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El mar Negro: Del siglo de Pericles a la actualidad (Tiempo de Memoria)
Siguiendo un itinerario que va rodeando este extraño mar interior, El mar Negro abarca cronológicamente desde la época de Heródoto hasta Yeltsin, desde la expedición de los argonautas en busca del vellocino de oro hasta la última década del siglo XX y la caída de los estados comunistas. Ascherson, en su recorrido, revela así al lector, con la amenidad de un libro de viajes, los numerosos secretos de una región en la que, como los Balcanes, los conflictos parecen sempiternos, y en la que comparten mar países tan dispares como Turquía, Georgia, Armenia, Rusia, Ucrania, Rumania, Bulgaria y Grecia. Reconstruye además ante nosotros un microcosmos a partir de apuntes antropológicos e investigaciones arqueológicas, sin olvidar contarnos memorables historias de gentes de todos los tiempos, como la de un oscuro orador del siglo II o la de un fascinante espía polaco en tiempos del auge del nacionalismo en el siglo XIX.
428 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1995
72 people are currently reading
1726 people want to read
About the author
Neal Ascherson
67 books39 followersCharles Neal Ascherson (b. 1932) is a Scottish journalist and writer.
He was born in Edinburgh and educated at Eton and King's College, Cambridge, where he read history and graduated with a triple starred first. He was described by the historian Eric Hobsbawm as "perhaps the most brilliant student I ever had. I didn't really teach him much, I just let him get on with it."
Ascherson's books include The King Incorporated: Leopold II (1963), The Polish August (1982), The Struggles for Poland (1987), Games with Shadows (1989), Black Sea (1996), Stone Voices (2002), and The Death of the Fronsac (2017).
He was the cental and eastern Europe correspondent for The Observer for many years. He also covered southern and central Africa for The Observer and The Scotsman from 1969 - 1989 and was the politics correspondent for The Scotsman from 1975 - 1979.
In the aftemath of Scotland's first devolution referendum in 1979, Ascherson was one of the editors of The Bulletin of Scottish Politics (1980-81). From 1998 until 2008, he was editor of Public Archaeology, a journal from the Institute of Archaeology at UCL, as well as a columnist for The Observer and Independent on Sunday 1985 - 2008.
He lives in London and Argyll.
He was born in Edinburgh and educated at Eton and King's College, Cambridge, where he read history and graduated with a triple starred first. He was described by the historian Eric Hobsbawm as "perhaps the most brilliant student I ever had. I didn't really teach him much, I just let him get on with it."
Ascherson's books include The King Incorporated: Leopold II (1963), The Polish August (1982), The Struggles for Poland (1987), Games with Shadows (1989), Black Sea (1996), Stone Voices (2002), and The Death of the Fronsac (2017).
He was the cental and eastern Europe correspondent for The Observer for many years. He also covered southern and central Africa for The Observer and The Scotsman from 1969 - 1989 and was the politics correspondent for The Scotsman from 1975 - 1979.
In the aftemath of Scotland's first devolution referendum in 1979, Ascherson was one of the editors of The Bulletin of Scottish Politics (1980-81). From 1998 until 2008, he was editor of Public Archaeology, a journal from the Institute of Archaeology at UCL, as well as a columnist for The Observer and Independent on Sunday 1985 - 2008.
He lives in London and Argyll.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 104 reviews
October 22, 2022
I’m reading this book while auditing Timothy Snyder’s Yale University course online, The Making of Modern Ukraine. This book is on the syllabus. You can join, too.
The book is concerned with the many peoples who lived on the coast of the Black Sea from roughly 1,500 BC to just after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. It reminds me of two other books; one is Danube: A Sentimental Journey from the Source to the Black Sea by Claudio Magris, the other is a trilogy books by Patrick Leigh-Fermor that begins with the volume A Time of Gifts.
It begins in 1991 when the author visited Crimea just as a coup was being perpetrated against Mikhail Gorbachev by septuagenarian generals. Gorbachev was holidaying in Foros that summer and Ascheson happened to be visiting historical sites nearby.
There are some books I think as interstitial reads. In that they tie together for me many seemingly disparate narratives. The writing is tied together by an element of memoir, and, grounded in a description of the Black Sea peoples. Consider this passage about the Cossacks:
“The Cossacks were the last of many steppe peoples to inhabit the Black Sea plains in the old way. And yet they were in some respects unlike their predecessors. The Cossacks were never true nomads, who migrated in wagons behind their herds as the Tatar of the Golden Horde did, or the first Scythians and Sarmatians. The Cossack hosts were ramshackle rafts onto which all kinds of fugitives and adventurers had scrambled, and their economy was mixed: they were as much village-based free peasants as they were horse- and cattle-breeding pastoralists.
“Politically, Cossack unity was never more than a matter of short episodes in history. Nothing emerged with the stability and complexity of the Scythian kingdoms, or of the Crimean Tatar Khanate. When commercial port-cities revived again along the Black Sea coast after the Russian conquests of Peter and Catherine, the Cossacks were not capable of acting as partners and protectors, as the Scythian steppe lords had been to the Greek cities and the Tatar khans to the Italians, but fell instead into subjection. Compared to the Indo-Iranian peoples of antiquity, and to some the Turkic peoples who followed them, the Cossacks were primitive. Force, race and maleness are seldom the values of a stable and traditional society, but rather of bandits.” (p. 110)
Or this one about the founding of Odessa.
“The city went up with a rush. Two years after its official inauguration, held on a dusty building-site on the cliffs between the Steppe and the sea, Odessa had a cathedral, a stock exchange and a censorship office. There were just more than two thousand settlers at the end of the first twelvemonth, in 1795, and by 1814 there were 35,000. That was the year when Richelieu, the true founder, climbed into his coach among lamenting crowds and set off back to France. He took with him one small trunk containing his uniform and two shirts. Everything else had been given away. His salary was paid into the fund for distressed immigrants. His books were left behind to form the library of the Odessa school which he had founded, and which later took his name: the Lycée Richelieu.
“This was a man of the Enlightenment: energetic, austere, universal, lonely. Richelieu, whose statue notches the sky at the summit of the Odessa Steps, was happier among immigrants than among the Russian bureaucrats whom he commanded. As the city prefect and then as the governor-general of New Russia, he looked forward to creating another America in which the displaced and the ambitious of all countries would gather to live and to trade in freedom. Serfdom did not follow Russian and Ukrainian peasants who arrived as settlers, and Richelieu carefully embedded them among. German, Greek, Moldavian, Jewish and Swiss colonies, who would teach them both agriculture in the practice of liberty.” (p. 138)
The book reminds me of Robert Byron’s The Road to Oxiana, though Burton focussed on antiquities whereas Ascherson’s concern is peoples.
The book is concerned with the many peoples who lived on the coast of the Black Sea from roughly 1,500 BC to just after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. It reminds me of two other books; one is Danube: A Sentimental Journey from the Source to the Black Sea by Claudio Magris, the other is a trilogy books by Patrick Leigh-Fermor that begins with the volume A Time of Gifts.
It begins in 1991 when the author visited Crimea just as a coup was being perpetrated against Mikhail Gorbachev by septuagenarian generals. Gorbachev was holidaying in Foros that summer and Ascheson happened to be visiting historical sites nearby.
