlasiuk, Yarmolenko, Stadnyk, Cherniavskyi, Kalenych, Babych, and others). In the neighboring village of Olenivka, a Ukrainian amateur theater operated until 1941 (a staging of "The Matchmaking at Honcharivka" by H. Kvitka-Osnovianenko).
  • World War II: The lists of Chornomorske natives killed at the front record numerous Ukrainian families (Bilotserkivski, Bohatski, Berko, Herashchenky, Koval, Hudyma, Kobzar, Nudha, Prykhodko, Peresypko, Shynkariuk, as well as descendants of the first settlers Sharpylo and Peretiatko).
  • The question of self-identification: The inhabitants of the old streets of Chornomorske preserved the Ukrainian language and customs, yet through prolonged imperial and Soviet propaganda they long used the ethnonym "Ruski liudy" ("russian people") for themselves, considering the migrants who arrived after 1954 to be "Ukrainians."