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“Russian Skill and Turkish Imbecility”: The Treaty of Kuchuk Kainardji Reconsidered

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

Rodebic H. Davison
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Extract

Just over two centuries ago, on July 21, 1774, at the village of Kuchuk.Kainardji, Russia and Turkey signed a peace treaty which not only marked one of history's great shifts in power relationships, but also became a continuing source of controversy among statesmen and scholars. Most of the terms of the treaty, which ended a six-year war, are clear, easy to summarize, and obvious in their impact. But articles 7 and 14, which dealt with the protection of Christianity in the Ottoman Empire and with an Orthodox church that Russia could build in Istanbul, have been subject to widely varying interpretations. The central question is whether Russia received, under these articles, a right to act as protector of Ottoman Christians. Many historians have contended that the treaty of Kuchuk Kainardji did confer such a guardian role on Russia, and some have adopted the opinion that the treaty, especially in this regard, was an example of “Russian skill and Turkish imbecility.“ Other historians have maintained that any such right, under the treaty, was vague. Still others have said it was nonexistent. A reexamination of the historical evidence is long overdue.

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Articles
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 35 , Issue 3 , September 1976 , pp. 463 - 483
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Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 1976

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References

1. A village south of Silistria, on the right bank of the Danube, in present-day Bulgaria. The name in Turkish means “little hot spring” and is spelled “Küçũk Kaynarca” in the modern Turkish alphabet.

2. Russo-Turkish disagreement over the meaning of some clauses, especially concerning the Crimean Tatars, was settled by a “Convention explicative” of Aynali Kavak, March 10, 1779; text in Noradounghian, Gabriel, Recueil d'actes internationaux de 'Empire ottoman, 4 vols. (Paris, 1897-1903), 1: 338–44Google Scholar. On these and other problems concerning the Crimea between 1774 and 1779 see Fisher, Alan W., The Russian Annexation of the Crimea, 1772-1783 (Cambridge, 1970), p. 55–111.Google Scholar

3. Draft of a letter to Rumiantsov, undated (ca. July 29 to August 3, 1774, O.S.) in Sbomik imperatorskago russkago istoricheskago obshchestva (hereafter cited as SIRIO), 13 (1874): 429.

4. See the Ottoman government's manifesto on its declaration of war against Russia, October 4, 1853, referring to Russia's unacceptable demand which she sought to ground on a provision of the treaty of Kuchuk Kainardji, in G. F. de Martens, ed., Nouveau recueil général des traites … , 20 vols, in 22 (Gottingen, 1843-75), 15: 548.Google Scholar

5. Miliukov, Paul, Seignobos, Charles, and Eisenmann, L., History of Russia , trans. Markmann, Charles Lam, 3 vols. (New York, 1968-69), 2: 111 Google Scholar. The same statement in French in the original, Histoire de Russie, 3 vols. (Paris, 1932-33), 2: 580.

6. Driault, Edouard and Lheritier, Michel, Histoire diplomatique de la Grèce, 5 vols. (Paris, 1925-26), 1: 143.Google Scholar

7. Zhigarev, Sergei, Russkaia politika v vostochnom voprose (Moscow, 1896), pp. 199–200 Google Scholar.

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9. Jorga, Nicholas, Geschichte des Osmanischen Reiches, 5 vols. (Gotha, 1908-13), 4: 511–12Google Scholar; von Hammer-Purgstall, Joseph, Geschichte des Osmanischen Reiches , 10 vols. (Pest, 1827-35), 8: 447 Google Scholar. Among other historians who have expressed similar opinions with various degrees of shading are Emile Bourgeois, Sergei Goriainov, Bernard Lewis, Alfred Rambaud, L. S. Stavrianos, and Nicholas Zernov.

10. Harcave, Sidney, Russia: A History, 6th ed. (Philadelphia, 1968 [1st ed. 1952]), p. 157.Google Scholar

11. Vernadsky, George, A History of Russia, 6th ed. (New Haven, 1969 [3rd printing 1971]), p. 167Google Scholar. The first edition was 1929.

