One of the goals of Russia's Eastern policy was to turn Moldavia and Wallachia, the two Romanian principalities north of the Danube, from Ottoman vassals into a controllable buffer zone and a springboard for future military operations against Constantinople. Russia on the Danube describes the divergent interests and uneasy cooperation between the Russian officials and the Moldavian and Wallachian nobility in a key period between 1812 and 1834. Victor Taki's meticulous examination of the plans and memoranda composed by Russian administrators and the Romanian elite underlines the crucial consequences of this encounter. The Moldavian and Wallachian nobility used the Russian-Ottoman rivalry in order to preserve and expand their traditional autonomy. The comprehensive institutional reforms born out of their interaction with the tsar's officials consolidated territorial statehood on the lower Danube, providing the building blocks of a nation state.

The main conclusion of the book is that although Russian policy was driven by self-interest, and despite the Russophobia among a great part of the Romanian intellectuals, this turbulent period significantly contributed to the emergence, several decades later, of modern Romania.

About the Author
Victor Taki is Sessional lecturer at Concordia University of Edmonton. His first book Tsar and Sultan: Russian Encounters with the Ottoman Empire was published by IB Tauris. His research interests include Imperial Russia's Balkan entanglements and the intellectual history of the eighteenth and the nineteenth century.

Reviews

"Russia on the Danube will open new horizons for the study of the Danubian principalities, Russian and Ottoman empires and the era of revolutions where transition from empire to nation-state took place. By going beyond nationalist tropes and perspectives that construct the Russian Empire as essentially expansionist and autocratic but also by highlighting the lack of communication, and perhaps lack of studies, among Ottomanist and Russianist historiography, Victor Taki made an invaluable contribution." http://www.sehepunkte.de/2022/09/36801.html

-- Yusuf Karabicak * Sehepunkte *

"Recent literature shows that, after several decades of contemptuous neglect, diplomacy and the Eastern Question are back. Victor Taki represents an admirable contributor to this trend, just as the case of Moldavia and Wallachia make it difficult if not impossible to posit clear distinctions between Russia's internal and foreign policy. Russia on the Danube nicely demonstrates that the empire's history sometimes unfolded beyond the country's formally established borders. We still have not yet fully grasped the implications of this fact."

-- Paul Werth * Ab Imperio *

"The book represents the first comprehensive scientific analysis of the Russian Empire's deliberate policy and mission in the vassal Ottoman principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia. Russia on the Danube makes a valuable contribution to our understanding of the period and provides new insight into what happened during the period in Moldavia and Wallachia-this is an important publication that fills a gap. I highly recommend this interesting, well-deserved, and professionally and effectively well-written book to scholars." https://doi.org/10.5325/hiperboreea.10.1.0111

-- Aytac Yurukcu * Hiperboreea *



Book Information
ISBN 9789633863824
Author Victor Taki
Format Hardback
Page Count 388
Imprint Central European University Press
Publisher Central European University Press
Weight(grams) 800g