The NKVD Operation and North Azovian Greeks of Ukraine - Instytut Pileckiego

Public Talk and Pop-Up Exhibition

Public Talk and Pop-Up Exhibition: "Justice in Memory. The NKVD Operation and North Azovian Greeks of Ukraine"

Panel discussion featuring Dr. Larysa Yakubova, Dr. Anna Hedo, Dr. Valerii Tomazov, moderated by Sarah Reinke.

Small pop-up exhibition showing family photographs of the North Azovian Greeks from the 1930s

Date: May 28, Thursday

Location: Pariser Platz 4A, 10117, Berlin

Time: 18:45 - 20:15

Registration link: https://forms.gle/jcs5u94beknzWZkr8

Event organizers: Pilecki Institute and North Azovian Greeks NGO (Ukraine)

Event communication & media partners: Embassy of Ukraine in the Federal Republic of Germany, Ukrainian Institute (Ukrainisches Institut in Deutschland), Competence Network Interdisciplinary Ukrainian Studies Frankfurt (Oder) - Berlin, Gesellschaft für bedrohte Völker, Vitsche Berlin.

The event will be held in Ukrainian with simultaneous English translation.

On 28 May 2026, the Berlin branch of the Pilecki Institute will host a special event dedicated to the memory of North Azovian Greeks who fell victim to the NKVD Greek Operation - a largely overlooked episode within the broader wave of Stalinist repressions targeting national minorities across the Soviet Union in the late 1930s.

Organized in cooperation with the NGO ‘North Azovian Greeks: Urums and Roumeans’ the discussion will bring together distinguished Ukrainian historians: Dr. Larysa Yakubova (Institute of History of Ukraine, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine), Dr. Anna Hedo (Borys Grinchenko Kyiv Metropolitan University), and Dr. Valerii Tomazov (Institute of History of Ukraine, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine). 

They will reflect on the impact of these repressions on the North Azovian Greeks, descendants of Crimean Christians, an autochthonous community of Ukraine and the third largest ethnic group of Donetsk Oblast. The discussion will be moderated by Sarah Reinke, Head of the Human Rights Department at the Society for Threatened Peoples (Gesellschaft für bedrohte Völker).

(c) North Azovian Greeks NGO

The panel will explore how violence and persecution reshaped languages, identity, and collective memory, and how these historical experiences resonate today in the context of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine.

The event will also introduce a small exhibition featuring family photographs of North Azovian Greeks from the 1930s, offering a personal and visual dimension to the histories discussed. Some images are shown only as silhouettes, symbolically reflecting the photographs missing from thousands of family archives, as current generations of North Azovian Greeks have been forced to flee and/or leave their homes due to Russia’s ongoing war against Ukraine. Alongside these photographs and visuals, the exhibition presents a series of works by Ukrainian artist Anatoliy Belov, portraying prominent representatives of the North Azovian Greek community who were targeted by Soviet repressions during the NKVD Greek Operation.

(c) North Azovian Greeks NGO

North Azovian Greeks (Urums and Roumeans), descendants of Crimean Christians, autochthonous people of Ukraine, represent a unique community from the east of Ukraine. The northern coast of the Sea of Azov, the southern part of Donetsk Oblast (region) in Ukraine (Nadazovia in Ukrainian) is the area of compact settlement of approximately 90,000 North Azovian Greeks, a people consisting of two linguistic groups: Urums and Roumeans. This is the third largest ethnic community in the region, which settled here as a result of forced relocation from Crimea in 1778 – 1780. In 2014, Donetsk Oblast came under Russian aggression: dozens of places with compact Urum and Roumean populations were occupied, and others remained under constant shelling between 2014 and 2022. As of 2026, all of the 76 settlements where North Azovian Greeks used to reside (75 in Donetsk Oblast, 1 in Zaporizhzhia Oblast) are occupied by the Russian Federation.

(c) North Azovian Greeks NGO

Event organizers: 

Pilecki Institute and the North Azovian Greeks NGO (Ukraine)

Event communication & media partners:

Embassy of Ukraine in the Federal Republic of Germany, Ukrainian Institute (Ukrainisches Institut in Deutschland), Competence Network Interdisciplinary Ukrainian Studies Frankfurt (Oder) - Berlin, Gesellschaft für bedrohte Völker, Vitsche Berlin.

(c) North Azovian Greeks NGO

Larysa Yakubova, Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor, Head of the Department of Ukrainian History of the 1920s-1930s, Institute of History, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine

Anna Hedo, Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor, Head of the Department of Ukrainian History, Borys Grinchenko Kyiv Metropolitan University

Valerii Tomazov, Doctor of Historical Sciences, Head of Sector, Institute of History, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine

Olga Tsuprykova, Head of North Azovian Greeks NGO

Moderator: Sarah Reinke, Head of Human Rights Department, Society for Threatened Peoples (GfbV)

Pop-Up Exhibition: "Justice in Memory: The NKVD Operation and North Azovian Greeks of Ukraine" featuring portraits of North Azovian Greeks by renowned Ukrainian artist Anatoliy Belov, alongside historical photographs from the 1920s-1930s. The exhibition opens on May 28 and will be available for viewing until June 12, 2026.

Before the panel discussion begins, we will read the names of victims and share their personal stories.