There are some books I think as interstitial reads. In that they tie together for me many seemingly disparate narratives. The writing is tied together by an element of memoir, and, grounded in a description of the Black Sea peoples. Consider this passage about the Cossacks:
“The Cossacks were the last of many steppe peoples to inhabit the Black Sea plains in the old way. And yet they were in some respects unlike their predecessors. The Cossacks were never true nomads, who migrated in wagons behind their herds as the Tatar of the Golden Horde did, or the first Scythians and Sarmatians. The Cossack hosts were ramshackle rafts onto which all kinds of fugitives and adventurers had scrambled, and their economy was mixed: they were as much village-based free peasants as they were horse- and cattle-breeding pastoralists.
“Politically, Cossack unity was never more than a matter of short episodes in history. Nothing emerged with the stability and complexity of the Scythian kingdoms, or of the Crimean Tatar Khanate. When commercial port-cities revived again along the Black Sea coast after the Russian conquests of Peter and Catherine, the Cossacks were not capable of acting as partners and protectors, as the Scythian steppe lords had been to the Greek cities and the Tatar khans to the Italians, but fell instead into subjection. Compared to the Indo-Iranian peoples of antiquity, and to some the Turkic peoples who followed them, the Cossacks were primitive. Force, race and maleness are seldom the values of a stable and traditional society, but rather of bandits.” (p. 110)
Or this one about the founding of Odessa.
“The city went up with a rush. Two years after its official inauguration, held on a dusty building-site on the cliffs between the Steppe and the sea, Odessa had a cathedral, a stock exchange and a censorship office. There were just more than two thousand settlers at the end of the first twelvemonth, in 1795, and by 1814 there were 35,000. That was the year when Richelieu, the true founder, climbed into his coach among lamenting crowds and set off back to France. He took with him one small trunk containing his uniform and two shirts. Everything else had been given away. His salary was paid into the fund for distressed immigrants. His books were left behind to form the library of the Odessa school which he had founded, and which later took his name: the Lycée Richelieu.
“This was a man of the Enlightenment: energetic, austere, universal, lonely. Richelieu, whose statue notches the sky at the summit of the Odessa Steps, was happier among immigrants than among the Russian bureaucrats whom he commanded. As the city prefect and then as the governor-general of New Russia, he looked forward to creating another America in which the displaced and the ambitious of all countries would gather to live and to trade in freedom. Serfdom did not follow Russian and Ukrainian peasants who arrived as settlers, and Richelieu carefully embedded them among. German, Greek, Moldavian, Jewish and Swiss colonies, who would teach them both agriculture in the practice of liberty.” (p. 138)
The book reminds me of Robert Byron’s The Road to Oxiana, though Burton focussed on antiquities whereas Ascherson’s concern is peoples.
January 17, 2021
The Black Sea cities of Odessa, Sevastopol, Trabzon and of course Istanbul all conjure up the exotic for me, which drew me to this book in the first place. It comes across as a very well researched book, filled with excellent history, politics, culture and anthropology, as well as cataloguing the authors own travel in the area around the Black Sea.
But I suspect my review and probably more-so my reading of this book probably don't do it justice. For me, there was just too much to take in. I am not such a thorough reader to be able to cope with so much information in a constant stream, and having completed the book, the vast majority of information is instantly lost to me. Perhaps a more scholarly reader would take notes or formulate their own time-line to track the vast wealth of information contained here, but that isn't me, and is not why I read. As it was I had to read this in stints of a couple of chapters at a time, with another book in between. Other reviewers have commented on the complexity, so I don't feel too bad about being a bit lost at times - my knowledge of the area around the Black Sea is fairly minimal.
Other reviewers have picked up on biases (which I did not find or notice), or indicated that the jumping time-line is too complex, (the book seems to have a chapter arranged around a theme, and this enables Ascherson to jump about in the timeline, this didn't bother me as a way to arrange the book, but it didn't help me sort it all out in my head!).
4 stars, but perhaps more or less if I understood it more!
But I suspect my review and probably more-so my reading of this book probably don't do it justice. For me, there was just too much to take in. I am not such a thorough reader to be able to cope with so much information in a constant stream, and having completed the book, the vast majority of information is instantly lost to me. Perhaps a more scholarly reader would take notes or formulate their own time-line to track the vast wealth of information contained here, but that isn't me, and is not why I read. As it was I had to read this in stints of a couple of chapters at a time, with another book in between. Other reviewers have commented on the complexity, so I don't feel too bad about being a bit lost at times - my knowledge of the area around the Black Sea is fairly minimal.
Other reviewers have picked up on biases (which I did not find or notice), or indicated that the jumping time-line is too complex, (the book seems to have a chapter arranged around a theme, and this enables Ascherson to jump about in the timeline, this didn't bother me as a way to arrange the book, but it didn't help me sort it all out in my head!).
4 stars, but perhaps more or less if I understood it more!
September 18, 2016
The Black Sea is a well written if, at times, a rather self indulgent book. The book is not really about the Black Sea in its entirety - great tracts of its coastline are ignored and the historical gems are chosen to meet the interests and sometimes political prejudices of its author.
Romania, Bulgaria and half the Turkish coastline are ignored. Ascherson goes hurtling off to the North West on a lengthy tour of matters Polish-Lithuanian that barely connect with the Sea. He also has a clear anti-Russian bent and the book is very much of its near-Cold War time (1995).
Having said this, the book is a good educated light read, a mixture of well researched history, anthropology and anecdote from his own regional travels (with a bit of topography) that, other than the Polish indulgence (he clearly likes Poles as much as he dislikes Soviets), entertains.
Ascherson is a Scot and a small nation man. Start with an understanding of that prejudice and you will be able to filter out his politics and his bias and better enjoy the narrative. He is also a classic metropolitan liberal which is not always a bad thing when it comes to thinking about colonialism.
Although the book is not going to give you a balanced history of a vital European region, possibly more vital as Russia fights back against its containment, many of the stories he tells will be new to many people and so worth reading.
If there is a political theme beyond his mere prejudice, it is that nationalisms are inventions (fairly standard academic stuff) and that the claims of those he does not like are pretty invalid and those that he does like are notable for being inclusive liberal nationalisms. I sense a man of 1848.
Strip all that ideology away and he is good on the Greek-Scythian relationship in the classical era and introduces us to locally important cultures scarcely known to the West such as the Sarmatians, the Bosporan Kingdom and the Empire of Trebizond.
He tells a good story about the tragic events in Abkhazia and visits Crimea after the fall of the Soviet Union (he is pro-Tatar). He offers a rather sinister tale (to me though perhaps not to him) of the recent invention of Lazi nationalism by a late Herderian German academic.
In fact, Ascherson is not a little incoherent and sentimental about nationalism. He sort of likes it if it is for the little people and dislikes it if it is for the big people. There is, in this, all the fluffy sentimentality and near-permanent outrage at oppression of the cosmopolitan liberal.
Indeed, his prejudices become not a little irritating after a while. Now that Crimea and Novorossiya are back in the news, one could almost write his paragraphs for him about current events, at least based on this book.
But, putting all that aside, he tells a good story. He is a good journalist (a journalist does not have to be a coherent 'thinker'). When his implicit ideology is allowed to rest, his judgements can be sound and humane - sometimes, you can even see the questioning side of him break through.
