History · Russia & Ukraine
The sunflower in Russia and Ukraine
How an American ornamental travelled east via Spain, grew in Russia into an oil crop, became the oil heartland of the Black Sea through deliberate breeding — and rose to become the national symbol of Ukraine.
In short: the sunflower was domesticated in North America and reached Europe around 1510 as an ornamental. In Russia it became a true oil crop: because sunflower oil was not on the list of fatty foods forbidden during the Orthodox Lent, it grew hugely popular as food. Russian peasants devoted themselves to its cultivation, and the plant breeder V.S. Pustovoit dramatically raised its oil content in the early twentieth century. Since then Russia and Ukraine have formed the world's oil heartland; since 2022 the flower has also been a worldwide symbol of Ukraine.
No country has changed the sunflower as much as Russia, and no region today supplies as much sunflower oil as the area around the Black Sea. This page tells in detail the single chapter that the general history of the sunflower only summarises: how the plant went from curiosity to Eastern Europe's most important oil crop, and what that means for the oil and seeds we eat today.
From Spain eastward
The sunflower (Helianthus annuus) was tamed in North America and only reached Europe around 1510 on Spanish ships, where it was at first purely an ornamental and a botanical curiosity. From Spain it spread eastward through the gardens of Europe. The botanist and historian Charles B. Heiser describes in The Sunflower (1976) how the plant eventually reached Russia by way of central and eastern Europe — the country where its economic fortunes would truly turn. For the plant's wild relatives and how the genus is structured, see wild species.
The Lenten oil of the Orthodox Church
In Russia the sunflower received an unexpected push from a religious quarter. The Russian Orthodox Church prescribed, during its long fasting periods — together nearly two hundred days a year — abstention from many fatty foods: butter, lard and most vegetable oils were forbidden. But the sunflower was so new that sunflower oil simply did not appear on that centuries-old list. As a result it was a permitted source of fat during Lent. In the early nineteenth century sunflower oil rapidly became popular as postnoe maslo, "Lenten oil", and with that the flower changed in Russia from curiosity into a food crop.
Peasants and the rise of the oilseed
What began as a religious loophole grew into a peasant economy. In the Voronezh and Saratov regions, farmers began to grow the sunflower at field scale, and pressing oil soon became a village craft. Demand for oil made selection worthwhile: people kept seed from plants with larger heads and oilier kernels. In this way, long before scientific breeding, a Russian landrace arose that gave far more oil than the original ornamental. The cultivation technique that came out of this still underpins the modern growing and harvest of oilseed sunflowers.
Systematic breeding: V.S. Pustovoit
The great leap came in the early twentieth century with systematic plant breeding. The Russian — later Soviet — scientist Vasily Stepanovich Pustovoit (1886–1972) devoted his career to raising the oil content of the seed. Through careful selection and his "method of reserves", he lifted the oil content from roughly 28 per cent in the old landraces to over 50 per cent in his best lines — one of the most dramatic improvements in the history of plant breeding. The leading institute in Krasnodar (VNIIMK) bears his name today. His high-oil varieties later travelled back to North America and Europe and form the basis of virtually all modern oilseed sunflowers. The enormous variation that has grown out of this is in the cultivar database; the old giant type that preceded this development is described under the Russian Mammoth.
World production and the Black Sea
That breeding made the sunflower one of the most important oilseeds in the world. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Ukraine and Russia together are today by far the largest producers and exporters of sunflower seed and oil: before 2022 the two countries together supplied roughly half of the global export of sunflower oil. The Black Sea ports — Odesa among them — are the pivot of that trade, through which oil and seed ship to the European Union, India and the Middle East. When those ports were blockaded in 2022, world prices for vegetable oil shot up, showing how dependent the world has become on this single region.
From oil crop to national symbol
In Ukraine the sunflower had for generations been a familiar sight in the countryside and is regarded there as the national flower. That association took on worldwide meaning in 2022: after the Russian invasion, the sunflower became an international symbol of solidarity with Ukraine, seen on banners, clothing and in support campaigns across the world. It is a striking turn that the same plant once famous as a Russian oil crop is now mainly linked with Ukraine. For how those layers of meaning developed, read on under symbolism.
Sources
- Heiser, C.B. (1976). The Sunflower. University of Oklahoma Press. Standard work on the origin, spread and journey to Russia.
- Pustovoit, V.S. (c. 1920–1960). Work on the breeding of Helianthus annuus for high oil content; All-Russian Research Institute of Oil Crops (VNIIMK), Krasnodar.
- Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) (2023). Production and trade figures for sunflower seed and oil; share of Ukraine and Russia in world exports.
- News reporting (2022). Blockade of Black Sea ports, effect on the world price of vegetable oil and the sunflower as a symbol of Ukraine.