History as Policy in the Construction and Promotion of the Kerch Bridge

• In Event: Gates for Freedom, Bastions for Geopolitics: Port Cities of Russia’s Empire

Abstract

This paper will consider the toll of the Russia-Ukraine war on Black Sea port cities, with a particular focus on the grain trade. The first part of the presentation will review damage to port-city infrastructure, followed by effects on the global food economy. It will also discuss international efforts to mediate grain exports through the blockade and to establish alternative trade routes. The second part of the presentation will place the destruction of trade moving through Ukrainian port cities in a historical perspective. As Brătianu, Özveren, Troebst, and others have pointed out in their study of Black Sea networks, towns and cities along the northern Black Sea coast have occupied critical nodes in world supply routes since the 5th century B.C.E. How wars have impacted trade in the region remains an important topic for continued research. A central point of inquiry in the second half of the paper, therefore, will review success and failures in previous international efforts to maintain port-city trade during war. As time permits, the presentation will also address how port cities resume their historical trade after war's conclusion.

Author

• Mara Veronica Kozelsky, U of South Alabama