“Est-ce au medecin ou a l'heritier?”: The crescendo and decrescendo of Tsar Nikolai I's management of Ottoman decline, 1825-53
Author(s)
Advisor
Radushev, EvgeniyDate
2020-12Publisher
Bilkent University
Language
English
Type
ThesisItem Usage Stats
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Abstract
This thesis provides a history of Tsar Nikolai I's foreign policy toward the Ottoman Empire,
in particular regards to his attempt to both protect and dominate the Empire in its decline and to
manage what he viewed as its imminent and inevitable fall. While the Tsar adeptly carried out this
policy throughout most of his reign, he committed a number of critical diplomatic blunders in the
1850's climaxing in Russia's defeat in the Crimean War. In this thesis I investigate his increasingly
aggressive policy toward the Ottomans and the causes of his ultimate failure to maintain Russia's
dominance through diplomatic means, as well as catalog the evolution of Nikolai's strategy to
manage the Ottomans' collapse. I conclude that the Tsar's personal ideology and prideful
inflexibility proved to be the cause of Russia's diplomatic failure and isolation, ultimately resulting
in their defeat in the Crimean War and that Nikolai's diplomatic failures correlate with his
increasingly aggressive plotting to dismantle the Ottoman Empire.
Keywords
Crimean warEastern question
Holy places dispute
Nicholas I
Ottoman Empire
Russian Empire
Treaty of Hünkâr İskelesi
Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca