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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 …