Russia on the Danube: Empire, Elites, and Reform in Moldavia and Wallachia, 1812–1834 9789633863831

Table of contents :
Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Chapter I. Early Encounters
Introduction
Russian–Ottoman Confrontation and the Establishment of the Phanariot Regime
The Peace of Kuchuk-Kainarji and the Russian Protectorate
Russian Occupation of Moldavia and Wallachia in 1806–1812
Church Policies under Russian Occupation
Chapter II. Challenges of Empire-Building in a Revolutionary Age
Introduction
The “Greek Project” of Ioannis Kapodistrias
The Bessarabian Experiment of Alexander I
Russia’s Eastern Policy and Stroganov’s Mission
Kapodistrias, Alexander I, and the Greek Rebellion
Chapter III. The Uprisings of 1821 and Their Impact
Introduction
1821 and Anti-Greek Sentiment in Moldavia and Wallachia
Tensions among the Boyars and Their Projects of Reform
Moldavian Boyar Radicals and Conservatives
The Convention of Akkerman
Chapter IV. From Akkerman (1826) to Adrianople (1829)
Introduction
The Russian Empire and the Elites of Moldavia and Wallachia in 1826–28
The War of 1828–29 and the Russian Occupation of the Principalities
The Genesis of the Reform Agenda
Ministerial Instructions and the Formation of the Committee of Reform
The Peace of Adrianople
Chapter V. The Organic Statutes and Russia’s Eastern Policy
Introduction
Boyar Opposition to the Organic Statutes
The Affair of Sion and Its Consequences
The Adoption of the Organic Statutes by the Assemblies of Revision
Kiselev’s Vision of the Principalities and Russia’s Eastern Policy
Chapter VI. A Well-Ordered Police State on the Danube
Plague Epidemics and the Creation of the Danubian Quarantine
The Creation of Militia and Police Reform
Fiscal Reform and Peasant Obligations
Administrative and Judiciary Reform
Foreign Subjects, Dedicated Monasteries, and Censorship
Chapter VII. Russian Policies in Moldavia and Wallachia After 1834
Introduction
Russia and the Problem of Unification of the Principalities
Political Tensions in Moldavia and Wallachia in the Late 1830s
A Cordon Sanitaire for the Empire?
The Limits of Hegemony
Conclusion
Appendix 1
Appendix 2
Glossary
Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

Russia on theDanube

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HISTOR ICA L STUDIES in Ea stern Europe a nd Eura sia Volu m e V I SERIES EDITORS

A lexei Mi l ler, A lfred R ieber, Marsha Siefert

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Russia on theDanube Empire, Elites, and Reform in Moldavia and Wallachia 1812–1834 

Victor Tak i

Centra l Europea n Universit y Press Budapest–Vienna–New York

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Copyright © 2021 by the author Published in 2021 by Central European University Press Nádor utca 11, H-1051 Budapest, Hungary Tel: +36-1-327-3138 or 327-3000 E-mail: [email protected] Website: www.ceupress.com All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the permission of the Publisher.

ISBN 978-963-386-382-4 (hardcover) ISBN 978-963-386-383-1 (ebook) ISSN 2306-3637 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Taki, Victor, author. Title: Russia on the Danube : empire, elites, and reform in Moldavia and Wallachia, 1812–1834 / Victor Taki. Other titles: Empire, elites, and reform in Moldavia and Wallachia, 1812–1834 Description: Budapest ; New York : Central European University Press, 2021. | Series: Historical studies in Eastern Europe and Eurasia, 2306-3637 ; vol. 6 | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2021013874 (print) | LCCN 2021013875 (ebook) | ISBN 9789633863824 (cloth) | ISBN 9789633863831 (adobe pdf) Subjects: LCSH: Russia—Foreign relations—1801–1825. | Russia—Relations—Moldavia | Russia—Relations—Romania—Wallachia. | Wallachia—Relations—Russia. | Moldavia—Relations—Russia. | Nobility—Romania—Wallachia—History—19th century. | Nobility—Moldavia—History—19th century. | Turkey—History—Ottoman Empire, 1288–1918. Classification: LCC DK197 .T34 2021 (print) | LCC DK197 (ebook) | DDC 327.470498/109034—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021013874 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021013875

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C on t e n ts

Acknowledgments

vii

Introduction

1

Chapter I

Early Encounters Russian–Ottoman Confrontation and the Establishment of the Phanariot Regime The Peace of Kuchuk-Kainarji and the Russian Protectorate Russian Occupation of Moldavia and Wallachia in 1806–1812 Church Policies under Russian Occupation Chapter II

Challenges of Empire-Building in a Revolutionary Age The “Greek Project” of Ioannis Kapodistrias The Bessarabian Experiment of Alexander I Russia’s Eastern Policy and Stroganov’s Mission Kapodistrias, Alexander I, and the Greek Rebellion Chapter III

The Uprisings of 1821 and Their Impact 1821 and Anti-Greek Sentiment in Moldavia and Wallachia Tensions among the Boyars and Their Projects of Reform Moldavian Boyar Radicals and Conservatives The Convention of Akkerman Chapter IV

From Akkerman (1826) to Adrianople (1829) The Russian Empire and the Elites of Moldavia and Wallachia in 1826–28 The War of 1828–29 and the Russian Occupation of the Principalities The Genesis of the Reform Agenda Ministerial Instructions and the Formation of the Committee of Reform The Peace of Adrianople

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17 20 29 39 51

63 66 71 79 99  105 109 119 125 136  147 152  162  170  177  184

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Chapter V

The Organic Statutes and Russia’s Eastern Policy Boyar Opposition to the Organic Statutes The Affair of Sion and Its Consequences The Adoption of the Organic Statutes by the Assemblies of Revision Kiselev’s Vision of the Principalities and Russia’s Eastern Policy

Chapter VI

A Well-Ordered Police State on the Danube Plague Epidemics and the Creation of the Danubian Quarantine The Creation of Militia and Police Reform Fiscal Reform and Peasant Obligations Administrative and Judiciary Reform Foreign Subjects, Dedicated Monasteries, and Censorship Chapter VII

Russian Policies in Moldavia and Wallachia After 1834 Russia and the Problem of Unification of the Principalities Political Tensions in Moldavia and Wallachia in the Late 1830s A Cordon Sanitaire for the Empire? The Limits of Hegemony

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 191  196 202  210  219  231  234 245  253 260  265 277  281  292 300  311

Conclusion

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Appendix 1 Appendix 2 Glossary Bibliography Index

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Ac k now l e dg m e n ts

Acknowledgments are another form of intellectual autobiography inasmuch as they tell about people and encounters that shaped the author of the book. Born in Soviet Moldavia, I survived the first grim post-Soviet decade by exploring Italian Renaissance and turned to Russian history only after I met Alfred Rieber, an American historian of Imperial and Soviet Russia. As my doctoral supervisor at Central European University in 2002–2007, Al not only helped me realize that Russia’s past is my own, but also offered a rare example of how delicate and free of prejudice a scholar can and should be when studying the history of a country other than his or her own. Al’s example guided me when I decided to write my doctoral dissertation about Imperial Russia’s policies in the Romanian lands. Despite my early exposure to Romanian language and history in post-Soviet Moldova, my real encounter with Romanian culture began only at CEU, where I met some of its notable bearers. One of them was Sorin Antohi who urged me to combine Russian and Romanian themes in my research. Another one was my fellowstudent Andrei Cușco, who became my main interlocutor and intellectual companion. Svetlana Suveica, Diana Dumitru, Igor Cașu, Petru Negură, Eugen Stancu, Valentin Săndulescu, and Dorin Dobrincu have also made my journey through the Romanian past thoroughly enjoyable. Still, this book remains above all a contribution to the history of Imperial Russia, which would not be possible without the support and assistance of people and institutions devoted to the study of this country. Marsha Siefert has provided some valuable advice both at the stage of the doctoral thesis proposal, and later on, at the writing stage. Richard Wortman and Alexander Martin deepened my interest in Russia’s nineteenth century, particularly in its often neglected first half. Alexei Miller shaped my understanding of the dialectics of empire and nationalism and helped me reach out to the vii

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Russian audience. Vladimir Ryzhkov, Tatiana Khripachenko and the late Dmitrii Lukonin have made my research trips to St. Petersburg and Moscow both enjoyable and productive. I also cannot fail to mention the staff of the Archive of the Foreign Policy of the Russian Empire, Russian State Historical Archive, Russian State Military Historical Archive, the National Archive of the Republic of Moldova, Russian State Library, Russian National Library, Russian State Public Historical Library, the National Library of the Republic of Moldova and the former Baltic and Slavic Division of New York Public Library. My doctoral research profited from the conservationist efforts of these archivists and librarians as much as it benefited from the financial support of the Open Society Institute and the Gerda Henkel Foundation. It took me quite some time to turn my research findings into the present book, and here again, the support and assistance of several people have proved to be crucial. For over a decade, Denis Vovchenko has strengthened my determination by his questions about Romanian history—the only area, in which I could contribute to his formidable expertise on the Balkans. I would also like to thank Heather Coleman, my post-doctoral mentor at the University of Alberta. Although the project that I pursued under her guidance in 2011–2013 had temporarily diverted my attention from the present book, it nevertheless helped me formulate my professional identity as a historian of Imperial Russia’s Balkan entanglements. The East Europeanist Circle that Heather has organized and presided for over a decade provided a friendly intellectual venue, at which portions of the manuscript have been discussed. I am grateful to John-Paul Himka, Mariya Melentieva, Elena Krevsky, and other regular participants of the circle for their feedback and suggestions. Lucien Frary, Mara Kozelsky, and Alexander Kaplunovsky have likewise helped me sustain my interest in the Russian policies in Moldavia, Wallachia, and Bessarabia by inviting me to contribute chapters to the collective volumes that they edited. Finally, I really appreciate the efforts of the CEU Press editorial team, and, in particular, those of Linda Kunos and Nóra Vörös. Parts of chapter 1 of the present study first appeared in my “Limits of Protection: Russia and the Orthodox Coreligionists in the Ottoman Empire” (Carl Beck Papers, no. 2401, 2015). Portions of Chapters 4 and 5 were originally published as my article “Romanian Boyar Opposition to the Organic Statutes: Reasons, Manifestations, Outcomes,” Archiva Moldaviae 5 (2013): viii

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199–234. Finally, an early version of Chapter 6 was published as “Between Polizeistaat and Cordon Sanitaire: Epidemics and Police Reform During the Russian Occupation of Moldavia and Wallachia, 1828–1834,” Ab Imperio, no. 4 (2008): 75–112. The author is grateful to the editors of these periodicals for their permission to integrate previously published materials into the book.

ix

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To the memory of my father, Valentin Taki (1942–2005), who encouraged me to read widely and think broadly.

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Introduction

O

n April 14, 1828, Tsar Nicholas I declared war on the Ottoman Empire, whereupon the Russian army crossed the Pruth river and occupied the vassal Ottoman principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia.1 This was the fifth entry of tsarist troops into the territory of the principalities since the unfortunate Pruth campaign of Peter the Great in 1711. All major battles between the Russian and the Ottoman armies during the eighteenth century took place on Moldavian and Wallachian soil. In peacetime, the principalities were central to Russia’s self-presentation as the protector of its Orthodox coreligionists in the Ottoman Empire. Until the middle of the nineteenth century, tsarist diplomats and military men interacted with the Moldavian and Wallachian elites much more closely and extensively than they did with the leaders of the more distant Southern Slavs. As a result, Russia’s impact on the political evolution of the principalities was more important than its role in the history of nineteenth-century Greece, Serbia, or Bulgaria. These frequent contacts helped Russians discover the cultural distinctiveness of Moldavians and Wallachians from the surrounding Slavic population.2 One finds an interesting example of this discovery in the memoirs of Feliks Fonton, who served in the diplomatic chancellery of the Russian army during the war of 1828–29. The constitution and complexion of the local inhabitants reminded the Russian diplomat of Cossacks and Southern Slavs, while their language was “broken Latin” with an admixture of Slavic words that were particularly present in conversations among commoners. And yet, 1 See “Manifesto on the Beginning of the War with the Ottoman Empire,” April 14, 1828, Polnoe sobranie zakonov Rossiiskoi imperii (further cited as PSZ), ser. 2, no. 1947, 3:383–84. 2 For a more detailed treatment of this subject, see Taki, “Moldavia and Wallachia in the Eyes of the Russian Observers,” and Taki, Tsar and Sultan, 191–200.

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Fonton dismissed the possibility of the Slavic origin of the Romanians suggested by other Russian authors. According to him, Slavic tribes stuck to their nationality particularly tenaciously and could not have been assimilated by the Romans during the century and a half of their rule in Dacia. With their origins shrouded in mystery, the Romanians had “a distinct quality,” and Fonton could not conceal his regret that “these eight million people foreign to the Slavs had settled here on the beautiful slopes of the Carpathians, drawing a wedge between the Slavic tribes and preventing their unification.”3 If instead of these Romanians, reasoned the Russian diplomat, there had been Serbs or Bulgarians, “how easy it would have been to solve the Eastern, or better to say, the Slavic question.” According to Fonton, the unfortunate 1711 Pruth Campaign of Peter the Great would have been successful “[if] instead of the traitor Brâncoveanu and an indifferent people used to oppression, [the tsar] had encountered here the stout and honest Bulgarians or valiant Serbs.”4 In this case, “the point of gravity of Russian policy would have moved to the south and then, perhaps, it would not be the eccentric, cold and granite Saint Petersburg, but the splendid Kiev that would have become the second capital of our state!” In the territorial rearrangements that might follow, the Russians “would not have missed the opportunity to attach the territories on the right bank of the river San that were populated by a true Russian tribe.”5 The young Russian diplomat recognized the futility of this exercise in counterfactual history: “The Romanians are here, and they cannot be wiped off the face of the earth.” He even found something providential in their location on the lower Danube. On the one hand, “Russia encountered here the political and strategic limits that it could not trespass without being weakened.” On the other hand, from behind the Romanian barrier, Russia could “intervene on behalf of its co-religionist and co-racial peoples (edinovernye i edinoplemennye narody) who were oppressed by the Turks without giving [the European powers] a reason to suspect its intentions.” Fonton could only 3 Fonton, Vospominaniia, 1:37. 4 Constantin Brâncoveanu (r. 1688–1716) was a hospodar of Wallachia who, in the course of the Pruth campaign, failed to support Peter the Great despite prior agreement. Brâncoveanu’s decision to ally with the Ottomans was determined by his rivalry with Peter’s Moldavian ally Dimitrie Cantemir, the slowness of Russian progress, and the faster than expected mobilization of Ottoman troops. 5 Fonton, Vospominaniia, 1:38. (The territory referred to is Austrian Galicia.)

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wish that Europe “understood it and did not oppose [Russia]” in its effort “to liberate these peoples from the humble state in which they live.”6 Fonton’s observations about the Romanians reflected Russia’s real strategic and political predicament with respect to Moldavia and Wallachia and the broader Balkan region. Russia’s early wars against the Ottoman Empire all aimed to secure its southern frontier, which was vulnerable to the raids of the Crimean Tatar vassals of the sultan. The incremental advance of Russian troops and defense lines into the Pontic steppe culminated with the two “Turkish” wars of Catherine the Great in 1768–74 and 1787–92 that resulted in the annexation of the Crimean khanate and the entire northern littoral of the Black Sea.7 With the closure of “Europe’s steppe frontier,” the Russian Empire reached its “natural” strategic limits in the southwest.8 Further advance into the Balkans necessarily placed Austria in the rear of the Russian army and made other great powers increasingly concerned about Russian expansionism. As if recognizing this, Paul I and Alexander I abandoned the confrontational stance of Catherine the Great with respect to the Ottomans and began to seek a predominant influence over the weak empire of the sultan.9 Russia’s protectorate over Moldavia and Wallachia was a key element of this “weak neighbor” strategy as it served to attract to Russia other Orthodox Christian peoples of the Ottoman Empire. However, Alexander  I found it necessary to go to war again in 1806, when the Porte deposed the princes of Moldavia and Wallachia without Russia’s sanction. The decision of Nicholas I to declare war in 1828 was likewise motivated by the desire to reaffirm the Russian protectorate over the principalities. This time, the Russian government did not limit itself to a restatement of its prerogatives with respect to Moldavia and Wallachia in the peace treaty and tried to place its protectorate on a firm institutional foundation. To achieve this goal, the Russian provisional authorities in Moldavia and Wallachia in 1828–34 sponsored comprehensive institutional reforms that conditioned the development of the principalities for a quarter of a century. Under the supervision of tsarist officials, select representatives of local elites elaborated 6 Fonton, Vospominaniia, 38. 7 On this process, see a series of studies by Brian L. Davies: Warfare State and Society on the Black Sea Steppe; Empire and Military Revolution in Eastern Europe; and The Russo–Turkish War. 8 McNeill, Europe’s Steppe Frontier. 9 On this change in Russia’s “Eastern policy,” see Stanislavskaia, Russko–angliiskie otnosheniia, 335–49; Dostian, Rossiia i balkanskii vopros, 43–45.

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and adopted the Organic Statutes that defined the prerogatives of the princes and the boyar assemblies; regulated relationships between peasants, landlords, and the state; reorganized the public administration; and promoted public welfare. The statutes also turned the Russian consuls in Bucharest and Iași into de facto arbiters in the relations between the princes and the boyar opposition. A continuation of imperial expansion by other means, the reforms of 1829–34 also played a significant role in the political evolution of Moldavia and Wallachia during the nineteenth century. First, the reforms marked an important stage in the conflict between different segments of local elites that characterized the 1820s. Second, the institutions that were restructured or created from scratch in 1828–34 contributed to the development of modern Romanian statehood. In the cultural domain, the period of Russian administration of the principalities gave an important impetus to the Westernization of the Moldavian and Wallachian elites that ultimately stimulated the formation of modern Romanian nationalism. All of these aspects demonstrate how significant the reforms were for both sides of the Russian–Romanian encounter. And yet, despite its scale and significance, this encounter remained in the shadow of Imperial Russia’s other Balkan entanglements.10 The activities of the Russian provisional administration in Moldavia and Wallachia received only limited attention in the contemporary Russian press, matching neither the earlier interest of educated Russians in the Greek uprising of 1821, nor their later preoccupation with Serbia or Bulgaria.11 In their relations with the southern Slavs during the second half of the nineteenth century, the Russian government and the educated public largely failed to draw lessons from their earlier interactions with Moldavian and Wallachian elites. Ironically, this failure is paralleled by the virtual neglect of this subject in the recent historiography of the Russian Empire, an otherwise vibrant field of study.12 10 See Jelavich, Russia’s Balkan Entanglements. Russian policies in the principalities in the late 1820s and the early 1830s receive a rather cursory treatment in Jelavich’s, Russia and the Formation of the Romanian Nation-State, which contrasts with the quite elaborate historiography of Russian policies in Bulgaria later in the century. See Black, The Establishment of Constitutional Government in Bulgaria; Durman, Lost Illusions; Vinkovetsky, “Strategists and Ideologues”; Rekun, How Russia Lost Bulgaria. 11 Prousis, Russian Society and the Greek Revolution; Milojkovic-Djuric, Panslavism and National Identity. 12 Kappeler, The Russian Empire; Lieven, Empire; Kivelson and Suny, Russia’s Empires; Gerasimov, Mogilner, and Glebov, Novaia imperskaia istoriia severnoi Evrazii.

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Russia on the Danube seeks to fill this lacuna. It tells the story of interaction between an expanding continental empire and the elites of the two Romanian principalities strategically located on the lower Danube. Despite their transformation into tributaries of the Ottoman Empire at the beginning of the early modern period, Moldavia and Wallachia repeatedly constituted a battleground for the Ottoman, Habsburg, and Polish armies, while their elites remained open to diverse cultural and political influences. The emergence of Russia as an active player in the Black Sea region by the early eighteenth century led to a long series of Russian–Ottoman wars and occupations of Moldavia and Wallachia by Russian armies. Whether it aimed to destroy the Ottoman Empire or to preserve it as a convenient “weak neighbor,” Russia’s “Eastern policy” required hegemony in the principalities, the maintenance of which proved difficult. Despite the reputation of Moldavia and Wallachia as the granaries of Constantinople, the tsarist commanders found it difficult to secure local supplies for their armies without alienating the population. War-related devastations caused epidemics, which decimated the troops and the civilian population of the principalities and threatened the Russian Empire itself. As they tried to resolve all these issues, the tsarist military men and diplomats became increasingly involved in the internal administration of Moldavia and Wallachia, which exposed them to the rifts and tensions among regional and local elites. Seasoned by centuries of survival in a contested frontier zone, these elites revealed a remarkable ability to manipulate the official Russian rhetoric of protecting the Orthodox subjects of the sultan. Russia on the Danube examines the response of tsarist policy makers to these multiple challenges in the wake of the Russian–Ottoman War of 1828– 29. Although reactive, Russian policies left important political and cultural legacies that shaped later Russian–Romanian relations. More broadly, the present study demonstrates that Moldavia and Wallachia were crucial sites of the elaboration of Russia’s “Eastern policy” that, over the nineteenth century, helped transform the European part of the Ottoman Empire into the Southeastern Europe of small nation-states that we see on the map today. Still more broadly, the Russian–Romanian encounter of the early 1800s epitomizes many of the predicaments of both Imperial and Soviet Russia’s relations with a host of smaller nations along its western and southern rim and beyond. 5

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Over the last century and a half, scholars have addressed different political and cultural developments in and around Moldavia and Wallachia in the late 1700s and the early 1800s. Both Western and Eastern European historians have examined the policy of different great powers toward the principalities, which contributed to the flexible political orientations and multiple loyalties of the Moldavian and Wallachian elites.13 In parallel, Romanian historians have studied the social and ethnic tensions within the boyar class as well as the conflicts between the princely authority and the boyars around issues of political power and control over the peasantry.14 Romanian historians have also explored the cultural Westernization of the Moldavian and Wallachian upper classes, whose political language in the late eighteenth and the early nineteenth century increasingly employed the themes of historical tradition, patriotism, and the enlightened reform of political institutions.15 In their evaluation of the Organic Statutes, Romanian authors have always faced a dilemma. On the one hand, they have viewed the statutes as instruments of Russian imperial expansion and hegemony. From this perspective even the salutary principles of the division of powers introduced by the statutes could appear as a means to sow discord among Romanian elites, a Machiavellian divide et impera vested in Montesquieu’s political philosophy.16 On the other hand, even the harshest critics of Russian policies, like A.D. Xenopol, had to admit that the Organic Statutes “introduced for the first time in Romanian political life the idea of the public interest” and ultimately “the idea of the state . . . in its modern form.”17 A still more graphic illustration of the Romanian historiographic predicament over the Organic Statutes is the question of whether this product of cooperation between the elites of the principalities and the Russian provisional authorities was “a Romanian work, in its essence” or, conversely, a “despotic, aristocratic, authoritarian, anti-liberal, and completely Russian work.”18 In order 13 Lebel, La France et les Principautés Danubiennes; Heppner, Austria și Principatele Dunărene; Grosul, Dunaiskie kniazhestva v politike Rossii; Florescu, The Struggle against Russia in the Romanian Princi­ palities. 14 Filitti, Frământările politice în Principatele Române; Platon and Platon, Boierimea din Moldova. 15 Eliade, L’Influence française sur l’esprit publique en Roumanie; Djuvara, Între Orient şi Occident; Georgescu, Political Ideas and Enlightenment in the Romanian Principalities. 16 Drăganu, Începuturile şi dezvoltarea regimului parlmentar, 55. 17 Xenopol, Istoria românilor din Dacia, 11:100. 18 See, respectively, Platon, Moldova şi inceputurile revoluţiei, 65, and Iordache, Principatele Române în epocă modernă, 1: 230.

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to solve this dilemma, some Romanian historians have tried to dissociate the Organic Statutes from the empire that sponsored their elaboration and adoption. They have recognized the enlightened qualities of the head of the Russian administration, Pavel Dmitrievich Kiselev, but treated him as a rare exception in the generally oppressive system of Russian dominance.19 This love-hate attitude toward the Organic Statutes reflected the tendency of Romanian historians to assess them in terms of their role in the eventual emergence of the modern Romanian nation-state in the second part of the nineteenth century.20 Indeed, from this point of view, the Organic Statutes may appear to be “a most baffling, incongruous and paradoxical institution, defying a rigorous analysis.”21 However, such judgements are anachronistic since the statutes and the broader policies of the Russian provisional administration in the principalities in 1828–34 were animated by an altogether different logic, that of a continental empire. It would be equally wrong to present this empire as an entirely foreign entity that acted upon Moldavia and Wallachia “from outside.” In light of recent historical and sociological studies, the empire emerges not only as a large authoritarian state created through conquest, but also as a place of interaction between the imperial center and the elites of the frontier regions.22 Whereas the Romanian historiography of the Organic Statutes suffers from a primitive understanding of empire, contemporary historians of Imperial Russia have altogether neglected its involvement in the political reforms in Moldavia and Wallachia in 1828–34.23 The lack of interest in the Eastern Question and Russian–Balkan relations in the recent historiography of the Russian Empire should probably be attributed to the perception of this problematique as the trough of old-fashioned historians of interna19 Characteristically, Romanian historian Radu F. Florescu called Kiselev “the only Russian whose departure in 1834 was sincerely regretted by all categories of population.” See Florescu, Essays in Romanian History, 207. A similarly critical approach characterizes both Stan, Protectoratul Rusiei asupra Principatelor Române and the grotesquely titled Arăutu, Douăsprezece invazii ruseşti în România. 20 For a balanced treatment of the Organic Statutes by a Romanian historian, see Filitti, Les principautés roumaines sous l’occupation russe, especially, pages 262–67. See also his Domniile române sub Regulamentul Organic. 21 Florescu, Essays in Romanian History, 159. 22 For these two aspects of the meaning of empire see, respectively, Lieven, Empire, xi–xii, and Charles Tilly, “How Empires End,” 7. 23 The only book-length study on Russian policies in Moldavia and Wallachia was published more than fifty years ago and is necessarily dated methodologically. See Grosul, Reformy v Dunaiskikh kniazhestvakh i Rossiia. For a recent chapter-length treatment, see Bitis, Russia and the Eastern Question, 426–64.

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tional relations and diplomacy.24 During the 1990s and the 2000s, students of Imperial Russia turned away from these foreign policy subjects and proceeded to explore the interactions between officials, experts, and representatives of the local elites in the formulation of empire-wide strategies and the definition of imperial policies in particular borderland regions.25 More recently, several younger scholars have questioned the very dichotomy between foreign and domestic policy and have turned their attention to trans-border phenomena, such as migrations, religious pilgrimages, and the transfer of political ideologies.26 The present work likewise proceeds from the assumption that the dichotomy of domestic versus foreign policy is untenable in the case of a continental empire. In doing so, it joins a number of recent studies that view Russia’s “Eastern policy” as a product of interaction between diplomats, the military, and religious bureaucracy, as well as Russian and foreign public opinion.27 Russia on the Danube examines correspondence between tsarist diplomats, military men, civil officials, and representatives of the Moldavian and Wallachian elites that constituted the actual site of articulation of Russia’s strategy with respect to the Ottoman Empire in general, and its policy in the principalities in particular. The book demonstrates that officials involved in the formulation of Russia’s Eastern policy were also involved in the internal administration of the empire and vice versa. The same applied to the Moldavian and Wallachian elites who maintained their connections with all the branches of imperial officialdom across formal political boundaries. As a result, the policies and projects that are conventionally assigned to the domains of foreign or domestic policy in reality made up part of the overall strategy of rule, which was centered on the reigning monarch. The deconstruction of the traditional opposition between domestic and foreign policy permits one to reconceptualize reform as a modality of rule in 24 The literature on the Eastern Question is enormous. Two studies may serve as an introduction: Anderson, The Eastern Question, and Kiniapina, Vostochnyi vopros v politike Rossii. 25 The resulting body of work is too voluminous to be cited here. Here are the most notable studies of the western borderlands of the Russian Empire: Weeks, Nation and State in Late Imperial Russia; Miller, Ukrainskii vopros; Dolbilov and Miller, Zapadnye okrainy; Dolbilov, Russkii krai, chuzhaia vera. 26 Meyer, Turks Across Empires; Kane, Russian Hajj; Robarts, Migration and Disease. 27 Bitis, Russia and the Eastern Question; Gerd, Konstantinopol’ i Peterburg; Frary and Kozelsky, Russian–Ottoman Borderlands; Frary, Russia and the Making of Modern Greek Identity; Vovchenko, Containing Balkan Nationalisms.

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Russian history.28 Historians of Imperial Russia have approached this subject from two perspectives. On the one hand, they have viewed reforms as the means whereby the tsars and their enlightened bureaucrats tried to pull their backward country to the level of the advanced nations of the West in a situation of increasingly tense international competition. On the other hand, they interpreted reforms as the means to forestall internal revolutions, which initially were confined to the tsar’s palace, but later threatened to take to the streets and squares. Both as a means of resource mobilization and as a counter-revolutionary strategy, reform is assumed to be an internal policy par excellence, whose foreign political implications are limited to how much it contributed to Russia’s military power and internal cohesion. The present study challenges this assumption and demonstrates that reforms represented a key element of imperial ruling strategies that transcended the formal boundaries of the empire. The reforms of Peter the Great undoubtedly had the aspect of internal mobilization, which made them similar to the earlier and contemporary efforts of Western and Central European rulers.29 Reflecting the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century mercantilist and cameralist literature, such policies aimed to maximize the taxable wealth of a given territory by means of the regulation of economic activities and promotion of public welfare. 30 The application of these policies first in small and medium-sized states of Central and Western Europe and then in a sprawling continental empire necessarily involved adjustments and affected priorities. In particular, Russia’s version of the well-ordered police state accorded much greater importance to colonization as a means of controlling open and unstable southern frontiers, which for centuries were a source of Russia’s strategic vulnerability.31 Particularly challenging were the complex frontier zones in which Russia faced several other empires in a struggle for the loyalties of multi-ethnic

28 On reforms in nineteenth-century Russia, see Safonov, Problema reform; Mironenko, Samoderzhavie i reformy; Lincoln, In the Vanguard of Reform; Lincoln, The Great Reforms; Eklof, Bushnell, and Zakharova, Russia’s Great Reforms; Polunov, Zakharova, and Owen, Russia in the Nineteenth Century. 29 Raeff, The Well-Ordered Police State. 30 Dorwart, The Prussian Welfare State before 1740. For a revisionist interpretation of the German wellordered police state, see Wakefield, The Disordered Police State. 31 Bartlett, Human Capital; Sunderland, Taming the Wild Field. On the role of frontiers in Russian foreign policy, see Rieber, “Persistent Factors.”

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and multi-confessional populations.32 Lands to the north and west of the Black Sea constituted one such zone, in which seventeenth-century Muscovy joined the trilateral struggle between the Ottoman Empire, the Habsburg Monarchy, and the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.33 Between the late seventeenth and the early nineteenth centuries, great power rivalry changed the very character of this area. An Islamic frontier populated by nomadic or semi-nomadic elements gave way to the agricultural frontier of settlement and ultimately to a system of modern state borders.34 While the Habsburg-Ottoman demarcation in the wake of the peace of Karlowitz of 1699 is usually considered to be a turning point in this process, the policies of the Russian provisional administration in Moldavia and Wallachia from 1828 to 1834 may well be seen as its final moment.35 The reintegration of the Ottoman fortresses and surrounding districts on the left side of the Danube into Wallachia as well as the creation of the Danubian quarantine in 1829– 30 signaled the definitive closure of the Ottoman frontier in Europe and its replacement by a system of modern borders. As a key element of the political culture of the post–Petrine period, reforms also informed the political dialogue between the tsars and Russian elites.36 It is important to understand, however, that this dialogue resonated in similar interactions between rulers and elites in other countries. Since the middle decades of the eighteenth century, Saint Petersburg’s agents played a significant role in the political tensions in Sweden and Poland, where they supported traditional constitutions. This strategy undoubtedly helped autocratic Russia prevent the political centralization of its traditional rivals.37 At the same time, the elite political liberties of Sweden and Poland served as points of reference for representatives of the imperial nobility who sought to impose constitutional checks upon tsarist absolutism in Russia itself. One can point to the constitutional projects that former Russian envoy 32 See Rieber, “Complex Ecology of Eurasian Frontiers,” 178. 33 On the Danubian and Pontic frontier, see Rieber, The Struggle for the Eurasian Borderlands, 314–72. 34 On the Islamic frontier within the broader historical typology of frontiers, see Rieber, “Frontiers in History,” 5812–18. See also Agoston, “A Flexible Empire.” 35 See Abu el-Haj, “The Formal Closure of the Ottoman Frontier.” On the military, demographic, and economic aspects of the transformations of the Habsburg–Ottoman borders in the wake of the peace of Karlowitz, see different contributions to Ingrao, Samardzic, and Pesalj, The Peace of Passarowitz. 36 See Whittaker, Russian Monarchy. 37 On Russian policy in Poland, see Stegnii, Razdely Pol’shi i diplomatiia Ekateriny Vtoroi. On Russian policy in Sweden, see Metcalf, Russia, England and Swedish Party Politics.

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in Stockholm Nikita Panin formulated during the reign of Catherine the Great. One can also think of the involvement of major Polish aristocrat and one-time Russian foreign minister Adam Czartoryski in the Unofficial Committee that considered projects of political reform in Russia at the beginning of ­A lexander I’s reign.38 In the wake of the French revolution, sponsorship of constitutional and quasi-constitutional settlements became an important element of struggle against Napoleonic France for the allegiance of the elites of the frontier regions. Later, Alexander I’s opposition to the Anglo-Austrian plan for the restoration of the Bourbons in France after the fall of Napoleon, the introduction of the Polish Constitutional Charter, and the support of constitutional arrangements in Germany and Italy constituted the tsar’s alternative to Metternich’s Legitimism as a Europe-wide counter-revolutionary strategy.39 Such efforts closely correlated with projects of political reform in Russia itself, the most important of which was the Constitutional Charter for the Russian Empire elaborated in 1818–20. Together, these two aspects of the reform politics of the post-Napoleonic period were meant to neutralize the appeal of revolutionary ideas among the elites of the Russian empire and other European states by giving them a greater role in government without, however, compromising the centrality of the ruling monarch. The Russian policies in Moldavia and Wallachia in 1812–34 offer a valuable opportunity to explore imperial rule through reform in a post-revolutionary age, when the traditional aspirations of the local elites for greater autonomy began to acquire a radical tinge. The reforms that tsarist diplomats and military men sponsored in the principalities placed Russia in the position of arbiter in the relations between the princes and the boyars of Moldavia and Wallachia and can, thus, be seen as a continuation of the eighteenth-century Russian support of “constitutional” parties in Poland and 38 On Panin, see Ransel, The Politics of Catherinian Russia. On Czartoryski, see Grimsted, The Foreign Ministers of Alexander I, 104–50, and Zawadzki, A Man of Honour, 43–60. 39 On Alexander I’s initial opposition to the Bourbon restoration and his support of the French Constitutional Charter of 1814, see Rey, “Alexander I, Talleyrand and France’s Future.” On Alexander I’s support of constitutional reforms in post-1815 Germany, see Dodolev, “Rossiia i problema Germanskoi konfederatsii”; Goncharova, “Politika Rossii v Germanskom soiuze.” On Russian policy in the Italian states in the same period, see Reinerman, “Metternich, Alexander I, and the Russian Challenge.” For a general discussion of monarchical constitutionalism in post–Napoleonic Europe, see Prutsch, “Monarchical Constitutionalism in Post–Napoleonic Europe.”

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Sweden. At the same time, reforms aimed to neutralize the influence of “subversive ideas” among the elites of the principalities by offering them a measure of political participation. Eventually, Russian diplomats and military men came to view the reformed institutions as the means of turning Moldavia and Wallachia into a buffer protecting Russia from revolutionary influences emanating from Western Europe. The study of imperial policy making cannot ignore the discursive aspects of interaction between the imperial center and the elites of the frontier zones. In the case of the Danubian frontier, this interaction was informed by the concept of Russia as the protector of Greek Orthodox Christians. This concept, in fact, constituted the most important example of the “soft power” of Imperial Russia.40 No other great power that emerged in the Westphalian world could boast a comparable ideological resource. Although all the major rulers of the early modern period had numerous coreligionists outside their own domains, their ability to use the confessional card was severely limited in time and space by the competition that existed between the very Catholic Bourbons and the no less Catholic Habsburgs or between the Reformed Dutch and the somewhat less Reformed English. At any one time, there existed several Catholic and Protestant powers that increasingly pursued raison d’état rather than the interests of their respective confession.41 As a result, the balance of power prevailed over religious identities, and the seventeenth century witnessed the formation of several transconfessional coalitions that checked the hegemonic aspirations of the Habsburgs and the Bourbons. What made Russia different in this respect was her confessional solitude. As the only sovereign Orthodox power of the early modern period, it had no rivals in terms of influence over Orthodox co-religionists living outside its borders. It, thus, predictably emerged as their champion by the end of the seventeenth century. In fact, this role was, to a large degree, offered to the rulers of Moscow and Saint Petersburg by the Orthodox clerics of Poland– 40 On “soft power” as the ability of a country to influence the behavior of others through non-coercive means, see Nye, Soft Power. On “soft power” in early modern Europe, see Rivère de Carles, Early Modern Diplomacy, Theatre and Soft Power. On the nineteenth-century uses of “soft power,” see Müller and Mehrkens, Royal Heirs and the Use of Soft Power. 41 On the role of religion in the politics of the early modern powers, see Rommelse and Onnekink, Ideology and Foreign Policy; Nexton, The Struggle for Power in Early Modern Europe.

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Lithuania and Ottoman Turkey.42 At the same time, this important asset did not come without liability: local elites tended to manipulate the discourse of Russian protection to suit their particular political agendas. The most important example of such manipulation was undoubtedly the attempt of the secret Greek society Philiki Etaireia to launch an anti-Ottoman uprising in Moldavia and Wallachia in 1821 in the expectation that Russian intervention would follow. As will be demonstrated, this uprising and its suppression by the Ottomans wreaked havoc in the Danubian frontier zone and temporarily suspended the formal Russian protectorate over the principalities. The Etaireia undertaking also galvanized tensions between the Greek and native elements of Moldavian and Wallachian elites and announced the coming of the age of nationalism to the Balkans.43 In light of contemporary scholarship on nationalism, the national movements of Eastern and Southeastern Europe emerge as romantic reactions to the oppressive political systems of the Habsburgs, Ottomans, and Romanovs. By emphasizing ethnicity and language alongside religion (or in contrast to it), modern national ideologies challenged premodern forms of consciousness that combined a sense of local attachment with that of belonging to a universal religious community. This difference explains the alienation of many East European intellectuals from their immediate political, social, and cultural environment, which often accompanied their passionate love of their respective nations.44 As a result, many East and Southeast European nations look like distinctly modern intellectual inventions.45 This study does not deny the role of intellectuals in the construction of modern Romanian national identity through the discovery of the Latin ori42 On Russia’s relations with the Orthodox co-religionists in Poland–Lithuania, see Skinner, The Western Front of the Eastern Church. On the genesis of the discourse of Russia as the protector of the Greek Orthodox population of the Ottoman Empire, see Kapterev, Kharakter otnoshenii Rossii k Pravoslavnomu Vostoku. See also Taki, “The Limits of Protection.” 43 The present author’s perspective on nationalism has been shaped by the following classics of the genre: Gellner, Nations and Nationalism; Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism; Anderson, Imagined Communities; Brubaker, Ethnicity without Groups. 44 On this alienation in the Romanian context, see Antohi, Civitas Imaginalis. 45 On the invented character of national traditions, see Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger, The Invention of Tradition. On the Romanian case, see Boia, Jocul cu trecutul; Boia, History and Myth in Romanian Consciousness. For another striking case of intellectual construction of national identity, see Himka, “The Construction of Nationality in Galician Rus’.” For a general survey of the East European nation-building, see Snyder, The Reconstruction of the Nations. On the construction of nations in the Southeast European context, see Kitromilides, “Imagined Communities”; Mishkova, We, the People.

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gins of Moldavians and Wallachians.46 Nor does it deny the role of Russiansponsored reforms in the principalities in the opening of Moldavia and Wallachia to French influences that, in turn, played a major role in the development of modern Romanian nationalism, with its distinctly anti-Russian and anti-Slavic connotations.47 At the same time, this study demonstrates that the invention of the national tradition took place within the process of close interaction between the elites of the principalities and Imperial Russia, an interaction which began within the pre-modern intellectual and political framework of a common Orthodox identity. The project of unifying Moldavia and Wallachia into a Romanian nation-state evolved, among other things, out of the Moldavian and Wallachian boyars’ efforts to defend the traditional autonomy of the principalities within the Ottoman Empire. By the end of the eighteenth century, the discourse of autonomy provided concrete content to the more general rhetoric of shared Orthodoxy that framed the relations between Russia and the elites of the principalities. In its interaction with the Moldavian and Wallachian boyars, the Russian empire emerged not just as the champion of its Orthodox co-religionists, but specifically as a protector of the traditional privileges that the principalities enjoyed within the realm of the sultan. Even though the Organic Statutes had an undeniably modernizing impact upon Moldavia and Wallachia, the boyars involved in their elaboration presented their proposals as the restoration of the historical rights of the principalities originally conferred by the Ottomans and subsequently violated by the Phanariot Greek princes who ruled these lands in the eighteenth and the early nineteenth centuries. Finally, the discourse of the historical autonomy of the principalities was also present in the writings of the young generation of Moldavian and Wallachian boyars who challenged both the Organic Statutes and Russian hegemony in the principalities in the late 1830s and 1840s. The founding fathers of modern Romania presented their project as the return to the original self-rule that Moldavia and Wallachia had enjoyed as Ottoman tributaries and that was now supposedly threatened by Russian encroachments. 46 On the role of the so-called Transylvanian school in this process, see Hitchins, The Romanian National Movement in Transylvania. 47 On the role of Russia in opening the principalities to the French influences, see Eliade, La Roumanie au XIX-e siècle, vol. 2, Les trois présidents plénipotentiaires. On the role the French influence in the emergence of modern Romanian nationalism, see Campbell, French Influence and the Rise of Roumanian Nationalism.

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Finally, some comments on the place of Pan-Slavism in Russian–Roman­ ian relations during the nineteenth century are in order. Feliks Fonton’s comments on Romanians cited at the beginning reveal the existence of PanSlavic attitudes among Russian diplomats and military men already in the early decades of the nineteenth century.48 With their Romance language, Daco-Roman origins, and geographical location between the eastern and southern Slavs, the Moldavians, and Wallachians indeed represented a potential problem for the unification of the Slavic peoples around Russia, as the most perceptive Russian observers began to realize. Yet the prospect of such a unification, however illusory, greatly stimulated the growth of Romanian nationalist sentiment among the Moldavian and Wallachian elites and helps explain their increasingly anti-Russian attitudes later in the century. At the same time, it would be a great mistake to assume that Pan-Slavism represented a guiding ideology behind Russia’s Eastern policy in the first half of the nineteenth century, which constitutes the chronological framework of this study. In fact, the role of Pan-Slavism in Saint Petersburg’s international conduct should not be exaggerated even in the late 1800s, the period of the Russian public’s intense preoccupation with the fate of the Serbs and the Bulgarians. In the wake of the Crimean War, both the Russian Foreign Ministry and the Holy Synod sought, above all, to contain the southern Slavic nationalisms that threatened to undermine the unity of the Greek Orthodox church, which is why their policy should be described much more appropriately as Pan-Orthodox rather than Pan-Slavic.49 There was even less space for Pan-Slavism in Russian policies before 1853–56, when considerations of anti-revolutionary monarchical cooperation in the spirit of the Holy Alliance sometimes severely limited even the tsars’ championing of Russia’s Orthodox coreligionists. Pan-Slavism was, thus, hardly a factor conditioning Russia’s relations with Moldavian and Wallachian elites from the early 1800s onwards. Instead, one could argue that these relations and the mutual tensions and disappointments they generated over the course of the nineteenth century gradually helped make Pan-Slavic ideas increasingly popular among Russians and increasingly unpopular among Romanians. 48 On Russian Pan-Slavism, see Petrovich, The Emergence of Russian Panslavism; Fadner, Seventy Years of Panlsavism. 49 See Vovchenko, Containing Balkan Nationalisms, and Gerd, Tserkovnaia politika.

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This preliminary overview of the politics of reform and its discursive framework might lead one to wonder about the ultimate correlation between realist and idealist elements in the policies of Alexander I and Nicholas I.50 Were they Machiavellian manipulators pursuing realpolitik objectives under the guise of noble slogans as the nineteenth century European Russophobes often portrayed them? Or were they quixotic idealists who foolishly squandered the fruits of earlier victories in pursuit of ideological chimeras as so many Russian nationalists complained? As this study will demonstrate, the grandsons of Catherine the Great indeed sacrificed on several occasions what appeared to be Russia’s “real” interests in the East to the principles of counter-revolutionary cooperation with other rulers in Europe. However, a closer examination reveals that each time, these sacrificed “real” interests were themselves ideological in nature. Those Russian diplomats and military men who decried the tsars’ deference to the Holy Alliance and their failure to press their advantage in the Balkans were likewise animated by a highly ideological notion of Russia as the champion of Orthodox Christians. One could thus argue that Russia’s Eastern policy in the first half of the nineteenth century was defined by conflicting ideological strains and was overall quite idealist. At the same time, this quality of Imperial Russia’s Balkan entanglements does not warrant accusations of unrealism. Admittedly, none of the conflicting ideals behind the tsars’ policies promised any tangible material or economic gains for Russia, but then, no continental empire ever made sense as a business venture. As soon as one recognizes the meaninglessness of reducing political realism to its mercantile component, one would be able to see that nothing was more real for imperial rulers and elites than the ideals in accordance with which they sought to reshape the world.

50 Realism and idealism are two major schools of international relations theory, each of which have generated enormous literature. See Crawford, Idealism and Realism in International Relations.

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Early Encounters

F

rom their emergence in the middle of the fourteenth century, Moldavia and Wallachia had been frontier polities contested by their more powerful neighbors, such as the declining Golden Horde or the ascendant Hungarian and Polish kingdoms.1 During the first century of their existence, the principalities were influenced by waning Byzantium and neighboring Slavic peoples.2 Although ethnic Romanians apparently made up the majority of Moldavian and Wallachian hospodars’ subjects from the very beginning, the use of the Church Slavonic by the princely chancelleries until the end of the sixteenth century testifies to the extent of Slavic influences upon the principalities.3 By the end of the Middle Ages, Moldavia and Wallachia entered the political orbit of the Ottoman Empire, where they remained until the nineteenth century. Unlike the Slavic lands south of the Danube where the Ottoman conquest uprooted indigenous nobility and state structures, Moldavia and Wallachia retained autonomy in internal affairs, became vassals of the Ottomans, and were obliged to pay yearly tribute (harac) as well as provide military support

1 Papacostea, “Relaţiile internaţionale în răsăritul şi sudestul Europei.” 2 On the Byzantine influences, see Georgescu, Bizanţul şi instituţiile româneşti. 3 The replacement of Old Church Slavonic by Romanian as the language of liturgy in the seventeenth century reflected a drastic decline of the number of Slavonic clergymen in the Orthodox church hierarchy of the Ottoman Empire as a result of the growing predominance of the Greeks. See Xenopol, Istoria românilor din Dacia Traiană, 7:71–75. The Greek princes who ruled the principalities during the eighteenth century supported the Romanian liturgy as a way of further weakening the Slavic element. In so doing, they were aided by the influx of Transylvanian Romanians into Moldavia and Wallachia. Since the middle of the sixteenth century, Transylvania was the space of confrontation between different currents of Protestantism and Counter-Reformation Catholicism, which stimulated the development of the written Romanian language and, ultimately, modern Romanian nationalism.

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to the sultan in the course of his campaigns.4 As time passed, the Ottomans tightened their control over Moldavia and Wallachia, depriving them of an effective military force and independent diplomacy, and establishing a commercial monopoly. However, the principalities retained their institutional peculiarity and remained Orthodox Christian countries where the settlement of Muslims was theoretically prohibited. Within Islamic legal tradition their status was regulated by the notion of ‘ahd or “agreement,” signifying an intermediary position between the “House of Islam” (dâr al-Islâm) and the “House of War” (dâr al-Harb).5 The establishment of Ottoman dominance sapped the power of the hospodars, who had originally styled themselves as Byzantine autocrators and contributed to the strengthening of the boyar class. The weakening of princely authority gave the boyars an opportunity to increase taxes and seignorial dues. The decline of the egalitarian institutions of the Great Army and the Assembly of the Land, as well as a gradual exhaustion of the princely land fund, further strengthened the boyars, who ended up controlling most of the land alongside the ecclesiastical landowners. After the imposition of the Ottoman commercial monopoly over the principalities, the boyar estates began to produce livestock and grain for Constantinople. The costs of this economic cooperation with the Ottomans were shouldered by the peasants, who found themselves progressively enserfed. Boyar dominance in the countryside was paralleled by their economic and social hegemony in the cities.6 The economic and social ascendancy of the boyars is reflected in the growth of their political influence, which turned the political system of the principalities into a boyar oligarchy.7 This is especially true of the seventeenth century, when several great families (the Movilas, the Ureches, the Costins) 4 Guboglu,“Le tribut payé par les principautés roumaines,” 49–80; Gemil, Românii și otomanii. 5 According to Viorel Panatie, in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the principalities were viewed as part of the “House of War.” See Panaite, Pace, Război și Comerț, 280–83. During the sixteenth century, the Ottomans increasingly perceived the principalities as “conquered by the sword” and “included into the ‘House of Islam.’ ” (410–13). This tendency continued in the eighteenth and early nineteenth century, when the sultans called the principalities a “property” that constituted their “inheritance” (414– 15). According to Panaite, the principalities’ juridical status should best be described in terms of dar al muvada’a (House of Armistice) and dar al dhimma (House of Protection or Tribute), which where the closest Hanefi approximations to the Shafii notion of dar al ahd (421). For a chapter-length discussion of the same subject in English, see Panaite, “The Legal and Political Status of Moldavia and Wallachia.” See also Maxim, Țările Române și Înalta Poartă. 6 Sugar, Southeastern Europe under Ottoman Rule, 127. 7 Keith Hitchins, The Romanians, 19.

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monopolized important offices in the government as well as the elections of the hospodars, imposing on them conditions similar to the Polish pacta conventa.8 At the same time, despite their important social and economic positions, the boyars never managed to institutionalize their power in formal representative institutions. The rivalry of the boyar factions and the penetration of numerous foreign (mainly Greek) elements compromised the unity of the boyar estate in the principalities.9 The absence of primogeniture, low land productivity, and frequent redistribution of land prevented the formation of noble opposition to the authoritarian inclinations of princes on a territorially entrenched basis and made control of the people ultimately more important than control of the land.10 The same factors explain the lack of economic self-sufficiency, which ultimately made the Wallachian boyars dependent on public offices. As a result, the elites of the principalities represented a variation of a domesticated aristocracy that was organized into clans and patronage networks that vied for the prince’s favor and sometimes effectively controlled him, but never managed to establish an institutionalized aristocratic “republic” in the manner of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.11 The incomplete political consolidation of the boyar estate was compensated by the hospodars’ increasing dependence upon the good will of the Ottomans. The latter controlled the appointment of the hospodars in Wallachia since 1462 and in Moldavia since 1538, and, with time, their interference in the election of the prince tended to be more frequent and arbitrary. Because of the Ottomans’ weakening power, in the late seventeenth century, they replaced the hospodars with increasing frequency as a way of maintaining the loyalty of the principalities and maximizing their revenues. Already in the first half of the sixteenth century, large sums were submitted to the Ottoman authorities by candidates for the hospodar office. In the seventeenth century the average term of hospodar service was four and a half years for Wallachia and two and a half years for Moldavia while the amount of Ottoman tribute grew exponentially.12 Sugar, Southeastern Europe under Ottoman Rule, 126. Daicoviciu and Constantinescu-Iași, Istoria Romîniei, 3:201. Djuvara, “Les Grands Boïars.” On the relations of the Romanian principalities with the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth during the early modern period, see Ciobanu, Țările Române și Polonia; and Ciobanu, Politica și diplomația în secolul al XVII-lea. 12 Hitchins, The Romanians, 11. 8 9 10 11

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At the same time, throughout the period of the Ottoman dominance, the principalities were contested by other imperial powers whose influence could be particularly high at moments of Ottoman weakness. Thus, the first period of crisis for the Ottoman empire in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries was fully exploited by the powerful aristocrats of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth as well as the Ukrainian Cossack leaders, who on multiple occasions sought to place their own candidates on the thrones of the principalities. After the relative stabilization of Ottoman rule in Moldavia and Wallachia in the second quarter of the seventeenth century, the principalities once again turned into the objects of desire for rival empires. Alongside the rebellious Ukrainian Cossacks of Bogdan Khmelnytsky and the crusading Poles of Jan III Sobieski, this contestation increasingly involved the only sovereign Orthodox power of the day: the Tsardom of Muscovy. Russian–Ottoman Confrontation and the Establishment of the Phanariot Regime “The light comes from Moscow, too,” wrote the metropolitan of Moldavia Dosifei in the late seventeenth century. A major religious writer, Dosifei occupies pride of place in the history of the Moldavian Church due to his Romanian translations of liturgical books from Old Church Slavonic. Printed on a press he received from the Muscovite Tsar Feodor Alexeevich in 1681, these translations made it possible to conduct religious services in Romanian.13 Dosifei headed the Moldavian church for fourteen years, during which he participated in negotiations with Moscow with the goal of bringing Moldavia under Muscovite suzerainty.14 This did not strengthen Dosifei’s credentials in the eyes of Moldavia’s Ottoman overlords, and eventually he had to leave for Poland together with Jan Sobieski’s army that briefly occupied Moldavia in 1686. On several occasions during his Polish exile, Dosifei, like many other high-ranking Orthodox clergymen from

13 See Dosifei’s request for a printing press addressed to the patriarch of Moscow Ioachim, August 15, 1679, in Grosul, Novosel’skii, and Cherepnin, Istoricheskie sviazi narodov SSSR i Rumynii, 58–59 and n28. 14 For the addresses of the Moldavian hospodars and the tsar’s responses in 1674 and 1684, see PSZ, ser. 1, no. 1324, 2:965–71, and 2:957–59, respectively.

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the Ottoman Empire, sent for and received financial help from Moscow.15 Although some accounts indicate that Dosifei died in Żółkiew (Poland) in 1693, according to others, he arrived in Russia that year, was favorably received by Peter the Great, and died in Moscow in 1701, shortly after he had been named the metropolitan of Azov but before he was able to take up the office.16 Dosifei’s activities are illustrative of both the initial attitudes of the Moldavian and Wallachian elites toward Muscovy/Russia and the role of the high Orthodox clergy in mediating early relations between the principalities and the sole sovereign Orthodox power.17 They also demonstrate that the leaders of the Christian population of Southeastern Europe quickly recognized the opportunities that arose from the emergence of Russia as a great power and the beginning Ottoman retreat from Europe. Thus, in 1649, patriarch of Jerusalem Paisios sent a message to Tsar Aleksei Mikhailovich with an invitation to join the Moldavian and Wallachian princes on a campaign to take Constantinople, “for now the strength of the Turk is exhausted.”18 Moldavian metropolitan Gedeon brought same message from hospodars Vasile Lupu (1634–1653) and Gheorghe Ștefan (1653–1658), who proposed, respectively, an anti-Ottoman alliance and the acceptance of Moscow’s sovereignty over the principality.19 The Greek clergy propagated the idea of anti-Ottoman struggle later in the century. Consequently, in 1688, the archimandrite of St. Paul’s monastery on Mount Athos, Isaiah, brought messages to Moscow from former patriarch of Constantinople Dionysius, Wallachian prince Şerban Cantacuzino, Moldavian prince Constantin Cantemir, and Serbian patriarch Arsenije III.20 On their behalf, Isaiah sum15 See Dosifei’s request to that effect addressed to Ivan V and Peter I, November 23, 1688, in Grosul, Novosel’skii, and Cherepnin, Istoricheskie sviazi narodov SSSR i Rumynii, 3:99–100. 16 On Dosifei, see Cheban, Dosifei, mitropolit Sochavskii; Grekul, Dosoftei, svet prikhodit iz Moskvy; Stadnitskii, Issledovaniia po istorii moldavskoi tserkvi, 52–56. 17 For a general discussion of the early Russian–Romanian relations, see Bezviconi, Contribuţii la istoria relaţiilor romîne–ruse, 5–108. 18 Kapterev, Kharakter otnoshenii, 262–63. 19 Dragomir, “Contribuții privitoare la relațiile bisericii românești cu Rusia,” 1092–98; Ionescu, “Tratatul lui Gheorghe Stefan,” 234–47; Dragnev, Ocherki vneshnepoliticheskoi istorii, 218–19. 20 Dragnev, Ocherki vneshnepoliticheskoi istorii, 234. The co-rulers Ivan V and Peter I, as well as tsarevna Sof ’ia, responded favorably to Cantacuzino’s desire to be “under the high hand of their tsarist majesty” and suggested the coordination of military activities. For Moscow’s response to Cantacuzino’s request, see PSZ, ser. 1, 2:959–62. However, the failure of the 1689 Crimean campaign made this alliance inconsequential.

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moned the young Russian tsars Ivan and Peter to a holy war for the liberation of the Orthodox Church and declared that “at present, the whole Turkish state has received a harsh punishment from God and the great Muslimhood (busurmanstvo) is coming to utter ruin.”21 Remarkably, such pleas reveal that the Greek Orthodox subjects of the sultan came to perceive the Muscovite tsars as their intercessors before the latter were ready and willing to adopt such a posture themselves. Although Aleksei Mikhailovich agreed to accept Moldavia under his suzerainty in 1656, he ultimately refused to dispatch to Iași the embassy that was supposed to administer the principality’s oath of loyalty.22 Five years later, the tsar ordered the governor of Kiev to declare to the representative of the Moldavian hos­podar Constantin Șerban that “there is an old friendship” between the sultan and the tsar, and, therefore, the latter cannot accept the former’s subject “under his high hand.”23 Aleksei Mikhailovich was clearly unwilling to antagonize the Ottomans, much like his father Mikhail Fedorovich, who in 1641 returned to them the Azov fortress captured by the Don Cossacks several years earlier. As a result, almost three decades elapsed between Patriarch Paisios’s message to Alexis and the outbreak of the first real Russian–Ottoman War of 1677– 81, led by Alexis’s son Tsar Fedor. In the course of the Russian–Ottoman wars of the late seventeenth and eighteenth century, appeals for protection and declarations of loyalty became routine in the addresses of the hospodars, boyars, and the tsars’ high clergymen. Peter the Great received requests to create a protectorate or alliance from one Wallachian and three Moldavian princes before concluding the Lutsk treaty of April 1711 with Moldavian hospodar Dimitrie Cantemir on the eve of the ill-fated Pruth campaign.24 At the same time, a brief overview of the conditions of the Russian–Moldavian treaties from the second half of the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries demon21 22 23 24

Kapterev, Kharakter otnoshenii, 271; see also Kochiubinskii, Snosheniia Rossii pri Petre Pervom, 6–7. Dragnev, Ocherki vneshnepoliticheskoi, 219–20. See the corresponding rescript in PSZ, ser. 1, 2:964–65. The hospodars in question were Constantin Brâncoveanu (1690, 1698) in Wallachia and Antiokh Cantemir (1699), Constantin Duca (1701), and Mihai Racoviță (1704) in Moldavia. See Grosul, Novosel’skii, and Cherepnin, Istoricheskie sviazi narodov SSSR i Rumynii, 3:114–18; 132–35; 166; and 204–6, respectively. On Peter’s relations with the hospodars prior to 1711, see Dragnev, Ocherki vneshnepoliticheskoi, 240–42, and Ardeleanu, “Știri privitoare la istoria țărilor romîne.” On the Lutsk treaty, see Panaitescu, “Tratatul de alianţă dintre Moldova şi Rusia”; Focșeneanu, “Tratatul de la Luțk și campania Țarului Petru I.”

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strates that from the very beginning, the Moldavian and Wallachian princes and boyars were ready to subject themselves to the “high sovereign hand” of the tsar under certain circumstances. Such conditions usually included internal autonomy and the preservation of their traditional rights and the laws of the country, however these were interpreted. For example, the treaty of 1656 between Gheorghe Ștefan and Aleksei Mikhailovich stipulated that the Moldavian hospodar would be always elected from the natives of Moldavia and would retain the traditional prerogatives of the position, while also reestablishing hospodar authority over the so-called raiale—the border towns and fortresses that had been annexed by the Ottomans.25 Similarly, the conditions upon which the Moldavian boyars were ready to swear loyalty to Tsar Alexis in 1674 referred to the “customs of our land” and the “old rights” and stipulated the right to elect the hospodar as well as secular and ecclesiastical officials. The boyars also asked to restore the territorial integrity of the principality which, under the influence of Polish political concepts, they called a commonwealth (Rzeczpospolita).26 Finally, the charter (diplom) issued by Peter the Great to Cantemir secured the latter’s hereditary rule over Moldavia and asserted the hospodar’s full power over the boyars and the towns as well as over the Ottoman raiale “in accordance with ancient Moldavian custom.”27 The failure of Peter the Great’s Pruth campaign revealed the absence of firm support from Moldavian and Wallachian elites.28 The latter were not so much divided in their attitudes toward Russia as they were divided among 25 See the “articles” submitted by the Moldavian Metropolitan Gedeon and logofăt Necul on May 12, 1656, which stipulated that the Moldavian hospodar “remain in the same rank” as his predecessors prior to Ottoman vassalage, and that his “honor and rank do not get destroyed… as they were not destroyed by the godless ones.” The articles were confirmed by the tsar on May 20, 1656, after which the Moldavian representatives swore the oath of loyalty to the tsar. See PSZ, ser. 1, 2:385–90. 26 See “Stat’i prislannyie iz Varshavy k tsariu Alekseiu Mikhalovichu ot volokhskikh boyar Radula i Petrashki na kakikh usloviakh zhelaiut oni byt’ v rossiiskom poddanstve,” PSZ, ser. 1, no. 1324, 2:971–72. 27 “Diplom, dannyi valakhskomu kniaziu Dmitriiu Kantemiru,” PSZ, ser. 1, no. 2347, 4:659–61. 28 Stranded on the Pruth, Peter refused to give up Cantemir to the Ottomans and, after the conclusion of the peace, he took the Moldavian prince to Russia where the latter devoted the rest of his life to scholarly pursuits. Around 4,000 Moldavians followed Cantemir into his Russian exile, including his court, some boyars, and part of those troops that the hospodar assembled in support of the tsar (although the majority of them returned to Moldavia several years later). See Cazacu, “Familles de la noblesse roumaine au service de la Russie.” The emigration of the Moldavian nobility to Russia was part of the broader process of migration of ethnic Romanians of all social classes into Southern Russia during the eighteenth century. See also Vianu, “Cîteva date privitoare la emigrarea romînilor.”

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themselves.29 The most salient manifestation of this internal conflict was the enmity between Brâncoveanu and Cantemir, each of whom envisioned himself and his descendants on the throne of both principalities. Cantemir was appointed hospodar of Moldavia in 1710 as a counterweight to Brâncoveanu, whose prior relations with Peter the Great worried the Ottomans. Both the Ottomans and the Moldavian boyars had little doubt about Dimitrie Cantemir’s loyalty to the sultan. He spent many years as a hostage in Constantinople during the rule of his father Constantin Cantemir, the hospodar of Moldavia between 1685–1693, and he used this time to master the Ottoman language and culture. Yet it was precisely Cantemir’s unparalleled knowledge of the internal mechanisms of the Ottoman Empire that convinced him of the inevitability of its defeat in a war against Russia and drove him to sign the secret Lutsk treaty with the tsar.30 When Brâncoveanu came to know about Cantemir’s alliance with the Russians, he not only failed to impede the Ottoman crossing of the Danube but eagerly supported the Grand Vizier in order to contrast his own loyalty to the Porte with Cantemir’s “betrayal.” Nevertheless, such conduct hardly justifies the image of the “traitor Brâncoveanu” that emerged in the Russian perception of the Pruth campaign. Divergent behavior of the Moldavian and Wallachian hospodars in the spring and summer of 1711 was determined, above all, by the relative distance from or proximity to Russian and Ottoman troops. Severe divisions between the hospodar and the boyars were another factor that affected the outcome of the campaign. The Moldavians were generally sympathetic to the idea of an alliance with Russia, and yet they were apprehensive about the prospect of the hereditary rule of the Cantemirs stipulated in the Lutsk treaty.31 For this reason, the majority of Moldavian boyars preferred a wait-and-see policy rather than risk an open alliance with the tsar against the Ottomans. A similar situation existed in Wallachia, where the long reign of Brâncoveanu generated boyar opposition. The leader of this 29 On the pro-Russian sentiments of Moldavians and Wallachians in this period, see Murgescu, “Anul 1711.” 30 Like other representatives of the Romanian elites, Cantemir was greatly impressed by the Russian victory over Charles XII at Poltava in 1709. See Ciobanu, Les Pays Roumains, 168–69. 31 The conflict of interest between Cantemir and the boyars is illustrated by an alternative version of the Lutsk treaty included in the chronicle of Ion Neculce, a major boyar of the time. This version contained two additional articles according to which the hospodar had no right to deprive the boyars of their titles and deny them trial by their peers. Subtelny, Domination of Eastern Europe, 141.