12. Stavrianos, L. S., The Balkans Since 1453 (New York, 1958), p. 1958 Google Scholar, and Jelavich, Barbara, A Century of Russian Foreign Policy, 1814-1914 (Philadelphia, 1964), pp. 20–21 Google Scholar, make almost identical assertions about Russia's right of representation, quoting a portion of article 7. Jelavich's statement in her expanded version, St. Petersburg and Moscow: Tsarist and Soviet Foreign Policy, 1814-1974 (Bloomington, Ind., 1974). pp. 20-21, quotes a few more words of article 7 and so narrows the claim. Sidney N. Fisher takes a broad view in The Middle East: A History, 2nd ed. (New York, 1968 [1st ed. 1959]), p. 251, citing articles 12 and 14 but obviously meaning 7 and 14. Among others advancing a similar opinion on Russia's right of representation are Tukin, Cemal, “Küçük Kaynarca,” Islâm Ansiklopcdisi (Istanbul, 1940), vol. 6, p. 1069 Google Scholar; Karal, Enver Ziya, Nizam-i cedit ve Tansimat devirleri (Ankara, 1970 [3rd printing]; first published 1947), p. 109Google Scholar; Saul, Norman E., Russia and the Mediterranean, 1797-1807 (Chicago, 1970), p. 8–9.Google Scholar

13. Florinsky, Michael T., Russia: A History and an Interpretation, 2 vols. (New York, 1953; reprinted 1960), 1: 526 Google Scholar; Seton-Watson, Hugh, The Russian Empire, 1801- 1917 (Oxford, 1967), p. 46 Google Scholar.

14. Charles, and Jelavich, Barbara, The Balkans (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1970), p. 35 Google Scholar; Kurat, Akdes Nimet, Turkiye ve Rusya, XVIII. yüzyil sonundan Kurtuluş Savaşina kadar Türk-Rus ilişikleri (1798-1919) (Ankara, 1970), pp. 28–30 Google Scholar; Anderson, M. S., The Eastern Question, 1774-1923 (London, 1966), p. xi CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Armajani, Yahya, The Middle East, Past and Present (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1970), p. 196 Google Scholar.

15. Kurat, Türkiye ve Rusya, p. 31; Stavrianos, The Balkans Since 1453, p. 192.

16. Kocu, Resat Ekrem, Osmanli muahedeler ve kapitulasyonlar, 1300-1920 (Istanbul, 1934), p. 102 Google Scholar; Marriott, J. A. R., The Eastern Question , 4th ed. (Oxford, 1940 [1st ed. 1917]), p. 153 Google Scholar; Lheritier, Driault and, Histoire diplomatique, 1: 24 Google Scholar; Driault, Edouard, La Question d'Orient, 8th ed. (Paris, 1921 [1st ed. 1898]), p. 55 Google Scholar; Zhigarev, Russkaia politika, p. 198. Marriott on p. 152 cites articles 12 and 14 but obviously means 7 and 14. Zhigarev and Driault and Lhéritier say Thugut's view may be slightly exaggerated, but concur in his general appraisal of Kuchuk Kainardji as reflecting Russian skill and Turkish imbecility.

17. Sorel, Question d'Orient, pp. 263-64. Sorel gives one additional sentence from Thugut, not essential here. The above translation is a little closer to Sorel's French than that by Bramwell, F. C. in Sorel, Albert, The Eastern Question in the Eighteenth Century (New York, 1969 [1st ed. London, 1898]), p. 250 Google Scholar. A Turkish translation by Yusuf Ziya [Őzer] also appeared: On sekizinci asirda Mesele-i Şarkiye ve Kaynarca muahedesi (Istanbul, 1911), as well as a Polish translation by Gomolinska, Marya, Kwestya Wschodnia w w. XVIII (Warsaw, 1905).Google Scholar

