scholarly journals The eastern question in the parliament of the United Kingdom in 1876

2021 ◽  
pp. 189-206
Author(s):  
Milos Kovic
Keyword(s):  
Great Britain ◽  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
Bosnia And Herzegovina ◽  
Political Elites ◽  
British Government ◽  
Parliamentary Debates ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Eastern Question ◽  
Almost All

This article scrutinizes the attitude of the British political elites towards the Eastern question, in the year of the beginning of the Serbian liberation and unification wars of 1876-1878. It is based on diverse sources, Hansard?s Parliamentary Debates being the most important one. The Eastern question, as geopolitical problem of the future of the Balkan and Levantine lands from which the Ottoman Empire was gradually retreating, has been considered through the confrontation of Great Britain and Russia on the wider Eurasian stage, especially in relation to their conflict in the Central Asia. The article is mainly devoted to the different interpretations, debates and conflicts in the British Parliament and public opinion, provoked by the Serbian uprising in Herzegovina and Bosnia, atrocities in Bulgaria, and the beginning of the Serbian-Turkish Wars. The divisions went mainly through the party lines. Behind almost all events in the East, the Conservatives perceived the hand of Russia and League of the Three Emperors (Dreikaisebund). These ?foreign influences? were attributed mainly to Russia and Serbia, as the alleged Russia?s tool in the Balkans. Thus, according to the Conservatives, the Serbs and Russians were to blame for the sufferings of Bulgarians in the hands of the Turks. Additionally, they were repeating that Turkish crimes were committed in self-defence, and that the numbers of victims were hugely exaggerated by the Russian, Serbian and Bulgarian propaganda and the British liberal press. The Conservatives had similar attitudes towards the atrocities committed by the Turks in the Eastern Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina. The Liberals, on the other hand, were insisting that the main causes of these uprisings and wars were national feelings, economical problems, and the misrule of the Turks. They were directing their moral indignation not only to the Turks, but to the British government as well. According to the Liberals, by despatching of the British fleet in the vicinity of the Ottoman capital, the British government encouraged the Turks and made Great Britain co-responsible for the atrocities committed in Bulgaria, Serbia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

“Bulgarian Horrors” Revisited: the Many-Layered Manifestations of the Orientalist Discourse in Victorian Political Construction of the External, Intimate and Internal Other

Belleten ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 81 (291) ◽  
pp. 525-568
Author(s):  
Nazan Çi̇çek
Keyword(s):  
Conceptual Framework ◽  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
Salient Feature ◽  
Cognitive Map ◽  
The Political ◽  
Parliamentary Debates ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
Eastern Question ◽  
The Times ◽  
The Many

This study largely drawing upon the established conceptual framework of Orientalism in Saidian terms shall analyse the British perceptions and representations of the Bulgarian Crisis of 1876, a salient feature of the Eastern Question, as they appeared in British parliamentary debates. It will also make occasional yet instructive references to the coverage of the Crisis as well as the image of the Ottoman Empire and the Balkans which were organic parts of the Crisis, in some influential periodicals of the era such as the Times and the Contemporary Review in order to better contextualize the debates in the parliament. The main point this article shall make is that the Bulgarian Crisis worked as a catalyst in reinforcing the hegemony of the Orientalist discourse in the political construction of the Ottoman Empire as an absolute external Other in Britain at the time. It shall also delve into the construction of the Balkans as an "intimate other" whose Oriental and European features were alternately accentuated during the Crisis with a view to enlist the British public in either supporting or denouncing the Bulgarian uprising. All in all, it will suggest that the Orientalist rhetoric was embedded at the very core of the Victorian British elites' cognitive map, and was also unsparingly employed in negating the domestic political opponents swamping them with negative Orientalist stereotypes.

scholarly journals The Constitution of the United Kingdom

1999 ◽  
Vol 58 (1) ◽  
pp. 96-128 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rodney Brazier
Keyword(s):  
United Kingdom ◽  
Great Britain ◽  
Northern Ireland ◽  
British Government ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Scottish Parliament ◽  
Unitary State ◽  
Legal Effect ◽  
History Of ◽  
Similarities And Differences

BEFORE the dawn of the millennium new legislative and executive authorities will have been established in Edinburgh, Cardiff and (subject to further political and other progress) in Belfast. This article analyses the nature of these constitutional initiatives, and examines their place in the unitary state which is the United Kingdom. It begins by tracing the history of constitutional union between England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland. The legal effect of the 1998 devolution statutes is examined, in particular on the legal sovereignty of the United Kingdom Parliament. A triple constitutional and legal lock exists in the Scotland Act 1998 to ensure that the devolution settlement is the final step away from the pure unitary state which has enfolded Scotland in Great Britain. The nature and likely success of that lock are analysed in some detail. The lawmaking powers of the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly, and the Northern Ireland Assembly are assessed. The similarities and differences between each of the three devolved governments and the British Government are highlighted, and consequences and possible lessons for future government-making at Westminster are drawn. The article concludes with a peer into the possible constitutional futures for the United Kingdom.

