Whose Enemy? Russian Intelligentsia in Romania-occupied Odessa, 1941-1944
Current Research Project by Dr. Vladimir Solonari
Associate Professor of History
The port city of Odessa on the Black Sea was an important hub of economic activity and cultural life in Russian Empire and the Soviet Union. Its proud creative intelligentsia was subjected to several waves of brutal persecution by the Soviets. Romanians, who occupied the city in 1941-1944 as allies of Nazi Germany, accorded Odessan intelligentsia more freedoms and privileges then they ever had under the Soviets. Many an Odessan Intelligentsia experienced Romanian rule as liberation but they faced agonizing moral dilemmas.