Taurida Governorate

1802–1918 unit of Russia

Taurida Governorate was an administrative territorial unit (guberniya) of the Russian Empire. It included the territory of the Crimean Peninsula and the mainland between the lower Dnieper River with the coasts of the Black Sea and Sea of Azov. It formed after Taurida Oblast was abolished in 1802 during the course of Paul I's administrative reform of the territories of the former Crimean Khanate which were annexed by Russia in 1783. The governorate's centre was the city of Simferopol. The name of the province was derived from Taurida , a historical name for Crimea. Today the territory of the governorate is part of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia Oblasts of Ukraine, which were annexed by Russia but remain internationally recognized as part of Ukraine.

In 1783, the Khanate of Crimea was annexed by Catherine the Great’s Russia. Soon after, Taurida Oblast was established. During the reign of Paul I the oblast was abolished, but in 1802 re established as a governorate (guberniya). It was a part of the Russian Empire until the Russian Revolution of 1918. Following the 1917 October Revolution, the ethnic Tatar government proclaimed the Crimean People's Republic on December 13, 1917, which was the first Muslim Democratic state. The Tatar republic covered the peninsular portion of the former governorate, while its northern counties ended up temporarily under jurisdiction of the Yekaterinoslav Governorate. However neither Ukraine nor the Crimea managed to hold on to their territories and were overrun by Bolshevik Red Guards in the winter of 1917 18. Briefly in early 1918 the bolsheviks split the governorate territories between the Taurida Soviet Socialist Republic and the Donetsk Krivoi Rog Soviet Republic before being overrun by the forces of the Ukrainian People's Republic with military assistance from the German Empire.