The Turbulent Waters of History: A Review of The Black Sea: A History by Charles King

Long overshadowed by its eponymous southern neighbor, the Mediterranean, and confused with its western sister, the Caspian, the Black Sea has remained an important region in need of historical scholarship due to its geographical preeminence, and its long and fabled history. Relevant today with major powers such as Russia, Romania, Ukraine and Turkey all sharing coastline, the Black Sea is often in the news, but far less often, understood in proper historical context.

Professor Charles King’s account of the Black Sea provides a sound survey of the evolution and growth of the societies which have inhabited the shore since the Greeks sailed through the Dardanelles in early classical antiquity. King writes in depth about the establishment of Greek settlements and fortifications that dotted the shores of the Black Sea, first around the Southern shores, and then up to the mouths of the Dniester and the Don, as well as Crimea. King draws upon the preeminent Herodotus in his graphic descriptions of the peoples that dominated the varying lands beyond the sea during antiquity.

Fabled in Greek mythology as the home of the Amazons, King recounts the stereotypes that prevailed in the minds of Greeks about their northern neighbors. Described by Herodotus as savages, King traces the Scythian people from their origins in the vast steppe lands of Central Asia, to then occupying modern day Ukraine, where they conducted trade with the Greeks at their colonies in the region. Fascinatingly, King delves into the cultural friction between the Greeks, who considered themselves superior to the “barbarians” who surrounded them, and the trade nevertheless conducted between these antagonistic peoples on both the Aegean and Black seas. Yet, Anacharsis, a major figure in classical Athens, had Scythian roots, and King explains that, “In Greek literature, Anacharsis was celebrated as the embodiment of practical wisdom despite his barbarian origins” (38). Thus, we see that through the trade conducted at the Greek colonies, diffusion occurred both literally and figuratively through the Bosporus. Later, King draws upon Ovid when explaining the extent of Roman control of, “Pontus Euxinus”. Soon after the subjugation of modern-day Bulgaria (then inhabited by the Daci peoples) by Emperor Augustus, Ovid was sent to the Black Sea to serve his exile. King writes that Ovid complained of the backwardness of the people he lived with, which interestingly mirrors much of the Greek scholarship of the region. Thus, King paints a picture of the Black Sea as a frontier region for the Greco-Roman world of antiquity, where Greek colonies, and later Imperial encampments attracted a milieu of nomads, such as the Cimmerians and the Scythians, serving as an important terminus in the global trading network of that time period.

Of course, with the collapse of the Roman Empire, a powerful Greek speaking empire, known to historians today as the Byzantine empire, rose to prominence with an imperial capital at Constantinople. During this transfer of Roman power and wealth from Rome to Constantinople, the latter city became the most populous city in the world. Yet the significance of this is largely neglected by the author, as he focused on Byzantine relations with the northern littoral of the sea. That part of the Black Sea, in contrast with the south, saw relatively less commerce and exchange of ideas. Rather, it was the stage for a series of nomadic migrations from the Caucasian lowlands and modern-day Mongolia into the fertile plains to the north of the Black Sea. Thus, although the focal point of Byzantine commerce and prowess was certainly concentrated on the southwestern extreme of the Black Sea, its full contribution to the conjoinment of Black Sea history with common world history escapes full development within this historical account.

Perhaps the most intriguing part of the book is the discussion of Italian naval power in the Black Sea in the High Middle Ages, during the epoch of Venice, Genoa, and Pisa. King masterfully weaves together well-known efforts to secure Palestine and expeditions to Constantinople with Italian commercial ambition in the Black Sea. Chronicling the evolution of Black Sea port cities from antiquity to the early modern period, the author writes, “The old Greek colony of Tanais on the Don river, now called Tana by the Italians, became the Venetian doorway to the east and the terminus of the overland route from China and central Asia” (84). These merchants realized the full potential of the Black Sea: a hospitable alternative route for goods traveling from China to the West or vice versa. Rather than face the hardships imposed by the deserts of the Middle East, the Venetians and Genoese preferred to purchase their wares from nomadic middlemen, who could easily access the Black Sea ports from the steppe lands north of the sea.

The Black Sea certainly did not leap into the modern period. Venice and Genoa realized the discoveries of alternative sea routes to the Spice Islands, the Far East, and the settlement of the Americas did not bode well for them. Indeed, simultaneously, the Ottoman empire surged out of Anatolian obscurity to briefly turn the entire sea into an “Ottoman lake” at the height of this power. While the rise and fall of the Ottoman empire is well documented history, King focuses on the expansion of the Russian empire southwards as a fundamental change in the history of the Black Sea.

King documents Russian attempts to first control their borderlands, then establish ports (modern-day Odessa, Kherson, Nikolayev, and Novorossiysk), and finally to colonize the entire region with “ethnic Russians”.

In conclusion, the modern period of the Black Sea is revealed to the reader as a series of tragedies: the world wars, the holocaust, the Armenian genocide, Tatar deportations and so forth. In the closing chapter, King further outlines the industrial pollution and overfishing that have laid waste to the Black Sea in the past several decades. He makes it abundantly clear that the Black Sea is no longer the centerpiece to empires that it was in times past. Yet, it leaves us wondering… what does the future hold for the Black Sea?