Politica aparențelor, discursul prieteniei. Elaborarea convențiilor de aprovizionare a armatei ruse. Țara Românească, 1831-1832

Abstract

This paper deals with the way Russia and Wallachia signed a convention that regulated the supply of the Russian army, while it was stationed in the principality between 1828 and 1836. If establishing such a procedure through mutual agreement might appear as positive, the manner in which the act was validated reveals that diplomacy and reciprocity were in fact abandoned. In the end, what prevailed was the pretention on the Russian representatives to impose their will unilaterally, by breaching protocols that they themselves initiated in the winter of 1831-1832. Wallachian authorities were never notified as to who was to sign the convention on Russia’s behalf, and the principality’s legislative body (co-signer, alongside the Wallachian government) never even received a notification of Russia having signed the act. As far as we know from the Romanian archives, this did not take place, even though the convention was fully applied. Moreover, the legislative body saw itself in the rare position of not being granted a duplicate or copy of the convention, as even documents related to the matter were redrawn from its offices. In an entire timeline of obeying orders under the guise of concluding an agreement, Wallachian lawmakers requested in vain that some formalities be respected. They asked the Russian governor to sign the convention, and later demanded the local government to hand over copies and related documents. What was supposed to be an act that would lead to the “stabilization of the country’s blessing, concluded in a joyful day for all Romanians”, was informally classified and obscured in archival files.