Svitlana Arabadzhy
Svitlana Arabadzhy is a historian specialising in maritime economic and social history, with a particular focus on the Black and Azov Sea region during the Romanov Empire, as well as on the history of Greeks in Ukrainian lands. She earned her PhD from Mariupol State University in 2012 with a dissertation entitled “Everyday Life of the Greek Population in the North Azov Region at the End of the 18th and the Beginning of the 20th Century: A Source Studies Perspective.” Her research interests include the history of ports and port communities, commercial networks, and migration. From 2023 to 2025, she was a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellow at the Department of Archaeology, Conservation and History at the University of Oslo, where she conducted the research project Becoming Greek South of Ukraine, 1774–2021: The History of Ukraine through its Greek Minority between Local and Transnational Contexts (UAGREEKS). Dr. Arabadzhy has recently published an article examining the expansion of the port city of Mariupol during the so-called “Greek period” of its history, as well as the role of the local community and Austrian merchants in the development of maritime trade. Currently, under the STASH Project, she is investigating the evolution of the legal system of the Russian Empire in the prosecution of maritime smuggling, in the context of changes in tax and customs policy.