18. Riasanovsky, Nicholas V., A History of Russia, 2nd ed. (New York, 1969 [1st ed. 1963]), p. 294.Google Scholar

19. Schiemann, Theodor, Geschichte Russlands unter Kaiser Nikolaus I, 4 vols. (Berlin, 1904-19), 1: 257–58Google Scholar; Pares, Bernard, A History of Russia, 4th ed. (New York, 1946 [1st ed. 1926]), p. 266 Google Scholar; Sumner, B. H., Survey of Russian History (London, 1944), p. 238 Google Scholar. Uebersberger, Hans, Russlands Orientpolitik in den letsten czvei Jahrhundcrten, 2 vols. (Stuttgart, 1913), 1: 335–37Google Scholar, takes a similar view, as does Pushkarev, Sergei, The Emergence of Modern Russia, 1801-1917 (New York, 1963 [1st ed. in Russian, New York, 1956]), p. 344 Google Scholar; see also Charles and Barbara Jelavich, The Balkans, p. 35.

20. A. J. P. Taylor, for instance, following Harold Temperley, says “there was clearly no general right of protection by Russia,” in his The Struggle for Mastery in Europe, 1848-1918 (Oxford, 1954 [New York, 1971]), p. 52, n. 1. Temperley's judgment is in England and the Near East: The Crimea (London, 1936), pp. 467-69. J. C. Hurewitz speaks of Russia's “claim” to a right of protection as “based upon a liberal (and questionable) interpretation of articles 7 and 14” in Diplomacy in the Near and Middle East, 2 vols. (Princeton, 1956), 1: 54. For similar views, see also Alfred S. Stern, Geschichte Europas … 1815 … 1871, 10 vols. (Stuttgart, 1894-1924), 8: 35; Debidour, A., Histoire diplomatique de I'Europe … (1814-1878), 2 vols. (Paris, 1931 [1st ed. 1891]), 1: 101 and 2: 86Google Scholar; Shaw, Stanford J., Between Old and New: The Ottoman Empire Under Sultan Selim III, 1789-1807 (Cambridge, Mass., 1971), p. 10 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Armajani, The Middle East, p. 196.

21. Kurat, Türkiye ve Rusya, p. 29, compares the Russian and Turkish texts of article 7; his transcription of the Turkish text has inconsequential errors. Alan W. Fisher, The Russian Annexation, p. 55, n. 2, says his comparison of Russian and Turkish texts of articles concerning the Crimea showed no discrepancies. Wieczynski, Joseph L., “The Myth of Kuchuk Kainardji in American Histories of Russia,” Middle Eastern Studies, 4, no. 4 (July 1968): 276–79Google Scholar, uses only a text in English as basis for evaluating historians’ statements.