Not exactly a wholly coherent book but a nice piece of international affairs entertainment. A recommendation as a holiday read for someone planning to go on a holiday visit to the region (assuming it is not Bulgaria or Romania or Turkey West of Sinop).
I can't imagine too many people planning holidays today in Odessa, Novorossiya, Crimea, Georgia or North East Turkey but, if such people are out there, this would be a good book for the journey and for the hotel.
June 27, 2020
Such an interesting and well-researched story about tribes I knew little about before reading this book. Fascinating history of the area and highly recommended if you want to know about the region around The Black Sea. The book includes details about the sea itself and the life that lives in it.
May 6, 2020
Independence always has an aspect of amputation.
There was a certain caprice to The Black Sea. It should be noted that it was published in 1995, the year of the Dayton Accords. History was parsed to serve some arguments and entire coasts of the body of water were ignored whether because it didn't serve the narrative is left unresolved. I did enjoy it, though it isn't in the same league as the Fermor.
This is a book about identities, and about the use of mirrors to magnify or distort identity -- the disguises of nationalism.
Ascherson favors the reclamation of Herodotus (especially from his Victorian critics) as surveyor but finds himself dismissing Bruce Chatwin and Edward Said. That isn't an attempt to equate the three figures but just an illustration of how fashions change and by its nature archeology plumbs and reveals. There is an interesting dynamic where Ascherson contends that contrary to the classic core/periphery dynamic where the barbarians at the gate destroyed the stabilizing influences of a Hellenes or Roman project, it was excessive consumption on the part of the polis which bleached the arable land and soured the water, forcing glance outward. He also makes an interesting point about how periphery aspects of certain ethnicities such as a Bosnian Serbs or Cossacks assume an ultra representation of their mythic Motherland.
There was a certain caprice to The Black Sea. It should be noted that it was published in 1995, the year of the Dayton Accords. History was parsed to serve some arguments and entire coasts of the body of water were ignored whether because it didn't serve the narrative is left unresolved. I did enjoy it, though it isn't in the same league as the Fermor.
This is a book about identities, and about the use of mirrors to magnify or distort identity -- the disguises of nationalism.
Ascherson favors the reclamation of Herodotus (especially from his Victorian critics) as surveyor but finds himself dismissing Bruce Chatwin and Edward Said. That isn't an attempt to equate the three figures but just an illustration of how fashions change and by its nature archeology plumbs and reveals. There is an interesting dynamic where Ascherson contends that contrary to the classic core/periphery dynamic where the barbarians at the gate destroyed the stabilizing influences of a Hellenes or Roman project, it was excessive consumption on the part of the polis which bleached the arable land and soured the water, forcing glance outward. He also makes an interesting point about how periphery aspects of certain ethnicities such as a Bosnian Serbs or Cossacks assume an ultra representation of their mythic Motherland.
July 17, 2011
I am flipping through this book now and wishing that I remembered even a tenth of its contents. "Black Sea" is an amalgamation of travelogue and history, and an excellent narrative about the many peoples and cultures that have lived--and, in some cases, still live--on the shores of the Black Sea. The writer, Neal Ascherson, describes personal trips to different parts of the region, and incorporates these experiences with historical background that he has amassed over the years.
There are loads of tidbits in this book like the following:
While reading this, I probably knew what 'Lazi' and 'Mingrelian' referred to; sadly, I now have no idea. This is, in part, due to the fact that Ascherson crams a lot of history into this slim volume, and much of this history is spread across a diverse collection of cultures. Without some real, scholarly grounding in this subject, it is hard to keep track of everything that Ascherson tosses into the pot. This shortcoming can be absolutely maddening, too, because the subject that Ascherson delves into is so fascinating, so rich, and so connected to so many other pieces of history.
I can't fault Ascherson for overloading his book (though I can direct some of my strongest jealousy towards his knowledgable person, grrrr), and besides, doing so would only be petty in light of the fact that he really pulls this book off with skillful structuring and good writing. "Black Sea" stands out as one of those great history books that you are so glad you've read, even if you remember so little from it. Then again, what better excuse to return to it?
There are loads of tidbits in this book like the following:
In 1864, the Russian armies finally broke tribal resistance in the north-west Caucasus. Much of the Moslem population of Abkhazia and coastal Georgia fled or was expelled into the Ottoman Empire, and many Lazi were swept along in the disaster. A small number still remains in Georgia. But their distinctiveness--like that of the Mingrelians--is resented by Georgian politicians and intellectuals who insist, inaccurately, that Georgian is their 'mother-tongue' and that Mingrelian, Lazuri and Svanetian are mere 'dialects'…(200)
While reading this, I probably knew what 'Lazi' and 'Mingrelian' referred to; sadly, I now have no idea. This is, in part, due to the fact that Ascherson crams a lot of history into this slim volume, and much of this history is spread across a diverse collection of cultures. Without some real, scholarly grounding in this subject, it is hard to keep track of everything that Ascherson tosses into the pot. This shortcoming can be absolutely maddening, too, because the subject that Ascherson delves into is so fascinating, so rich, and so connected to so many other pieces of history.
I can't fault Ascherson for overloading his book (though I can direct some of my strongest jealousy towards his knowledgable person, grrrr), and besides, doing so would only be petty in light of the fact that he really pulls this book off with skillful structuring and good writing. "Black Sea" stands out as one of those great history books that you are so glad you've read, even if you remember so little from it. Then again, what better excuse to return to it?
May 15, 2020
Putting this book down after trying many times to get into it. It's not what I wanted. The book is a mix of personal Soviet-era Western anecdotes and a kaleidoscopic journey through thousands of years of history of a large region. I found it quite disorienting. I wanted to get a good primer on the history of the Black Sea region, but this isn't that. Rather, it is a complex, subjective collection of essays that draws on various historical instances to colour in the character of a place. From what I managed to read Ascherson does this fairly well, if a little in an outdated way, but this is not a book for someone who is unfamiliar with the history and politics of Black Sea people. Even though I grew up in the region and have studied it in university, I had a hard time keeping up. Ascherson jumps through many time periods, sometimes several times within one paragraph, and unless you have internalized a timeline from 850 BCE to 2014 you are going to have trouble, too. This is a book for someone who knows a lot about the region already, who has studied the history extensively or who is well-versed in the current politics informing the countries around the Black Sea. For this person, Ascherson may reveal an interesting new perspective or argument one could engage in. A simple layperson will be left behind.
June 28, 2015
This is not a travel book in the conventional sense, nor is it a mere work of history. The best description that I can think of is 'a book of ideas', overwhelmingly erudite, an extended meditation on cultural identity and nationalism. Indeed, for me, 'Black Sea' is the finest book of ideas I've read since 'The Third Chimpanzee' two years ago, and in a whole different category from previous five-starrers like 'In Siberia' or Bruce Lincoln's book on the Russian Civil War.
I learnt such an in-CRED-ible amount from this book. Just like after reading Bruce Lincoln, I feel immeasurably better informed about the region and its peoples after finishing Ascherson's opus. (And opus it is too - the ideas he developed in this book, he keeps referring back to even now in his essays, nearly two decades later). Like Jared Diamond, Ascherson has the knack of looking at any given topic from a multitude of angles, holding up the prism to the light and twisting it this way and that, over page after densely argued page, until he's extracted the last drop of meaning from it, until you are left marvelling at not just the insights attained, but the very process of thinking and reasoning that led to those insights.