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opposition was Toma Cantacuzino, whose relatives occupied the Wallachian throne prior to Brâncoveanu and who would again rule the principality after the latter’s deposition in 1714.32 In his secret correspondence with Peter the Great, Cantacuzino denounced Brâncoveanu as a defector, and consequently, Brâncoveanu had no other option but to become one when his two most important rivals sided with the tsar as the army of the Grand Vizier approached the Danube.33 The Ottoman success on the Pruth could not reverse the overall retreat of the Ottoman Empire in Europe. The defeat of Grand Vizier Kara Mustafa at the gates of Vienna in 1683 not only put an end to the Ottoman dominance in Hungary and Transylvania but also raised the prospect of the loss of Moldavia and Wallachia. Three years after his triumph at Vienna, Polish king Jan Sobieski temporarily captured Iași and, in a symbolically loaded gesture, ordered his troops to burn the Ottoman charters that stipulated the conditions of Moldavia’s vassal status. Although the Poles were quickly expelled, Dimitrie Cantemir’s alliance with the Russians in 1711, as well as the loss of Little Wallachia (Oltenia) to the Habsburgs in 1718, made the Ottomans even more concerned about maintaining control over Moldavia and Wallachia.34 To prevent further princely “betrayal” and consolidate their hold on the principalities, the Ottomans replaced the native hospodars with the Constantinople Greeks.35 If earlier the sultans used Moldavian and Wallachian boyars in order to control the hospodars and the principalities in general, now this function passed to representatives of the Greek aristocracy from the Phanar district of Constantinople. Alongside retaining Moldavia and Wallachia in the political orbit of the Ottoman Empire, the new rulers were called to solve another pressing problem. The devastations caused 32 Toma Canatacuzino’s pro-Russian orientation was another factor behind Brâncoveanu’s choice in 1711. On Toma Cantacuzino, see Ţvircun, “Viaţa şi activitatea contelui Cantacuzino (I).” 33 Sumner, Peter the Great and the Ottoman Empire, 43–44. 34 Papacostea, Oltenia sub stăpînirea austriacă. 35 Nineteenth-century Romanian historians were quite critical toward the Phanariots. See Kogălniceanu, L’Istoire de la Dacie, 372; Xenopol, Epoca Fanarioţilor. Twentieth-century historians, by contrast, offered a more favorable interpretation. See Iorga, “Le despotisme éclairé dans les pays roumains”; Constantiniu and Papacostea, “Les réformes des premiers princes phanariots en Moldavie et en Valachie.” A review of the historiography of the Phanariot regime can be found in Lemny, “La сritique du régime phanariote”; and Cornelia Papacostea-Danielopolu, “État actuel des recherches sur l’époque phanariote.” For an unprejudiced and sympathetic treatment of the Phanariots, see Philliou, Biography of an Empire, 5–37.

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by the invasions of the Ottoman, Tatar, Austrian, and Russian troops and the intensification of seigneurial exploitation triggered the massive flight of the peasantry to the right bank of the Danube. By the fourth decade of the eighteenth century, this process threatened the principalities with complete depopulation.36 The Phanariots had to rectify the situation in order to be able to pay tribute to the Porte and compensate themselves for the expenses they had incurred in order to obtain the thrones of Moldavia and Wallachia. These circumstances influenced the policies of the most important representative of the Phanariots, Constantin Mavrocordat, whose multiple reigns in Moldavia and Wallachia spanned a thirty-year period. Mavrocordat recognized the impossibility of upholding the regime of peasant serfdom in conditions of persistent population flight and, at the same time, became interested in redistributing feudal rent in a way that favored the state treasury at the expense of landlords. He thus declared peasants personally free and legally fixed the amount of labor they owed to their landlords in exchange for the right to use a portion of their lands.37 Superficially reminiscent of the Habsburg policy of protecting the peasantry (Bauernschutz), these measures were accompanied by the reform of the internal administration. Mavrocordat introduced salaries for the officials and tried to eliminate the earlier form of their remuneration, the so-called havaeturi—essentially, private taxes—that officials would impose on those who were under their jurisdiction. He also began appointing two ispravniks to each district with the expectation that their mutual surveillance would help reduce abuses of authority. The hospodar also reordered the fiscal system and introduced new taxation units (called ludori in Wallachia and cisle in Moldavia), which included several peasant families.38 Finally, Mavrocordat tried to turn state service into the only source of social privilege and made boyar titles conditional on the actual performance of the corresponding public function.39 36 Iscru, “Fuga ţăranilor,” 128. 37 Vasile Mihordea, Maîtres du sol et paysans dans les principautés roumaines, 257; Cernovodeanu, et al., Istoria românilor, vol. 6, Românii între Europa clasică și Europa Luminilor, 504. As compensation for the abolition of serfdom, the boyars could have a limited number of personally dependent individuals (scutelnici) that were not subject to state taxation. 38 Constantiniu and Papacostea, “Les réformes des premiers princes phanariotes,” 111. 39 Berindei and Gavrilă, “Mutaţii în sânul clasei dominante din Ţara Românescă.” At the same time, Phanariot legislation introduced elements of the notion of personal nobility by proclaiming the exemption of the boyars and their children from taxation even when they did not occupy a public office.

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Mavrocordat’s policy of state consolidation and reduction of boyar privileges was sustained in the second half of the eighteenth century by the Wallachian hospodar Alexandru Ypsilanti (1774–1782). However, the brevity of tenure of particular Phanariot hospodars as well as the dependence of their innovations on the good will of their successors explains the sorry fate of many of their reforms. Although they weakened the boyar oligarchy, the Phanariots failed to transform the boyars into a true service class as had happened in Russia or Prussia. The ennoblement of princely relatives and numerous members of hospodars’ retinues provoked tensions between the Phanariot and the “native” elements of the boyar class. On the other hand, a relative reduction of peasant labor dues and quitrent in the middle of the eighteenth century made the boyars determined to compensate themselves for these losses. This provided the neighboring empires with potential leverage over Moldavian and Wallachian elites, which was used by Russian policy makers in the course of the reforms of the early 1830s.40 In important respects, the social and political development of Moldavia and Wallachia during the early modern period was influenced by their geographical position in the Danubian–Pontic frontier zone. Changes in the balance of power between the Ottomans, the Habsburgs, Poland–Lithuania, and later Russia affected the internal politics of the principalities. This correlation was never simple and sometimes one and the same external factor could cause opposite tendencies in internal development, just as similar internal political phenomena could be produced by different developments in the relations between great powers. The Ottoman advance starting in the middle of the fifteenth century at first contributed to the consolidation of princely power in Moldavia and Wallachia, and later became a factor in the strengthening of the boyar oligarchy. Later still, the Ottoman defeat at the hands of the Holy League and the new challenge posed by Russia made the Porte determined to consolidate its hold over the principalities through the introduction of the Phanariot regime that helped to strengthen princely authority at the expense of the boyar oligarchy. As a result, the eighteenth century was a period of intensified tensions within the ruling class between “foreign” and “autochthonous” elements.41 At the 40 On the question of boyar ideology, see Vlad Georgescu, “The Romanian Boyars in the Eighteenth Century”; Vlad Georgescu, Political Ideas and Enlightenment in the Romanian Principalities. 41 On the roots of these tensions, see Cotovanu, “Chasing Away the Greeks”; Iordachi, “From Imperial Entanglements to National Disentanglement,” 104–17.

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same time, the consolidation of Ottoman control over Moldavia and Wallachia by means of the Phanariots did not lead to the transformation of the principalities into pashalyks or their cultural assimilation. In fact, the Phanariots’ policies preserved and further accentuated the social, political, and cultural distinctiveness of Moldavia and Wallachia within the system of Ottoman possessions. This distinctiveness served as the basis of their progressive emancipation from Ottoman tutelage during the nineteenth century. The Russian–Ottoman wars that took place on Moldavian and Wallach­ ian territory did not fail to affect the political situation in the principalities. In the context of the simmering conflict between the hospodars and the boyars, relations with Russia remained important, but the character of these relations changed. For almost a century after the Pruth debacle, hardly any Moldavian or Wallachian prince desired or dared to conclude alliances with or become subject of the Russian tsar.42 The Phanariot princes were too closely controlled by the Ottomans and, as cultural foreigners, did not enjoy the substantial support of the largely autochthonous boyar class. For their part, the “native” boyars often developed a pro-Russian orientation and viewed becoming a Russian protectorate or even the prospect of Russian rule as a means to consolidate their erstwhile political predominance in the principalities.43 Thus, in 1736–37, the Wallachian envoy to Empress Anna Ioannovna Pârvu Drăgunescu reported that the boyars of the principality “slavishly request not to leave [them] among other enslaved people, but to deliver [them] and make [them] subjects of Your Orthodox Majesty.”44 In September 1739, their Moldavian counterparts “accepted with great and ineffable tearful joy” the authority of the empress and signed a convention with the commander of the Russian army Khristofor Antonovich Minikh (von Münnich) in which Moldavia waived its right to conduct an independent foreign policy and undertook the maintenance of 20,000 Russian troops in return for complete 42 The only exceptions were the prince of Moldavia Alexandru Mavrocordat Firaris (the Fugitive), who defected to the Russians on the eve of the war of 1787–92, and Wallachian hospodar Constantin Ypsilanti, who did so at the outbreak of the Russian–Ottoman War of 1806–12 with the expectation of establishing the dynastic rule of the Ypsilantis over both principalities under Russian protection. See Jewsbury, Russian Annexation of Bessarbia, 37–43; Mischevca and Zavitsanos, Principele Constantin Ypsilanti. 43 Shul’man, “Prorusskaia partiia,” 7–41. 44 Cited in L.E. Semenova, Kniazhestva Moldaviia i Valakhiia, 316. On Drăgunescu’s mission, see Shul’man, “Missiia valashskogo vornika”; Dragnev, Ocherki vneshnepoliticheskoi, 262.

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internal autonomy.45 At the end of 1769, the delegations of the Wallachian and Moldavian boyars arrived at the court of Catherine II again with the offer to bring the principalities under the Russian scepter. The offer was received favorably, but it did not lead to the conclusion of a formal treaty because of the unwillingness of the empress to provoke the Habsburg monarchy or other European powers at a time when the victories of the Russian army were raising concern.46 These attempts to enact a vision of Russia as the protector of the Orthodox principalities oppressed by the Ottoman sultans cost the Moldavian and Wallachians hospodars, the boyars, and clergymen dearly. For various reasons, the treaties of alliance and suzerainty signed in 1656, 1711, and 1739 remained dead letters as the tsars either did not want to put them into effect or were prevented from doing so due to circumstances outside their control. The hospodars, boyars and clergymen who signed these treaties eventually had to emigrate unless they were prepared to accept severe punishment from the Ottomans as did those who collaborated with the Russians in the wars of 1768–74 and 1787–92. Even negotiations with Moscow had their price as the Polish exile of the Moldavian metropolitan Dosifei demonstrated.47 More generally, the pro-Russian boyars became more cautious in the expression of their aspirations in light of the fact that, in the eighteenth and the early nineteenth centuries, Russian troops evacuated the principalities as many times as they occupied them.48 The Treaty of Kuchuk-Kainarji and the Russian Protectorate However dangerous, relations with Saint Petersburg nevertheless gave the natives elites of Moldavia and Wallachia the hope of abolishing Phanariot rule and reestablishing their political and economic dominance in the prin45 See Maslovskii, Stavuchanskii pokhod, 187–88; Dragnev, Ocherki vneshnepoliticheskoi, 271–73. 46 Dragnev, Ocherki vneshnepoliticheskoi, 298–99; Semenova, Kniazhestva Moldaviia i Valakhiia, 320–21. 47 Although all Russian–Ottoman treaties starting with the Treaty of Belgrade (1739) contained a clause on the non-punishment of “the subjects of both empires which in the course of war defected to the opposite side,” there was little or no practical possibility of enforcing this as the sizable Romanian immigration to Russia during the eighteenth century demonstrates. See Vianu, “Cîteva date privitoare la emigrarea romînilor.” 48 It is noteworthy that during the war of 1787–92 there were hardly any appeals on the part of the boyars to make Moldavia and Wallachia Russian provinces.

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cipalities. Thus, at the beginning of the Russian–Ottoman War of 1768– 74, the Wallachian deputation to Catherine the Great decried the Phanariot contempt for the ancient customs of the principality that were still in force at the time of Peter the Great’s Pruth campaign.49 The boyar deputies described to the Procurator-General of the Senate, Prince A.A. Viazemskii, how Phanariot princes from Nicolae Mavrocordat (1716–1728) onward arbitrarily increased the amount of taxes and changed the mode of their collection, which led to the redistribution of revenues in their favor.50 Boyar petitions to the empress also revealed their fear that the “liberation” brought about by Russian troops was temporary and, thus, that the dominance of the Ottomans and their Phanariot agents could return with vengeance. Major-general A.A. Prozorovskii captured this mood when late in 1769, he reported from Iași that “the local population . . . is afraid that they will be given back to the Ottomans at the end of the war.”51 In March 1770, Moldavian deputies to Catherine II revealed the same uncertainty about the future when they spoke of the “liberation from the yoke of Hagar by the most glorious and invincible arms of Your Imperial Majesty” as both an accomplished fact and their heartiest wish.52 Similarly, in an interview with the Russian commander in chief P.A. Rumiantsev, the deputies of the Wallachian boyars asked that the Russian troops that had entered their country not be withdrawn. The boyars stressed their eager response to Catherine’s call for an anti-Ottoman struggle, which “embittered the Turks against the country” and made it imperative for the Wallachians to “not be left under Ottoman rule in a time of peace.”53 During their audience with Catherine II, the Wallachian deputation asked the empress not to forget their lands during future peace negotiations with the Ottomans “so that the enemy could not deprive us of your protection . . . and throw us back into the abyss of tyranny.”54 For her part, 49 “Intrebările ce a facut contele Panin deputăților și răspunsurile acestora,” in Iorga, Genealogia Cantacuzinelor, 461. 50 “Răspunsurile ce am dat noi scris cneazului Vezemschi,” in Iorga, Genealogia Cantacuzinelor, 481–84. 51 Cited in Druzhinina, Kiuchuk-Kainardzhiiskii, 122. 52 “Rech moldavskikh deputatov na audientsii Ekateriny II, March 28, 1770,” in Vinogradov et al., Bessarabiia na perekrestke evropeiskoi diplomatii, 65. 53 See the list of questions of P.A. Rumiantsev to the members of the Wallachian delegation to Catherine the Great and their answers in Iorga, Genealogia Cantacuzinelor, 456–57. 54 See the Wallachian address to Catherine, published in Ul’ianitskii, Dardanelly, Bosfor…, ciii–cxiv. Senior Wallachian clergymen appealed to Catherine for protection already in 1769. See “Scrisoare archi­ ereilor către Avgusta Impărăteasă,” in Iorga, Genealogia Cantacuzinelor, 439–41.

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Catherine II eventually came to embrace the idea of a formalized Russian protectorate as a useful alternative to both the full independence of the principalities—opposed by France and Austria—and their unconditional return to the Ottoman Empire, which could undermine Russia’s prestige among the sultan’s Christian subjects. By March 1771, the Russian draft of the prospective peace settlement included the return of Moldavia and Wallachia to the Porte on the condition that the principalities “forever retain the rights and privileges with which they had when they entered Turkish overlordship.”55 As the Russian and Ottoman representatives negotiated at the congress of Focșani and Bucharest in the second part of 1772 and early 1773, Wallachian and Moldavian boyars proceeded to define the “rights and privileges” in question. The leader of the Wallachian boyars Mihai Cantacuzino composed an exposé of the original conditions upon which the medieval princes Mircea the Old (1386–1418) and Laiotă Basarab (1473–1477) had supposedly accepted Ottoman suzerainty.56 A curious example of the invention of a legal tradition,57 the exposé affirmed that, in return for moderate tribute, the Ottomans agreed “not to meddle in the affairs of the country,”58 which remained free to declare war and conclude peace with its neighbors. Wallachia also continued to serve as a refuge where forced converts to Islam could return to Christianity. According to Cantacuzino, supreme jurisdiction of the elected native hospodars extended to cases involving Christians 55 Catherine to A.G. Orlov, March 22, 1771, Sbornik Imperatorskogo Russkogo Istoricheskogo O ­ bshchestva (further cited as SIRIO), vol. 97: 252–53; N.I. Panin to A.G. Orlov, November 12, 1771, Russkii ­Arkhiv, no. 3 (1880): 240. 56 Most specialists on the subject of the capitulations indicate that these texts were presented by Mihai Canatacuzino to Count Grigorii Orlov during the congress of Focșani in August 1772. See “Actele ce s-au dat contelui Orlof la Congresul din Focșani, August 30, 1772,” in Iorga, Genealogia Cantacuzi­ nelor, 495–508. 57 The issue of the Ottoman “capitulations” to the principalities generated voluminous literature and an unending historiographical debate. Twenieth-century Romanian historians demonstrated that the texts of the capitulations published by their nineteenth-century predecessors were, in fact, late eighteenth-century forgeries (the earliest extant copy is dated around 1804). Iorga, Genealogia Cantacuzinelor, 68; Giurescu, Capitulațiile, passim; Vlad Georgescu, Mémoires et projets de réforme, 1769–1830, 6–7. The predominant opinion of current Romanian historiography is that although these were forgeries, the “capitulations” were predated by the actual Ottoman ahd-names and hatt-i sherifs issued by the sultans to the hospodars in the fifteenth and early sixteenth century, copies of which were l­ater lost. However, the texts of these original hatt-i sherifs and ahd-names still remain to be discovered in the Ottoman archives. For an overview of the historiography of the “capitulations,” see Semenova, Kniazhestvo Moldaviia i Valakhiia, 21–31. 58 Iorga, Genealogia Cantacuzinelor, 496–97.

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and Muslims. The latter were prohibited from constructing mosques in the country or even entering Wallachia for reasons other than commerce.59 The Wallachian leader further argued that the principality’s privileges were decisively violated following the establishment of Phanariot rule in 1716, which resulted in the destruction of the Wallachian army, the acquisition of lands by Muslim proprietors, and the imposition of the Ottoman commercial monopoly and exorbitant taxation.60 In parallel to these efforts, the Moldavian boyars formulated their own version of the original conditions on which Moldavian hospodar Bogdan III (1504–1517) “inclined the country to the Turks.” According to these conditions, the sultan would have recognized Moldavia as a “free and unsubjected country,” guaranteed the freedom of its “Christian religion,” promised to protect the country from external enemies, and left it “to be governed according to its own laws without the least interference of the Porte.” Muslims were not permitted to purchase land in the principality or construct mosques. Under the rule of native hospodars elected for life, Moldavia was free to maintain a 20,000-person army and appoint its own representatives in Constantinople. Submission to the Porte manifested itself only in the hospodar’s obligation to provide his troops to the sultan in times of war and the payment of a biennial “gift” of 4,000 golden pieces.61 The boyar memorandum further traced how, after the sixteenth-century infringements on Moldavia’s privileges, Mehmed IV (1647–1687) restored the original conditions of the country’s “submission” to the Porte. According to the anonymous author, these lasted until the burning of the original Ottoman hatt-i sherif during the Polish occupation of Iași in 1686, which ushered in new violations that culminated in the establishment of Phanariot rule in the early 1700s.62 There is no evidence that G.G. Orlov—Catherine the Great’s famous favorite and Russia’s main representative at the congress of Focșani—ever raised the issue of the principalities, preoccupied as he was with the question 59 60 61 62

Ibid., 498–99. “Stricăciunea privilegiilor și ruinarea a Țerii Românești,” in Iorga, Genealogia Cantacuzinelor, 500–5. Giurescu, Capitulațiile Moldovei, 6–11. The spurious character of the story of Bogdan’s “subjection” of Moldavia to the sultan and subsequent developments is evident from multiple historical errors contained in the memorandum that suggest the influence of Dmitrie Cantemir’s The History of the Growth and Decay of the Othman Empire, republished in French and German translations in 1743 and 1744, respectively; see also Cantemir, Descriptio Moldaviae (first published in German in 1769–71). See Giurescu, Capitulațiile, 16–21.

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of the independence of the Crimean Khanate. After the congress broke up at the end of August and was reconvened again in Bucharest in November 1772, Catherine’s representative A.M. Obreskov preferred to postpone discussion on the principalities. He did so out of fear that the news of Russia’s return of Moldavia and Wallachia to the Ottomans, however conditional, might affect the attitude of the local population toward the Russian army. This negotiation strategy made the boyars nervous and occasioned yet another round of appeals. Afraid of being delivered “into the hands of our first tormentors,” the Moldavian metropolitan Gedeon implored the commander in chief P.A. Rumiantsev to secure for his flock the continued “benevolence and protection of Her Imperial Majesty.”63 For their part, the Wallachians evoked the manifestos of Catherine II that “announced the liberation to all Christian peoples” as well as the “verbal and written assurances” the empress had given them in Saint Petersburg to that effect. They called Obreskov’s attention to the “innumerable families that have revealed their zeal for the mighty empire of Russia” who now were afraid of “complete ruin” should the principality return to “cruel and inhuman slavery.”64 Obreskov assured the worried Wallachians and Moldavians that, whatever might happen, he would take care of their security65 and, toward the end of the Bucharest congress, finally disclosed to his Ottoman counterpart Abdur-Rezak “certain conditions” upon which Russia was ready to return the principalities to the Ottoman Empire.66 The Porte had to pledge “to recognize and respect the clergy with all the distinction due to its rank” as well as to “not impede the practice of the Christian religion” or the (re)construction of churches in the principalities.67 The Ottoman government was also not supposed to demand any war contributions; instead it had to annul all of the principalities’ past debts and grant them an exemption from tribute 63 Metropolitan Gedeon to P.A. Rumiantsev, not dated, cited in Petrov, Voina Rossii s Turtsiei i pol’skimi konfederatami, 4:138. 64 See their message to Obreskov on January 3, 1773, in Iorga, Genealogia Cantacuzinelor, 508–12. 65 As reported in Obreskov to Panin, January 19, 1773, cited in Druzhinina, Kiuchuk-Kainardzhiiskii mir, 237. 66 Obreskov to Abdur-Rezak, February 4, 1773, in Ul’ianitskii, Dardanelly, Bosfor, ccxli–ccxliii. 67 See §§ 4 and 2 of art. 20 of Obreskov’s peace project published in Druzhinina, Kiuchuk-Kainar­ dzhiiskii mir, 345. These became §§ 4 and 2 of art. 16 of the Kuchuk-Kainarji treaty, in Iuzefovich, Dogovory Rossii s Vostokom, 32–33. For an English translation made from a French translation of the Italian version of the treaty, see Hurewitz, The Middle East and North Africa in World Politics, 1:92–101.

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for two years. Moldavian and Wallachian territories illegally alienated into raiale had to be reintegrated into the principalities, which were to “enjoy the same advantages that they had at the time of Mehmed IV.” 68 Finally, the Russian envoys at the Porte would acquire the right to “speak in favor of the two principalities,” while the Porte would have to promise “to take these representations into consideration as is done in relations between friendly and respected powers.”69 Obreskov’s proposed clause on the principalities did not meet Wallachian expectations. A year after the breakup of the Bucharest negotiations, the boyars wrote to Catherine II that the peace terms her representative offered to the Ottomans plunged them “into the abyss of sorrow and despair.” They referred once again to her manifestos and assurances about the liberation of the principalities and emphasized their contribution to the Russian victories during the war. Unless Russia defended the liberty of the principalities, they argued, the Ottomans “[would] change our mode of government, [transform the principality] into a pashalyk and [would] force the people to change religions.”70 As the Russian and the Ottoman representatives were about to resume final peace talks at Kuchuk-Kainarji in the summer of 1774, the Wallachian boyars obtained Rumiantsev’s permission to again dispatch Mihai Cantacuzino to Saint Petersburg in order to plead before Catherine II and her ministers for their “salvation and escape from the yoke of tyranny.”71 68 In line with boyar representations, Obreskov also demanded that the Ottomans return to the monasteries and private persons the lands that the pashas of Brăila, Khotin, and Bender had illegally absorbed into the raiale. See Art 20 of Obreskov’s peace project, in Druzhinina, Kiuchuk-Kainardzhii­ skii mir, 345–46. Obreskov presented these conditions during the last conference of the Bucharest congress on March 8, 1773, in Ul’ianitskii, Dardanelly, cclvi–cclvii. Sixteen months later, all of these clauses found their way into the Kuchuk-Kainarji treaty. Iuzefovich, Dogovory Rossii s Vostokom, 32– 34; Hurewitz, The Middle East and North Africa, 1:97. 69 See § 11 of art. 20 of Obreskov’s peace project, Druzhinina, Kiuchuk-Kainardzhiiskii mir, 346, which became § 10 of art. 16 of the Kuchuk-Kainarji treaty, in Iuzefovich, Dogovory Rossii s Vostokom, 34. Unlike the Italian version of the treaty signed by both the Russian and the Ottoman representatives (Martens, Recueil des principaux traités d’alliance, 2:304, 306), the Russian text of the treaty omitted the word “representations,” which made it somewhat ungrammatical. 70 See their message to Catherine II from March 30, 1774, in Iorga, Genealogia Cantacuzinelor, 514– 18. In their parallel letter to P. A. Rumiantsev, the boyars floated the prospect of unification of the “famous Dacia” with the Russian Empire to the Russian commander. They also proposed Rumiantsev take the glorious epithet of “Dacic,” even before Catherine granted him the title of Rumiantsev-­ Zadunaiskii (the Trans-Danubian). Iorga, Genealogia Cantacuzinelor, 519–21. 71 See the boyar message to Catherine from June 1774, as well as their letters to N.I. Panin, G.A. Potemkin, G.G. Orlov, and Z.G. Chernyshev, in Iorga, Genealogia Cantacuzinelor, 524–25, 529–32.

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Parallel to these efforts, the Wallachian boyars also called on the Russian commander in chief to “consolidate the liberty of our people” in the forthcoming negotiations with the Ottomans. They also reiterated the proposal to place the principalities under the collective protection of Russia, Austria, and Prussia if it was impossible for them to remain under the “direct government of the Orthodox and all-powerful empress of Russia.” The actions of the Wallachian boyars during the final months prior to the conclusion of the peace treaty suggest that they reacted positively to the formulas presented in the Russian peace proposals. Thus, by June 1774, they were ready to accept on behalf of Wallachia the status of the vassal Ottoman republic of Ragusa, which paid its tribute to the Porte only once every three years and was represented by a consul in the Ottoman capital.72 This plan first appeared in Obreskov’s draft of the peace treaty at the end of the Bucharest congress in March 1773.73 When it became clear that their more ambitious schemes would not pass, the Wallachian boyars found in the Ragusan model the minimal provision against the “meddling of the oppressive tyranny in [their] country.”74 After the boyars learned that the peace treaty signed on July 10, 1774 did not mention Ragusa and contained only a passing reference to “the advantages that the principalities had enjoyed during the reign of Mehmed IV,” they scrambled to provide Rumiantsev with a detailed description of these privileges. These included, among other things, the election of a native hospodar, his supreme jurisdiction in civil and criminal matters involving Christian and Muslim subjects, the prohibition against the entry of Ottoman troops into the territory of the principality, as well as the liberty of inhabitants to leave the country for study.”75 Apprised of the newly acquired Russian right to “speak in favor” of the principalities, the boyars sought to reinterpret this as the prerogative of Catherine’s envoys to “defend and support the rights of our country in accordance with the treaties.”76 72 Boyars to Rumiantsev, June 13, 1774, in Iorga Genealogia Cantacuzinelor, 532–35. 73 See §§ 8 and 9 of art. 20 of Obreskov’s peace project, Druzhinina, Kiuchuk-kainardzhiiskii mir, 345. The former Russian envoy to the Porte must have found this formula of vassalage a useful way of implementing the guarantees of Moldavian and Wallachian rights and privileges that Catherine gave to the deputies of the principalities in 1770. 74 Boyars to Rumiantsev, June 13, 1774, in Iorga, Genealogia Cantacuzinelor, 534. 75 “Anaforaua Mitropolitului Țării și a celorlalți boieri pentru privileghii către contele Romanțov după închierea păcii” (July 10, 1774), in Iorga, Genealogia Cantacuzinelor, 537–40. 76 See “Alte trei ponturi adaogite în anaforele către Măria Sa Impărătească și către contele Panin date prin prințul Potemkin,” in Iorga Genealogia Cantacuzinelor, 540.

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At the same time, one should not take this “reactive” behavior of the boyars in the summer of 1774 as evidence of their minimal role in the genesis of the Kuchuk-Kainarji treaty clause on the principalities. Whether Mihai Cantacuzino’s exposé of Wallachian “capitulations” predated or postdated Obreskov’s peace proposals and the final treaty, both bore the undeniable influence of boyar discourse on the “rights and privileges” of the principalities.77 The delegates of the Wallachian and Moldavian boyars must have suggested to Catherine II and vice-chancellor Panin the idea that Moldavia and Wallachia should “forever retain the rights and privileges with which they had entered Turkish overlordship.” The same applies to the stipulation that committed the Porte to respect “the advantages that the principalities enjoyed during the reign of Mehmed IV.” One finds no mention of Mehmed IV in Mihai Cantacuzino’s description of the Wallachian “capitulations,” yet this sultan figures prominently in the exposé of Moldavia’s original rights under Ottoman suzerainty. Whatever the actual date of this document, Obreskov could borrow the reference to Mehmed IV only from its author or someone with a similar interest and stake in the “old privileges” of the principality.78 In the decades following the conclusion of the peace of Kuchuk-Kainarji, the Russian protectorate over Moldavia and Wallachia crystallized through a set of legal documents and diplomatic practices. Article 16 of the 1774 treaty constituted the legal foundation of the protectorate, which was further clari77 L.E. Semenova has pointed out the suspicious timing of Cantacuzino’s exposé, the absence of these documents in the Russian archives, the absence of any references to them during the negotiations at Focșani and Bucharest, and the difference between Cantacuzino’s version of Wallachian “rights and privileges” and the one contained in Obreskov’s peace proposal and the final text of the treaty. However, Semenova points to the similarity between Cantacuzino’s exposé and the description of privileges that the Wallachian boyars submitted to Rumiantsev after they learned about the treaty’s reference to “the rights the principalities enjoyed at the time of Mehmed IV.” These observations served Semenova’s argument that Cantacuzino invented the Wallachian “capitulations” after the conclusion of the peace treaty while in Russian emigration with the possible goal of inflating the role of the Wallachian delegation in the peace talks. Semenova, Kniazhestva Moldaviia i Valakhiia, 40–41, 44–46, 52. 78 Once again, Semenova challenged the earlier historiography and, in particular, Constantin Giurescu, who dated the description of the Moldavian “capitulations” with the congress of Focșani. Giurescu, Capitulațiile Moldovei, 21–33. Semenova also noted that there was no mention of the original hatt-i sherif to Bogdan III in the “History of Moldavia” compiled as a reference for Russian diplomatic representatives at the negotiations of 1772–73. According to Semenova, the description was written in 1775 at the request of the Russian Extraordinary Envoy to the Porte N.V. Repnin, who promised the Moldavian boyars that he would intervene on behalf of the principality. Semenova, Kniazhestva Moldaviia i Valakhiia, 48.

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fied in the explanatory 1779 convention of Aynalikavak and confirmed by the peace treaties of Iași (1792) and Bucharest (1812).79 In the wake of each subsequent Russian–Ottoman war, the newly appointed hospodars would receive the Porte’s orders to implement the stipulations of the treaty in the form of decrees ( firman) confirmed by the sultan’s apostil (hatt-i sherif ).80 The hospodars’ disrespect of these stipulations (sometimes secretly encouraged by the Porte) would usually lead to “representations” of Russian envoys. An important role in this process belonged to the Russian consuls in Bucharest and Iași, the appointment of which the Porte reluctantly agreed to in 1782.81 As the first foreign diplomatic agents recognized in the principalities, Catherine’s representatives differed much from the commercially minded Western European consuls in the Levant.82 Thus, in addition to commercial affairs, the agenda of the first Russian consul general in Bucharest, S.L. Lashkarev, included collecting intelligence on Ottoman military preparations on the Danube and “observing the actions of both hospodars.”83 His successor I.I. Severin promptly became the clearinghouse for all local discontents and relayed grievances back to the Russian College of Foreign Affairs.84 Written complaints of the Moldavian and Wallachian boyars and high clergy about the policies of the hospodars provided the tsar’s envoys in Constantinople with additional evidence necessary to prove the Porte’s non-observance of these treaties. 85 79 See art. 7 of the convention of Aynalikavak, PSZ, ser. 1, no. 14851, 20:804 (French edition: Noradounghian, Recueil d’actes internationaux, 1:343). See arts. 4 and 5 of the treaties of Iași and Bucharest, respectively. Iuzefovich, Dogovory Rossii s Vostokom, 43–44, 51–52. 80 For the hatt-i sherifs of 1775 to hospodars Grigore Ghica (in Moldavia) and Alexandru Ypsilanti (in Wallachia), see Chteniia Imperatorskogo Obshchestva Istorii i Drevnostei Rossiiskikh (further cited as ChIOIDR), kn. 1, part. 2 (1886): 52–61. 81 On the establishment of the Russian consuls in Moldavia and Wallachia, see Spiridonakis, “L’établissement d’un consulat Russe”; Dvoichenko-Markov, “Russia and the First Accredited Diplomat”; and Grosul, Dunaiskie kniazhestva v politike Rossii, 78–81. 82 Although the representatives of other European governments appeared in Moldavia and Wallachia soon thereafter, the Russian consuls remained unparalleled in terms of the extent of their treaty-based local political influence for a long time. 83 See instructions to Lashkarev cited in A.A. Girs, “Iz proshlogo konsul’stva v Iassakh,” Russkaia starina 89 (1893): 317. See also the instructions of the College of Foreign Affairs and the Russian chargé d’affaires in Constantinople A. Khvostov to I.I. Severin on April 15, 1792, and November 1, 1792, respectively, Bessarabiia na perekrestke evropeiskoi diplomatii, 81–84. 84 See the reports of Severin of February 24, 1784, April 10, 1785, November 9, 1786, May 5, 1787 and September 12, 1794, Bessarabiia na perekrestke evropeiskoi diplomatii, 77–79, 86. 85 For an example of such complaints, see “Obraschenie Moldavskikh boiar ot imeni zhetelei vsego kniazhestva v rossiiskoe konsul’stvo,” March 10, 1799, Bessarabiia na perekrestke evropeiskoi diplomatii, 87–89.

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Russian demarches on behalf of the principalities for the most part had little to do with the Orthodox religion per se. Boyar complaints, consular reports, and “representations” of the envoys almost always referred to the policies of the Greek Phanariot princes who had failed to tax Moldavia and Wallachia “with all due humanity and magnanimity” prescribed by the peace of KuchukKainarji and ignored the tax exemptions granted to the principalities in the wake of each Russian–Ottoman war.86 Alleged infringements on the rights of the Orthodox Church concerned church properties rather than attacks on clergy or matters of liturgy. In particular, Moldavian and Wallachian elites complained of the failure of the Ottoman fortress governors to restore monastic lands they had unlawfully incorporated into the raiale districts.87 According to the treaty of 1774, the Ottoman pashas and the governors were not permitted “to oppress the principalities and demand any payment or tax, however called” beyond those that existed at the time of Mehmed IV.88 With the weakening of the Ottoman central authority during the early years of the nineteenth century, this clause became particularly difficult to enforce. In 1802, the Moldavian boyars complained to Alexander I about “the Turks from the fortresses, who take by force our possessions and kill our peasants,” as well as those who “under the pretext of commerce settle by the dozens in our trading towns with the intention of destroying our faith and economy.”89 That same year, a devastating raid by the rebellious pasha of Vidin Pasvand-Oglu into Wallachia served as a pretext for the Russian envoy in Constantinople V. S. Tomara to demand a hatt-i sherif confirming Russia’s right of protectorate over the principalities from the Porte.90 86 For postwar tax exemptions, see § 7 of art. 16 of the Kuchuk-Kainarji treaty, § 3 of art. 4 of the treaty of Iași, and art. 5, of the treaty of Bucharest, in Iuzefovich, Dogovory Rossii s Vostokom, 33, 44 and 52, respectively. For an example of boyar complaints about the Phanariots’ predatory exactions, see “Obraschenie Moldavskikh boiar,” in Bessarabiia na perekrestke evropeiskoi diplomatii, 87–89. 87 The restitution of these lands was stipulated in the treaty of Kuchuk-Kainarji (§ 3, art. 16) and the convention of Aynalikavak (§2, art. 7). See Iuzefovich, Dogovory Rossii s Vostokom, 33, and Noradounghian, Recueil d’actes internationaux de l’Empire Ottoman, 1:343, respectively. 88 See § 8 of art. 16, in Iuzefovich, Dogovory Rossii s Vostokom, 33; confirmed by § 4 of art. 7 of the “Convention explicative,” PSZ, ser. 1, no. 14851, 20:804. See also the hatt-i sherifs of 1784 in Martens, Recueil des principaux traités d’alliance, 3:281–92. 89 “Obrashchenie moldavskikh boiari dukhovnykh chinov k Aleksandru I,” no later than January 24, 1802, in Vinogradov, Bessarabiia na perekrestke evropeiskoi diplomatii, 97. 90 The hatt-i sherif s of 1802 fixed the seven-year term of appointment for the hospodars and made their deposition prior to the expiration of that term conditional upon Russia’s consent. See Grosul, Dunaiskie kniazhestva, 154–65.

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The hatt-i sherif of 1802 represented the first product of Russia’s direct involvement in the internal political and administrative organization of Moldavia and Wallachia. By the early nineteenth century, Russian diplomats became convinced that the frequent rotation of the Phanariot princes on the thrones of the principalities was a major reason for abuses. In order to remedy the situation, the hatt-i sherif of 1802 fixed the hospodars’ term of service at seven years. Their deposition before the expiry of the term had to be mutually agreed upon by the sovereign and the protecting powers. The hatt-i sherif also annulled all taxes that had been introduced since 1783 and called for the hospodars and boyars “to determine and fix taxes and levy them in the most equitable manner.”91 On the basis of the hatt-i sherif, the Wallachian hospodar Constantin Ypsilanti and the Moldavian hospodar Alexandru Moruzi issued financial regulations in 1804 that would serve as a reference point for Russia’s subsequent interventions in the matter of the principalities’ fiscal policies. Russian Occupation of Moldavia and Wallachia in 1806–1812 Ever since Peter the Great, Russian commanders actively used representatives of the Moldavian and Wallachian elites to find out the strength of the enemy, the numbers of local auxiliaries, and the quantities of food and fodder that the principalities could deliver, as well as the identities of Ottoman partisans among boyars.92 In order to obtain this sensitive information, tsarist military men and diplomats were initially ready to leave the matters of local administration to the boyar councils (divans) that were the most important governing bodies under the hospodars. Thus, in 1770, P.A. Rumiantsev argued that “in order to secure the loyalty of the local population, one should not infringe upon its liberties and render justice in accordance with their customs.”93 Although Rumiantsev decried the “insolence, falsehood, deceit, and embezzlement” that reigned in the principalities, he did not attempt any significant reforms and limited himself to the appointment of mid-ranking Russian officers to supervise the activities of the divans and act as liaison 91 Noradounghian, Recueil d’actes internationaux de l’Empire Ottoman, 2:63–64. 92 For P.A. Rumiantsev’s list of questions to the members of the Wallachian delegation to Catherine the Great and their answers, which informed the commander’s policies during the occupation period, see Iorga, Genealogia Cantacuzinelor, 448–60. 93 Sudienko, “Arkhiv voenno-pokhodnoi kantseliarii grafa P.A. Rumiantseva-Zadunaiskogo, 1700– 1774 gg.,” ­ChIOIDR, no. 1 (1865): 243–44. On Rumiantsev, see Klokman, Fel’ dmarshal Rumiantsev.

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between them and the army. 94 G.A. Potemkin, who served as a commander in chief in 1787–92, followed the same approach. However, reliance on the boyar divans and ispravniks (chief district officials) did not alleviate the burden of military occupation. Russian vice-chancellor A.A. Bezborodko, who came to Iași in 1791–1792 to negotiate the peace treaty, “could not look without regret at Moldavian land,” which had to supply a large Russian army for several war years. As a result, “the cheerfulness of the people turned into sadness (unynie), and nothing was left of their attachment toward Russia.” According to Bezborodko, the Russian representatives to the Moldavian divan S.L. Lashkarev and I. Selunskii “ruled despotically” and levied taxes that contrasted sharply with the postwar exemptions that Bezborodko demanded from the Ottomans as a condition of placing the principality back under the Porte’s authority. Almost all Moldavian boyars were evicted from their houses to make room for the Russian officers and diplomats while the general devastation and disorders “surpassed imagination.” 95 The tensions between Russian army and the local population became particularly acute during the Russian–Ottoman War of 1806–12, which began after the Porte removed hospodars Constantin Ypsilanti and Alexandru Moruzi in August 1806, well before the expiration of their seven-year term as stipulated by the hatt-i sherif of 1802. The Porte took this action barely a year after the conclusion of the September 1805 Russian–Ottoman treaty of alliance under mounting pressure from Napoleonic France, whose prestige soared after Austerlitz. In order to make the Ottoman government reconsider its decision, Alexander I sent the 30,000-strong army of I.I. Mikhelson to occupy the principalities in November 1806. Egged on by the French ambassador Sébastiani, the Porte responded by declaring war in December.96 Initial hostilities were suspended by the eighteen-month truce of Slobozia in August 1807, which itself reflected the Franco-Russian reconciliation at Tilsit the previous July. Although the truce concluded with Mikhelson’s agreement to the Russian evacuation of the principalities, Alexander I refused to 94 Rumiantsev to (Russian vice-chancellor) N. I. Panin, February 21, 1771, in Fortunatov, P. A. Rumiantsev, 2:227. On the provisional administration under Rumiantsev, see Tcaci, “Organizatsiia tsentral’nykh organov russko-moldavskoi administratsii v period russko-turetskoi voiny,” 127–34. 95 Bezborodko to D.P. Troshchinskii (?), November 17, 1971, in Bartenev, Arkhiv kniazia Vorontsova, 13:224–25. 96 On the Russian–Ottoman War of 1806–12, see Petrov, Voina Rossii s Turtsiei, 1806–1812.

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fulfil this condition; he simultaneously tried to secure the Russian annexation of the principalities and maintained relations with the Serbs who had defied the Porte’s authority since 1804. Despite the severe crisis that gripped the Ottoman Empire with the overthrow of Selim III by the janissaries in May 1807, the Porte refused to give up the principalities, which led to the reopening of hostilities in March 1809. Under the command of the elderly field marshal A.A. Prozorov­ skii, the Russian troops crossed the Danube and captured several minor Ottoman fortresses, yet their attempts to take major strongholds like Brăila or Silistria were unsuccessful. Although Prozorovskii’s energetic successor P.I. Bagration defeated an Ottoman corps at Rassevat, he eventually had to withdraw to the left bank of the Danube. Under Bagration’s successor N.F. Kamenskii, an expanded Russian army captured Silistria and Rushchuk, defeated the Ottoman forces at Batin, and engaged them in Serbia. However, Kamenskii’s failure to capture Shumla and British subsidies enabled the Porte to hold out until fall 1811, when the reduced Russian army under the command of M.I. Kutuzov ultimately managed to defeat Grand Vizier Ahmed Pasha’s forces using a clever stratagem. In the meantime, the continuous occupation of Moldavia and Wallachia by the Russian troops imposed a heavy burden on local resources, which was further aggravated by the abuses of the Russian quartermasters and regimental commanders as well as the corruption of the local administration.97 Attempts to solve the problem of supplies revealed important conflicts among local elites. Russian commanders often found themselves in a situation where they had to take sides in the conflict between warring boyar factions. Promoting some representatives of local elites inevitably alienated others who did not fail to seek support from rival imperial powers. Because of persistent warfare with the Ottoman Empire and the implicit or, at times, 97 On the Russian occupation of Moldavia and Wallachia in 1806–12, see Nakko, “Ocherk grazhdan­ skogo upravleniia Bessarabii, Moldavii i Valakhii”; Rosetti, “Arhiva Senatorilor din Chişinău.” Soviet historiography generally avoided discussion of the negative impact of the Russian occupation on the local population and focused on Russia’s progressive role in the principalities. See Muntian and Semenov, Rossiia i osvoboditel’naia bor’ba moldavskogo naroda. Post-Soviet historiography went to the opposite extreme, piling on the Russian Empire all the blame for the hardships experienced by the local population. See Agachi, “Moldova și Țara Românească sub ocupația militară rusă.” George F. Jewsbury’s account of this period in Jewsbury, Russian Annexation of Bessarabia, 39–66, remains the best available discussion. It is redemptively critical towards both the Russian army and the local administration. See also Dvoichenko-Markov, “The Impact of Russia in the Danubian Principalities.”

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quite real conflict with Napoleonic France, such maneuvers by the boyars were more dangerous than they might appear at first glance.98 To make matters worse, the Russian army and the provisional administration were also plagued by internal conflict that often overlapped with conflicts between different groups of boyars. At the beginning of the war, the Russians experimented with placing both principalities under the authority of pro-Russian hospodar Constantin Ypsilanti.99 Although he cast his lot with Russia, Ypsilanti failed to secure supplies for the army. His ambition to turn the principalities into a hereditary domain of the Ypsilanti family alienated important groups of boyars who, in the context of Russia’s struggle with Napoleon, secretly developed a pro-French orientation.100 To make matters worse, Ypsilanti’s rivals, and in particular the Filipescu family, managed to enlist the support of the Russian general M.A. Miloradovich, who enjoyed the glorious reputation of “savior of Bucharest” because he protected the city from an Ottoman reprisal raid in May 1807. This produced an incredible situation in which some Russian officers started plotting against the pro-Russian hospodar together with the partisans of France in a war that Russia fought against the latter’s ally. Naturally, it did not take long for Ypsilanti to act in bad faith vis-à-vis the Russians and make overtures to the Porte in a desperate attempt to remain in power over the principalities.101 The deposition of Ypsilanti did not resolve the problem of supplies. The undersupplied army resorted to looting, and as long as looting continued, the local population was never able to meet the official supply demands. The situation was particularly difficult in the districts near the Danube where the Russian troops were concentrated.102 The population was further unmoored 98 On the attempts of some Moldavian boyars to establish contacts with Napoleon during this period, see Vîrtosu, Napoleon Bonaparte. 99 Jewsbury, Russian Annexation of Bessarabia, 37–43. 100 Ypsilanti’s policies were vested in the ideology of Hellenic revival, which further alienated the autochtonous boyars of the principalities. See Vîrtosu, “Despre corpul de voluntari.” In parallel, an anonymous author, who claimed to represent the Catholics of Moldavia, made overtures to Napoleon during this period, proposing the unification of Moldavia and Wallachia into a single state called “Dacia” or “Great Valahia” under the formal guarantee of the great powers. The author formulated this project in explicitly anti-Russian terms, claiming that “all evil comes from the north” and that Russia was unable to provide “good, right, and stable” government to the principalities because of its failure to secure the happiness of its own subjects. See Vîrtosu, “Napoleon Bonaparte și dorințele moldovenilor.” 101 Jewsbury, Russian Annexation of Bessarabia, 42. 102 Khalippa, “Opisanie arkhiva gg. Senatorov,” 3:468–69.

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by the increasing frequency of robberies and atrocities that took place on the roads. Not yet recovered from the devastating raid undertaken in 1802 by the bands of the pasha of Vidin, Pasvand-Oglu, Wallachian and Moldavian peasants simply fled from the double burden of foreign occupation and customary abuses of the local officials.103 The ispravniks took advantage of the situation and enriched themselves. They did not report those runaway peasants whom they managed to bring back and simply pocketed the money that they continued to extract from such peasants in the form of state taxes.104 The requisitions of food and fodder made by the soldiers and officers without the sanction of the higher command affected both the population of the principalities and the Russian treasury. According to the testimony of Lieutenant General A.F. Lanzheron, his colleagues Berend Fridrikh Reingol’d fon Meiendorf, A.P. Zass, N.Z. Khitrovo, and other generals extorted food and fodder from the local inhabitants but reported to the commander in chief that they had purchased it. The provisions commissary approved their expenses in return for a share of the profits. As a result, the generals and regimental officers received enormous sums for their imaginary purchases from the local population.105 Officers also used other means of personal enrichment that were incompatible with received notions about modern warfare. Thus, the commander of the Cossack detachment occupying Little Wallachia I.I. Isaev, an active, intelligent, and effective commander, enriched himself by levying a toll on the passage of merchandise from the Ottoman Empire to Austrian Transylvania. When Zass replaced Isaev, he doubled amount of customs duties. From the Russian perspective, the abuses by local officials and Russian commanders were all the more regrettable in view of the fact that Alexander I became determined to annex both principalities to the Russian Empire. In order to restore Russia’s tarnished image in the eyes of the local population as well as enable the principalities to sustain an enlarged Russian army on the Danube, Alexander I decided to concentrate supreme civil authority in both principalities in the hands of one high-ranking Russian official who would rely on a sizable chancellery and a number of supervisors in the dis103 Ibid., 3:467. 104 Ibid., 3:476–77. 105 Rosetti, “Arhiva senatorilor,” 644–45; Langeron, “Journal des campagnes faites aux services de la Russie,” in Odobescu, Documente privitoare la istoria românilor, supplement 1, 3:118–20.

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tricts. In April 1808, he appointed Senator S.S. Kushnikov as the president of the divans and charged him with the task of “maintaining the supply of the army” without applying “additional pressure” to the local population, whose well-being the senator president had to secure through industry and zeal.106 In his own instructions to Kushnikov, the Russian commander in chief, Field Marshal A.A. Prozorovskii, attributed the problem of supplies to the depopulation of the country that was the consequence of “an unjust and, one can even say, oppressive government” composed of people whose only goal was personal enrichment.107 The field marshal admitted that “nothing is more difficult than correcting the mores of the people when corruption, an inclination to intrigues, and above all avarice have become so deeply rooted.” Nevertheless, Kushnikov had to “spare no effort in order to gradually eliminate this evil and change local mores by alternating strictness with moderation, using all available means.”108 In his activities, the senator-president had to take into account “the political situation of other powers as well as the customs of the land, and, at the same time, try as far as the situation permits, to bring these customs closer to Russian practices and fundamental laws.”109 One of Kushnikov’s first steps was to prescribe a uniform method of keeping the government’s financial accounts as well as treating criminal and civil cases in courts.110 In order to make the central administration less costly and more efficient, the senator-president abolished the offices directly related to the person of hospodar, which became irrelevant after the deposition of Ypsilanti.111 At the local level, Kushnikov sought to curb the 106 Nakko, “Ocherk grazhdanskogo upravleniia,” 285. Kushnikov began his career in the military, fought in the Russian–Ottoman War of 1768–74, and reached the rank of major general. After that, Kushnikov switched to civil service and became a senator prior to being appointed the president of Moldavian and Wallachian divans. His case demonstrates that civil bureaucracy as a well-defined social and professional group was only beginning to take shape in Russia during the reign of Alexander I. The eighteenth-century practice of appointing military officers to positions in civil administration persisted well into the 1800s. As the most important and efficient product of Petrine reforms, the army absorbed the best cadres, which for a long time stunted the development of the Russian civil administration, especially at the provincial and local levels. Attempts to compensate for this institutional shortcoming by the appointment of military men to civil posts produced mixed results. 107 Instructions to Kushnikov cited in Egunov, “Materialy dlia noveishei istorii Bessarabii,” 143. 108 Ibid., 145. 109 Ibid., 144–45. 110 Nakko, “Ocherk grazhdanskogo upravleniia,” 293, 304. 111 Khalippa, “Opisanie arkhiva gg. Senatorov,” 2:352–53.

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arbitrariness of the ispravniks by limiting their powers in criminal investigations and by introducing standard procedures to carry out criminal investigations. He also tried to deprive the ispravniks of judicial prerogative and limit their role to investigations only. The anti-corruption efforts of the senator-president were thus quite earnest, yet it is difficult to ascertain their effectiveness.112 Kushnikov’s options were particularly limited at the local level, where he did not have any permanent representatives. Periodic revisions of the district administration, like the one undertaken by his agent Savitskii in 1808, served more to reveal the horrendous picture of abuses rather than correct them. In his report, Savitskii presented Kushnikov with a tragicomic portrait of the local officials who used patriotic rhetoric to cover their abuses: “A crocodile, having found its prey, would water it with its tears, before tearing it apart and consuming it; similar to such beasts are many individuals here, who, sympathizing with the destiny of the ruined fatherland shed tears and complain and, at the same time, fill their bags with gold and silver, becoming the main cause of this misery.”113 According to Savitskii, the main cause of the plight of the population was not army requisitions, but “the Moldavian landlords, who oppress their fatherland in the heaviest way.” The most frequent form of abuse was the uncontrolled distribution of exemptions from taxes and duties (the so-called scutelnici), whereby some peasant families paid taxes only to the landlord while their share of state taxes was foisted onto others. The members of the Moldavian Divan used their relatives in the district administration to exempt their lands and peasants living on them from the transportation dues required by the army. Another reason behind the ruinous disparities in the distribution of taxes was the ispravniks’ systematic failure to report the true number of tax-paying families to the treasury. According to Savitskii’s estimations, the actual number of taxable families in Moldavia was twice the number reflected in the tax collection records.114 The difficulties that Russian occupation authorities faced in Moldavia were at least partly offset by the presence of the senator-president in Iași as 112 Ibid., 3:505. 113 Khalippa, “Opisanie arkhiva gg. Senatorov,” 1:341. 114 Savitskii’s report to Kushnikov, August 1808, Iași, Arhiva Națională a Republicii Moldova (further cited as ANRM), f. 1, op. 40, d. 590, ll. 3–4.

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well as the character of the local elite. In the words of the French consul, Joseph Ledoulx, the Moldavian nobility was “infinitely richer and less avaricious than the Wallachian one. There is greater harmony between the boyars who love their country. All this makes Moldavia capable of supporting the Russian troops for a certain time if the war continues.”115 The situation in Wallachia presented far greater challenges. Its political elite was ridden by deep conflicts since the very beginning of the Russian occupation. The control exercised there by the Russian senator-president was severely limited by the inefficiency of his deputy in Bucharest as well as by the interference of the military authorities in administrative affairs. By 1810, Russian military operations along the Danube disrupted both the economy and the administration, while the local population was burdened by a heavier concentration of the Russian troops than in neighboring Moldavia. “If the war continues for one more year, wrote Ledoulx, [Wallachia] will become completely deprived of resources and ruined, and one would have to repopulate the country again since many inhabitants, particularly from the regions close to the Danube, already fled south of the river.”116 Kushnikov did not have to be particularly sympathetic to the sad lot of the Moldavian and Wallachian peasants in order to realize that corruption in the local administration constituted a serious problem. After the burden of legal and illegal exactions became unbearable, the senator-president had to use Russian troops to collect taxes. The use of soldiers for the purpose of tax collection was a widespread practice in eighteenth-century Russia, especially prior to the administrative reforms of 1775. The use of this practice in Moldavia and Wallachia, in addition to exposing the local population to new injustices on the part of the military, created a particular political predicament for the Russian occupation authorities. It placed the Russian commander in chief and the Russian soldier at the very top and the very bottom of the local administrative chain, respectively. Consequently, they necessarily absorbed at least a portion of the blame for the rapacity of the local officials who constituted the middle tier of this tax-extracting hierarchy. The realization of this predicament added to the determination of Prozorovskii’s successor as Russian commander in chief, Prince P.I. Bagration, 115 Ledoulx to Champagny, 1810, in Documente privitoare la istoria românilor, 16:849. 116 Ibid.

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to mend the local institutions and thereby improve relations between the army and the civilian population. He found it “most offensive” that Russian troops were viewed as the cause of population’s suffering.117 According to Bagration, before the war and the Russian occupation, Wallachia sent enough produce to Constantinople to support a population of 500,000. Its current inability to support a Russian army of 50,000, therefore, had to be attributed either to the “ill-will of the people or the vicious administration.”118 Bagration rejected the former explanation. As many educated Russians of his day, he assumed the loyalty of Moldavian and Wallachian peasants to the Orthodox tsar. Instead, Bagration identified the officials as “the real cause of the misery and desperation of the people.” Rather than have peasants deliver the food and fodder needed by the Russian army, local officials, according to Bagration, would first impose a money tax on them, and then would use this money to buy food and fodder from the inhabitants at prices fixed well below market value. In this way, the actual amount of government taxes collected from the population doubled or even tripled their nominal value.119 The Russian commander in chief deemed it insufficient merely to replace the particularly abusive ispravniks; he also sought to change the practices of the local administration. Although the ispravniks remained in charge of all aspects of district administration, Bagration insisted that they be appointed on the basis of balloting for an indeterminate period of time rather than for one year as was the local custom.120 In this way, the Russian commander in chief hoped to eradicate the root of all abuses—the venality of offices. Bagration also discontinued the practice of appointing two ispravniks to each district that had been introduced in the principalities by Constantin Mavrocordat in the middle of the eighteenth century because it did not produce the desired result of reducing abuses through mutual surveillance and only increased administrative expenses. In order to secure continuity in the local administration and make it more competent, each ispravnik was given two deputies from boyars of the second rank who had to execute his orders across the district. In this way, 117 “Iz predlozheniia P.I. Bagrationa sosloviiu pervoklasnykh boiar kniazhestva Valakhii po voprosu upravleniia kniazhestvom, January 27, 1810,” in Berezniakov and Bogdanova, Bagration v Dunaiskikh kniazhestvakh, 78. 118 Ibid., 76. 119 Ibid., 77. 120 A similar procedure was introduced for the central offices. See ibid., 79.

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the deputies would gradually acquire the necessary knowledge of local conditions, which would qualify them for the position of ispravnik.121 These measures were strengthened through the creation of some sort of “procuracy” out of Russian military officers, which was charged with supervising the activities of the ispravniks in each district and reporting back to the senator-president of the divans in Iași or his deputy in Bucharest. A special official accompanied by a Russian officer was appointed to make revisions to the districts every four months and report abuses to the senator-president of the divans.122 In his instructions to the divan, Bagration employed the rhetoric of the enlightened pursuit of general well-being. According to him, “[every] wellmeaning and experienced official used in the administration of the country undoubtedly knows that a reasonable economy constitutes one of the major factors that contributes to the well-being of the land and is a sign of a good government.”123 To achieve this result, the Russian commander in chief ordered the divan to distribute taxes equally and prohibit ispravniks and their subordinates from modifying the tax quotas of particular peasant families. A precise definition of the amount of taxes paid by each taxpayer was, according to Bagration, a precondition of “the security of property as the foremost right (after life and honor) of every citizen living under the protection of a benevolent government.”124 In order to “give due satisfaction” to “the wretched people who had suffered all possible extortions,” Bagration formed a special “Commission for the Investigation of the Abuses of the Wallachian Boyars.”125 Headed by two Russian generals, the commission included two deputies of the divan, two inspectors dispatched by Kushnikov, and two other boyars, all of whom had to examine the nature 121 Ibid., 82. However, this modification did not produce the desired result as the deputies of the ispravniks proved to be subservient to them and only increased their arbitrariness. Agachi, “Moldova și Țara Românească,” 64. 122 “Iz predlozheniia P.I. Bagrationa sosloviiu pervoklasnykh boiar kniazhestva Vakhii po voprosu upravleniia kniazhestvom,” January 27, 1810, in Berezniakov and Bogdanova, Bagration v Dunaiskikh kniazhestvakh, 83. 123 “Iz predlozheniia P.I. Bagrationa Divanu Valashskogo kniazhestva o podatiakh i povinnostiakh zhitelei,” January 28, 1810, in Berezniakov and Bogdanova, Bagration v dunaiskikh kniazhestvakh, 84. 124 “Predlozhenie P.I. Bagrationa Divanu, January 28, 1810,” ANRM, f. 1, op. 40, d. 1418, ll. 23–23v. 125 “Pis’mo P.I. Bagrationa general-maioru Bakhmet’evu i general-maioru Nazimovu o poriadke rabot komissii po zloupotrebleniiu valashskikh boiar,” February 12, 1810, in Berezniakov and Bogdanova, Bagration v Dunaiskikh kniazhestvakh, 86.

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of complaints in cases of extortion by the current or erstwhile officials and assign fines and mete out other punishments to the culprits.126 The appointment of the anti-corruption commission as well as the broader attempt to redress the exploitation of the Wallachian administration came in the wake of the biggest political scandal in the entire history of the Russian occupation of the principalities. Born out of profound divisions within the Wallachian elite, this scandal tarnished the reputation of key Russian military and civilian figures and demonstrated the limits of Russian control over the principality during on-going warfare with the Ottomans and the rapid deterioration of Franco-Russian relations. Ever since the brief ascendance of Constantin Ypsilanti at the beginning of the Russian occupation, a group of Francophile boyars led by Constantin Filipescu contested the influence of the hospodar and his associates such as Constantin Varlaam, Manolache and Constantin Crețulescu, Constantin Ghica, and Șerban Văcărescu. Varlaam retained the key office of Great Tresurer (Vistier) for a year after the deposition of Ypsilanti in August 1807, and all throughout this period, he secretly used a portion of Wallachia’s public revenues to support the former hospodar in exile in Kiev. However, persistent problems with army supplies and revelations about the financial abuses of district authorities led to the replacement of Varlaam at the end of 1808. Varlaam’s rival Filipescu skillfully manipulated the anti-corruption policies of Russian occupation authorities in order to bring about Varlaam’s downfall. Although rumors about Filipescu’s secret relations with the Ottomans and the French circulated as early as 1807, the boyar benefited from the support of the Russian corps commander in Bucharest, General M.A. Miloradovich, and ultimately Senator-President Kushnikov himself. Miloradovich enjoyed popularity as the “savior of Bucharest,” and he also had strong connections in the Russian court (he was a favorite of the dowager empress Mariia Fedorovna). Filipescu used the general’s romantic liaison with his daughter Anica to counteract both the intrigues of Varlaam and the alarming reports of Savitskii, Kushnikov’s agent in Bucharest.127 126 Ibid., 87–89. 127 Savitskii recalled with apprehension the familiar theme of the Wallachian boyars’ “betrayal” of Peter the Great during the nefarious Pruth expedition, leaving the Russian army without supplies. He feared that Filipescu would one day use his position as the divan’s effective master to achieve his ends. Savitskii to Kushnikov, January 15, 1809, ANRM, f. 1, op. 40, d. 590, ll. 63–64v. For his part, Miloradovich assured Kushnikov that the expulsion of Varlaam offered “an example of a severe and just ret-

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The death of Field Marshal Prozorovskii in September 1809 spared Filipescu from exile for the time being, as did Kushnikov’s intercession on his behalf before Prozorovskii’s successor Bagration.128 When Filipescu’s rivals tried to denounce the boyar, the senator-president found their addresses full of “ignorance, prejudice and insubordination (derzost’) in each phrase” and set them aside.129 Eventually the Russian agent on the right bank of the Danube, Manuk-Bey, confirmed the rumors of Filipescu’s liaisons with the Ottomans, which helped Bagration obtain Alexander I’s permission to exile the boyar.130 The Filipescu affair greatly destabilized the Russian occupation authorities in Moldavia and Wallachia and tarnished Kushnikov’s reputation. There were rumors that the senator-president was himself involved in the sale of administrative appointments.131 Although it is impossible to verify this allegation, the insistence with which Kushnikov defended Filipescu might suggest that he, indeed, had an interest in Filipescu retaining his office. Predictably, the senator-president found himself increasingly at odds with Bagration, and in December 1809, he submitted his resignation.132 The affair also cost Miloradovch his position as the commander of the Wallachian corps, and he was transferred to Kiev to serve as its military governor. However, Miloradovich’s connections at the Russian court contributed to the almost simultaneous dismissal of Bagration from his position as the commander in chief of the Russian army.133 Kushnikov’s successor Senator V.I. Krasno-Miloshevich wrote to Alexander I about the “oppressed state” of the local inhabitants who were burdened by transportation duties and the deliveries of food and fodder to ribution, which unfortunately is highly necessary in this country.” According to Miloradovich, “[the] replacement of Varlaam got its effect and the calmed the intriguing boyars.” Miloradovich to Kushnikov, January 30, 1809, ANRM, f. 1, op. 40, d. 590, ll. 79–79v. 128 Dubrovin, “Kniaz P.I. Bagration,” 210, 245. 129 See the boyar petition to Kushnikov from December 19, 1808 and Kushnikov’s response to the Wallachian Divan on January 28, 1809, ANRM, f. 1, op. 40, d. 590, ll. 5–10 and 14, respectively. 130 See also the report of the Russian agent Fonton on Filipescu in Dubrovin, “Kniaz P.I. Bagration,” 245–48, and Bagration to Kushnikov, February 18, 1810, ANRM, f. 1, op. 1 d. 1456, ll. 1–1v. 131 Langeron, “Journal,” 151. 132 Dubrovin, “Kniaz P.I. Bagration,” 213. 133 The affair created an atmosphere of distrust at the Russian headquarters that is well captured in the memoirs of Lanzheron, who served as interim commander in chief in March 1811. “Being surrounded by traitors,” wrote Lanzheron, “I had to be cautious and write all my orders and reports either myself or through a trusted aide-de-camp. They were not included in the register out of fear that the scribe in my chancellery might be bribed.” Cited in Petrov, Voina Rossii s Turtsiei, 2:343–44.

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the Russian army. Krasno-Miloshevich lacked the reforming ambitions of Bagration and believed that “an overall eradication of abuses depends upon time and a change in the form of government.” Nevertheless, in order to close the deficit in the Wallachian budget, Krasno-Miloshevich had to impose extraordinary taxes on the very social categories that had hitherto enjoyed larger or smaller tax exemptions, such as the neamuri, mazili, breslași, and postelniceli. He also established a fiscal survey commission composed of four boyars and two Russian officers tasked with ascertaining the exact number of taxpayers in the principality and the reasons for the recent decrease of the number of taxation units (ludori) from 40,000 to 14,000. 134 Otherwise, the period of Krasno-Miloshevich’s presidency in the divan witnessed the reestablishment of local administrative practices that Kushnikov and Bagration considered pernicious such as the yearly sale of public offices and the appointment of two ispravniks to each district.135 Church Policies under Russian Occupation In the last two years of the Russian occupation, the most significant reforming impetus came not from the Senator-President or Russian Commanders-inchief, but from Exarch Gavriil Bănulescu-Bodoni, the head of the Moldavian and Wallachian church from 1808 to 1812. A brief discussion of Gavriil’s biography is necessary not only on account of his considerable contribution to Russian policies in the principalities but also because it illustrates the impact of the Russian–Ottoman confrontation on the Moldavian and Wallachian church.136 Gavriil’s life and activities demonstrate the existence of the Orthodox Commonwealth and, at the same time, reveal the significant tensions harbored within its borders.137 On the one hand, Gavriil benefited from the ecclesiastical and educational ties that existed between the Orthodox centers of Eastern and Southeastern Europe. On the other hand, his case demonstrates the dangers of multiple border crossings between rival empires. 134 “Vsepoddaneishii raport V.I. Krasno-Miloshevicha ot 15-go iiunia, 1810 g,” in Dubrovin, Sbornik istoricheskikh materialov, 7:232–35. 135 Rosetti, “Arhiva senatorilor,” 654–55. 136 The most important source on Gavriil is Stadnitskii, Gavriil Banulesko-Bodoni. 137 Any discussion of the Orthodox Commonwealth should begin with Obolensky, The Byzantine Commonwealth. On the post-1453 period, see Iorga, Bizanț după Byzanț. On Russia’s place within the Orthodox Commonwealth, see Kapterev, Kharakter otnoshenii.

