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A Guide To Avpri Materials On Russian Consuls And Commerce In The Near East, Theophilus C. Prousis

Theophilus C. Prousis

Tsarist expansion against the Ottoman Empire and commercial access to the Black Sea and the Mediterranean broadened the parameters of Russian influence in the Near East in the nineteenth century. For Imperial Russia, the Eastern Question became a complex and multi-faceted issue, encompassing the pursuit of strategic and diplomatic aims in Istanbul, the Straits, and the Balkan peninsula, the protection of Eastern Orthodoxy, and the extension of trade in the Black Sea and the Levant. Commerce and consuls provide windows on Russia’s interaction with the Near East and illuminate the variety of interests which comprised Russia’s Eastern Question. Russia’s relations …

Eastern Orthodoxy Under Siege In The Ottoman Levant: A View From Constantinople In 1821, Theophilus C. Prousis

Theophilus C. Prousis

Research on Imperial Russia’s contacts and connections with Eastern Orthodox communities in the Levant in the early nineteenth century aroused my interest in how Britain, that other edge of Europe, related to the Ottoman Empire during this tumultuous period. Traders, travelers, envoys, consuls, and others registered their impressions and observations in myriad writings, providing historians with a treasure trove for probing the Eastern Question, the nineteenth-century European dilemma of what to do with the surprisingly resilient Ottoman Empire, still possessing strategic lands and vital waterways in the Near East. Russian and British archival and printed sources widen our perspective on …

Risky Business: Russian Trade In The Ottoman Empire In The Early Nineteenth Century, Theophilus C. Prousis

Theophilus C. Prousis

Irregularities in the implementation of Russian-Ottoman trade accords often turned commercial promise into risky business for Russian merchant shipping in the Levant. The Russian archival records presented here for the first time in English translation – four restitution requests and trade loss inventories submitted to the Sublime Porte by the Russian envoy in 1816 – provide telling detail not just on the perils of Russian trade but on the extent of Russia's commercial networks in the Ottoman Empire. The documents offer a Russian perspective on trade issues in the Levant and suggest the commercial dimension of Russian involvement in the …

Dēmētrios S. Inglezēs: Greek Merchant And City Leader Of Odessa, Theophilus C. Prousis

Theophilus C. Prousis

Greek merchant settlement of the northern coast of the Black Sea extends back to classical and Byzantine times. After the founding of Odessa in 1794, Greek and other foreign merchants played a major role in transforming this provincial backwater into one of the leading grain emporiums of Europe, a cosmopolitan city of ethnic diversity and cultural vitality. Dēmētrios Spyridonovich Inglezēs (1773-1844) is a concrete example of the prosperous Greek trader who assimilated to his new environment and engaged in numerous civic endeavors promoting the commercial and urban growth of Odessa during its formative decades. He also retained a sense of …

The Spoils Of War, Rebecca Gould

Rebecca Gould