What suits your fancy? An investigation into the origins of the 'civilization' vs 'barbarians' debate that still stains Western thinking half a century after decolonisation? Ascherson can trace it as far back as the Greek dramatists. The origins and eventual fate of the nomadic Scythians? The tragic history of the Crimean Tatars, kicked about all over the East like tens of thouands of footballs? The Gordian knot that is the Abkhazian question? The true nature of the link between the ancient Sarmatians and the late Polish aristocracy? The state of archaeology in post-Soviet states? A lengthy inquiry into the mysterious Lazi people of northeast Turkey? The vanished Greek heritage of Trebizond? What is overfishing doing to fishery stocks in the Black Sea? Was Herodotus speaking the truth in his 'Histories'? And just where did Jason and the Argonauts go in search of that goddamned Fleece?
Over 270-odd pages, Ascherson explores these and many other questions. He tramps all over the region, from ancient Olbia to modern-day Odessa, from the desecrated Sumela monastery to the bombed-out seafront of Sukhumi. And as he does so, he keeps setting off little explosions of insight, timed detonations of revelation that left me shaking my head in wonder, racing to Wikipedia to learn a little more. A book like this literally expands the reader's understanding of the world, stretches one's intellectual boundaries so that you look at the world around you just a little bit differently ever afterwards. What bigger compliment can you pay a book?
My favourite section - from among many deserving candidates - has to be the one dealing with the Pontic Greeks, that hapless bunch of people who through no fault of their own fell into the vicious electric grinder of early 20th-century Turkish nationalism, and ended up being evicted from the country that they had settled for nearly 3,000 years. Imagine that - three fucking millennia. Population swaps on an epic scale - Turks from Greece, Greeks from Anatolia and the Turkish coast - forced migration by the million. Given that I was reading this book against the backdrop of targeted ethnic violence in Bangladesh and had been exploring the subject of forced population transfers during the 1947 partition only a few days ago, the resonances here were just explosive. A Pontic Greek memoir like Sano Halo's laid side by side against a book like Sunanda Sikdar's 'Doyamoyeer Kotha' - there's fodder in there for more than a PhD thesis or two! As it is, I'm already hot on the trail of more books on the topic - Giles Milton's Smyrna, Mark Mazower's Salonica, Bruce Clark, Dmetri Kakmi.. the list goes on.
Some reviewers didn't like the extended Adam Mickiewicz section in the middle of the book, calling it a distraction, a sideshow. Heck I liked even that! Do yourself a favour, read this remarkable book.
I learnt such an in-CRED-ible amount from this book. Just like after reading Bruce Lincoln, I feel immeasurably better informed about the region and its peoples after finishing Ascherson's opus. (And opus it is too - the ideas he developed in this book, he keeps referring back to even now in his essays, nearly two decades later). Like Jared Diamond, Ascherson has the knack of looking at any given topic from a multitude of angles, holding up the prism to the light and twisting it this way and that, over page after densely argued page, until he's extracted the last drop of meaning from it, until you are left marvelling at not just the insights attained, but the very process of thinking and reasoning that led to those insights.
What suits your fancy? An investigation into the origins of the 'civilization' vs 'barbarians' debate that still stains Western thinking half a century after decolonisation? Ascherson can trace it as far back as the Greek dramatists. The origins and eventual fate of the nomadic Scythians? The tragic history of the Crimean Tatars, kicked about all over the East like tens of thouands of footballs? The Gordian knot that is the Abkhazian question? The true nature of the link between the ancient Sarmatians and the late Polish aristocracy? The state of archaeology in post-Soviet states? A lengthy inquiry into the mysterious Lazi people of northeast Turkey? The vanished Greek heritage of Trebizond? What is overfishing doing to fishery stocks in the Black Sea? Was Herodotus speaking the truth in his 'Histories'? And just where did Jason and the Argonauts go in search of that goddamned Fleece?
Over 270-odd pages, Ascherson explores these and many other questions. He tramps all over the region, from ancient Olbia to modern-day Odessa, from the desecrated Sumela monastery to the bombed-out seafront of Sukhumi. And as he does so, he keeps setting off little explosions of insight, timed detonations of revelation that left me shaking my head in wonder, racing to Wikipedia to learn a little more. A book like this literally expands the reader's understanding of the world, stretches one's intellectual boundaries so that you look at the world around you just a little bit differently ever afterwards. What bigger compliment can you pay a book?
My favourite section - from among many deserving candidates - has to be the one dealing with the Pontic Greeks, that hapless bunch of people who through no fault of their own fell into the vicious electric grinder of early 20th-century Turkish nationalism, and ended up being evicted from the country that they had settled for nearly 3,000 years. Imagine that - three fucking millennia. Population swaps on an epic scale - Turks from Greece, Greeks from Anatolia and the Turkish coast - forced migration by the million. Given that I was reading this book against the backdrop of targeted ethnic violence in Bangladesh and had been exploring the subject of forced population transfers during the 1947 partition only a few days ago, the resonances here were just explosive. A Pontic Greek memoir like Sano Halo's laid side by side against a book like Sunanda Sikdar's 'Doyamoyeer Kotha' - there's fodder in there for more than a PhD thesis or two! As it is, I'm already hot on the trail of more books on the topic - Giles Milton's Smyrna, Mark Mazower's Salonica, Bruce Clark, Dmetri Kakmi.. the list goes on.
Some reviewers didn't like the extended Adam Mickiewicz section in the middle of the book, calling it a distraction, a sideshow. Heck I liked even that! Do yourself a favour, read this remarkable book.
March 26, 2015
When I first read this fascinating book I was most interested in Turkey. This time it has been recent events in the Ukraine that prompted me to re-read it and I realise that I had forgotten its scope; the range of Ascherson's knowledge and the acuity of his perception about the politics of identity in the regions connected with the Black Sea, from Lithuania to Abkhazia.
Although he wrote this nearly 20 years ago, his observations are completely relevant today. This is a must-read for understanding the cultures and politics of the region itself and particularly the present tensions between Russia and its former republics.
Although he wrote this nearly 20 years ago, his observations are completely relevant today. This is a must-read for understanding the cultures and politics of the region itself and particularly the present tensions between Russia and its former republics.
August 11, 2025
Po "Černém moři" jsem sáhla, protože jsem hledala nějakou literaturu faktu o Abcházii, kterých je po čertech málo. Přestože Abcházii se věnuje jen zlomek knihy až na konci, výběru nelituju. Aschersonova kniha je totiž typ naučné literatury, který miluju - je to mix cestopisu, reportážní literatury, naučné literatury a úvah. Kniha se věnuje mísení národů Černého moře, přičemž zvláštní důraz klade na Ukrajinu, Řecko, a překvapivě taky Polsko.
Je to žánr, který čtu nejčastěji u otevřeného počítače, protože si neustále hledám místa na mapách, fotky měst a dechberoucích archeologických nálezů.
Pro mne Černé moře bylo i svým způsobem nepříjemný střet s realitou. Můj praděda byl totiž donský Kozák a já měla dlouho podezření, že u nás v rodině se kozácký "národ" i životní styl podával idealizovaně. Ascherson, sám taky potomek Kozáků, ale svoje předky zrovna nešetří a nazývá věci pravými jmény.
