Russia, the Porte and the Sultan’s Orthodox subjects after the Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca (1774–1787)

Abstract

The treaty signed on 10/21 July 1774 in Kuchuk-Kainarji forced the Ottoman empire to accept Russia’s peace conditions that expanded its borders to the south and abolished the Turks’ centuries long domination in the Black sea and their absolute control over the Turkish Straits. The treaty enabled offensive policy as a result of which St.Petersburg gained exceptional territorial and strategic positions. The main issues in the relations between the two empires connected with the situation of the sultan’s Orthodox subjects in the interwar period included above all Russia’s right to patronize the Orthodox Christians in the Ottoman Empire and the related amnesty for the participants in the Russo-Turkish war; fulfilment of the provisions enacting restoring of Orthodox churches, Russian support to higher Orthodox clerics as well as construction of a Russian church in Pera. The rights of the Turkish subjects to use Russian merchant flag and to migrate to Russia, still remaining within the sphere of trade relations between the two empires turned out to be a significant and hard to solve problem. The issues concerning St.Petersburg’s policy towards the Danubian Principalities, Montenegro and the Adriatic were still important issues in the Russia-Turkey relations. Most issues in the bilateral relations were a follow-up to the relations during the 1760s and the war of 1768–1774. In the following years the new situation in the Black sea basin, the Turkish Straits opening to merchant vessels under the Russian flag, the Danubian Principalities gradually slipping from Constantinople’s control and of course annexation of the Crimea by the Russian Empire would intensify the crisis in the Russia-Turkey relations and war would become inevitable. But also fatal for the Ottoman Empire.