Gender Equality at the Test of Sharia Councils in the UK

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 65-86
Author(s):  
Louisa Perreau
Keyword(s):  
Great Britain ◽  
Muslim Women ◽  
The United States ◽  
State Policies ◽  
Religious Fundamentalism ◽  
British Government ◽  
Family Services ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Abortion Laws ◽  
The Uk

As the saying goes ‘good girls go to heaven, bad girls go everywhere!’, whose origin is uncertain, sometimes attributed to American actress and screenwriter Mae West, sometimes to editor-in-chief of Cosmopolitan magazine, Helen Gurvey Brown, it was taken up as a slogan by feminists who denounce the sexual norm imposed on women by religions. At a time when the influence of religious fundamentalism on State policies seems to be gaining ground (retreat on abortion laws in the United States, in Poland; Sharia courts in Great Britain, etc.), the object of this research note will be to question the articulations between British Muslim women, State multiculturalism and legislation. In Britain, since the 1980s, a network of sharia councils has developed to resolve disputes between Muslims, including resolving family problems. Sharia councils thus reveal the place of Muslim women in the United Kingdom on the issue of divorce. Extremely patriarchal, rarely feminist, often undemocratic, the sharia councils appear as places of power. The latter are often compared to Islamic courts, so-called ‘counseling’ religious services or ‘Islamic family services’ to which Muslims wishing to respect divine law and their religious precepts go – especially women. What does this mean for British Muslim women who use these services? How is the British government responding?

Russia and the Eastern Question

2006 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Bitis
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
The Caucasus ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
Eastern Question ◽  
Book Covers ◽  
Russian Military ◽  
The Military ◽  
European Diplomacy

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.

The National Institute of Oceanography

Polar Record ◽  
1951 ◽  
Vol 6 (41) ◽  
pp. 88-90
Author(s):  
G. E. R. Deacon
Keyword(s):  
Great Britain ◽  
Royal Society ◽  
Marine Biology ◽  
National Committee ◽  
British Government ◽  
Marine Biological ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Biological Aspects ◽  
Set Up

In 1944 Vice-Admiral Sir John Edgell, K.B.E., C.B., F.R.S., then Hydrographer of the Navy, advised the British Government that in its contribution to research in oceanography this country had fallen seriously behind other countries, including many which had no comparable traditions of interest in the oceans and their navigation, and that an oceanographical institute should be set up in Great Britain. The subject was referred to the Royal Society, and the Oceanographical Sub-Committee of the National Committee for Geodesy and Geophysics showed itself, in a report which was accepted by the Society, to be strongly in favour of setting up a national oceanographical institute. It urged the primary need for researches of physical character because marine physical investigations had taken a secondary place to marine biology ever since the Challenger Expedition of 1872–76, and because the biological aspects were well looked after by existing authorities such as the Marine Biological Associations of the United Kingdom and Scotland, the Fisheries Laboratories at Lowestoft and Aberdeen, the Discovery Investigations, and marine biological laboratories associated with universities.

7. World war and dissolution

2017 ◽  
pp. 94-108
Author(s):  
Martyn Rady
Keyword(s):  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
First World War ◽  
Historical Overview ◽  
World War ◽  
Habsburg Empire ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
The First World War ◽  
Eastern Question ◽  
First World

International politics in the later 19th and early 20th centuries was dominated by the ‘Eastern Question’: the legacy of the failing Ottoman Empire in the Balkans. ‘World war and dissolution: 20th century’ considers issues that led to the First World War, including the murder of Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo, June 1914. To withstand the Russians, the Habsburg armies increasingly depended on German reinforcements. By passing strategic command of its forces to Wilhelm II in 1916, the Habsburg Empire’s fate was sealed. Franz Joseph’s nephew Karl was to be the last emperor. A final section gives a historical overview, asking whether the dissolution of the Habsburg Empire was inevitable.

V. British Policy in the Balkans, 1908-9

1964 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 258-279 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. B. Cooper
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
Critical Period ◽  
Asia Minor ◽  
Special Position ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
Administrative Reforms ◽  
British Military ◽  
Eastern Question ◽  
Public Reaction

Britain acted as a principal arbitrator of the Eastern Question throughout the nineteenth century. During the 1890's, however, Britain lost this position owing to diplomatic isolation, the hostility of the Sultan of Turkey—who had found a new ally in Germany—and an equal hostility to the Sultan in Britain, where he was regarded as a brutal oriental despot presiding over an empire in the last stages of decay. The immediate cause of Britain's loss of status in Turkey was her failure to provide vigorous support to Sultan Abdul Hamid in the critical period following the Congress of Berlin. Turkey was bankrupt, but the Sultan's appeal for a loan met with no response in Britain; Turkey's European provinces were on the verge of slipping out of the Sultan's control but Britain refused to extend the terms of the Cyprus Convention (which guaranteed the Sultan's dominions in Asia Minor) to cover the more turbulent Balkans. The Convention itself had an alienating effect, since the guarantee was dependent upon the introduction of administrative reforms in Asia Minor under the direction of British military consuls. Britain's insistence on the application of this provision aroused the suspicion that she was actually seeking political control over this area. Turkey's loss of confidence in Britain, however, had deeper roots. ‘Many Muslims believed that Britain had deserted Turkey in the hour of need, that her protection of Islam was disproved by her war with Afghanistan, that her desire for the integrity of the Ottoman Empire was shown to be a pretence by the occupation of Cyprus, and that her power to rule provinces properly was doubtful after her failures in Egypt.’ In fact as early as 1879 Britain had lost the special position which she had held in Turkey for nearly half a century; and thereafter her prestige diminished rapidly, especially after the strong public reaction to the Armenian massacres of 1894-95.