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A native of Transylvania and educated in Kiev, Greece, and Constantinople, Gavriil briefly taught at the princely academy in Iași before emigrating to Russia, where he became the rector of the Poltava and Ekaterinoslavl’ seminaries during the 1780s.138 Gavriil returned to Moldavia in 1788 on the invitation of the archbishop of Ekaterinoslavl’ Amvrosii (Serebriannikov), who accompanied the Russian commander in chief Potemkin to Moldavia. When the Moldavian metropolitan Leon died in 1788, Potemkin came up with the idea of placing a Russian candidate in this position. As an ethnic Romanian and a learned man, Gavriil was popular enough to be elected as the new metropolitan, yet Potemkin and Catherine II preferred to entrust the Moldavian church to Gavriil’s superior Amvrosii. Accordingly, the Russian Holy Synod appointed Amvrosii as the placeholder (exarch) of the Moldavian church in December 1789. Gavriil remained Amvrosii’s second for two more years until the conclusion of the Iași peace treaty whereby Moldavia was to be returned to the Ottoman Empire. In February 1792, shortly before the evacuation of Russian troops, Catherine II confirmed Gavriil as a metropolitan of Moldavia. The empress hoped that a naturalized Russian subject elected as a metropolitan in accordance with the customs of the country would help her retain control over the Moldavian church after the transfer of the principality to the Ottomans. Needless to say, the patriarch of Constantinople did not accept this, anathemized Gavriil, and ordered Moldavian bishops to elect another candidate. Gavriil was arrested, brought to Constantinople, and placed in Edicule, from which he emerged several months later through the intervention of the Russian envoy, Viktor Kochubei. Back in Russia, Gavriil succeeded the deceased Amvrosii as the archbishop of Ekaterinoslavl’, and in 1799 he became the archbishop of Kiev. In March 1808, the Russian Holy Synod once again appointed Gavriil as the Exarch of Moldovlachia to replace the Moldavian metropolitan Veniamin (Costache), who went into temporary retirement.139 138 The emigration of Greek Orthodox clergymen from the Ottoman Empire to Russia was an important phenomenon in the late eighteenth century. See Batalden, Catherine II’s Greek Prelate. 139 See Stadnitskii, Gavriil Banulesko-Bodoni, 47–91. Constantin Erbiceanu attributed Veniamin’s retirement to the intrigues of the “Russian party” in Iași composed of Phanariot elements hostile toward the patriotically minded Veniamin. See Erbiceanu, Istoria Mitropoliei Moldaviei și Sucevei, LXVII. The documents that Erbiceanu cited in support of this interpretation indeed demonstrate that Veniamin was attacked by some boyars and defended by others (45–47, 49–50). These documents, however, hardly prove that Russian authorities desired the retirement of Veniamin, who was, in fact, known for

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The appointment of exarchs in 1788–1792 and 1808–1812 may appear as the rather cavalier incursion of the Russian Holy Synod into the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the Constantinople patriarchate. This policy certainly contrasts with Russia’s later support for the unity of the patriarchate when challenged by the Bulgarian schism in 1870.140 However, this difference is ultimately explained by the peculiar status of the Moldavian and Wallachian church within the Ottoman Empire. In contrast to the higher number of Orthodox clergy to the south of the Danube that were all appointed by the patriarch of Constantinople, the metropolitans of Moldavia and Wallachia were elected by local bishops and only blessed by the patriarch.141 This procedure constituted the ecclesiastical counterpart to the election of the hospodars by the boyars and their confirmation by the sultan, which was practiced until the end of the seventeenth century. Whereas the hospodar’s office thereafter passed to the Phanariot appointees of the sultan, the Moldavian and Wallachian bishops continued to elect their metropolitans, who were usually natives (although one does find some Greeks among the eighteenthcentury metropolitans, particularly in Wallachia). The autonomous character of the Moldavian and Wallachian church is also reflected in the political activities of the high clergymen in the principalities.142 They presided over sessions of the divan and were involved in foreign relations in ways that were not always coordinated with the patriarchate. Whereas the patriarchs had to anathemize the Russian Empire at the outbreak of each Russian–Ottoman war, the metropolitans of Moldavia and Wallachia often co-signed boyar petitions to the Russian rulers requesting protection. In this context, the appointment of the exarchs in 1789–1792 and 1808–1812 appears much less shocking than such a measure would have been in the territories south of the Danube that were much more deeply integrated not only within the Ottoman Empire but also within the canonical territory of the patriarchate. There was even a certain legal logic to the his pro-Russian sympathies. Veniamin’s decision to leave Iași took Commander in Chief Prozorovskii by surprise. See Prozorovskii’s letter to Veniamin of February 28, 1808, in Erbiceanu, Istoria Mitropoliei Moldaviei și Sucevei, 85–86. 140 Vovchenko, Containing Balkan Nationalisms. 141 Stadnitskii, Issledovaniia po istorii moldavskoi tserkvi, 36–39. 142 Although the Moldavian and Wallachian church was de facto autonomous since its foundation in the second half of the fourteenth century, it acquired formal autocephaly only in 1885, after Romania became independent.

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appointment of the exarchs during the Russian occupations of Moldavia and Wallachia. Whereas Russian senators-president temporarily took over the hospodars’ office, the exarch took over the ecclesiastical hierarchy. Both were representatives of Russia as an occupying power temporarily exercising supreme authority in the principalities.143 At the same time, one should not unduly downplay the novel element in Gavriil’s appointment as exarch, not least because he was the first person to temporarily combine the supreme ecclesiastical authority of both Moldavia and Wallachia.144 Just as the unification of supreme lay authority in both principalities was placed in the hands of senators-president (or presidentsplenipotentiary in 1828–1834), a temporary integration of their church hierarchies contributed to the institutional rapprochement between Moldavia and Wallachia that facilitated their eventual unification in 1859. More novelties followed Gavriil’s inspection trip around Moldavia and Wallachia, which had revealed many irregularities in ecclesiastical institutions. First of all, the exarch established a consistory—a collegial body composed of the best clergymen who had to function as canonical court and maintain records of its deliberations and decisions. He also appointed special clerical supervisors to each diocese to assure cleanliness and order in the church as well as the good behavior of priests and their flock in accordance with Russian spiritual regulations that had been specially translated for this purpose.145 Gavriil’s efforts to bring order to the ecclesiastical domain included measures that had direct bearing on administrative reform in the principalities, the necessity of which was becoming increasingly evident to the Russian commanders and officials. The first of such measures was Gavriil’s order to parish priests to keep the metric books that maintained the registry of all births, deaths, and marriages in the parish. The introduction of the metric books represented the first step toward the realization of a comprehensive population census, which is an indispensable precondition of modern statehood.146 Another such measure was a reduction of the number of priests. The 143 Apart from exercising the functions of exarch, Gavriil was also a member of the Russian Holy Synod. Stadnitskii, Gavriil Banulesko-Bodoni, 114. 144 In 1788–92, Amvrosii was exarch only in Moldavia since Wallachia was not occupied by Russian troops during that war. 145 Stadnitskii, Gavriil Banulesko-Bodoni, 120–21. 146 Stadnitskii, Gavriil Banulesko-Bodoni, 122; Nakko, “Ocherk grazhdanskogo upravleniia,” 293. Gavriil’s efforts resulted in a partial census that gave the precize numbers of the clergy as well as of the

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desire to escape the mounting taxation burden led many individuals to seek clerical status, which exempted them from important taxes and dues. Their aspirations were often satisfied by the Phanariots, who were quite quick to realize the revenue-boosting potential of simony. By the early nineteenth century, this practice had produced a great number of idle priests who did not have parishes but still enjoyed tax exemptions at the expense of the peasant population. Although the strict rules that Gavriil introduced for the ordination of the priests were abandoned when the principalities returned to Ottoman rule in 1812, this measure anticipated the later policies of the Russians which aimed at a more equitable distribution of taxes through the elimination of numerous tax-exempt categories among the local population.147 Before long, Gavriil’s reform efforts encountered resistance. Like the senators-president, the exarch resided in Iași and found Wallachia to be far more troublesome than Moldavia. Wallachian metropolitan Dosifei refused to implement Gavriil’s orders, in particular his efforts to halt the uncontrolled ordination of priests which multiplied their numbers beyond any measure and had disastrous consequences for the quality of the lower clergy.148 Dosifei may have been connected to Filipescu and was manifestly hostile to Russia: under his rule Wallachian clergymen failed to mention the tsar’s name during the liturgy. This motivated Gavriil to demand from the Russian Holy Synod that he be deprived of his position, and at the end of 1809, Dosifei was indeed replaced with the former metropolitan of Arta Ignace.149 Ignace was involved with the Russian-sponsored Septinsular Republic in the Ionian islands in 1806–1807 and moved to St. Petersburg after its abolition by the Tilsit treaty.150 There, Ignace was received by Alexander I and handed the tsar a memorandum on the state of the Orthodox church in the Ottoman Empire. Although Gavriil recommended Ignace as “a learned man, in good standing with the Russian court,” the new metropolitan soon engaged in the sale of priestly offices like his predecessor Dosifei. To make matters worse, Ignace demonstrated a clear preference for his Greek co-nationals, which produced peasants and other dependent population living on the monastery lands. See Tomescu, “Cartografia numerică,” 52–63. See also Popescu, “Cartografia eparhiei Ungrovlahia.” 147 Stadnitskii, Gavriil Banulesko-Bodoni, 123–36. 148 As reported by Savitskii to Kushnikov, February 1, 1809, ANRM, f. 1, op. 40, d. 590, ll. 80–81v. 149 Stadnitskii, Gavriil Banulesko-Bodoni, 172–78. 150 On Russian policies in the Ionian Islands, see A.M. Stanislavskaia, Rossiia i Gretsiia.

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strong opposition to him among the native boyars in the Wallachian divan. These boyars dispatched a complaint to the Russian Holy Synod,151 and when it failed to reach the addressee, they accused Gavriil of obstructing their communication with the supreme Russian authorities.152 During an investigation ordered by the head of the Synod A.N. Golitsyn, the native boyars Barbu Văcărescu, Șerban Grădișteanu, and Constantin Varlaam accused Ignace of using his position as honorary president of the divan to marginalize native Wallachians, who “sacrificed their properties to provide for the Russian army,” and promote the very Greeks who had just plundered the country. Varlaam specifically stressed that the metropolitan had violated the privileges of Wallachia which excluded Greeks from administrative appointments.153 Confirmed by the bishop of Argeș, Iosif, the abuses of Ignace forced Gavriil to request his demotion two years after the exarch welcomed him as the replacement for the uncooperative Dosifei.154 In Moldavia, Gavriil likewise encountered resistance when he attempted to eliminate abuses in the administration of the so-called dedicated monasteries.155 As a compensation for the de facto autonomy of Moldavian and Wallachian churches, the Eastern patriarchs secured control over numerous monasteries and their extensive land possessions in the principalities. Such monasteries “dedicated” to the churches and monasteries of Constantinople, Mount Athos, and the Holy Land, were governed by Greek hegumens who annually syphoned off large sums of money and diverted them to their respective patriarchates. In his efforts to bring order to monastic life in the principalities, Gavriil discovered huge gaps in the budgets of the dedicated monasteries.156 Summoned to account for these gaps, the hegumens complained to both the Moldavian divan and the Russian Holy Synod and protested against what they believed to an unjustified violation of the monastic charters and the rights of the Eastern patriarchates.157 151 The complaint, dated May 5, 1811, is published in Bulat, “Știri despre conspirație boierească,” 3–11. 152 See their letter to Gavriil of March 25, 1811, quoted in extenso in Stadnitskii, Gavriil Banulesko-Bodoni, 188–89. 153 See the boyar answers to Gavriil’s questionnaire quoted in extenso in ibid., 190–92. 154 Ibid., 193. 155 Batalden, “Metropolitan Gavriil Banulesko-Bodoni”; or for a recent treatment of this subject in English, see Iordachi, “From Imperial Entanglements to National Disentanglement,” 131–37. 156 Stadnitskii, Gavriil Banulesko-Bodoni, 194–206. 157 Nakko, “Ocherk grazhdanskogo upravleniia,” 304; Stadnitskii, Gavriil Banulesko-Bodoni, 207–14.

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The exarch counterattacked by reminding the petitioners that with the outbreak of the war and the Russian occupation of Moldavia, the Russian Holy Synod (of which he was a member) replaced the Eastern patriarchs as the supreme ecclesiastical authority in the principalities. He also argued that, according to the original monastery charters, the dedicated monasteries were supposed to send the Eastern patriarchates only the money that remained after all their local expenses had been covered. After both the Moldavian divan and the Russian Holy Synod supported Gavriil, the rebellious hegumens secured the intervention of the French consul Ledoulx. Since some of the hegumens happened to be French subjects, Ledoulx protested against the violation of their material interests. In response, Gavriil pointed out that the material interests of French subjects had nothing to do with the administration of the monasteries, which were church property. Parallel to his response to Ledoulx, he recommended to the Russian commander in chief and the Holy Synod that the leaders of the petitioners be arrested; that any future communication between the dedicated monasteries and the Eastern patriarchates be halted for the duration of the war; and that the Greek hegumens gradually be replaced with native clergymen.158 The Holy Synod once again approved all the measures proposed by the exarch, and although all the reforms proved short-lived, they anticipated the policies of the Russian occupation authorities in 1828–34. Such episodes, as well as Gavriil’s overall involvement in administrative affairs, motivated him to present his suggestions to the Russian government on how to redeem the difficult situation in the principalities upon the conclusion of the Russian–Ottoman war. In early 1812, at the time when military operations on the Danube alternated with peace negotiations, Gavriil went to St. Petersburg and handed to the Russian State Secretary and major reformer M.M. Sperianskii a memorandum about the abuses that took place within the Wallachian administration since the deposition of Hospodar Ypsilanti in 1807. According to Gavriil, the senator-president in Iași and his deputy in Bucharest could not restrain the arbitrariness of the officials because they lacked appropriate knowledge of Moldavian and Wallachian customs and practices. Lack of control over the officials in the divan at the time of the war opened up vast possibilities for extortion and fraud that 158 Stadnitskii, Gavriil Banulesko-Bodoni, 215–41.

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caused the utter ruin of the population. The interference of the Russian commanders in administrative matters further aggravated the situation since the Russian military likewise lacked local knowledge. The appointment of Constantinople Greeks as treasurers (vistiernici) and primary judicial officers constituted one more abuse.159 In order to remedy the situation, Gavriil suggested the creation of a Moldovalachian commission similar to the one established for the government of Finland several years previously. The commission had to elaborate a plan for the administration of Moldavia and Wallachia until the end of the war. After the conclusion of peace, it had to supply the head of civil administration with detailed instructions, supervise the implementation of its decisions, accept appeals from the local inhabitants, and control the provisioning of the army. It also had to define taxes and the mode of their collection as well as carry out a meticulous revision of all accounts. Gavriil also argued for a strict separation of the military and the civil authority and suggested to concentrate the latter in the hands of a governor-general responsible only to the tsar and the commission.160 After Alexander I agreed to create the proposed commission, Gavriil argued that the principalities required the kind of government that would “preserve as much as possible the local rights, privileges, and customs and, at the same time, strengthen their connection to Russia.” This formula had to “display the benevolent action of the wise orders of the Russian emperor toward the neighboring Christian peoples that would remain under the sultan’s scepter.”161 Gavriil’s concrete proposals included the appointment of Russian officials in local police institutions alongside local people in order to restrain the abuses of the latter. The same formula had to be applied to judicial institutions: the courts had to include equal numbers of native and Russian members with the decisive vote belonging to the highest-ranking Russian governor-general. The Moldovalachian commission also had to define firm and unchangeable rules on the collection of taxes and keep detailed accounts of revenues and expenses. Additionally, it had to take measures

159 “Zapiska mitropolita i ekzarkha Gavriila, podannaia M. Speranskomu,” February 8, 1812, in Dub­ rovin, Sbornik istoricheskikh materialov, 7:235–38. 160 Ibid., 7:238–39. 161 See the memorandum attached to Gavriil’s letter to Speranskii, March 6, 1812, ibid., 7:240.

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to stimulate population growth, the development of manufacture, and the overall material well-being of the principalities.162 All these measures had to proceed directly from the Russian Emperor “in order to leave a greater impression on a people that is quite Asiatic.”163 Gavriil’s proposals were based on the assumption that Moldavia and Wallachia would become part of the Russian Empire. The secession of the principalities to Russia was indeed one of the demands Kamenskii and Kutuzov made when they began the peace negotiations with the Ottomans in 1811. However, Ottoman intransigence and an imminent war with Napoleon forced Kutuzov to progressively scale down Russian demands and eventually agree to a new border along the Pruth and Danube, which left Wallachia and most of Moldavia under Ottoman control.164 Following the evacuation of the Russian army from the principalities in the summer of 1812, Gavriil withdrew to Bessarabia, where he continued to actively assist the Russian authorities. The memoranda he submitted to Speranskii thus had no practical consequences, yet they are remarkable inasmuch as they contain the more or less systematic reform agenda of the Moldavian and Wallachian institutions that would increasingly preoccupy Russian policymakers over the next two decades. *** The presidency of Russian senators in the divans of Moldavia and Wallachia represented a paradoxical mixture of reform and corruption, which had an alienating impact on the local population that was well captured by the Russian diplomatic agent Fonton. On the one hand, “the majority of boyars wish for a return to Ottoman governance,” wrote Fonton, “which is unsurprising for they realize the impossibility of self-enrichment through plunder under Russian authority.” On the other hand, the unheard-of oppression that common people suffered during the occupation greatly undermined their pro-Russian sympathies and their desire to remain under Russian rule. According to Fonton, the people not only desired the evacuation of the 162 Ibid., 7:246. 163 Ibid., 7:245. 164 On peace negotiations, see Kasso, Rossiia na Dunae, 89–145; Jarkuțchi and Mischevca, Pacea de la Bucureşti; Goşu, “Rusia la Dunăre de jos.”

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Russian troops but also “the return to the ancient order of things, since they had never been so burdened by taxes in the time of the hospodars.”165 Despite its largely negative balance, the occupation of 1806–12 marked an important turning point in Russia’s relations with the elites of the principalities. On the one hand, it induced particular representatives of the Russian military, civil, and ecclesiastical institutions to realize the necessity of institutional reform in the principalities and make the first attempts to formulate a reform agenda for the future. Russian occupation authorities in Moldavia and Wallachia for the first time tried to rationalize local institutions. This opened up a new age of Russian policy in the principalities, during which reform became a means of extending influence and meeting challenges to the Russian protectorate. In other words, reform became a modality of imperial rule. Particular representatives of the boyar class proved responsive to the language of reform inasmuch as they sought to limit the power of the princes and consolidate their social privileges. Although the boyars’ political ideology focused on the restoration of the historical privileges of Moldavia and Wallachia that had been violated under Phanariot rule, a growing number of politically articulate boyars recognized in the political reforms a means of realizing their interests. Reform therefore emerged as an additional dimension of political dialogue between the Russian Empire and the elites of the principalities alongside their common religion. This new development, however, had an ambiguous impact on the Russian position in the principalities. In its capacity as protecting power, Russia continued to be the addressee of most political petitions and reform projects during the first twenty years of the nineteenth century, yet there was also an increase in the number of boyar petitions addressed to other great powers.166 In contrast to the language of Orthodoxy that constituted an exclusive link between Russia and the principalities, the discourse of reform was more universal and thus capable of structuring the

165 Cited in Dubrovin, “Kniaz’ P.I. Bagration,” 246–47. 166 According to the calculations of Vlad Georgescu, the boyars addressed twenty-four petitions to Russia in the period 1769–1800 and some eighteen in the period 1800–20. The number of petitions addressed to France in the same two periods grew from zero to five. The number of petitions addressed to Austria grew from four to five and remained the same for the Ottoman Empire: the Porte received four petitions prior to 1800 and four petitions in the next two decades. See Georgescu, Istoria ideilor politice românești, viii.

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boyars’s relations not only with Russia but also with other empires, both neighboring and more distant. Nevertheless, Russian policy makers maintained a predominant position in the discursive terrain of reform in Moldavia and Wallachia in the two decades following the Peace of Bucharest.

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Fig. i. Auguste Raffet (1804–1860): Wallachian peasants (engraving, 1837)

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Ch a p t e r I I

Cha l lenges of Empire-Building in a Revolutionar y Age

A

t the turn of the nineteenth century, Russian policies in Moldavia and Wallachia were conditioned by Russia’s relations with the Greek elites of the Ottoman Empire. In her pursuit of an expansionist strategy under the ideological banner of the protection of Orthodoxy, Catherine the Great sought to secure the support of the Greeks, who held important economic, political, and cultural positions among the non-Muslim subjects of the sultan.1 This relationship explains why during the Russian–Ottoman War of 1768–74, the Russian naval squadron in the Aegean Sea commanded by A. G. Orlov landed a small force in Morea in support of the anti-Ottoman uprising, which was nevertheless brutally suppressed by the Ottoman troops.2 Having embarked on an ambitious colonization program in New Russia in the wake of the Kuchuk-Kainarji treaty, the Russian government attracted Greek settlers and protected Greek commerce in the Mediterranean.3 Greek merchants in Odessa and the landlords of southern gubernias developed a common interest in the expansion of the grain export by way of the Black Sea straits and the Mediterranean. Commercial ties helped generate political visions. The liberation of the lands of classical antiquity became an important means of legitimizing 1 On Catherine’s propaganda among the Greeks, see Arsh, Rossiia i bor’ba Gretsii za osvobozhdenie, 11–34; Smilianskaia, Smilianskaia, and Velizhev, Rossiia v Sredizemnomor’e. 2 Given the existing correlation of the forces, the landing of the Russian troops in Morea as well as the uprising it fomented were an example of adventurism for which the Greeks paid a high price after the Russians withdrew. This explains why Catherine’s propaganda in Morea during the next war of 1787–92 was far less successful. Ariadna Camariano-Cioran, “La Guerre Russo–turque de 1768–1774 et le Grecs.” 3 Arsh, Rossiia i bor’ba Gretsii za osvobozhdenie, 97–130.

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Russia’s southward expansion, which was reflected in Catherine the Great’s Greek Project. In cooperation with Austrian emperor Joseph II, the empress proposed conquering Constantinople, partitioning the sultan’s Balkan possessions, and restoring the “Greek Empire” on the shores of the Aegean Sea under the scepter of her younger grandson Constantine.4 Finally, growing Russian influence in Moldavia and Wallachia (especially after the creation of Russian consulates in the principalities in 1782) facilitated Russian contacts with Phanariot elites. Despite embracing a critical attitude toward the Phanariots that was characteristic of Enlightenment literature, the Russian Empire did not support the demands for a native prince by the Wallachian boyars during the peace negotiations that led to the conclusion of the Kuchuk-Kainarji treaty. Instead, the Russian government sought to control the appointment and deposition of the hospodars of Moldavia and Wallachia on a par with the Ottomans and even found a common cause with some Phanariot princes. At the same time, the heterogeneity of Greek elites constituted a problem for Russia’s Eastern policy. Alongside the Phanariots who held important positions in Constantinople and the principalities, there were Greek landowners in Morea and the Archipelago (kocabaşı, proestos) as well as a growing Greek commercial class in New Russia, whose representatives—involved in Mediterranean trade—were also numerous in Moldavia and Wallachia. The heterogeneity of Greek elites manifested in the diversity of their cultural profiles and political orientations. Whereas Phanariots were deeply entrenched in the neo-Byzantine cultural tradition and, with several important exceptions, politically oriented towards the Ottoman Empire,5 the new commercial class increasingly embraced the neo-Hellenic identity and was influenced by French revolutionary ideas after 1789.6 At the same time, the dividing lines among the different factions of Greek elites were extremely blurred, and the plans for Greek political emancipation 4 The literature on the “Greek Project” of Catherine the Great is vast. See, most recently, Arsh, Rossiia i bor’ba Gretsii za osvobozhdenie, 35–52. 5 The most pro-Russian of all the Phanariot hospodars of the second half of the eighteenth century, Alexandru Ypsilanti, probably familiar with the Russian–Austrian plans of partition of the Ottoman Empire in 1787, addressed to the Austrian authorities a memorandum, in which he advocated the restoration of the Byzantine Empire with a Russian prince as an emperor. Botzaris, Visions balkaniques, 19n4. 6 For a discussion of the Greek intellectual life in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, see Kitromilides, Enlightenment and Revolution; Petrunina, Grecheskaia natsia, 131–46.

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constructed during this period represented a peculiar concoction of neo-Byzantine and republican tendencies. Particularly characteristic in this respect was the project called the “New Political Constitution for the Inhabitants of Rumelia, Asia Minor, the Islands of Mediterranean, Wallachia and Moldavia” written by Rigas Velestinlis (1757–98) in Vienna in 1796. A native of Thessalia, Rigas was educated at the patriarchal academy in Constantinople, became a secretary of the Wallachian hospodar Alexandru Ypsilanti in 1780, and later served several prominent Wallachian boyars. Under the influence of the French Revolution, Rigas developed the idea of a Greek republic including all European possessions of the Ottoman Empire (with the possible exception of Bosnia and Albania) as well as the Archipelago and Asia Minor, which was based on the principle of religious and national equality but nevertheless proposed neo-Greek as the only state language.7 However utopian such plans might have been, they reflected the quest for a formula of Greek political emancipation and illustrate the uncertainty of the political orientation of Greek elites in the context of the great power struggle. The attractiveness of revolutionary and Napoleonic France to radical segments of Greek and other Balkan elites necessarily nibbled away at Russia’s influence among its co-religionists. The local conflicts into which Russia rapidly became involved likewise revealed the limitations of her “soft power.” Projects of political emancipation envisioned by the Greek elites as well as their actual economic, political, and ecclesiastic predominance under Ottoman tutelage were bound to generate discontent among other Christian subjects of the sultan. The tensions between the Phanariot princes and the “native” boyars in Moldavia and Wallachia in the eighteenth century is a particular case of this general phenomenon. The ability of Russian Empire to exploit its ideological resources was further limited by a rigid hierarchy of priorities, which informed Russian foreign policy. Although they were sympathetic to Greek pretensions for a dominant role in the Balkans, Russian rulers were ready to pursue an alliance with Greek elites only inasmuch as it did not contradict the policy that the tsars adopted with respect to other European powers. In other words, the tsars tended to subordinate their actions in the principalities to the interests of their overall Eastern policy and the latter to their general European strat7 Arsh, Eteristskoe dvizhenie, 100–2; Botzaris, Visions balkaniques, 25–33.

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egy. The Russian career of Ioannis Kapodistrias well illustrates this hierarchy of priorities. His political activities also reveal the interconnectedness of developments on the European, regional, and local levels, as well as the ability of local actors to resist imperial agendas and significantly influence the final outcome of imperial policies. The “Greek Project” of Ioannis Kapodistrias Ioannis Kapodistrias was born in 1776 to a Greek noble family from Corfu, then a possession of Venice.8 Located off the continental coast controlled by the Ottoman Empire, early modern Corfu was a “frontier island,” which can be considered part of the larger frontier zone that included the Dalmatian coast and the Triplex Confinum.9 The abolition of the Republic of Venice by Napoleon in 1797 did not transform overnight the ecology of the frontier zone, which was the product of centuries of coastal warfare and trade between confessionally and culturally diverse populations. The legacy of the complex frontier manifested in the struggle between the Ottoman Empire, Russia, France, and Great Britain to fill the power vacuum caused by the disappearance of Venice. The Triplex Confinium situation in the literal sense was reestablished with the formation of the French Illyrian Provinces in 1809–13, which included all former possessions of Venice in the Eastern Adriatic,10 while Corfu was consecutively occupied by the French, the Russians, and the British. The transformations of this frontier zone in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century only accentuated the multiple and shifting loyalties of local elites, and the political career of Kapodistrias offers a pertinent example of this phenomenon. His double loyalty to the Russian Emperor and the cause of Greek liberation was both a source of the originality of his political visions and his nemesis. Kapodistrias’s coming of age coincided with the end of the “Queen of Adriatic” and the French occupation of his native island. Having received a medical, legal, and philosophical education at the 8 For basic biographic information on Kapodistrias and his political career, see Grimsted, The Foreign Ministers of Alexander I, 226–58; Arsh, Kapodistriia; as well as Kapodistrias’s own autobiographical sketch, “Aperçu de ma carrière publique.” 9 On the Triplex Confinium, see Rieber, The Struggle for the Eurasian Borderlands, 301–14. See also Wendy Bracewell, “The Historiography of the Triplex Confinium.” 10 On the French Illyrian provinces, see Bundy, The Administration of the Illyrian Provinces.

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University of Padua, Kapodistrias returned home to work as a physician. Following the Russian occupation of Corfu in 1799, the young Greek gained employment at a Russian military hospital. Kapodistrias’s abilities and liberal education soon recommended him for the government service, which he began as the Secretary of the Legislative Council of the Septinsular Republic created under the joint protection of the Ottoman and Russian Empires in 1800. Between 1803 and 1807, he performed the functions of the Republic’s State Secretary for Foreign Affairs.11 Kapodistrias’s pro-Russian orientation reflected his conviction that the liberation of Greece could happen only with the help of the Russian Empire. Therefore, he refused to enter French service after the Tilsit treaty of 1807 put an end to the Septinsular Republic. Instead, in 1808, he accepted the offer of Russian Chancellor N.P. Rumiantsev and joined the Russian diplomatic service in the rank of state councilor. By the Congress of Vienna, he had become Alexander I’s state secretary in charge of Russia’s Eastern policy. The political outlook of Kapodistrias was formed under the influence of Enlightenment ideas and reflected the complex process of modern Greek identity formation. Critical of French revolutionary excesses, he preferred to pursue national emancipation and a more liberal political order through gradual reform and educational activities. Kapodistrias envisioned a new order for post-revolutionary Europe based on nation-states with constitutional governments; yet he remained an enlightenment thinker and politician insofar as he deemed these transformations possible only “from above,” that is, through governmental reforms.12 Despite his commitment to the cause of Greek emancipation, Kapodistrias was not a democrat and sought to achieve his goals by securing the support of traditional rulers rather than through mobilization of the masses. Characteristically, Kapodistrias achieved his most significant results when he managed to influence the mind of Alexander I. Kapodistrias, thus, remained within the political paradigm of enlightened absolutism even if the ultimate implications of his plans led to a fundamentally new political order. Kapodistrias began to formulate his vision of Russia’s Eastern policy even before he became Alexander I’s de facto foreign minister. In the late 1800s, 11 Stanislavskaia, Rossiia i Gretsiia, 106–11. 12 Grimsted, “Kapodistrias and the New Order.”

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Kapodistrias lived in St. Petersburg and served at the College of Foreign Affairs; it was here that he wrote occasional policy papers for Chancellor Rumiantsev and spent his free time socializing in the small circle of Greek and other Balkan expatriates, in particular the family of Moldavian boyar Scarlat Sturdza.13 In a memorandum composed in 1810, Kapodistrias offered his thoughts on how to put an end to a protracted war with the Ottoman Empire, which appeared increasingly necessary in light of the impending confrontation with Napoleon. He argued that Phanariot support was crucial to the Porte’s long-term ability to withstand Russian military pressure. Lacking a fatherland, the Phanariots had every reason to defend the Ottoman empire that had offered them asylum. At the same time, as the heirs of Byzantium, the Phanariots viewed Moldavia and Wallachia as their rightful domains and were ready to defend them to the end, unless Russian policy offered them an alternative.14 Kapodistrias recognized that Russia could not offer the Phanariots a position in its central government comparable to the one they held in the Ottoman Empire. Instead, he suggested attracting them to the Russian side by promising them consolidated political and cultural dominance in the principalities, which would be detached from the Ottoman Empire and placed under Russian protection. In parallel, Kapodistrias outlined a broad reform program that included the “recognition of the property rights, classification of proprietors, institution of different orders of citizenship, and creation of assemblies that would codify national laws and elaborate necessary supplements to them.” Kapodistrias’s reform project also included “the first elements of public education, the creation of economic, agrarian, and literary societies, as well as the foundation of big commercial concerns.”15 The ultimate goal of all these measures was to secure the rights of property in Moldavia and Wallachia and thereby encourage the Phanariots to invest their fortunes in real estate as opposed to gold, to which they had hitherto been constrained. According to Kapodistrias, the possibility to become major land proprietors would entice the Phanariots to settle permanently in the principal13 Arsh, Kapodistriia, 18. 14 Kapodistrias, “Mémoire sur les moyens qui peuvent concourir à terminer la guerre actuelle entre la Russie et la Porte,” January 31, 1810, Arkhiv Vneshnei Politiki Rossiskoi Imperii (further cited as AVPRI), f. 133, op. 468, d. 13377, ll. 237–240v. 15 Kapodistrias, “Mémoire sur les moyens,” l. 243v.

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ities and produce “a colony of highly active, entrepreneurial, and wealthy people that would re-invigorate the commerce of Crimea, Bessarabia, Moldavia, and Wallachia.”16 In order to implement this vision, Kapodistrias suggested entrusting negotiations with the Phanariots to an individual of remarkable origin and fortune, who had distinguished himself in Russian service.17 However utopian Kapodistrias’s proposal may appear in retrospect, it is nevertheless important for understanding his perspective regarding the principalities by the time he became Alexander I’s state secretary in charge of Asian affairs some four years later. His plan with respect to Moldavia and Wallachia continued the line of thought represented by Rigas Velestinlis, which conceived of Greece in terms of a great neo-Hellenic cultural and political space rather than as the predominantly ethnically Greek territories of Morea and the Aegean Archipelago. The implementation of Kapodistrias’ vision would have reaffirmed the political and cultural dominance of the reinvigorated Phanariot class over the principalities. Economically, the reconsolidation of the Phanariot regime under Russian hegemony almost certainly would have triggered Greek immigration to Moldavia and Wallachia on an even greater scale than actually happened two decades later, when political reforms opened a path for safe investment. On the other hand, the continued political monopoly of the Phanariots in the principalities would have perpetuated the conflict between them and the autochthonous boyars. The hierarchy of enemies of the emergent Romanian national movement would have been dominated by the Greeks, which would have offered the Russian Empire the role as arbiter of interethnic relationships similar to the role of the Habsburg monarchy in post-Ausgleich Austria-Hungary. M.I. Kutuzov’s victory over the Ottomans at Rushchuk in June 1811 and the surrender of the Ottoman army at Slobozia the following November helped to speed up the Russian–Ottoman peace negotiations at the time when Russian–French relations reached a breaking point. In these circumstances, Kapodistrias formulated a plan of military diversion against the Illyrian provinces of the French Empire with the purpose of distracting French forces from the main theater of battle and undermining French influence in European Turkey. Kapodistrias argued that Napoleon’s plan for 16 Ibid., 243v, note. 17 Ibid., 244v.

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a universal monarchy represented no less of a threat to the Ottoman Empire than it did to Russia, which made the sultan Russia’s potential ally in such a project. To secure the Porte’s cooperation, he suggested returning Moldavia and Wallachia to the Ottomans as soon as they confirmed Russian protection over the principalities and conceded to St. Petersburg the same rights with respect to Serbia.18 Once the Russian–Ottoman agreement was reached, Kapodistrias suggested dispatching one part of the Danubian army to Illyria across lands populated by Slavs, “whose language and religion predisposes them toward Russia.”19 In the meantime, the other part of army had to be sent to the Adriatic to capture Corfu, Bocca di Cattaro, and Ragusa in collaboration with the British navy. Even if the proposed diversion failed to make Austria abandon its alliance with Napoleon, Kapodistrias expected to neutralize the Hungarians, by promising them the preservation of their ancient privileges. The diversion in the Illyrian provinces could also positively influence Tyrolians and the Swiss as well as encourage Spanish resistance against Napoleon.20 In case the Ottomans refused to cooperate, Kapodistrias suggested forming a corps of Bulgarian and other Slavic volunteers, dispatching the Baltic and the Black Sea fleets to the straits of the Bosporus and the Dardanelles, and organizing an uprising in European Turkey. The presence of the heir apparent to the Russian throne (tsesarevich) in the Russian army on the Danube could enhance the effectiveness of more mundane means of influence on the Porte’s subjects, such as direct payments to the Southern Slavic leaders or negotiations with the Ottoman pashas. In parallel, the Russian government had to spread rumors about all these measures through the Phanariots, Greeks, and Armenians in order to alarm the public in Constantinople and pressure the Porte to sign the proposed treaty.21 18 Kapodistrias, “Mémoirе sur une diversion à opérer dans le Midi de l‘Europe en cas de guerre entre la Russie et la France, 1811,” AVPRI, f. 133. op. 468. d. 11607, ll. 301. 19 Ibid., l. 302. 20 Ibid., ll. 303v–304. 21 Kapodistrias, “Mémoirе sur une diversion à opérer,” ll. 305v–308v. Despite the Pan-Slavic connotations of his plan, Kapodistrias was certainly not a Pan-Slavist. He was skeptical of the possibility of forming a corps of 50,000 or 60,000 people out of the Southern Slavs as was suggested by some early Pan-Slavists among the Russian diplomats and military men. In general, he did not overestimate the qualities of Southern Slavs or the power of the Orthodox church over them. A highly educated Greek, he viewed these peoples rather disparagingly as “armed semi-barbarians,” who could help Russia only if they were well-organized and well-paid. Kapodistrias, “Mémoirе sur une diversion à opérer,” ll. 302–302v.

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This plan reached Alexander I’s attention by way of Admiral P.V. Chichagov, who, like Kapodistrias, was a friend and neighbor of Scarlat Sturdza. The son of Catherine the Great’s commander of the Baltic Navy, Chichagov followed his father’s footsteps and became the first Minister of the Navy under Alexander I in 1802. His conflicts with other ministers forced Chichagov to retire from his post in 1811, yet he retained access to the emperor in his capacity as general-adjutant. In April 1812, Alexander I appointed Chichagov as the new commander of the Danubian army and the governor-general of Moldavia and Wallachia. The emperor instructed Chichagov to eliminate abuses in the administration of the principalities, conclude an alliance with the Ottoman Empire, and mobilize the Balkan Slavs against both France and the Austrian Empire that had just sided with Napoleon.22 To that end, Chichagov was authorized to promise independence to the Slavs, the creation of a Slavic kingdom, as well as offer decorations, military ranks, and monetary rewards to their leaders.23 However, this ambitious undertaking was cut short by the peace of Bucharest that was hastily concluded by Chichagov’s predecessor Kutuzov on May 16, 1812. The treaty stipulated the return of Wallachia and most of Moldavia to the Ottoman Empire and the restoration of the Porte’s authority over Serbia (on the condition of autonomy), which disappointed Serb rebel leader Karadjordje Petrović and made the mobilization of Balkan Slavs practically impossible. The treaty also did not contain a single word about the Russian– Ottoman alliance and the British ambassador in Constantinople showed no interest in the idea of the Illyrian diversion. Before long, Alexander I ordered Chichagov to evacuate the principalities and join the main Russian forces confronting Napoleon’s Grande Armée. The Bessarabian Experiment of Alexander I During the passage of the Russian troops through Bessarabia, Chichagov seized the opportunity to shape the future administration of the newly

22 The anti-Austrian dimension of the project developed in response to news of the conclusion of the ­Franco–Austrian alliance. See Krylova, “Proect adriaticheskoi ekspeditsii admirala P.V. Chichagova.” 23 Chichagov, Mémoires inédits, 6–9. See also Chichagov, “Iz zapisok admirala Chichagova.” See also Kasso, Rossiia na Dunae, 146–64.

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acquired territory.24 In this, Chichagov was greatly aided by Kapodistrias who had joined the admiral as the head of his diplomatic chancellery. Their proposed measures revealed the desire to compensate for the deficiencies of the Bucharest treaty that left the future of Russia’s co-religionists in the Ottoman Empire uncertain. Chichagov and Kapodistrias sought to turn Bessarabia into a refuge for those who compromised themselves in the eyes of the Ottoman authorities because of their cooperation with the Russians during the war. However, the new province was meant to be more than mere compensation for Russia’s Balkan allies and clients. Like the French Empire’s Illyrian provinces on the opposite side of the Balkans, Bessarabia had to project imperial influence in the region. In order to fulfil this function, the newly annexed province had to serve as a showcase of benevolent Russian rule. In his correspondence with Alexander I, Chichagov characterized Bessarabia as “a beautiful country” that offers all sorts of advantages, yet “should be given some respite.” Alongside the three-year suspension of taxes and the province’s exemption from the military draft, Chichagov and Kapodistrias insisted on preserving local institutions: “One should not do or arrange anything that would not be in accordance with local needs and local means.”25 Accordingly, “The Rules for the Temporary Government of Bessarabia” elaborated by Kapodistrias and his secretary and friend A.S. Sturdza in the summer of 1812 did not pursue the goal of bringing “local institutions in accordance with those of Russia.” Instead they based the provincial government on local laws and made Romanian the language of administrative affairs and the courts.26 In parallel, the first civil governor of Bessarabia, Chichagov’s friend and neighbor Scarlat Sturdza, was instructed to “draw the attention of the neighboring peoples to this province.” “The last Russian–Ottoman war preoccupied the thoughts of Moldavians, Wallachians, Greeks, Bulgarians, and Serbs,” noted the instructions, yet the conclusion of peace and the withdrawal of the Russian army to confront Napoleon in the north “could bring the spirit of these people down and 24 On Russian policy in Bessarabia during the 1810s, see Jewsbury, The Russian Annexation of Bessarabia, 55–118; Kushko and Taki, Bessarabiia v sostave Rossiiskoi imperii, 108–27. 25 Chichagov to Alexander I, August 6, 1812, SIRIO 6 (1871): 28–29. 26 Egunov, “Materialy dlia noveishei istorii Bessarabii,” in Zapiski Bessarabskogo statisticheskogo komiteta, 3: 109–10. On Sturdza’s role in the elaboration of the “Rules,” see Ghervas, Réinventer la tradition, 62–63.

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allow our enemies to overtake them.” It was, therefore, necessary to “preserve the attachment of these peoples to Russia and protect them from the influence of our enemies.”27 The fact that Alexander I bothered to approve the “Rules for the Temporary Government of Bessarabia” at the height of Napoleon’s invasion of Russia suggests that he viewed the newly acquired territory as a Russian counterpart to the French Illyrian provinces. The Bessarabian experiment initiated at the suggestion of Chichagov and Kapodistrias continued in the years that followed despite the distractions of the European campaigns of 1814–15 and the Vienna Congress. Whereas Chichagov’s poor performance as the army commander at Berezina in November 1812 put a definitive end to his career, Kapodistrias became Alexander I’s state secretary in charge of Russia’s Eastern policy in 1814. This gave him the opportunity to defend Bessarabian autonomy in early 1816, when the emperor finally turned to the administrative matters that had long demanded his attention. By this time, administrative chaos and the abuses of officials in the newly acquired province placed the ambitious visions of 1812 on the verge of total failure.28 Kapodistrias explained this by “the vices characteristic of this country that had so far received only a Moldavian, that is, Turkish, upbringing.”29 To correct the situation, the Alexander I appointed the military governor of Podolia Lieutenant-General A.N. Bakhmetiev as his viceroy in Bessarabia with the goal of “establishing a civil government in the province that would accord with its mores, customs, and laws.” The viceroy was authorized to address the emperor directly on all questions pertaining to the administration of the region.30 Bakhmetiev was instructed to form the government of the province out of local inhabitants whose knowledge of the local traditions could contribute to the final definition of provincial autonomy. “Can one really hope,” asked the instructions (apparently written by Kapodistrias or A.S. Sturdza), “that the happiness of a people be based on constraint and that a people change its 27 “Pravila dlia veremnnogo upravleniia Bessarabiei,” 111. 28 For a more detailed discussion, see Kushko and Taki, Bessarabiia v sostave Rossiiskoi imperii, 154–59. 29 “. . . strana poluchila tol’ko moldavskoe, t. e. turetskoe vospitanie.” Kapodistrias to the Viceroy of Bessarabia A.N. Bakhmetiev, June 4, 1816, in Kyrzhanovskaia and Russev, Istoriia Moldavii, 2:206. 30 See “Vysochaishee povelenie, ob’iavlennoe Komitetu Ministrov grafom Arakcheevym. O naznachenii v Bessarabskoi oblasti polnomochnogo namestnika, May 26, 1816,” PSZ, ser. 1, no. 26289, 33:866–68.

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character and adjust it to a completely foreign form of government?”31 The most important task of the viceroy was the elaboration of a new Bessarabian Statute that had to replace the “Rules for the Government of Bessarabia” of 1812. The statute had to define the rights and duties of all classes in the population, stipulate the mode of election for the provincial government and district administrator positions, provide for the dispensation of justice in the Romanian language, and, on the basis of local laws, contain provisions for an internal police and border guard service.32 The appointment of the military governor of Podolia as the Bessarabian viceroy in the spring of 1816 was a significant decision. Annexed to the Russian Empire as a result of the second partition of Poland, Podolia was a region dominated by the Polish nobility. During the first two decades following annexation, relations between the Russian Empire and the Polish elite remained undefined, particularly when taking into consideration Russia’s confrontation with Revolutionary and Napoleonic France. Alexander I responded to the creation of the Grand Duchy of Warsaw in 1807 by signaling to the Poles his intention to grant them wide autonomy.33 Despite Polish participation in Napoleon’s campaign against Russia, the tsar proceeded to create a constitutional Kingdom of Poland that was bound to the Russian Empire only through personal union.34 The tsar also considered the possibility of incorporating into this new kingdom the territories Russia had annexed in the course of the second and third partitions of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.35 In 1816, the policy of cooperation with Polish elites in the western borderlands was, thus, in full swing, and the decision to confer the Bessarabian viceroyalty to the governor of 31 See “Zapiska prilozhennaia k Vysochaishemu reskriptu Ego Imperatorskogo Velichestva i sluzhashchaia polnomochnomu Namestniku rukovodstvom k obrazovaniiu pravleniia Bessarabskoi oblasti,” May 21, 1816, RGIA, f. 1286, op. 2, d. 70, l. 26. 32 Ibid., ll. 30–33. 33 On Napoleon’s policies in Poland, see Blackburn, Napoleon and the Szlachta. On St. Petersburg’s policies in the “Polish” gubernias, see Dolbilov and Miller, Zapadnye okrainy Rossiiskoi imperii, 75–78. For a comparative study of the Russian, Austrian, and Prussian policies in the territories of the former ­Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, see Wadycz, The Lands of Partitioned Poland. On Alexander I’s plans to offer the Poles autonomy on the eve of Napoleon’s invasion of Russia, see Zawadzki, A Man of Honour, 194–95, 200–4. 34 On the creation of the Kingdom of Poland and its existence in the Russian Empire, see Dolbilov and Miller, Zapadnye okrainy Rossiiskoi imperii, 83–94; Thackeray, Antecedents of Revolution. 35 This plan caused great discontent among the Russian nobility and was one of the sources of the Decembrist conspiracy. Dolbilov and Miller, Zapadnye okrainy Rossiiskoi imperii, 90–91.

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Podolia meant that the emperor considered Bessarabia as part of Russia’s western borderlands. The instructions given to Bakhmetiev noted that the policy with respect to Bessarabia “is fully in accordance with the one that his Imperial Majesty chose to adopt with respect to other territories acquired during His reign.”36 This was a clear reference to the Grand Duchy of Finland and the Kingdom of Poland, which implied that the Bessarabian nobility was supposed to play the same role in the provincial government as did Polish and Finnish elites in their respective regions. The appointment of the Podolian governor as the Bessarabian viceroy indicated the emperor’s willingness to respect the privileges of the Bessarabian nobility, as did his order to elaborate the statute on the basis of the local laws, customs, and traditions. Bessarabian autonomy was, therefore, conditioned by Alexander I’s policies toward Polish elites, which itself represented a response to Napoleon’s Polish policies. There was not only a generic similarity, but also a direct connection: Bakhmetiev brought with him to Bessarabia his Polish chancellery, the head of which, N.A. Krinitskii, was the actual author of the Bessarabian Statute of 1818.37 Upon his arrival to Kishinev, Bakhmetiev focused on the elaboration of the statute. The fruit of these efforts was the “Project of the Main Foundations for the Formation of the Bessarabian Province” that eventually became the Bessarabian Statute of 1818.38 The statute assumed the creation of the Supreme Council consisting of the viceroy, the civil governor of the province, the vice governor, the presidents of the criminal and civil courts, and four deputies from the Bessarabian nobility elected every three years. The Council represented both the highest administrative body and the court of last appeal. Decisions that did not involve transgressing existing laws were executed immediately although they could be appealed at the State Council or through the Minister of Justice. Most of the members of the criminal and civil courts of the province had to be elected by the nobility as were members of the district administrative boards (ispravnichestva) and district courts.39 The task of drawing up the statute developed the principles of the “Rules” of 1812 and assumed the creation of an autonomous form of government 36 37 38 39

“Zapiska prilozhennaia k Vysochaishemu reskriptu,” RGIA, f. 1286, op. 2, d. 70, l. 25–26. Vigel’, “Zamechaniia na nyneshnee sostoianie Bessarbii,” 6:4 (separate pagination). Egunov “Materialy dlia noveishei istorii Bessarabii,” 147. Ibid., 150, 152.

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for Bessarabia that would account for local peculiarities. After a preliminary approval in St. Petersburg in 1817, the statute was put into force in late April 1818 by Alexander I himself after his meeting with representatives of the Bessarabian nobility. The adoption of the statute became a contract of sorts between the emperor and the local elite. Bessarabian noblemen secured wide participation in local administration on the basis of indigenous legal traditions and administrative practices. In return, the emperor expected them not to consider “the national character” of the province and “the special form of its government” as a narrow estate privilege. In his official letter to Bakhmetiev, Alexander I stressed that “this enormous gift and all related benefits should not be limited to only one group of inhabitants. All should partake in just measure.”40 The rhetoric of “national government” that accompanied the elaboration and introduction of the Bessarabian Statute of 1818 served to fill in the voids left by Russian imperial myths. By the turn of the nineteenth century (and in some cases even earlier), the potential of these mythologies was exhausted as Russian expansion moved beyond its traditional symbolic limits. By no stretch of the imagination could the annexation of Finland, Poland, or Bessarabia be presented as the “gathering of the Russian lands” or claimed as the inheritance of the Golden Horde.41 In order to legitimize the annexation of these territories, the Russian autocracy needed to incorporate elements of local political traditions into imperial ideology and, at the same time, give the latter a more or less systematic form. To achieve these somewhat contradictory objectives, Alexander I adopted the political language of contemporary constitutionalism giving it an altogether untraditional interpretation.42 The constitutional settlements adopted in 1809 in Finland and in 1815 in the Kingdom of Poland sought to secure cooperation with regional elites and provide potential models of local government for the rest of the empire. Alexander I’s speech at the opening of Polish Sejm in 1818, which was written by the emperor himself with some input from Kapodistrias, reveals the fundamental assumptions of this kind of “constitutionalism”: 40 “Reskript Aleksandra I A.N. Bakhmetievu,” April 29, 1818, PSZ, ser. 1, no. 27357, 35:222. 41 Kappeler, “Formirovanie Rossiskoi imperii.” 42 There is a vast literature on the political reform projects under Alexander I. See, among others, Predte­ chenskii, Ocherki obshchestvenno-politicheskoi istorii Rossii; Minaeva, Pravitel’stvennyi konstitutsionalism; Mironenko, Samoderzhavie i reformy; LeDonne, “Administrative Regionalization in the Russian Empire.”

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The organization that previously existed in your country allowed the immediate introduction of the one I give to you. In this way, I put into practice the principles of these liberal (zakonno-svobodnyie) institutions, which have always been the object of my care and whose salutary influence I hope to extend, with the help of God, to all the countries that providence entrusted to me. You give me a means to demonstrate to my country what I have been preparing for her and what it will obtain as soon as the aspects of this important necessary work are effected.43

One can see that: 1) the emperor found it possible to grant a constitution to the Kingdom of Poland on the basis of the country’s previous political organization; 2) the emperor found the Kingdom of Poland to be more civilized than other territories of the empire, which is why the Polish constitution was to serve as model and example for the forthcoming liberal institutions of the rest of the empire; 3) the emperor considered both the Polish Constitution and similar legal regime that he intended to introduce in the rest of the Russian Empire as his benevolent grant rather than a concession to any “demands,” or a recognition of any historical privileges. Despite the promises it contained, the Warsaw speech of Alexander I provoked the resentment of the Russian nobility and officialdom. This reaction reminds one of the clashes between the Great Russian nobility, on the one hand, and the nobility of the Baltic provinces and the Ukrainian Cossack starshina, on the other, over their privileged status during the Legislative Commission convoked by Catherine the Great in 1767.44 On both occasions, the representatives of the Russian noblemen opposed a vision of the imperial space in which the western parts of the empire were deemed more enlightened than and served as models for the core areas.45 The role of Kapodistrias in the formulation of this approach was not a secret and provoked a very characteristic response on the part of Vasil Karazin: “Well, well, you cursed Greek soul, Mister D’Istria! Here is how you made our Alexander speak from the 43 See Alexander I’s speech at the opening of Polish Sejm on March 15, 1818, RGIA, f. 1005, op. 1, d. 7, ll. 2–4. 44 Isabel de Madariaga, Russia in the Age of Catherine the Great, 172–73. On the administrative assimilation of these territories, and the tensions that this process occasioned, see Thaden, Russia’s Western Borderlands, 5–31, 96–120, 169–200; Kohut, Russian Centralism and Ukrainian Autonomy. 45 For the reaction of the Russian nobility to Alexander I’s speech before Polish Sejm see Mironenko, Samoderzhavie i reformy, 159–61.

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miserable throne of Warsaw! That Hell takes you, scoundrel! Such are the sugarloaves (sakhari) that surround the emperor instead of the Panins, the Zubovs etc. etc., who are left idling in their dens, sucking their paws [like bears in hybernation]. Can’t the emperor really stand anything Russian?”46 As if responding to the Russian nobility’s resentment toward the privileges accorded to the elites of the western borderlands, Alexander I ordered his commissioner in the Kingdom of Poland N.N. Novosil’tsev to begin work on the Constitutional Charter that assumed the creation of representative assemblies in all parts of the empire.47 Elaborated in 1818–20 by Novosil’tsev’s chancellery, which included P.A. Viazemskii, the Charter assumed the division of the empire into viceroyalties including several gubernias, each organized “according to population, distance, and size, and taking into consideration the mores, customs, and particular local laws that bring people together.”48 Apart from all-imperial institutions, each viceroyalty was supposed to have its own executive, legislative, and judicial bodies. The legislative assemblies of the viceroyalties (which were characteristically called sejms) had to take part in the elaboration of local laws, the final approval of which depended entirely on the emperor.49 The viceroyal principle of organizing the political space of the empire represented the exact opposite of the reforms of the first part of Alexander I’s reign.50 Whereas the creation of ministries and of the State Council in 1802–11 was a step toward greater centralization and bureaucratization, the proposed division of empire into viceroyalties was likely to strengthen provincial elites and can thus be seen as a return to the “empire of nobles” (dvorianskaia imperia) under Catherine the Great. In fact, the Constitutional Charter of Alexander I was remarkably similar to Catherine’s Gubernia Reform of 1775. This reform allowed the provincial nobility broad participation in local government and, 46 Karazin, uses the word “sakhar” (sugarloaf) metaphorically to suggest that Kapodistrias and other foreigners around Alexander I may appear to be sweet as sugar, but are still rascals. Cited in Sirotkin, “Bor’ba v lagere konservativnogo russkogo,” 41. On the attitudes of Russian elites toward Kapodistrias, see Arsh, Rossiia i bor’ba Gretsii za osvobozhdenie, 227–38. 47 On the charter, see Vernadsky, Gosudarstvennaia ustavnaia gramota Rossiiskoi imperii; Mironenko, Samoderzhavie i reformy, 163–77. 48 Schiemann, Gosudarstvennaia ustavnaia gramota Rossiiskoi imperii, 11. 49 Ibid., 25. 50 In a certain sense, the Charter represented a development in the “Project for the Establishment of Viceroyalties” that was elaborated in 1816 either by Novosil’tsev or the Minister of Police A.D. Balashev. ­Lukovskaia and Raskin, Institut general-gubernatorstva, 72.

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at the same time, abolished the administrative distinctiveness of some of the borderland regions. The Constitutional Charter likewise combined decentralization with the uniformization of administrative practices and legal regimes. Although local peculiarities had to serve as the basis for the formation of viceroyalties, this plan presumed the abolition of the Polish Constitutional Charter of 1815 on the grounds that it was unreasonable to have two constitutions in one empire.51 The Kingdom of Poland itself had to turn into one of the viceroyalties. The plans for the Constitutional Charter, thus, represented an attempt to trivialize the privileged status of the Kingdom of Poland, Finland, and Bessarabia by extending to the rest of the empire the political-administrative arrangements that were first tested in these borderlands. As the most ambitious of Alexander I’s reform projects, the Constitutional Charter for the Russian Empire was ready by 1820, but it was never put into effect. Moreover, the decade that followed witnessed the significant curtailment of the regional autonomy of the various western borderlands, including Bessarabia.52 In order to understand this drastic change, it is necessary to turn to Russia’s foreign policy in the post-1815 period. Here again, Kapodistrias played a crucial role in his capacity as Russia’s de facto foreign minister. As one of Alexander’s two state secretaries (alongside with K.V. Nesselrode), Kapodistrias’s main focus was Russia’s Eastern policy. Grounded in a broader vision of post-Napoleonic Europe, his policy had important implications for Moldavia and Wallachia. At the same time, the principalities became the place where the fate of this policy and Kapodistrias’s political career was decided in the early 1820s. Russia’s Eastern Policy and Stroganov’s Mission The first three or four years after the conclusion of the Russian–Ottoman War of 1806–12 represented a low point in Russia’s Eastern policy. The attention of Alexander I, his diplomats, and military men was first absorbed by the confrontation with Napoleon and then by the new Europe-wide peace 51 The draft of the corresponding decree was published in Vernadsky, Gosudarstvennaia ustavnaia gramota, 42–43. 52 For a more detailed discussion of the connection between Bessarabian autonomy, the Constitutional Charter of the Russian Empire, and other projects of political reform during this period, see Taki, “Construction of Center and Periphery in the Reign of Alexander I.”

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settlement. The Ottomans took advantage of this hiatus in order to crush the Serbian uprising in 1813 and rebuild their positions on the Danube. The newly appointed hospodars of Moldavia and Wallachia, Scarlat Callimachi (1812–19) and Ioan Caragea (1812–18), sought above all to satisfy the Ottoman demands for material and labor and effectively ignored the Bucharest peace treaty that stipulated the principalities’ exemption from tribute for two years. For their part, the Russian envoy in Constantinople A.Ia. Italinskii and the consul general in Moldavia and Wallachia A.A. Pini could do little but register the multiple violations of the treaty clauses. This situation could hardly satisfy representatives of the Balkan elites who had previously become involved with the Russians and were now chafing in exile. The end of the Napoleonic wars in Europe and the Congress of Vienna gave them an opportunity to internationalize the Greek question and draw the attention of Alexander I to the Balkan region once again. Others took advantage of the appointment of the new Russian envoy to Constantinople G.A. Stroganov in early 1816 to influence the direction of his mission. Their memoranda offered a critique of pre-1812 Russian policy and suggested a course of action in the principalities grounded in a broader vision of Russia’s dominance in the Balkans. The first of such memoranda was written by the former metropolitan of Wallachia Ignace. Despite his deposition in March 1812 and Alexander I’s order to move to Crimea, Ignace was retained in his post for several more months by Russian Commander in Chief Kutuzov. Nevertheless, the enmity of the Wallachian boyars made Ignace fear for his safety when the Russian troops withdrew from the principalities.53 In fall 1812, Ignace finally left Wallachia and went to Vienna during the congress to lobby on behalf of the Greek cause together with Kapodistrias, with whom he maintained a personal relationship ever since the latter’s service to the Septinsular Republic. Having settled in Italy, Ignace never abandoned his ambition to regain his metropolitanship and hoped that Russia would resume its active policy with respect to the Ottoman Empire.54

53 AVPRI, f. 321, op. 530/3, d. 105, “About the apprehension of the Metropolitan Ignace to remain in Wallachia after the evacuation of the Russian troops, 1812.” 54 On the activities of Ignace in Italy after 1814, see Kitromilides, “The Orthodox Church and the Enlightenment,” 12–24.

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According to Ignace, religion used to be the only factor that preserved the national distinctiveness of the Balkan Christians, yet the spread of the Enlightenment fostered patriotic feelings among them.55 In order to prevent the influence of non-Orthodox powers over the Balkan peoples, Russia had to avoid the mistakes it committed in the administration of the principalities during previous wars. Instead, of “threatening the Moldavians and Wallachians with all the rigors of military rule,” the basis of Russian policy should have been local legislation rooted in Roman law, the ancient customs of the countries, as well as the decrees ( firmans) of the sultan and the hospodars’ diplomas.56 In order to thwart Ottoman designs “to make Russia hated in the principalities,” it was necessary to secure the proper fulfilment of the Bucharest treaty; halt the invasions of the Danubian pashas; secure the collection of taxes in accordance with the old system established by hospodars Constantin Moruzi and Alexandru Ypsilanti after Kuchuk-Kainarji treaty of 1774; and create a quarantine along the Danube under the supervision the Russian and Austrian consuls.57 Intended to secure Russia’s southern provinces, these measures were to be combined with efforts to consolidate the loyalties of other Orthodox peoples, above all, the Greeks. Ignace recommended attracting the young Greeks to Russian educational institutions and donating to Greek philanthropic societies that supported Greek students in Western universities. Local authorities in Crimea and newly annexed Bessarabia had to establish Greek schools and printing presses as well as encourage commerce. Greece, in the words of Ignace, was “ready to listen to the language… that appealed to its mind and heart.”58 An even more ambitious, if less detailed, vision of Russia’s Eastern policy was formulated by the former hospodar of Wallachia Constantin Ypsilanti, who lived in Kiev ever since his deposition from the throne of Wallachia in 1807. Reluctant to abandon his princely ambitions, Ypsilanti encouraged the Russian emperor to adopt a more active Eastern policy in two memoranda

55 Metropolitan Ignace, “Mémoire sur l’état actuel de l’Empire Ottoman et sur les moyens d’y etablir l’influence russe,” October 27, 1814, AVPRI, f. 133, op. 468, d. 2309, l. 105v. 56 Metropolitan Ignace, “Précis historique de la dernière guerre entre la Russie et la Porte,” October 27, 1814, AVPRI, f. 133, op. 468, d. 2309, ll. 117–125v. 57 Metropolitan Ignace, “Mémoire sur l’état actuel de l’Empire Ottoman,” October 27, 1814, AVPRI, f. 133, op. 468, d. 2309, l. 107v. 58 Ibid. 110–110v.

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he submitted in April and May 1816.59 Ypsilanti considered the collapse of the Ottoman Empire inevitable and argued that neither its partition nor its preservation as a weak neighbor suited Russian interests. The former would overextend Russian borders, whereas the latter always gave European powers an opportunity to provoke the Ottoman Empire to new wars with Russia. Instead, Ypsilanti evoked Catherine’s “Greek project” and suggested attacking the Ottomans, occupying all their Balkan provinces, and restoring the Eastern Empire under the scepter of one of the emperor’s brothers. Whether Ypsilanti considered Catherine’s Greek project feasible or not, his personal interest consisted in regaining the throne of Moldavia or Wallachia (and possibly both). For this purpose, the former hospodar evoked the Balkan plans of Adam Czartoryski initially formulated in 1804–6, and suggested the creation of a “belt of small buffer states with a nearly independent status and armed forces, upon which Russia could rely in case of war.”60 Once Moldavia, Wallachia, and Serbia were consolidated in this way, Russia could then demand autonomy for Bulgaria, which would become “a new Serbia.”61 As a technical ruse aimed at the pacification of the Ottomans and the demonstration of Russia’s disinterest toward other powers, Ypsilanti advised the return of Bessarabia to Moldavia. Here again Ypsilanti’s vision of Russia’s Eastern policy was closely intertwined with his desire to return to the Moldavian throne. Yet another memorandum was written by Ypsilanti’s close collaborator Manuk Mirzoian (Manuk-Bey). Originally, a client of the famous notable (ayan) of Rushchuk (and eventually Grand Vizir) Mustafa Pasha Bairaktar, Manuk-Bey used this connection to become one of the most significant Ottoman bankers (sarraf ). At the time of the Russian–Ottoman War of 1806–12, Manuk-Bey monopolized commerce between Rushchuk and Bucharest and served as an important liaison between the two banks of the Danube. After the death of Mustafa Pasha in 1808, Manuk-bey entered Russian service on Ypsilanti’s recommendation. Intelligence informa59 Constantin Ypsilanti, “Aperçu sur l’état actuel de l’Empire Ottoman,” April 2, 1816, AVPRI, f. 133, op. 468, d. 2309, ll. 132–144v, and Constantin Ypsilanti, “Des relations de la Russie avec l’Empire ­Ottoman,” April 2, 1816, AVPRI, f. 133, op. 468, d. 2309, ll. 173–184. 60 On Czartoryski’s early plan of a “Union of Slavic peoples,” that would place both pre-Partition Poland and the Balkans under Russian aegis, see Zawadzki, A Man of Honour, 74–77. 61 Ypsilanti referred to Catherine’s policy toward Crimea allowing for the possibility of the eventual annexation of Moldavia and Wallachia.

