Abstract
Grigoriy Alexandrovich Potemkin in the Process of Russia Becoming a Black Sea State 1768-1791
The fact that Potemkin became one of the favorites of the Catherine II fast led to an important progress in his career. The most important and lifelong-lasted job of Potemkin, who was rewarded many ranks and missions from the Queen, was the general governor of the New Russia (Novorossiya). Achieving the domination of Russia over the New Russian lands which contain the lands in the north of the Black Sea, today’s lands of Ukraine, with the suggestions of Aleksandrovich Potemkin assumed importance in the presence of Catherine II. During the 1768-1774 Russo-Turkish Wars, Potemkin observed that General Rumyantsev’s army could not have benefited from those lands in anyway. After that observation, all efforts of Potemkin at New Russian lands were to benefit from that geography for expected Russo-Turkish wars over the following years. In accordance with that aim, Potemkin not only built cities, dockyards, harbors, fleets in the lands in the north of the Black Sea within a short time but carried many people from the Balkans and the different regions of Russia to there in order to change their demographic structures for the benefit of Russia. The political foresight of Potemkin was correct: during the next Russo-Turkish War, the Black Sea region played an important role in terms of economic, military, human, and logistic factors.
Keywords
Catherine II, Grigoriy Aleksandrovich Potemkin, Black Sea, Ukraine, New Russia, Crimea, Nikolaev