scholarly journals Between deosmanization and balkanization: refugee’s steps of bosniak history

2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 36-74
Author(s):  
Safet Bandžović ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
Considerable Part ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
The Past ◽  
Balkan Wars ◽  
Eastern Question ◽  
History Of ◽  
Political Units ◽  
Xix Century ◽  
Linguistic Backgrounds

The past and the present are inseparable, one interprets the other. Many "long-lasting" processes go beyond local frameworks and regional borders. This also applies to the complex "Eastern question", as well as the problem of the deosmanization of the Balkans, whose political geography in the 19th and 20th centuries was exposed to radical overlaps. Wars and persecutions are important factors in the history of Balkan Muslims. In the seventies of the XIX century, they constituted half of the population in the Ottoman part of the Balkans. With war devastation, a considerable part was killed or expelled to Anadolia between 1870 and 1890. The emergent "Turkish islands" in the Balkans after 1878 were increasingly narrowed, or disappeared due to the displacement of Muslims. Multiethnic and religious color of the Balkans disturbed accounts with simple categorizations. The term "balkanization" signified, after the Balkan wars of 1912-1913, "not only the fragmentation of large and powerful political units, but became synonymous with returning tribal, backward, primitive, and barbaric." The Balkanization of "Ottoman Europe" and the violent changes in its ethnic-religious structure led to discontinuity, the erosion of history, as well as fragmentation of the minds of the remaining Muslims and their afflicted communities, the lack of knowledge of the interconnectedness of their fates. The emigration of Bosniaks and other Muslims of different ethnic and linguistic backgrounds from the Balkans to various parts of the Ottoman Empire, and then to Turkey, during the XIX and XX centuries, had a number of consequences.

The Embassy Headed by Petr Mansurov and Semen Samsonov (1615—1619) and the “Greek” Secular Migration

Istoriya ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (5 (103)) ◽  
pp. 0
Author(s):  
Tatiana Oparina
Keyword(s):  
Social Status ◽  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
Russian Society ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
Archival Material ◽  
The Social ◽  
Mechanisms Of Adaptation ◽  
Almost All ◽  
The Military ◽  
Greek Immigrants

The article studies the lives of immigrants who came from the Ottoman Empire to Russia with the Embassy of Petr Mansurov and Semen Samsonov. The archival material allows us to trace the lives of the immigrants and their descendants in Russia up to the mid/late 17th century. The documents also offer a possibility to reconstruct the social status of the immigrants in the Ottoman Empire. Almost all of them belonged to the military class and had previously moved from the Balkans to the Danube principalities. In Russia, they retained their social status and were engaged by the Office for foreign military servants affairs (Inozemsky Prikaz). Many died while guarding Russia’s southern borders. Only one person lived a long life in Russia — Nikolai Kralev, who rose to the rank of captain. He spent about 33 years in Russia. The obtained information expands our understanding of the mechanisms of adaptation and the ways of naturalization of “Greek” immigrants in Russian society.

African Customs in an English Setting: Legal and Policy Aspects of Recognition

1987 ◽  
Vol 31 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 207-225 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sebastian Poulter
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Great Britain ◽  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Total Population ◽  
West African ◽  
Ethnic Composition ◽  
British Government ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Late Eighteenth Century ◽  
African Slaves

Although there are no reliable, detailed official figures as to the present ethnic composition of the population of Great Britain, a recent survey by the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys has estimated that the number of Africans settled here is just over 100,000. Many more, of course, arrive in Britain each year as students or visitors. Indeed, in 1986 the volume of visitors from Nigeria and Ghana was considered by the British Government to be placing such burdens on immigration officials at the ports of entry that it was felt necessary to alter the immigration rules; people coming from those two countries now have to be in possession of visas before they arrive in the United Kingdom.The presence of a significant number of Africans in England today is nothing new. There were at least 10,000 here in the late eighteenth century and possibly as many as 30,000, at a time when the total population of the country was only about a sixth of what it is today. West African slaves were brought to England from the 1570s onward. Most of them were used as household servants, often by the aristocracy, and some were employed as court entertainers. Indeed, at the beginning of the sixteenth century Henry VII had a black trumpeter (of uncertain origin) in his retinue. Much earlier, Africans served as soldiers in the Roman legions which occupied Britain during the first four centuries A.D.

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