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tion he supplied to the Russian army earned Manuk-Bey the cross of Saint Vladimir. After the conclusion of the peace of Bucharest, Manuk immigrated to Transylvania in 1813, and like Ignace, came to Vienna during the congress. There he obtained Alexander I’s permission and assistance to build an Armenian town in Bessarabia and was promoted to the rank of the actual state councilor. Although the planned town was never built, Manukbey continued to enjoy great respect among the Armenian merchants of the Danubian towns and supplied the Russian government with information about the situation in the principalities.62 Similar to Metropolitan Ignace, Manuk-Bey was critical of Russian policy in the principalities. To illustrate the ineffectiveness of the Russian protectorate system, he pointed to recent violations of the Bucharest treaty that called for the exemption of Moldavia and Wallachia from taxation for two years. According to the information he received, the caimacams (lieutenants) of Ioan Caragea and Scarlat Callimachi appointed after the conclusion of the peace of Bucharest immediately proceeded to collect taxes.63 In order to make the Porte return the unlawfully collected sums, Manuk-Bey suggested concentrating Russian troops on the border and demanding that the Moldavian territory between the Pruth and the Siret rivers be ceded to Russia.64 Alternatively, the Russian envoy to Constantinople could demand the deposition of Caragea and Callimachi and their replacement by hospodars elected by the boyars. Russia could condition its acceptance of the new candidates on their readiness to suspend taxes in accordance with the clauses of the Bucharest treaty.65 The memoranda of Metropolitan Ignace, Constantin Ypsilanti, and Manuk-Bey passed through the hands of Kapodistrias who was charged with Russia’s Eastern policy since the Congress of Vienna. Like these authors, he was in favor of a more active and assertive stance in Russia’s relations with the Ottomans. Already during the Congress he tried to convince the emperor to raise the issue of the Balkan peoples and, in particular, suggested that the Ottoman Empire fulfill the clauses of the Bucharest treaty, which stipulated 62 Miller, Mustafa Pasha Bairaktar, 200–1, and 422–23n69. 63 “L’annexe a la notice additionnelle ou mémoire pour servir d’instruction au Baron Stroganoff,” May 20, 1816, AVPRI, f. 133, op. 468, d. 2309, l. 229v. 64 Ibid., ll. 232–232v. Manuk-Bey pointed to the Austrian annexation of Bukovina in 1774 as precedent. 65 Ibid., ll. 233–233v.

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Serbian autonomy.66 Kapodistrias and A.S. Sturdza, who became his correspondent and confidant in this period, believed that there was no contradiction between Russia’s struggle against the revolutionary upheavals in Europe and its support for the Balkan peoples in their struggle for liberation from Ottoman rule. Since the latter were simple tributaries rather than subjects of the sultan, support for their cause was compatible with the policy of Holy Alliance, which was otherwise concerned with enforcing the loyalty of subjects to their sovereigns.67 Charged with the task of preparing instructions for Stroganov, Kapodistrias approached Alexander I with his vision of the goals driving Russia’s Eastern policy. He suggested using Ottoman violations of the Bucharest peace as a pretext for annulling this hastily concluded and unsatisfactory agreement altogether. Instead, Kapodistrias advised the tsar to demand from the Porte the conclusion of a new treaty, and back up this demand with a demonstration of force, if necessary. In order to “liberate Moldavians, Wallachians, and Serbs once and for all from the oppressive government,” Kapodistrias suggested transforming the Danubian principalities and Serbia into three allied states ruled by German princes, which would “reconcile all interests and eliminate any cause for suspicions.” The Porte could be compensated with the right to purchase provisions in the principalities at a moderate price. At the same time, one could “give these principalities a European existence” by placing them “under the guarantee not only of Russia and Austria, but also, if necessary, that of Britain and France.”68 By inviting other European powers to join in, Russia would disarm their jealousy and offer them an illustration of the policy that it would necessarily follow “when the time comes to give back to the Greeks the heritage of their ancestors.” In the meantime, the economic development of Moldavians, Wallachians, and Serbs would make other Ottoman Christians “seek the implementation of their age-old hopes in the justice and liberality of Russia.”69 Alexander I found Kapodistrias’s vision of Russia’s Eastern policy “well thought out” yet unacceptable since it required “firing the canon,” which com66 Kapodistrias, “Soobrazheniia po povodu noty otnositel’no Serbii” and “Proekt tsirkuliarnoi noty A.K. Razumovskogo uchastnikam Venskogo kongressa,” in Narochnitskii et al., Vneshniaia politika Rossii (further cited as VPR), ser 1, vol. 8, 193–95; 197–99. 67 Dostian, Russkaia obshchestvennaia mysl’, 162, 165. 68 See the account of this conversation in Kapodistrias’s, “Aperçu de ma carrière publique,” 210–11. 69 Ibid., 211–12.

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promised the still uncertain peace in Europe. “[The] revolutionaries would rejoice to see me battle the Turks,” the tsar said, signaling his unwillingness to compromise counter-revolutionary monarchical cooperation in Europe.70 This response demonstrates that the “sublime mysticism” of the Holy Alliance was more than a wily guise behind which Alexander I supposedly hid his realpolitik objectives.71 The tsar’s Eastern policy, whether out of virtue or necessity, corresponded to the conservative maxims of the post-Napoleonic settlement. Although the Holy Alliance did not include the Ottoman sultan, Alexander I refused to raise the question of the possible partition of the Ottoman Empire at the Congress of Vienna and in the years that followed.72 Kapodistrias had to abandon his project “with a heavy heart.”73 Although he supplied Stroganov with the memoranda written by Ignace, Ypsilanti, and Manuk-Bey, the instructions he wrote for the envoy differed substantially from these authors’ premises and his own convictions. Stroganov had to convince the Porte of the Russian emperor’s conciliatory attitude and his desire to contribute to the peace between the sultan and his Christian subjects through the fulfillment of the conditions of the Russian–Ottoman treaties.74 The instructions plainly excluded the possibility of war with the Ottoman Empire and deprived the envoy of the possibility to use the threat of war as a means of pressure on the Porte.75 The tsar’s conscious refusal to press his advantages could not fail to affect Stroganov’s negotiations with the Porte, which soon became deadlocked. The envoy had to settle infringements on Russian commercial interests, the mistreatment of Russian subjects in the Ottoman domains, violations of the Russian–Ottoman border in Asia, and the Porte’s failure to grant autonomy to Serbia as stipulated in the Bucharest treaty. With respect to the prin70 71 72 73 74

Ibid, 212. As argued by Kissinger, A World Restored, 159. On that subject, see Bourquin, Histoire de la Sainte-Alliance; Ley, Alexandre Ier et sa Sainte-Alliance. Kapodistrias, “Aperçu de ma carrière publique,” 212. In his rescript to Stroganov from June 30, 1816, Alexander I wrote that the fulfillment of the Bucharest treaty would bring about “the peace between the Porte and its own Christians subjects who will be satisfied thereby; its benevolent power will spread over the rebellious provinces that, at present, make her face a hard choice: to witness the partition of its possessions or contribute to the establishment of foreign influence there. By maintaining the Bucharest treaty, the Porte will liberate itself from this influence and, having re-established its status as an independent power, it will be able to use for its own benefit the enormous resources that it possesses.” VPR, ser. 2, 1:221. 75 See the instructions to Stroganov in VPR, ser. 2, 1:173–75.

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cipalities, Stroganov demanded that local inhabitants receive compensation for the illegal exactions of labor and material in the first postwar years; he also called for their two-year exemption from tribute that was accorded by the Bucharest peace treaty but ignored by the hospodars. Stroganov insisted that the Porte recognize the inviolability of representatives of the hospodars in Constantinople (likewise stipulated in the treaty). Finally, he demanded the fulfilment of the Bucharest (and the Kuchuk-Kainarji) treaty clauses on the return of lands that had been absorbed into the raiale of the Ottomans’ Danubian fortresses to their rightful owners, which the Porte had never bothered to fulfill. However, the Ottomans refused to discuss any of these issues until Russia returned the Asiatic littoral of the Black Sea with its fortresses, and they rejected Stroganov’s proposal to discuss both Russian and Ottoman demands together.76 The general tenor of Russia’s Eastern policy after 1815 not only did not permit Stroganov to secure redress for past violations of the treaty, but also affected his ability to prevent new infringements. Characteristic in this respect was the exchange that took place between Stroganov, the Porte, and the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs on the violations of the financial clauses of the hatt-i sherif of 1802 that was confirmed by the treaty of Bucharest in 1812. Even though the hatt-i sherif expressly abolished all taxes that had been introduced in the principalities since 1783, the Moldavian hos­ podar Callimachi attempted to increase the amount of indirect taxes (the so-called rusumaturi) by one million piastres, which led the Russian consul in Iaşi A.N. Pizani to protest this move in November 1817.77 A month later, Russian consul general Pini protested a similar violation of the hatt-i sherif of 1802 by Wallachian hospodar Ioan Caragea.78 The reports of the consuls 76 The summary of Stroganov’s negotiations is found in the circular memorandum that the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs sent to its representatives abroad at the end of 1819. See “Des relations de la Russie avec la Porte Ottomane et la Perse,” December 23, 1819, in VPR, ser. 2, 3:212–13; see also “Exposé sommaire des relations entre la Russie et la Porte depuis l’année 1812 et énoncé de l’opinion de l’empereur sur l’état actuel de négociation,” December 27, 1819, December 23, 1819, in VPR, ser. 2, 3:285– 89. Stroganov presented this to the Ottoman government during the conference on February 19, 1820. 77 Pizani to Callimachi, November 17, 1817, in VPR, ser. 2, 2:66–68; Stroganov to Nesselrode, January 2, 1818, in Documente privitoare la istoria românilor, 18:374–75. 78 See Pini to Caragea, December 20, 1817 and Pini to Stroganov, December 25, 1817, in VPR, ser. 2, 2:121–22 and 130–35, respectively. Both Callimachi and Caragea did so by increasing the rusuma­turi, i. e., taxes on wine, honey, and sheep, which filled the hospodar’s treasury as opposed to the direct tax (bir) that paid the tribute to the Porte.

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informed Stroganov’s notes to the Porte from February 2 and April 12, 1818, which demanded that the hospodars observe the hatt-i sherif of 1802 and “always respect representations of the Russian envoy or the consuls” on matters of taxation.79 In his report to the foreign ministry, the envoy suggested applying pressure on the hospodars, whose seven-year tenure, established by the 1802 hatt-i sherif, was coming to an end. He mentioned the possibility of the early removal of the particularly defiant Callimachi and suggested several candidates to replace him.80 The envoy’s active stance, however, was not supported by the Russian foreign ministry. Already in January 1818, Nesselrode wrote to Stroganov that the deposition of the hospodars, which seemed like a logical punishment for their abuses, would be contrary to Russian interests since it would come before the expiration of the seven-year term of service that Russia itself upheld since 1802.81 Stroganov’s impetuosity must have worried Alexander I, who was eager to demonstrate his peaceful intensions in the East on the eve of the Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle which took place in the autumn of that year. As a result, Kapodistrias, who accompanied the emperor in his journey to Bessarabia and New Russia in April and May 1818, wrote to Stroganov from Odessa, informing him that his aggressive stance compromised Russia’s peaceful policy in the eyes of the European powers. The minister once again reaffirmed the impossibility of war with the Ottomans and suggested the adoption of an “amicable and passive stance” in negotiations with them. This policy was supposed to demonstrate to the European powers that Russia sought only to secure the fulfillment of the clauses of the Bucharest treaty and that the Russian government would respect the status quo even if the Porte disrupted the negotiations.82 Stroganov could do little more than express his regret that Russia “sacrifices its rights and interests in the East for the preservation of peace in Europe.”83 The Porte must have sensed that Stroganov’s demarches were unlikely to be backed by force and took the opportunity to undermine Russia’s 79 As the hatt-i sherif of 1802 prescribed. See Noradounghian, Recueil d’actes internationaux de l’Empire Ottoman, 2:64. For the two notes of Stroganov to the Porte, see Documente privitoare la istoria românilor, 18:375–76; and VPR, ser. 2, 2:318. 80 Stroganov to Nesselrode, February 16, 1818, in VPR, ser. 2, 2:238. 81 Nesselrode to Stroganov, January 5, 1818, in Documente privitoare la istoria românilor, 18:377. 82 Kapodiastrias to Stroganov, May 6, 1818, in VPR, ser. 2, 2:362–63. 83 Stroganov to Nesselrode, June 1, 1818, in VPR, ser. 2, 2:389.

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standing among its Orthodox subjects. Although the Ottoman government did not formally contest Russia’s protection in the Danubian principalities, its actions had a subversive effect. Thus, in November 1817, hospodar of Moldavia Scarlat Callimachi rejected the note from Russian consul Pizani that objected to the violations of the financial clauses of the hatt-i sherif of 1802, and the Porte was slow to respond to Stroganov’s energetic protests against this putative offense to Russia’s dignity.84 The Ottoman government immediately annulled the tax introduced by Callimachi, yet justified his rejection of Pisani’s note. The Porte also questioned the right of Russian consuls in the principalities to make “representations” to the hospodars and argued that this right belonged only to the Russian envoy in Constantinople.85 Russia’s Involvement in the Internal Administration of the Principalities Divisions among Moldavian and Wallachian elites represented another challenge for Russia’s Eastern policy after 1815. Issued under St. Petersburg’s pressure, the hatt-i sherif of 1802 illustrates well Russia’s ambiguous role in the struggle between the “native” and “foreign” elements of the upper classes of the two principalities. The decree called on the hospodars to “give public offices to native inhabitants of the country,” yet it also allowed them to appoint “honest, educated Greeks worthy of the office in question.” In his report to Alexander I, the Russian envoy in Contantinople V.S. Tomara admitted that “one could obtain more” from the Ottomans in terms of the autonomy of the principalities desired by the native boyars,86 but noted that “we should not forget about the services rendered by local Greeks that are useful for your Imperial Majesty.”87 84 As reported by Stroganov to Nesselrode, February 16, 1818, in VPR, ser. 2, 2:234. See also Stroganov’s note to the Porte of April 12, 1818, in VPR, ser. 2, vol. 2, 310–14. In his letter to Kapodistrias of February 1, 1818, Callimachi justified his decision to levy the tax by the depreciation of the Ottoman currency as well as the rise in prices on taxed products. VPR, ser. 2, 2:773, note 115. 85 The position of the Porte was expressed in its note to Russia of May 7, 1818, in VPR, ser. 2, 2:791, note 147. See also Stroganov to Nesselrode, April 15, 1818, Documente privitoare la istoria românilor, 18:380–81. 86 See Vianu, “Manifestări antifanariote în Moldova,” 921–22. 87 Tomara to Alexander I, September 16, 1806, in VPR, ser. 1, 1:302.

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The post-1812 period witnessed the continuation of earlier tensions between the Phanariot hospodars and their Greek clients, on the one hand, and the native boyars on the other. Immediately after he occupied the Wallachian throne, Ioan Caragea sent the leaders of the autochthonous boyars, Grigore Ghica, Constantin Bălăceanu, and Constantin Filipescu, into exile. In 1817, after an unsuccessful plot against the hospodar, Filipescu was expelled from the country and soon died under mysterious circumstances.88 Similar tensions existed in Moldavia, where the leading native boyars marginalized by hospodar Callmachi formed a party that denounced the hospodar’s abuses to the Russian authorities. These denunciations contained elements of reform that would later enter the agenda of Russian policy makers. In December 1816, Moldavian vornics Constantin Ghica and Lupul Balș complained about Callimachi’s abuses to Gavriil Bănulescu-Bodoni, who became the metropolitan of Kishinev and Hotin after 1812.89 The boyars pointed out that the hospodar ignored the two-year exemption from taxes stipulated in the Bucharest peace treaty, which deprived the principality of a financial respite it desperately needed after the war. According to Ghica and Balș, “the hospodar and his Greeks” exacted ten times the amount of food and construction materials that the principality was supposed to deliver to Constantinople and the Ottoman fortresses on the Danube and sold the balance.90 He also effectively monopolized the export of corn and livestock to Hungary, which ruined Moldavian merchants and caused famine among the principality’s inhabitants. To further augment his revenue, Callimachi initiated the massive sale of boyar titles and ranks not only to boyar servants (ciocoi), scribes, and petty local administrators (ocolași), but even to “grocers, piemen, butchers, and tanners,” which mocked venerable boyar families.91 Ghica and Balș also alleged that Callimachi’s abuses of his judicial prerogative earned him a million piastres and caused the misery of entire families. The hospodar did not hesitate to extract money from common bandits and then release them to resume their robberies.92 Aided by several boyars and the metropolitan, Callimachi 88 Vinogradov et al., Mezhdunarodnyie otnosheniia na Balkanakh, 84. 89 Ghica and Balș to Gavriil, December 15, 1816, in Dubrovin, Sbornik istoricheskikh materialov, 7:348. 90 “Zapiska prilozhennaia k pis’mu mitropolitu Gavriilu,” December 15, 1816, in Dubrovin, Sbornik istoricheskikh materialov, 7:350. 91 Ibid., 7:351. 92 Ibid., 7:352.

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ruthlessly suppressed any manifestations of opposition: one boyar representative who attempted to inform the Porte of the situation in Moldavia was arrested in Constantinople on the hospodar’s indication and disappeared. The desperate boyars asked Metropolitan Gavriil to draw the attention of Bessarabian Viceroy Bakhmetiev and Alexander I to their travails. They recognized the good intentions behind the tsar’s effort to extend the hospodar’s tenure to seven years, yet they argued that it caused their “utter ruin, since the greed of the hospodar grows year by year.”93 By the late 1810s, the party of native great boyars in Moldavia rallied behind Iordache Rosetti-Roznovanu. Himself a descendant of a Greek Phanariot family, Roznovanu served as the great treasurer (vistier) of Moldavia during the Russian occupation of the principalities in 1806– 12, but lost this position after the appointment of Scarlat Callimachi as the Moldavian hospodar.94 After 1812, he emerged as a principal critic of Phanariot policies and the defender of the historical privileges of Moldavia as defined by the early Ottoman “capitulations.” In 1817, he reported the illegal exactions of the Ottomans and fiscal abuses of Callimachi to Kapodistrias and Stroganov and encouraged the new Russian consul in Moldavia Pizani to take a harsh stance on the extraordinary tax of 1,000,000 piastres that the hospodar tried to introduce. 95 When Alexander I’s passed through Bessarabia in April 1818, Roznovanu’s emissaries came to Kishinev to secure Russia’s support against Callimachi.96 At this moment, Roznovanu addressed several memoranda on the reorganization of the fiscal administration and the broader political reform of the principality to Stroganov.97 According to Roznovanu, the appointment of Greek ispravniks by the Phanariot hospodars limited the great treasurer’s control over fiscal matters and was the source of all abuses. To eliminate them, it was necessary to exclude Greeks from all administrative positions 93 Ibid., 7:353–54. 94 On Iordache Rosetti-Rosznovanu, see Costache, “At the End of Empire,” 30–41. 95 Iordache Rosetti-Roznovanu, “Exposé des tributs de toute nature et des pertes supportées par la Moldavie,” after May 1817, in Georgescu, Mémoires et projets de réformes, 47–69. 96 See Kapodistrias’s report on the conversation with the diplomatic secretaries of Caragea and Callimachi on April 28 and 29, 1818, in Documente privitoare la istoria românilor, 18:389–90. The agent of the Moldavian hospodars denounced the intrigues of Roznovanu and Pizani. 97 Iordache Rosetti-Roznovanu, “Mémoire sur la Moldavie fait en 1818,” in Georgescu, Mémoires et projets de réforme, 71–80.

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and leave to them only those appointments that related specifically to the prince’s person. Roznovanu also argued for the limitation of the Ottoman commercial monopoly: deliveries of livestock and timber to Constantinople and the Ottoman fortresses on the Danube had to be paid according to the market prices in Iași. At the same time, the historical export of livestock to Germany had to be permitted again because that was the only means to secure the influx of foreign currency into the country.98 Roznovanu did not limit himself to matters of taxation and commerce and offered the Russian envoy some suggestions on the reform of the judiciary, which likewise suffered from the capriciousness of the Phanariot princes. The hospodars had to render final verdicts together with the general assembly of the boyars that would “unite the most righteous voices of the country” on the basis of “the laws of the land” (pravilele pămîntului).99 In a separate memorandum, Roznovanu outlined reforms of the divan that would render it more independent from the prince. In accordance with the principle of separation of powers, Roznovanu suggested dividing the divan into judicial and administrative chambers, which would acquire executive prerogatives only when united into a general assembly together with the oldest and grandest boyars currently not in service. In order to rationalize the administration, Rosetti-Roznovanu sought to define the functions of the administrative chamber and stressed the importance of collecting statistics on population, agriculture, and commerce. He also insisted on strict control of the assignment of scutelnici and supervision over the activities of the ispravniks, public funds, and philanthropic organizations.100 Roznovanu sought to reduce Moldavia’s relations with the Ottoman Empire to the payment of the small tribute stipulated by the first “capitulation” of 1512 and advocated complete internal self-government on the basis of local laws.101 In order to assure the Porte’s non-interference in Moldavian 98 Iordache Rosetti-Roznovanu, “În scurt luare aminte pentru oareșcări îndreptări care o milostivire ar pute face în administrația fiscală a Moldovei,” before November 16, 1818, in Oțetea, Documente privind istoria Romîniei, 1:121–24. 99 Ibid., 1:123. 100 Iordache Rosetti-Roznovanu, “Mémoire adressé à Stroganoff au sujet de la réorganisation administrative et judiciaire de la Moldavie,” in Georgescu, Mémoires et projets de réforme, 80–83. 101 Their scope had to extend to all the foreign subjects currently living in the principality and enjoying an extraterritorial status “because of the pretended identity of Moldavia and Turkey.” See Iorda­che Rosetti-Roznovanu, “État de la Moldavie,” in Georgescu, Mémoires et projets de réforme, 69.

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affairs, Roznovanu suggested restoring native rule and according to Russia the right to select the princes. Although the election of the hospodar by the Assembly of the Land was part of the original autonomy of the principality, Roznovanu argued that a return to this principle after centuries of “vicious government” could only cause disorder. For the same reason, the Russian government rather than the Assembly would have to establish the civil list of the hospodar, approve the taxes that the hospodar proposed in cooperation with the assembly of the first dignitaries of the land, and sanction all new legislation. One can see that in his desire to minimize Moldavia’s dependence upon the Ottoman Empire, the former treasurer was ready to give the Russian government effective control over the principality.102 However, the native boyars were not the only ones who used the rhetoric of political reform to advance their interests. The Phanariot princes themselves proved capable of using reform to their own advantage. To consolidate princely authority, both Caragea and Callimachi adopted new legal codes in the tradition of the Phanariot legislation of the eighteenth century, which combined Byzantine legal tradition with elements of modern European legal theory.103 Despite tensions with the Russian mission around issues of taxation, both Caragea and Callimachi also actively pursued the favor of Alexander I and his foreign minister. As the native party of Moldavia, the hospodars took advantage of the tsar’s passage through Bessarabia in April 1818 to win his favor. During their meeting with Kapodistrias, the diplomatic secretaries (postelnici) of Caragea and Callimachi sussed out the attitude of the Russian government concerning the prolongation of the hospodars’ terms beyond the seven years stipulated in the hatt-i sherif of 1802. The means through which the hospodars sought to achieve this goal reveals a striking mixture of intrigue and ingeniousness that characterized the Phanariots. To justify this project to the Russian government, their agents recalled the abuses and extortions that accompanied the appointment of each new hospodar. They did not expect Russia to openly demand the prolongation of their reigns. Instead, the postelnici suggested that the Russian mission demand that the Porte put an end to Phanariot rule in the principalities altogether and restore the ancient privileges of the Moldavian and 102 Ibid., 70–71. 103 See Georgescu, “Trăsăturile generale ale izvoarelor codului Callimachi.”

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Wallachian boyars, including the right to elect native princes. According to the calculations of Caragea and Callimachi, this provocative proposal would make the Porte appoint them hospodars for life to annoy Russia or else result in endless negotiations during which they would remain on their thrones. The postelnici confessed that this idea was planted in the minds of the hospodars by the agents of Austria and Great Britain, who sought to sabotage Russia’s negotiations with the Porte and check Russia’s influence in the East.104 Apart from this rather grotesque proposal, which Kapodistrias necessarily rejected, Caragea’s secretary submitted to the Russian government a much more serious plan for a new Russian–Ottoman convention and a special statute for Moldavia and Wallachia that would supplement the hatt-i sherif of 1802. The convention had to reaffirm Russian protection over Moldavia and Wallachia and advocate for the formation of a joint Russian– Ottoman commission to investigate the abuses and illegal exactions that occurred in the wake of the peace of Bucharest.105 The draft of the statute confirmed the historical privileges of the principalities as well as called for the restitution of lands absorbed into the Danubian raiale to their rightful owners and for prices on the deliveries of food and materials to the Ottomans fixed by the boyar commissions under the supervision of the Russian consul general. It also called for fixing the head tax and taxes in kind, the collection of taxes only by special officials of the treasury (zapcii), abolition of poslușnici, and limitations on the number of scutelnici, the distribution of taxation units (ludori), the concentration of all fiscal authority in the hands of the vistiers, and a committee of five native boyars to increase the treasurer’s autonomy from the hospodar. Only the native boyars were to be appointed to administrative offices, whereas the Greeks would monopolize those specifically oriented to the person of the hospodar. Finally, the project anticipated a settlement on the civil lists of the hospodars and reaffirmed their seven-year tenure. 106 The plan of the Wallachian hospodar contained many of the demands expressed by Roznovanu in Moldavia. It apparently undermines the neat 104 See the summary of Kapodistrias’s conversation with the secretaries of the Caragea and Callimachi on April 28 and 29, 1818, in Documente privitoare la istoria românilor, 18:388–93. 105 An excerpt from the draft of the convention is published in Documente privitoare la istoria românilor, 18:383. 106 The project is published in Documente privitoare la istoria românilor, 18:383–85.

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opposition between the Phanariot princes and their native boyar challengers that emerged earlier in this narrative. As the next chapter will demonstrate, the distinction between Phanariot and native elements among the elites of the principalities was indeed somewhat blurred. However, this particular project reflected Caragea’s individual predicament rather than the agenda of the Phanariots as a group. The enmity of Mahmud II’s powerful favorite Halet Effendi made Caragea fear for his life and contemplate escape. In order to secure a Russian passport once he reached Transylvania, Caragea offered his services to the Russian Foreign Ministry and disclosed to Kapodistrias his correspondence with Metternich’s agent Genz through which the Russian government became aware of Austrian and British efforts to sabotage Russian–Ottoman negotiations.107 In his comments on Caragea’s plans, Stroganov remarked that the regulation of deliveries to the Porte, treasury reform, and the regulation of appointments, however beneficial they may be to the principalities, were unlikely to be accepted by the Ottomans since there was no basis for them in prior Russian– Ottoman treaties and conventions. Instead, he suggested focusing on the restitution of the land that had been alienated into raiale, limitations on the number of scutelnici, fixing the civil list of the hospodar, and the confirmation of hospodars’ seven-year term.108 Overall, however, the envoy could not help but find Caragea’s plan highly agreeable, if only because it included some of the measures he had earlier tried to promote in the principalities. This applied, in particular, to the reservation of administrative appointments to native boyars. Already in May 1817, Stroganov ordered the Russian consul, General Pini, to encourage the hospodars to appoint Wallachians and Moldavians to the most important judicial and administrative positions as stipulated by the hatt-i sherif of 1802.109 However, it must be remembered that the same hatt-i sherif allowed hospodars to appoint Greeks of special merit to the same offices. Splitting the difference, Pini proposed limiting such appointments only to those offices that related to the person of the hospodar—the formula reproduced in Caragea’s memorandum several months later.110 107 See the summary of Caragea’s letter to Kapodistrias of June 17, 1817, in VPR, ser. 2, 2:751–52, note 48. Genz’s correspondence with Caragea is published in Prokesch-Osten, Dépêches inédites, vol. 1. 108 See Stroganov’s observations on the draft of the convention, May 1818, in Documente privitoare la istoria românilor, 18:386–87. 109 Stroganov to Pini, May 1, 1817, in VPR, ser. 2, 1:531–32. 110 Pini to Stroganov, December 25, 1817, in VPR, ser. 2, 2:132–33.

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As before, the Russian mission maneuvered between the Phanariots and the native boyars. Its efforts to diffuse the tensions between the Greek and native elements in the principalities appeared ambiguous, if only because the Russian consul general in the principalities was himself a Greek native of Constantinople. Small wonder that the native boyars perceived Pini as an enemy rather than a protector. In their already cited letter to Gavriil, Constantin Ghica and Lupul Balș pointed out that the consul general became Callimachi’s godbrother and de facto spy. According to the boyars, Pini breached confidentiality when he revealed to Callimachi the names of those who complained about the hospodar’s injustices to the Russian consulate. Pini’s agent, likewise a Greek, went around to boyar homes and reported on everything he heard there to Callimiachi. Ghica and Balș also alleged that Pini helped Callimachi plunder the country. Having failed to reach the Russian mission through conventional diplomatic channels, the native boyars turned to the former exarch of Moldovlachia Gavriil as an alternative means of communication with the Russian government.111 Pini’s relations with Callimachi may have motivated the Russian government’s decision to move his headquarters from Iași to Bucharest. The new Russian consul in Moldavia, A.N. Pizani (likewise a native of Constantinople, but of Italian origin) soon clashed with Callimachi over the extraordinary tax of 1,000,000 piastres described above.112 Nevertheless, even after 1817, Russia’s Eastern policy accepted the preservation of Phanariot rule in Moldavia and Wallachia, which the native boyars found frustrating. Characteristic in this respect was the reaction of the Russian Foreign Ministry to the Porte’s decision to limit the number of candidates for the thrones of the principalities. Made after Caragea’s defection to Austria in September 1818, this decision de facto conferred hereditary rights of four Phanariot families (Callimachi, Suțu, Hangerli, and Moruzi) on the thrones of Moldavia and Wallachia. The Russian Foreign Ministry chose to remain silent on this issue and instructed Stroganov to assure Scarlat Callimachi (who became the High Dragoman of the Porte after the termination of his seven-year term in Moldavia in 1819) that 111 “Zapiska prilozhennaia k pis’mu mitropolitu Gavriilu,” December 15, 1816, in Dubrovin, Sbornik ­istoricheskikh materialov, 7:349. It is difficult to tell whether these accusations had genuine grounds or if they were the product of local intrigues, but they testify to the existence of important local tensions, which neither the “Greek project” of Kapodistrias nor the Holy Alliance of Alexander I took into consideration. 112 On Pizani, see Entsiklopedicheskii slovar’ Brokgauza i Efrona, vol. 23a (1898): 578–79.

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Russia foreclosed the possibility of war with the Ottoman Empire and did not envision any territorial annexations that could put an end to Phanariot rule in the principalities.113 These assurances had to encourage the Phanariots to help resolve post-1812 Russian–Ottoman disputes. Russia’s interventions in matters of taxation in the principalities likewise reflected her maneuvering between the Phanariots and the native boyars. As has been demonstrated, Stroganov initially fought against the attempts of Caragea and Callimachi to increase indirect taxes in violation of the hatt-i sherif of 1802 and the subsequent financial regulations that the hospodars Ypsilanti and Moruzi adopted in 1804 on its basis. The envoy’s energetic protests forced the Porte to cancel Callimachi’s extraordinary tax of 1,000,000 piastres. Stroganov then took advantage of Caragea’s need, on the eve of his escape, for Russian guarantees to make the hospodar issue a financial statute that brought taxation back to 1804 levels. However, Alexander I’s desire to demonstrate his peaceful intentions and Kapodistrias’s attempt to use the Phanariots to ensure progress in the Russian–Ottoman negotiations made Stroganov change course. Already in June 1818, the envoy wrote to Callimachi about the possibility of increasing his civil list, which allowed the Moldavian hospodar to extract an additional 800,000 piastres from the principality during the last year of his reign.114 The same policy of concessions on matters of taxation continued with respect to Caragea’s and Callimichi’s successors, Alexandru and Mihai Suțu. Both hospodars argued that inflation that had taken place since 1804 made it necessary to increase taxes.115 Kapodistrias found this argument valid and suggested the Russian consuls in the principalities informally seek out the boyars’ opinions on the matter.116 Eventually, Alexander I consented to Alexandru Suțu’s request to triple the amount of indirect taxes (rusumaturi).117 113 See the excerpt of the Ministry’s memorandum addressed to Stroganov on March 17, 1820, in ­Documente privitoare la istoria românilor, 18:427. Kapodistrias, who must have been the author of this memorandum, pointed out that the Phanariots’ fear of losing the thrones of Moldavia and Wallachia was the principal cause of the Porte’s stubborn refusal to cede the principalities to Russia during the peace negotiations of 1810 and 1811. 114 Stroganov to Callimachi, June 1, 1818, in VPR, ser. 2, 2:395. 115 See Mihai Suțu to Stroganov (after June 1819), “Mémoire sur l’état actuel des finances de la Principauté de Moldavie,” in Georgescu, Mémoires et projets de réforme, 83–90. Suțu specifically suggested increasing the tax on foreign subjects, the tax on salt, as well as the custom duties. 116 See the report to Alexander I of June 15, 1820, in Documente privitoare la istoria românilor, 18:430–33. 117 Nesselrode to Stroganov, October 24, 1820, in Documente privitoare la istoria românilor, 18:448.

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The policy of assuaging the Phanariot princes finally produced the desired result in 1820, when the Porte agreed to relaunch negotiations over the specific violations of the Bucharest peace treaty. In the course of several arduous sessions with reis effendi, Stroganov presented the Porte with the list of illegal exactions imposed on the principalities since 1812 as well as the list of other infringements related to the hatt-i sherif of 1802.118 Apart from securing the redress of particular issues such as compensation for or the restitution of lands in the raiale to their rightful owners, Stroganov aimed to consolidate the legal basis of Russia’s position in the principalities. To achieve it, the Russian envoy wanted Ottoman recognition of the Russian right to veto any new taxes in the principalities added to the records of the conference. The negotiations thereby helped convert Russia’s general right “to make representations” to the Porte with respect to Moldavia and Wallachia into their actual control over particular aspects of the internal administration of the principalities. Stroganov’s ultimate goal was the conclusion of an explanatory convention to the Bucharest peace treaty similar to the one concluded at Aynalıkavak in 1779 in the wake of Kuchuk-Kainarji.119 The practical outcome of the first three conferences between Stroganov and the Ottoman representative was an agreement on the necessity of new financial statutes for both principalities that would be elaborated by the hospodars in cooperation with the divans and confirmed by the sovereign and protecting powers.120 At the fourth conference in March 1821, the Porte conceded the right to legally fix the civil lists of the hospodars, recognized the illegal exactions that occurred in first years after the conclusion of the peace of Bucharest, and agreed to compensate the principalities through an exemption from tribute for a two-year period. It also agreed to the limitation of its commercial monopoly in Moldavia and Wallachia, conceding to the Russian consuls the right to control the prices of deliveries of food and materials from the principalities to Constantinople and the Ottoman fortresses on the Danube.

118 See the summary of these points and the protocol of the conference between Stroganov and the Ottoman representatives of November 29, 1820, at which they were discussed in Documente privitoare la istoria românilor, 18:459–60 and 449–59, respectively. 119 Stroganov to Nesselrode, December 14, 1820, in Documente privitoare la istoria românilor, 18:462–64. 120 Stroganov to Nesselrode, February 19, 1821, in Documente privitoare la istoria românilor, 18:481–85. See also the protocols of the conferences of December 23, 1820 and January 24, 1821, in Documente privitoare la istoria românilor, 18:464–81.

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Finally, the Ottoman representatives agreed to the creation of the quarantine along the Danube.121 As the envoy himself admitted, the ease with which the Ottoman government accepted these points after years of rejecting them did not reflect a sudden change of conviction, but rather the new circumstances.122 On February 22, 1821, a detachment of 500 members of the secret Greek organization Philiki Etaireia entered Moldavia from Bessarabia and occupied Iași. Their leader was Alexandru Ypsilanti, the son of the pro-Russian Wallachian hospodar Constantin Ypsilanti and former aide-de-camp of Alexander I.123 From the Moldavian capital, the younger Ypsilanti issued several fiery proclamations in which he called on the Ottoman Greeks to rise up against the sultan, asked the local population to assist in this struggle, and alluded to a forthcoming Russian intervention.124 In his letter addressed to Alexander I on the same day, Ypsilanti argued that the uprising of the Greeks came from God and that Providence had chosen the tsar to help.125 In the meantime, Ypsilanti’s followers began their struggle for the liberation of Greece with a massacre of Ottoman merchants and their guards (beshlis) in Iași and Galați. This opened a vicious cycle of violence that would envelop European Turkey for a decade. Although Alexander I and Kapodistrias hurried to repudiate the rebellion, the Porte quickly realized that continued intransigence in negotiations with Russia could provoke the tsar to change his mind. The Ottoman government, therefore, quickly accepted all those demands that Stroganov unsuccessfully had tried to press on it for five long years. However, the Porte’s diplomatic capitulation had no practical consequences for the principalities in the short run. Russian–Ottoman relations deteriorated anyway as a result of Ottoman repression of the Greeks and Stroganov’s protests to the Porte. The consequences of the Etaireia uprising and the Russian–Ottoman rupture that followed it will be examined in the next chapter, which will also 121 See the protocol of the conference between Stroganov and the Ottoman representatives that took place on March 22, 1821, in Documente privitoare la istoria românilor, 18:485–93. 122 Stroganov to Nesselrode, March 22, 1821, in Documente privitoare la istoria românilor, 18:493–94. 123 On Alexander Ypsilanti’s relations with the Russian government, see Arsh, Rossiia i bor’ba Gretsii za osvobozhdenie, 131–60. 124 See “Proclamation aux Grecs des Principautés” and “Proclamation aux Grecs,” (February 24, 1821), published in Botzaris, Visions balkaniques, 226–28. 125 Ypsilanti’s wording betrayed his desire to appeal to Alexander I’s well-known mystical inclinations. Both Ypsilanti’s appeal to the Greeks and his letter to Alexander I are published in Botzaris, Visions balkaniques, 227–30.

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show the long-term importance of Stroganov’s negotiations for the emergence of the Russian reform agenda in the principalities. Here, what remains is an explanation of Alexander I’s quick and uncompromising condemnation of the uprising launched in his name and under the ideological banner of Orthodoxy, which was persistently associated with Russia’s Eastern policy. For this, it is necessary to recall, once again, the overall strategy that the tsar and his foreign minister adopted with respect to regional elites in the age of revolutions. Kapodistrias, Alexander I, and the Greek Rebellion During the early years of the Holy Alliance, Alexander I’s understanding of monarchical unity differed considerably from the political legitimism of the Austrian chancellor Klemens von Metternich. Whereas Metternich’s legitimism was, above all, designed to benefit the Austrian Empire by restoring its hegemony in Italy and Germany, Alexander I considered the idea of keeping Joachim Murat on the throne of Naples and actively advocated for Prussian annexation of a part of Saxony as compensation for Russia’s control over the bulk of the former Duchy of Warsaw. The tsar’s alternative to Metternich’s legitimism also included support for moderate constitutional settlements such as the French Constitutional Charter of 1814, the constitutions of Bavaria and the Grand Duchy of Baden, as well as the advocacy of a constitutional settlement between Spain and its rebellious colonies.126 This policy of monarchical constitutionalism sought to exploit European monarchs’ creeping acknowledgement of the impossibility of ruling in pre-revolutionary ways. It also represented an attempt to win the loyalty of the moderate opposition while isolating radicals. As has been argued, Alexander I never considered a constitution to be a mutually binding contract between himself and a regional elite, and instead viewed it as a magnanimous gift to the latter, through which he hoped to disarm opposition. The creation of the Constitutional Kingdom of Poland, which bewildered Alexander I’s councilors and adversaries alike, makes some sense if viewed from this perspective. The principles of monarchical constitutionalism also 126 See Rey, “Alexander I’s, Talleyrand and France’s Future”; Dodolev, “Rossia i problema Germanskoi konfederatsii.”; Goncharova, “Politika Rossii.”

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helped Alexander I exploit the discontent generated by Metternich’s strict legitimism in Italy and Germany.127 Kapodistrias actively supported the emperor in this policy and even went beyond him in an attempt to give it systematic exposition as an alternative strategy for dealing with the danger of revolution in post-1815 Europe. Particularly revealing in this respect is his letter to the French foreign minister and former governor-general of New Russia, Duke de Richelieu written in August 1820 after the outbreak of the Spanish and Italian revolutions. Kapodistrias portrayed the revolutions in southern Europe as the result of subversive activities coordinated from “Paris clubs” by people “brought up in the school of popular despotism during the French revolution.” Referring to this as “the malady of the century,” Kapodistrias nevertheless pointed out that the social edifice collapsed in countries where the government “became isolated as a result of an absurd and arbitrary administration.” Conversely, the revolutionaries failed everywhere “where wise institutions checked their seductions with the invincible power of laws guaranteeing, alongside stable authority, the legitimate rights and interests of the people.” To illustrate this thesis, Kapodistrias contrasted the situation in Germany and Prussia with conditions in Spain and Naples. Whereas the former had adopted or were about to adopt constitutions, the latter failed to win the support of their subjects.128 The Russian foreign minister was writing to Richelieu from Warsaw where he arrived together with Alexander I for the second session of the Polish Sejm. Convoked on the eve of the Troppau congress of the Holy Alliance which was supposed to discuss the revolutions in Spain and Italy, the Polish Sejm had to demonstrate the advantages of monarchical constitutionalism over the narrowly formulated legitimism of Metternich. Indicative of the hopes that Kapodistrias and Alexander I pinned on the smooth operation of the Polish Sejm is the letter from Warsaw that Kapodistrias addressed to the Russian envoy in Berlin, Baron Alopeus: “At a time when so many deplorable events appear to undermine all confidence, it is consoling to find 127 Reinerman, “Metternich, Alexander I, and the Russian Challenge.” 128 Kapodistrias to Richelieu, August 22, 1820, SIRIO 54 (1886): 548. “Des hommes formés à l’école du despotisme révolutionnaire, durant la révolution française.” “. . . partout où des institutions sages ont ­opposé à leurs séductions, la force invincible des lois, qui garantissent, avec l’existence d’une autorité forte et nécessaire, les droits et les intérêts légitimes des peuples.”

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at least one country in Europe where the social order is founded in good faith and regulated according to liberal principles.”129 However, Kapodistrias’s optimism soon proved to be unfounded as Alexander I encountered strong opposition from Polish liberals during the Sejm sessions.130 After the key element of the alternative European settlement failed to justify the tsar’s expectations, Metternich decisively attacked the whole policy of monarchical constitutionalism during his meetings with Alexander I at Troppau. In order to demonstrate the dangers of Alexander I’s “liberal” policies, he portrayed the revolutions in Spain and Naples, Polish opposition, and even the mutiny of the Semenovskii Guards regiment in St. Petersburg as elements of one revolutionary plot directed by the mysterious “Paris Committee.” At the same time, Metternich appealed to the emperor’s cherished idea of Holy Alliance as the only way to counteract this revolutionary subversion.131 Whereas the Polish opposition demanded that Alexander I act as a true constitutional monarch, the Austrian chancellor wanted him to be a true legitimist. Metternich’s skillful exploitation of the tsar’s fears of secret societies bore fruit and, for the time being, Alexander I stopped challenging Austrian dominance in Germany and Italy and abandoned political reform at home. The failure of monarchical constitutionalism as a compromise between imperial and regional elites and an alternative political settlement for postNapoleonic Europe reflected the failure of its proponents to express it in an original political language. In the absence of one, Alexander I and his foreign minister used elements of the existing political idioms of constitutionalism and monarchical unity. As has been demonstrated, Alexander’s understanding of both elements in this strategy was rather unconventional. A fragile combination of contradictory ideas, the monarchical constitutionalism of Alexander I and Kapodistrias succumbed to the pressure of the more self-evident meanings of monarchical unity and of constitution used by Metternich and the Polish opposition at the Sejm of 1820, respectively. Forced to be either a champion of legitimism or a constitutional monarch, Alexander I chose the former. In an environment rocked by a new wave of European revolutions, he could hardly have done otherwise. 129 Kapodistrias to Alopeus, August 22, 1820, RGIA, f. 1101, op. 1, d. 359, l. 16v. 130 Thackeray, Antecedents of Revolution, 70–78. 131 Grimsted, The Foreign Ministers of Alexander I, 248–54.

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The end of Kapodistrias’s career in Russia was similarly the product of his failure to control the ideological meaning of his policies in conditions of irreconcilable struggle between the revolutionaries and the legitimists. Kapodistrias was not doctrinaire. Having encountered obstacles in the realization of his “Greek project” after 1812, he revealed a flexibility that had allowed him to retain influence over Russian foreign policy for a long time. Sympathetic as he was to the cause of Greek liberation, Kapodistrias nevertheless remained a champion of compromise and moderation. He understood that the general tenor of Alexander I’s policy after the Congress of Vienna made another Russian–Ottoman war, which radical Greek leaders expected, unlikely. That is why Kapodistrias concentrated his efforts on building up a new Greek elite through educational policies and preparing the ground for Greek independence when the European context in general and Russia’s Eastern policy in particular become more propitious. With this aim in mind, he became the most active member of the “Society of Lovers of the Muses” (Philomusos Etaireia) founded during the Vienna Congress.132 Very soon, however, his name and institution came to be used by members of the “Friendly Society” (Philiki Etaireia), formed in Odessa in the autumn of 1814 by three Greek merchants in pursuit of a much more radical solution to Greek political grievances.133 Deceived by the traditional image of the Russian tsar as the protector of Orthodoxy, the etairists saw Kapodistrias as the natural leader of the Greek revolutionary movement and even offered to make him the head of Philiki Etaireia, an offer he indignantly rejected.134 Nevertheless, the etairists continued to use Kapodistrias’s name to mobilize support among the Greeks both in Russia and in the Ottoman Empire, which placed the Russian foreign minister in a very awkward position. In his letters to Greek leaders both in Russia and abroad, he repeat132 The society was founded in Athens in 1813 under the honorable presidency of Frederick North, a major British Philhellene. At the time of the Congress, the society was transferred to Vienna. In 1815– 18, its headquarters were in Munich and benefited from the support of the sympathetic king Maximillian and heir apparent Ludwig. Thereafter, the Society was transferred to St. Petersburg and was taken over by Kapodistrias and A.S. Sturdza. The Society’s goal was to raise funds for the creation of Greek academies in Athens and at Mount Pilon as well as support young Greeks studying at European universities. Alexander I and a number of European dignitaries made considerable donations. On Philomusos Etaireia, see Botzaris, Visions balkaniques, 69; Ghervas, Réinventer la tradition, 353–64. 133 On the creation and activities of Etaireia in Russia, see Arsh, Eteristskoe dvizhenie v Rossii; Iovva, Bessarabiia i grecheskoe national’no-osvoboditel’noe dvizhenie, 24–73. 134 Arsh, Kapodistriia, 202–5.

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edly insisted that he never supported the idea of a revolutionary uprising. Although Kapodistrias’s true intentions were the development of Greek education, “some intrigants deliberately misinterpret them and attribute to the Society of the Lovers of the Muses a different motive and the pursuit of more far-reaching goals.”135 At the same time, Kapodistrias could do little to stop the activities of the etairists, caught as he was between sympathy for his conationals on the one hand, and loyalty to the tsar and his political convictions on the other. The calculations of rebel leaders were not entirely self-serving. Russian authorities in Odessa and Bessarabia were accustomed enough to Russia’s protection of Orthodox co-religionists to turn a blind eye to the etairists’ military preparations even without an explicit order from the emperor.136 Already after he crossed the Pruth, Ypsilanti wrote to the governorgeneral of New Russia, A.F. Lanzheron, to convince him that the emperor knew everything and that Langeron risked nothing if he allowed the Greek detachments formed in Odessa to join with rebel forces in Moldavia.137 The same bluff helped the etairists mobilize support in the principalities and recruit not only from among local Greeks (including the Moldavian hospodar Mihai Suţu), but also some native boyars.138 The whole strategy of the etairists, in fact, hinged on the inevitability of Russian military intervention on behalf of the Greeks after the uprising had been proclaimed in the name of the Russian tsar by his former aide-de-camp. However, Russian intervention failed to materialize because by March 1821, Alexander I had already moved much closer to the principles of Metternich’s legitimism. Already at Troppau in September 1820, the tsar was forced to admit that his “liberal” policies were a mistake and demonstrated a determination to quell the Italian revolutions by dispatching Russian troops to the peninsula. Five months later, the Greek rebellion in the principalities threatened to implicate Alexander I in a revolutionary uprising against a lawful, if Muslim, sovereign. The delicate situation in which Alexander I found 135 Kapodistrias to Vardalakhos (the rector of the Greek Higher Commercial School in Odessa), January 3, 1820, cited in Arsh, Kapodistriia, 292–94. Kapodistrias wrote similar letters to the Wallachian Metropolitan Ignace, to Russian consul in Epirus L.P. Benaki, and to the ruler of Mani Petro-bei ­Mavromichalis. 136 Arsh, Eteristskoe dvizhenie v Rossii, 262–63. Jewsbury, “The Greek Question.” 137 Cited in Arsh, Eteristskoe dvizhenie v Rossii, 309. 138 Oţetea, Tudor Vladimirescu, 181.

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himself during the Laibach Congress provided Metternich with an opportunity to undermine his (Metternich’s) political and ideological opponent, Kapodistrias. Not unlike the etairist rebels, the Austrian chancellor preferred to disregard the difference between Philomusos Etaireia and Philiki Etaireia and vilified Kapodistrias as the secret instigator of the revolutionary rebellion.139 Alexander I did not immediately succumb to his pressure; Yet he disavowed his former aide-de-camp and denounced the attempts to use his name to support the rebellion, preferring to view it as the work of an allEuropean revolutionary conspiracy directed by the “Paris Committee.”140 In the months that followed, the tsar refused to use the Ottoman repressions against the Greek population as a pretext for war. Kapodistrias’s attempts to convince Alexander I to take a more active stance on the Eastern Question proved futile and testified to his loss of influence over the tsar. In May 1822, Kapodistrias received an indefinite leave and left Russia forever.

139 Grimsted, The Foreign Ministers of Alexander I, 254–55. 140 See Alexander I’s letter to the Procurator of the Holy Synod A.N. Golitsyn cited in Nikolai Mikhailovich [Romanov], Imperator Aleksandr I, 1:558. The tsar’s disapprobation was communicated to Ypsilanti by Kapodistrias in a private letter on March 26, 1821, published in Botzaris, Visions balkaniques, 230–32.

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The Uprisings of 1821 and Their Impact

F

ive weeks before Ypsilanti and his followers crossed the Pruth and entered the Moldavian capital, neighboring Wallachia became the site of a civil conflagration led by Tudor Vladimirescu.1 During the Russian– Ottoman War of 1806–12, Vladimirescu commanded a detachment of local auxiliaries (panduri) and was decorated by the Russian order of St. Vladimir in recognition of his services. After 1812, he served as a petty official (slujer, a second-class boyar) in his native Oltenia, the westernmost autonomous part of Wallachia, and was in touch with his former comrade-in-arms Iordache Olimpiotul and the commander of the hospodar’s guards (arnăuţi) Ioannis Pharmakis, who were leading members of Etaireia in the principality. Vladimirescu made a pact with Etaireia leaders to organize an uprising in his native region with the goal of creating disorder and internal problems for the Ottomans, which would allow Ypsilanti and his followers to cross the Danube. The death of Wallachian hospodar Alexandru Suțu on January 18, 1821 (most likely from poison delivered by an etairist physician) served as a good pretext for implementing this plan. Since the Russian–Ottoman treaties did not allow the Porte to send troops to the principalities in peacetime, the interim boyar government (caimacamia) tasked the commanders of the hospodar’s arnăuți Iordache Olimpiotul and Ioannis Pharmakis, with suppressing Vladimirescu’s movement, though they, predictably, did nothing. Originally, Vladimirescu’s 1 Customarily taken as the starting point of modern Romanian history, the events of 1821 have naturally become the subject of numerous studies. This brief account is based on Oţetea, Tudor Vladimirescu and Berindei, L’Année révolutionnaire.

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movement was limited to the territory of Oltenia and included only the local panduri who were discontent with Suțu’s policies. Yet, it soon grew in scale and its character changed. After several early successes, Vladimirescu issued a proclamation to the entire Wallachian population calling on them to form “an assembly for the benefit of the entire country” and well as “attack the ill-gained properties of the tyrannical boyars.”2 This proclamation helped Tudor increase his number of supporters, but it greatly worried the boyars (even though Vladimirescu ordered his followers to spare the properties of those of the boyars who, as will be shown below, authorized him to launch his movement). Perhaps in response to these fears, Vladimirescu’s next proclamation shifted its emphasis from social to national issues. He demanded the following concessions: prohibition on the Phanariot hospodars’ right to bring numerous Greeks into the country; the nationalization of the monasteries dedicated to Holy Places under the control of the Greek clergy; the abolition of the taxes introduced by Alexandru Suțu; a return to the financial statute of Ioan Caragea; the abolition of internal customs; an end to the sale of public offices and boyar titles; the abolition of poslușnici; a reduction of the number of scutelnici; the creation of a 4000-strong army of panduri; a reduction in the number of judges and judicial expenses; the abolition of Caragea’s legal code and the return to the code of Alexander Ypsilanti passed in 1780.3 Having crossed the Olt in early March, Vladimirescu invaded greater Wallachia, and on March 21, 1821, he and his men occupied Bucharest several days before Ypsilanti and his followers appeared on the outskirts of the Wallachian capital. As Vladimirescu approached the capital, the lieutenants (caimacams) of Scarlat Callimachi, who had been appointed to succeed the late Alexandru Suțu by the Porte, retreated to the Ottoman fortress of Giurgiu.4 Some of the great boyars, including the members of the interim boyar government, fled to Transylvania. From Brașov (Kronstadt), they wrote to the Austrian ­­ 2 “Cea dintîi proclamație revoluționară a lui Tudor Vladimirescu,” January 23, 1821, in in Oțetea, ­Documente privind istoria Romîniei, 1:207–8. 3 “Cererile norodului românesc,” before February 16, 1821, in Oțetea, Documente privind istoria Romî­ niei, 1:272–74. 4 Constantin Negri and Ștefan Vogoride to the Prussian consul Baron Ludwig von Kreuchely, March 13, 1821, in Documente privitoare la istoria românilor, 10: 119–20.

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Emperor Francis I, the tsar, and the Porte, denouncing both the rule of the Phanariot hospodars and the rebellions of Vladimirescu and Ypsilanti.5 Those boyars who remained in Bucharest formed a new interim boyar government and likewise wrote to Alexander I. In their letter, they complained to the tsar about the tyranny of last two hospodars that “forced the inhabitants of Oltenia to revolt.” They implored Alexander I to dispatch the army to protect the country against the troops that the Turks, in cooperation with the Phanariots, were assembling along the Danube.6 Following Vladimirescu’s entry into Bucharest, the high clergy and the remaining great boyars swore “never to conspire against his life and honor” and allied with him on all matters “that would not detract from the good, peaceful repose and honest conduct of this people.” They also testified that Tudor’s movement “is not bad or harmful either for particular individuals or for the fatherland, but rather useful and liberating for the people.”7 For his part, Tudor swore “never to act against the life, honor, or property of his compatriots” and recognized the provisional boyar government. He also pledged to take all measures to stop “the damages and evil deeds” committed by his troops as well as persuade the population of all sixteen districts of the country to “submit to the government.”8 At this moment came the news of the tsar’s condemnation of Ypsilanti and Vladimirescu’s uprisings.9 The first reaction of the boyars who still remained in Bucharest was to write to the sultan, the tsar, and the emperor of Austria in order to demonstrate that Vladimirescu’s movement was not subversive and merely sought to reestablish the privileges of the country that 5 For the memorandum to Francis I, dated March 25, 1821, see in Oțetea, Documente privind istoria Romîniei, 1:400–2. The memorandum to Alexander I and the petition to the Porte are mentioned in the letter of Grigore Brâncoveanu and Grigore Ghica to the Austrian agent Fleischhackl, March 26, 1821, in Oțetea, Documente privind istoria Romîniei, 1:407–8. 6 The Wallachian boyars’ address to Alexander I, dated March 18, 1821, is published in in Oțetea, Documente privind istoria Romîniei, 1:380–81. The Moldavian boyars appealed to the tsar three weeks earlier on February 24, 1821, asking him to send his troops and promising all necessary support. ­Georgescu, Mémoires et projets de réforme, 101–2. 7 “Cartea de adeverire ce s-au dat slujerului Theodor,” March 23, 1821, in Oțetea, Documente privind istoria Romîniei, 1:395–96. 8 “Juramîntul lui Theodor,” March 23, 1821, in Oțetea, Documente privind istoria Romîniei, 396–97. 9 Pini communicated the tsar’s disavowal of Ypsilanti’s undertaking to the Wallachian Metropolitan Dionisie Lupu already on March 17, yet the metropolitan did not make this communication public for at least a week. See Russian agent Kotov to Metropolitan Dionisie, March 23, 1821, Iorga, Documente privitoare la istoria românilor, 10:563–64.

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had been violated by the previous hospodars.10 In a letter to Stroganov, they argued that the people were “brought to extreme despair by the rapaciousness of the last hospodars, rather than animated by the spirit of revolt.” The boyars asked the Russian envoy to intervene with the Porte to prevent an Ottoman occupation as well as make it possible for them to plead before the Ottoman government for the reestablishment of “the rights and privileges of this country.”11 After receiving word that the Ottomans had crossed the Danube, the authors of the letter sent a last desperate appeal for intervention to the Commander of the Second Russian Army in Podolia, P. Kh. Vitgenshtein, and then fled from Bucharest.12 The Moldavian boyars left their country even earlier, after the etairist forces moved to Wallachia and the news of the tsar’s repudiation of the uprising reached Iași.13 The imminent entry of the Ottoman troops into the principalities caused the flight not only of the boyars that had been compromised by their association with the rebels but also commoners, who had reasons to fear indiscriminate Ottoman reprisals.14 In the meantime, Vladimirescu’s relations with Etaireia deteriorated. Back in January, Vladimirescu agreed to help Ypsilanti cross the Danube, which the leader to the Greek rebels never did, uncertain as he was of the support of the Serbian prince Miloš Obrenović. At the same time, Vladimirescu refused to merge his forces with those of Ypsilanti and prevented the latter from occupying Bucharest. The two movements differed in ethnic and social composition and ultimately had divergent goals. Vladimirescu’s appeal to the principles of social justice against the abuses of the hospodars and the boyars went together with tactical manifestation of loyalty to the sultan, which contradicted the explicitly anti-Ottoman struggle unleashed by Ypsilanti. 10 See the addresses of the Bucharest boyars to the Porte, the tsar, and Austrian chancellor Metternich, sent on March 27, 1821, in Oțetea, Documente privind istoria Romîniei, 1:409–14. 11 The Bucharest boyars to Stroganov, March 29, Documente privitoare la istoria românilor, 10:565. 12 Their message to Witgenstein dated March 30, 1821 is published in Documente privitoare la istoria românilor, 10:566–67. 13 See the letter of the Moldavian boyar emigres in Bessarabia to Kapodistrias, March 20, 1821, Documente privitoare la istoria românilor, supp. 1, 4:1–2. Russian consul Pizani communicated the tsar’s condemnation of the uprising to hospodar Sutu on March 19. 14 The boyar emigres constituted only a tiny fraction of some forty thousand people “of different ranks and nations,” who between March and September 1821 fled from the principalities to neighboring Russian Bessarbia, whose viceroy at the time, I.N. Inzov, had to create a special commission to take care of the refugees. See I.N. Inzov to A.N. Golitsyn, February 1823, in VPR, ser. 2, 5:50. At the same time, Transylvania received no less than seventeen thousand of the Wallachian refugees. See Vîrtosu, 1821, v–vi.

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Already in late January, Vladimirescu asked the Ottoman governor of Vidin to send a representative who would ascertain the pitiful state of the country plundered by hospodars and boyars and listen to “what we were, what we are, and what we want to be.”15 He repeated this request in mid-April, asking the governor of Giurgiu to send a representative to Bucharest who would listen to “the pleas and rights of the people.”16 This strategy ultimately failed, and the impending entry of the Ottoman troops forced Vladimirescu to leave Bucharest and retreat into his native Oltenia in the hope of holding out there until the intervention of the great powers convinced the Porte to accept the demands of “the Romanian people from Wallachia.” However, the panduri were increasingly weary of Vladimirescu’s authoritarian style and revealed his liaisons with the Ottomans to Ypsilanti. The leader of the etairists had Vladimirescu arrested, tortured, and killed on May 28, 1821. Shortly thereafter, etairist forces were routed by the Ottomans at the Transylvanian border, and Ypsilanti fled to the Austrian Empire, where he was imprisoned. 1821 and Anti-Greek Sentiment in Moldavia and Wallachia The troubled relations between Ypsilanti and Vladimirescu allowed their contemporaries to explain the failure of the Etaireia uprising in the principalities through the failure of the Greek leader to reach out to the non-Greek Christian population of the Ottoman Empire.17 More perceptive observers went beyond Ypsilanti’s personal limitations and attributed the defeat of the uprising to the deep-seated prejudices of Moldavians, Wallachians, Serbs, and Bulgarians toward the Greeks caused by centuries of Greek political and/or cultural hegemony over their co-religionists.18 The century-long rule of Phanariot princes in Moldavia and Wallachia was indeed the most visible manifestation of this dominance, which was widely condemned by 15 “Arzul adresat Înaltei Porți de către Tudor Vladimirescu din partea norodului românesc,” January 23, 1821, in Oțetea, Documente privind istoria Romîniei, 1:208–10. 16 “Arz către pașa de Giurgiu pentru trimitera unui representant turc care să asculte plângerile norodului,” April 12, 1821, annex 2, in Oțetea, Documente privind istoria Romîniei, 2:60–61. 17 A characteristic example of this interpretation was offered by councilor of the Russian Embassy in Constantinople in the early 1820s, S.I. Turgenev. See Barratt, “Notices sur l’insurrection des Grecs.” 18 For the discussion of the contemporary Russian responses to the Greek uprising see, Iovva, Bessarabiia i grecheskoe national’no-osvoboditel’noe dvizhenie, 166–92; Dostian, Russkaia obshchestvennaia mysl’, 160–70, and Prousis, Russian Society and the Greek Revolution, 26–54 and passim.

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Romanian historians for stifling the national character of the principalities. From this point of view, 1821 appears as the moment mounting tensions erupted between native and foreign (i.e., Greek) elements in the elite of the principalities. In light of the Greek “betrayal” of the sultan represented by the uprising, Moldavian and Wallachian boyars seized the opportunity to convince the Porte to reintroduce the rule of native princes. This, in turn, served as a major impetus for the Romanian national revival and the emergence of the Romanian nation-state in the middle decades of the nineteenth century. At the same time, the anti-Greek sentiments of Moldavian and Wallachian boyars were as much a consequence of the failure of the Etaireia uprising in the principalities as its cause. Although one finds manifestations of anti-Phanariot attitudes among the boyars before 1821, their cultural and linguistic Hellenization greatly relativized the opposition between “natives” and “foreigners.”19 More fundamentally, too many Moldavian and Wallachian boyars were involved with Etaireia to justify their subsequent attempts to portray this movement as an exclusively “Greek” affair. The Hellenophobic posturing of the boyars in the wake of the events of 1821 helped them dissociate themselves from the failed Etaireia rebellion and realize their political agenda. As has been demonstrated, the tensions between the Greek princes and the boyars in the principalities existed already at the time of the Russian– Ottoman War of 1768–74, if not earlier. However, it is very important not to take the anti-Phanariot sentiment manifest in the addresses of Wallachian and Moldavian boyars to Catherine the Great as a full-fledged Hellenophobia that supposedly explained the failure of the Etaireia uprising in the principalities. The latter could hardly develop given the considerable Hellenization of the upper classes of Moldavia and Wallachia during the eighteenth century. The people who expressed grievances against the Phanariot princes did so in the Greek language and were, in many respects, the bearers of Greek culture.20 Their likely almae matres were the princely academies of Iași and Bucharest, whose teachers and graduates also included some of the leading 19 On the complex and shifting boundary between “natives” and “foreigners” as well as the multiple meanings of “Greekness” in early modern Wallachia and Moldavia, see Cotovanu, “Chasing Away the Greeks.” 20 Greek continued to be the usual language of correspondence between the boyars at the time of the Etaireia uprising. See, for example, Grigore Brâncoveanu to Alexandru Filipescu, March 2, 1821, in Vîrtosu, 1821, 59–60.

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representatives of the Greek Enlightenment and national-liberation movement such as Iosipos Moisiodax, Nikephoros Theotokis, Rigas Velestinlis, Veniamin of Lesbos, and Neophitos Doukas, some of whom would become members of Philiki Etaireia.21 Despite a patriotic attachment to the “customs of the land,” the representatives of the native boyar factions in Moldavia and Wallachia in the late 1700s and the early 1800s were not modern nationalists. The concept of modern Romanian identity with an emphasis on the Latin roots of the Romanian language and the historical continuity of settlement since the Roman conquest of Dacia was developed by the clerical intelligentsia in neighboring Transylvania in the late eighteenth and the early nineteenth century.22 Before 1821, the ideas of the “Transylvanian school” spread in the principalities through the activities of Gheorghe Lazăr, who pioneered a secularized curriculum in Romanian instead of the customary Greek. However, Lazăr began to teach only three years prior to the Etaireia uprising and influenced the younger generation of the Wallachian boyars who would become active later on, in the post-1821 period.23 Intermarriage with Greek princely families likewise moderated the antiPhanariot sentiments of the native boyars on the eve of the Greek uprising. A characteristic example of this phenomenon is offered by the boyar family of Sturdzas, which produced the first two “native” princes of Moldavia after 1821.24 The Great Vornic Dumitru Sturdza was the first of its representatives to marry the daughter of a Phanariot prince, Grigore II Ghica, 21 The princely academies of Iași and Bucharest were major centers of Greek higher education in the Ottoman Empire alongside “the Great School of the Nation,” the patriarchal college in Constantinople. Although both academies had been founded before the establishment of the Phanariot regime in the principalities, they were thoroughly Hellenized during the eighteenth century. See Camariano-Cioran, Les Academies princières de Bucarest et de Jassy. 22 See Hitchins, The Romanian National Movement in Transylvania. 23 The older boyars who held the most important public offices as of 1821 may have viewed the educational ideas of Lazăr and other Transylvanians as a curious novelty, yet their own schooling had been thoroughly Greek. One finds a characteristic illustration of this generational difference in the example of Dinicu Golescu, a Wallachian boyar who authored the first Romanian travelogue to Western Europe, and his sons Ștefan, Nicolae and Alexandru, all of whom played leading roles in the Wallachian revolution of 1848 and served as prime Ministers of Romania during the 1860s. Whereas ­Dinicu was a graduate of the Princely Academy of Bucharest and, as a result, struggled to express himself in his native language, his sons were all educated in Romanian at the Academy of Saint Sava that was founded by Gheorghe Lazăr in the place of the Greek-language Princely Academy that was abolished by the Ottomans in the wake of the Etaireia uprising. See Iordache, Golești. 24 See Popișteanu and Matei, Sturdzeștii.

