History

The Black Sea's history is rich and diverse, stretching back to ancient times. It was home to early civilizations such as the Greeks, Byzantines, and Scythians. The sea served as a crucial trade route, linking Europe with Asia and facilitating the exchange of goods, ideas, and cultures. Throughout history, it has been the site of significant military conflicts, including clashes between the Ottoman Empire and various European powers. The Black Sea has also played a vital role in the cultural and economic development of the surrounding regions, shaping their histories and identities over the centuries.

Ivan Aivazovsky, Black Sea fleet in the Bay of Theodosia (in Odessa)

Mediterranean connection during the Holocene

The Black Sea is connected to the World Ocean by a chain of two shallow straits, the Dardanelles and the Bosporus. The Dardanelles is 55 m (180 ft) deep, and the Bosporus is as shallow as 36 m (118 ft). By comparison, at the height of the last ice age, sea levels were more than 100 m (330 ft) lower than they are now.
There is evidence that water levels in the Black Sea were considerably lower at some point during the post-glacial period. Some researchers theorize that the Black Sea had been a landlocked freshwater lake (at least in upper layers) during the last glaciation and for some time after.
In the aftermath of the last glacial period, water levels in the Black Sea and the Aegean Sea rose independently until they were high enough to exchange water. The exact timeline of this development is still subject to debate. One possibility is that the Black Sea filled first, with excess freshwater flowing over the Bosporus sill and eventually into the Mediterranean Sea. There are also catastrophic scenarios, such as the "Black Sea deluge hypothesis" put forward by William Ryan, Walter Pitman and Petko Dimitrov.

The Black Sea deluge

The Black Sea deluge is a hypothesized catastrophic rise in the level of the Black Sea c. 5600 BC due to waters from the Mediterranean Sea breaching a sill in the Bosporus Strait. The hypothesis was headlined when The New York Times published it in December 1996, shortly before it was published in an academic journal.[85] While it is agreed that the sequence of events described did occur, there is debate over the suddenness, dating, and magnitude of the events. Relevant to the hypothesis is that its description has led some to connect this catastrophe with prehistoric flood myths.

Brief presentation about the recorded history of the Black Sea

The Black Sea was a busy waterway on the crossroads of the ancient world: the Balkans to the west, the Eurasian steppes to the north, the Caucasus and Central Asia to the east, Asia Minor and Mesopotamia to the south, and Greece to the southwest.
The land at the eastern end of the Black Sea, Colchis (in present-day Georgia), marked for the ancient Greeks the edge of the known world.
The Pontic–Caspian steppe to the north of the Black Sea is seen by several researchers as the pre-historic original homeland (Urheimat) of the speakers of the Proto-Indo-European language (PIE).

The Greek influence and the shifting at the end of the Antiquity

Greek presence in the Black Sea began at least as early as the 9th century BC with colonies scattered along the Black Sea's southern coast, attracting traders and colonists due to the grain grown in the Black Sea hinterland. By 500 BC, permanent Greek communities existed all around the Black Sea, and a lucrative trade-network connected the entirety of the Black Sea to the wider Mediterranean. While Greek colonies generally maintained very close cultural ties to their founding polis, Greek colonies in the Black Sea began to develop their own Black Sea Greek culture, known today as Pontic.
The coastal communities of Black Sea Greeks remained a prominent part of the Greek world for centuries, and the realms of Mithridates of Pontus, Rome and Constantinople spanned the Black Sea to include Crimean territories.

The Ottoman sphere of influence

The Black Sea became a virtual Ottoman Navy lake within five years of the Republic of Genoa losing control of the Crimean Peninsula in 1479, after which the only Western merchant vessels to sail its waters were those of Venice's old rival Ragusa. The Black Sea became a trade route of slaves between Crimea and Ottoman Anatolia via the Crimean–Nogai slave raids in Eastern Europe.

The Russian ascension and descent in the maritime area

Imperial Russia became a significant Black Sea power in the late-18th century, occupying the littoral of Novorossiya in 1764 and of Crimea in 1783. Ottoman restrictions on Black Sea navigation were challenged by the Black Sea Fleet (founded in 1783) of the Imperial Russian Navy, and the Ottomans relaxed export controls after the outbreak in 1789 of the French Revolution.
The Crimean War, fought between 1853 and 1856, saw naval engagements between the French and British allies and the forces of Nicholas I of Russia. On the 2 March 1855 death of Nicholas I, Alexander II became Tsar. On 15 January 1856, the new tsar took Russia out of the war on the very unfavourable terms of the Treaty of Paris (1856), which included the loss of a naval fleet on the Black Sea, and the provision that the Black Sea was to be a demilitarized zone similar to a contemporaneous region of the Baltic Sea.

The Black Sea during the World Wars

The Black Sea was a significant naval theatre of World War I (1914–1918) and saw both naval and land battles between 1941 and 1945 during World War II. For example, Sevastopol was obliterated by the Nazis, who even brought Schwerer Gustav to the Siege of Sevastopol (1941–1942). The Soviet naval base was one of the strongest fortifications in the world. Its site, on a deeply eroded, bare limestone promontory at the southwestern tip of the Crimea, made an approach by land forces exceedingly difficult. The high-level cliffs overlooking Severnaya Bay protected the anchorage, making an amphibious landing just as dangerous. The Soviet Navy had built upon these natural defenses by modernizing the port and installing heavy coastal batteries consisting of 180mm and 305mm re-purposed battleship guns which were capable of firing inland as well as out to sea. The artillery emplacements were protected by reinforced concrete fortifications and 9.8-inch thick armored turrets.

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