Tenká červení linie, která se vine celou knihou, je úvaha o tom, jak vznikají a co vůbec jsou národní a etnické identity. Ascherson píše poutavě a dějinná fakta prokládá skutečnými příběhy a vlastními zkušenostmi z cestování po regionu. Víc takových knih, prosím!
P. S.: Pokud máte nervy na čtení z PDF formátu, celá kniha se po vygooglení dá snadno najít na webu Abkhaz World.
Je to žánr, který čtu nejčastěji u otevřeného počítače, protože si neustále hledám místa na mapách, fotky měst a dechberoucích archeologických nálezů.
Pro mne Černé moře bylo i svým způsobem nepříjemný střet s realitou. Můj praděda byl totiž donský Kozák a já měla dlouho podezření, že u nás v rodině se kozácký "národ" i životní styl podával idealizovaně. Ascherson, sám taky potomek Kozáků, ale svoje předky zrovna nešetří a nazývá věci pravými jmény.
Tenká červení linie, která se vine celou knihou, je úvaha o tom, jak vznikají a co vůbec jsou národní a etnické identity. Ascherson píše poutavě a dějinná fakta prokládá skutečnými příběhy a vlastními zkušenostmi z cestování po regionu. Víc takových knih, prosím!
P. S.: Pokud máte nervy na čtení z PDF formátu, celá kniha se po vygooglení dá snadno najít na webu Abkhaz World.
October 31, 2023
Black Sea is a history book; one that combines a detailed history of the many and varied peoples who lived, invaded, passed through, settled, fought and died around it, as well as details about the sea itself, and the ecological impact on it of all those people.
This book is not light so be prepared for quite a bit of detail about stuff you may not immediately be interested in, but persevere and you will be fascinated by the incredibly diverse nature of the Black Sea coast and its peoples. Those peoples included Sythians, Sarmations, Cossacks, Poles, Vikings (I’m not kidding), Iranians, Alans, Tatars, Greeks, Turks, Romans, Abkhasians, Lazi, Mongols, Soviets, Russians, Jews and Ukrainians – and more.
As the border between East and West, the Black Sea area has seen more action than many other places in the world. It has seen simple village people making a living from fishing, as well as sophisticated trading people exporting grain, fish and intricate jewellery to Greece, among others. As various empires and groups invaded and took over Crimea, the Kuban, the steppes north of Odesa (called Odessa until recently) and the rest, they each brought culture, their religions, customs and gene-pool, ensuring that rich, dynamic societies developed, waxed and waned.
The book delves into trade and social history, too; it’s not all invasions and battles. It shows the changes the people made and endured, and in more recent times the effects of the USSR, both bad and good. It also helps to put in historical context the Russia/Ukraine and Georgian/Abkhasian/South Ossetian wars.
Life has been here for a long time, which may be one reason why Jean M. Auel set her Clan of the Cave Bear trilogy near the Black Sea coast.
One incredible fact regarding the sea itself is that 90% of it (that’s not a typo) is dead to life. Only the top layer of about 200 metres sustains life, and this is not a man-made phenomenon – read the book to find out why.
The narrative includes the author’s experiences as he travelled around the region, and this travelogue aspect adds a good deal of modern overlay to the historical story. There are several colour plates in the book, and my Folio Society copy has a general map of the region on its endpapers. I enjoyed this book, and will probably read it again. It is a valuable and comprehensive source for anyone studying this subject.
This book is not light so be prepared for quite a bit of detail about stuff you may not immediately be interested in, but persevere and you will be fascinated by the incredibly diverse nature of the Black Sea coast and its peoples. Those peoples included Sythians, Sarmations, Cossacks, Poles, Vikings (I’m not kidding), Iranians, Alans, Tatars, Greeks, Turks, Romans, Abkhasians, Lazi, Mongols, Soviets, Russians, Jews and Ukrainians – and more.
As the border between East and West, the Black Sea area has seen more action than many other places in the world. It has seen simple village people making a living from fishing, as well as sophisticated trading people exporting grain, fish and intricate jewellery to Greece, among others. As various empires and groups invaded and took over Crimea, the Kuban, the steppes north of Odesa (called Odessa until recently) and the rest, they each brought culture, their religions, customs and gene-pool, ensuring that rich, dynamic societies developed, waxed and waned.
The book delves into trade and social history, too; it’s not all invasions and battles. It shows the changes the people made and endured, and in more recent times the effects of the USSR, both bad and good. It also helps to put in historical context the Russia/Ukraine and Georgian/Abkhasian/South Ossetian wars.
Life has been here for a long time, which may be one reason why Jean M. Auel set her Clan of the Cave Bear trilogy near the Black Sea coast.
One incredible fact regarding the sea itself is that 90% of it (that’s not a typo) is dead to life. Only the top layer of about 200 metres sustains life, and this is not a man-made phenomenon – read the book to find out why.
The narrative includes the author’s experiences as he travelled around the region, and this travelogue aspect adds a good deal of modern overlay to the historical story. There are several colour plates in the book, and my Folio Society copy has a general map of the region on its endpapers. I enjoyed this book, and will probably read it again. It is a valuable and comprehensive source for anyone studying this subject.
December 25, 2017
I skimmed much of the modern content to get at ancient, medieval and early modern. I did catch a few tirades on the scourges of nationalism, which was fine. Quite interesting too with a focus on artificiality and the concoction of pasts that never were, to serve a contemporary agenda.
I liked it on the inception of the Civilization/Barbarian discourse... I say discourse because that's a word he hates even though he uses it himself. He's not too fond of new methods of history that look at how and why it's written instead of the 'contents'. But then he practices enough of this to analyse 'the invention of the barbarian'... that's the title of a book he depends on, by Edith Hall. Innovative book in its day, probably overstated in hindsight. On other questions too he seems to pick one scholarly work to give you a precis of. The upside is that he chooses interesting, if provocative and speculative, scholarly theses to do this with.
Top marks for his discussion of Scythian gender (right after one on Cossack gender, and in contrast). For 1995, I bet this was a fabulous discussion. In general he is very nicely open-minded on steppe people and steppe influence -- culture and institutions.
Skillfully written, a lovely read.
I liked it on the inception of the Civilization/Barbarian discourse... I say discourse because that's a word he hates even though he uses it himself. He's not too fond of new methods of history that look at how and why it's written instead of the 'contents'. But then he practices enough of this to analyse 'the invention of the barbarian'... that's the title of a book he depends on, by Edith Hall. Innovative book in its day, probably overstated in hindsight. On other questions too he seems to pick one scholarly work to give you a precis of. The upside is that he chooses interesting, if provocative and speculative, scholarly theses to do this with.
Top marks for his discussion of Scythian gender (right after one on Cossack gender, and in contrast). For 1995, I bet this was a fabulous discussion. In general he is very nicely open-minded on steppe people and steppe influence -- culture and institutions.
Skillfully written, a lovely read.
March 8, 2016
One of my most favorite books, Black Sea by Ascherson is difficult to classify. It's an examination of the layers upon layers of geography, civilizations, ecology and history of a parts of the Black Sea region interspersed with anecdotes of the author's travels in the area. In gorgeous prose, Ascherson, captures the essence of the Black Sea.
July 10, 2016
I hated this book until I realized that I hated it because it wasn't fulfilling my expectations for it rather than because it was a bad book. I thought it would be a good general history of the Black Sea and instead it was more poetic and impressionistic. I kept getting annoyed by his language until I realized, again, that it was more due to my own expectations.
