Russia and the Eastern Question: Army, Government, and Society, 1815-1833

Abstract

Based upon research in Russian archives, including military archives, Alexander Bitis has written a serious book about Russia's involvement in the thorny ‘Eastern Question’ in the critical decades following the Vienna settlement of 1815. Although the great powers of Europe emerged from the Napoleonic wars broadly committed to the preservation of the Ottoman Empire, which they considered to be a source of stability and legitimacy in Europe and Asia, they nonetheless competed vigorously in an ongoing struggle to determine the future of the Ottomans’ European territories. The competition for influence and position produced complicated diplomatic and military entanglements, while more specific concerns about Russia's role as the protector of Balkan Christians, the rebelliousness of those Christians, and navigation through the Straits of Constantinople and the Black Sea added to the volatility of international relations in Europe, the Mediterranean, and the Caucasus. The Vienna settlement did a reasonably good job in restraining the actions of Russia and her European competitors (and/or allies), but it could not stop the historical clock or temper the nationalist aspirations of subjugated peoples. Over time, events on the ground created dangerous challenges—the Greek Revolution of 1821–2, for example—that generated their own responses, leading eventually to the breakdown of the European Concert and the Crimean War of 1853-6.