Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 December 2011
General Diebitsch's victory at Kulevcha on 11 June precipitated a series of events which brought the Russian army to the gates of Constantinople and Turkey to the verge of dissolution early in September. The maintenance or the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire in Europe suddenly became the issue in St Petersburg. Was the maintenance of that empire more advantageous to Russia than its dissolution?
1 The author has in his possession a photostatic copy of the original supplied by the Central Archive Administration of Moscow. The description of the document is as follows: “13,010–7. Septembre 1829—plusieurs annexes—six annexes.” This document was not accessible to Professor Theodor Schiemann (Gesch[ichte] Russ[lands unter Kaiser Nikolaus I], II, 367, f.n. 4) nor to any other scholar since.
2 Also designated at times as “Comité sur les affaires d'Orient.” Martens, F., Recueil [des Traités et Conventions], (St Pétersbourg, 1878), IVGoogle Scholar, partie I, 438, incorrectly includes Prince Alexander, who might be the Tsarevich, were it not for the fact that what he meant to write was “le prince Alexandre Galitzine”.
3 F. Martens, Recueil, IV (I), 438.
4 F. Martens, Recueil, XI, 370–73.
5 F. Martens, Recueil, XI, 375. Here Martens gives the date of the despatch as 2 April (21 March).
6 F. Martens, Recueil, XI, 410–11. Does Martens err in giving the date 4 September (23 August)?
7 Shilder, N. K. [Schilder], “Imperator Nikolai I i Vostochnyi Vopros (1826–1830 gg.)” Russkaia Starina (St Petersburg, 1901), p. 11Google Scholar, also his [Imperator] Nikolai Pervyi (St Petersburg, 1903), 11, 248–250.
8 Martens, P., “Étude historique sur la politique russe dans la question d'Orient,” Revue de Droit International et de Legislation Comparée (Paris, 1877), IX, 70–71.Google Scholar
9 Martens, F., “Rossiia i Frantsiia vo vremena restavratsii i iuol'skoi monarkhii”, Zhurnal Ministerstva Narodnago Prosvieskcheniia (St Petersburg, 1907), n.s. 2, X, 239–42.Google Scholar
10 F. Martens, Recueil, IV (I), 439–40.
11 F. Martens, Recueil, IV (I), 440, by error uses the word inféeurs.
12 Shilder, Nikolai Pervyi, II, 548–50.
13 Schiemann, Gesch. Russ. II, 367.
14 Shilder, Nikolai Pervyi, II, 550.
15 [Bibliographical Note.] The best analysis of the policy during this period, except for minor errors usual in a pioneer work, may be found in Puryear, Vernon J., England, Russia and the Straits Question, 1844–1856 (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1931)Google Scholar and amplified in some respects in his International Economics and Diplomacy in the Near East. A Study of British Commercial Policy in the Levant, 1834–1853 (Stanford University Press, 1935).Google Scholar A perspective of the problem as a whole in history may be found in the first chapter of Kerner, Robert J. and Howard, Harry N., The Balkan Conferences and the Balkan Entente (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1936).Google Scholar