November 19, 2015
Superb. One of the most though provoking works that I've read. About more than just the Sea.
April 10, 2023
This is entertaining and wide ranging, but it is by no means a comprehensive study, and reflects the author’s own interests and prejudices. So, for example, there is almost nothing on Bulgaria, which of course borders the Black Sea, but a great deal about Poland, which never has. And yet it would be churlish to be irritated by this: on the Poles, Ascherson describes the fascinating belief that the nobility claimed to be descended from the Sarmatians, whilst claiming the non-noble Poles were descendants of the ethnically distinct Getae. This is of course a delusion, but a curious one.
There is a great deal about the Crimea, and all of it is fascinating. Early in the book there is an intriguing discussion of Dio Chrysostom’s account of the Crimean Greek colony of Olbia, which preserved certain classical Greek practices long after they had ceased to be fashionable in Greece proper (these practices included what my classics master at school used to call “the unspeakable vice of the Greeks”). And I was also intrigued by the 5th century Kingdom of Gothia, which Hitler dreamed of recreating – another curious delusion.
Ascherson loves the Poles and many of the small ethnic groups of the Caucasus but he is less keen on the Russians or the Cossacks. (And there is a bizarre page comparing some of his least favourite peoples with the “The Afrikaner, who may feel diminished in his own eyes...if he can no longer demonstrate his physical mastery over blacks.” A lazy and offensive remark – as if I were to say a Scotsman like Ascherson “may feel diminished if he can no longer demonstrate his moral and intellectual superiority over an Englishman.”)
But this is quibbling: there is plenty of good stuff here. On the Black Sea itself, I knew it was a toxic sludge deep below the surface, but I had lazily assumed this was to do with human activity. It isn’t: it’s the inevitable result of great rivers pouring vast quantities of oxygen-stripping sediment into the sea. But of course there were and are other environmental catastrophes for which humans are responsible. I checked up on some of these to see how things now stand, thirty years after this book came out. The Black Sea anchovy, alas, has never recovered from its former abundance, but at least its numbers seem to have stabilised. The Danube is a much cleaner river now than it was, and the tragic pollution incidents of the Communist past are (mostly) an evil memory. The Mnemiopsis jellfyish, which Ascherson describes reducing large areas of the formerly productive and non toxic shallows to a desert waste, is no longer a major problem, having since been checked by another accidentally introduced species which preys on it.
So there are signs of hope as far as the region’s natural environment is concerned. Its human environment, alas, remains as fraught and divided as it has ever been. Despite its author’s prejudices, this remains a worthwhile look at an important and tragically newsworthy region.
There is a great deal about the Crimea, and all of it is fascinating. Early in the book there is an intriguing discussion of Dio Chrysostom’s account of the Crimean Greek colony of Olbia, which preserved certain classical Greek practices long after they had ceased to be fashionable in Greece proper (these practices included what my classics master at school used to call “the unspeakable vice of the Greeks”). And I was also intrigued by the 5th century Kingdom of Gothia, which Hitler dreamed of recreating – another curious delusion.
Ascherson loves the Poles and many of the small ethnic groups of the Caucasus but he is less keen on the Russians or the Cossacks. (And there is a bizarre page comparing some of his least favourite peoples with the “The Afrikaner, who may feel diminished in his own eyes...if he can no longer demonstrate his physical mastery over blacks.” A lazy and offensive remark – as if I were to say a Scotsman like Ascherson “may feel diminished if he can no longer demonstrate his moral and intellectual superiority over an Englishman.”)
But this is quibbling: there is plenty of good stuff here. On the Black Sea itself, I knew it was a toxic sludge deep below the surface, but I had lazily assumed this was to do with human activity. It isn’t: it’s the inevitable result of great rivers pouring vast quantities of oxygen-stripping sediment into the sea. But of course there were and are other environmental catastrophes for which humans are responsible. I checked up on some of these to see how things now stand, thirty years after this book came out. The Black Sea anchovy, alas, has never recovered from its former abundance, but at least its numbers seem to have stabilised. The Danube is a much cleaner river now than it was, and the tragic pollution incidents of the Communist past are (mostly) an evil memory. The Mnemiopsis jellfyish, which Ascherson describes reducing large areas of the formerly productive and non toxic shallows to a desert waste, is no longer a major problem, having since been checked by another accidentally introduced species which preys on it.
So there are signs of hope as far as the region’s natural environment is concerned. Its human environment, alas, remains as fraught and divided as it has ever been. Despite its author’s prejudices, this remains a worthwhile look at an important and tragically newsworthy region.
May 13, 2020
Gomila zanimljivih stvari o predelu koji je nekako skrajnut, tačnije i ne pominje se u našim istorijskim udžbenicima, na tom mestu, oko Crnog Mora, lomila se civilizacija, stvorena je distinkcija između nas kulturnih i njih varvara, postali smo stalačko stanovništvo a prestali da budemo lovci sakupljači, žene su imale moć. Kozaci kao narod su vrlo zanimljiv i njihov politički put, lutanje i neoporedeljenost. Jevreji, Skiti i svakakvi narodi su ovde lomili koplja... a sve to, uz epizode pisca sa lica mesta, dakle, malo faktografije a malo i reportaže u kojoj se koriste beletristički alati.
January 7, 2023
Etnografía e historia, con profundidad y perspectiva. Muy interesante.
June 19, 2014
British journalist Neal Ascherson has produced a terrifically informative historical travelogue of the region surrounding the Black Sea. Written several years ago, it's a timely read for me in light of the current conflict between Russia and the Ukraine - in specific, the hot property of Crimea. As Mr. Ascherson relays:
"Crimea, whose beauty provokes almost sexual yearnings of possession in all its visitors...has always been a destination, the cliffs at the end of the sea or the shore where the wagons must end their journey. Voyaging communities settled in Crimea (the Scythians lived here for nearly a thousand years) but in the end they dispersed or moved on...Only in recent times has the Crimean truth - that it belongs to everybody and to nobody - been violated. Two of these violations, which would be merely absurd if they did not imply so much blood and suffering in the past and very probably in the future, are the declarations of two autocrats. In 1783, Catherine II ("The Great") proclaimed that the Crimean peninsula was henceforth and for all time to become Russian. And in 1954 Nikita Khrushchev, a Ukrainian seeking to divert the attention of his own people from their miseries, announced that he was transferring Crimea from Russia to become for all time Ukrainian."
Everyone's got a stake, it seems, and a case to make. And while Mr. Putin appears to be busy perfecting his impression of James T. Kirk ("You're the captain's woman until he says you're not!"), it seemed a mighty fine idea to take this time to brush up on the territory.
It's doubtful one could wish for a more knowledgeable guide than Neal Ascherson (who has his own sentimental stake in the matter due to his father's military service aboard one of the British ships that evacuated the White Army from Novorossisk in 1920). He's done his research and more on the Greeks, Amazons, Byzantians, Tatars, Cossacks, Nazis and Stalin. Shore to shore, region to region; Ukraine, Russia, Georgia, Turkey, Poland; Ascherson straddles eras of invasion, settlement, deportation and rebellion with a clear and confident ease. Pushkin, Tolstoy, Lermontov, Richelieu, Balzac - even the Polish Mata Hari, Karolina Sobanska - all make an appearance, as do plenty of modern-day denizens met upon his travels.