22. Russian text is in Polnoe sobranie sakonov rossiiskoi imperii (hereafter cited as PSZ), 134 vols. (St. Petersburg, 1830-1916), Series 1, vol. 19, no. 14164, pp. 957-67; in Dogovory Rossii s Vostokom, ed. T. Iuzefovich (St. Petersburg, 1869), pp. 24-41; and in Sbornik grcmot i dogovorov o prisoedinenii tsarstv i oblastei k Cosudarstvu Rossiiskomu v XVII-XIX vekakh (Petersburg, 1922), pp. 383-6. All are the same except for minor spelling variations. The last cites a printed copy in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs archives under “Turkey, 1774.” Druzhinina, E. I., Kiuchuk-Kainardzhiiskii mir 1774 goda (ego podgotovka i sakliuchenie) (Moscow, 1955)Google Scholar, prints the text as an appendix; on p. 349 she notes a few differences between the PSZ text and a “contemporary copy,” none of which affect the treaty's wording or meaning. Even she, having used several archives, does not refer to the original manuscript copy in Russian that was signed at Kuchuk Kainardji. I do not know if this still exists. I have relied on the PSZ text. In the Basbakanlik Ar§ivi in Istanbul I have not discovered the original either in Turkish or in Italian. But an early and presumably contemporary manuscript copy is there in a register, Ecnebi Defterler No. 83/1, pp. 139-49, and I have relied on this. This may be the source for the official printed text in Muahedat mecmuasi, 5 vols. (Istanbul, A.H. 1294-98 [A.D. 1877/8-1880/1]), 3: 254-75; the two texts are almost identical. Ahmed Cevdet, Tarih-i Cevdet, tertib-i cedid, 12 vols, in 6 (Istanbul, A.H. 1301-9 [A.D. 1883/4-1891/2]), 1: 285-95, also gives the text, with very slight variations from the two preceding ones. I have found no complete text in modern Turkish letters. Re§at Ekrem (Koçu), Osmanli muahedcleri, pp. 102-4, is a brief summary only, with comment. The Italian text is in G. F. de Martens, ed., Recueil des principaux traités … de I'Europe, 7 vols. (Gottingen, 1791-1801), 4: 606-38, and again in Martens, ed., Recueil, 2nd ed., 8 vols. (Gottingen, 1817-35), 2: 286-322, in each case taken from Storia del Anno for 1774. I have seen no other complete Italian text. Druzhinina, Kiuchuk-Kainardzhiiskii mir, pp. 274-75, prints a clear facsimile of the first and last pages only of the Italian manuscript original in the Arkhiv Vneshnei Politiki Rossii. There are some differences in spelling, in word forms, and occasionally even in wording between the Martens and facsimile Italian versions, although the meaning is not affected. It would be a great service if a facsimile of the complete Italian text, and also of the Russian original, if extant, were published in Moscow. Similarly, if a Turkish scholar can discover the original Italian and Turkish copies in Istanbul, their publication would be welcome. Martens, Recueil, 1st ed., 1: 507-22, gives a “private translation” of the treaty into French, probably from the Italian of Storia del Anno. Noradounghian, Recueil, 1: 319-34, is a different translation into French, from either Italian or Turkish. George Vernadsky et al., A Source Book for Russian History … , 3 vols. (New Haven, 1972), 2: 406-7, give an independent translation of extracts into English from PSZ. On other translations into French and English see notes 36 and 37 below.

23. The Russian term here tends to mean “employees,” the Turkish to mean “officials,” while the Italian seems slightly broader.

24. Galata was the part of Istanbul north of the Golden Horn in which most Europeans lived, as well as many native non-Muslims. European embassies were situated there in Beyoglu, which is today usually the designation for a whole quarter rather than for its original and principal street. Pera, a Greek-derived name for Beyoğlu, was commonly used by Europeans.

25. The phrase “called Russo-Greek” is in the Italian “chiamata Russo-Greca.” Chiamata does not mean simply “having the title of,” but “having the essential character of,” as is clear from its further use in article 11 of the treaty.

26. Hapgood, Isabel Florence, Service Book of the Holy Orthodox-Catholic Apostolic (Greco-Russian) Church, Compiled, Translated, and Arranged from the Old Church Slavonic Service Books of the Russian Church, and Collated with the Service Books of the Greek Church (Boston, 1906)Google Scholar. See also King, John Glen, The Rites and Ceremonies of the Greek Church, in Russia (London, 1772 [reprinted New York, 1970]), pp. vii, 5, 47, 133.Google Scholar

27. The considerable groups of native Catholics in the Ottoman Empire were mostly in Syria, Lebanon, Serbia, and Albania. In Istanbul the majority of Latin Catholics were probably foreign nationals. von Hammer-Purgstall, Joseph, Constantinopolis und der Bosporos , 2 vols. (Osnabrück, 1967 [original ed. 1822]), 2: 126–27Google Scholar mentions the protected Catholic churches in Beyoğlu; Mantran, Robert, Istanbul dans le second moitie du XVII stecle (Paris, 1962), pp. 73, 561–62Google Scholar, has information on French-protected churches in an earlier period. There were very few Protestants in the Ottoman Empire; almost every one was a foreigner.

