Russian-Ottoman Borderlands: The Eastern Question Reconsidered

Preface

ix Pref­ ace The East­ ern Ques­ tion ­ touched the lives of mil­ lions of peo­ ple and dom­ i­ nated inter­ na­ tional re­ la­ tions ­ between Eu­ rope, Rus­ sia, and the Ot­ to­ man Em­ pire for more than a cen­ tury. The leg­ acy of the East­ ern Ques­ tion re­ mains ­ etched in the land­ scape from the Bal­ kans to the Cau­ ca­ sus and con­ tin­ ues to in­ flu­ ence peo­ ple liv­ ing in these re­ gions today. In re­ cent­ decades, schol­ ars have de­ vel­ oped fresh in­ sights into the re­ li­ gious, cul­ tural, eco­ nomic, and po­ lit­ i­ cal as­ pects of the East­ ern Ques­ tion. Re­ search in Rus­ sian and Ot­ to­ man ­ archives has par­ tic­ u­ larly chal­ lenged tra­ di­ tional inter­ pre­ ta­ tions, while new ap­ proaches have ­ shifted at­ ten­ tion from the gov­ ern­ ing elite to the sub­ jects of em­ pires and the peo­ ples who lived in the bor­ der­ lands. With this vol­ ume, we seek to high­ light ­ changes in the field and sug­ gest new di­ rec­ tions for the study of the East­ ern Ques­ tion. The idea to form a col­ lec­ tion of ar­ ti­ cles de­ voted to the East­ ern Ques­ tion orig­ i­ nated in 2008 at a bi­ an­ nual meet­ ing of the As­ so­ ci­ a­ tion for the Study of East­ ern Chris­ tian His­ tory and Cul­ ture, where we, the ed­ i­ tors, began dis­ cuss­ ing the mean­ ing and na­ ture of what we con­ sider the most im­ por­ tant issue of inter­ na­ tional re­ la­ tions in the nine­ teenth cen­ tury. Rig­ or­ ous dis­ cus­ sions, de­ bates, and con­ ver­ sa­ tions with each con­ trib­ u­ tor to this vol­ ume and with nu­ mer­ ous schol­ ars at two sub­ se­ quent meet­ ings of the As­ so­ ci­ a­ tion for ­ Slavic, East Eu­ ro­ pean, and Eur­ asian Stud­ ies sharp­ ened our think­ ing and wid­ ened the per­ spec­ tive from which we view this his­ tor­ i­ cal phe­ nom­ e­ non. In ad­ di­ tion to the con­ trib­ u­ tors, we wish to ex­ press our grat­ i­ tude to the anon­ y­ mous read­ ers for their many ex­ cel­ lent sug­ ges­ tions. We would also like to rec­ og­ nize Theo­ fa­ nis G. Stav­ rou, whose ded­ i­ ca­ tion to this field is a con­ stant ­ source of in­ spi­ ra­ tion, and David Gold­ frank, who has been a kind sup­ porter of our pro­ ject. x Preface Har­ vard Uni­ ver­ sity and the Cen­ tral Navy Mu­ seum in St. Pe­ ters­ burg­ granted per­ mis­ sion to re­ pro­ duce the map at the be­ gin­ ning of Vic­ tor­ Taki’s chap­ ter and the paint­ ing Ship­ wreck off Mount Athos by Ivan Ai­ va­ zov­ sky for the cover, re­ spec­ tively. Sam Stuts­ man of the Uni­ ver­ sity of South Al­ a­ bama ­ created the map of the Ot­ to­ man Em­ pire used at the be­ gin­ ning of the intro­ duc­ tion. The chap­ ter by Theo­ phi­ lus C. Prou­ sis con­ tains ex­ cerpts that have ap­ peared ear­ lier in his Lord Strang­ ford at the Sub­ lime Porte (1822): The East­ ern Cri­ sis (I ˙ stan­ bul: Isis Press, 2012). Fi­ nally, re­ search ­ grants, as­ sis­ tance from inter­ li­ brary loan, and other sup­ port from the Uni­ ver­ sity of South Al­ a­ bama and Rider Uni­ ver­ sity have­ helped us to­ ward the com­ ple­ tion of this pro­ ject. ...