If you're interested in the Black Sea region (from a standpoint more benign than Vlad's), here's a book to look into. It was a great read.
"Crimea, whose beauty provokes almost sexual yearnings of possession in all its visitors...has always been a destination, the cliffs at the end of the sea or the shore where the wagons must end their journey. Voyaging communities settled in Crimea (the Scythians lived here for nearly a thousand years) but in the end they dispersed or moved on...Only in recent times has the Crimean truth - that it belongs to everybody and to nobody - been violated. Two of these violations, which would be merely absurd if they did not imply so much blood and suffering in the past and very probably in the future, are the declarations of two autocrats. In 1783, Catherine II ("The Great") proclaimed that the Crimean peninsula was henceforth and for all time to become Russian. And in 1954 Nikita Khrushchev, a Ukrainian seeking to divert the attention of his own people from their miseries, announced that he was transferring Crimea from Russia to become for all time Ukrainian."
Everyone's got a stake, it seems, and a case to make. And while Mr. Putin appears to be busy perfecting his impression of James T. Kirk ("You're the captain's woman until he says you're not!"), it seemed a mighty fine idea to take this time to brush up on the territory.
It's doubtful one could wish for a more knowledgeable guide than Neal Ascherson (who has his own sentimental stake in the matter due to his father's military service aboard one of the British ships that evacuated the White Army from Novorossisk in 1920). He's done his research and more on the Greeks, Amazons, Byzantians, Tatars, Cossacks, Nazis and Stalin. Shore to shore, region to region; Ukraine, Russia, Georgia, Turkey, Poland; Ascherson straddles eras of invasion, settlement, deportation and rebellion with a clear and confident ease. Pushkin, Tolstoy, Lermontov, Richelieu, Balzac - even the Polish Mata Hari, Karolina Sobanska - all make an appearance, as do plenty of modern-day denizens met upon his travels.
If you're interested in the Black Sea region (from a standpoint more benign than Vlad's), here's a book to look into. It was a great read.
February 8, 2014
I'm only about a quarter-way through this book, but I am rating it now because there could be no better time to read it than now, during the Olympic games in Sochi! That is because Sochi is located on the Black Sea; and if you are like me, your knowledge of the peoples and historic drama of the Black Sea region is pretty thin. I think author, Neal Ascherson, does a wonderful job of bringing to life centuries of human drama in the context of the unique Black Sea habitat. You will have a much greater appreciation of the political backdrop to the 2014 Olympic games after reading Ascherson's narrative. The effect on me in reading this history is to feel a deep concern that the world will see in these Olympics a proud showcase of the Black Sea heritage. With or without the Olympics, you will not want to put this book down until you have finished it cover to cover.
August 9, 2020
I was feeling very nostalgic when reading this book. I was born in Odessa and grew up on the Black Sea. I was one of those students who took those schools trips to Olbia or Askania-Nova, and they were amazing. We all learned about Scythians, Sarmatians and Cimmerians when we were in the middle school, as well as Greek colonization of the Black Sea shore.
I skipped a lot of pages dedicated to Adam Mickiewicz - did not find it really interesting :)
I skipped a lot of pages dedicated to Adam Mickiewicz - did not find it really interesting :)
January 16, 2011
I think this is a wonderful book about the Black Sea region. Well-written it compliments any study of Eastern Europe.
November 5, 2025
More sociologist than historian in his approach, Ascherson is a provocative writer not at all satisfied with exploring facts and events, but seeking to offer his own interpretations and conclusions arising out of those facts and events. For example, his attack on the Tristia of Ovid (admittedly a sour piece of work) as evidence of Roman cultural arrogance struck me as a bit over-reaching. He argues that the Greek and Roman designation of all tribes other than their own as “inferior barbarian” was entirely self-serving and bigoted. However, the fact remains that marauding Huns, Goths and even Sarmatians, regardless of their other achievements, destroyed advanced, fully functioning Greek and Roman settlements, leaving behind only ruins. Consequently, Ascerson’s argumentative stance renders his writing uncomfortably compelling, placing him in company with so many writers of fiction, whose success lies greatly in provoking the reader. (Margaret Atwood, Percival Everett and Claire Fuller come to mind.) Even more intriguingly, Ascherson sees the vast numbers of homeless in today’s cities, along with the herds of refugees and economic migrants around today's world, as the logical descendants of the nomadic tribes of the past, Further, he suggests that the “settled” peoples and their guardians (border agents, police) will find it increasingly difficult to defend their borders, properties, even homes, against a highly mobile population of invaders. One might even foresee a time when a restricted place or dwelling might become unaffordable or indefensible.
Ascherson states that ”all human populations are in some sense immigrants. All hostility between different cultures in one place has an aspect of the classic immigrant grudge against the next boatload approaching the shore. To defend one’s home and fields and ancestral graves against invasion seems a right. But to claim unique possession — to compound the fact of settlement with the aspect of a landscape into an abstract of eternal and immutable ownership — is a joke.” Few of those deeply engaged in the Israel/Palestine contest would agree with him.
Ascherson sees the encounter between “civilization” and “barbarism” on the shores of the Black Sea as the beginning of “the idea of ‘Europe’ with all its arrogance, all its implications of superiority, all its assumption of priority and antiquity, all its pretensions to a natural right to dominate …
The Roman and Byzantine empires sanctified their own imperial struggles as the defence of ‘civilized’ order against “barbaric’ primitivism.”
Most compellingly, Ascherson wraps up his discussion of ethnicity, territoriality and nationalism with this gem: ” Human settlement around the Black Sea has a delicate, complex geology, accumulated over three thousand years. But a geologist would not call this process simple sedimentation, as if each new influx of settlers neatly overlaid the previous culture. Instead, the heat of history has melted and folded peoples into one another’s crevices, in unpredictable outcrops and striations. Every town and village is seamed with fault-lines. Every district has a different veining of Greek and Turkic, Slav and Iranian, Caucasian and Kartvelian, Jewish and Armenian and Baltic and Germanic …
But living together does not mean growing together. Different ethnic groups may co-exist for centuries … But what held such societies together was not so much consent as necessity — the fear of external force …
It follows that when that fear is removed, through the collapse of empires or tyrannies, the constraint is removed too … All multi-ethnic landscapes, in other words, are fragile.”
In that, he has certainly been proven correct, over and again, especially in southeastern Europe.
Ascherson states that ”all human populations are in some sense immigrants. All hostility between different cultures in one place has an aspect of the classic immigrant grudge against the next boatload approaching the shore. To defend one’s home and fields and ancestral graves against invasion seems a right. But to claim unique possession — to compound the fact of settlement with the aspect of a landscape into an abstract of eternal and immutable ownership — is a joke.” Few of those deeply engaged in the Israel/Palestine contest would agree with him.
Ascherson sees the encounter between “civilization” and “barbarism” on the shores of the Black Sea as the beginning of “the idea of ‘Europe’ with all its arrogance, all its implications of superiority, all its assumption of priority and antiquity, all its pretensions to a natural right to dominate …
The Roman and Byzantine empires sanctified their own imperial struggles as the defence of ‘civilized’ order against “barbaric’ primitivism.”