28. Ignatius Mouradgea d'Ohsson, Tableau générate de I'Empire Othoman , 2nd ed., 7 vols, in 8 (Paris, 1788-1824), 7: 463–64Google Scholar. A chief dragoman and then chargé d'affaires for Sweden, d'Ohsson sometimes makes errors, and has made one earlier in this passage by describing treaty rights which Russia gained in the provinces of Moldavia and Wallachia as applying to the Ottoman Empire generally. But his statement on the church is simple and probably contains the understanding of 1774. As previously noted, Europeans usually said “Pera” for “Beyoğlu.” Zinkeisen, J. W., Geschichte des Osmanischen Reiches in Europa, 7 vols. (Hamburg, 1840-63), 5: 3 Google Scholar, also says that the Greek church to be built in Galata was for Russian subjects.

29. These churches also served the Russian refugee community that flooded into Istanbul after World War I. That community has now dwindled, leaving the churches to be cared for by the remaining older faithful.

30. Druzhinina, Kiuchuk-Kainardzhiiskii mir, pp. 220-24, 296, 348, and article draft (here article 23) on p. 346.

31. Actually, the Russian text says “Greco-Russian,” while the Italian in this instance supports the Turkish “Russo-Greek.” The difference appears to have no significance.

32. Article 16, paragraph 9 of the Kuchuk Kainardji treaty allows the princes of Moldavia and Wallachia to have chargés d'affaires in Istanbul, representing their masters at the Porte, who would be Christians “of the Greek religion” — “della Religione Greca” in Italian, “Grecheskago zakona” in Russian, but “Rum mezhebinden” in Turkish.

33. Druzhinina, Kiuchuk-Kainardzhiiskii mir, pp. Ill and 295; “Exposé confidentiel au Pr. Lobkowitz,” May 16, 1771, SIRIO, 97 (1896): 286-302; Lord Cathcart to Earl of Halifax, February 18/March 1, 1771, SIRIO, 19 (1876): 190-91.

34. Sir R. Gunning to Earl of Suffolk, July 24/August 4, 1774, SIRIO, 19: 423-24. Tooke, William, Life of Catherine II, 5th ed., 3 vols. (Dublin, 1800), 2: 116–18Google Scholar, evaluates the treaty similarly; see also Itzkowitz, Norman and Mote, Max, Mubadele: An Ottoman- Russian Exchange of Ambassadors (Chicago, 1970), p. 37–39.Google Scholar

35. Manifesto of March 17, 1775 in PSZ, Series 1, vol. 20, no. 14274, pp. 80-81. Druzhinina, Kiuchuk-Kainardshiiskii mir, p. 316, and Kurat, Türkiye ve Rusya, p. 30, give a date of March 19, apparently mistaken. The “places of upspringing” might be construed to mean Palestine, but this seems less likely than that it means Constantinople, and generally the lands of the former Byzantine Empire (with Palestine and other parts), now included in the Ottoman Empire.

36. G. F. de Martens gives the French in two editions: Recueil, 1st ed., 4: 607-38, with notes on pp. 606 and 607 asserting that this is the authorized French version made in Russia and published in St. Petersburg in 1775; and Recueil, 2nd ed., 2: 286-321, with similar notes.

37. The St. Petersburg French version and the English translation of it are in “Treaties (Political and Territorial) between Russia and Turkey, 1774-1849,” in Great Britain, House of Commons, Sessional Papers, 1854, vol. 72. This English translation is reproduced in Hurewitz, Diplomacy in the Near and Middle East, 1: 54-61, and also in the 2nd edition, revised and enlarged, Hurewitz, J. C., The Middle East and North Africa in Wo%ld Politics: A Documentary Record (New Haven, Conn., 1975- ), 1: 92.Google Scholar

101. Anderson, M. S., The Great Pozvers and the Near East, 1774-1923 (London, 1970 [New York, 1971]), pp. 9–14 Google Scholar, uses the same English version. There is a more recent and different translation into English in Fred L. Israel, ed., Major Peace Treaties of Modem History, 1645-1967, 4 vols. (New York, 1967), 1: 913-29Google Scholar. The source from which the translation was made is not indicated, except that it was a French text (and hence not one of the official treaty languages). But it is certain that the St. Petersburg French text is not the source, since the church in article 14 is called “Russo-Greek.” Almost certainly the source is Noradounghian. There are a few errors in translation in this new English version. Curiously, Israel says (p. v) that the reason for translating from French is that no official English translation existed.