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who ruled in both Moldavia and Wallachia in the first half of the eighteenth century. Dumitru’s son Scarlat followed his father’s example by marrying the daughter of Constantin Moruzi, the hospodar of Moldavia in 1777–82. Whereas Scarlat Sturdza’s son Alexandr Skarlatovich played an important role in the community of Greek expatriates in Russia, his nephew, Mihai Sturdza, emerged as a leading figure among the great Moldavian boyars during the 1820s and became the second “native” hospodar of Moldavia in 1834. Interestingly enough, Mihai Sturdza’s ardent patriotism did not prevent him from marrying the daughter of another Phanariot, the Hellenized Bulgarian Ștefan Vogoride. A graduate of the Princely Academy of Bucharest, Vogoride served as the caimacam (interim governor) of Moldavia in the wake of the Etaireia uprising and later became the most important Christian representative in the Ottoman political elite.25 A glance at the ethnic origins of the Phanariot princes and the leaders of the native boyars further undermines any attempt to draw a clear-cut distinction between these two groups. Alongside the ethnic Greeks, the Phanariots included families of Albanian (Ghica) and Romanian (Racovița, Callimachi) origin.26 For their part, the native boyars were often led by people with conspicuously non-Romanian family names. Whereas Mihai Cantacuzino was the main spokesman of the Wallachian boyars at the time of the Russian–Ottoman War of 1768–74, Dumitru Ghica emerged as the leader of the “native party” at the turn of the nineteenth century. Both were the descendants of “foreign” princes who ruled the principalities between the 1670s and the 1770s.27 With only some exaggeration one could therefore say that the “native” party of Wallachia was headed by former Phanariots. In order to better understand boyar attitudes toward and relations with Etairaia, one has to recall that the latter was likewise an organization of former Phanariots in some respects. Many Greek conspirators served Phanariot princes, beginning with the founder of the first Etaireia (that of 1797) Rigas Velestinlis, who was the secretary of the Wallachian hospodar Nicolae Mavrogheni (r. 1786–1789). Philiki Etaireia held its early meetings in the 25 On Vogoride, see I.C. Filitti, “Notice sur les Vogoridi,” in Filitti, Contribuții la istoria diplomatică a României, 12–17; Philliou, Biography of an Empire. 26 For a deconstruction of the term “Phanariot,” see Andrei Pippidi, “Phanar, Phanariotes, phanariotisme,” in Pippidi, Hommes et idées du Sud-Est Européen, 339–50. 27 Dumitru Ghica counted among his ancestors five Phanariot princes, the last of whom, Grigore III Ghica ruled in both Moldavia and Wallachia during the 1760s and the 1770s.

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Moscow house of Alexandru Mavrocordat Firaris, the hospodar of Moldavia who defected to Russia on the eve of the Russian–Ottoman War of 1787– 92.28 The rebel leader Alexander Ypsilanti was the son of another Phanariot defector to Russia, Constantin Ypsilanti. The shared quality of these former Phanariots was that they sought the destruction of Ottoman Turkey and were, thus, the opposite of those Phanariots who continued to serve the sultan and staked their lives on the preservation of his empire. Among those representatives of the Phanar who occupied high positions at the beginning of 1821 or who entertained the hope of occupying a high post one day, only Mihai Suțu (the reigning prince of Moldavia) was a member and enthusiastic supporter of Etaireia. By contrast, the Wallachian hospodar Alexandru Suțu was the enemy of the secret society as was his nominated successor Scarlat Callimachi (who also ruled in Moldavia in 1812–19). The anti-Phanariot tendencies of the Etaireia, thus, resonated with the interests of the “native” boyars of Wallachia who, in January 1821, sought to prevent the accession of another Phanariot prince—be it the late hospodar’s son Nicolae or Scarlat Callimachi, whom the Porte designated as Alexandru Suțu’s successor.29 Admittedly, few boyars were formal members of the secret society. In fact, there is more or less solid evidence of such membership for only two great boyars: Iordache Rosetti-Roznovanu in Moldavia and Grigore Brâncoveanu in Wallachia.30 However, focusing on formal membership leads one to ignore a much wider group of people who knew about the planned uprising and cooperated with the Etaireia leaders both before and during the revolt. As has already been mentioned, Tudor Vladimirescu concluded an alliance with leading Wallachian etairists Iordachi Olimpiotul and Ioannis Pharmakis, whereby each side was “authorized to provoke disorder and internal and external complications and use any craftiness (viclenie) in order to attain the common goal.”31 On January 15, 1821, Grigore Brâncoveanu, Grigore Ghica, and Barbu Văcărescu—the members of the boyar regency (Comitet de Ocârmuire) created in anticipation of the imminent death of hospodar Alexandru Suțu—authorized Tudor to “raise the people with 28 Palauzov, Rumynskie gospodarstva Moldaviia i Valakhiia, 166. 29 On the candidacy of Nicolae Suțu and Brâncoveanu’s opposition to it, see Pippidi, “Nicolas Soutzo (1798–1871) et la fin du régime Phanariote dans les Principautés roumaines,” in Pippidi, Hommes et idées du Sud-Est européen, 323. 30 Berindei, L’Année révolutionnaire, 94. 31 Oțetea, Documente privind istoria Romîniei, 1:193.

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arms . . . for the general benefit of Christendom and our fatherland.”32 The next day the boyar regency authorized another etairist captain of panduri Dimitrie Macedonski to assist Tudor since “there appeared to be a possibility to liberate ourselves” “from the yoke of a foreign people.”33 One could argue that despite the common anti-Phanariot tendencies of both the etairists and the “native” boyars, the latter could hardly identify with the Greater Greece that the former sought to reestablish. Indeed, the leaders of the Greek national liberation movement often envisioned the continued political and cultural hegemony of the Greeks over the other Orthodox peoples of Southeastern Europe. Thus, in his “New Political Government for the Inhabitants of Rumelia, Asia Minor, the Mediterranean Islands, and Moldovlachia,” Rigas Velestinlis spoke of the population of all these territories as the “descendants of the Hellenes.” He recognized the religious and ethnic diversity in these areas yet insisted on the unitary character of his proposed republic. Although Rigas offered an essentially civic definition of the nation, his insistence on universal primary education with the “indispensable” teaching of the Greek language was likely to perpetuate Greek cultural hegemony in the Danubian principalities as well as other parts of Greater Greece.34 At the same time, there is a considerable difference between Rigas’s plans and the rhetoric of Ypsilanti’s proclamations, which demonstrates the great sensitivity of the rebel leader to the political sensibilities of Moldavians and Wallachians. Immediately upon crossing the Pruth, Ypsilanti issued a proclamation to the inhabitants of Moldavia, in which he assured them that their government and laws would remain unchanged as his forces assembled and proceeded to liberate Greece from Ottoman tyranny.35 In a proclamation to the Wallachians issued a month later, Ypsilanti decried the yoke of the “monstrous Despotism [of the Ottomans]” and “the tyranny of the princes” that “had blunted their spiritual forces and degraded their national character.” He presented the beginning of the Greek struggle of independence as the best occasion for the Wallachians “to regain their sacred rights, which had been violated for centuries.”36 Finally, in an outline of the future politi32 33 34 35 36

Ibid., 1:196. Ibid., 1:197. Georgopoulos, “La Constitution de Rigas,” 165. “Proclamation aux Moldaves,” February 23, 1821, in Botzaris, Visions balkaniques, 225. “Proclamation aux Valaques,” March 1821, in Botzaris, Visions balkaniques, 232–33.

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cal settlement in Wallachia he sent to the Wallachian boyars in April 1821, Ypsilanti argued that “supreme political authority should always be conferred upon a native of the country and never upon a foreigner.”37 Ypsilanti’s proposals did not fall on deaf ears. Although by this time, many Wallachian boyars had already fled to Transylvania, those who remained in Bucharest after Vladimirescu’s entry into the capital did respond to the invitation of the Greek leader to consider the future political settlement of their country. Their spokesman was the spătar Grigore Băleanu who authored a statement to Alexander I.38 In it, Băleanu wrote that the boyars were at first afraid of Vladimirescu and his followers, but then recognized in their actions “the desire to escape tyranny and enjoy their ancient rights, which led us to unite with this patriotic impulse and goal.” The Wallachian spătar decried the violation of the rights of the land by the Greek hospodars and implored the tsar to restore the ancient liberty and autonomy of the country.39 Băleanu argued that the Russian–Ottoman treaties could not achieve this goal since “the Phanariots easily undo them.” It was therefore necessary to “snatch the Dacian land . . . from Ottoman control.” The author believed that it was rational, right, and natural to demand “that our people be forever free, sovereign, autonomous, and bound only by the protection of Your Majesty.” “We demand,” wrote Băleanu, “governing ourselves in accordance with our laws and customs, on the entire extent of the Dacian land, divided into Oltenia and Muntenia; having a native hospodar subjected to the laws of the land and elected by the people; as well as a native army.” He also claimed the lands between “the natural borders from the Carpathians to the middle of the Danube” and called for the destruction of the Ottoman fortresses and the reintegration of the raiale. This would render the Danube “the insurmountable limit of Dacia and an insurmountable barrier to Ottoman power.”40 Băleanu forwarded this passionate statement to Ypsilanti with a request to introduce any modifications that the leader of the Etaireia would consider necessary as well as asked him for instructions on what to do next.41 37 38 39 40 41

“Proclamation aux boyards refugiées à Brasov,” April 10, 1821, in Botzaris, Visions balkaniques, 233–35. Băleanu to Ypsilanti, April 20, 1821, Vîrtosu, 1821, 91–92. Băleanu to Alexander I, April 10, in Oțetea, Documente privind istoria Romîniei, 2:54. Oțetea, Documente privind istoria Romîniei, 2:54–55. Băleanu to Ypsilanti, April 20, 1821, Vîrtosu, 1821, 91–92.

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The revolutionary undertaking of the Etaireia, thus, found a positive response among the boyars, who saw in it an opportunity to put an end to the Phanariot regime and return to “native” rule. Their subsequent antiEtairist and anti-Greek attitudes were a reaction to the ravages of the Etairist forces as well as the tsar’s denunciation of Ypsilanti and Vladimirescu. The failure of Russia to intervene militarily in support of the rebellion made the Ottoman occupation of the principalities inevitable, which forced the boyars to flee the country. From the safety of Kronstadt (Brașov), Czernowitz, and Kishinev, the boyars addressed appeals and petitions to the tsar and the sultan, in which they complained of their misfortunes and tried to dissociate themselves from both Tudor and the Etaireia. 42 They also sought to present the Greeks as the sole instigators of the troubles and stressed their loyalty both to their sovereign and to their protector, loyalty that deserved to be rewarded with the restoration of “native” rule. Already at the end of March, the Moldavian boyars petitioned the Porte to have a native hospodar elected by the assembly, “in accordance with ancient privileges (miluiri),” ruling on the basis of the laws and customs of the land and represented in Constantinople by native boyar agents (capichihaiele).43 The speed with which the Moldavian boyars came to formulate this demand undoubtedly reflected the particular circumstances of the principality since the last Phanariot hospodar—Mihai Suțu—compromised himself in the eyes of the Porte through his involvement with Etaireia.44 Émigré Moldavian boyars repeated this request six months later in a petition to the Porte dispatched from Czernowitz. This time, they also demanded the codification of laws in the native language, “in accordance with the ancient customs of the land.”45 This strategy of appealing to the 42 The first such memorandum that the Moldavian boyars addressed to Alexander I dated from April 4, 1821. See Oțetea, Documente privind istoria Romîniei, 2:29–31 and 119–20. See also their letter to the vice-chancellor Nesselrode of May 1821, in Oțetea, Documente privind istoria Romîniei, 2:187– 89. For the first memorandum of the Wallachian boyars to Alexander I (dated June 1, 1821) that denounced the uprisings of Vladimirescu and the heterists, see Oțetea, Documente privind istoria Romîniei, 2:191–92. For the similar messages that the Moldavian and Wallachian boyars addressed to the Porte on April 5 and May 9, respectively, see in Oțetea, Documente privind istoria Romîniei, 2:42– 45 and 2:154–57. 43 “Jalba boierilor moldoveni către Înaltă Poata,” March 31, 1821, in Oțetea, Documente privind istoria Romîniei, 1:441–42. 44 As was stressed in the address of the Czernowitz émigrés to the Porte, April 4, 1821, in Oțetea, Documente privind istoria Romîniei, 2:42–45. 45 The address was dated September 20, 1821, in Oțetea, Documente privind istoria Romîniei, 2:347–349.

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Ottomans led some of them to return to the country and culminated in the dispatch of a boyar delegation to Constantinople in spring 1822. Headed by the logofăt Ioan Sturdza, the delegation once again petitioned the Porte for the restoration of “native rule.”46 Among the Wallachian boyar refugees to Transylvania, the first demand for a native hospodar appointed for life (yet obliged to make decisions “together with the most notable and senior of the native boyars”) was formulated in a memorandum dated August 1821.47 Addressed to the Austrian emperor Francis I, the memorandum was never sent because of disagreements between boyars who wanted to achieve this goal by negotiating with the Porte with Austria’s mediation, and those who adopted a pro-Russian orientation under the influence of Russian Consul-General Pini.48 Nevertheless, this memorandum contained a political program, the pursuit of which, Grigore Ghica and Barbu Văcărescu—both members of the interim boyar government that negotiated with Vladimirescu and Etaireia in January 1821—led the delegation of Wallachian boyars to Constantinople in spring 1822 where they petitioned the Porte to return the country to native rule.49 In the petitions of boyar delegations, the customary anti-Phanariot rhetoric of the “native” party turned into full-fledged Hellenophobia. The Moldavian delegates complained of “the iniquity of the Greeks,” who, “contrary to the traditions of the country . . . have multiplied all sorts of exactions, oppressing mercilessly the inhabitants and destroying all the rights and privileges of the boyars.”50 Having thus “perverted all the affairs of the country,” the Greeks, according to the petitioners, used calumny in order to “spoil the unshakable loyalty that Moldavians used to have” and accuse them 46 “Suplica (arz-maghiarul) boierilor moldoveni emigrați cerând de la Poata guvern pămîntean,” 1822, in Documente privitoare la istoria românilor, supp. 1, 5:4. 47 This memorandum of the Wallachian boyar emigres, dated August 31, 1821, is published in Oțetea, Documente privind istoria Romîniei, 2:324–26. 48 On the formation of opposition to Pini among the Transylvanian emigres, see an anonymous letter of August 1821, in Oțetea, Documente privind istoria Romîniei, 2:330–32, as well as the pamphlet “Dacia nenorocită către locuitorii globului pămîntesc,” in Documente privitoare la istoria românilor, supp. 1, 4:3. 49 Alongside Ghica and Văcărescu, both of whom held the highest Wallachian boyar rank of ban, the delegation also included vornic Nicolae Golescu, spătar Scarlat Mihaiescu, clucer Mihai Filipescu, ­clucer Filip Lenș and căminar Ioan Cocorescu. See Ioan Dîrzeanu, “Revoluțiunea de la 1821,” in Oțetea, Documente privind istoria Romîniei, 5:124. 50 “Suplica (arz-maghiarul) boierilor moldoveni emigrați,” 1822, in Documente privitoare la istoria românilor, Supplement 1, 5:1.

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(the Moldavians) of criminal plotting against the Porte that the Greeks had themselves initiated. Decrying “the cruel perversity of the Greeks” that forced them to leave their country temporarily, the Moldavian boyars implored the Porte to restore the “indigenous government” that the principality enjoyed during the first centuries of Ottoman dominance.51 The boyars did not limit themselves to anti-Greek diatribes and presented a political program to the Porte, which called for the effective de-Hellenization of the principalities. In their first petition to the Ottomans after the Russian condemnation of the uprising, the Moldavian boyars asked the Ottomans to “eradicate Greeks and Albanians from this land forever” and “place under the control of the native inhabitants” the “dedicated monasteries” that had been hitherto been governed by the Greeks.52 For their part, the Wallachian delegates to Constantinople in the spring of 1822 likewise demanded that the Greeks be chased away from the country even if they had been previously accorded the rank of boyar or married native women. The same applied to Greek clerics who would have to return to their dioceses. Those Greeks who happened to be foreign subjects (allowed to reside in the principalities by virtue of the capitulations that the Porte conferred to major European powers) were not to enjoy any of the privileges in the country, nor were they to be allowed to hold public office. Finally, schoolteachers were to be prohibited from taking donations of Greek books.53 Although anti-Phanariot and Hellenophobic rhetoric served boyars who chose to appeal to the Porte particularly well, one also finds it in the writings of those who maintained a strictly pro-Russian orientation. In a memorandum the Wallachian boyars addressed to Alexander I from their Transylvanian refuge in late 1821, they not only complained about the Phanariot princes’ violation of their ancient privileges, but also attributed to the Greeks the desire to “destroy (să surpe din ființa) all natives to become the definitive masters of the land, renaming it New Greece.”54 “A troublesome, seductive, and injurious nation,” the Greeks supposedly “waged a war 51 Ibid., 2–3. See also another version of the Moldavian address to the Porte quoted in full in Ioan Dîrzeanu, “Revoluțiunea de la 1821,” in Oțetea, Documente privind istoria Romîniei, 5:129–34. 52 “Jalba boierilor moldoveni către Înaltă Poarta,” March 31, 1821, in Oțetea, Documente privind istoria Romîniei, 1:442. They repeated these demands in their petition to the Porte of September 1821, in Oțetea, Documente privind istoria Romîniei, 2:347–49. 53 “Cererile boerilor munteni duşi la Tsarigrad,” in Vîrtosu, 1821, 155–58. 54 “Memoriul boierilor din Brașov pentru reoganizarea Țării Românești,” in Vîrtosu, 1821, 121.

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against the Church of Christ,” disseminated many heretical ideeas among the population, and were the ultimate cause of the schism of 1054.55 Tensions among the Boyars and Their Projects of Reform The uprisings of Alexander Ypsilanti and Tudor Vladimirescu as well as the social and political turmoil that followed, revealed the two fundamental conflicts concealed in the social structure of the principalities. On the one hand, there was a traditional social conflict between the peasantry and boyar landlords. The abolition of personal serfdom by Constantin Mavrocordat and the settlement concerning the number of days peasants had to labor for the landlords in return for the right to use land provoked the so-called seigniorial reaction in the late 1700s and the early 1800s. The actual labor obligations of the peasants grew while their right to use various kinds of agricultural land progressively shrank.56 However, as Vladimirescu’s movement demonstrated, the gains made through the seigniorial reaction could not be consolidated in the absence of a solid repressive apparatus. On the other hand, the Greek rebellion activated a dormant conflict within the noble class. The flight of the great boyars implicated in the Etaireia gave numerous second- and third-class boyars who stayed in the principalities an opportunity to demonstrate their loyalty to the Ottomans and redefine the political system in their favor. In so doing, they used the rhetoric of the restoration of the original privileges granted to the principalities by the Ottoman hatt-i sherifs of the seventeenth century, which were corrupted by the Phanariot princes and their associates. After the great boyars had compromised themselves in the eyes of the Ottomans by their involvement in Etaireia, they had no other choice but to stake their hopes to return to the pre-1821 political status quo on Russia. This hope was expressed in a memorandum by the leader of the Moldavian boyars in Kishinev Iordache Rosetti-Roznovanu to Russian vice-chancellor K.V. Nesselrode. The author decried the misfortunes of the land, the profanation of churches and monasteries by the Ottoman troops, the devastation of boyar estates, and the flight of the population. He also castigated the 55 Ibid., 118–19. 56 Already in the late 1770s, it took peasant some twenty-seven–twenty-eight days to perform the work requirements of the “official” twelve workdays. Oțetea, Tudor Vladimirescu, 47.

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boyars of the second class who took advantage of this anarchy and were about to send a deputation to Constantinople in order to secure a complete change of the form of government and instantly acquire influence that could only be achieved through long state service.57 Roznovanu concluded his memorandum with the call for the restoration of Russian protection over the country. A similar wish was expressed by other Moldavian boyars émigrés in a petition addressed to Alexander I.58 The pro-Russian great Wallachian boyars who took refuge in Transylvania shared Roznovanu’s conservative attitude. In their petition to the tsar of July 1821, they repudiated any relation to the uprisings of Vladimirescu and Ypsilanti, decried the devastations brought about by the Ottoman occupation, and asked for Russian protection.59 Three months later, the metropolitan of Wallachia Dionisie Lupu complained to the Russian Holy Synod about Ottoman atrocities and denounced those boyars who re-entered the principalities “in pursuit of dishonest gain” and “united with the illegitimate Ottoman masters” in order to seize and pillage the properties of the refugees.60 Hoping for the intervention of the Russian military, the Wallachian boyars petitioned the commander of the Russian Second Army P. Kh. Witgenstein a second time about the need for “a milder local government” composed of “autochthonous boyars,” who would be “well-known, conscientious, honest, fearful of God, and knowledgeable about politics.”61 Finally, in November 1821, the Wallachian refugees complained to Alexander I about the Ottoman commanders who usurped the traditional prerogatives of the hospodar and appointed proOttoman individuals to high offices.62 57 Iordache Rosetti-Roznovanu to Nesselrode, July 24, 1821, in Georgescu, Mémoires et projets de réforme, 102–3. 58 “Mémoire adressé à Alexandre Ier par les boyards émigrés concernant les événements en Moldavie,” 1821, Georgescu, Mémoires et projets de réforme, 106–7. 59 “Copie de la requête adressée à Sa Majesté l’Empereur par le Clergé et les boyards Valaques de Cronstadt,” July 12, 1821, in Oțetea, Documente privind istoria Romîniei, 2:227–29. In one of the addresses to Alexander I in 1821 the Wallachian great boyars even asked the tsar to “incorporate Wallachians among the happy peoples that populate the vast territories of Your Imperial Majesty.” Documente privitoare la istoria românilor, 10:577. 60 Dionisie Lupu to the Russian Holy Synod, October 1, 1821, in Oțetea, Documente privind istoria Romîniei, 2:362. 61 Ibid., 2:383–86. 62 Ibid., 2:399.

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These petitions were followed by a much more detailed and comprehensive memorandum that was written by aga Alexandru Villara and signed by all the highest-ranking Wallachian clerics and some forty great boyar refugees. 63 The political program expressed in this memorandum reflected both the class interests of the great Wallachian boyars and their desire to portray themselves as the champions of the common good. On the one hand, boyars claimed their exemption from the indirect taxes (rusumaturi) that served to fill the hospodar’s own treasury as well as asserted their right to have scutelnici— peasant servants who were exempt from the poll tax (bir) and public transportation and construction duties. The boyars also demanded expanding the peasant corvées from twelve days to twenty four “in accordance with ancient custom.”64 On the other hand, the memorandum demanded the re-establishment of the border along the Danube (which meant the reincorporation of the Ottoman raiale of Brăila, Turnu, and Giurgiu into the principality), the end of the Ottoman commercial monopoly, the subordination of foreign subjects to the laws of the country, and the abolition of the outdated tax collection system based on fictional taxation categories (ludori).65 The boyars also proposed the reorganization of the divan and the office of the treasurer (vistier) to curb the arbitrariness of the hospodars.66 Finally, the memorandum proposed replacing Albanian mercenaries with a native militia force.67 The great boyar hopes for a quick return to the status quo were shattered when Alexander I refused to declare war to the Ottoman Empire after the rupture of Russian–Ottoman relations in July 1821. Russia conditioned the return of its representatives to Constantinople upon the Ottoman evacuation of the principalities and the confirmation of earlier treaties. For their part, the Ottomans demanded the extradition of those etairists who took refuge in Russia, including the former Moldavian hospodar Mihai Suţu.68 Things quickly became deadlocked because Russia refused to fulfill the extradition request, while Austria and Great Britain, formally acting on behalf of 63 “Memoiriu Boerilor din Braşov,” in Vîrtosu, 1821, 117–40. For Villara’s authorship of the memorandum, see note on page 140. 64 Ibid., 126–29. 65 Ibid., 125–26, 128–30. 66 Ibid., 131–36. 67 Ibid., 135–39. 68 Georgescu, Din corespondenţa diplomatică a Ţării Româneşti, 13. On the Russian refusal to extradite the Etairists, see Nesselrode to Stroganov, May 1, 1821, in VPR, ser. 2, 4:149.

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Russia, put only perfunctory pressure on the Ottoman Empire to evacuate the principalities. On balance, the Ottomans demonstrated more agility in these affairs: their representatives (caimacams) in Moldavia and Wallachia in 1821–22, Constantin Negri and Ștefan Vogoride, courted the second-class boyars and, at the same time, invited the great boyar émigrés to return to the country.69 As previously mentioned, some great boyars accepted this invitation as an opportunity to secure the thrones of Moldavia and Wallachia for themselves after the Porte accepted their petition to restore native rule. This decision by the Porte reflected not only the practical necessity of finding a substitution for the compromised Phanariots but also the Ottomans’ desire to consolidate their hold over the principalities. Although the return to native rule looked like a restoration of the broad autonomy that Moldavia and Wallachia had once enjoyed, the Porte’s control over the principalities in fact increased because of the continued presence of Ottoman troops on their territory after 1821. In the absence of a native military force, the expulsion of Greek, Albanian, and Serbian mercenaries left the principalities without the means to maintain order or prevent further etairists invasions. This circumstance justified the Porte’s continued occupation of Moldavia and Wallachia, even though it violated both the “capitulations” and the Russian–Ottoman treaties.70 Caught between a diminished tax base and the requirement to send large contributions to the Porte, the new hospodars (Grigore Ghica in Wallachia and Ioan Alexandru Sturdza in Moldavia) pursued policies that did not square with the aspirations of the great boyars. While the imposition of taxes on the monasteries dedicated to Holy Places and controlled by the Greek clergy was very much in line with the predominant anti-Greek attitude, the tax on boyar estates greatly exasperated their owners. In order to secure support, the hospodars sought to win the sympathy of second-class boyars through liberal distribution of great boyar ranks. This, in turn, provoked the criticism of the great boyars, most of whom rejected the new hospodars’ summons to return to the country.71 69 See Negri to the boyars in Brașov, May 31, 1821, in Urechia, Istoria românilor, 13:137–38, and Vogoride to Moldavian boyars, July 1, 1821, in Erbiceanu, Istoria Mitropoliei Moldaviei și Sucevei, 385–86. 70 Moldavian émigré boyars duly complained to Alexander I and Austrian Emperor Francis I of these violations and the ravages of the Ottoman troops that led to, among other things, the big fire in Jassy in July 1822. See Documente privitoare la istoria românilor, supp. 1, 4: 79–84. Although the editors dated these documents from 1825, they were really written in 1822, as is clear from their content. 71 Ibid., 4:79, 84.

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Within this general context there were some differences in the political situation of the two principalities, which explains why the conflict in Moldavia was ultimately more acute than in Wallachia. Whereas the uprising and the Ottoman occupation produced significant dislocations of population in both principalities, the larger size of Wallachia left its ruler with greater resources and room to maneuver than the smaller Moldavia, truncated as it was by the Bucharest treaty. After 1812, numerous Moldavian second- and third-class boyars had fewer opportunities for enrichment and social promotion than their relatively less numerous counterparts in Wallachia. This had an immediate impact on the character of the post-1821 radicalism in both principalities. While the Wallachian radicalism affected mostly non-boyar elements, in Moldavia the radicalization of political attitudes took place within the boyar estate, which made the second- and thirdclass boyars more vocal and their conflict with the great boyars more acute.72 The policies of Grigore Ghica and Ioan Alexandru Sturdza further exacerbated the differences between the two principalities. The Wallachian hospodar sought to advance the interests of his family and relatives, the Văcărescus, against those of another great boyar, Constantin Bălăceanu, and his network. This gave Wallachian politics in the 1820s the appearance of the traditional struggle between rival boyar clans. Otherwise, Ghica shared the conservative worldview of Metternich’s councilor Friedrich von Gentz, with whom he corresponded throughout his reign.73 An enemy of social transformations, Ghica abstained from awarding boyar titles as profusely as did his Moldavian counterpart.74 Between November 1822 and February 1828, Sturdza granted boyar status to 354 individuals, doubling the total number of boyars in comparison with 1810 (from 460 to 902).75 Eventually, the great Moldavian boyars both within and outside the country put up much more formidable opposition to the hospodar, and this, together with the radicalism of the small Moldavian boyars, contributed to greater political polarization. A comparison of the responses of Wallachian and Moldavian émigrés to the appointment of the native hospodars illustrates well both the simi72 73 74 75

Iordache, Originile conservatismului romănesc, 54. Prokesch-Osten, Dépêches inédites du chevalier de Gentz, vols. 2 and 3. Iordache, Principatele Române în epocă modernă, 1:176–77. Gheorghe Platon and Alexandru-Florin Platon, Boierimea din Moldova, 92–93.

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larities and the differences in the character of political struggle in Moldavia and Wallachia. The Wallachian émigrés in Kronstadt were, above all, resentful of the opportunism of Ghica and Văcărescu and considered their delegation to the Porte in spring 1822 as unrepresentative of the great boyar estate as a whole.76 In their petition to Alexander I dispatched two months later, the émigrés denounced the appointment of Ghica without consultation as yet another violation of the original capitulations, which was the basis on which Wallachia had become a tributary of the Ottoman Empire.77 The Wallachian émigrés’ updated reform program, formulated by Grigore Brâncoveanu in December 1822, demanded the appointment of the hospodars on the basis of “election by the nation, i. e. by the clergy and the boyar class, as was the old custom.”78 Otherwise, the Wallachian émigrés were preoccupied with the insurrectionary attitudes of the peasantry more than with the political tendencies of the second- and third-class boyars.79 In order to restore “the moral state of the country,” Brâncoveanu proposed the suspension of the direct tax (bir) (and thus tribute to the Porte) for a period of five years. In return for this exemption, the peasants would have to perform thirty-six days of labor for their landlords every year, a threefold increase. With the resumption of the bir at the end of the five-year term, the number of peasant labor days would go down to fourteen, which was still an increase in comparison to the twelve-day limit established when serfdom was abolished in the mideighteenth century.80 As has already become customary, proposals in pursuit of the common good accompanied those that reflected boyar class interests. The memorandum suggested abolishing the system of “feeding” public 76 See the letter of the Wallachian boyars to Pini of June 1, 1822, in Oțetea, Documente privind istoria Romîniei, 3:104–7. 77 “Memoriul mitropolitului, episcopilor și boierilor din Țara Românească către țar împotrivă numirii domunului Grigore Ghica,” August 14, 1822, in Oțetea, Documente privind istoria Romîniei, 3:129– 32. 78 “Memoriul despre cauzele care au provocat în Țara Românească ‘războiul săracilor împotrivă bogaților’ și despre măsurile ce trebuie luate pentru organizarea țării,” December 1822, in Oțetea, Documente privind istoria Romîniei, 3:234. Like Villara’s memorandum a year earlier, Brâncoveanu’s piece was presented by the Kronstadt émigrés to the Russian consul general Pini. 79 In turn, the Wallachian boyars of the second and third class were more reconciliatory toward the great boyars than the Moldavian small boyar radicals. See “Înscrisul propus de boerii mici pentru unirea țării, 1822,” in Vîrtosu, 1821, 205–10. 80 “Memoriul despre cauzele,” in Oțetea, Documente privind istoria Romîniei, 3:232–33.

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officials and making salaries their only form of remuneration. It also demanded the reintegration of the Ottoman raiale on the left bank of the Danube, freedom of commerce, and the formation of a national militia. 81 The Moldavian émigrés in Czernowitz likewise evoked the original capitulations in a new petition to the tsar in August 1822 and decried their continued violation by the Ottomans. Like their Wallachian counterparts, the great Moldavian boyars sought to present their pursuit of narrow class interests as concern for the common good. Thus, they argued that in view of the devastations of the Etaireia uprising and its suppression, Moldavia required respite from its tributary obligations to the Porte as well as freedom of commerce. They also stressed the necessity of defining the prerogatives of the hospodar with some “statutory regulations” in order to curb his arbitrariness. Above all, however, they stressed the need to abolish the boyar titles that had been abusively awarded by the last Phanariot hospodar Mihai Suțu and the Ottoman caimacam Ștefan Vogoride to “dishonest individuals” who now sought to “lay the foundations of a destructive system” that would harm the public good and “undermine the fortunes and very existence of the people who for generations had been entrusted with governing functions and were worthy of popular affection.”82 Moldavian Boyar Radicals and Conservatives After 1821, petty Moldavian boyars formed a radical group that their political enemies labeled “the carbonari society” (societatea cărvunarilor). Included among its members were Andronache Donici (a notable jurist), Petrache Sturdza (nephew of the hospodar Ioan Alexandru Sturdza), and Gheorghe Sturdza; the intellectual leader of the group was Ionică Tăutu. A young second-class boyar (comis), Tăutu became the advisor of hospodar Ioan Alexandru Sturdza and the principal author of the most provocative political document of the decade. Written in April 1822 and presented to hospodar Sturdza in September of the same year, the “constitution of the 81 Ibid., 230–32. 82 See the Moldavian boyar petition to Alexander I of August 25, 1822, in Vîrtosu, 1821, 146–50. The French text of this petition (mistakenly dated by 1825) is published in Documente privitoare la istoria românilor, supp. 1, 4:86–89. The list of the Moldavian boyars who resided in Czernowitz at this time is published in Bălan, Refugiații moldoveni în Bucovina, 78–88.

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carbonari,” as it came to be known, offered the most coherent embodiment of the political aspirations of the wider strata of Moldavian elites.83 The “constitution” affirmed the absolute supremacy of local laws as the basis of the inviolability of personal and property rights as well as the autonomy of the principality under Ottoman suzerainty.84 The plan called for the election of the hospodars by the Assembly of the Land (obștească adunare) composed of the three highest clerics “and the entire boyar community from the Great Logofăt to the Great Șatrari.”85 The hospodar had to rule in concert with the “Public Council,” the legislative body that would effectively control all branches of the government. The Council was supposed to include the higher clergy, the members of the divan and departments, as well as the representatives of each district elected by local boyars.86 The political predominance of the middle and small boyars was assured by their majority in the Council and the superiority of the latter in case of conflicts with the hospodar.87 Apart from purely legislative functions, the Council would also have control over appointments: the hospodar had to nominate public officials from the list of candidates proposed by the Council “only on the basis of merit and the worthiness of each candidate.”88 The Council was likewise supposed to control ennoblement, which was to be a reward for diligent service. Once accorded, noble status did not have to be reconfirmed at the beginning of each new reign and conferral meant the full enjoyment of great boyar privileges, such as the right to have scutelnici.89 In order to alleviate the suffering of the peasantry, the plan proposed a land survey and a more precise definition of taxes, which were to be collected by commissions consisting of two boyars from a given district and one representative of the central administra83 The actual name of the document is impossibly long: “Cererile cele mai însemnătoare ce se fac din partea obștii Moldovei în atocmire cu cele cuprinse prin obștească jalba sa, trimisă către Înaltul Devlet, și în temeiul Sfântului și înalt împărătesc ferman ce s-au slobozit la... ca să fie sfințite obștește aceste cereri, spre a sluji pământeștii ocârmuiri de temeiul până ce se va pute inființa pravila țârii intr-o desăvărșitâ alcâtuire,” September 13, 1822, Xenopol, “Primul proiect de constituţiune a Moldovei,” 116–35. 84 Ibid., 116–17. 85 Ibid., 131–32. 86 Ibid., 119–20. 87 Ibid., 120–21 and note. 88 Ibid., 125–26. The “constitution” also presupposed fixed salaries for officials and their yearly reappointment in accordance with traditional practice. This implied a rapid turnover of officials, which made the revenue of public office potentially available for a larger number of boyars. 89 Ibid., 127, 129.

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tion.90 Finally, the “constitution of the carbonari” followed the anti-Phana­ riot line of other native boyar memoranda from this period, demanding the exclusion of Greeks from high clerical appointments, the end of Greek control over the dedicated monasteries, as well as the promotion of Romanianlanguage education.91 Although the “constitution of the carbonari” was never adopted by hospodar Sturdza, it represented the most remarkable political plan written after 1821, and its influence on the contemporary political scene and Romanian historiography cannot be overestimated. Beginning with A.D. Xenopol who discovered the document, Romanian historians hailed it as an early manifestation of the progressive and liberal ideas associated with the French revolution, which saw a resurgence in the principalities after 1821.92 At the same time, at least one historian of modern Romania did not fail to note that the “democratic” tendencies of the “constitution” were limited to the demand for equality within the boyar estate and were counterbalanced by the reassertion of boyars’ privileged status vis-à-vis the rest of society.93 This oligarchic tendency became even more pronounced in the subsequent attempts made by boyar radicals to realize their agenda. In 1824, the Ottoman Grand Vizier Mehmed Said Galip Pasha demanded the Moldavian government guarantee the security of Ottoman merchants in the principalities as a pre-condition for the reduction of the Ottoman troops that had been present in Moldavia since 1821.94 Ionică Tăutu or some other representative of the small boyars seized this occasion in order to present their political program to hospodar Sturdza once again.95 The author argued that only the political stability of the principality would enable the hospodar to give the Ottomans the guarantee they demanded. To assure stability, it was necessary to create a native army that would be sufficiently large to pre90 91 92 93 94

Ibid., 127–28. Ibid., 130–31. Ibid., 150–60. Campbell, French Influence, 32. “Traduction de l’ordre envoyé de la part du Visier a l’Hospodar de Moldavie,” May 1824, in Documente privitoare la istoria românilor, Suplement 1, 4:40–41. 95 “Mémoire concernant le problème de la présence des troupes ottomanes dans le pays et les garanties demandées par la Porte pour leur retrait: considération sur la réorganisation de l’administration, du pouvoir législatif, du pouvoir judiciaire et de l’armée,” June 6, 1824, in Georgescu, Mémoires et projets de réforme, 126–31. For the Romanian (original?) version of this memorandum, see Documente privitoare la istoria românilor, 10:591–96.

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vent any future invasions of the Greek etairists. It was also necessary to prevent foreign subjects living in Moldavia from anti-Ottoman insurrections, and for this reason it was necessary to subject them to the jurisdiction of the Moldavian courts and place them under the control of Moldavian laws and the police. Political stability further required the unity of the boyar estate, which could be assured through the creation of a senate whose members would be hereditary and would make decisions by simple majority of votes.96 Such a senate would have elevated the second-class boyars over the great boyars and, in the long run, would have helped obliterate the differences between the different classes of boyars altogether. At the same time, the hereditary principle would have widened the gap between the boyars and the rest of the society. The proposed arrangement could only have produced an oligarchy even if a somewhat larger one than the regime to which the great boyars aspired. For this reason, it is difficult to accept the interpretation of the “constitution of the carbonari” and the other projects of Moldavian boyar radicals as manifestations of the liberal ideals of the French revolution.97 Like many progressives of the late eighteenth and the early nineteenth century, Tăutu was quite elitist: he abhorred “the anarchy of the crowd” and condemned the first French republic.98 A more interesting interpretation of the “constitution of the carbonari” was offered in the interwar period by Ioan C. Filitti, who suggested the influence of late eighteenth-century Polish revolutionary émigrés on the ideas of Moldavian radicals. According to Filitti, both small Moldavian boyars and the Polish revolutionary szlachta played with the slogans of the French revolution while pursuing traditionalist political ideals.99 Therefore, “the constitution of the carbonari” was hardly a modernizing document and, in fact, represented an attempt to return to the past. Filitti also pointed to the Bessarabian Statute of 1818 as one of the points of reference for the radical Moldavian boyars.100 As evidence, Filitti offered the letter of vornic Şerban Negel to his brother, Metropolitan Veniamin Costache, which 96 The author also suggested making hospodar rule hereditary in order to protect the princes from Ottoman persecution, the fear of which led some to flee the country. Georgescu, Mémoires et projets de réforme, 130. 97 Eliade, Histoire de l’esprit publique, 66. 98 Georgescu, Ideile politice, 115. On the general fear of democracy that characterized the position of leading intellectuals and political figures of this period, see Dupuis-Déri, Démocratie. 99 Filitti, Frământările politice în Principatele Române, 103. 100 Ibid., 104.

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described the small Moldavian boyars’ aspiration to elect officials and participate in political affairs on equal footing with the great boyars as was the case in Bessarabia.101 The idea of Russian influence on “the constitution of carbonari” was expressed already in the nineteenth century by one of the most prominent Romanian conservative politicians P.P. Carp, whose father was one of the leaders of the small boyars.102 As will be demonstrated later, in their petitions to Russian authorities, second- and third-class Moldavian boyars indeed invoked Bessarabian autonomy in an attempt to protect their political rights from being threatened by the great boyars. Admittedly, the contrast between the ideology of legitimism adopted by Alexander I and the intense patriotic rhetoric of the Moldavian radicals was too strong to suggest any immediate Russian influence on them. At the same time, the conflicting political languages should not obscure the fundamental compatibility between the demands made by the small Moldavian boyars for equality within the boyar estate and Catherine the Great’s “empire of the nobles,” which her grandson tried to resurrect. The liberal policy adopted by Bessarabian authorities on the issue of the recognition of second-class boyars as Russian noblemen during the 1810s reflected the principles of Catherine’s 1785 Charter to the Nobility, which asserted the legal equality of all noblemen. Similarly, the wide participation of Bessarabian noblemen in provincial administration under the Statute of 1818 ultimately reflected the principles of Catherine’s gubernia reform of 1775. Both aspects of imperial policy in Bessarabia during the 1810s were fundamentally amiable to the demands of the Moldavian “carbonari.”103 For their part, the émigré great boyars in Kishinev and Czernowitz took every opportunity to denounce both the demands of the small boyars and the policies of the new hospodar as undermining the foundations of the Moldavian social order. In August 1823, the leader of the Kishinev émigrés, Iordache Rosetti-Roznovanu, sent the newly appointed Bessarabian 101 Ibid., 96. The letter in question is published in Erbiceanu, Istoria Mitropoliei Moldaviei și Sucevei, 225. 102 Iordache, Principatele Române în epocă modernă, 118, citing Eliade, Histoire de l’esprit publique, 71–75. 103 The Russian diplomats were well apprised of the “constitution of carbonari” and its stipulations. See Pizani’s report to the managing director of the Constantinople mission D.V. Dashkov about the project of the Moldavian radicals and its translation from the Romanian, January 10, 1823, in Xenopol, “Primul proiect de constituţiune a Moldovei,” 167. In fact, Xenopol discovered the “constitution of carbonari” in the archive of the Russian consulate in Iași thanks to the assistance of the Russian consul A.A. Girs.

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Viceroy M.S. Vorontsov a memorandum in which he once again castigated the parvenus who had marginalized the great boyars since 1821. According to Roznovanu, the decline in the fortunes of the great boyars coincided with the unprecedented interference of the Ottomans in the affairs of the principality that became possible as a result of the military occupation. The political changes that took place since 1821, thus, not only undermined the traditional social hierarchy of Moldavia, but also temporarily suspended Russian protectorate in the principality, which had previously helped distance the principality from the Ottoman empire. By relating these two developments, Roznovanu sought to demonstrate that the support of the great boyar estate represented Russia’s best way to restore its position on the Danube.104 A year later, Roznovanu offered a point-by-point refutation of the memorandum boyar radicals presented to hospodar Sturdza in June 1824. Under the condition of continued Ottoman sovereignty, a military force of 4,000 or 5,000 as proposed by the radicals, could only serve as a means of internal oppression and source of enrichment for the upstarts that presently held power. As long as the principalities remained part of the Ottoman Empire, the demand to bring foreign subjects under Moldavian jurisdiction would place an undue burden on them without offering compensation in the form of security, which only an independent government can provide. The suggestion of the radicals to form a senate with hereditary membership, according to Roznovanu, was a means to perpetuate the current dominance of secondclass boyars. The immunity of senate members coupled with their prerogative to dispose of public funds would offer radical boyars an exclusive opportunity for self-enrichment. The leader of the great boyar émigrés also argued that making the hospodar office hereditary would nullify all the beneficial effects of Russian protection when it was reestablished and would only strengthen Ottoman dominance in Moldavia. Taken together, all the measures proposed by the radicals amounted to the “annihilation” of the firstclass boyars, who had the greatest interest in the order and prosperity of the country. Roznovanu argued for the reestablishment of the pre-1821 state and a return to the level of taxation defined in the Bucharest treaty.105 104 As a practical measure, he suggested the effective abolition of the Ottoman commercial monopoly as well as the cancellation of all the promotions and boyar titles conferred since 1821. Iordache Rosetti-Roznovanu, “Réflexions sur la Moldavie,” September 1823, in Georgescu, Mémoires et projets de réforme, 115–20. 105 “Mémoire concernant de la ‘constitution des carbonari,’” 1823, in Georgescu, Mémoires et projets

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A more fundamental criticism of the plans of the Moldavian “carbonari” came in response to the attempt of the newly appointed Russian consul general M.Ia. Minchaki to convince émigré boyars to return to the country.106 Unlike Rosetti-Roznovanu’s piece, the memorandum written by Mihai Sturdza, a young Moldavian boyar who emerged as an informal leader of the Czernowitz émigrés, couched this criticism specifically in terms of legitimist ideology. It represents an interesting example of how the leaders of a regional elite manipulated the language of Russian foreign policy in order to secure its support and achieve their goals in a local conflict. Having identified the mood of Alexander I’s declining years, Sturdza defined the innovation advocated by the Moldavian “carbonari” as “the betrayal of the institutions consecrated by legitimacy” and contradictory to the mandate to rule in accordance with the traditions and customs of this country given to the hospodar by the Ottomans. As if recognizing tsar’s own apprehensions about the very term “constitution,” Sturdza called it “an act compromising authority.” He also implicitly evoked Alexander I’s own complications with the Polish Sejm by colorfully portraying the disorder that the lower class’s desire for equality usually produced in an assembly proposed by the “carbonari.” Sturdza explained the refusal of the émigré boyars to follow the advice of the tsar and return to the country by pointing to their fear of being implicated in the conflagration produced by the radicals. He argued that only the abolition of the recent boyar promotions could eliminate the cause of the current troubles in Moldavia.107 The policies of the Moldavian hospodar constituted a recurrent target of great boyar criticism. In order to pay tribute to the Porte and provide de réforme, 120–24. Georgescu misdated and misnamed this memorandum. Roznovanu’s reference to the “disastrous regime under which the land has been groaning for two years” applies, in fact, to the rule of hospodar Sturdza (appointed in July 1822), which means that the memorandum was written in 1824 and not in 1823. This hypothesis finds confirmation in the content of Roznovanu’s memorandum. The immediate object of the author’s criticism is not the “constitution of carbonari” itself, but the 1824 memorandum of the radicals, written in response to the Grand Vizier’s demand of guarantees of the protection of Ottoman merchants after the evacuation of Ottoman troops (see above). 106 See the “preliminary instructions” that Nesselrode gave to M.Ia. Minchaki at the moment of the latter’s appointment as Russia’s consul general in the principalities on December 8, 1822, in VPR, ser. 2, 5:692, note 69. Since the evacuation of the Ottoman troops from the principalities was, by that time, nearly complete, Nesselrode instructed the new consul, who, like Pini in the previous two years, was to reside in Brașov to indirectly encourage the boyars’ return to Wallachia without, however, giving any explicit orders to do so. 107 Mihai Sturdza to Minchaki, February 1, 1823, Documente privitoare la istoria românilor, supp. 1, 4:7–8.

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for the maintenance of Ottoman occupation troops in the principalities, Ioan Alexandru Sturdza directed a significant part of the revenue of the monasteries, hospitals, and public funds to the state treasury and imposed extraordinary taxes on all social categories that had been exempted from taxation. Among other things, this meant that boyar properties were subject to taxation and the estates of the émigrés were, predictably, badly affected in the absence of any effective political lobby within the country. The émigré boyars spared no effort to denounce hospodar Sturdza’s activities to the Russian authorities.108 Those boyars who returned to the country with Metropolitan Veniamin Costache in April 1823 soon organized around their opposition to the hospodar and attempted to denounce him to the Ottoman authorities. 109 For his part, hospodar Sturdza likewise addressed a petition to the Porte in which he accused the boyars of political subversion. The Ottomans found the hospodar’s arguments more convincing, arrested the great boyar delegation, and authorized Sturdza to arrest the oppositional boyars within the country.110 The conflict between the hospodar and the great boyars motivated the vornic Costache Conachi to formulate one of the most serious reform projects of the mid-1820s. Like the leaders of the great boyars, Conachi criticized the liberal distribution of boyar titles by the last three hospodars that led to the proliferation of scutelnici, breslași, and slugi and ruined the taxpaying population.111 He also decried the distortions in the original form of the Moldavian government caused by the hospodars’ efforts to marginalize the General Assembly. According to Conachi, the hospodar and the General 108 See Mihai Sturdza to Minchaki, 1823, Documente privitoare la istoria românilor, supp. 1, 4:27–28. See also the memo that the Moldavian émigrés addressed to Nesselrode at the moment of the restoration of Russian–Ottoman relations and the appointment of A. I Ribop’er as the new Russian envoy to Constantinople in August 1824, in Documente privitoare la istoria românilor, supp. 1, 4:84–86, as well as “Projet de la supplique qu’on se propose d’adresser à Sa Majesté l’Empereur,” Kishinev, Czernowitz, 1824, in Georgescu, Mémoires et projets de réforme, 131–32. 109 See “Traduction de la protestation signée au nom de toute noblesse Moldave par Mr le Logothète et présentée à l’Hospodar par Son Eminence le Metropolitain,” and “Supplica adresata sultanului,” 1824, in Documente privitoare la istoria românilor, supp. 1, 4:57, 59–61. As other boyar emigres, in July 1822, Metropolitan Veniamin turned to the head of the Russian Holy Synod A. N. Golitsyn for advice as to whether he should return to Moldavia following the appointment of the autochthonous hospodar. Nesselrode’s evasive response to Veniamin’s letter apparently explains why the Metropolitan hesi­tated until the next April. See VPR, ser. 2, 5:696, note 70. 110 Iordache, Originile conservatismului romănesc, 66–69. 111 Costache Conachi, “Observations sur la Moldavie,” RGIA, f. 1630, op. 1, d. 173, ll. 2v–5.

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Assembly represented the executive and the legislative branches of the government, respectively. The assembly historically acted as the final appeal court, reviewed the accounts of the treasury, and had to endorse all the hos­ podar’s important decisions. Conachi noted that originally, the assembly included both the great and small boyars. However, neither the membership of the assembly, nor the frequency of its sessions were defined in formal statutes. As a result, only the great boyars and the highest clergymen had recently received the hospodar’s invitations (cedules) to join the assembly’s sessions, which were becoming less and less frequent.112 Conachi believed the solution to Moldavia’s multiple evils was restoration of the historical functions of the General Assembly. The most important of these was the election of the hospodars from among the native boyars. In support of the great boyars, Conachi suggested limiting the number of eligible candidates only to first-class boyars whose families had been noble for at least fifty years. At the same time, in contrast to Sturdza, he suggested that the assembly itself include boyars of both the first and the second class. All important decisions would have to be made jointly by the hospodar and the assembly through a simple majority of votes. Among the tasks of the future assembly, Conachi listed the review of taxation, the regularization of the scutelnici and other categories of partially tax-exempt individuals, a land survey, the definition of the amount of labor that the peasants owed their landlords, and the revision of the legal code adopted by hospodar Callimachi in 1816 to make it actual basis for administrative decisions and court sentences. Finally, Conachi pointed out the need to abolish the Ottoman commercial monopoly and create a native militia that would render the presence of Ottoman troops (nefer) redundant.113 In the course of this political struggle, boyars of different factions widely employed patriotic rhetoric to present themselves as the true champions of the national interest and their rivals as traitors to the fatherland. Thus, Tăutu and other boyar radicals who supported the hospodar attacked the great boyar opposition as unpatriotic—an accusation that was later reproduced by some Romanian historians.114 According to Tăutu, taxation on large properties 112 Ibid., ll. 5v–6v. 113 Ibid., ll. 9v–12v. 114 For example, Vîrtosu characterizes the position of great Wallachian boyars as “everything for Russia, nothing for the fatherland.” Vîrtosu, 1821, xxiv.

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was the interest of the fatherland; therefore, the dissatisfaction of the great boyars demonstrated that they were preoccupied only with their private interests.115 However, the great boyars were equally conversant in the language of patriotism and the common good. In his “Considerations on Moldavia and Wallachia at the beginning of 1825” addressed to Alexander I, Mihai Sturdza argued that “everyone in a civilized society is tied by a civil contract to this society, which is first of all his fatherland.” Concerned with his “wounded and fragile” country, the leader of the Czernowitz émigrés pleaded with the tsar to intervene. Sturdza decried the deterioration of the Moldavian aristocracy as a result of the numerous promotions to boyar rank made by Phanariot princes and the current hospodar; he also advocated for the establishment of a stable monarchy under Russian protection, which would reflect the principalities’ history, their present situation, and their prospective development.116 The same demand for the abolition of recent promotions and the lifetime appointment of the hospodars was also expressed in a petition that the Czernowitz émigrés addressed to Alexander I in 1825 on the eve of their return to Moldavia, which was made possible by the restoration of Russian– Ottoman relations. The petitioners also restated their earlier demands for freedom of commerce and the three-year exemption of Moldavia from tribute as compensation for the ravages and destruction it had suffered since 1821.117 At the same time, the political conflict remained a clash of personalities as much as it was a confrontation of different social groups within the boyar class. Both the hospodar’s overtures to the émigrés and his cooperation with a number of great boyars blurred social divisions.118 The divid115 Iordache, Principatele Române în epocă modernă, 131–32. 116 Mihai Sturdza, “Considérations sur la Moldavie et la Valachie au commencement de 1825,” Documente privitoare la istoria românilor, supp. 1, 4:63–69. 117 Ibid., 89–91. Another representative of the conservative great boyars Gheorghe Cantacuzino suggested in early 1826 not only to abolish all illegal promotions made by Ioan Alexandru Sturdza and his two predecessors, but also to prohibit granting boyar titles to commoners in the future. Eager to assert the privileged status of the boyars, Cantacuzino also asserted the boyar right to the court of peers. He also recommended renewing the hatt-i sherif of 1802 in order to prohibit the hospodars from introducing any new taxes and to replace indirect taxes (rusumaturi) by a proportionate increase in the direct tax (bir). Cantacuzino also demanded abolishing livestock deliveries to Constantinople, limiting the deliveries of timber for the Ottoman navy, and exempting the principalities from tribute for three or four years in order to compensate them for the devastations they recently experienced. See the summary of Cantacuzino’s memorandum submitted to Russia in RGIA, op. 1, d. 174, ll. 1–7. 118 This applied to Theodor Balş, Iordache Catargi, and Costache Conachi, all of whom featured prominently in the elaboration of the Organic Statutes.

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ing lines between the two political camps sometimes separated relatives. The hostility of the Mihai Sturdza (leader of the Czernowitz émigrés) toward the hospodar Ioan Alexandru Sturdza is not very surprising: they belonged to two different branches of the Sturdza family that had separated in the early eighteenth century and been at loggerheads ever since (the hospodar, in fact, belonged to the less illustrious branch).119 It is much more surprising that the hospodar and his other major critic Iordache Rosetti-Roznovanu were in fact brothers-in-law, since Ioan Alexandru Sturdza married Iordache’s sister Ecaterina. Even members of the same family took different positions. For example, Iordache Rosetti-Roznovanu’s son Nicholae not only embraced the “egalitarian” rhetoric of the Moldavian radicals early on but also sought to justify it to the Russian authorities.120 Nicolae Rosetti-Roznovanu agreed with his father about the negative effects of the promotions of the early 1820s but argued that it was too late to change the situation. “Five years have consecrated [the new promotions] in the eyes of public opinion, and it would be dangerous to attempt to suppress them,” argued the younger Roznovanu. “The reactions to such measures would damage the influence of the protecting power and be detrimental to the country itself, since the newly promoted individuals now know better the interests of the people and are better suited to govern them.”121 However, by 1826, when this piece was written, the memoranda of the elder Rosetti-Roznovanu and Mihai Sturdza, as well as the collective addresses of the Kishinev and Czernowitz émigrés, confirmed the Russian Foreign Ministry’s negative attitude toward the aspirations of the small boyars. From the very beginning of the crisis, Russian vice-chancellor Nesselrode sought to defend the status quo. This choice reflected Alexander I’s commitment to the principles of legitimism in the last years of his life and Russia’s more pragmatic interest in the preservation of the existing Russian– Ottoman treaties. Early on, Nesselrode signaled Russia’s agreement to the replacement of the Phanariots with native hospodars, “if this could facili119 See Popișteanu and Matei, Sturdzeștii. 120 Iordache, Originile conservatismului romănesc, 55. On Nicolae Rosetti-Roznovanu, see Costache, “At the End of Empire,” 116–56. 121 Nicolae Rosetti-Roznovanu, “Mémoire adressé à la Russie,” June 19, 1826, St. Petersburg, in Georgescu, Mémoires et projets de réforme, 133–35.

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tate future Russian–Ottoman negotiations on reforming the system of government in Moldavia and Wallachia in accordance with existing treaties.”122 This, however, was the only deviation from the status quo ante 1821 position defended by the Russian government prior to the beginning of the Russian– Ottoman negotiations in Akkerman in the fall of 1826. Nesselrode’s conservative attitude was reflected in his instruction to the new Russian consul general M. Ia. Minchaki to distinguish between boyar claims that “reflect actually existing rights and needs,” on the one hand, and “those that were the fruits of excessive fantasy or treacherous intrigues,” on the other. The Russian vice-chancellor denounced the boyar desire to “introduce the most pernicious innovations, change the principles of our relations with the Porte, and create a hotbed of disorder near our borders that the sect of the European revolutionaries seeks to spread by all means.” In the eyes of Nesselrode, “the small boyars, with their plans and intrigues, were useful only as numerous and effective tools” in the hands of European revolutionary conspirators.123 The Convention of Akkerman From the very beginning of the Greek crisis, Britain and Austria sought to prevent Russia’s unilateral military and political involvement in the conflict between the sultan and his Greek subjects. The explicit opposition of London and the tacit one of Vienna helped sabotage St. Petersburg’s proposals for collective intervention that had been accepted by the Prussians and the French.124 Frustrated with the failure of his European partners to pressure the Ottomans into a conciliatory stance, Alexander I declared shortly before his death that now, after years of useless negotiations, he had no choice but to conduct his Eastern affairs “in accordance with the rights and interests of his Empire.”125 Russia’s turn to a more aggressive posture with respect to the Porte became definitive under Nicholas I, who in the wake of the Decembrist revolt, lent an ear to Stroganov’s advice to follow “a strictly 122 Nesselrode to D. P. Tatishchev (Russia’s special envoy to Vienna), May 16, 1822, in VPR, ser. 2, 4:513. 123 Nesselrode to Minchaki, December 8, 1822, in VPR, ser. 2, 5:692–95. 124 See the Protocol of the conference of the representatives of Russia, Austria, Prussia, and France of March 1, 1825, in VPR, ser. 2, 6:82. 125 See Nesselrode’s letter to the Russian diplomatic representatives abroad, August 6, 1825, in VPR, ser. 2, 6:233–34.

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national and religious policy.”126 At this same time, Nicholas I also received Kapodistrias’s overview of his public career, which contained the plan of a confederation of Moldavia, Wallachia, and Serbia under the rule of German princes and a collective protectorate of Russia and other European powers.127 The shift to an activist Russian foreign policy introduced disorder in the so far joint actions of Metternich and his British colleagues. Whereas the Austrian minister continued to insist on non-involvement and the status quo, British Foreign Secretary George Canning decided to check what he considered to be Russian expansionist designs through collective intervention. In order to tie St. Petersburg’s hands, he sent the Duke of Wellington to the Russian court with the purpose of signing an agreement that would exclude the possibility of Russia’s unilateral military intervention on behalf of the Greeks.128 Nicholas I’s strategy during the negotiations with Wellington was to split the Eastern Question into its constitutive parts by isolating the Greek problem from other disputes. The tsar agreed to British mediation in the Greek question but secured for himself the possibility of unilateral action in other issues, notably the problem of principalities. Parallel to the negotiations with Wellington, the tsar demanded that the Ottomans fulfil treaty conditions related to the Danubian principalities and Serbia. On March 23, 1826, Wellington and Nesselrode signed the St. Petersburg protocol in which Britain and Russia agreed to act collectively or individually to secure an autonomous status of Greece within the Ottoman Empire while renouncing any territorial acquisition. A week later, the Porte received the tsar’s ultimatum to evacuate Moldavia and Wallachia and dispatch its representatives to the Russian–Ottoman border for negotiations on the principalities and Serbia. Canning immediately understood that Wellington was fooled by the tsar, but it was too late.129 To encourage Ottoman intransigence in the prospective negotiations on the principalities, Canning instigated Fath-AliShah of Persia to declare war on the Russian Empire. A.S. Men’shikov’s mission to Teheran to prevent the confrontation was unsuccessful.130 The Shah 126 Stroganov to Nicholas I, January 18, 1826, in VPR, ser. 2, 6:350. On the foreign policy of Nicholas I in the early years of his reign, see Bitis, Russia and the Eastern Question, 167–76. 127 Kapodistrias, “Aperçu de ma carrière publique.” 128 Fadeev, Rossiia i Vostochnyi krizis, 137. Vinogradov, “Gertsog Vellington v Peterburge.” 129 Anderson, The Eastern Question, 65. 130 Fadeev, Rossiia i Vostochnyi krizis, 141–44.

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declared war and invaded Azerbaijan.131 As a result, the Russian–Ottoman negotiations at Akkerman that opened on August 1, 1826 moved slowly at the beginning, and only decisive Russian successes in Transcaucasia forced the Ottomans to sign the convention on September 25, 1826.132 The clauses of the Convention of Akkerman pertaining to the Danubian principalities bore the influence of State Councilor Dmitrii Vasil’evich Dashkov, who was the managing director of the Constantinople mission in the early 1820s. Given the important role that Dashkov played in the definition of Russian policies concerning the principalities during the 1820s, his background warrants a closer look. A member of the literary society Arzamas during the 1810s,133 Dashkov began his career in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and served as the secretary of the Russian embassy in Constantinople in 1817–20. In 1820–21, he carried out a thorough inspection of the Russian consulates in the Levant on the order of Kapodistrias. Dashkov left Constantinople together with the envoy Stroganov in the summer of 1821, but he remained in charge of the affairs of the Constantinople mission until 1823, when he joined the Commission for the Codification of Russian Law headed by M. M. Speranskii.134 With the beginning of Nicholas I’s reign, Dashkov’s career gained momentum. In 1826, he became a State Secretary (an official that reported to the emperor) and served first as the Deputy Minister of Interior and later as the Minister of Justice.135 Due to his combination of diplomatic experience and legal expertise, Dashkov played a major role in the formulation of Russia’s strategy on the Eastern Question in general, and its policy in the principalities in particular. In the first half of 1826, Dashkov composed a long memorandum on the nature of Russia’s influence in Moldavia and Wallachia and the changes it might undergo, which Nesselrode attached to his instructions for the Russian 131 On the Russian–Persian War of 1826–28, see Bitis, Russia and the Eastern Question, 189–273. 132 For brief accounts of the convention of Akkerman, see Tatischev, Vneshniaia politika i­mperatora Nikolaia Pervogo, 150–53; Fadeev, Rossiia i Vostochnyi krizis, 165–66; Grosul, Reformy v Dunai­ skikh kniazhestvakh, 143–44; Dostian, Rossiia i balkanskii vopros, 242–45; Sheremet, Turtsiia i Adrianopol’skii, 15–16. None of these authors, however, examines the genesis of its clauses, in particular, those that referred to Moldavia and Wallachia. The same surprisingly applies to Bitis, Russia and the Eastern Question, 429. 133 See Maiofis, Vozzvanie k Evrope, passim. 134 On Dashkov’s diplomatic service, see Prousis, Russian–Ottoman Relations in the Levant. 135 Ivanov, Opyt biografii, 152–64; “Obozrenie sluzhby D.V. Dashkova,” Russkii Arkhiv, no. 2 (1891): 331–33.

