Novorossiya

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Novorossiya^{[nb 1]} is a historical name, used during the era of the Russian Empire for an administrative area that would later become the southern mainland of Ukraine: the region immediately north of the Black Sea and Crimea. The province fell largely within a slightly wider area known in Ukrainian as the Stepovyna and in Russian as the Stepp ("Steppe Land"), or Nyz ("Lower Land").^[1] The name Novorossiya, which means New Russia, entered official usage in 1764, after the Russian Empire conquered the Crimean Khanate, and annexed its territories,^[2] when Novorossiya Governorate (or Province) was founded. Official usage of the name ceased after 1917, when the entire area (minus Crimea) was annexed by the Ukrainian People's Republic, precursor of the Ukrainian SSR.

Novorossiya Governorate was formed in 1764 from military frontier regions and parts of the southern Hetmanate, in anticipation of a war with the Ottoman Empire.^[3] It was further expanded by the annexation of the Zaporozhian Sich in 1775. At various times, Novorossiya encompassed the Moldavian region of Bessarabia, the modern Ukraine's regions of the Black Sea littoral (Prychornomoria), Zaporizhzhia, Tavria, the Azov Sea littoral (Pryazovia), the Tatar region of Crimea, the area around the Kuban River, and the Circassian lands.

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