38. Hammer, Geschichte, 8: 577-84; Hammer, , Histoire de I'Empire Ottoman, 17 vols. (Paris, 1835-41), 16: 494–503 Google Scholar. On a significant inaccuracy, see n. 46 below.

39. Sorel listed the works he consulted on p. iv of his Question d'Orient. Hammer's French edition is among them. Thugut's words as quoted above, from Sorel, pp. 263-64, are nearly identical with those in Hammer, Histoire, vol. 16, pp. 500 and 503. But Sorel adds a few words that are not in Thugut, fails to indicate his omissions in quoting Thugut, and actually reverses the dates for the two dispatches from which he does quote. He also makes an inconsequential error in copying. It may be noted that Sorel has been criticized before for deficiencies in research methods and precision. The most telling criticisms apply to the last four volumes of his L'Europc et la Révolution française, 8 vols. (Paris, 1895—1904); see especially Guyot, Raymond and Muret, Pierre, “Etude critique sur ‘Bonaparte et le Directoire’ par M. Albert Sorel,” Revue d'histoire moderne et contemporaine , 5, no. 4 (January 15, 1904): 241–64CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and no. 5 (February 15, 1904): 313-39. Sorel, nevertheless, still enjoys a considerable reputation. His Question d'Orient, almost a century after its appearance, is called “useful” by authors of two of the most recent monographs in that area: Anderson, Eastern Question, p. 400, and Saul, Russia and the Mediterranean, p. 231.

40. Sorel, Question d'Orient, p. 260.

41. Hammer, Histoire, 16: 500.

42. Hammer, Geschichte, 8: 401-3, 41S n.c.

43. Druzhinina, Kiuchuk-Kainardzhiiskii mir, p. 221.

44. Hammer, Geschichte, 8: 412.

45. Druzhinina, Kiuchnk-Kainardzhiiskii mir, p. 346, giving Obreskov's draft article

24.

46. Hammer, Geschichte, 8: 578. The French edition of Hammer, Histoire, 16: 495, omits the vital qualifying phrase, “on the strength of common assurance.” Why so sloppy a translation? According to the title page of volume 1 of Histoire, J.-J. Hellert made the translation under Hammer's own direction

47. Hammer, Geschichte, 8: 577-82.

48. There were such Russo-Turkish wars in 1787-92, 1806-12, 1828-29, 1853-54, and 1877-78. According to Mosely, Philip E., Russian Diplomacy and the Opening of the Eastern Question in 1838 and 1839 (Cambridge, Mass., 1934), p. 7 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, the Russian fleet sixty years after Kuchuk Kainardji was still ninety-six hours’ sail from the Straits.

49. Thugut's dispatch of May 3, 1773, partly quoted in Hammer, Geschichte, 8: 412, n. a, and 446, n. b.

50. Thugut's dispatch of July 18, 1774, ibid., pp. 582-83.

51. Joseph Freiherr von Hammer-Purgstall, “Erinnerungen aus meinem Leben, 1774- 1852,” in Fontes Rerum Austriacarum, sec. 2, vol. 70 (Vienna, 1940), pp. 35-38, 132, 174-76, 209, 233, 245. See also Wurzbach, Constant von, Biographisches Lexikon des Kaiserthums Oesterreich, 60 vols. (Vienna, 1856-91), 7: 267–89Google Scholar, on Hammer. On Franz Maria Freiherr von Thugut, see ibid., 45: 1-6. Hammer was sometimes critical of Thugut, as he was of everyone, but in an appendix in his Geschichte, 8: 577, he introduces extracts from Thugut's reports as proof of judgments in the text of the Geschichte on Thugut's “diplomatic skill and correct view of affairs.” Hammer states that the extracts will not be unwelcome to “political readers.”

