Crimea factor in Turkish-Russian relations in the middle of the 18th century

Abstract

The main object of analysis of this article is the geopolitical situation in the Northern Black Sea region in the middle of the 18th century, which was primarily determined by the Turkish-Russian confrontation caused by the struggle for complete control of these strategic territories. The Ottoman Empire’s gradual loss of control over its Black Sea possessions, on the one hand, and the Russian Empire's forced advance to the south, on the other, led to a conflict of interest between the two states in the region. That is why the confrontation between Turkey and Russia has largely determined the geopolitical processes on the Eurasian frontier since the mid-seventeenth century. The escalation of the Turkish-Russian conflict intensified in the middle of the 18th century when the «Crimean question» became the cornerstone of relations between the Ottoman and Russian empires. A significant event in this confrontation was the annexation of the Crimean Khanate by the Russian Empire in 1783, which ushered in a radically new stage in the development of the entire Black Sea region. Given the permanence of the Russian-Turkish confrontation in the Black Sea region and Crimea’s place in it, St. Petersburg’s priority was to accelerate the transformation of these territories into a Russian Black Sea bridgehead, including for the Caucasian campaign, which intensified in the late 18th century.
Therefore, another important aspect of this problem was the conflict of geopolitical interests of the Ottoman Empire, Russia and the Crimean Khanate in the Caucasus region against the background of Turkish-Russian antagonism in the Northern Black Sea. The study substantiates why in the middle of the 18th century was a sharp escalation of the Turkish-Russian confrontation and that were its main consequences for changing the geopolitical situation in the region. As for the Crimean Khanate itself, in the middle of the 18th century in fact, it no longer played an independent role. Now, its future no longer depended on the Crimean Tatar elite, but on foreign policy trends determined by the policies of Istanbul and St. Petersburg. Subsequent events related to the conclusion and content of Kuchuk-Kainarji and Jassy treaties between Turkey and Russia were largely due to the events of the mid-18th century.