1768-1774 Ottoman-Russian War in Russian sources

Our study titled '1768-1774 Ottoman-Russian War in Russian Sources' was carried out in order to make a modest and original contribution to this important period of Ottoman-Russian relations, which has been observed to be greatly neglected, by reading and examining the Russian academic literature on the subject. The 18th century was a period when the course of Russian-Turkish relations changed. This century is the age of war in which these two empires entered four great wars, and it is also the age of decadence for the Ottoman Empire and the rise for the Russian Empire. The signs of weakness that emerged and became evident after the Treaties of Karlowitz (1699) and Istanbul (1700) within the Ottoman Empire revealed that the Russian Empire adopted a line of action against its southern neighbor within the framework of the principle of expansion against the weak neighbor, which is one of the basic foreign policies of the Russians. While the Russian Empire was stuck between the seas as a huge land empire, the tsar known in history as Peter the Great (1682-1725) sought to sail his ships in the waters dominated by its north-western neighbor Sweden and its southern neighbor the Ottoman Empire. With the Treaty of Istanbul dated 1700, he gained access to the Sea of Azov (navigation rights between Azov and Kerch), and in 1703-1704, he gained access to the Baltic Sea by gaining dominion over part of the eastern coast of the Baltic Sea. Thus, he offered the lock of the seas to the Russian empire. His successors, especially Tsarina Yekaterina Alekseyevna II (1762-1796), who would bear the same 'great' title as him, continued to follow his policies with determination. Ekaterina II. Alekseyevna and The St. Petersburg government continued to implement Peter the Great's expansionist foreign policy style without any changes, supporting it with smart and cunning policies, and they did not hesitate to resort to every means, including war, to liquidate the Ottoman Empire, which stood like a barrier in front of the political, economic and human development of the Russian Empire. Yekaterina the Great, primarily using the instrument of diplomacy, supported the dusty Greek Project, which aimed to revive the Greek-Byzantine Empire, with fifth column activities in the Ottoman Empire, at the beginning of her rule. In order to seize the Danube Principalities, which were the Ottoman possessions, and to approach Western Europe, she thought that domination in Poland was important, and she tried to provoke the dissidents (non-Catholics) by following Christian-Orthodox and Pan-Slavism policies. In addition, she carried out politics in the same manner in the Balkan and Caucasian geography. As a result of all these interventionist and provocative policies, a war broke out with the heavy provocations of the European states when one of the Russian troops in the aforementioned geographies, while chasing the members of the Polish Confederation, entered the Ottoman lands and violated the border, and worse, shed the blood of Muslims and Jews who were Ottoman citizens in the town of Balta. The war lasted for six long years (1768-1774), and the huge armies and navies of the period encountered each other on land and at sea. The war ended with the victory of the Russian government, which demonstrated a high ability to determine strategy in carrying out the war with extraordinary success on all fronts, in addition to the outstanding achievements of the Russian army and weapon power. As a result of the war, Grand Vizier Muhsinzade Mehmet Pasha, who took an attitude against the Russian war due to inadequacies such as the unpreparedness of the army and the need to review the castles and military fortifications in the border areas, and was therefore dismissed (August 1768), was appointed to the Grand Vizier for the second time (November 1771). The heavy defeat brought the mentioned pasha into conflict in his policies, forcing him to sign Küçük Kaynarca, a treaty with severe conditions, as grand vizier and serdar-ı ekrem (July 1774). As a result of the war, internationally; highly strategic issues such as the status of Crimea, the straits (Istanbul and Çanakkale) and the Black Sea domination issues, which continue to be problems in our current time, have come to light. Keywords: Russia, Ottoman, War of 1768-1774, Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca, Battle of Cesme 1770.