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negotiators at Akkerman: A.I. Ribop’er and M.S. Vorontsov.136 The author began with an overview of the clauses of the Russian–Ottoman treaties that sought to affirm the autonomy of the principalities and Russia’s protection over them. Dashkov further demonstrated how the need to protest multiple violations of the treaties with respect to Moldavia and Wallachia affected Russia’s relations with the Porte and made the Russian envoy Stroganov “regret the absence of a national government in the provinces, strong enough on its own and independent enough from the Porte to resist to its tyrannical influence. Only a government interested in the preservation of order could dispense us of the burden of continuous surveillance, which was a source of compromises, quarrels and sometimes of corruption of our officials.”137 Dashkov recognized the benefits of the end of Phanariot rule and the appointment of the native princes in the wake of the Greek rebellion: yet he argued that it was necessary to define the proper mode of their election. Whereas Ghica and Sturdza were chosen by the small boyar delegations that came to Constantinople in the spring of 1822, Dashkov argued that the hospodars be elected in the principalities by extraordinary divans or the assemblies of notables consisting of all the members of the current divans. He was also in favor of replacing the seven-year term of service established by the hatt-i sherif of 1802 with the election of hospodars for life. According to Dashkov, limitations on the hospodars’ tenure made sense as long as Moldavia and Wallachia were ruled by the Phanariots, who normally returned to Constantinople. After the transition to native rule, the sevenyear term limit for hospodars could soon result in a situation where there 136 “Mémoire sur la nature de l’influence exercée par la Russie dans les principautés de la Moldavie et la Valachie et sur les modifications dont elle est susceptible,” 1826, RGIA, f. 1630, op. 1, d. 183. The Russian translation of the memorandum is published in VPR, ser. 2, 6:833–42. Although the copy of the memorandum found in Dashkov’s archive is unsigned, it is difficult to attribute it to anyone else. The memorandum demonstrates the author’s familiarity with the documents pertaining to Stroganov’s negotiations on the principalities with the Ottomans, as well as with the boyar memoranda submitted to the Russian government that contained various reform proposals. As the managing director of the Constantinople mission in 1821–25, Dashkov was the only person who had access to both kinds of documents. Dashkov’s authorship of this memorandum is also confirmed by the presence in his archive of drafts of the Russian-Ottoman convention with respect to Moldavia and Wallachia and of a Moldavian statute based on the principles developed in the memorandum. Both documents will be analyzed below. The instructions of Nesselrode to Ribop’er and Vorontsov concerning the negotiations at Akkerman are published in VPR, ser. 2, 6:500–12. 137 “Un tel gouvernement, intéressé lui-même à la conservation de l’ordre pouvait seul nous dispenser des fatigues d’une surveillance continue, source de compromis, de querelles, et parfois de corruption pour nos employés.” “Mémoire,” RGIA, f. 1630, op. 1, d. 183, ll. 5v–6.

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would be several former princes residing in the principality alongside the reigning hospodar, which was hardly conducive to political stability. Besides, the election of hospodars for life corresponded to the ancient constitution of Moldavia and Wallachia that was confirmed by the Ottoman capitulations and persisted until the middle of the seventeenth century.138 To counterbalance the increased power of hospodars elected for life, Dashkov suggested reforming the divans and increasing their independence. The practice of annually changing the highest judicial officials (Logofăt and Vornic) in the divans had to be abandoned in favor of the principle of the permanence of judges. In order to render the government “less oligarchic and assure the efficient cooperation of the main administrators,” Dashkov suggested that legislative functions as well as the allotment of taxes be left to the Extraordinary Divan or General Assembly.139 Alongside ex officio members, this body had to include two representatives of each district appointed by the hospodar from among the local boyars. Such an assembly would be empowered to elect the new hospodar (in case of the death or deposition of the previous one), adopt new laws, allot taxes, review the accounts of the treasury, and present petitions to the Porte or the prince. Dashkov stressed that “there could be no question of introducing a representative system proper in Moldavia and Wallachia” since popular elections of notables accorded poorly with continued Ottoman sovereignty and could only generate troubles in a country that was still barely civilized.140 The proposed assembly was not a novelty. Dashkov pointed out that both the term and name already existed, and it was only a matter of channeling the hospodar’s choice of notables and defining the calendar of the assembly’s meetings. Properly institutionalized, the General Assembly would help “legitimize the authority of the hospodars” and would be “conducive to national prosperity.” The proposed arrangement would also “consolidate the principle of our intervention, while rendering it less frequent, less meticulous (minutieux), and less likely to affect our friendly relations with the Ottomans.”141

138 Ibid., ll. 8–10. 139 Ibid., ll. 13–13v. 140 Ibid., l. 13v. 141 Ibid., ll. 14v–15.

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Dashkov argued that the first task of the General Assembly would have to be a thorough revision of all public revenues. A new fiscal census of the population had to serve as the basis of a more just redistribution of taxation units (ludori). Dashkov also recommended the abolition of the scutelnici—as had been done in Bessarabia—in order to terminate the associated abuses once and for all. Elaborated under the close supervision of the Russian mission and its consuls in the principalities, the new financial statute of the principalities had to be confirmed by the Porte.142 According to Dashkov, the prosperity of Moldavia and Wallachia would be unattainable without the abolition of the Ottoman commercial monopoly and the restoration of freedom of commerce. To compensate the Porte, he suggested doubling the annual tribute of the principalities.143 Finally, in order to eliminate the abuses caused by the presence of the Ottoman troops (beschlis) in Moldavia and Wallachia since 1821, Dashkov suggested the formation of a national militia of some 8,000 to 10,000 soldiers.144 The election of the hospodars for life, the abolition of the Ottoman commercial monopoly, and the formation of a national militia represented the only novelties that Dashkov suggested forcing on the Ottoman government. Other demands related to the implementation of the relevant clauses contained in the peace of Bucharest. These included the return of lands annexed to the Ottoman raiale along the Danube, the application of the law of nations to the representatives of the hospodars in Constantinople, and the two-year exemption of the principalities from tribute. Dashkov predicted that the Ottoman government would try to do everything it could to sabotage the proposed measures and advised Russia to respond with determination and energy.145 In case the Ottoman government refused Russia’s demands altogether, he argued that a new war would give Russia the opportunity to implement all the proposed measures under the auspices of a Russian provisional administration in the principalities, which could then present the Porte comprehensive financial, administrative, and military statutes. The war and the Russian occupation also held out the possibility of the unification of Moldavia and 142 Ibid., l. 15v. 143 Ibid., ll. 6v–17v. 144 Ibid., ll. 18–18v. 145 Ibid., ll. 22v–23.

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Wallachia into a single state under the rule of one hospodar, which Dashkov considered “a necessary condition of their happiness.”146 It would also make possible the destruction of Ottoman fortresses along the left bank of the Danube, which would consolidate the physical separation of the Moldavians and Wallachians from the Ottomans, “a condition, without which it is difficult, if not impossible to secure the prosperity of the Christian subject peoples of the Porte.”147 Dashkov’s personal archive, preserved in the Russian State Historical Archive, also contains a draft of a planned convention between Russia and the Ottoman Empire. The draft must have been written at the same time as the memorandum, i. e., on the eve of the negotiations at Akkerman, and was apparently intended to serve as a reference for the Russian representatives there. In a short introductory note, Dashkov dismissed the idea of having the Porte issue another hatt-i sherif it could easily violate with a flimsy pretext. Instead, Russia had to introduce a “permanent and legal mode of administration” in the principalities that would assure peace and put an end to the daily conflicts that had hitherto characterized Russian–Ottoman relations.148 To demonstrate the consistency of the proposed change with Russia’s Eastern policy, Dashkov made use of the boyar discourse of the Ottoman capitulations that supposedly affirmed the privileges of the principalities at the moment of their voluntary submission to the Porte (see chapter one). Instead of introducing “dangerous or inappropriate innovations,” he believed it “possible to find in the ancient mode of government [of Moldavia and Wallachia] . . . and in the sultan’s ancient ordinances, which affirmed the privileges, liberties, and immunities of the two principalities… the principles of reorganization that will guarantee the inhabitants of these countries a civil, independent, and happy existence.” Understood in its true light, this reform, according to Dashkov, would be nothing but “the activation of the abovementioned privileges and customs that had fallen into oblivion together with some indispensable improvements that are necessary to give [this reform] a stable and solemn character.”149

146 Ibid., l. 26v. 147 Ibid., l. 27. 148 RGIA, f. 1630, op. 1, d. 113, ll. 2v–3. 149 Ibid., ll. 3–4.

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The draft of the convention affirmed the “civil independence” of the principalities, which would pay a fixed tribute to the Porte in recognition of Ottoman suzerainty, but enjoy complete freedom of commerce and the unencumbered exercise of their Christian religion. The lands in the raiale along the Danube were to be returned to their original owners as stipulated in the peace of Kuchuk-Kainarji. The draft of the convention also affirmed the inviolability of representatives of the hospodar in Constantinople. Finally, the Porte had to authorize the elaboration of the internal statute for each principality.150 The “Plan for an Administrative Statute of Moldavia” that followed stipulated the rule of native princes elected for life. However, they could only appoint public officials from among native boyars who had distinguished themselves by their prior service and they were prohibited from deposing officials before the expiration of a three-year term. The proposed statute also called for the formation of an Extraordinary Divan of thirty-two landowning boyars who would serve for five years (likewise without fear of being removed by the hospodars). All new laws and taxes proposed by the hospodars would first have to be examined and approved by the Extraordinary Divan, which would meet twice a year. Dashkov also suggested the formation of a militia of 7,000 soldiers for defensive purposes. Finally, Dashkov’s plan included the abolition of scutelnici and breslași in order to eliminate the unfair distribution of taxes, but it re-affirmed all the other privileges of the boyars.151 The draft of the convention, which was attached to Nesselrode’s instructions to Ribop’er and Vorontsov, did not follow Dashkov’s proposal to have hospodars rule for life. Instead, it specified their election from among the native boyars for a term of seven years; hospodars could be re-elected unless there were any legitimate complaints against them. 152 Instead of the national militia suggested by Dashkov, the Russian draft of the Separate Act on Moldavia and Wallachia (which was supposed to be part of the prospective convention) reduced the number of Ottoman troops (beschlis) in the principalities back to pre-1821 levels.153 Deliveries of livestock and timber to

150 151 152 153

“Projet de Convention entre la cour impériale et la Porte,” RGIA, f. 1630, op. 1, d. 113, ll. 4v–6. “Projet de Règlement pour l’administration de la Moldavie,” RGIA, f. 1630, op. 1, d. 113, ll. 6v–9. The Russian draft of the convention is published in VPR, ser 2, 6:817–20, note 233. Ibid., 6:819–20.

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the Porte had to be paid at current market rates.154 This constituted another deviation from Dashkov’s plan, which sought the abolition of such deliveries altogether in return for doubling tribute payments. In other respects, the Russian draft of the Separate Act on Moldavia and Wallachia followed Dashkov’s suggestions. It declared the freedom of commerce and suspended tribute payments for two years as compensation for the extraordinary taxes collected by the Ottoman occupation authorities and the hospodars in the early 1820s. In the domain of taxation, the hospodars had to follow the stipulations of hatt-i sherif of 1802 and seek the opinions of the Russian minister to Constantinople and the Russian consuls in the principalities. This legally restored the prerogatives of the Russian Empire as the protector of the principalities. To secure the return of refugee boyars, the draft of the Separate Act guaranteed their personal security and the restoration of their property and privileges. Finally, the draft stipulated the formation of a special committee to elaborate “a general statute” for each principality.155 At the same time, neither the Russian draft of the Separate Act, nor its final text (which closely reproduced the Russian plan) contained any specific guidelines concerning the future statutes.156 The Russian Foreign Ministry preferred to leave open most of the questions that had animated the political struggle in the principalities since 1821. These included the issue of (non)recognition of boyar titles recently conferred by the hospodars, the role of second- and third-class boyars in the political life of the principalities, and the boyar’s right to scutelnici. The quasi-totality of the boyar memoranda the Russian government had received over the preceding five years reflected the position of the great boyars, which necessarily influenced the Russian perception of the small boyars and their aspirations. At the same time, it would be a mistake to assume that the great boyar victory was predetermined thereby. The Russian concept of the nobility and Russian administrative practices in Bessarabia and elsewhere did not include the division of noblemen into classes that the great boyars sought to affirm. For this reason, Russia’s decision to suspend judgement on the 154 Ibid., 6:820. 155 Ibid. 156 For the Russian text of the Convention of Akkerman, including the Separate Act on Moldavia and Wallachia, see Iuzefovich, Dogovory Rossii s Vostokom, 58–70.

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question of boyar ranks made the great boyars “fear the effects of the last convention,” in the words of the French consul Lagan, and motivated them to resume their lobbying efforts.157 *** The last two chapters portrayed the mounting crisis in Russia’s Eastern policy that had crystallized in the wake of the Russian–Ottoman War of 1768– 74. The “representations” Russian envoys made to the Porte on behalf of the principalities on the basis of the treaties of Kuchuk-Kainarji, Iași, and Bucharest made the Ottomans and European powers accustomed to Russia’s self-appointed role as the protector of the principalities. At the same time, these “representations” were increasingly ineffective as a means of protecting Moldavians and Wallachians from the abuses and exactions of the Phanariot hospodars, while the growing frequency of these “representations” inevitably affected Russia’s relations with the Porte. The right to make “representations” did not give Russia complete control over the situation in the principalities as the events of 1821 demonstrated only too well. In general, the rhetoric of the protection of co-religionists not only gave Russia a certain influence over the Orthodox Christian subjects of the Porte but also allowed local elites to manipulate Russia’s foreign policy, or at least attempt to manipulate it, as happened in 1821 with disastrous results. The uprisings of Ypsilanti and Tudor Vladimirescu, like Stroganov’s interminable negotiations with the Porte on the fulfillment of the Bucharest treaty, demonstrated the mounting ineffectiveness of Russia’s Eastern policy in general, and the limits of Russia’s protection of Moldavia and Wallachia in particular. The crisis of 1821 and its aftermath revealed the inadequacy of traditional diplomatic interventions. This realization, in turn, led the makers of Russia’s Eastern policy to recognize the need for the political reorganization of the principalities in order to make them more stable, less dependent on the Porte, and, at the same time, governable. Fortunately, the Russian Foreign Ministry received numerous addresses and memoranda through which different groups of Moldavian and Wallachian boyars tried to redefine the fluid post-1821 political situation in their favor. Apart from provid157 Lagan to Damas, April 7, 1827, in Documente privitoare la istoria românilor, vol. 17, 47–48.

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ing concrete information on various aspects of the internal organization of the principalities, these memoranda gave Russian policymakers the opportunity to map the political terrain and identify available policy options. The first product of tsarist diplomats’ efforts to create a more solid legal basis for Russia’s role in Moldavia and Wallachia was the Convention of Akkerman, signed in September 1826. By ordering the elaboration of administrative statutes for the principalities, the convention signaled the beginning of the reform period, which would redefine local institutions and transform relations between the Russian Empire and the elites of Moldavia and Wallachia for several decades.

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From A k kerman (1826) to Adrianople (1829)

T

he Convention of Akkerman was signed by Mikhail Semenovich Vorontsov—the governor-general of New Russia and third Bessarabian Viceroy—who played a significant role in the history of Russia’s relations with the Moldavian and Wallachian elites. The son of S.R. Vorontsov, the Russian ambassador in London and one of the most famous Russian anglophiles, M.S. Vorontsov was brought up with a respect for aristocratic liberties. During the Napoleonic wars, he expressed the desire to serve in Podolia or Volhynia and eventually, like Bakhmetiev, Vorontsov married a Polish aristocrat. His respect for aristocratic liberties informed Vorontsov’s policies as Viceroy of the Caucasus during the 1840s and the early 1850s, when he initiated a successful policy of cooperation with the Georgian nobility. And yet, this partisan of cooperation with local elites played the principal role in the curtailment of Bessarabian autonomy at the end of the 1820s.1 In order to understand this somewhat paradoxical outcome, one has to take into consideration the difference between the first and the third Bessarabian viceroys. Bakhmetiev was the governor of Podolia, which was traditionally dominated by the Polish nobility on the basis of historical privileges and a peculiar legal tradition. By contrast, Vorontsov combined Bessarabian viceroyalty with the position of governor-general of New Russia, a region that for half a century constituted a space of colonization. Although the placement of Bessarabia together with Poland, Finland, and other west1 Rhinelander, Prince Michael Vorontsov, 67–93. See also Jewsbury, The Russian Annexation of Bessarabia, 142–54; Kushko and Taki, Bessarabiia v sostave Rossiiskoi imperii, 127–38.

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ern borderlands justified its local autonomy during the 1810s, its reclassification as part of New Russia during the 1820s turned it into an object of Russia’s “civilizing mission” that was incompatible with the principle of noble self-rule based on local laws and customs.2 Soon after Vorontsov’s appointment in May 1823, his subordinates began to question the rationale behind the policy of broad autonomy for Bessarabia that Alexander I had chosen to pursue on the advice of Kapodistrias. In his “Remarks on the Present State of Bessarabia,” Vorontsov’s agent F.F. Vigel’ argued that the local nobility simply did not merit liberties it enjoyed under the Statute of 1818. He claimed that with exception of several families, the bulk of this nobility consisted of the former servants of the Moldavian boyars, who after the Bucharest treaty crossed the Pruth and took advantage of the chaos of the first years to purchase property, acquire noble status, and monopolize the elected positions in the provincial and district administration. Vigel’ found it impossible to expect “noble feelings, a knowledge of law, and the diligent fulfillment of duties” from the people, who had recently occupied “the last rung of a slave hierarchy” as the “slaves of Moldovans, who were the subjects of the Greeks, who were, in their turn, slaves of the Turks.”3 Vigel’ also held a very low opinion of Moldavian legal tradition. He dismissed outright the idea that Roman-Byzantine law, mentioned in the 1818 statute, was one of the components of Bessarabian civil law, since “no one ever looked into the Code of Justinian.” On the other hand, the “customs of the land” had been little more than an instrument of the hospodars’ despotism that generated only “incoherencies and injustices.”4 Vigel’ was also skeptical about the work of Kapodistrias’s protégés Petr Manega and Baron F.I. fon Brunnov on the plan for a Bessarabian legal code.5 In his opinion, 2 In a similar way, Kimitaka Matsuzato finds it possible to speak about “ethnobonapartist” and “economic” governors-general with reference to the second half of the nineteenth century. Whereas the primary task of the former consisted in securing the loyalty of local elites, the latter focused on colonization. See Matsuzato, “General-gubernatorstva Rossiiskoi imperii,” 427–58. 3 Vigel’, “Zamechaniia na nyneshnee sostoianie Bessarabskoi oblastii,” 10. 4 Vigel’, “Zamechaniia na nyneshnee sostoianie Bessarabskoi oblastii,” 22. On the influence of Byzantine legal tradition, see Kasso, Vizantiiskoe parvo v Bessarabii. 5 See Kasso, Petr Manega, zabytyi reformator Bessarabskogo prava. Manega was the first native of Bessarabia to study law in Paris. Upon Manega’s return to Russia in 1820, Kapodistrias entrusted him with the task of drafting a Bessarabian code of laws. After 1823, Manega failed to find common language with Vorontsov and continued to work on the code out of pure enthusiasm. In 1825, the first

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From A k kerma n (1826) to Adria nople (1829)

this endeavor was hardly useful for the Russian government because the creation of a Bessarbian special code could only further weaken the ties between Bessarabia and the rest of the empire. The same approach characterized the work of Deputy Minister of Interior D.M. Bludov. Under the impact of Vorontsov’s reports, Bludov became convinced that the spectacular abuses in the Bessarabian administration were not so much the failures of particular individuals, as they were the consequence of “the beautiful customs and noble ways of this dear country,” and that it was a big mistake to turn these customs into the “fundamental laws” of the land.6 As a ministerial official, Bludov particularly disliked the Bessarabian Supreme Council, which “combined all kinds of authorities and branches of administration and could, thus, be used to paralyze the government’s functions.” Like Vigel’, Bludov was also skeptical of the planned codification of Bessarabian laws initiated by Kapodistrias.7 Fortunately, the provisional character of Alexander I’s approval of the Bessarabian Statute in 1818 left open the possibility to implement reforms that would “bring the province closer to the institutions that exist in the interior of the empire in order to gradually eliminate differences between provinces and achieve uniformity in law and administration that would ultimately bring about the unity of mores and interests desirable everywhere and especially in Russia given her unprecedented expanse.”8 With Bludov’s support, Vorontsov proceeded to curtail Bessarabian autonomy. To start with, the viceroy fired the whole police department, ordered an investigation of the abuses it committed, and appointed completely different people in their place.9 His next measure was to have the positions of ispravniks and presidents of the district courts filled by appointment rather than election.10 In concert with central government, the Viceroy

6 7 8 9 10

part of the Code written in French and clearly influenced by the Code Napoleon was sent to the Ministry of Interior. It took five more years to translate the code into Russian. By that time, the curtailment of Bessarabian autonomy rendered Manega’s plan obsolete. The code was nevertheless published in the early twentieth century. See Projet de Code Civile. See Vorontsov to Bludov, December 4, 1823, and Bludov to Vorotsov, December 29, 1823, in Bartenev, Arkhiv kniazia Vorontsova, 38:291, 295. Bludov to Vorontsov, December 29, 1823, in Bartenev, Arkhiv kniazia Vorontsova, 38:296–97. Bludov to Vorontsov, October 8, 1823, in Bartenev, Arkhiv kniazia Vorontsova, 38:289. N.M. Longinov to S.R. Vorontsov, September 4, 1823, Russkii arkhiv, no. 7 (1912): 409. “Ob opredelenii v Bessarabskoi Provintsii Zemskikh ispravnikov i zasedatelei ot Korony,” September 2, 1824, PSZ, ser 1, no. 30048, 39:510–12.

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also subordinated the Bessarabian civil and criminal courts to the Second Department of the Russian Senate, which became the court of last appeal for the population of the province.11 Finally, Vorontsov energetically advanced plans for the further colonization of the southern part of the province by Serbs, Cossacks, and state peasants.12 Parallel with these efforts, Vorontsov appointed a committee for the elaboration of a new statute. This plan was received and approved by the Committee of Ministers in November 1824, and in 1826, the draft of the new statute was submitted for the consideration of the State Council. During his extended stay in St. Petersburg in 1826–28, Vorontsov did not spare any time or effort trying to convince the emperor and the members of the Council of the advantages of the new document, which was adopted in February 1828.13 The new statute replaced the Bessarabian Supreme Council with the Council of the Province, whose members, with the single exception of the Bessarabian marshal of nobility, were to be appointed by the Senate on the recommendation of the governor-general. In comparison to the Statute of 1818, the new settlement reduced the number of elected officials in the provincial administration by more than a half. The elected positions were distributed in such a way as to eliminate any pockets within the local administration that might escape the effective control of the viceroy. With the exception of the provincial and district marshals of the nobility, all elected positions were concentrated in the provincial and district courts. By contrast, all administrative positions were to be filled by appointment.14 A special section of the new statute described relations between different parts of the provincial administration as well as its overall subordination to the Russian Senate, the ministries, and the viceroy in administrative, fiscal, 11 “O vznose vsekh prigovorov o Dvorianakh i Chinovnikakh Bessarabskoi Oblasti, po ugolovnym delam na razsmotrenie v Pravitel’stvuiuschii Senat,” April 15, 1825, PSZ, ser. 1, no. 29869, 39:256–58; see also, “O perenose del na appeliatsiiu iz Bessarabskogo Provitsial’nogo Grazhdanskogo suda vo 2oi Departament Senata i o reshenii onykh po mestnym uzakoneniam i obychaiam Bessarabskoi Oblasti,” August 3, 1825, PSZ, ser. 1, no. 30439, 40:409–10. 12 “O vodvorenii v Bessarabii Serbov,” February 9, 1826, PSZ, ser. 2, no. 132, 1:194–96; “O vodvorenii Zaporozhskikh Kazakov i drugikh zagranichnykh vykhodtsev v Bessarabskoi Oblasti,” February 19, 1827, PSZ, ser. 2, vol 2, no. 913, 190–92; “O pereselinii krestian iz vnutrennikh Gubernii v Bessarabskuiu ­Oblast’,” September 21, 1826, PSZ, ser. 2, no. 592, 1:998–1000. 13 Rhinelander, Prince Michael Vorontsov, 70. 14 “Vysochaishe utverzhdennoe uchrezhdenie dlia upravleniia Bessarabskoi Oblasti,” February 29, 1828, PSZ, ser. 2, no. 1834, 3:197–204.

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From A k kerma n (1826) to Adria nople (1829)

and judicial affairs.15 Within five years, Russian replaced Romanian as the language of official correspondence. These policies reflected a different approach to the role of the provincial nobility in the local administration throughout the empire. The post-1825 period witnessed the end of plans to revive Catherine the Great’s “empire of nobles” that characterized the last decade of Alexander I’s reign. The Constitutional Charter elaborated in 1818–20 was designed to spread the political regime of the Kingdom of Poland to the rest of the empire, but in the end it foundered due to the strong opposition Alexander I encountered in the Polish Sejm in 1820 and a new wave of revolutions that swept across southern Europe. A Special Committee convoked by Nicholas I in December 1826 to review his elder brother’s administrative reform projects criticized the decision to divide the entire empire into viceroyalties and lent support for a ministerial type of government for the “inner provinces.”16 Centralization and bureaucratization that necessarily followed from this choice affected not only the “inner gubernias,” but also the borderlands that remained under the supervision of governors-general. This resulted in the overall reduction of the role of the provincial nobility in local administration across the empire. In this respect, the curtailment of Bessarabian autonomy was part of a broader trend in the institutional evolution of the Russian Empire during the 1820s and the 1830s. The curtailment of Bessarabian autonomy and the broader tendency toward the reduction of the role of the provincial nobility in the local administration across the Russian Empire had significant implications for Russian policies in the principalities. The failure of the Bessarabian experiment necessarily increased the skepticism of tsarist officials toward the Moldavian and Wallachian elites in general. By the late 1820s, they clearly came to regret the policy of the liberal recognition of noble titles in Bessarabia and realized that the sale of honorary boyar ranks by Ioan Alexandru Sturdza and his predecessors, in fact, allowed people of low origins to assume positions in the Bessarabian administration alongside representatives from ancient boyar families. This made tsarist officials sympathetic to the arguments of the great boyars and led them to view the Moldavian radicals with suspicion. 15 “Vysochaishe utverzhdennoe mnenie Gosurastvennogo Soveta,” March 11, 1828, PSZ, ser. 2, no. 1864, 3:236. 16 See the minutes of the Committee’s proceedings from May 4, 1827 in SIRIO 74 (1891): 144–47.

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The Russian Empire and the Elites of Moldavia and Wallachia in 1826–28 The signing of the Convention of Akkerman considerably undermined the position of those representatives of the Moldavian and Wallachian elite who had pursued a clearly pro-Ottoman orientation since 1821. In Moldavia, the weakened hospodar Sturdza had to accept the “Anaphora on Moldavian Privileges,” which was presented to him by high clergymen and sixty-six great boyars in April 1827. This act abolished the taxes imposed on great boyar estates in the early 1820s and officially proclaimed the boyars, their estates, and their commercial premises in the towns exempt from all state taxation.17 The ispravniks could not interfere in lawsuits involving the boyars, who were to be judged only by the judicial divan “in accordance with custom.”18 The Anaphora reserved all public appointments for natives “in accordance with the ancient law of the land,” while the divan was to consist of “the more competent and well-known persons from first-class boyar families.”19 The Anaphora confirmed the boyars’ right to have breslași, slugi, and poslușnici at their estates, as well as reasserted their right to scutelnici.20 The document also sought to reinstate serfdom by prohibiting the movement of peasants away from boyar and monastic lands without the permission of the owner.21 At the same time, the Anaphora introduced the principle of habeas corpus with respect to the boyars and proclaimed the freedom of commerce.22 Intended to reaffirm “the ancient customs of the land” and the original autonomy under which it passed under the Ottoman suzerainty, the Anaphora was confirmed by Hospodar Sturdza on April 12, 1827.23 Having scored this remarkable victory with respect to both the hospodar’s authority and the peasantry, the great boyars engaged in their customary struggle over the princely office, eyeing the end of the seven-year term of hospodars Ghica and Sturdza. At the end of 1827, Minchaki reported to St. Petersburg that ban Barbu Văcărescu unsuccessfully plotted to replace his 17 18 19 20 21 22 23

“Anafora pentru pronomiile Moldovei,” April 9, 1827, in Codrescu, Uricarul, 2:202–5. Ibid., 2:206. Ibid., 2:207. Ibid., 2:208. Ibid., 2:209. Ibid., 2:209–10. See Sturdza’s hrisov published in Codrescu, Uricarul, 2:211–15.

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erstwhile ally on the throne.24 In Moldavia, the political struggle was, once again, more acute. Here, the main protagonists of this struggle were Nicolae Rosetti-Roznovanu and Mihai Sturdza, both of whom sought to succeed Ioan Alexandru Sturdza but employed different strategies to achieve this goal. Roznovanu sought to secure the sympathies of the small boyars for the eventuality of the hospodar election by the General Assembly. By contrast, Mihai Sturdza apparently expected the next hospodars to be nominated by Russia. Mindful of the anti-revolutionary attitudes that the Russian government demonstrated in the wake of the Greek uprising, Sturdza continued his efforts to win its sympathies by championing conservative principles. Soon after the conclusion of the Convention of Akkerman, Nicolae Rosetti-Roznovanu wrote a memorandum advocating for the election of the hospodar by the General Assembly of all boyars. According to him, the inclusion of only the most important boyars into the general divan in recent times reflected the desire of the princes to avoid opposition and represented a violation of the historical custom whereby measures concerning the public interest were adopted by consent of both the great and small boyars. Roznovanu junior argued that the will of the country could be expressed only by an assembly that included the small boyars residing in the districts. Conversely, the assembly was certain to fall prey to divisions and infighting among different factions were it to consist only of great boyars who had long lived in exile and become susceptible to foreign influence. The same need to avoid intrigue, according to Roznovanu, required the inclusion of all boyars into the assembly.25 To prevent this outcome, Mihai Sturdza addressed a series of letters to Nesselrode and the new Russian envoy to Constantinople A.I. Ribop’er, in which he described the inconveniences of hospodar elections by a general assembly of all boyars. According to Sturdza, the number of individuals that had recently received the boyar ranks considerably surpassed the numbers of true nobility. An electoral assembly composed of such individuals would become “the scene of scandal” and would “degenerate into an ochlocracy and license,” thus demonstrating that Moldavians are not ready for the civilization Russia wants to bring to them. Like Roznovanu, Sturdza appealed 24 Minchaki to Nesselrode, December 24, 1827, AVPRI, f. 133, op. 469, d. 859, ll. 2–2v. 25 Nicolae Rosetti-Roznovanu, “Réflexion sur le droit d’élection,” October 14, 1826, in Georgescu, ­Mémoires et projets de réforme, 135–39.

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to the historical traditions of the principality and insisted that election by a wide assembly did not correspond to local custom. According to Sturdza, the hospodars used to be elected only by great boyars who occupied official positions at the time of elections.26 In spring 1827, the Porte issued a hatt-i sherif that communicated the stipulations of the Convention of Akkerman to the hospodars and the inhabitants of the principality. Despite Mihai Sturdza’s efforts to limit the right of election of the new hospodars to only the first-class boyars, the hatt-i sherif spoke of an election “with the general agreement of the inhabitants.” The Russian consulate likewise adopted a flexible position and proposed a formula for the electoral assembly, in which first-class boyars and those of the second and third classes were represented in equal numbers.27 The consulate also suggested including two representatives from each district (that would total 34 in Wallachia and 22 in Moldavia) in the electoral assembly. Additionally, the assemblies could include three representatives of the urban corporations in each principality. According to the Russian consulate, an electoral assembly formed according to this formula “would unite all the elements who traditionally participated in the elections of the hospodars, and who compose today the wealthiest and the most enlightened part of the nation and, as a result, the most interested in the preservation of good order.”28 The deputies “named by the people” would constitute up to one-fifth of the electoral assembly in each principality, which, according to the consulate, would satisfy the conditions of the hatt-i sherif.29 In fact, deputies “of the people” would replace the army, which used to acclaim (i.e., publicly salute) the hospodars elected by the high clergymen and the boyars. This “popular representation” would be able to modify the results of the elections without exercising the veto rights or imposing its will on the electoral assembly.30 In light of the conservative tone adopted by the Russian Foreign Ministry since the early 1820s, the consulate’s advice to have the hospodars elected 26 Mihai Sturdza to Ribop’er, 1827, Documente privitoare la istoria românilor, supp. 1, 4:97; Iordache, Principatele Române în epocă modernă, 190. 27 The consulate proposed including the three highest clergymen, sixty boyars of the first class (forty in Moldavia), sixty boyars of second and third class (forty in Moldavia) chosen by ballot in the electoral assembly. “Sur l’élection,” RGIA, f. 1630, op. 1, d. 245, ll. 9–10v. 28 Ibid., l. 11v. 29 Ibid., l. 12. 30 Ibid., l. 12v.

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by a relatively broad assembly requires some explanation. The French consul Charles Lagan attributed the sympathy of his Russian colleague K.F. Lelli (who succeeded Pizani in 1826) toward the aspiration of the small boyars to the influence of Iordache Catargi.31 Catargi offered a characteristic example of opportunism that many great boyars demonstrated in pursuit of their political ambitions. A descendant of a great boyar family, Catargi adopted a pro-French orientation during the war of 1806–12 and secretly submitted a memorandum to Napoleon in which he asked the emperor to contribute to the withdrawal of Russian troops from the principalities.32 The Russian provisional authorities must have gotten wind of Catargi’s intrigue and exiled him to southern Russia.33 In the wake of Etaireia uprising, Catargi was one of the first great boyars to return to the principality on the invitation of the new hospodar Ioan Alexandru Sturdza and possibly contributed to the “constitution of carbonari.”34 Having briefly served as treasurer (vis­ tier) under hospodar Sturdza, Catargi fell out with him and began to pursue the princely office himself. Like Nicolae Rosetti-Roznovanu and other great boyars who sought to become the next hospodar, Catargi flirted with the lesser boyars in order to secure their votes during elections. At the same time, Catargi’s liaisons with the French and the Ottomans did not prevent him from gaining the trust of the inexperienced Russian consul. The consulate’s support for the participation of the small boyars in the election of the hospodar must be attributed to Catargi’s influence. In accordance with the Convention of Akkerman, the hatt-i sherif of 1827 also stipulated the elaboration of a general statute for each principality. Special committees convoked for this purpose in Bucharest and Iaşi in May 1827 under the presidency of Russian consuls Minchaki and Lelli had to address issues including: the abolition of scutelnici, the reform of the civil list of the hospodars, a general land survey, and a general census of the population in order to elaborate a more effective taxation scheme. The committees also had to reorganize the public administration, increase the salaries of officials, and abolish their right to exert additional payments from the 31 Lagan to the French minister of Foreign Affairs Maxence de Damas, April 8, 1827, Documente privitoare la istoria tomânilor, 17:48. 32 Rosetti, Familia Rosetti, 2:24. 33 “Svedeniia o dostoinstvakh i sposobnostiakh nekotorykh pervoklassnykh boiar kniazhestva Moldavii,” in Mirkovich and Mirkovich, Fedor Mirkovich, 2:201–2. 34 Florescu, The Struggle Against Russia, 133n18.

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population (havaeturi). They were also supposed to consider the reform of police agencies (Hatmania and Agia) and restructure the customs system, both internal and external, in order to secure the abolition of the Ottoman commercial monopoly in accordance with the Convention of Akkerman. Finally, the committees had to reform philanthropic institutions, establish new schools, and reorganize the postal service.35 All these transformations and improvements in the internal administration of the principalities were to be combined with consolidation of Russian political predominance, which included obliging the hospodars and divans to secure the consent of the Russian consulate for any major undertaking.36 The realization of this agenda depended, among other things, on the personality of Russian consul general M.Ia. Minchaki, who presided over the work of the boyar committees of reform. A native of Italy, Minchaki entered Russian diplomatic service in 1800 as consul general in the Septinsular Republic. There followed similar appointments in Morea (1802–4, 1812–16) and Crete (1804–6), as well as his appointment to the head of the commercial chancellery of the Russian mission in Constantinople in 1816–20. After a brief stint as a consul general in Livorno, Minchaki replaced A.A. Pini as consul general in Moldavia and Wallachia in 1822, a position that he retained until his retirement in 1835. In 1823–27, Minchaki also represented Russian commercial interests in the Ottoman Empire and, in this capacity, helped to re-establish Russian–Ottoman contacts that had been suspended in 1821.37 The French consul in Iași Jean Viollier characterized his Russian colleague as “well-intentioned but highly mediocre,”38 and, indeed, Minchaki never put forward programmatic memoranda comparable to those of Dashkov (see above and below). At the same time, the consul general was not an emotionless automaton conveying Nesselrode’s directions. As the supervisor of the boyar committees of reform in 1827 and 1829–30, he not only sensed the attitudes of the boyars much better than anyone else among the Russian officials; he also decided the composition of the boyar reform 35 Grosul, Reformy v Dunaiskikh kniazhestvakh, 145–47. Ciubotaru, “Lucrări şi proiecte,” 77–78. 36 Ibid., 75. 37 On Minchaki service as consul general in Morea in 1802–4, see Stanislavskaia, Rossiia i Gretsiia, 301–4. On Minchaki’s subsequent appointments, see Mesiatseslov ili obshchii shtat Rossiiskoi imperii, part. 1, 114; part. 1, 170; part. 1, 189; part. 1, 361; part. 1, 296. 38 Viollier to the French Minister of Foreign Affairs Joseph-Marie Portalis, July 31, 1829, in Documente privitoare la istoria românilor, 17:198–99.

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committees, and this choice reflected his personal attitudes. As a Greek, Minchaki could not remain unmoved by the fate of his compatriots in the principalities after 1821. Although all strata of Moldavian and Wallachian elites tended to scapegoat the etairists and the Phanariots, the anti-Greek attitudes of the boyar radicals were particularly strong. These attitudes manifested in the concrete anti-Greek measures of the Moldavian divan, which the radicals dominated in the mid-1820s. Together with the generally conservative approach of Russian foreign policy after 1821, this must have been another reason Minchaki followed Mihai Sturdza’s counsel and excluded middle and small boyars from the work of the committees. Although the Russian consulate refused to make the right to elect the hos­podars exclusive to the great boyars, Minchaki invited only one secondclass boyar—Gheorghe Asachi—to join the committees. The rest were great boyars, all of whom eventually would play an important role in the elaboration of the Organic Statutes two years later.39 Such a choice necessarily alienated the boyars of the second and third class.40 The discontent was palpable in a letter addressed to Russian envoy in Constantinople A.I. Ribop’er, in which the lesser boyars insisted on the participation of every boyar in the elaboration of the statutes, but their protest had no effect.41 The formation of the committees precipitated a new series of boyar memoranda that contained different reform projects. One such project belonged to Manolache Drăghici, a son of a second-class boyar, who was promoted to the high office of Great Hatman by Ioan Alexandru Sturdza in 1824. Drăghici called for reorganizing the tax system, fixing the salaries of officials, and separating administrative and judicial functions in both the central and district government by assigning these functions to two different ispravniks. Drăghici also recommended carrying out a general census of the entire population, verifying the validity of all noble titles accorded after 1814, and reducing the number of scutelnici possessed by individual boyars and setting their total number for the entire principality.42 39 The Wallachian committee included Alexandru and Iordache Filipescu, Ştefan Bălăceanu, and ­A lexandru Villara. The Moldavian committee included Iordache Catargi, Mihai Sturdza, and Gheor­ ghe Asachi. See Ciubotaru, “Lucrări şi proecte,” 88. 40 Ibid., 77. 41 Filitti, Frământările politice în Principatele Române, 166. 42 Manolache Drăghici, “Projet d’améliorer l’administration de Moldavie,” not earlier than May 1827, in Georgescu, Mémoires et projets de réforme, 139–50.

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In Wallachia, the most remarkable proposal belonged to Barbu Ştirbei, who would soon emerge as one of the principal Russian collaborators in the principalities. In 1817–20, Știrbei studied law in Paris and returned to Wallachia on eve of the uprisings of Vladimirescu and Ypsilanti, which forced him to take refuge in Brașov together with the other great boyars. Upon his return from this forced exile in 1825, Știrbei held several positions in Ghica’s administration, including that of ispravnik, which made him aware of numerous administrative abuses. In order to guarantee the safety of persons and properties, Ştirbei suggested reforming the police institution in the countryside (Spătăria) and reorganizing district-level administration. In both cases, he recommended the abolition of private taxes that the officials imposed on the local population (havaeturi) and an increase of their formal salaries. These measures had to be accompanied by the monetization of all taxes and the abolition of the ludori system, which would deprive the ispravniks of the opportunity to manipulate the distribution of taxes within their districts.43 The formation of the committees of reform also provided the boyars with an occasion to bring up the issue of lord and peasant relations. Iordache Rosetti-Roznovanu and Iordache Catargi suggested to abolish the right of peasants to move from one estate to another, which would amount to the re-imposition of serfdom.44 Nicolae Rosetti-Roznovanu may have been the author of an anonymous memorandum that suggested abolishing peasant collective responsibility in taxation matters and obliging landowners to provide peasants with a legally fixed minimum of land. The author also recommended bringing peasants under the jurisdiction of landowners and establishing a three-tier system of courts, in which the decisions of lower courts could be appealed.45 Minchaki’s efforts to implement this ambitious reform agenda were soon sabotaged by the foot-dragging of the boyar members of the reform commit43 Barbu Știrbei, “Aperçu rapide sur le mode d’administration de la Valachie,” December 1827, in Georgescu, Mémoires et projets de réforme, 153–61. In parallel, an anonymous memorandum on the attributions of the princely divan and the General Assembly argued for separation of the judicial and the executive functions at the level of the highest institutions. It also affirmed the principle of responsibility of the main princely ministers before the assembly that had to become permanent rather than an ad hoc body and hold its yearly sessions in February. “Observations sur les attributions des Divans et de l’Assemblée Générale,” in Georgescu, Mémoires et projets de réforme, 164–168. 44 Ciubotaru, “Lucrări şi proecte,” 80. 45 Ibid., 89–90.

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tees and by the hostility of the hospodars. Ghica complained to the Porte about some of Minchaki’s proposals, while Sturdza continued to distribute noble titles indiscriminately, despite the admonitions of the Russian consul.46 The attitude of the hospodars and the boyars reflected the deterioration of Russian–Ottoman relations. After the destruction of the Ottoman and Egyptian navy by the combined forces of the British, French, and Russian naval squadrons at Navarino in early October 1827, the sultan’s firman empowered Ghica to dissolve the reform committee on the grounds that its members intended to transform the country “into a European province” and explicitly denied the right of the Russian consulate to interfere in the reform process.47 The work of the boyar reform committees under the supervision of the Russian consul in 1827, although brief and inconsequential, enabled Russian policymakers to quickly formulate a reform agenda after the next Russian– Ottoman war, and another occupation of the principalities opened up the real possibility of a comprehensive reordering of local political and administrative institutions. On the basis of his experience of presiding over the reform committees, Minchaki wrote a “Detailed Survey of the Principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia” for the Russian Ministry. This document contained the nomenclature of government officials, described their functions, and identified the principal sources of abuse and methods of correction. Minchaki took a special interest in the financial system of the principalities and proposed abolishing the system of ludori to curb the main source of exploitation in the existing taxation system. He also insisted on abolishing internal customs that were considered the private revenue of the hospodar and great boyars and suggested using the state budget to compile the civil list of the hospodar.48 Minchaki’s suggestions, as well as many of the ideas enunciated in the boyar memoranda submitted to the reform committees, informed the elaboration of the Organic Statutes of Moldavia and Wallachia. The reports of the consuls helped the Russian government prepare for a new war with the Ottoman Empire. Minchaki’s “Survey” contained recommendations as to which boyars could be employed by the Russian provisional administration following the occupation of the principalities. The 46 Lelli to Minchaki, January 31, 1828, AVPRI, f. 133, op. 469, d. 859, l. 65. 47 Grosul, Reformy v Dunaiskikh kniazhestvakh, 148–49. 48 “Podrobnoe obozrenie kniazhestv Moldavii i Valakhii v nachale 1828 g.” RGVIA, f. 438, op. 1, d. 111, ll. 8–9.

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consul general suggested the inclusion of Grigore Brâncoveanu and Barbu Văcărescu in Wallachian divan; these men had been members of the interim boyar government that in January 1821 authorized Tudor Vladimirescu to call up the Oltenian auxiliaries (panduri) in anticipation of the Etaireia uprising. Minchaki also singled out future Wallachian hospodar Alexandru Ghica, as well as Alexandru Filipescu, Emanoil Băleanu, Mihai Cornescu, Ștefan Bălăceanu, and Constantin Golescu. The consul general recommended that Grigore Băleanu and Iordache Filipescu be appointed head of the Wallachian militia (Spătar) and Great Treasurer (Vistier), respectively, because of their skill and attachment to Russia. For the “delicate tasks” Minchaki recommended Alexandru Villara, who “daily offers the consulate proof of his loyalty to Russia.” Among the younger boyars, the Russian consul singled out Barbu Știrbei and Gheorghe Bibescu (both of whom would eventually become Wallachian hospodars), in addition to Constantin Canatacuzino, Alexandru Bellu, and Constantin Filipescu.49 The Russian consuls also responded to the Foreign Ministry’s query about the existence of a pro-Austrian party in Wallachia and Moldavia that was supposedly ready to place the principalities under Austrian protection as soon as Russian troops cross the Pruth. Whereas Minchaki hurried to dispel these fears,50 the dispatches of his colleague Lelli in Iași demonstrated that the Ministry’s suspicions were not altogether unfounded. Lelli reported on the activities of the Austrian agent Lippa, who tried to convince the most active younger boyars—Mihai Sturdza and Nicolae RosettiRoznovanu—that Austria would not tolerate any changes to the status quo and would dispatch its occupation forces if Russian troops entered Moldavia and Wallachia. Above all, Lippa sought to assure the Moldavian boyars that Austrian mediation would prevent another Russian–Ottoman war.51 Military intelligence supplemented the reports of the diplomatic agents. In 1827, Colonel I.P. Liprandi convinced Chief of Staff of the Second Army P.D. Kiselev of the need for a thorough intelligence operation in order to plan a successful campaign. Having secured Kiselev’s support, Liprandi created a net49 Ibid., ll. 39–40v. 50 Minchaki to Nesselrode, Bucharest, December 24, 1827, AVPRI, f. 133, op. 469, d. 859, ll. 2–2v. 51 Lelli to Minchaki, February 18, 1828 and February 24, 1828, AVPRI, f. 133, op. 469, d. 859, ll. 96– 101, 131–134v. Sturdza and Roznovanu Jr. themselves reported the content of their conversation with ­Lippa to Lelli.

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work of agents recruited from the principalities’ various social milieux to collect information about the Ottoman fortresses on the Danube, the disposition of Austrian troops in Transylvania, and the attitudes of the boyars.52 He also supplied his superiors with lists of Moldavian and Wallachian boyars classified according to their geopolitical preferences for the Ottoman Empire, Austria, or Russia.53 In his intelligence gathering efforts, Liprandi faced not only the hostility of foreign agents,54 but also that of Minchaki, who recommended the Russian Foreign Ministry to recall the colonel on the grounds that his activities generated undesirable rumors.55 For his part, Liprandi doubted the loyalty of the Greek consuls to the Russian government and blamed the growth of Austrian influence among the boyars on their negligence.56 And yet, despite these quarrels, the Russian government entered the new war with the Ottoman Empire better informed than ever before about the situation in the principalities. The prospect of a new war between Russia and the Ottoman Empire led the Moldavian hospodar Ioan Alexandru Sturdza to accelerate the sale of boyar titles in a last-ditch effort to enrich himself. Despite the protests of Lelli, the hospodar granted 130 titles in January 1828 alone, twenty-seven of which were granted in one day. According to Lelli, people rushed to purchase boyar titles on the assumption that the new Russian–Ottoman war “might bring about changes in the form of government.”57 According to Lelli, “venality, corruption, bad faith, and the absence of any justice and impunity have become customary” products of Sturdza’s rule.58 The great boyars protested against the hospodar’s policies by abstaining from any involvement in public affairs in order to avoid any contact that potentially compromised their reputations later on.59 52 Liprandi, “Zapiska o sostoianii umov v Moldavii adresovannaia P.D. Kiselevu,” 1828, RGIA, f. 673, op. 1, d. 231. 53 Liprandi, “Spisok valakhskikh boiar s pokazaniem kakim gosudarstvam predany,” RGIA, f. 673, op. 1, d. 329. 54 Liprandi claimed that there were three attempts on his life during his stay in the principalities. See Liprandi, “Vazhnost’ imet’ polozhitel’nye svedeniia o proiskhodiashchem na pravom berege Dunaia i o tainykh kozniakh v kniazhestvakh,” ChIOIDR, no. 3 (1877): 53n. 55 Minchaki to Nesselrode, December 24, 1827, AVPRI, f. 133, op. 469, d. 859, ll. 17–17v. 56 I.P. Liprandi, “Kratkoe obozrenie kniazhestv Moldavii i Valakhii v politicheskom otnoshenii ot obrazovaniia onykh do poloviny 1831go goda,” ChIOIDR, no. 4 (1861): 135, 150–51. 57 Lelli to Minchaki, January 31, 1828, AVPRI, f. 133, op. 469, d. 859, ll. 65–65v. 58 Ibid., l. 69v. 59 Ibid., l. 71.

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For his part, Minchaki ridiculed the official publication of the “Anaphora on the Moldavian Privileges” on the eve of Russia’s declaration of war on the Ottoman Empire in April 1828. According to the Russian consul general, the publication of the Anaphora sought to provide the Moldavian nobility with “a charter of its constitutional rights” and thereby secure it against the upcoming political changes that were going to come as a result of imminent war between the Russian and Ottoman empires and the Russian occupation of the principalities. Minchaki described the Anaphora as “an act written by a handful of intrigants” that “could not stop the movement of our government toward salutary reforms; [they] perpetuate abuses in favor of a class of demoralized people who consider the peasants as brutes destined to satisfy their thirst for luxury and depravity.”60 The War of 1828–29 and the Russian Occupation of the Principalities The battle of Navarino precipitated a new Russian–Ottoman confrontation. On December 8, 1827, Mahmud II signed an address to his subjects in which he accused Russia of causing the present complication, declared the unilateral suspension of the conditions of the Akkerman convention and all earlier treaties, and told his Muslim subjects to prepare for holy war.61 Although the proclamation stopped short of an explicit declaration of war against Russia, it gave Nicholas I a pretext for war beyond support for the Greek rebels.62 Realizing the inevitability of war, the British nevertheless pressed Nicholas I to make a formal pledge that he would not annex any new territories.63 To reassure London as well as other European governments, the Russian Foreign Ministry accompanied its declaration of war to the Porte with an explanatory memorandum that claimed that Russia “does not seek the destruction of the Ottoman Empire” and only wanted to restore the Russian–Ottoman treaties.64 60 Minchaki to Nesselrode, April 7, 1828, AVPRI, f. 133, op. 469, d. 59, ll. 271v–272. 61 The Russian translation of the proclamation is published in Epanchin, Ocherk pokhoda, vol. 1: Appendix, 7–11. 62 Fadeev, Rossiia i Vostochnyi krizis, 175. On the Russia–Ottoman War of 1828–29, see Bitis, Russia and the Eastern Question, 274–324. 63 Fadeev, Rossiia i Vostochnyi krizis, 173. 64 “Deklaratsiia o prichinakh voiny s Portoi i obstoiatel’stvakh ei predshestvovavshikh,” April 14, 1828, PSZ, ser. 2, no. 1948, 3:389.

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At the same time, the Russian Foreign Ministry considered all of its options for the prospective peace settlement. To this end, Nesselrode invited Kapodistrias, who had just been elected governor of Greece, to present his thoughts on the political organization of European Turkey in case the Ottoman Empire collapsed as a result of the war.65 Two months later, Kapodistrias presented a memorandum that contained an updated version of his idea of a Balkan confederation, which was first suggested to Alexander I in 1816. It envisioned the creation of five “second rank” monarchical states: Serbia (to include Bulgaria and Bosnia), a Hellenic kingdom (consisting of continental Greece, Peloponnesus, the Archipelago, and the Ionian Islands), Macedonia (that would also include Thrace alongside some islands in the Aegean), Epirus (that would consist of Epirus proper as well as upper and lower Albania), and a Duchy or Kingdom of Dacia (including Moldavia and Wallachia). United by a sejm in Constantinople (which had to be demilitarized and proclaimed a free city), the federation of five Balkan monarchies would become “a pillar of peace and order” in a Europe affected by the revolutionary “disease.” In order to secure the integration of the Ionian Islands (under British protection since 1815) into the Hellenic kingdom, Kapodistrias proposed that Russia renounce its unilateral protectorate over the Danubian principalities and Serbia. Under this arrangement, British influence in Greece would be reduced, while Russia would be able to maintain its influence in Dacia and Serbia even without a formalized role.66 Kapodistrias was not the only former Russian diplomat who submitted his vision of the prospective peace settlement to the Foreign Ministry on the eve of the war. In March 1828, the Ministry also received an outline of the future peace treaty drafted by A.S. Sturdza, who had been Kapodistrias’s secretary in the 1810s. Like Dashkov, Sturdza combined diplomatic experience with work in the Russian internal administration. As Kapodistrias’s secretary, he contributed to the elaboration of the “Rules for the Temporary Government of Bessarabia” and later participated in the Congresses of Vienna, Aix-la-Chapelle, and Laibach, emerging as one of the great ideologues of the Holy Alliance. In parallel, Sturdza served in the Russian Ministry of Public Enlightenment, where he was one of the instigators of the 65 Dostian, Rossiia i Balkanskii vopros, 269–71. 66 Ibid., 297–99.

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conservative reforms to the Russian university curriculum in the early 1820s. Like Kapodistrias, Sturdza was disappointed by the failure of Alexander I to take a more aggressive stance with respect of the Ottoman Empire in the wake of the Greek uprising, and he took an extended leave in October 1821. Having settled in Odessa, he helped advance the Greek cause with his pen and purse until early 1828, when he briefly returned to diplomatic service.67 In contrast to Kapodistrias’s grand plan for the political reorganization of European Turkey, Sturdza adopted a more pragmatic approach and focused on the principalities and their relations with the sovereign and the protecting powers. Many of Sturdza’s suggestions developed the ideas first formulated by D.V. Dashkov in his draft of the Russian–Ottoman convention and the plans for an administrative statute for Moldavia that he outlined on the eve of the negotiations in Akkerman. These included the election of hospodars for life, the reintegration of the Ottoman raiale, the abolition of the Ottoman procurement rights in the principalities in return for an increased tribute as well as the creation of national militia. As the protecting power, Russia had to secure its right to interfere in the elections of the hospodars and even veto the results in case of irregularities, suspend all new taxation and supervise the Danubian quarantines. Sturdza’s outline of a future peace treaty also contained the idea of a “federative pact” between Moldavia and Wallachia that would establish a regime of dual citizenship for the inhabitants of the principalities.68 Before any of these proposals could be implemented, the Russian army under the command of P. Kh. Vitgenshtein first had to defeat the Ottomans, and as in 1806–12 this was not an easy task.69 The Sixth Corps led by L. O. Rot occupied Moldavia and Wallachia in late April 1828 without encountering any resistance. A week later, the Seventh Corps of A. L. Voinov besieged Brăila, and a month later, the Third Corps of A. Ia. Rudzevich successfully crossed the Danube at Satunovo. Upon the surrender of Brăila in early June, the combined forces of the Third and Seventh Corps occupied 67 On A.S. Sturdza, see Ghervas, Réinventer la tradition. 68 See “Canevas du traité du paix russe,” March 1828, RGIA, f. 1630, op. 1, d. 211, ll. 2v–5. A very similar text is also contained in A.S. Sturdza’s personal fond at IRLI: “Canevas d’un mémoire sur les éléments d’une pacification avec la Turquie à la suite d’une guerre,” IRLI, f. 288, op. 2, d. 3, ll. 86–87v. 69 On the Russian–Ottoman War of 1828–29, see Epanchin, Ocherk pokhoda 1829 g., Curtiss, The Russian Army Under Nicholas I, 53–73; and Bitis, Russia and the Eastern Question, 274–324.

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Dobrogea and advanced to Varna and Shumla. However, the capture of these strongholds (as well as Silistria, which was besieged by Rot) proved beyond the capacities of the relatively small and over-extended Russian forces, whose communications were actively attacked by Muslim partisans in the DeliOrman forest. Only the arrival of the Guards Corp and the Black Sea Navy under the Command of A. S. Menshikov changed the situation at Varna, which fell to the Russians in late September. This, however, was the only important Russian acquisition to the south of the Danube in 1828. As a result, Russia’s prospects at the end of the first campaign of the war were anything but clear, and only the decisive actions of Vitgenshtein’s successor as commander in chief, I.I. Dibich, helped bring the war to a rapid conclusion in 1829 (see below). In contrast to the war of 1806–12, which witnessed the temporary Ottoman occupation of Bucharest, Russia’s rapid crossing of the Danube in May 1828 largely spared Moldavia and Wallachia from the vagaries of military operations and placed the principalities firmly under the control of the provisional administration early on.70 The president–plenipotentiary of the Moldavian and Wallachian divans replaced hospodars Ghica and Sturdza, whose past conduct had caused the “utter dissatisfaction” of Nicholas I.71 Residing in Bucharest, the president-plenipotentiary relied on the vice president of the Moldavian divan (first M.Ia. Minchaki, later F.Ia. Mirkovich) in Iași in addition to the civil and military chancelleries which consisted of Russian officials. The civil chancellery consisted of four departments dealing with supply of the army, internal affairs, civil and criminal jurisdiction, and foreign correspondence. The military chancellery, divided into three departments, dealt with appointments and dismissals from the army, the military police, and the billeting of the troops.72 The primary task of the provisional administration was to provide the Russian army with food and transportation “without excessively burdening the land.”73 Although the tsar ordered the Russian Commander in Chief P.Kh. Vitgenshtein to abstain from any changes in the local administration for the 70 Vitgenshtein’s proclamation to the population of Moldavia and Wallachia is published in Documente privotoare la istoria românilor, 17:57–58. 71 See the rescript of Nicholas I to Vitgenshtein, in Zablotskii-Desiatovskii, Graf P.D. Kiselev, 4:56–57. 72 Grosul, Reformy v Dunaiskikh kniazhestvakh, 204–5. 73 Nicholas to Vitgenshtein, in Zablotskii-Desiatovskii, Graf P.D. Kiselev, 4:56.

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duration of hostilities, Nesselrode instructed the first president-plenipotentiary of the divans, Privy Councilor F.P. Palen, to pursue a more stable and effective administrative organization if the war drags on. To that end, the instructions envisioned the formation of a General Assembly composed of deputies from the districts elected by boyars and land proprietors, which was supposed to address the problems of the scutelnici, the reorganization of the tax system, and arrange for higher salaries for government officials to prevent bribery.74 Neither Palen, nor his successor P.F. Zheltukhin went as far as that. Yet, the Russians introduced some changes into the structure of the divans in accordance with the principle of separation of powers. The princely divans were divided into judicial divans and administrative councils, which were then further divided into three sections that dealt with finances, industry and welfare, and the provisioning of the army.75 The first two presidents-plenipotentiary of the divans seemed to confirm the law of diminishing returns produced by the appointment of non-professionals to administrative positions. Whereas Palen was a diplomat who lacked the resolve necessary to rule the principalities in wartime, his successor P.F. Zheltukhin exemplified the opposite extreme and was excessively harsh. A veteran of the war of 1812 and the European campaigns of 1813–14, Zheltukhin served as the military governor of Kiev prior to being transferred to Moldavia and Wallachia in early 1829. During the campaign of that year, he managed to secure the necessary supplies for the army with ruthless efficiency, but his public relations were a disaster. When the Moldavian divan refused to countersign Zheltukhin’s order that made the boyar landowners liable for indirect taxes (on wine, sheep, and pigs), the president-plenipotentiary convoked the divan once again, surrounded the building with troops, and ordered them to release only those boyars who signed the order.76 Little wonder that the boyars hated Zheltukhin, while the French consul characterized him as a “true Scythian from the age of barbarians.”77 Apart from the personal flaws of the first two presidents-plenipotentiary, war and military occupation constituted a real challenge for the two princi74 75 76 77

Nesselrode to Palen, April 3, 1828, cited in Grosul, Reformy v Dunaiskikh kniazhestvakh, 155–56. Ibid., 165–66. Viollier to Portalis, August 28, 1829, in Documente privitoare la istoria românilor, 17:209. Viollier to the French Minister of Foreign Affairs Auguste de Polignac, November 2, 1829, Documente privitoare la istoria românilor, 17:225.

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palities. Soon after the Russian troops crossed the Pruth, it became clear that Moldavia and Wallachia would not be able to deliver as many supplies as the Russian army expected. The Russian annexation of Bessarabia as well as the dislocations of 1821 considerably diminished local resources. One no longer finds in 1828–29 the spectacular corruption that characterized the system of procurement from 1806–12. Nevertheless, the vouchers with which Russian troops paid for the deliveries of food and fodder in 1828–29 greatly demoralized the local population, as did Palen’s ban on the export of livestock. These and the other measures introduced by the first president-plenipotentiary became targets for the criticism of state councilor A.S. Sturdza and state secretary D.V. Dashkov, who came to the principalities as the head of the field chancellery of the Foreign Ministry and its special representative at Nicholas I’s headquarters, respectively, in 1828. From Bucharest, Sturdza warned Dashkov about the critical state of the local population that was greatly burdened by billeting and their transportation duties. The situation was particularly serious in Moldavia. Smaller and poorer than Wallachia, it also suffered from a more abusive administration during the 1820s and was now beyond the immediate control of the president-plenipotentiary who resided in the Wallachian capital.78 On the basis of Sturdza’s report, Dashkov apprised Nesselrode of the consequences of the Russian provisional administration’s policies, namely that they threatened to drain currency from the country and forced peasants to flee across the border.79 As a remedy, Dashkov suggested the imperial treasury make a loan to the principalities rather than have them borrow abroad as the Wallachian divan had initially intended to do.80 In his subsequent reports to Dashkov, Sturdza criticized Palen’s decision to follow religiously the principle of status quo outlined in the instructions he received from the Russian Foreign Ministry. For this reason, the president-plenipotentiary failed to substitute pro-Russian boyars for the officials appointed by the previous hospodars.81 Sturdza also criticized the abusive practices of tax farming that Palen had left intact.82 In order to correct the situation, Sturdza drafted additional instructions for the president-plenipo78 79 80 81 82

Sturdza to Dashkov, June, 8, 1828, RGIA, f. 1630, op. 1, d. 222, ll. 1–2v. Dashkov to Nesselrode, June 8, 1828, RGIA, f. 1630, op. 1, d. 218, ll. 3–3v. Ibid., ll. 4–5. Sturdza to Dashkov, June 13, 1828, RGIA, f. 1630, op. 1, d. 222, l. 3v. Ibid., ll. 4v–5.

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tentiary and asked Dashkov to have it dispatched to Palen in the name of the tsar.83 The instructions were meant to refocus Palen’s activities away from the narrow objective of supplying the army to the creation of “a better order of things” that would eventually be confirmed by the peace treaty.84 According to Sturdza, the military occupation temporarily invested the protective power with the rights of a sovereign power, which enabled it to introduce certain modifications to local institutions if it was for the public good. Following the deposition of the hospodars, the president-plenipotentiary de facto assumed their civil functions in concert with the divans. Sturdza suggested that membership in the divans be reserved for boyar landowners. Every year, the president-plenipotentiary had to select officials from a list of three candidates nominated by the divans for every lower office. Every six months, he also had to select a representative of the boyar landowners of each district to join the permanent members of the divans in a general assembly. The latter had to examine government accounts and tax receipts and advise on methods of military provisioning that would be least onerous for the population.85 Needless to say, the Russian Foreign Ministry did not respond to Sturdza’s attempt to instruct his administrative superiors.86 However, some of the proposals Sturdza first expressed in his “instructions” would make their way into his drafts of the Moldavian and Wallachian statutes that Dashkov urged him to submit. Whatever the deficiencies of the Russian provisional authorities’ general approach during the war, they constituted only the tip of the iceberg of local administrative problems and abuses. Just as in 1806–12, Russian officials tried to curb these abuses and, at the same time, investigate complaints about the actions of the Russian military that threatened to alienate the Moldavian and Wallachian populations. In June 1828, President-Plenipotentiary Palen ordered Colonel F.Ia. Mirkovich, his assistant for special tasks, to undertake an inspection of Wallachia and Moldavia to investigate, among other things, cases of conflict between the local authorities and the lower Russian military 83 Ibid., l. 5v. 84 A.S. Sturdza, “Canevas d’instruction a préparer pour l’Administrateur général des Principautés,” IRLI, f. 288, d. 21b, l. 51v. 85 Ibid., ll. 53–56. 86 At the time, Sturdza was a state councillor (the fifth-highest rank according to the Table of Ranks), whereas Palen was a privy councilor (the third highest rank according the Table of Ranks).

