So I'm on a little personal crusade of asking people to spell my city as Odesa in the Latin alphabet. Here is why.
First of all, let's talk history: there's a very old debate as to the actual age of my city. Do we count it from The Russian Empire as Soviet propaganda indoctrinated? Do we count it from the Turkish fortress of Khadzhibey that used to be there before that? Do we go back as far as Slavic Tivertsi and Ulichs in the VIII century? Or as far as Greek colonies in the VI century? Or do you think we should start with Trypillia settlements in 5500 BC?
But you know what? For the sake of argument let's go full pro-Russian (yuk) and say that the city was established in the XVIII century when during the Russian-Turkish war the Russian Empire captured the Khadzhibey fortress and decided to build a city there. This is the first time this settlement was called "Odessa", the name given by the Russian Queen Katherine II. Initially, she was approached with a request to approve the name Odessos to honor those Greek colonies from the VI century. But Queen Katherine said "Why all cities are named in the masculine gender? [NB: all nouns in Ukrainian and Russian have a category of gender] Let it be called Odessa, like a lady."
So this is the story most people use to argue with me and insist to keep spelling it with double S. "Your city was founded by Russians" they tell me. So let's dive in.
First of all, the city was physically founded by an Italian José de Ribas. He made plans for the city and overlooked the actual building process. After him, there was a Frenchman Duc de Richelieu, the descendant of the famous Cardinal Richelieu from the Alexander Dumas books. He was the one who got us the name "Odessa". He was an amazing person all around: he planted the trees that our city is known for, he personally took care of plague victims, walked into their houses without any fear of catching the disease. I love him. Here he is in the very heart of Odesa:
Then there was a Brit Thomas Cobley who founded an extremely popular winery that's very beloved by Ukrainians until this day. Then another Frenchman Alexandre-Louis de Langeron, who founded lots of parks and gardens and made our economy flourish. And only then in 1823, when Odesa already had a population of over 20 000 people, and the export of 38 000 000 rubles (33 mln of which was grain), became a flourishing world-known trading port, we got our first Russian governor Vorontsov.
The architecture of Odesa is predominantly Italian due to the fact that we had a hella ton of Italian architects. Italian tourists coming here always say they feel at home because of the architecture. We have and always had a huge Jewish diaspora here (can't imagine Odesa without Jews, we have a specific Odesa dialect that has a super prominent Jewish pronunciation. Even if you're not Jewish, you'll pick it up, there's no way around it - that's how prominent their culture is here), during those days we had a big Greek diaspora, to the point that it is still reflected in the names of the streets, and city history.
So yes, most of its history this town spent under the Russian Empire and later the Soviet Union, but do Russians as a culture really deserve all the credit to the point of keeping the spelling just for their sake? Do we not deserve to reclaim the name? Which brings me to my next point -
The actual spelling. In Russian it's Одесса, in Ukrainian it's Одеса because Ukrainian is not a big fan of double consonants in a root of a word. I think in modern day and age it's only fair that we transliterate it from Ukrainian, not Russian. This place had a hell of a lot of names throughout history if we look back past the Russian Empire. And even so, geographical names change often. Istanbul used to be called Constantinople and nobody minds. Recently Holand said "Listen we wanna be called just the Netherlands now" and the world said OK. Russia itself had its share of Leningrads and Stalingrads - and somehow you've all learned the new names. But when I ask to adjust to our modern-day fight for freedom from Russian influence and drop one letter - there is an uproar.
Another argument I've heard is: "The world does not revolve around you, for English speakers it's easier to understand the pronunciation if it's with double S, deal with it." And to those people my reply is "Dear English speakers, if I've learned the correct pronunciation of Kansas and Arkansas, you'll survive spelling Odesa with one S. The world does not revolve around you either."
Our language and culture have been systematically destroyed by Russia for over 300 years. We are trying to reclaim our language and self-identity. Is it so hard to respect our opinion and drop one FUCKING letter?
Thank you for coming to my rant.