Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: Diplomacy is an important component of power, a deliberate and skillful activity, a means for implementing foreign policy to enable states to achieve their goals. This particularly applies to the wide range of specific activities of Russia and its diplomatic-consular missions in the Balkans during the „long nineteenth century.“ The emergence of state officials who primarily represented Russia's economic interests abroad is linked to the reformist endeavors of Tsar Peter I. Russia pursued an active foreign policy, which manifested in various directions, including entry into foreign markets. A very significant step was the establishment of its permanent foreign missions. By 1701, Russia had opened six permanent missions in Europe (in Poland, the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark, Austria, and the Ottoman Empire). Simultaneously, Petrograd sent consuls abroad „to protect the interests of His Imperial Majesty.“ Russia established its first consulates in Western Europe (in Amsterdam in 1707, Venice in 1711, Hamburg in 1713, Paris in 1715, Antwerp in 1717, Vienna in 1718, Bordeaux and Cadiz in 1723), in the East (in China in 1719, Persia in 1720, and in the Ottoman Empire in 1774 – according to the provisions of the Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca). The emergence of its consular service was due to similar reasons as those of Western European countries – the development of trade and maritime affairs. With the development of private entrepreneurship and the expansion of consular duties aimed at protecting Russian citizens and their interests, the Russian consular service gradually took on a traditional form. It became more complex with the expansion and deepening of international communications. Among consular functions, two initially stood out: ensuring the rights and interests of Russian citizens abroad, and developing and strengthening trade and economic ties between Russia and foreign countries. In the period after the Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca (1774) until the outbreak of the Great Eastern Crisis (1875), the number of consulates grew, and along with the volume and diversity of tasks, the qualifications of diplomatic staff also increased. Differences in the functional responsibilities of consuls in Western and Eastern countries influenced the internal organization of Russia's consular service. Its particular feature in the Ottoman Empire and Eastern countries was the political orientation of consular work. Consuls dealt with and resolved trade, as well as numerous political problems. The directions of their activities in the weakened Ottoman state (the „sick man of Europe“) were conditioned by the peculiarities of that state and its position, dependent on the will of the great powers: a state and legal system different from the European one, Islam as the primary religion, multi-ethnicity, and the unequal nature of relations with leading European countries. Adapting to these conditions, the Russian consular service relied on French experiences based on the system of capitulations, while for its far-reaching goals of resolving the Eastern Question, it used the presence and instrumentalization of a significant percentage of the Orthodox population in the Ottoman Empire. Russian consulates in Eastern and Western countries were initially subordinate to various sections, and later to departments of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Due to the multifunctionality of the consular service, a system of dual subordination (to economic and foreign policy departments) arose, which complicated its work. Russian consuls in the Balkans represented their state's ambitious „Eastern policy.“ Their additional functions went beyond consular ones: opposing non-Orthodox propaganda to preserve, protect, and secure Orthodoxy; fighting for the dominance of Russian influence in the cultural, educational, and enlightenment spheres; establishing contacts with political circles of Orthodox peoples under Ottoman rule, and supporting their plans to achieve political independence.
Source: Historijski pogledi
Author: Safet Bandžović
Institution: University of Sarajevo
Language: English
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W4412513800