52. Hammer, Geschichte, 8: 582. Turkish accounts, curiously, speak of “idiocy” or “stupidity” of the second Turkish negotiator at Kuchuk Kainardji, but this because he was said himself to have raised the question of indemnity payments to Russia after the treaty was completed and agreed on, thus costing the Turks 15, 000 purses of akce (4, 500, 000 rubles). One account says the stupidity occurred when the delegate awoke from an “elbow nap” and introduced the indemnity subject to cover up the fact he had been dozing, I. H. Danismend, Izahli Osmanli tarihi kronolojisi, 4 vols. (Istanbul, 1947— 55), 4: 58.

53. Metternich to Prince Esterhazy (London), March 17, 1822, and enclosure 4, “Dispositions des Traites entre la Russie et la Porte, relativement aux Chretiens /: Grecs: / habitans des Provinces Europeennes de l'Empire Ottoman,” in Haus- Hof- und Staatsarchiv (Vienna), Staatskanzlei, England, Kart. 166, Korr. Weisungen. Metternich's analysis included nothing on Ottoman Asian territories but did include provisions of the Treaty of Bucharest (1812). Schroeder, Paul, Metternich's Diplomacy at its Zenith (New York, 1969), p. 188, n. 80Google Scholar, refers to Metternich's analysis but gives the dispatch date erroneously as April 24, 1822.

54. Zinkeisen, Geschichte, 5: 3, interprets this clause as promising religious freedom in the Ottoman Empire simply for Russian subjects. So narrow an interpretation cannot be sustained by the language.

55. Reshid to Musurus (London), August 25, 1853, in Diş-Işleri Bakanliği Hazine-i Evrak (Foreign Ministry Archives, Istanbul), dosya 609.

56. Zaionchkovskii, A. M., Vostochnaia voina 1853-1856 gg 4 vols. (St. Petersburg, 1908-13)Google Scholar, Prilosheniia, 1: 449-50, circular of May 30/June 11, 1853.

57. Nesselrode's circular, cited in n. 56, makes a flat misstatement about Russia's rights, particularly under the 1829 treaty of Adrianople. The tsar's admission, probably made originally to Count Orlov, is reported in Sir Hamilton Seymour (St. Petersburg) to Clarendon #176, February 21, 1854, Secret and Confidential, in Public Record Office (London), FO 65/445. Henderson, G. B., Crimean War Diplomacy (Glasgow, 1947), p. 10 Google Scholar, cites this dispatch (first noted in his article in History, October. 1933); Temperley, England and the Near East, p. 469, also refers to it.

58. It might be possible to argue that Russia needed no treaty basis at all to act as protector of Ottoman Christians, and that “might made right.” This argument, which will not be pursued here, is suggested by some Russian statements of 1853. Baron Brunnow, the tsar's ambassador to London, wrote privately to Prince Menshikov and Count Nesselrode: “Russia is strong, Turkey is weak, that is the preamble of all our treaties.” F. F; de Martens, ed., Recueil des traités et conventions conclus par la Russie, 15 vols. (St. Petersburg, 1874-1909), 12: 311, letter of March 21/April 2, 1853. Nesselrode himself wrote soon after: “Russia's right rests on an incontestable fact: 50 million Orthodox Russians cannot remain indifferent to the fate of 12 million Orthodox subjects of the Sultan.” Nesselrode to Brunnow, April 20 (presumably 0. S., hence May 2), 1853, ibid., p. 318.

59. Druzhinina, Kiuchuk-Kainardzhiiskii mir, pp. 278 and 346.

60. Text in G. F. de Martens, Recueil, 2nd ed., 2: 653-61; Noradounghian, Recueil, 1: 338-44.