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commissaries (etapnye nachal’niki), which were assigned to particular locales along major military routes to ensure the timely movement of troops and supplies. Mirkovich also had to assess the on-the-ground relations between the Russian troops and the villagers, in whose homes they were billeted. Additionally, he had to assure the population that the vouchers used by the Russian army to pay for food and fodder would be exchanged for real money in due time.87 According to Mirkovich’s reports, the conflicts between the ispravniks and rural headmen (staroste) on the one hand and the Russian commissaries on the other, resulted from the refusal or unwillingness of the former to concede to the latter any of the auxiliaries (slujitori) that were traditionally used for law enforcement in the districts.88 Mirkovich also reported that the local inhabitants confidently accepted the vouchers issued by the Russian regimental commanders in exchange for food and fodder deliveries and instead mistrusted the ispravniks who collected those vouchers without giving the peasants anything in return.89 Particular Moldavian ispravniks also failed to comply with the orders of the Russian provisional administration on the collection and dispatch of vouchers from the inhabitants or demonstrated negligence in the creation of military depots (magaziny).90 In order to set the ispravniks straight, Mirkovich had to “resort to strong threats,” which “had little effect” in some cases. One of the ispravniks carousing in the company of friends even failed to report to Mirkovich’s summons.91 As the head of the Moldavian supply commission in the summer of 1828, Mirkovich discovered multiple cases of abuse committed by the ispravniks during collections of food and fodder for the Russian troops. As in 1806–12, the ispravniks would take bribes to exempt particular villagers or the estates of specific boyars from the requisitions and would assign to others a double burden.92 To make matters worse, in early September 1828, all the ispravniks reported the loss of one-third of the hay they were supposed to prepare for the

Palen to Mirkovich, July 3, 1828, Mirkovich and Mirkovich, Fedor Mirkovich, 2:7–9. Mirkovich to Palen, July 6, 1828, Mirkovich and Mirkovich, Fedor Mirkovich, 2:10–11. Mirkovich to Palen, July 17, 1828, in Mirkovich and Mirkovich, Fedor Mirkovich, 2:14. See Mirkovich to the Vice-President of the Moldavian Divan, M.Ia. Minchaki, July 19 and Mirkovich to Palen, July 20, 1828, in Mirkovich and Mirkovich, Fedor Mirkovich, 2:15–18. 91 Mirkovich to Palen, July 20, 1828, in Mirkovich and Mirkovich, Fedor Mirkovich, 2:19–20. 92 Mirkovich to Minchaki, August 21, 1828, in Mirkovich and Mirkovich, Fedor Mirkovich, 2:22–23. 87 88 89 90

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Russian army due to a particularly dry season. The similarity of these reports made Mirkovich suspect coordinated sabotage. Mirkovich complained that the boyar members of the supply commission “did not pay attention to his observations,” while his “efforts to introduce order are hampered by an invisible hand.”93 In October 1828, Mirkovich tried to resign from his post, frustrated by the language barrier and the insolence of the ispravniks, who were protected by one of the members of the commission, Iordache Catargi.94 Apart from their efforts to supply troops and eliminate exploitation by local administrators, the Russian provisional authorities confronted several specifically local challenges during the war. One of them was brigandage on the roads, which the Russian provisional administration tried to curb by increasing the number of local troops commanded by Great Spătar in Wallachia and Great Hatman in Moldova; the Russians also ordered the ispravniks to regularly survey their districts with their auxiliary detachments (slujitori). The provisional authorities also had to deal with major epidemic challenges (see chapter six), the spread of locusts in the valleys of the Pruth and the Danube, as well as a murrain caused by the combined effects of troop movement, the particularly harsh winter of 1828–29, as well as an epizootic disease that affected the entire expanse of the region from Bulgaria to the southern provinces of Russia.95 The Genesis of the Reform Agenda Russian officials also had to take into consideration the attitudes and expectations of the boyars. Boyars great and small were uncertain about the future of Moldavia and Wallachia and concerned about their place in the political system that Russia intended to create in the principalities. This anxiety comes out in the Wallachian divan’s letter to Nicholas I in late April 1828, in which the boyars expressed hope that the tsar would secure their “stable and legal existence, guarantee the laws and customs of [their] ancestors, [and] their property.” The tsar’s response, transmitted by vice-chancellor Nesselrode, assured the divan that “their destinies [were] protected from any imperialist 93 Mirkovich to Minchaki, September 8, 1828, in Mirkovich and Mirkovich, Fedor Mirkovich, 2:20–21. 94 Mirkovich to Minchaki, October 4, 1828, in Mirkovich and Mirkovich, Fedor Mirkovich, 2:24. 95 “Obozrenie deistvii rossiskogo upravleniia v kniazhestve Moldavia so vremeni uchrezhdeniia onago v aprele mesiatse 1828 g. po konets 1832 g,” in Mirkovich and Mirkovich, Fedor Mirkovich, 2:40–41.

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designs” and that the tsar’s goal was “legal order,” “regular and stable administration,” and the “inviolability of the privileges” they possessed. 96 For their part, different groups of Moldavian boyars continued their efforts to secure a favorable political settlement. The leader of the Moldavian radicals of the 1820s, Ionică Tăutu argued that the best interest of Moldavians consisted in remaining in the Ottoman Empire, where they could maintain their own laws and customs in return for tribute. He warned his associates that the anti-Ottoman stance adopted by many hospodars, from Petru Rareș to Dimitrie Cantemir, had cost the principality the broad self-governance originally accorded to it by Suleiman the Magnificent.97 Since appeals to the Porte were no longer practicable during the Russian occupation of Moldavia and the war was likely to end with the defeat of the Ottoman Empire, the leader of the Moldavian “carbonari” turned to the British ambassador in Constantinople, Stratford Canning for help. In his memorandum addressed to Canning, Tăutu presented Moldavia and Wallachia as countries with rich soils and mineral deposits that were significant from the perspective of British commercial interests. He also presented the principalities as a worthy object of “equitable vigilance that the British cabinet has always demonstrated toward the maintenance of the balance between European powers.”98 Mindful of the British desire to preserve the Ottoman Empire, Tăutu proceeded to criticize those European observers who associated the misery and degradation of Moldavians and Wallachians with Ottoman rule and evoked the wide autonomy that represented the original condition of the principalities’ submission to the Porte. He demonstrated that the initial intervention of Hungarians and Cossacks into princely elections led the Ottoman government to seize the right to nominate hospodars, while the Pruth campaign and Cantemir’s betrayal of the sultan prompted the Porte to replace the native rulers by the Constantinople Greeks.99 Tăutu’s efforts remained inconsequential, but his memorandum is highly significant because, for the first time, it combines the pro-Otto96 “Adresse du Divan de Valachie à l’empereur de la Russie,” 4 May 1828, Bucharest, and Nesselrode’s reply to it in Lesur, Annuaire historique universel 1829, 89. For similar concerns of the Moldavian boyars, see Lagan to Laferronnays, May 19, 1828, Documente privitoare la istoria românilor, 17:66. 97 See the fragment of Tăutu’s memorandum published in Georgescu, Mémoires et projets de réforme, 172–73. 98 A fragment of Tăutu’s memorandum to Stratford is published in Georgescu, Mémoires et projets de réforme, 170. 99 Ibid., 171–72.

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man orientation of the boyar radicals in the 1820s with a pro-British orientation that would characterize the perspective of an ever-growing segment of Romanian elites in the nineteenth and twentieth century. For their part, the conservative great boyars persisted in their efforts to secure a favorable political settlement through appeals to the Russian authorities. In February 1829, Mihai Sturdza composed a memorandum which argued for the restoration of a native armed force, freedom of commerce, and the election of hospodars for life with the subsequent transformation of the office into a hereditary one. All these clauses, according to Sturdza, reflected the terms of the original capitulations accorded to Moldavia and Wallachia by sultans Bayezid I, Suleiman I, and Mehmed IV. Sturdza also argued for the creation of the quarantine along the Danube, which required the reintegration of the Ottoman raiale on the left bank of that river into Wallachia. As a compensatory measure, he suggested tripling the amount of tribute paid to the Porte by the principalities according to the hatt-i sherif of 1802. As before, Sturdza was against the inclusion of the second-, and third-class boyars in the general assembly that had to elect the hospodars and adopt the future statute of the principality. He suggested limiting the membership of the assembly to only boyars of the first class with annual revenue of 30,000 piastres (20,000 in Wallachia), which would effectively consolidate great boyar supremacy. 100 Sturdza suggested that the prospective statute unify all the existing direct and indirect taxes into a single tax imposed uniformly upon all taxpayers. This necessarily meant the abolition of both the hospodars’s private treasury (filled with rusumaturi—indirect taxes on wine, sheep, and honey) as well as the scutelnici and the breslași—peasants and town dwellers who were exempt from transportation and construction duties in return for their service to the boyars. Sturdza also insisted on denying hospodars the right to award honorary titles, which would limit the growth of the boyar ranks to those individuals who actually performed administrative and judicial functions.101 In a separate memorandum, Sturdza demonstrated that the multiplication of boyar families under the last hospodars brought the number of scutelnici, to which boyars were entitled, to 60,000 families. This drained the treasury and placed the burden of the corvée on the remaining inhabitants of the princi100 Mihai Sturdza, “Notions historiques concernant les deux principautés de Valachie et de Moldavie,” ­February 28, 1829, Documente privitoare la istoria românilor, supp. 1, 5:23–27. 101 Ibid., 5:28–29.

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palities. Sturdza argued that without the abolition of the boyar titles conferred since the reign of Scarlat Callimachi and a corresponding reduction in the number of scutelnici, “in a time of war, it was materially impossible to meet the transportation needs [of the army] and fulfil other requisitions that are indispensable in such circumstances.”102 Mihai Sturdza’s memorandum served as a reference point for his cousin A.S. Sturdza and D.V. Dashkov in the elaboration of the political reform agenda for Moldavia and Wallachia. In July 1828, A.S. Sturdza responded to Dashkov’s invitation to contribute to this process by expressing his preference for the formula Kapodistrias proposed for Greece in 1827. He pointed to the disadvantages of the election of the hospodars from the native boyars and argued in favor of the unification of the principalities under the rule of a representative from a European royal dynasty. He also argued that the most perfect settlement could not guarantee the prosperity of the country unless the military occupation was prolonged for several years after the end of the war.103 As it turned out, the Russian occupation of Moldavia and Wallachia would indeed continue for four and half years after the conclusion of peace. At the same time, the policy Russia chose to follow with respect to the Ottoman Empire excluded the application of the Greek formula to the principalities (see chapter seven). This choice is reflected in “Plan for the Future Constitution of Moldavia and Wallachia” that Sturdza submitted to the Foreign Ministry in September 1828. The first two sections of the proposal addressed the principalities’ relationship to the Sovereign and Protective Powers. In order to minimize Ottoman interference in the affairs of the principalities, Sturdza suggested the reincorporation of the Ottoman fortresses of Brăila, Giurgiu, and Turnu into Wallachia and putting an end to the Ottoman right of procurement in the principalities. The doubling of the tribute had to compensate the Porte for the abolition of their commercial monopoly. At the same time, the tribute would be delivered to Constantinople by agents of the hospodars rather that collected by Ottoman officials in the principalities. The Porte would retain the right of investiture of the hospodars, whom it would select—in concert with Russia—from a list of three candidates elected by the boyars. 102 Mihai Sturdza, “Memoriul lui Mihai Sturdza despre abuzul cu scutelnicii și despre starea țăranilor din Moldova,” 1829, Documente privitoare la istoria românilor, supp. 1, 5:30–31. 103 A.S. Sturdza to Dashkov, July 27, 1828, RGIA, f. 1630, op 1, d. 222, 8v–9.

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Interestingly enough, Sturdza believed it necessary to limit the right of the Russian consuls to grant Russian citizenship to local inhabitants so as not to harm the treasuries of Moldavia and Wallachia. The consuls would be able to protest only those decisions by the general assembly that contradicted the letter of the Russian–Ottoman treaties.104 The final two sections treated the reform of the internal administration of the principalities and their relations with each other. In order to assure the separation of executive, judicial, and legislative powers, Sturdza defined the hospodars as the principal executive officials but suggested limiting their judicial powers. He also sought to introduce the principle of no taxation without representation by making the introduction of new taxes conditional on the consent of the assemblies. The latter had to consist of the metropolitan and two bishops, officials of the five highest ranks, and some boyar landowners from the districts elected by the inhabitants to serve as district deputies. In order to improve the judiciary, Sturdza proposed a three-tiered court system and a requirement that judges maintain archives and keep minutes of court proceedings. Like his cousin Mihai, A.S. Sturdza also advocated for a prohibition on hospodars’ right to grant honorary titles to individuals who did not perform corresponding public functions. Finally, A.S. Sturdza called for the abolition of customs tariffs between the two principalities and the introduction of the principle of dual citizenship that would allow Moldavians to own land and become public officials in Wallachia and vice versa.105 Eight months later, A.S. Sturdza followed up with the “Plan for a Fundamental Statute for Moldavia and Wallachia.” Submitted to vice-chancellor Nesselrode, this proposal did not contain any references to the term “constitution” to spare the conservative sensibilities of the vice-chancellor. The new plan also did not try to limit Russia’s right to object to the decisions 104 A.S. Sturdza, “Projet du travail sur la constitution future des principautés de Moldavie et la Valachie,” IRLI, f. 288, op. 1, d. 21b, ll. 15–18. Another copy of Sturdza’s project is found in Dashkov’s archive. See RGIA, f. 1630, op. 1, d. 228, ll. 3–11v, prefaced by Sturdza’s report to Nesselrode dated September 18, 1828 (1–2v). 105 “Projet du travail,” ll. 18–20. Sturdza accompanied this project with a draft of a separate Russian–­ Ottoman convention on the principalities which allowed the assembly of Wallachia to elect a Moldavian boyar as the new hospodar and vice versa. The projected convention also previewed the possibi­ lity of the deposition of a hospodar in case the assembly offered evidence of his “tyrannically arbitrary conduct undermining the laws, customs and prerogatives sanctioned by the [Russian–Ottoman] treaties.” “Projet d’acte séparé ou de Convention spéciale sur les Principautés de Moldavie et de Valachie,” IRLI, f. 288, op. 2, d. 3, ll. 88–94v; also found in RGADA, f. 1278, op. 1, d. 92, ll. 115–126.

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of the assemblies to only those cases where the decisions of the latter contradicted the Russian–Ottoman treaties. This time, Sturdza did not write anything about the abusive tendencies of the Russian consuls to grant Russian status to the local inhabitants of the principalities, possibly in response to the objections of Minchaki.106 Other modifications included the definitive election of the hospodars by boyar assemblies rather than their selection by the sovereign and the protective powers. The ordinary General Assemblies would have to meet once every three years rather than biennially as had been suggested in the “Plan for a Constitution,” and there would be only two types of courts instead of three. Finally, the “Plan for a Fundamental Statute” introduced the principle of separation of functions into the administration, which would help turn the offices of the Great Vornic (or Great Ban in Wallachia) and the Great Vistier into the Ministries of Interior and Finance, respectively. Whereas the former would control the ispravniks in the districts, the latter would control all tax collectors and customs officials. In her biography of A.S. Sturdza, Stella Ghervas argued that Sturdza’s projects were the principal source of the Foreign Ministry’s instructions, which served as the basis for the elaboration of the Organic Statutes of Moldavia and Wallachia.107 This is surely an exaggeration.108 In fact, many, if not most, of A.S. Sturdza’s proposals can be found already in Dashkov’s proposed Russian–Ottoman convention on Moldavia and Wallachia as well as in his “Plan for the Statute on the Administration of Moldavia,” both of which were written on the eve of the Convention of Akkerman in 1826. These included the election of hospodars for life and the limitation of their power by permanent boyar assemblies that would have control over taxation. The same applied to the proposal to fix the terms of public officials at three years and prohibit hospodars from prematurely demoting them. Dashkov was also the first to suggest the abolition of scutelnici. Already in 1826, he suggested the abolition of the Ottoman commercial monopoly in the principalities with extra tribute to be paid as compensation. At that time, Dashkov also called for the reintegration of the Ottoman raiale 106 A.S. Sturdza, “Projet de règlement fondamental pour la Moldavie et la Valachie,” IRLI, f. 288, op. 2, d. 21b, ll. 36–49v; also found in RGADA, f. 1278, op. 1, d. 92, ll. 127–150. 107 Ghervas, Réinventer la tradition, 230. 108 Dashkov began his work on the instructions at the camp of the Russian army that was besieging Shumla already in July 1828, as reported by the junior member of the diplomatic chancellery Feliks Fonton. Fonton, Vospominaniia, 1:113–14.

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and the creation of a national militia.109 Even the unification of Moldavia and Wallachia that Sturdza proposed in his correspondence with Dashkov in the summer of 1828 first appeared in the 1826 “Memorandum on the Nature of Russian Influence in Moldavia and Wallachia,” which, in all probability, was written by Dashkov himself (see chapter four).110 Sturdza’s “Plan for a Fundamental Statute” for the principalities was, admittedly, much more detailed than Dashkov’s own sketch of a Moldavian statute composed three years previously. However, the “details” of Sturdza’s scheme that had not been anticipated by Dashkov were also not original to Sturdza. The idea to create a cordon sanitaire on the Danube was first expressed by Metropolitan Ignace in the memorandum of 1814 that Kapodistrias supplied to Stroganov at the moment of the latter’s appointment as the Russian envoy in Constantinople (see chapter two). In February 1829, A.S. Sturdza’s cousin, Mihai restated it in his “Historical Remarks on Moldavia and Wallachia” that ended up in Dashkov’s archive (see above).111 The replacement of indirect taxes with an increased direct tax was first suggested in 1826 by Gheorghe Cantacuzino in another memorandum that was familiar to Dashkov.112 Alexandru Villara first proposed the abolition of ludori taxation units in 1821 (see chapter three), and this idea was endorsed by Minchaki in his review of the state of the principalities on the eve of war. Finally, A.S. Sturdza’s insistence on the separation of judicial and administrative powers and the functional subdivision of the latter were likewise unoriginal and can be found in both Costache Conachi’s “Observations on Moldavia” and the memoranda of Manolache Drăghici and Barbu Știrbei submitted to the Russian consulate in 1827.113 All these (and many other) boyar memoranda were familiar to Dashkov either in his capacity as the managing director of the Constantinople mission in 1822–25 or as the Foreign Ministry’s special agent who accompanied 109 See RGIA, f. 1630, op. 1, d. 113, ll. 4v–9. 110 However, in contrast to Sturdza’s idea of unifying the principalities under the rule of a European prince, Dashkov’s memorandum of 1826 mentioned the possibility of their unification under the rule of a single hospodar. 111 See RGIA, f. 1630, op. 1, d. 249, ll. 1–11. For A.S. Sturdza’s treatment of this issue, see “Projet de travail sur la constitution,” IRLI, f. 288, op. 2, d. 21b, l. 16v. 112 See RGIA, f. 1630, op. 1, d. 174. Three years later, Mihai Sturdza likewise advocated this measure in his “Historical Remarks on Moldavia and Wallachia.” 113 All these memoranda that have been discussed above likewise ended up in Dashkov’s archive. See RGIA, f. 1630, op. 1, d. 173, ll. 1–12v., d. 112 and d. 205, respectively.

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Nicholas I during the tsar’s stay in the acting army in 1828–29. 114 In fact, the only truly original proposals of A.S. Sturdza that ended up in the ministerial instructions written by Dashkov were the abolition of customs and tariffs between Moldavia and Wallachia and the introduction of the principle of dual citizenship (co-bourgeoisie). At the same time, the contents of the ministerial instructions go well beyond purely “constitutional issues” concerning the diplomatic status of the principalities and relations between the hospodars and the boyar assemblies that were Sturdza’s focus.115 As the following discussion demonstrates, the ministerial instructions devoted a lot of space to the modality of the elaboration and adoption of the statutes as well as issues of taxation and boyar privileges that Sturdza only hastily considered. All these considerations suggest that Dashkov’s role in elaborating a blueprint for the overall political reorganization of the principalities was no less important than that of A.S. Sturdza. Ministerial Instructions and the Formation of the Committee of Reform The instructions that Dashkov wrote in late spring 1829 stipulated the formation of the Committee of Reform—divided into Moldavian and Wallachian sections—under the supervision of Russian consul general M. Ia. Minchaki.116 Each section had to include between four and six boyars, half of whom were to be appointed by President-Plenipotentiary P.F. Zheltukhin 114 The similarity between Dashkov’s and A.S. Sturdza’s ideas is explained by the common sources they used. In the cover letter to his “Projet de règlement fondamental,” A.S. Sturdza mentioned the memorandum of Grigore Brâncoveanu as well as Mihai Sturdza’s “Historical Remarks on Moldavia and Wallachia” from February 1829. See A.S. Sturdza to Nesselrode, May 10, 1829, IRLI, f. 283, op. 2, d. 3, ll. 85–85v. In his capacity as managing director of the Russian Mission in Constantinople in 1822– 25, Dashkov had access to most of the memoranda and reform projects the boyars addressed to Russia in the late 1810s and the early 1820s. Dashkov’s personal archive contains copies of Mihai Sturdza’s “Historical Remarks,” Costache Conachi’s “Observations on Moldavia” from 1826, as well as the memoranda of Barbu Știrbei and Manolache Drăghici on the administrative reorganization of the principalities submitted to the Russian consulate in 1827. 115 This difference did not escape the anonymous official of the Russian Foreign Ministry who summarized Sturdza’s “Projet de règlement fondamental” and compared it to Dashkov’s plan. See “Sommaire du Mémoire du M. Stourdza,” in Georgescu, Mémoires et projets de réformes, 277–278. 116 See “Copie des instructions adressés par le vice-chancelier au conseillier d’état actuel Minchaki,” June 6, 1829, RGIA, f. 940, op. 1, d. 143, l. 11 ff. See the draft of the instructions to Minchaki written by Dashkov and dated May 8, 1829, at RGIA, f. 1630, op. 1, d. 251.

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(who replaced Palen in February 1829) on the recommendation of the consul general. The assemblies of the divans of each principality would elect the other half. The instructions stressed the need to appoint able and worthy individuals to the committee and recommended that the committee include some of the pro-Russian boyars (Alexandru Villara, Iordache RosettiRoznovanu, and Mihai Sturdza) who had distinguished themselves through their petitions to the tsar in the 1810s and 1820s. In its work, the committee had to take into account different reform projects drafted in the principalities in the wake of the Akkerman convention. The drafts of the statutes produced by the Committee were to be submitted to the Extraordinary General Assembly of Revision of each principality, which had to consist of first-class boyars and deputies elected by the notables of each district. According to the instructions, this composition of the Assembly provided the best means of “authentically representing the national will (le voeu national) regarding the adoption of the new statutes.” The president-plenipotentiary was supposed to sanction elections to the Assembly only if he was fully certain that in this way he would obtain “wellintentioned deputies determined to promote the generosity of the Russian government.” The instructions also suggested excluding individuals who obtained their boyar rank under the last two hospodars from the participation in the Assembly. The Russian president-plenipotentiary and consul general had to agree to all modifications proposed by the General Assemblies that did not contradict the principles stated in the instructions. This introductory part of the instructions, which outlined the principles regarding the formation of the Committee of Reforms and the Extraordinary Assemblies of Revision charged with the elaboration and adoption of the statutes, was intended only for Minchaki and the president-plenipotentiary. There followed an outline of the prospective statutes (divided into eight chapters), which was disseminated to all the members of the Committee of Reforms.117 The statutes had to define the mode of hospodar elections, the principles guiding the formation of the General Assemblies and their relations with the princes, as well as reorganize public finances in order to eliminate abuses. Apart from these “constitu117 This part of the instructions was published as “Instructions que le Comité formé à Bucarest pour le règlement des deux Principautés a reçues de la part du ministère impériale de Russie en 1829,” Analele Parlamentare ale României 1, part 2 (1890): 18–45 (cited subsequently as “Instructions”).

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tional issues,” the statutes also had to regulate commerce, quarantines, the national militia, and the judiciary.118 In contrast to A.S. Sturdza, whose proposal required the election of the hospodars by the ordinary assemblies consisting of only the highest clergymen and the boyars, Dashkov found it impossible to leave the matter of hospodar elections up to the General Assembly of the Divans as it was currently composed because its membership was too narrow to express “the will of the Nation.”119 Instead, Dashkov proposed creating the Extraordinary General Assembly of Election composed of first-class boyars, a certain number of second-class boyars, representatives of landed proprietors in the districts (two from each), as well as deputies of the towns and corporations, totaling 180–200 members for Wallachia and 120–150 for Moldavia. The instructions left it up to the Committee to decide the proportion of each group in the assembly. However, the deputies of the districts, towns, and corporations had to form no less than one-quarter of the members. The Committee likewise had to choose between direct and indirect voting procedures for the election of hospodars.120 In order to check the power of the hospodars, the instructions specified the formation of a General Ordinary Assembly in each principality. Since the existing general assemblies of the divans were too narrow and constituted “docile instruments in the hands of the hospodars and the Porte,” Dashkov proposed they include the highest clergymen, all first-class boyars, and deputies of the districts elected among the landed proprietors.121 The assemblies were to be convoked annually to vote on a budget and review all aspects of the internal administration of the principalities. The hospodar could reject the assembly’s decisions and even dissolve it, but he could not issue any decrees without first submitting them to the assembly. As a result of these reforms, the whole decision-making process had to become 118 The stipulations of the instructions pertaining to commerce, quarantines, militia, and the judiciary will be discussed in chapter six, which contains an account of the reforms carried out by the Russian provisional administration in all these domains. 119 “Instructions,” 19. See Dashkov’s comments on A.S. Sturdza’s project, RGIA, f. 1630, op. 1, d. 114, ll. 1–1v., in which Dashkov expresses his preference for the formula of electoral assembly suggested in the memorandum of the Russian consulate of 1827 (see above). 120 “Instructions,” 20. 121 Ibid., 21–22. Dashkov left it to the Committee of Reform to decide the exact proportion of the different categories of the general assembly members.

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more consultative even if the assembly had no veto over princely decisions. The assembly was empowered to discuss and approve the tax farms, plans for the development of agriculture and industry, the salaries and pensions of officials, as well as regulations for internal and external commerce. The same applied to public security measures, philanthropic organizations, quarantines, church properties, and the national militia. 122 However, neither the prince nor the assembly had the power to introduce any modifications to the system of taxation without the prior approval of the Sovereign and Protective Powers.123 Finally, the instructions followed the principle of separation of powers by stripping the General Ordinary Assembly of the judicial functions the Assembly of the Land used to have in the Middle Ages and the early modern period.124 In the domain of finances, the instructions insisted on the abolition of indirect taxes (rusumaturi) that hitherto went into private treasury of the hospodars. Instead, the expenses of the hospodar were to be covered by funds allocated from the state budget.125 In order to eliminate the abuses that had hitherto accompanied the distribution and collection of taxes, the instructions prescribed a new census of taxpayers coupled with the better definition of the privileges of the boyars and other privileged groups in the population, such as mazili, ruptaşi, and streini.126 The instructions abolished the right of the hospodars to assign different categories of personally dependent individuals (scutelnici, posluşnici, and breslaşi) to particular public officials in “violation of the sacred principle of private property.” To compensate the boyars, Dashkov suggested that their salaries be raised proportionally according to the number of scutelnici they used to have. Alternatively, the Committee of Reform could increase the number of days peasants had to perform labor for their landlords from twelve to twenty or twenty-four and offer pensions to boyars who obtained scutelnici for genuine services and not through the arbitrary grants of the hospodars.127 To counterbalance these concessions to the boyars, Dashkov also suggested to make them liable to indirect taxation and land tax.128 122 Ibid., 24–25. 123 Ibid., 23–24. 124 Ibid., 25. 125 Ibid., 27. 126 Ibid., 28–30. 127 Ibid., 31. 128 Ibid., 29.

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In the domain of taxation, the Committee was recommended replacing the wide array of indirect taxes with a few direct ones. In order to eliminate the abuses of the local administration, the instructions suggested abolishing the fictional taxation units (ludori in Wallachia and cisle in Moldavia) that had often resulted in the allocation of equal amounts of taxes to unequal groups of taxpayers.129 Finally, public works (such as transportation duty) and peasant labor dues were to be assigned on the basis of official published quotas.130 The general tenor of the instructions was hardly radical, especially with respect to lord-peasant relations. Having authorized the Committee of Reform to increase the number of the labor days peasants owed landlords, the instructions also demanded that the amount of work and the rights of the landowners in general be “defined in a more just manner than before.”131 The same spirit of moderation informed the stipulations of ministerial instructions on the question of noble ranks. Whereas the leaders of the great Moldavian boyars demanded the nullification of all promotions made by the hospodars after 1814, the instructions left this question to the General Assemblies to resolve and conditioned their decision on the preliminary approval of the Porte.132 Given the Ottoman support of middle and small boyars in their struggle against the great boyars in the 1820s, such a provision confirmed the unwillingness of Russian authorities to address the effects of the hospodars’ promotions, even if their harmfulness was beyond question. Since the hospodars could appoint and replace public officials at will, the rights and titles that came with such appointments were not made hereditary. The princes could grant noble titles only to individuals who performed real state service by means of a special patent that had to be confirmed by the General Assembly.133 The instructions, thus, avoided taking sides on the issue of boyar ranks, and instead sought to increase the state’s control over the allocation of social privilege. 129 Ibid., 32. 130 Ibid., 33–34. 131 Ibid., 31. 132 Ibid., 46–47. In this respect, Dashkov distanced himself from A.S. Sturdza who, under the influence of his cousin and leader of the conservative great boyars Mihai Sturdza, recommended the abolition of all the promotions made by the last hospodars if the individuals in question did not actually exercise the corresponding functions. “Projet de règlement fondamental pour la Moldavie et la Valachie,” IRLI, f. 288, op. 2, d. 21b, l. 44v. 133 “Instructions,” 47–48.

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Authorized to hand pick half of the members of the Committee of Reform, Minchaki sought, above all, the most capable individuals even if they were not reputed Russophiles. For this reason, one finds among the members of the Wallachian section hatman Alexandru Villara, who authored several important memoranda and reform proposals in the wake of the uprisings of 1821 and, in the words of Minchaki, “offer[ed] the consulate daily proof of his loyalty to Russia.”134 At the same time, the consul general did not necessarily invite ostentatiously pro-Russian Moldavian boyars, like Iordache Rosetti-Roznovanu, to join the committee. Instead, the latter was exiled to his estate in Bessarabia after the vice president of the Moldavian divan Mirkovich wrote to Zheltukhin that Roznovanu had “too much influence” in Moldavia.135 Instead, Minchaki’s first choice was Mihai Sturdza, who recommended himself by his memoranda to the Russian government during the 1820s although he was a man of multiple loyalties.136 The Russian consul general also selected Constantin Cantacuzino-Paşcanu for the committee, though Mirkovich later characterized him as “endowed with certain abilities and not without education, yet greedy (korystoliubiv) and in need of constant surveillance” on account of his “attachment to the Austrian government.”137 It is noteworthy that all the regular members of the Committee and the secretary of the Wallachian section were great boyars.138 Only the Moldavian secretary, Gheorghe Asachi, had more humble origins, and became the Moldavian representative to Vienna during the 1820s due to his outstanding education and skill. At the same time, Asachi was not the only member of the Moldavian section of the committee associated with the “radical” 134 “Podrobnoe obozrenie kniazhestv Valakhia i Moldavia v nachale 1828 goda,” RGVIA, f. 438, op. 1, d. 111, ll. 40–40v. 135 Mirkovich to Zheltukhin, April 11, 1829, in Mirkovich and Mirkovich, Fedor Mirkovich, 2:189. Later, Mirkovich expressed doubts about Roznovanu’s loyalty to Russia and his administrative talents and emphasized his “inclination for intrigue, slyness, and treachery.” See “Svedeniia o dostoinstvakh nekotorykh pervoklassnykh boiar kniazhestva Moldavii,” attached to Mirkovich’s letter to Kiselev, January 6, 1830, see Mirkovich and Mirkovich, Fedor Mirkovich, 2:200–1. 136 Several months after his unsuccessful attempt to become a Russian subject in 1824, Sturdza offered his services to the Austrian consul. See Mihai Sturdza to his cousin A.S. Sturdza, November 1824, 50–51 and Mihai Sturdza to the Austrian consul Lippa, April 1825, in Documente privitoare la istoria românilor, supp. 1, 4:50–51 and 71–72, respectively. 137 “Svedeniia o dostoinstvakh nekotorykh pervoklassnykh boiar kniazhestva Moldavskogo,” in Mirkovich and Mirkovich, Fedor Mirkovich, 2:202. 138 The Wallachian section of the reform committee included Emanoil Bălianu, Ştefan Bălăceanu, Alexandru Villara, and Iordache Filipescu with Barbu Ştirbei as a secretary. Grosul, Reformy v Dunaiskikh kniazhestvakh, 193.

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policies of the 1820s. One of the members of the committee elected by the Assembly of the Divans was the aforementioned vornic Iordache Catargi, who may have contributed to the “constitution of the carbonari” in 1822.139 The other member of the committee elected by the divan was Costache Conachi, whose “Observations on Moldavia” addressed to Russia on the eve of the Convention of Akkerman likewise recognized the validity of secondclass boyars’ rights to participate in the assembly. The French consul Viollier reported that the boyars accepted this mission with “visible disgust.”140 Repulsed by Zheltukhin’s remarkable coarseness, they also must have realized that participation in the drafting of the statute could render them unpopular with the broader boyar class and reduce their chances to be elected hospodar (should such elections take place). As a result, the convocation of the committee did not pass without some theatrics. Apprised of his nomination, Mihai Sturdza tried to feign illness, but he had to comply with Zheltukhin’s order when the president-plenipotentiary sent a postal carriage and a gendarme after him. Subsequent Romanian historians used this episode as an illustration of Russian brutality, but Viollier, in fact, had little sympathy for its victims: “None of the boyars,” he wrote, “has consistent views or a desire for the common good, and none of them will manage to win the public’s confidence.”141 Second-class Moldavian boyars indeed took a dim view of the Committee of Reform and submitted a petition to Mirkovich. In it, they protested the election of the two members of the Moldavian section of the Committee of Reform by an Assembly of the Divans that included only a limited number of boyars, which was in violation of ancient customs. The petitioners argued that the assembly traditionally included all individuals who had received their ranks from the Great Logofăt to the Great Șatrari (i. e., not just first-class boyars, but also second and third class boyars; see Appendix 1) and attached a copy of the decree (hrisov) of hospodar Constantin Neculae (Mavrocordat) to substantiate their claim. They also referred to the Con­ vention of Akkerman that stipulated the formation of the Assembly of the Divans “in accordance with ancient custom.” The petitioners expressed their 139 Florescu, The Struggle Against Russia, 133n18. 140 Viollier to Portalis, July 31, 1829, in Documente privitoare la istoria românilor, 17:198. 141 Viollier also characterized Minchaki as “well-intentioned, but highly mediocre” and did not expect great results from the work of the committee. Documente privitoare la istoria românilor, 17:198–99.

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fear that the narrow circle of boyars who had elected the members of the Committee of Reform “intend to cause the ruin of all native inhabitants” and demanded that the Assembly of the Divans be composed of representatives “of the entire boyar class.”142 For his part, Mirkovich asked the members of the Committee of Reform to confirm whether the assertions of the petitioners were true, but his inquiry remained unanswered.143 The Peace of Adrianople “The Special Committee for the Reform for Moldavia and Wallachia” began its work on June 19, 1829 in Bucharest. Three weeks before that, the Russian army scored a decisive victory over the Ottoman forces at Kulevca and eventually forced a surrender at Silistria. In the first half of July, the Russian army commanded by I.I. Dibich crossed the Balkans and occupied Adrianople on August 8, which brought the Ottomans to the negotiating table.144 As in the case of the wars of 1768–74 and 1806–12, the Porte at first dragged their feet in the hope that the European powers would intervene. To make the Ottoman government more conciliatory, Dibich was ready to march to the gates of Constantinople with his 25,000 troops, but even he admitted that this force was insufficient to occupy a city with 600,000 Muslim inhabitants.145 At the same time, the commander in chief counselled steadfastness. Although the Russian Foreign Ministry renounced any territorial ambitions at the outbreak of war, Dibich invited the tsar to review his options in case the sultan refused a peace on Russia’s terms and the resumption of hostilities brought about a total collapse of the Ottoman Empire. He argued that such collapse would not alarm the European powers if Russia were to limit its territorial claims to several strongholds in Asia and agree to compensation for its military expenses “by the new states that would emerge on the territory of European Turkey.” Since Christians constituted two-thirds of the population of European Turkey, Dibich believed it possible to “divide them into 142 “Tălmăcire dupe jalbe ce au dat 41 de boieri Excelenței Sale Viț-Prezident,” July 1, 1829, Analele parlamentare ale României 1, part 2, 11–12. Also published in Xenopol, “Primul proiect de constituțiune,” 60–61. The petition was signed by forty-one second-class boyars. 143 “Requêtes des mécontents moldaves,” AVPRI, f. 331, op. 716/1, d. 10, ll. 16–16v. 144 On the Peace Treaty of Adrianople, see Bitis, Russia and the Eastern Question, 349–61. 145 Dibich to Nicholas I, August 13, 1829, in Shil’der, “Adrianopol’skii Mir,” 541.

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three or four states guaranteed by Europe, which would be strong enough for self-defense, but too weak to cause any great power concern.”146 Dibich’s suggestions reminded Nesselrode of Kapodistrias’s plan for a Balkan federation submitted on the eve of the present war, yet the Foreign Ministry’s approach was altogether different. In spring 1829, before Russia’s decisive victories over the Ottomans and Dibich’s passage through the Balkans, Kapodistrias’s plan was examined by Dashkov in a long memorandum that contained an overview of Russian–Ottoman relations and the principles of Russia’s Eastern policy.147 Dashkov recognized the advantages of Kapodistrias’s plan, which would demonstrate Russia’s ostensible disinterest in territorial acquisitions and, at the same time, would allow Russia to maintain and actually increase its influence by virtue of “common religion with all the new provinces, common origin with the Slavic tribes that populated them, their ancient ties with us, and their suspicion toward peoples of other faiths, as well as the advantages of Black Sea commerce.”148 Dashkov also praised Kapodistrias’s idea of dividing up the provinces on the basis of the language and origin of the inhabitants. “The Slavs are wisely set apart from Greeks and Romanians,” while the Moldavians and Wallachians “are justly fused into a single nation and a single state” since they have “the same ancestors, speaking the same language, and having the same laws, customs, judicial system, and administration.” At the same time, Dashkov pointed out that numerous Muslims residing in European Turkey represented the main obstacle to the implementation of Kapodistrias’s plan. In order to prevent their resistance and the useless bloodshed that was sure to come from it, Dashkov suggested creating one Muslim province out of Bosnia, Albania, and Rumelia that would be completely independent from the proposed Christian federation and that “could be gradually and voluntarily brought over to our faith and our enlightenment.”149 Dashkov also criticized Kapodistrias’s plan to demilitarize Constantinople as unrealistic given the inevitable raids by the Muslims in Asian Turkey that were sure to batter the shores of the Bosphorus. To 146 Ibid., 542. 147 Dashkov, “Obozrenie glavneishikh otnoshenii Rossii s Turtsieiu i nachal, na koikh dolzhenstvuiut onye byt, ustanovleny na budushchee vremia,” in VPR, ser. 2, 8:287–94. 148 Ibid., 8:292. 149 Ibid., 8:293.

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secure the city as well as its own position on the Black sea, Russia had to acquire “two rocky corners on both sides of the Bosporus.” With these reservations in mind, Dashkov found Kapodistrias’s basic idea of dividing the Ottoman inheritance into several independent provinces “reasonable and well-founded.”150 This does not mean, however, that Dashkov—or the Russian Foreign Ministry whose approach he helped formulate—pursued the immediate replacement of the Ottoman Empire in Europe by a confederation of Christian nation-states. The first part of his long memorandum demonstrated that the advantages the Ottoman Empire offered Russia as a weak neighbor were considerably larger than the disadvantages. Dashkov admitted that plague epidemics, the slave raids launched by the Asian pashas into Russian territories in the Caucasus, the harassment of Russian trade through the Bosphorus, and the disputes over the rights of the Porte’s Christian subjects protected by Russia could all be quite annoying. At the same time, he argued that “any other power in place of the Ottoman Empire would hardly be less harmful and troublesome for us.” He pointed out that the sudden collapse of the Ottoman Empire would cause intrigues among the European powers envious of Russia’s successes and lead to the formation of hostile alliances that would disturb the general peace for a long time. Dashkov stressed that Russia did not really need the new territories it could acquire in the course of such upheaval. Instead, it sought “the security of its borders as well as the expansion of its influence over the neighboring peoples,” which could best be achieved “by prolonging the existence of the Ottoman Empire under certain conditions for the time being.”151 Accordingly, the peace treaty had to be concluded with an eye on both the current and future benefits for Russia. The former included an advantageous settlement on Russia’s border, commercial and political relations with Turkey, as well as compensation for war damage. The latter involved “laying a firm foundation for a building that would have to be erected on the debris of the Ottoman power should it collapse.” Dashkov envisioned the establishment of “more or less independent provinces, which, through consolidation and the perfection of their political organization under the Ottoman 150 Ibid. 151 Ibid., 8:291.

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scepter, could, in time, take the place of Turkey without major conflict, and could even serve as models for other Ottoman possessions in Europe.”152 Dashkov’s definition of the goal of the prospective peace treaty was in full accordance with the Foreign Ministry’s announcement to governments of Europe when war was declared that Russia, “does not have any ambitions, as its government has enough objects to care for in its vast domains.”153 The same renunciation of territorial annexation at the Ottomans’ expense informed the ministry’s instructions to A.F. Orlov, who was appointed as the Russian representative in the peace negotiations a year later.154 Orlov was authorized to conclude peace on the basis of the Porte’s recognition of previous Russian–Ottoman treaties that had been confirmed by the Convention of Akkerman; financial compensation for Russia’s military expenses and the damages suffered by Russian subjects; as well as the Porte’s acceptance of the London treaty on the pacification of Greece. The Russian representative was provided with lists of minimum and maximum demands and drafts of the peace treaty with supplements, all of which were written by Dashkov.155 This gave Dashkov an opportunity to convince the vice-chancellor to introduce some modifications to the status of the principalities as defined by the Convention of Akkerman. With reference to Moldavia and Wallachia, the minimum conditions included the abolition of deliveries of food and materials to the Ottomans in return for an equivalent increase in yearly tribute; the demolition of the Ottoman fortresses on the left bank of the Danube; and the reintegration of the raiale into Wallachian territory. Dashkov also managed to convince the vice-chancellor and the tsar to demand the appointment of hospodars for life, the creation of a Danubian quarantine, and the formation of a national militia. The first of these measures had to “paralyze the intrigues and extortions for which the seven-year term of service left too much space.” The second was deemed “essential for the security not only of [Moldavia and Wallachia], but also that of the neighboring Russian provinces.” The third would substitute the Ottoman beschlis, whose presence in the principalities was a “a source of gratuitous vexation” and “disorder.”156 152 Ibid., 8:293–94. 153 “Deklaratsiia o prichinakh voiny s Portoi i obstoiatel’stvakh ei predshestvovavshikh,” April 14, 1828, PSZ, ser. 2, no. 1948, 3:389. 154 Nesselrode to Orlov, not later than April 26, 1829, in VPR, ser. 2, 8:188. 155 On Dashkov’s authorship of these documents, see VPR, ser. 2, 8:597n165. 156 VPR, ser. 2, 8:190.

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In his work on the instructions to the Russian peace negotiators at Adrianople, Dashkov took into consideration the outline of the prospective Russian–Ottoman peace treaty that Sturdza submitted to the Foreign Ministry on the eve of the war. He may have also been familiar with the plan for a separate act on the principalities Sturdza submitted to the Foreign Ministry in May 1829. Apart from the principles that Sturdza formulated on the eve of the war, the new plan allowed the deposition of the hospodars by the general assemblies of the divans for “arbitrary and tyrannical conduct or the violation of the laws, customs, and prerogatives based on the existing treaties.” The plan also held out the possibility that a Moldavian might be elected the hospodar of Wallachia and vice versa.157 Thirty years later, this formula would indeed allow for the unification of the principalities. However, neither of these constitutional proposals made its way into the actual text of the Treaty of Adrianople or its Separate Act on Moldavia and Wallachia. For this reason, one should not overestimate Sturdza’s contribution to the peace settlement, just as one should not overestimate his input on the ministerial instructions for the Committee of Reform. The Treaty of Adrianople signed on September 2, 1829 was quite close to the drafts prepared by Dashkov several months previously. With exception of the Danubian estuary, the Russian Empire did not acquire any new territories in Europe at the expense of the Ottoman Empire. Instead, the Ottoman side had to pay sizable reparations and confirm the privileges of Serbia, Moldavia, and Wallachia. A separate act concerning Moldavia and Wallachia was signed together with the main treaty; it prohibited the settlement of Muslims in the principalities, specified the reintegration of the fortresses and raiale on the left bank of the Danube into Wallachia, stipulated the establishment of the Danubian quarantine and the formation of national militias, and transformed all deliveries in kind into extra tribute payments. The Ottoman government agreed to the election of the hospodars for life and was obliged to confirm the administrative statutes elaborated during the Russian occupation of the principalities “in accordance with the wishes expressed by the assemblies of notables in the country.”158 The Ottoman representatives accepted these clauses without resistance. “The Turks,” wrote 157 A.S. Sturdza, “Projet de l’acte séparé ou de Convention spéciale sur les Principautés des Moldavie et de la Valachie,” IRLI, f. 288, op. 2, d. 3, ll. 90, 92v. 158 VPR, ser. 2, vol. 8, 271–72; Noradounghian, Recueil d’actes internationaux de l’Empire Ottoman, 2:176.

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Dibich to the tsar, “do not seem to consider the principalities their property anymore and would have readily agreed to cede them [to Russia].”159 Two days after the treaty was signed but still before news of it reached St. Petersburg, Nicholas I convoked a Special Committee on Eastern Affairs that again reviewed the options for Russia’s Eastern policy.160 The committee read Nesselrode’s memorandum, which contained a summary of the principles that had guided Russia’s policy during the war, as well as the memoranda of Dashkov, Kapodistrias, and Russia’s special envoy in Greece, M.N. Bulgari.161 The committee adopted Dashkov’s argument that the “advantages of the Ottoman Empire’s preservation in Europe are greater than the inconveniences it presents.”162 It called on Dibich to “prevent the collapse of the Ottoman Empire by taking advantage of any opportunity to conclude an honorable peace.”163 Received by Dibich several weeks after the conclusion of the peace treaty, the protocol of the Special Committee on Eastern Affairs had no practical consequences and serves as yet another illustration of the “weak neighbor” approach Nicholas I chose to pursue with respect to his defeated rival.

159 Dibich to Nicholas I, August 24, 1829, Drevniaia i novaia Rossiia, no. 12 (1879): 549. 160 Alongside Nesselrode and Dashkov, the Committee included the Chairman of the State Council V.P. Kochubei, the military Commander of St. Petersburg P.A. Tolstoi, former Procurator of the Holy Synod A.N. Golitsyn, and the War Minister A.I. Chernyshev. On the Committee, see Bitis, Russia and the Eastern Question, 356–61. 161 In his memorandum, Bulgari examined alternative options that Russia could pursue in case the Ottoman Empire collapsed. One-by-one he rejected the possibilities of creating a Greek Empire with a capital in Constantinople, placing the city under the rule of a Maltese-like military order, partitioning the Ottoman Empire among major European powers, as well as the direct Russian annexation of Constantinople and most of European Turkey. Instead, he argued for the transformation of the Ottoman capital into a free city under Russia’s protection and the creation of independent states from other fragments of the Ottoman Empire in Europe. Specifically, Bulgari envisioned a Greek state that would include all of continental Greece up to Mount Olympus and the river Vjosa in the North, a state uniting Upper Albania, Macedonia, and the Western part of Thrace, independent Bosnia, and Serbia, as well as the unification of Moldavia, Wallachia, and Bulgaria into a single state under Russia’s exclusive protection. VPR, ser. 2, 8:294–97. 162 See the protocol of the first and only session of the Committee in VPR, ser. 2, 8:278. 163 Ibid.

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Fig. ii. Auguste Raffet (1804–1860): A view of Iași taken from the balcony of the Hotel St. Petersburg (July 19, 1837) (engraving, 1837)

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The Organic Statutes and Russia’s Eastern Policy

T

he peace of Adrianople opened a period of political reforms, which structured relations between the elites of the principalities and the Russian empire for decades to come. With the end of the war, the Russian provisional authorities could move beyond the narrow objective of securing enough supplies for the army and focus on the institutional transformation of the principalities. The conclusion of peace and the withdrawal of the bulk of the army to Russia also allowed all civil and military control (over the remaining occupation corps) to be concentrated in the hands of a single individual representing the authority of the emperor. The man who insisted on this arrangement was General-Lieutenant Pavel Dmitrievich Kiselev, who replaced Zheltukhin as the president-plenipotentiary of the divans in October 1829.1 Kiselev’s personal influence on Russian imperial policy in Moldavia and Wallachia in the first half of the nineteenth century justifies a brief overview of his background.2 Kiselev descended from the ancient noble family of the Tula gubernia and was related to the Russian aristocracy (his mother was Princess Urusova). Family connections and a good education helped Kiselev build a successful career in the military. A veteran of the war of 1812, he participated in the sub1 See Kiselev to Dibich, October 14, 1829, Zablotskii-Desiatovskii, Graf Kiselev, 1:320–22. 2 The most important biographical study on Kiselev is Zablotskii-Desiatovskii, Graf Kiselev. See also Bulgakov, “Russkii gosudarstvennyi chelovek minuvshikh trekh tsarstvii,” Istoricheskii vestnik, no. 7 (1882): 661–71; Morozov, “Graf Kiselev”; Chulkov, “Graf Pavel Dmitrievich Kiselev.” For more recent treatments of Kiselev, see Grosul, “Pavel Dmitrievich Kiselev”; and A.S. Minin, “Ministr vremeni Nikolaia I—graf P.D. Kiselev” (Ph.D. diss., St. Petersburg University, 2002). See also Lincoln, In the Vanguard of Reform, 30–33.

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sequent campaigns against Napoleon and became aide-de-camp of Alexander I at the age of twenty-six. In 1815, Kiselev was transferred to the headquarters of the Second Army stationed in right-bank Ukraine and Bessarabia.3 During this period, he carried out an inspection of the situation in Bessarabia, and his report to Alexander I about the abuses in the local administration was one of the factors leading to the appointment of A.N. Bakhmet’ev as the Bessarabian viceroy.4 In 1821, Kiselev married the sister of Bakhmet’ev’s wife, Sofia Pototskaia, which made him a landlord in the Kiev gubernia. At the time of the Greek uprising, Kiselev dispatched his subordinate and future Decembrist leader Colonel Pavel Pestel to Bessarabia to review the situation in the province and its neighboring principality. As the chief of staff of the Second Army during the 1820s, Kiselev collected all kinds of information about the principalities and, at some point, even intended to write a history of these provinces. Parallel with this effort, he invited several officers of the Second Army to work on the history of the Russian–Ottoman wars.5 Kiselev’s association with the Decembrist leaders in Bessarabia and Ukraine and his possible knowledge about the conspiracy did not directly affect his career. At the same time, he did not quite have the opportunity to demonstrate his talents during the Russian–Ottoman War of 1828–29, in which he served first as the chief of staff of Russian Commander in Chief P.Kh. Vitgenshtein and then as commander of the Russian reserves stationed in the principalities. Somewhat disaffected, Kiselev initially intended to decline Nicholas I’s offer to head up the Russian occupation authorities and accepted the position of president-plenipotentiary only on the insistence of Commander in Chief I.I. Dibich.6 However, Kiselev conditioned his acceptance on agreement that supreme civil and military authority in the principalities would be concentrated in his hands. Neither his immediate predecessors Palen and Zheltukhin, nor the senators-president of the divans in 1808–12 enjoyed comparable autonomy. The day of Kiselev’s arrival to Bucharest (November 14, 1829) was characteristically marked by an earthquake, which foreshadowed the dramatic transformations in the political life of the principalities that were to come. 3 4 5 6

On Kiselev’s service in the second army, see Bitis, Russia and the Eastern Question, 78–95. Zablotskii-Desiatovskii, Graf Kiselev, 1:33–34. Ibid., 1:106–7, 207–9. Ibid., 1:320–24.

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When he became president-plenipotentiary, Kiselev had little direct experience of public administration. And yet the appointment of another military man to serve in an essentially administrative role was not necessarily a recipe for a public relations disaster that the case of Kiselev’s predecessor Zheltukhin might suggest.7 At the time, the Russian army not only produced rigid disciplinarians but also some of the better-educated and most capable elements of Russian society. In the early 1800s, military service was not yet the strictly professional activity that it would become later in the century. Despite early signs of such specialization in the post-1815 period, a Russian officer in 1830 was still a gentlemen par excellence, for whom military service was an important marker of his noble status rather than a principal source of identity. Ever since the abolition of compulsory state service by Peter III in 1762, Russian noblemen rarely devoted their entire lives to the army. They often took extended leaves or early retirements in order to devote themselves to alternative careers or private life. This necessarily contributed to the development of cultural activities and eventually helped produce the characteristic Russian phenomenon of the intelligentsia.8 Even without taking an early retirement, a Russian nobleman was potentially more than just a military man. In this period, military service still did not require highly specialized knowledge and left officers with a considerable amount of free time. Whereas some devoted it to cards, horses, and debauchery, others used it to compensate for the shortcomings of their early education.9 The last president-plenipotentiary of the divans belonged to the latter category. During his youth, Kiselev received a passable education from a French tutor, which was soon complemented by his socialization in the officer company of an elite regiment—the Life-Guard Cavaliers. For Kiselev, the European campaigns of the Russian army in 1813–14 served as a substitute for the grand tour, just as they did for many other young Russian noblemen of his generation. As an aide-de-camp of Alexander I, he followed the Russian army to Poland, Prussia, Germany, and France before going to Vienna at the time of the congress. During his subsequent service at the 7 It was also a widespread practice in the late eighteenth and the early nineteenth century. 8 On the Russian intelligentsia, see Malia, “What is the Intelligentsia?”; Raeff, The Origins of Russian Intelligentsia; Confino, “On Intellectuals and Intellectual Tradition.” 9 On Russian military intelligentsia, see Keep, Soldiers of the Tsar, 231–49.

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headquarters of the Second Army in Tulchin, Kiselev read extensively on ancient and modern history and political philosophy.10 An early Romanian historian of Moldavia and Wallachia under the Russian provisional administration in 1828–34, Pompiliu Eliade viewed Kiselev as the representative of Russia’s 1812 generation. Eager for a more liberal political settlement at home, these people, in the opinion of Eliade, sought to elaborate such a settlement elsewhere and treated the principalities as a “social laboratory.”11 A testimony to Kiselev’s popularity among the Wallachians, Eliade’s characterization of the last president-plenipotentiary is largely mistaken. Kiselev approached Enlightenment authors from a conservative perspective, influenced as he was by Frederich Ancillion’s Tableau des révolutions du système politique de l’Europe depuis le XVe siècle (1804), which constituted his first foray into history and political philosophy. At the same time, at no point during his tenure in Moldavia and Wallachia did Kiselev see in the reformed principalities a political model for the Russian Empire. The weak and venal authority of the princes could hardly appeal to someone who was convinced of the superiority of an autocratic regime that could use unlimited power to rationalize political and social institutions. In the wake of the European revolutions of 1820–21, the Decembrist revolt, and the Polish uprising of 1830– 31, Kiselev was likely to view boyar clamoring for political representation as an obstacle to such reforms (although he was careful not to overreact in the manner of Zheltukhin).12 The cultural barrier should not be underestimated either. Unlike Western or Central European nobilities, the Moldavian and Wallachian boyars could 10 Alongside Greek and Roman classics and major eighteenth and early nineteenth-century historians (Hume, Gibbon, Muller, Guizot, and Thiers), Kiselev’s library in the late 1810s and 1820s included key Enlightenment authors—Locke, Voltaire, Montesquieu, Rousseau, Bentham, Smith—and number of secondary or contemporary figures such as Raynal, Volney, Chateaubriand, and Constant. See Druzhinin, Gosudarstvennye krest’ iane i reforma Kiseleva, 262–63. 11 Eliade, La Roumanie au XIX-e siècle, 112. 12 At his arrival to Bucharest, Kiselev publicly announced that he will be “the opposite of his predecessor.” Hugo to Polignac, November 27, 1829, in Documente privitoare la istoria românilor, 17:230. Later he complained to the Governor-General of New Russia Vorontsov that “with exception of the military occupation of a part of France, everywhere else Russian administration is arranged in a way that makes it hateful.” Kiselev to M.S. Vorontsov, April 6, 1831, Bucharest, in Bartenev, Arkhiv kniazia Vorontsova, 38:195. Addressed to the former head of the Russian occupation corps in France in 1815–18, M.S. Vorontsov, this comment was as much a compliment as it was a piece of self-criticism. Nevertheless, in a certain sense, Kiselev managed to outperform his correspondent, which is evidenced by one of Bucharest’s thoroughfares, which still bears his name.

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not possibly serve as role models for the Russian officers on account of their decidedly non-military character and their immersion in “oriental” vestments, habits, and modes of thinking. If anything, the diffusion of cultural practices proceeded in the opposite direction: the Russian officers in 1806– 12 and 1828–29 taught the boyars and their wives to play cards and dance and helped them improve their French pronunciation. In many respects, Kiselev himself was a role-model for the Wallachian elite to the extent that some of them envisioned him as a hospodar.13 Kiselev could not view Moldavia and Wallachia as a laboratory in a political sense. At the same time, the principalities may have played this role in terms of relations between peasants and lords. Phanariot princes abolished serfdom in the middle of the eighteenth century and attempted to stipulate peasant labor dues and quitrent. Kiselev’s basic attitude toward the peasant question and his first important experience in this domain predated his appointment to Moldavia and Wallachia. The future president-plenipotentiary recognized the need to abolish serfdom in Russia as early as 1816, when he carried out a review of Bessarabia and New Russia on Alexander I’s orders. Kiselev’s observation of lord-peasant relations in the Habsburg lands in 1814–15 made him an advocate for the personal emancipation of peasants combined with the legal definition of their obligations to landlords. During the 1820s, Kiselev had the chance to apply these principles on the estates of his wife in Kiev gubernia. At this time, he came up with the idea of defining the amount of peasant labor dues and rent in the inventories that would be similar to the robotpatents introduced in the Habsburg lands by Maria Theresa and Joseph II. Kiselev embodied a very characteristic combination of military, administrative, and diplomatic prowess that was often required from Nicholas I’s emissaries (e. g., A.F. Orlov, A.S. Menshikov, V.A. Perovskii). The experience Kiselev obtained as president-plenipotentiary of the divans contributed to the spectacular development of his career, first as Nicholas I’s “chief of staff on peasant affairs” and Minister of State Domains in the late 1830s and 13 In 1831, Kiselev refused the offer of naturalization from the Wallachian assembly decided to offer him “after considerable debate.” See Lagan to the French Minister of Foreign Affairs Horace Sebastiani, December 6, 1831, in Documente privitoare la istoria românilor, 17:258–59. In 1842, the Wallachian assembly once again offered citizenship to Kiselev and even intended to erect a monument to him. This time, Kiselev accepted the citizenship, but rejected the idea of a monument. Zablotskii-Desiatovskii, Graf Kiselev, 1:422.

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1840s, and then as the Russian ambassador to France in 1856–62. The qualities that distinguished Kiselev from the other “enlightened bureaucrats” of Nicholas I’s rein (such as M. M. Speranskii, D.M. Bludov, and S.S. Uvarov) had earlier earned him respect among the Moldavian and Wallachian boyars and were an important factor in the relative success of the reforms Russia sponsored in the principalities. Boyar Opposition to the Organic Statutes Upon his arrival to Bucharest on November 14, 1829, Kiselev announced to the boyars in the divan that he was well aware of the abuses in the internal administration during the war. Like Bagration some twenty years earlier, the new president-plenipotentiary attributed these abuses to native officials rather than the Russian army or the provisional administration. According to Kiselev, “far from being burdensome, the presence of an army could only enrich a country in which bribery is publicly condemned, and where the honor of being useful to one’s fatherland trumps the pursuit of personal advantages.” Kiselev warned the divan that his administration would focus on “the common good of the country rather than on any particular interests,” and he summoned the boyars to join him in the reform efforts that aimed to “revive the mores and public spirit of the country.”14 Despite the joy with which the Wallachian divan received this message, Kiselev soon had to deal with boyar resistance to different aspects of the reforms he was supposed to implement. The first manifestations of this opposition came from the people who were tasked with producing drafts of the statutes. The boyar members of the reform committee put up staunch opposition to the Russian authorities’ plan to introduce a land tax and subject the boyars to indirect taxation (stamp duties).15 Unable or unwilling to fight the opposition, Minchaki advised Kiselev to concede this point on the grounds that the boyars had already accepted the abolition of scutelnici and their exemption from customs dues, which was another form of indirect taxation. The committee members also argued that the current peasant labor dues corresponded to the amount of work that peasants were required to perform 14 Cited in Zablotskii-Desiatovskii, Graf Kiselev, 1:325–26. 15 See the protocol of the session of the committee of January 15, 1830, Analele parlamentare ale României 1, part 1, 620–21.

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for the landlords according to ancient legislation. They also claimed that work days were concrete rather than abstract entities.16 For his part, Kiselev insisted on providing the clearest possible definition of a work day. He even admitted the possibility of doubling their number if it reflected the actual time necessary to perform the required work and if there was a reduction in the number of other corvées peasants had hitherto performed. In Kiselev’s opinion, the abolition of the scutelnici did not justify an increase in the personal obligations of peasants to landlords. On the other hand, Kiselev accepted the boyar request for compensation for the abolition of the scutelnici. He suggested an increase of the salaries of boyars occupying official posts and offered lifetime indemnities for those who were not in active service. Otherwise, the legislation concerning landlords and peasants had to be “based on rights and mutual obligations as well as the principles of justice that alone can assure the stability of laws and the new statute.”17 Apart from the resistance to certain aspects of the proposed reforms within the committee, the period when the Organic Statutes were elaborated was characterized by other manifestations of oppositional attitudes. In Wallachia, the opposition grouped around Metropolitan Grigore. Unlike his predecessor in 1808–12 (Gavriil Bănulescu-Bodoni), Grigore refused to support the sanitary measures implemented by the Russian authorities and opposed their attempt to claim part of the church’s revenues for the public treasury.18 In response, the first president-plenipotentiary Palen temporarily suspended Grigore and replaced him by the more cooperative bishop Neofit of Râmnic.19 Despite demands for the return of the metropolitan, Kiselev insisted on his continued exile because Grigore’s “patriotic enthusiasm” could have a “hostile influence on the General Assemblies.”20 This measure was all the more necessary in view of the fact that “the ill-intentioned individuals were already busy influencing public opinion (s’occupent déjà a travailler les esprits) in order to form an opposition and paralyze the success

16 Minchaki to Kiselev, January 21, 1830, AVPRI, f. 331, op. 716/1, d. 3, ll. 67–68. 17 Kiselev to Minchaki, February 2, 1830, AVPRI, f. 331, op. 716/1, d. 3, ll. 100–101. 18 As is clear from Nesselrode’s letter to Dibich of February 28, 1830, AVPRI, f. 331, op. 716/1, d. 3, ll. 27v–28. 19 As is clear from Kiselev’s secret note to the Russian envoy in Constantinople A. P. Butenev of April 2, 1832, in Zablotskii-Desiatovskii, Graf Kiselev, 4:74. 20 Kiselev to Dibich, May 29, 1830, AVPRI, f. 331, op. 716/1, d. 7, l. 30.

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of the administrative reforms in the principalities.”21 According to Kiselev, the boyars demanding Grigore’s liberation were those who sought to perpetrate abuses and opposed the introduction of the new statute. They also submitted a petition protesting against the secrecy in which the statute was drafted, which Kiselev summarily rejected.22 Whereas Kiselev was in favor of Grigore’s official replacement, Dibich feared that direct Russian interference in the affairs of the Eastern Orthodox Church could produce a negative reaction among the local population.23 As a result, Grigore’s suspension would last until the end of the negotiations with the Ottomans and the Porte’s approval of the Organic Statutes.24 Repressions against the leading Moldavian boyars were limited to the exile of Iordache and Nicolae Rosetti-Roznovanu, whom Mihai Sturdza denounced to Zheltukhin as traitors. From his exile, Roznovanu’s father appealed to Dibich, who forwarded his plea to the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs together with a petition by Moldavian Metropolitan Veniamin Costache and a number of Moldavian boyars.25 Nesselrode feared that the exile of Roznovanu might appear as a violation of the Adrianople treaty stipulations on mutual amnesty and would provide the Porte with a pretext to demand their own exemptions from this clause. Given the influence and popularity of Roznovanu, the vice-chancellor also wondered whether his continued exile would not harm Russian interests once the principalities resumed their regular administration.26 For his part, Kiselev was resolutely opposed to Roznovanu’s participation in the deliberations of the General Assembly or in the elections of the hospodar. According to the president-plenipotentiary, a revision of a decision that had already been made would be “immensely harmful (prejudiciable) to our future influence on the administration of a province whose nobility would be all the more difficult to control in two or three years as a natural consequence of the peace treaty of Adrianople.”27 21 22 23 24 25

Ibid. Ibid., ll. 30–30v. Dibich to Kiselev, July 16, 1830, RGIA, f. 958, op. 1, d. 622, l. 10v. Kiselev to Butenev, April 2, 1832, Zablotskii-Desiatovskii, Graf Kiselev, 4:74. Rosetti-Roznovanu to Dibich, January 4, 1830, RGADA, f. 15, op. 1, d. 710, ll. 1–1v. Roznovanu Senior asked the Field marshal to intervene on his behalf in order to help him obtain permission to return to Moldavia. 26 Nesselrode to Dibich, February 28, 1830, AVPRI, f. 331, op. 716/1, d. 7, ll. 26v–27. 27 Kiselev to Dibich, May 29, 1830, AVPRI, f. 331, op. 716/1, d. 7, ll. 31–31v, and Dibich’s approving response of July 16, 1830, RGIA, f. 958, op. 1, d. 622, l. 10.

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Over the years that followed, the Moldavian boyars indeed caused problems for Kiselev. The tensions between the conservative boyars and the radicals that began in the 1820s continued under the Russian occupation. Lesser boyars resented being excluded from the elaboration of the statute, and the absence of any official publications on the work of the Moldavian section of the committee in Bucharest further strengthened their anger. Since the committee included only boyars of the first rank, numerous middle and small Moldavian boyars soon began to view its activities as an aristocratic plot to exclude them from political life. Their worst fears were confirmed when the members of the Moldavian section of the committee disclosed the content of the proposed statute.28 According to Kiselev’s agent Liprandi, Michel Sturdza, Iordache Catargi, and Costache Conachi knew well that the stipulations of the statutes would frustrate the aspirations of the smaller boyars. At the same time, each of these great boyars sought to become hospodar and needed to secure enough votes from the small boyar members of the prospective Extraordinary Assembly of Election.29 Accordingly, Sturdza, Catargi, and Conachi portrayed the drafts of the statutes as the work of the Russian consul and claimed that their participation was reduced to a simple edit of the text.30 The small boyars expressed their dissatisfaction with the stipulations of the statute in a number of petitions addressed to the president-plenipotentiary. An analysis of the political language of these petitions sheds some light on the character of boyar opposition in 1828–34. In June 1830, one of the spokesmen of the lesser boyars comis Vasile Pogor complained to Kiselev that several prominent families usurped the privileges that had originally belonged to the entire boyar estate.31 In particular, Pogor protested against a restrictive definition of boyars of the first class introduced by the members of the Committee of Reform into the draft statute, the result of which was that “all others are debased and despised to the point 28 The drafts of the Statutes were ready by March 30, 1830. At the end of March, Nesselrode instructed Kiselev to select two of the Reform Committee members to accompany Minchaki to St. Petersburg in order to to present the drafts for examination by the Foreign Ministry. Nesselrode to Kiselev, March 24, 1830, RGIA, f. 958, op. 1, d. 623, ll. 10–11. 29 The “electoral campaign” in Moldavia began immediately after the conclusion of peace. See Viollier to Polignac, October 12, 1829, in Documente privitoare la istorila românilor, 17:219. 30 Liprandi, “O poslednikh proisshestviakh v Moldavii,” RGIA, f. 673, op. 1, d. 402, ll. 1–8. 31 Comisse B. Pogor to Kiselev, June 20, 1830, Iași, in “Requêtes des mécontents moldaves,” AVPRI, f. 331, op. 716/1, d. 10, ll. 4–10.

