Cartographies of the ‘Eastern Question’: Some Considerations on Mapping the Sea of Marmara and the Black Sea in the Nineteenth Century

Abstract

The Sea of Marmara, the Black Sea, and the Bosporus and Dardanelles straits have always been geographically and, therefore, politically crucial for the state ruling Istanbul. Centuries of intermittent warring between the Ottoman Empire and their enemies often pivoted on the quality of naval knowledge of this region. In this article, I aim to give an overview of how cartographical developments progressed alongside the geo-political struggles in this area, and sometimes played a role in them. I suggest that map-making was particularly important during the ‘long’ nineteenth century of the ‘Eastern Question’, which can be dramatized as a play entitled ‘The Balance of Power’, in which the Ottomans, France, Russia and Britain were the main actors to take the stage. This period was full of struggle and conflict, treaties and alliances, and ended in 1895 with establishment of the first modern cartography unit within the Ottoman military.