Britain, the International Spectrum, and the Eastern Question, 1827-1841

1992 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. 15-35 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roderic H. Davison

We commemorated in 1988 the sesquicentennial of the Convention of Balta Limani, the ground-breaking Ottoman-British commercial agreement that set a pattern for Ottoman agreements with other powers in the years immediately following. The Convention sprang from British interests and from Ottoman needs during the 1830s in the Near East. My function is to sketch the general international background for the Convention, to look at the situation of the Ottoman Empire, at British foreign policy in the early nineteenth century, and in particular at the development of British policy in the Near East in the years from 1827 to 1841. A subtitle indicating the desirable breadth of view might read “From Navarino (1827) to Nezib (1839), and from Hercules’ Pillars to Hormuz and Herat.”

1973 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 509-533 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edward Ingram

Weak states can control strong states, provided the weak can persuade the strong to admit, that they are vitally interested in their integrity and independence. In the late nineteentli century everybody understood the influence of the Ottoman Empire upon British policy, and the influence of Austria-Hungary upon Imperial German policy in the near east. In the heyday of the Great Powers of Europe it was not expected tliat orientals should aspire to similar influence: their futures would be decided by Europeans. Until the work of Robinson and Gallagher revealed the extent to which the khedive of Egypt controlled Lord Cromer, the history of late nineteenth century imperialism was written from this assumption.


Slavic Review ◽  
1978 ◽  
Vol 37 (3) ◽  
pp. 421-439 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lawrence P. Meriage

Throughout the nineteenth century a major international issue facing the Great Powers of Europe was the volatile “Eastern Question.” As the Ottoman Empire grew steadily weaker, the question of the future disposition of its extensive territories (some 238,000 square miles in Europe alone in 1800) provoked an intense and prolonged rivalry among those European states with vested political and economic interests in the Near East. With its military power in decline and its frontiers menaced by powerful neighbors, the Ottoman Empire seemed on the verge of collapse at the beginning of the nineteenth century despite its imposing imperial edifice.


Author(s):  
Tatiana V. Chumakova ◽  
◽  
Michaela Moravchikova ◽  

The article is devoted to the study of the problem of autocephaly of Orthodox Churches in Russia during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Interest in this aspect of aspect of Orthodox ecclesiology and canon law intensified not only because of the development of Orthodox theology in Russia, but also due to the fact that this problem acquired political significance. It was connected with some matters of domestic and foreign policy of the Russian Empire. The annexation of Georgian in the early nineteenth century and liquidation of the autocephaly of the Georgian Church by the decision of the secular authorities provided the enduring source of the anti-governmental mood among Georgian elite, traditionally closely connected with the local clergy. The foreign policy interests of the empire in the Near East and Asia Minor also contributed to the intensification of research in the field of ecclesiastic history and the modern structure of ancient patriarchates. The greatest factor that contributed to an increase in such research interests was the emergence of new autocephalous churches: the Greek and Bulgarian churches separated from the Patriarchate of Constantinople. Separation of the Bulgarian Church provoked an aggressive polemic in the Russian press. The problem of nationalism was highlighted, which is significant for the Orthodox tradition. As an attachment to the article, the authors include the text of a report on the possibility of the autocephaly of the Georgian Church composed by Vladimir Beneshevich in 1917. The report was made upon request of the Provisional Government and it is preserved in the collection of Beneshevich at the St. Petersburg Branch of the Archive of the Russian Academy of Sciences.


Author(s):  
Alexander Bitis

This book covers one of the most important and persistent problems in nineteenth-century European diplomacy, the Eastern Question. The Eastern Question was essentially shorthand for comprehending the international consequences caused by the gradual and apparently terminal decline of the Ottoman Empire in Europe. This volume examines the military and diplomatic policies of Russia as it struggled with the Ottoman Empire for influence in the Balkans and the Caucasus. The book is based on extensive use of Russian archive sources and it makes a contribution to our understanding of issues such as the development of Russian military thought, the origins and conduct of the 1828–1829 Russo-Turkish War, the origins and conduct of the 1826–1828 Russo-Persian War and the Treaty of Adrianople. The book also considers issues such as the Russian army's use of Balkan irregulars, the reform of the Danubian Principalities (1829 –1834), the ideas of the ‘Russian Party’ and Russian public opinion toward the Eastern Question.


PMLA ◽  
1938 ◽  
Vol 53 (3) ◽  
pp. 827-836
Author(s):  
Wallace Cable Brown

One of the most important literary manifestations of that direct interest in the Near East which travellers and travel books created, appears in English prose fiction of the early nineteenth century. The prose fiction thus supplements the Near East poetry of Byron, Moore, Southey, and numerous minor versifiers as well as the travel books themselves, which may be considered a kind of minor literature. Throughout the first half of the eighteenth century English readers had shown considerable interest in the Near East, particularly in the oriental tale; yet this interest was almost wholly indirect—the product of French accounts or French translations of the Arabian Nights. It was not until the last quarter of the century that new developments brought “the Orient much nearer to England than ever before … In letters, this modern spirit was first expressed by the increased number of travelers' accounts.”


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