‘New Russia’ and the Legacies of Settler Colonialism in Southern Ukraine

Abstract Russia’s conquest of the northern shores Black Sea in late eighteenth century and their renaming as ‘New Russia’ contributed to a wider movement colonisation, settlement, re-signification territories worldwide under aegis imperial ideology. The adoption new name was also way erase memory former inhabitants region—in case Southern Ukraine, its Tatar Cossack populations, well Greek Jewish minorities. However, coloniality always up for debate Russian official discourse: because conquests happened contiguous territories, Ukraine both an object colonisation agent further conquest, especially direction Caucasus. Inventing thus asserted colonial ‘oriental’ significance steppes, while entrenching own status suggesting place where future might be.