Beginnings: Khadjibey becomes Odessa

First appearing in written sources around the 15th century, the small coastal village was run by its namesake, Tatar chief Hadji I Giray, when he ceded the land to the Duchy of Lithuania, then a powerful force, for protection.  However, soon the Ottoman empire spread out from Byzantium to conquer Christian villages on the black sea, and saw the advantage of having a military base in Khadjibey, and established Fort Izmail, Grigory Potemkin would order the takedown of over two centuries later in the name of Catherine the Great.

It was here in the crossroads of the hinterlands of the Ottoman, Russian, and Lithuanian empires of the 17th century that existed  the Cossacks, somewhat loyal subjects when it benefitted themselves.  However, they benefitted most from piracy, looting the Ottoman ships that were coming to their own port in Khadjibey.  French engineer Guillaume de Beauplan witnessed these frequent raids, describing them in detail in his Description of Ukraine:

"Their number now approaches 120,000 men, all trained for war... It is these people who often, [indeed] almost every year, go raiding on the Black Sea, to the great detriment of the Turks.  Many times they have plundered Crimea.. ravaged Anatolia, sacked Trebizond...they have laid waste to everything with fire and sword..." 

The cossacks in the future Odessa were much more loyal to the Polish-Lithuanian king, and saw the Ottomans as usurpers into rightful Tatar territory.  Peter the Great attempted to make his own forays into the Black Sea in the early 18th century, but was not successful.  However, his successor was able to "combine strategic daring, technological innovation, and careful diplomacy to present a sustained challenge to the Ottomans and the Crimean Tatars"(King 2011).  From 1768 to 1774, the empress gradually and consistently pushed the Ottoman presence out of the Northern Black Sea, gaining access to the Dnieper and Bug rivers and the Sea of Azov, and Catherine ordered the building of a new naval fleet to outfit the coast.  She appointed Grigory Potemkin the chief developer of the new conquests in Novorossiya, or new Russia, and wanted it all done quickly.  Like Peter the Great had erected his city in a few mere decades, Catherine, who had engraved her name under his on his monument, wanted the same claim to fame.  Potemkin erected fake towns, facades, and English gardens on the steppe in the Crimea and Khadjibey, when in reality, there were nothing but rock foundations for future buildings behind them. Charles-Joseph, Prince de Ligne, attended these displays of fake grandeur, "Potemkin villages", and noted that the empress was "made to believe that towns... are finished, whilst they often are towns without streets, streets without houses, and houses without roofs, doors, or windows" (Ligne, Letters and Reflections, 1: 66).

Later, when the Ottoman empire demanded the return of their lands, and declared war, Potemkin mobilized his troops.  After unsuccessful attempts at naval force with the "father of the U.S. Navy", John Paul Jones, who had come to Russia looking for work (while he was a good privateer, he was not fit for a large fleet), Potemkin appointed Jose De Ribas a, a captain from Naples, as his liaison officer, and De Ribas began to succeed despite John Paul Jones' confusion, and overthrew the Ottoman fort Izmail, formally establishing Russian control over the formerly small village of Khadjibey in 1789.  The news came as a surprise to Potemkin, who was sure it would have taken longer.

Potemkin was not the only one to praise De Ribas.  In his epic Don Juan, Lord Byron writes of him as a savior of the Russian fleet in the Russo-Turkish conflict:

"But the some bastion still kept up its fire, Where the chief pacha calmly held his post: Some twenty times he made the Russ retire, And baffled the assaults of all their host; At length he condescended to inquire If yet the city's rest were won or lost; And being told the latter, sent a bey To answer Ribas' summons to give way" (Byron, Don Juan, 8.120) 

  

Statue of Jose De Ribas in Odessa

He is known as the "Father of Odessa"

(photo from Wikipedia)

After the conflict, De Ribas convinced Catherine that she could turn Khadjibey into the new jewel of the empire.  She was elated, and appointed him the first administrator of the new city.  He had suggested that the new name for the city be Odessos, after the ancient Greek city that was said to have existed near it.  However, it was Catherine's city, and as a female ruler, she thought it imperative that at least one place on the Black Sea have a feminine name.  So Odessos was changed to match the most powerful woman in Europe at the time, to the feminine "Odessa".  It would never be recognizable as Khadjibey ever again.

King, Charles. Odessa: Genius And Death In A City Of Dreams. New York: W.W.
     Norton & Company, Inc., 2011. N. pag. Amazon Kindle. Web. 4 Apr. 2012.