Most compellingly, Ascherson wraps up his discussion of ethnicity, territoriality and nationalism with this gem: ” Human settlement around the Black Sea has a delicate, complex geology, accumulated over three thousand years. But a geologist would not call this process simple sedimentation, as if each new influx of settlers neatly overlaid the previous culture. Instead, the heat of history has melted and folded peoples into one another’s crevices, in unpredictable outcrops and striations. Every town and village is seamed with fault-lines. Every district has a different veining of Greek and Turkic, Slav and Iranian, Caucasian and Kartvelian, Jewish and Armenian and Baltic and Germanic …
But living together does not mean growing together. Different ethnic groups may co-exist for centuries … But what held such societies together was not so much consent as necessity — the fear of external force …
It follows that when that fear is removed, through the collapse of empires or tyrannies, the constraint is removed too … All multi-ethnic landscapes, in other words, are fragile.”
In that, he has certainly been proven correct, over and again, especially in southeastern Europe.
August 16, 2012
The Black Sea has been a meeting place of East and West, and Christianity and Islam. The author describes many ethnicities that are not well known, but which have interesting histories. The Hemsinli are a Muslim people who speak Armenian. Because their ancestors converted to Islam, they were not deported or killed during the Armenian genocide of the twentieth century. Another small group is the Lazi, who live in Turkey, but speak a language related to Georgian. They speak Lazuri at home and Turkish in public. Some European do-gooders are trying to preserve their language and culture by giving them an alphabet and trying to make their Lazuri language their public language. But this is getting the Lazi in trouble with the Turkish authorities, who fear separatism. Sometimes it is best to maintain a low profile.
Polish heraldry appears to have originated in the tamga signs of the Sarmatians, an Indo-Iranian people of the steppe north of the Black Sea. In years past, the Polish szlachta nobility claimed to be descendants of the Sarmations. The horsemen wearing iron mail armor of the age of chivalry originated with the Sarmatians. The Ossetians, living north of the Black Sea in Georgia, are their descendants.
The Black Sea was explored by Greeks looking to buy fish. They eventually colonized the shores of the Black Sea. The Greeks south of the Black Sea, in Anatolia, were called the Pontic Greeks. Some of the Greek myths were set in the areas around the Black Sea. For example, the myth of Jason and the Argonauts seeking the Golden Fleece was set in Georgia, then called Colchi. Euripides set his play Medea in this same area.
Polish heraldry appears to have originated in the tamga signs of the Sarmatians, an Indo-Iranian people of the steppe north of the Black Sea. In years past, the Polish szlachta nobility claimed to be descendants of the Sarmations. The horsemen wearing iron mail armor of the age of chivalry originated with the Sarmatians. The Ossetians, living north of the Black Sea in Georgia, are their descendants.
The Black Sea was explored by Greeks looking to buy fish. They eventually colonized the shores of the Black Sea. The Greeks south of the Black Sea, in Anatolia, were called the Pontic Greeks. Some of the Greek myths were set in the areas around the Black Sea. For example, the myth of Jason and the Argonauts seeking the Golden Fleece was set in Georgia, then called Colchi. Euripides set his play Medea in this same area.
November 12, 2018
Thank God this is over.
Let's imagine 4 or 5 sets of puzzles and you mix them all and then try to put them all in one picture.
You just got this book.
This guy is jumping all over the place.
He is writing a little about Greece, then about Scythians, he jumps on Stalin's period, a bit of Crimean war, then for some reason about Poland, again Stalin, then Mongolians followed by Persians, little more about Stalin, and let finish up with a bit of Greece and just a pinch of Ataturk.
I just saved you 300 pages, this is a mess of epic proportions.
Let's continue our puzzle metaphor, not only he mixed all the histories (and periods) together, he left out maybe most important puzzle sets, for example, the guy doesn't even talk about Romania and Bulgaria, barely scratched Byzant and Ottomans.
I am like, come on, like wtf, you talk about the Black Sea and you don't bring that thing up.
Horrible.
I have no idea how non-historian managed to followed authors train of thoughts and that is my biggest crimen, this book is more a train of thought then concentrated work of science.
Let's imagine 4 or 5 sets of puzzles and you mix them all and then try to put them all in one picture.
You just got this book.
This guy is jumping all over the place.
He is writing a little about Greece, then about Scythians, he jumps on Stalin's period, a bit of Crimean war, then for some reason about Poland, again Stalin, then Mongolians followed by Persians, little more about Stalin, and let finish up with a bit of Greece and just a pinch of Ataturk.
I just saved you 300 pages, this is a mess of epic proportions.
Let's continue our puzzle metaphor, not only he mixed all the histories (and periods) together, he left out maybe most important puzzle sets, for example, the guy doesn't even talk about Romania and Bulgaria, barely scratched Byzant and Ottomans.
I am like, come on, like wtf, you talk about the Black Sea and you don't bring that thing up.
Horrible.
I have no idea how non-historian managed to followed authors train of thoughts and that is my biggest crimen, this book is more a train of thought then concentrated work of science.
April 1, 2021
Empezar leyendo un libro que crees que es un ensayo sobre la historia del Mar Negro y descubrir una interesantísima amalgama de libro de viajes, experiencias personales y familiares, historias de ciudades, personas y pueblos, incluso oficios, y sobre todo, un relato de primera mano de la caída de la URSS, que impregna todas sus experiencias en la zona, ya que el libro fue escrito en esa época, con el autor testigo directo de los hechos, incluyendo el golpe de estado que lo propició. Libro lleno de historias en torno a un Mar que tanto nos ha influido en Europa, para bien y para no tan bien, algunas veces de forma catastrófica y otras, benéfica.
November 27, 2022
The whole book is written in an elliptical and pompous style which makes it hard to work out what exactly the author means. It uses analogies which would be inappropriate in any book, but especially one marketed as area history.
An example from p.57: "It was once the ranked, slow marching foot army of King Darius of Persia which was outmanoeuvred by the Scythians. Now it is the New York Police Department forming up against the homeless dossers on the pavements around Tompkins Square Park... Tomorrow it will be the turn of customs officers and frontier guards of the European Union to be outwitted and hunted by ten million illegal, inaccessible, fast-moving, aporoi immigrants.
An example from p.57: "It was once the ranked, slow marching foot army of King Darius of Persia which was outmanoeuvred by the Scythians. Now it is the New York Police Department forming up against the homeless dossers on the pavements around Tompkins Square Park... Tomorrow it will be the turn of customs officers and frontier guards of the European Union to be outwitted and hunted by ten million illegal, inaccessible, fast-moving, aporoi immigrants.
April 16, 2011
I really enjoyed this book. I picked it up in an Oxfam shop as background reading before going to Turkey on holiday. Ascheron tells the story of the peoples living round the Black Sea in an interesting way, mixing history with anecdotes from his many travels there. I knew nothing about the geography of the area, and even less about the peoples before I started. But now I feel I have a bit of an understanding of both.
January 30, 2014
I had a little trouble getting into this one. It's a bit of a mix of travel writing and history and I think that structure made it hard for me to really dig in. Ultimately, though, it offers some fascinating information about how people have and continue to fashion ethnicities and nationalities.
February 1, 2023
This book was kind of one part history, one part personal stories. It covers a range of historical topics, but never goes to in depth. For a casual reader that's fine, but for those trying to research I wouldn't suggest it unless you're using it as a starting point.
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