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of being relegated to the level of district notables.”32 He also criticized the fact that vast majority of boyars were excluded from the General Assemblies and lost their voice in public affairs. Above all, Pogor decried the fact that the projected statute recognized the hereditary noble status of only the boyars of the first five ranks, “which is enormously unjust and has no precedent in the constitutions of any civilized peoples (des peuples policés).”33 Pogor also demonstrated readiness to embrace a new settlement, “completely independent of all laws and ancient customs.” However, “a compact of this kind, destined for a free people, had to be concluded with the agreement of all the different classes.” According to Pogor, the interests of several individuals, did not have to “compromise the general harmony, which alone can guarantee a just equilibrium of the interests within a nation.”34 Pogor pointed out that the granting of boyar titles was a standing practice since the early eighteenth century. The hatt-i sherifs of 1802 and 1827 confirmed the right of the princes to appoint commoners to public office and, thus, accord to them a boyar title. Even the promotion of the Greeks by the Phanariot princes, according to Pogor, demonstrated that individual qualities rather than nobility and property ownership constituted the real basis of appointment. Ioan Alexandru Sturdza continued what was an established practice and, in addition, had the distinction of promoting natives of the principalities. Pogor argued that in order to defend noble status, one had to exclude only the particular individuals who had disgraced themselves, not the entire mass of boyars. He also called for a return to the eighteenth-century principle, whereby the title of the individual indicated the public office he held.35 Pogor’s letter to Kiselev was accompanied by a petition from thirtyeight individuals that denounced the attempt of several families to consolidate their privileges and marginalize the rest of the boyars.36 The authors 32 The draft statute restricted the category of first-class boyars only to those who held the first five ranks (the so-called protipendada: logofăt, vornic, hatman, vistier, and postelnic). Pogor pointed out that the acts of the eighteenth-century hospodars defined the first-class boyars as all those who held the rank from Great Logofăt to Great Șatrari. AVPRI, f. 331, op. 716/1, d. 10, ll. 5–6. 33 Ibid., ll. 6v–7. 34 Ibid., l. 7v. 35 Ibid., ll. 9–9v. 36 Ibid., ll. 11–17v. The petition was signed by Constantin Carp, Gheroge Hermeziu, Constantin ­Burgheli, Iancu Duca, Emanoil Radovici, Gheorghe Negruzzi, Antioch Sion, and other boyars, most of whom held the ranks of aga and spătar. In July 1829, the first three of them protested to Mirkovich about the formation of the Moldavian section of the Committee of Reform without their participation.

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demanded that the boyar titles once conferred upon their ancestors be recognized as hereditary.37 The petitioners also complained that the prospective statute excluded them from the divans as well as the prospective General Assembly. They argued that the inclusion of only a limited number of first-rank boyars into the Princely Divan was a recent practice that violated Moldavian tradition and reflected the desire of the hospodars to turn the divan into an obedient instrument of their arbitrary power.38 The same applied to the General Assembly, which originally included all the nobles of the country and only recently was limited to a select few. Even after this abusive tendency became manifest, the hospodar still had to convoke a wider assembly to deliberate on important issues, which required the sanction of the Ottoman Empire.39 The petitioners asked Kiselev to watch over the activities of the present divans as well as inform them about the mode of the General Assembly’s formation.40 Secrecy and a lack of publicity also became the targets of criticism of boyars from the Putna district, who pointed out that members of the committee failed to present the fruits of their labor for general consideration before it was sent on to St. Petersburg.41 Along with demands that reflected the actual interests of the middle and small boyars, the petitions contained arguments that were likely to resonate with the Russian provisional authorities. To counter the attempts of great boyars to monopolize all the power, the petitioners recalled the Bessarabian Statutes of 1818 and 1828, which granted the same rights and privileges to all the nobles of the region regardless of the ranks they held before 1812.42 As in the early 1820s, Bessarabian autonomy provided blueprint for boyar “radicals” in the neighboring principality. The petitioners also echoed the rhetoric of Alexander I’s rescript to Bessarabian viceroy Bakhmetiev, which expressed concern for the welfare of the entire Moldavian population. In this sense, the petitioners criticized the committee’s decision to double the number of work days Moldavian peasants owed their landlords.43

37 38 39 40 41 42 43

Ibid., l. 13v. Ibid., ll. 14v–15. Ibid., ll. 15v–16. Ibid., ll. 16v–17. Ibid., ll. 18-19. See also Documente privitoare la istoria românilor, 21:290. “Requêtes des mécontents moldaves,” AVPRI, f. 331, op. 716/1, d. 10, l. 5, 13–13v. Ibid., ll. 9–9v.

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Having received the boyar petitions in Iași in the summer of 1830, Kiselev forwarded them to Minchaki, who had left for St. Petersburg in the company of Alexandru Villara, Mihai Sturdza, and Gheorghe Asachi in order to present the drafts of the statutes to a special commission convened by the Russian Foreign Ministry.44 The great boyar members of the commission—Villara and Sturdza—did not miss the opportunity to denounce the Moldavian petitioners to the Russian authorities.45 Their efforts were particularly effective in this specific moment: the petitions reached the Russian Foreign Ministry in the wake of the July revolution in Paris. As a result, the Russian Foreign Ministry dismissed the complaints of the lesser boyars as manifestations of “the spirit of ill-founded opposition.”46 Soon the lesser boyars learned that the draft of the statute was approved by the ministry with few modifications, which spurred another round of oppositional activity. The Affair of Sion and Its Consequences At the end of 1830, relations between Russia and the elites of Moldavia and Wallachia were affected by the Polish November Uprising. Having begun as a plot by the young Polish officers to assassinate the commander in chief of the Polish Army, Grand Duke Constantine, the uprising eventually enveloped the entire Kingdom of Poland and parts of the western borderlands, and was suppressed only the following September with great effort by the Russians. Kiselev’s first reaction to the news of the uprising consisted in criticizing “the Christian and philanthropic utopias” of Alexander I. Having returned Europe to its 1793 borders, Russia, according to Kiselev, did not have the right to claim the Duchy of Warsaw “for the pleasure of granting it a constitution that failed to satisfy the two million for whom it was intended and gave forty two million Russians a strange impression.”47 44 Kiselev to Minchaki, August 14, 1830, AVPRI, f. 331, op. 716/1, d. 3, l. 171. On the choice of Villara, Sturdza, and Asachi to accompany Minchaki to St. Petersburg, see Kiselev to Nesserlrode, April 14, 1830, AVPRI, f. 331, op. 716/1, d. 7, l. 9–9v. The commission headed by Dashkov also included Minchaki, G.A. Katakazi, Sturdza, and Villara and worked under the control of Nesselrode and Kh.A. Liven. 45 As is clear from the memorandum of Dashkov attached to the letter of Lieven to Kiselev from August 1830, AVPRI, f. 331, op. 716/1, d. 7, l. 41v–42. 46 Lieven to Kiselev, August 30, 1830, AVPRI, f. 331, op. 716/1, d. 7, l. 38. 47 Kiselev to Vorontsov, December 15, 1830, in Bartenev, Arkhiv kniazia Vorontsova, 38:189–90.

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The impact of the Polish uprising on the Moldavian opposition must have been no less significant, for in early January 1831, Kiselev learned of the appearance of leaflets containing the slogan “Down with the Organic Statute” in French, German, and Romanian on the streets of Iaşi.48 Several days later, vice president of the Moldavian divan Mirkovich received a leaflet that threatened the great boyars with the people’s vengeance and, at the same time, disavowed any evil intention against the Russian government.49 The investigations led to the arrest of spătar Antioch Sion, a second-class boyar and a subordinate of the Moldavian vistier Alecu Sturdza.50 According to Mirkovich, Sion’s papers revealed “a great conspiracy against the statute” that had been gestating since May 1830 and had ramifications in the district capitals as well as in Focșani and Bârlad on the frontier with Wallachia.51 Kiselev advised Mirkovich to publicly downplay the importance of the affair and present it as the action of upstarts who were “unworthy of the privileges that had been conceded and sold to them.” The president-plenipotentiary found it necessary to “downplay this matter, lest the Austrians and Turks take advantage of this supposedly national opposition.”52 Kiselev may have been alerted to this danger by Liprandi, who alleged that the oppositional boyars had, in fact, tried to turn to the Ottomans for help and even dispatched the monk Ioasaf to the Porte with a statement. 53 Mindful of possible international reverberations, Kiselev ordered Mirkovich to keep foreign subjects under surveillance, particularly the French.54 Kiselev also ordered Mirkovich to bring Sion to Bucharest so that he could personally interrogate the suspect.55 48 See Mirkovich to Kiselev, January 7, 1831, in Mirkovich and Mirkovich, Fedor Mirkovich, 2:220–21. The French consul Lagan attributed the appearance of the anonymous leaflets threatening uprising to the boyars’ fears of changes that would deprive them of some of their privileges. Lagan to Sebastiani, February 4, 1831, Documente privitoare la istoria românilor, 17:244. 49 Mirkovich to Kiselev, January 12, 1831, in Mirkovich and Mirkovich, Fedor Mirkovich, 2:221. 50 According to Kiselev’s former agent in Iași Liprandi, Sion was given up by his superior who sought to exploit the mounting political crisis for his own advantage. Having implicated himself in the illegal machinations of the tax farms, Great Vistier Sturdza supposedly tried to win the gratitude of the Russian authorities by giving away Sion as the main leader of the small boyar opposition. Liprandi, “O poslednikh proisshestviiakh v Moldavii,” RGIA, f. 673, op. 1, d. 402, ll. 1–8. 51 Mirkovich to Kiselev, January 12, 1831, in Mirkovich and Mirkovich, Fedor Mirkovich, 2:222. 52 Kiselev to Mirkovich, January 18, 1831, in Mirkovich and Mirkovich, Fedor Mirkovich, 2:223. 53 Liprandi, “O poslednikh proisshestviiakh v Moldavii,” RGIA, f. 673, op. 1, d. 402, ll. 1–8. 54 Kiselev to Mirkovich, January 18, 1831, Mirkovich and Mirkovich, Fedor Mirkovich, 2:223. 55 Kiselev to Mirkovich, January 20, 1831, Mirkovich and Mirkovich, Fedor Mirkovich, 2:224. On the repression of the authors of the petitions, see Lagan to Sebastiani, February 21, Documente privitoare la istoria românilor, 17:245.

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A special commission established to investigate the affair found no trace of the Iași leaflets among Sion’s papers. Instead, it found complaints about the provisions of the prospective statutes that restricted boyar privileges and refused to recognize boyar titles awarded by the hospodar’s patents.56 The spătar and his correspondents prepared a petition demanding the convocation of the General Assembly that would unite “the greatest and the smallest” in accordance with the ancient customs of the country.57 At the same time, the petitioners not only denounced the oligarchic tendencies of the great boyars, but also expressed a veiled criticism of Russian policies. They invoked the sacrifices of their ancestors to the Russian troops during the “Turkish campaigns” of Catherine the Great and Alexander I, which were rewarded by the conferment of “all ancient liberties and immunities.” At the outbreak of the most recent war, the petitioners once again responded “with all their means and efforts” to the promises of the Russian authorities “to consolidate or even augment their ancient privileges.” Much to their disappointment, the petitioners soon learned about the Russian decision to abolish scutelnici, slugi, and breslaşi that would soon force them to sell their landed properties and leave them at the mercy of the great boyars. They also denounced the doubling of peasant work days and the introduction of military conscription in a country that had long lost its military virtues, as well as expressed the conviction that such policies could not emanate from the Russian emperor.58 Although Mirkovich did not doubt the existence of the conspiracy, he admitted the difficulty of rooting it out in the absence of capable Russian officials and given the unreliability of Moldavians. Until the investigation revealed all the suspects, Mirkovich proposed dispersing “the men of the party”—who in the light of circumstantial evidence were the leaders of the conspiracy—in order to paralyze their followers. To avoid arrests 56 Kiselev to Nesselrode, January 26, 1831, AVPRI, f. 331, op. 716/1, d. 7, l. 100. The only truly “incendiary” document in the possession of the spătar dated from 1821 and contained a lot of anti-big boyar rhetoric in the style of Vladimirescu. AVPRI, f. 331, op. 716/1, d. 7, l. 100v; and Kiselev to Nesselrode, February 16, 1831, AVPRI, f. 331, op. 716/1, d. 7, ll. 139–140v. See also “Traduction littérale d’un projet de proclamation saisie dans les papiers du boyard de Moldavie Sion,” AVPRI, f. 133, “Kantseliaria,” op. 469, d. 138 (1831), ll. 5–6. 57 “Projet d’adresse (en traduction littérale) saisi dans les papiers du spathar Sion,” AVPRI, f. 331, op. 716/1 d. 10, ll. 53–53v. 58 Ibid., ll. 55–57v.

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that might lead people into open opposition, the vice president proposed dispatching Vasile Pogor and other likely conspirators from Iași on minor official errands.59 For his part, Kiselev advised Mirkovich to be on guard against vistier Alecu Sturdza, his relative Dimitrie Ghica, and Alexandru Mavrocordat; the latter two occupied important posts under former hospodar Alexandru Ioan Sturdza and were known for their pro-Ottoman attitudes.60 Eventually, Kiselev recommended the dismissal of all unreliable officials, including the vistier.61 The situation in Iași quickly calmed down, but unrest in the districts was on the rise, fueled as it was by the conscription of inhabitants into the militia. In late March 1831, Mirkovich reported that the people, once “so submissive and docile..., now displays open opposition accompanied by threats and refuses to hear the voice of authority.” According to Mirkovich, all the means of persuasion proved to be ineffective and the rebellion becomes more and more powerful so that “only a military intervention can bring the insurgents back into order.” The vice president of the Moldavian divan had no doubt that the opponents of the statute stood behind the peasant movement that enveloped the districts of Herța, Roman, Bacău, Niamț, and Tecuci and found arrests and exile to be “the only effective means to inspire fear among the intrigants.”62 Kiselev angrily complained that the investigation into the conspiracy had not produced anything concrete. He attributed the disorders in the districts to Mirkovich’s poor selection of the district ispravniks and his failure to punish the first signs of intrigue, as well as pointed to the successful formation of the militia in Wallachia as a counter example. Kiselev instructed his deputy to use the troops only when absolutely necessary and then “strike hard and fairly.”63 59 Mirkovich to Kiselev, January 29, 1831, in Mirkovich and Mirkovich, Fedor Mirkovich, 2:226. 60 Kiselev to Mirkovich, January 20, 1831, in Mirkovich and Mirkovich, Fedor Mirkovich, 224. On Dmitrie Ghica and Alexandru Mavrocordat, see “Svedeniia o dostoinstvakh nekotorykh pervoklassnykh boiar kniazhestva Moldavii,” in Mirkovich and Mirkovich, Fedor Mirkovich, 201, 203. 61 Kiselev to Mirkovich, March 11, 1831, in Mirkovich and Mirkovich, Fedor Mirkovich, 228. Kiselev’s handling of the affair of Sion was approved by Nesselrode, who authorized him to arrest and imprison in Silistria people of all social classes, whom the investigating commission identified as troublemakers or authors of the incendiary proclamations. This episode further contributed to the perception of the lesser Moldavian boyars as troublemakers. Nesselrode to Kiselev, February 17, 1831, RGIA, f. 958, op. 1, d. 623, l. 79. 62 Mirkovich to Kiselev, March 19, 1831, in Mirkovich and Mirkovich, Fedor Mirkovich, 2:229. 63 Kiselev to Mirkovich, March 31, 1831, in Mirkovich and Mirkovich, Fedor Mirkovich, 2:230.

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By April 1831, the Moldavian countryside was indeed in a state of serious turmoil. According to the Prussian consul in Iași, Johann Margotti, the great boyars Todorache Balș, Costache Conachi, and Iordache Catargi, who were dispatched to admonish and pacify the peasants, barely escaped with their lives.64 The rebellious peasants demonstrated their considerable capacity for collective action. They prohibited any of their more peaceful neighbors from taking up their work in the fields and established sentinels that communicated with each other by means of red flags and fires on the hills outside their villages. 65 According to the Prussian consul, the peasants were particularly angry at the boyar members of the Committee of Reform and declared that they did not want to be ruled by the boyars. Margotti also reported that the peasants armed themselves with pikes, axes, forks, clubs, and occasionally muskets and estimated the total number of rebels at 60,000.66 The situation reached its climax in late April, when Major General D.G. Begidov was dispatched to disperse 8,000 inhabitants assembled near Roman and had to use force after the insurgents not only failed to listen his admonitions, but also killed an officer and a solider. In return, the Cossacks killed and wounded some sixty peasants, which put an end to the conflagration.67 The peasant mutinies predictably added to the nervousness of the Russian authorities in the wake of the affair of Sion. In his report to Nesselrode, Kiselev presented the peasant rebels as inhabitants of the mountainous regions (some of them were Hungarian Catholics), who refused to serve in the militia or perform any labor duties for boyar landowners.68 He admitted that the peasants might have their own motives for rebellion, but emphasized the role of “perfidious insinuations” about a forthcoming invasion of Ottoman troops that would kill all the Russians and their supporters 64 Margotti to the Prussian consul general in Bucharest Karl von Kreuchely, March 4 and April 11, 1831, in Documente privitoare la istoria românilor, 10:453–54. 65 Margotti to Kreuchely, April 21, 1831, Documente privitoare la istoria românilor, 10:454. According to the same Margotti, Mirkovich’s aide-de-camp Paskevich (a brother of Nicholas I’s famous Field marshal), who went to admonish the peasants of the village Deleni to the North of Iași on behalf of the local proprietor, came back stripped of his uniform and dressed in verminous rags. 66 Margotti to the Prussian Minister of Foreign Affairs Brassier de Saint-Simon, April 22, 1831, in Documente privitoare la istoria românilor, 10:456. 67 Kiselev to Nesselrode, April 30, 1830, RGIA, f. 958, op. 1, d. 625, l. 90. The French consul Lagan reported 300 killed and wounded. See Lagan to Sebastiani, May 15, 1831, in Documente privitoare la istoria românilor, 17:249. 68 Kiselev to Nesselrode, April 30, 1830, RGIA, f. 958, op. 1, d. 625, l. 90.

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and liberate the peasants. According to Kiselev, such rumors could be spread by foreign subjects, Jews, Ottoman merchants, and boyars of all ranks: “The only fact that is beyond doubt is that agitation is universal in this country, and the most malicious rumors are being spread both about our affairs in Poland and about the plans of the Ottomans. It becomes, therefore, essential to suppress this spirit of perturbation in the country, which by its geographical position and the absence of police as well as any other repressive force, can become a scene of trouble and disorder, the consequences of which will affect the neighboring provinces of Russia and Austria.”69 Kiselev may have deliberately dramatized the situation in order to justify the use of troops to Nesselrode, but the worried vice-chancellor needed no persuasion. He authorized the president-plenipotentiary to resort to military force in case this “deplorable contagion manifests itself” in the principalities. 70 These manifestations of opposition could not fail to affect Russian policies. For one thing, the modifications to the drafts of the statutes introduced by the ministerial commission in the fall of 1830 reduced the size of future General Assemblies and, at the same time, minimized the potential for the formation of oppositional parties within them. The commission introduced a high property qualification for the deputies from the towns in order to exclude “individuals belonging to the class of shopkeepers.”71 The commission also reduced the number of Wallachian boyars of the first rank that composed part of the Ordinary Assembly (from thirty-four to twenty) as well as halved the number of deputies from the districts (from thirty-seven to nineteen). The reduction was not proportionate, however, and in fact it augmented the weight of the great boyars, who became more numerous than the representatives of the districts.72 Both amendments reflected the assumption that a smaller assembly would be easier to control than a larger one. To neu69 Ibid., 93. Several weeks later, Kiselev reported that the same “malicious rumors about our situation in Poland” were spreading “in the coffee-houses and cities on the right bank of the Danube,” that they “inflame the imagination of the Turks,” and make “the idea of a general campaign against Russia . . . very popular.” Kiselev to Nesselrode May 20, 1831, RGIA, f. 958, op. 1, d. 625, l. 104. 70 Nesselrode to Kiselev, May 15, 1831, RGIA, f. 958, op. 1, d. 623, l. 94. 71 “Remarques sur le projet de Règlement pour la Valachie présentées au Ministère Impériale par la Comité du Bucarest,” RGIA, f. 958, op. 1, d. 625, l. 25. The Ministry’s observations were attached to the letter of Nesselrode to Kiselev, of November 27, 1830, RGIA, f. 958, op. 1, d. 625, ll. 11–23. 72 RGIA, f. 958, op. 1, d. 625, l. 35. The Moldavian assembly was to consist of the sixteen boyars of the first rank and sixteen deputies of the districts.

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tralize potential opposition within the assemblies, the amended drafts of the statutes prohibited members to express their disagreement with the adopted legislation in a separate act and threatened them with expulsion if they did not comply with this rule. In cases of sedition or disorder among the members of the assembly, the hospodar was authorized to disband it.73 The affair of Sion and the peasant mutinies of April 1831, like the earlier manifestation of boyar opposition, led the Russian authorities to reduce the number of boyars who could participate in the General Assemblies for the Revision of the Organic Statutes. Minchaki alerted Kiselev to the dangers of convoking a large Assembly of Revision as early as April 1830. According to the Russian consul general, the opposition of some boyar committee members to certain clauses of the projected statute, such as a tax on landed property, was a sign of more trouble to come. Therefore, Minchaki suggested that the statutes be adopted by the boyars delegated by the divans. He also advised Kiselev to appoint the first hospodars instead of convoking the General Assembly for their election.74 Kiselev shared Minchaky’s apprehensions with respect to Moldavia and supported the adoption of the statutes by the assembly of the existing judicial and executive divans, to which one could add several high-ranking clergy and several loyal boyars who held no official appointments.75 At the same time, in the case of Wallachia, Kiselev believed it “necessary to give to the assembly as much legality as possible by making it represent, so to say, the general will in accordance with the ancient usages and customs of the country and, at the same time, hamper the ill-intended opposition under the cover of demands for justice.”76 Accordingly, Kiselev suggested that the Wallachian assembly include four members of the Administrative Council, twenty-eight members of the Judicial Divan, four boyars of ancient descent in the rank of ban (the first rank in the Wallachian boyar hierarchy), the interim metropolitan, three abbots, the governor (caimacam) of Little Wallachia, and the representatives of the districts (one from every two districts). Totaling forty-seven members, the assembly would contain half the total number of great boyars, 73 74 75 76

RGIA, f. 958, op. 1, d. 625, l. 37. Minchaki to Kiselev, April 3, 1830, AVPRI, f. 331, op. 716/1, d. 3, ll. 131–133v. Kiselev to Nesselrode, April 14, 1830, AVPRI, f. 331, op. 716/1, d. 7, l. 19. “Projet de formation d’une assemblée générale extraordinaire en Valachie,” attached to the letter of Kiselev to Nesselrode of August 13, 1830, AVPRI, f. 133, op. 469, d. 114 (1830), l. 14.

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versus only ten representatives of the much more numerous boyars of the second and the third rank.77 Convoked on the basis of this formula, the assembly would remain controllable, and, at the same time, it would look broad enough to conform to the historical precedent. With a new revolutionary wave crossing Europe combined with the unrest in the principalities, the Russian Foreign Ministry recognized the danger of convoking the Assemblies of Revision on the formula stipulated in the instructions of June 1829. In a special memorandum transmitted to Kiselev, Dashkov observed that once reunited in a large assembly, the boyars “will demand the revocation of the principal reforms” in order to “maintain their privileges and the abuses associated with them.”78 To prevent it, Dashkov suggested forming the Assemblies of Revision out the members of the executive and judicial divans that had been appointed by Kiselev with the addition of the highest-ranking clergymen and several major urban proprietors (in Wallachia) or district boyars (in Moldavia). Kiselev was also empowered to appoint representatives from the urban corporations if he deemed it expedient.79 Additionally he received authorization to expel from the divans those boyars whose allegiance he found questionable and reward those who were loyal with decorations and gifts.80 The boyar petitions convinced Kiselev that certain aspects of the statute, such as the abolition of scutelnici and poslușnici and the stipulations on peasant labor obligations, would encounter strong opposition in the assemblies.81 To overcome this opposition, Kiselev suggested having the statute examined and approved by the Wallachian Assembly of Revision before the convocation of its Moldavian counterpart. The president-plenipotentiary argued that this would “establish a precedent that could help reduce obstacles and diminish opposition the government might encounter in a province,” whose nobility was “more numerous, more conspiratorial, and more difficult to control.”82 To secure a favorable majority in the assemblies and the spontaneous adoption of the statutes, Kiselev also proposed 77 Ibid., 15–15v. 78 See Dashkov’s memorandum attached to the letter of Liven to Kiselev of August 30, 1830, AVPRI, f. 331, op. 716/1, d. 7, ll. 42–42v. 79 Ibid., ll. 43–44. 80 Ibid., l. 44v. 81 Kiselev to Nesselrode, October 13, 1830, in VPR, 17:122. 82 Ibid., 123.

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giving promotions, decorations, and monetary remunerations to particular individuals.83 Nesselrode approved these measures and agreed with Kiselev’s argument about the need to include representatives of the first and second-class boyars who currently did not occupy any offices “in order to give the acting divans the character of an assembly convoked in accordance with the ancient custom.”84 As a result, the Wallachian Assembly for the Revision of the Organic Statute convoked on March 10, 1831, consisted of fifty-four members, including six representatives of the clergy, thirty-eight boyars of the first class (in the ranks from ban to aga), and ten boyars of the second class.85 The opening of the assembly was preceded by the formation of special committees that had to produce recommendations and bills on a number of sensitive issues: the amount of compensation for the abolished scutelnici, the contribution of monasteries and church lands to the treasury, the classification of all the inhabitants of the principality, the formation of the militia, the accountability in the management of the public funds, and the statute on municipal taxes and obligations.86 The Adoption of the Organic Statutes by the Assemblies of Revision In his address to the assembly, Kiselev called the Wallachians “descendants of a valiant people,” whose “national government” gave way to a “foreign, feeble, and precarious administration” with the arrival of the Phanariots. As a result, the inhabitants of Wallachia and Moldavia “remained immobile in the midst of the improvements experienced by the great European family” and were now “reclaimed by civilization.”87 Kiselev stressed Russia’s contribution to this process since the reign of Peter the Great in the eighteenth century. He admitted that the recent violations of the Russian treaties with the Ottoman Empire caused hardships for Wallachia and Moldavia, but he attributed them to “secondary causes and developments that were indepen83 84 85 86 87

Ibid., 123–24. See the two letters of Nesselrode to Kiselev of November 27, 1830, in VPR 17:177–80. See the list of the assembly members in Analele parlamentare ale României 1, part 1, iii–xi. Kiselev to Nesselrode, February 9, 1831, AVPRI, f. 331, op. 716/1, d. 7, l. 109v. Kiselev, “Discours prononcé à l’occasion de l’ouverture de l’Assemblée générale,” in Documente privitoare la istoria românilor, supp. 1, 4:359. Also published in Analele parlamentare ale României 1, part 1, 69–91.

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dent from the will of the protecting power.” According to Kiselev, the “terrible commotions that affected Europe” were the real cause of the “great calamities” that plagued the principalities. Kiselev recalled that the plan for the statute the assembly had to adopt was based on ministerial instructions that reflected boyar petitions from the 1810s and early 1820s.88 Kiselev proudly recounted the recent achievements of the Russian provisional authorities and stressed that the proposed statute “affirms the principles that reflect, as close as possible, the present situation.” According to him, the plan for the statute contained as much enlightened improvement as was realistic given the present condition of the country. “It does not represent any of the theories, which, if considered abstractly, do not fail to profess a certain utility, but which, when applied, very often reveal shortcomings by aspiring beyond the limits set by the present state of civilization in the nations.”89 The opening of the assembly occasioned some manifestations of opposition, yet overall these remained minimal. Kiselev ordered the arrest of Ioan Văcărescu who demanded that the exiled Metropolitan Grigore preside over the assembly in accordance with custom.90 Kiselev also promptly thwarted the attempt by several leading boyars, including Barbu Văcărescu, Constantin Bălăceanu, and Constantin Creţulescu, to boycott the assembly by claiming they were ill.91 The Wallachian assembly proceeded to revise the statute without much opposition and completed its work in early May.92 By contrast, the Moldavian assembly proved much more troublesome.93 Opening on May 8, 1831 under the supervision of Minchaki, it began its 88 Kiselev, “Discours prononcé,” in Documente privitoare la istoria românilor, supp. 1, 4:360. 89 Ibid., 366. 90 As reported by Văcărescu to the French diplomat Bois-le-Comte in 1834. See Bois-le-Comte to the French Minister of Foreign Affairs Victor de Broglie, May 1834, in Documente privitoare la istoria românilor, 17:386. 91 Iordache, Principatele Române în epocă modernă, 228. The French consul Lagan reported some “humble representations” that testified to the “displeasure with which the statute was adopted.” Lagan to Sebastiani, September 2, 1831, in Documente privitoare la istoria românilor, 17:255. 92 See Kiselev to Nesselrode, April 15, 1831, RGIA, f. 958, op. 1, d. 625, l. 81–81v. 93 The Moldavian assembly of revision was formed on the formula of its Wallachian counterpart and consisted, alongside Kiselev and Minchaki, of six of the highest clergymen, thirty-six boyars of the first rank who were the members of the executive, judicial, and princely divans, as well as ten second-class boyars who represented the districts and the capital. See “Rânduliala pentru Extraordinară Obștească Adunare pentru cercetarea regulamentului din Moldova,” in Analele parlamentare ale României 1, part 2, 61–68.

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work in the aftermath of “the affair of Sion” and the peasant mutinies in the districts. These circumstances explain the stark differences in the tenor of Kiselev’s speeches before the two assemblies. His address to the Moldavian assembly did not employ any flattering expressions and instead expressed his dissatisfaction with the failure of the Moldavian boyars to cooperate in the manner of their Wallachian counterparts: “I am sorry to see that in the midst of the useful work that characterizes all parts of the provisional administration, one encounters some individuals who are hostile enough to their country to pursue their private interests by hampering the introduction of the projected improvements.”94 Interrupted by the outbreak of the cholera epidemic in early June, the sessions of the Moldavian assembly resumed in mid-August and were characterized by the “spirit of agitation (inquietude) and subversion manifested among its members.” According to Kiselev’s reports, “the party that has emerged in the assembly has taken as its task the criticism and amendment of all elements of the statute that give the new government real influence.” Kiselev did not doubt that the statute would eventually be adopted in Moldavia, but he foresaw the need to act more severely and more closely supervise its introduction than in Wallachia.95 The French consul Lagan reported the arrival of one Cossack and one artillery regiment in Iași. The fear of cholera likewise served to conquer boyar resistance. According to Lagan, the Russian authorities allowed the boyars to leave the Moldavian capital only after they had accepted the terms of the new statute.96 The oppositional attitudes of the Moldavian boyars also affected the approach of the Russian authorities on the issue of the election of the new hospodars. Initially, Nesselrode favored the election of hospodars in accordance with the ancient privileges and customs of the principalities.97 There was certain logic in this manifest respect for local legal traditions by a professed opponent of representative government. Nesselrode followed the example of his mentor Metternich, who tried to combat the universal revolutionary ideas by promoting local institutions and traditions. However, 94 “Discours du Président-Plénipotentiaire vers l’Assemblée Extraordinaire de Révision de Moldavie,” in Analele parlamentare ale României 1, part 2, 75. Also published in Documente privitoare la istoria românilor, supp. 1, 5:37–40. 95 Kiselev to Nesselrode, August 24, 1831, Iași, AVPRI, f. 331, op. 716/1, d. 7, ll. 258–258v. 96 Lagan to Sebastiani, September 2, 1831, in Documente privitoare la istoria românilor, 17:256. 97 Nesselrode to Kiselev, March 24, 1830, RGIA, f. 958, op. 1, d. 623, ll. 10–10v.

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manifestations of the Moldavian boyar opposition that had emerged in the summer of 1830 made the Foreign Ministry fear that a convocation of an Extraordinary Assembly for Election in accordance with the broad formula outlined in the instructions of June 1829 could generate disorders. In August 1830, Dashkov suggested that the hospodars be elected by the smaller Assemblies of Revision of the Statutes.98 Although Nesselrode approved Dashkov’s idea in November 1830,99 Kiselev remained in favor of the election of the hospodars by the Extraordinary Assembly stipulated in the draft of the statutes.100 According to Kiselev, the smaller Assemblies of Revision could fall prey to the intrigues of the great boyars more easily and were likely to elect candidates who promised them a return to the old abusive system. By contrast, a broader assembly that would include representatives from the middle and lower classes alongside the great boyars would give the election “the appearance of legality.” In case the prospective Russian evacuation of the principalities makes the convocation of the Extraordinary Assemblies of Election impossible, Kiselev advised adding some second- and third-class boyars to the Assemblies of Revision as well as some representatives of the corporations as a way to render the election “more national.”101 However, the peasant mutinies in Moldavia alarmed the vice-chancellor who in May 1831 replied that “there could be no question of the election of the hospodars by any assembly whatsoever.”102 Given the agitated political situation in the principalities and in Europe more generally, it was decided that the Porte should choose the first hospodars from a shortlist of candidates prepared by the Russian authorities.103 In order to overcome the opposition of the Moldavian boyars, Russian authorities sought to exploit their more compliant Wallachian counterparts. In Nesselrode’s plan, the statement written by the Wallachian boyars to the Ottoman sultan had to dispel all the rumors about the complications encoun98 See AVPRI, f. 331, op. 716/1, d. 7, ll. 45–45v. In this respect, Dashkov may have been influenced by Mihai Sturdza, who upon his arrival to St. Petersburg counselled the Russian government to appoint the hospodars. See Sturdza to the Russian Foreign Ministry, St. Petersburg, July 27, 1830, in Documente privitoare la istoria românilor, supp. 1, 5:34–36. 99 Nesselrode to Kiselev, November 27 and March 10, 1831, 1830, RGIA, Fond 958, op. 1, d. 623, ll. 21v and 88. 100 Kiselev to Nesselrode, February 9, 1831, RGIA, f. 958, op. 1, d. 625, l. 41. 101 Kiselev to Nesselrode, April 15, 1831 RGIA, f. 958, op. 1, d. 625, l. 85. 102 Nesselrode to Kiselev, May 15, 1831, RGIA, f. 958, d. 623, l. 95. 103 Ibid., l. 96.

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tered by the Russians in the principalities which the Porte could use as a pretext for postponing the confirmation of the statutes.104 For his part, Kiselev suggested to press the sultan to issue a single hatt-i sherif sanctioning the Organic Statutes of both principalities, which the vice-chancellor welcomed as a means to “paralyze the intrigues” of the Moldavian boyars.105 The draft of this hatt-i sherif asserted the principle of immutability of the fundamental laws of the principalities, which remained beyond the jurisdiction of the hospodars and could only be changed with the agreement of the Ottoman and Russian Empires.106 In order to counter future opposition, the hatt-i sherif specified that the assemblies did not have the right to hamper the activities of the “administrative powers preserving public order.” In cases of disorder or sedition, hospodars were authorized to disband the assemblies.107 The hatt-i sherif contained the notorious “additional article” that would cause major tensions after the Russian evacuation of the principalities in 1834 (see chapter seven). In order to speed up the adoption of the statutes, the Russian occupation authorities not only applied pressure, but also made concessions. The ministerial instructions to the Committee of Reforms already admitted the possibility of doubling peasant labor days. Although this idea was eventually abandoned so as to avoid provoking peasant rebellions, the amendments introduced by the Assemblies for Revision into the drafts of the statutes and accepted by the Russian authorities signified further gains for the landlords. Thus, the Wallachian assembly reduced the amount of land that had to be made available to peasants as pasture, as well as restricted their right to use forests.108 In addition, the assembly obliged peasants to provide the landlord with four servants from every one hundred families.109 Similar but more extensive concessions were made in Moldavia, where the assembly amended the statute to provide landlords with servants (volno104 Nesselrode to Kiselev, August 10, 1831, RGIA, f. 958, d. 623, l. 99v. 105 Ibid., l. 99. 106 The draft of this hatt-i sherif was attached to Kiselev’s letter to Nesselrode, June 17, 1831, AVPRI, f. 133, op. 469, d. 138, ll. 152–159v. 107 Ibid., l. 154v. 108 “Amendements adoptés par l’Assemblée Générale de Révision en Valachie,” AVPRI, f. 331, op 716/1, d. 12, ll. 15, 21. See art. 140, §§ 3, 5 of the Wallachian statute in Negulescu and Alexianu, Regulamentele organice, 38. All references to the Wallachian statute are made on the basis of this edition. 109 “Amendements adoptés par l’Assemblée Générale de Révision en Valachie,” AVPRI, f. 331, op 716/1, d. 12, ll. 22–22v. See art. 143 of the Wallachian statute in Negulescu and Alexianu, Regulamentele organice, 40–41.

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slujbaşi) in the amount of one out of every twenty peasants “in the interests of the rural economy.” The small landowners were to obtain one such servant from every five peasants populating their land.110 The boyars were also compensated for the abolished scutelnici with lavish pensions for which the treasury allocated one million piastres. The interests of landless boyars were also taken into consideration: instead of twenty-four piastres, to which landed boyars were entitled annually for every scutelnic they used to have, the landless boyars received sixty.111 Having made these concessions to the boyars and the landlords, the Russian authorities sought to include some guarantees for the peasantry in the statutes. At the end of 1830, the commission of the Foreign Ministry that examined the drafts of the statutes rejected the attempt of the Committee of Reform to fix the number of labor days that the peasants owed to the landlords at twenty-four and insisted on keeping it at twelve, as was originally established by the act of hospodar Grigore III Ghica in 1777. It also more precisely defined the amount of work included into each day of labor. 112 On the insistence of Kiselev, the Moldavian assembly also confirmed the law of Constantin Mavrocordat (1749) that abolished personal serfdom.113 The Moldavian Assembly of Revision finished work on the statute in late October 1831, five months after its Wallachian counterpart.114 Apart from the pressure that the Russian authorities applied to the boyars and the concessions they offered, the adoption of the statute was undoubtedly facilitated by the news of Russia’s suppression of the Polish rebellion that reached the 110 “Amendements adoptés par l’Assemblée Générale de Révision de Moldavie,” AVPRI, f. 331, op. 716/1, d. 15, ll. 10–11v, and arts. 71, 72 and 132 of the Moldavian statute in Negulescu and Alexianu, Regulamentele organice, 187, 203. 111 “Amendements adoptés par l’Assemblée Générale de Révision de Moldavie,” AVPRI, f. 331, op 716/1, d. 15, ll. 12–12v. 112 “Exposé des modifications apportées aux chapitres I, II, III, IV, V, VIII et IX par la section Moldave du comité spécial d’après les observations Ministérielles, celles de son ex. Président-Plénipotentiaire et quelques-uns des Amendements de l’Assemblée Générale Extraordinaire de la Valachie relative au chapitre VIII,” AVPRI, f. 331, op. 716/1, d. 14, l. 69v, 74–75. See art. 125 of the Moldavian statute in Negulescu and Alexianu, Regulamentele organice, 201–2. 113 “Exposé des modifications,” l. 96. See art. 435 of the Moldavian statute in Negulescu and Alexianu, Regulamentele organice, 342. The Wallachian assembly likewise confirmed Constantin Mavrocordat’s abolition of serfdom in Wallachia. See art. 64 of the Wallachian statute in Negulescu and Alexianu, Regulamentele organice, 15. 114 Kiselev to Nesselrode, October 29, 1831, in Zablotskii-Desiatovskii, Graf Kiselev, 4:63. The Statutes became effective on July 1, 1831, and January 1, 1832, respectively.

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principalities in October.115 Often referred to as the first Romanian constitution, the statutes, in fact, represented a comprehensive set of regulations concerning all aspects of public life in the principalities, which will be discussed in the next chapter. Here I will consider the purely “constitutional” aspects of the statutes as well as their stipulations on the question of boyar ranks, which reflected the outcomes of the negotiation between the imperial authorities and various strata of local elites. In accordance with the statutes, the hospodars were to be elected among the representatives of the great boyar families who were at least forty years old and were native to the principalities for at least two generations. The General Extraordinary Assemblies convoked for the election of the hospodar included representatives of the higher clergy (four in Wallachia and three in Moldavia), the boyars of the first class (fifty and forty-five), the boyars of the second class (seventy-three and thirty), the deputies of the districts (thirty-seven and thirty-two) and towns (twenty-seven and twentyone).116 As the head of the executive branch, the hospodar had the right to appoint ministers and command the army. The hospodar shared legislative power with the General Ordinary Assembly. The latter consisted of fortythree members in Wallachia and thirty-four in Moldavia and included the representatives of the higher clergy, boyars of the first class (twenty in Wallachia and sixteen in Moldavia), and boyar deputies from the districts (nineteen and sixteen, respectively).117 The disproportions in political representation would become clear when set against the absolute numbers of boyars of the first, second, and third class. In Moldavia in 1830 there were 92 boyars of the first class, 346 boyars of the second class, and 446 boyars of the third class.118 In other words, whereas there was one deputy for every six great boyars, every second- or third-class boyar deputy represented fortynine voters.119 115 Lagan to Sebastiani, October 25, 1831, Documente privitoare la istoria românilor, 17:257. 116 See art. 2 of the Wallachian and the Moldavian statutes in Negulescu and Alexianu, Regulamentele organice, 1, 173. 117 See art. 45, of the Wallachian statute and art. 48 of the Moldavian statute, in Negulescu and Alexianu, Regulamentele organice, 9, 181. 118 Platon and Platon, Boierimea din Moldova, 97. 119 The whole pays legal (i.e., those who had the basic right to elect members of the Great Extraordinary Assembly) amounted only to three thousand individuals out of a population of some four million. Iordache, Originile conservatismului romănesc, 87.

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The ordinary assemblies had to be convoked by the hospodars in December of each year in order to review the revenues and expenses of the principality and approve the new budget. This, however, was a less than perfect embodiment of the principle of “no taxation without representation”: unlike the extraordinary assemblies, the ordinary assemblies did not include representatives of the towns, which along with peasants bore most of the tax burden. Additionally, ordinary assemblies had to consider measures for the development of commerce, industry, agriculture, and education. Aided by the specially created financial, administrative, judicial, and ecclesiastical commissions, the assemblies were supposed to finish their yearly work within two months from when they were convened. Hospodars had the exclusive right of legislative initiative and could suspend the assemblies in case of opposition as well as convene new ones upon notifying the Sovereign and Protective Powers. However, hospodars could not impose new taxes or augment their civil lists without the consent of the assembly, which could appeal hospodar actions to the Sovereign and the Protective Powers and even call for their deposition for legal violations. The Organic Statutes did not solve the old conflict between the hospodars and the boyars, but they cloaked it in “constitutional” forms. The distribution of functions and constitutional prerogatives between the hospodars and the assemblies reflected the desire of the Russian authorities to create institutional leverage for effective Russian domination in the principalities. The Russian consuls became the arbiters of the activities of the hospodars and assemblies and could exploit the potential conflicts between them to prevent the formation of a consolidated anti-Russian opposition. At the same time, the subordination of the assemblies and the hospodars to the joint arbitrage of the Sovereign and Protective Powers frustrated the centralizing ambitions of future hospodars, the oligarchic interests of the great boyars, and the “democratic” aspirations of small boyars. Russia’s political dominance in the principalities was, thus, achieved by keeping all sides of the conflict in a state of perpetual discontent. Although the statutes recognized the promotions made by the hospodars in the 1820s, they failed to satisfy the political ambitions of the second- and third-class boyars and barely contributed to consolidation of the boyar estate as a whole. The General Dispositions of the Moldavian and Wallachian statutes based boyar ranks on the performance of the corresponding pub217

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lic function. Later, a special law established a correlation between ranks and official positions in public administration, the judiciary, and the militia, which provided a local analogue to the Russian Table of Ranks.120 Alongside boyar ranks that were to become purely personal non-hereditary distinctions, the statutes introduced the notion of a hereditary nobility and initiated the formation of registers listing all hereditary nobles.121 In particular, the Moldavian statute recognized the hereditary nobility of all individuals who could provide documentary evidence of their noble origins, as well as those whose fathers possessed one of the boyar ranks (from the Great Logofăt to the Great Șatrari, inclusively). Those individuals with non-noble origins to whom the past hospodars granted one of the boyar ranks without the performance of the corresponding official function were introduced into the registers of the nobility as well. However, the families of such individuals obtained hereditary noble status only if their sons or grandsons themselves were appointed to an administrative, judicial, or military position that conferred on them a boyar rank from Great Logofăt to Great Șatrari.122 In future, hospodars were given the right to confer nobility only in recognition of outstanding services and only in cooperation with the General Assembly.123 The introduction of hereditary nobility alongside non-hereditary boyar titles reveals the influence of Russian institutions and practices. At the same time, the General Dispositions of the Statutes concerning noble titles failed to consolidate the boyar estate to any significant degree and, in this sense, fell short of the Russian Gubernia Statute of 1775 or the Charter for the Nobility of 1785. Characteristically, the statutes did not require the formation of assemblies of the nobility or “estate” courts with their numerous elective positions on the Russian model. The reforms not only failed to create a homogeneous noble class committed to the preservation of the new political settlement, but in fact foreshadowed the greater diversification of the boyar estate, whereby it 120 The law of March 10, 1835, in Bădărău and Vitcu, Regulamentul Organic al Moldovei, 103 and Attachment no. IX, 166–70. 121 In September 1829, the Committee of Reforms demanded the documents confirming the boyar titles of all classes of boyars. However, the boyars could (or would) neither supply such documents nor fill in the questionnaires on their place and date of birth, family history, or properties. See the Commission’s report to the Moldavian Divan in Analele parlamentare ale României, vol. 1, part 2, 13–15. 122 See art. 402 of the Moldavian statute in Negulescu and Alexianu, Regulamentele organice, 335–36. 123 See arts. 350–51 of the Wallachian statute and art. 399 of the Moldavian statute, in Negulescu and Alexianu, Regulamentele organice, 125, 335.

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soon lost its raison d’etre. During the 1830s and 1840s, the hospodars did not fail to exploit the advantages of ennoblement, which included social and economic privileges. As a result, the number of boyars doubled and even tripled in this period, much to the dismay of the great boyars.124 Needless to say, recently ennobled individuals hardly shared any common estate consciousness or esprit de corps with either the landed aristocracy or state officials. Consequently, the boyar “estate” became increasingly heterogeneous and embraced diverse elements, none of which was fully satisfied with the current state of affairs. In the absence of a homogenized noble estate committed to state service, the whole political structure introduced by the Organic Statutes remained fragile. Kiselev’s Vision of the Principalities and Russia’s Eastern Policy Kiselev himself recognized the fragility of the new political settlement and did everything to prolong the occupation of Moldavia and Wallachia. Already in October 1830, he wrote to Nesselrode about the necessity to carry out all the reforms under the supervision of the Russian administration, which would protect the country from the chaos reigning in European Turkey. For this reason, he advised the vice-chancellor to postpone the election or appointment of the hospodars until all the clauses of the statutes were introduced and ratified by the Ottomans.125 Several months later, he argued once again that the goal of endowing the principalities with stable political institutions respected by the Porte and the Christian powers would not be achieved if the provinces were deprived of the supervision and the guarantee of Russian support and entrusted to the hospodars.126 In September 1831, Kiselev pointed out that the continued occupation of the principalities would allow Russia to take an offensive posture with respect to the Porte and would help “force the Ottoman divan to carry out the conditions of the last treaty” as well as issue a hatt-i sherif confirming the statutes.127 124 Between 1828 and 1849, the number of Moldavian boyar families increased from 902 in to 3,325. Platon and Platon, Boierimea din Moldova, 100. 125 Kiselev to Nesselrode, October 13, 1830, in VPR, 17:124. 126 Kiselev to Nesselrode, February 9, 1831, RGIA, f. 958, op. 1, d. 625, ll. 40–43. 127 Kiselev to Nesselrode, September 3, 1831, in Zablotskii-Desiatovskii, Graf Kiselev, 4:60–62. See also Sturdza et al., Documente privitoare la istoria românilor, supp. 1, 4:379. See also Kiselev to Nesselrode, October 13, 1830, AVPRI, f. 133, op 469, d. 114, l. 24.

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Nesselrode agreed with Kiselev that the statutes had to be adopted and the new hospodars elected before the withdrawal of Russian troops in order not to “expose these provinces to the interregnum of disorder.”128 At the same time, the vice-chancellor doubted that the prolonged occupation proposed by Kiselev could prevent the new hospodars and the boyars from violating and manipulating the new institutions if it was in their interests to do so. Nesselrode also reminded the Kiselev that incorporation of Moldavia and Wallachia into the Russian Empire “has never been on the mind of the emperor” and that the prompt withdrawal of the Russian troops from the principalities had to eliminate any suspicions to that effect.129 Apart from making the entire Europe hostile to Russia, this decision could not bring Russia any material benefits according to the vice-chancellor. Should the Porte abandon Moldavia and Wallachia to Russia in return for the cancellation of its military contribution, the revenues of the principalities were unlikely to cover the costs of Russian administration and compensate Russia for the expenses it incurred during the most recent war.130 Nesselrode’s desire to evacuate Moldavia and Wallachia as quickly as possible was fully in accordance with the decision to preserve the Ottoman Empire rather than precipitate it collapse that Nicholas I took at the end of the war. Reflected in the Treaty of Adrianople, this policy was reaffirmed in the explanatory convention of April 1830, whereby Russia renounced its right to occupy the principalities until the full payment of the military contribution by the Porte, and instead pledged to evacuate its troops as soon as the Ottoman government paid off the much smaller sum of the commercial contribution.131 The July Revolution in France and the Polish uprising of November 1830 further motivated the tsar and his foreign minister to pursue a conservative policy with respect to the Ottoman Empire. They also motivated Nicholas I to renew Russia’s cooperation with the Austrians in the spirit of the Holy Alliance, which made it necessary to dispel Vienna’s apprehensions about Russian plans in the principalities.132 128 Nesselrode to Kiselev, November 27, 1830, RGIA, f. 958, op. 1, d. 623, ll. 19–20. 129 Nesselrode to Kiselev, March 10, 1831, RGIA, f. 958, op. 1, d. 623, ll. 84–85. Nesselrode reiterated the same position in his letter to Kiselev of September 29, 1831. See VPR, 17:498, note 4. 130 Nesselrode to Kiselev, September 29, 1831, cited in Filitti, Les principautés roumaines, 222. 131 See art. 4 of the convention in VPR, ser. 2, 8:510–11. 132 On the Austrian reaction to the Russian policies in the principalities, see Sedivy, “From Hostility to Cooperation?,” 630–61.

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For Kiselev, the Polish uprising was another reason to prolong the occupation of the principalities. He argued that the preservation of Russia’s military position on the Danube would give it preponderant influence over the Porte if and when “the events in Poland and European affairs force us to move all our troops to our western frontiers.”133 Kiselev also used Ottoman footdragging with respect to the confirmation of the statutes and the payment of the military contribution in order to advocate for the postponement of the evacuation of the principalities. In a memorandum addressed to Nesselrode in February 1832, Kiselev insisted on the continued occupation as the sole means of making the Ottomans fulfil the conditions of the Adrianople treaty and the only effective leverage that Russia had over the Porte. If the continued occupation failed to make the Ottomans comply with the stipulations of the treaty, Kiselev found “the possession of these provinces [to be] good compensation.” By that time, Europe would be too used to seeing Russia established in these countries to contest their formal annexation. Whereas the Russian Foreign Ministry repeatedly disavowed any interest in territorial annexation, Kiselev was unapologetically expansionist. According to him, “Russia had not crossed the Dnieper more than a century ago in order to stop on the banks of the Pruth.”134 For all its Russian patriotic fervor, the scenario that the president-plenipotentiary advocated was not too improbable: in 1878, Austria-Hungary would first occupy Bosnia-Herzegovina militarily and then annex it formally three decades later. Kiselev viewed the continued occupation of the principalities not only as the main instrument of Russia’s Eastern policy, but also as the precondition of the stabilization of Russia’s southern frontier. The new organization of the principalities was not only supposed to “offer Eastern Christians moral proof of the generosity of [Russian] protection,” but also served to preserve Russia’s southern provinces “from the contagions of disorder and anarchy that a vicious regime had spawned in the principalities.”135 According to Kiselev, the Organic Statutes were a “real blessing,” and their introduction revealed that “the mass of the population views positively the reforms 133 Kiselev to Nesselrode, October 29, 1831, in Zablotskii-Desiatovskii, Graf Kiselev, 4:62; and in Documente privitoare la istoria românilor, supp. 1, 4:380. 134 Kiselev to Nesselrode, February 19, 1832, in Zablotskii-Desiatovskii, Graf Kiselev, 4:65; and in Documente privitoare la istoria românilor, supp. 1, 4:388. 135 Memorandum attached to Kiselev’s letter to Nesselrode of March 8, 1832, in Zablotskii-Desiatovskii, Graf Kiselev, 4:69.

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undertaken in its interest.” Having learned the limits of their obligations to the nobility, the mass of the inhabitants became attached to the preservation of the statutes and offered their hopes and gratitude to the protecting power. By contrast, the privileged class lost the opportunity to “exploit the abuses of princely authority,” which is why “it could only desire the preservation of the previous situation and pins its hopes on the intervention of the Sovereign Power.”136 Kiselev argued that the first attempt of the privileged class to return to the old abuses would lead most of the inhabitants of the principalities to rise up in defense of their newly acquired rights. The withdrawal of the Russian troops from Moldavia and Wallachia was inopportune precisely because it could encourage the privileged classes of the principalities to roll back the reforms, “which will inevitably bring about a general uprising of the inhabitants interested in the preservation of the new order.” Kiselev pointed out that the new disorders in the principalities would not only affect Russia’s neighboring provinces but would also “seriously undermine its Eastern policy and the influence it seeks to exercise in this part of the world.” In fact, this would bring Russia “back to the point it had been before the Treaty of Adrianople.”137 In September 1832, Kiselev once again alerted Nesselrode to the fragility of the new institutions in the principalities. The prospect of a withdrawal of Russian troops and the Ottoman delay in the confirmation of the Organic Statutes reactivated rumors that the acts of the Russian provisional administration “did not have any legal foundation,” which made Russia’s loyal collaborators in Moldavia and Wallachia dread “Ottoman vengeance and the resentment of the privileged class.”138 Kiselev feared that the Porte could justify its refusal to confirm the statutes by the complaints of the opponents of the new institutions in the future. He restated his earlier warning that any attempt to roll back the reforms would bring about an uprising of the inhabitants. He also argued that the resulting conflagration would give other powers, especially Austria, an opportunity to re-establish the old administration that had been so advantageous to their commercial interests. All these considerations allowed Kiselev to demonstrate that the evacuation of the prin136 Ibid., 4:70. 137 Ibid., 4:71. 138 Kiselev to Nesselrode, September 26, 1832, in Zablotskii-Desiatovskii, Graf Kiselev, 4:82–83.

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cipalities could only take place after the Porte ratifies the statutes as well as “orders the new hospodars to maintain them as the new fundamental laws of the country.”139 The opening of the first session of the Moldavian Ordinary Assembly reinforced Kiselev’s fears about the stability of the new institutions. In late October 1832, he wrote to the Russian envoy in Constantinople, A. P. Butenev, about his “fights with the bearded Moldavians, who are undoubtedly the most troublesome intrigants of all the bearded creatures that swarm under the skies.”140 Kiselev confronted the efforts of the assembly members to turn the peasants into de facto serfs, which could “produce general commotion in the principalities.” He found the very composition of the assembly to be the cause of the disorder, which he could not repress by force for fear of “giving the detractors of the new order a chance and complicating Russia’s negotiations with the Porte.” Although the exile of two or three individuals could bring the rest into compliance, it would also “make the loudmouths of all nations shout about Muscovite tyranny and [would also enable] the Austrian envoy to intervene before the Porte in order to fish in the muddy waters.”141 Kiselev argued that without changes in the composition of the Moldavian assembly, Iași would turn into a “small Warsaw” within two years at most. He blamed Dashkov’s instructions to the Committee of Reforms, which overlooked the fact that the assemblies had been previously composed by the hospodars themselves and were reduced to rubberstamping their decrees. Now they were composed of boyars elected by other boyars, most of whom were attached to the old abuses. Although the Wallachians were “a thousand times more manageable,” there too Kiselev encountered some difficulties because of the spirit of the caste that reigned in the Wallachian assembly. For all these reasons, Kiselev considered it necessary to introduce certain modifications into the text of the statutes in favor of the people before the documents were ratified by the sultan.142 The outbreak of a conflict between Mahmud II and his Egyptian vassal Muhammad Ali in March 1832 impacted Kiselev’s perspective on Russia’s 139 Ibid., 4:83. 140 Kiselev to Butenev, October 30, 1832, in Zablotskii-Desiatovskii, Graf Kiselev, 4:83. 141 Ibid., 4:84. 142 Ibid. The modifications of the clauses of the statute dealing with peasants’ obligations are discussed in the next chapter.

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Eastern policy and the role of the principalities in it. His earlier concern about boyar collusion with the Porte against the Organic Statutes gave way to a preoccupation with the designs of the European powers in the context of Egyptian successes in Syria. In his memorandum submitted to the Foreign Ministry in April 1832, Kiselev argued that Britain, France, and Austria had recognized the futility of their efforts to preserve the Ottoman Empire as a bulwark against Russia’s aggrandizement. As a result, they took advantage of the dissolution of this empire to create a Greek state hostile to Russia, prepared the occupation of Morea and the Archipelago, provoked the liberation of Egypt, and spread rumors about the impending British intervention in Syria. According to Kiselev, all these developments left no doubt that the European powers already “conceived a plan of substituting the impotent corpse of Turkey with a union of young states whose very constitution would make them follow a policy adverse to Russia.”143 Kiselev attributed this putative change in the policy of the European powers to the “enemies of the social order established by the Vienna Congress,” who had recently formed the British and French cabinets. In this situation, only Russia remained interested in the preservation of the Ottoman Empire within the limits recognized by its treaties with the European powers. According to Kiselev, recent negotiations with the Porte demonstrated that even the prospect of Russia’s permanent occupation of the principalities was insufficient to force the Porte to fulfill the conditions of the peace treaty and that the only effective tool that Russia could use to influence the Ottoman government was the threat of war. Since Russia could ill afford another conflict, Kiselev suggested that only a complete change of approach could assure Russia preponderant influence in the East. He advised revealing to the Porte the partition plans conceived by the European powers in order to convince the Ottoman government that only an alliance with Russia could help it prevent these hostile designs.144 To prove Russia’s sincerity, Kiselev suggested offering the Ottoman government an extension on the contribution payments until the complete pacification of Egypt, as well as “more active cooperation” in the event of a Franco-British intervention in the Egyptian affair. 143 Kiselev to the Russian Foreign Ministry, April 21, 1832, in Zablotskii-Desiatovskii, Graf Kiselev, 4:75. On British and especially French liberal support of Muhammad Ali’s policies in Egypt and Syria, see Caquet, The Orient, 51–91. 144 Zablotskii-Desiatovskii, Graf Kiselev, 4:77.

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In return, the Russian mission could demand the Porte’s recognition of Russia’s “positive protectorate over the Eastern Christians” as well as a military base on the Bosphorus to secure Russia’s maritime commerce.145 Kiselev’s memorandum may have influenced Nicholas I to offer assistance to the sultan whose army was losing ground to the Egyptian forces in Syria. In November 1832, the tsar dispatched N.N. Muraviev as a special envoy to Constantinople and Alexandria to reassure the Ottomans and warn Mohammed-Ali. Nicholas I also authorized Butenev to summon the Russian Black Sea fleet and troops if the sultan asked for help. This moment came in late December 1832, after the Egyptian army, led by Muhammad Ali’s son Ibrahim-Pasha, crushed the superior Ottoman forces in the battle Konya and began to advance toward the Ottoman capital. On February 8, 1833, the squadron of admiral M.P. Lazarev arrived at the Bosphorus and the first detachments of Russian troops disembarked on its Asian shore. The energetic efforts of the British and French representatives to convince the Porte to demand the withdrawal of the Russian troops and navy failed when Ibrahim-Pasha occupied Smyrna and camped at Bursa, within the striking distance of Constantinople. As a result, the Russian detachment on the Bosphorous was reinforced and remained there until the summer. Kiselev viewed these developments as a confirmation of his earlier observations about the change of policy by the Western powers with respect to the Porte. In April 1833, he once again wrote to Nesselrode that the French support for Muhammad Ali aimed to create “a formidable power that would be hostile to Russia.” Since the conditions of the truce between Mahmud II and Muhammad Ali made another aggravation of the crisis highly likely, Russia had to prepare for it “by preserving above all its position (attitude) on the Danube” as well as establishing, if possible, another one at Sozopol in return for another extension of the deadline on the military contribution. 146 Overall, Kiselev considered the truce between the sultan and his Egyptian vassal to be another step toward the ruin of the former, and he advised Russian Foreign Ministry to prepare for it.147 In spring 1833, Kiselev also took advantage of the appointment of his personal friend A.F. Orlov as the tsar’s extraordinary envoy to Constantinople 145 Ibid., 4:78. 146 Kiselev to Nesselrode, April 8, 1833, RGIA, f. 958, op. 1, d. 624, l. 9. 147 Ibid., l. 10.

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in order to promote his vision of Russia’s Eastern policy in general and his strategy for the principalities in particular. He proposed the secret encouragement of Ottoman non-observance of the Adrianople treaty “in order to give Russia a legitimate pretext for constant intervention into their affairs.”148 Such intervention was absolutely necessary in view of “all sorts of propaganda carried out in the East at our expense” amidst “the general restlessness of the Muslim and the Christian populations.”149 Kiselev also feared French military intervention in support of Ibrahim-Pasha and expected the entirety of European Turkey to rise in his support as soon as the Egyptian commander crossed the Bosporus strait into Thrace.150 By directing the new Egyptian power against Russia, argued Kiselev, the Western powers could “render a war in Europe impossible for us by bombarding our weak southern frontier with all the Asian populations who want only war and plunder.”151 In these conditions, Russia had to keep its troops on the Danube and its navy at Bosporus and Sozopol at least until winter as well as extend the payment of the military contribution by the Porte for two or three years in order to preserve the principalities “as a military base and as a security deposit or compensation,” should the Porte default on its treaty obligations.152 Kiselev considered the Danube the frontier of the Empire and floated the idea of extending Russia’s occupation of Moldavia and Wallachia for ten years as a step toward their eventual annexation. “By prolonging the occupation,” he argued, “we will render the inhabitants accustomed to us, which will make the incorporation [of the principalities] easier.”153 Apart from military-strategic considerations, Kiselev was motivated by Pan-Slavic ideas that were gaining some currency among the Russian military and the educated public. In his letter to Butenev, Kiselev revealed that the prospect of Russia’s annexation of Moldavia and Wallachia as outlined by Dibich was the main motivation for accepting the position of president-plenipotentiary. Accordingly, Kiselev viewed his activities as the head of the Russian provisional administration in the principalities as a step toward the “reunion of the great family of Slavic peoples.”154 148 Kiselev to Orlov, April 2, 1833, in Zablotskii-Desiatovskii, Graf Kiselev, 4:99. 149 Kiselev to Orlov, April 30, 1833, in Zablotskii-Desiatovskii, Graf Kiselev, 4:103. 150 Ibid. 151 Kiselev to Orlov, May 7, 1833, in Zablotskii-Desiatovskii, Graf Kiselev, 4:105. 152 Ibid.; Kiselev to Orlov, May 18, 1833, in Zablotskii-Desiatovskii, Graf Kiselev, 4:107. 153 Kiselev to Orlov, June 8, 1833, in Zablotskii-Desiatovskii, Graf Kiselev, 4:110. 154 Kiselev to Butenev, Bucharest, June 19, 1833, AVPRI, f. 133, op. 469, d. 141, l. 207.

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Orlov found Kiselev’s plans with respect to the principalities agreeable and promised to lobby for them in St. Petersburg, but he was unsure of success in view of Russia’s close alliance with Austria.155 Indeed, already in February 1833, Nesselrode instructed Kiselev to cajole the Austrian agents in the principalities in order to gain “the favorable disposition of Vienna, which was necessary to neutralize the malevolence of the maritime powers.”156 The tensions between Kiselev’s and Nesselrode’s approach to the question in the principalities erupted in June 1833 when Kiselev submitted yet another memorandum to the vice-chancellor concerning the necessity to prolong the Russian occupation of the principalities in view the fragility of the new institutions. The Russian Foreign Ministry responded to it with a series of observations which accused Kiselev of inspiring a false confidence in the power of the new institutions and the readiness of the country for self-government in his earlier reports. In response, Kiselev reminded the Foreign Ministry of communications from 1830, 1831, and 1832 in which he expressed his doubts about the future of the reform in view of the hostility of “the most powerful class, whose abusive privileges [the statutes] had undermined.”157 Kiselev further argued that his insistence on the prompt confirmation of the statutes by the Ottoman government prior to the appointment of the hospodars was motivated by his fear of the possible collusion between the boyars and the Porte with the goal of re-establishing old abuses. It certainly did not reflect his belief in the readiness of the country for self-government.158 According to Kiselev, the Foreign Ministry was wrong to take his repeated insistence on the usefulness of the new institutions as the proof of their strength.159 The president-plenipotentiary also criticized the Foreign Ministry’s suggestion to have the Porte appoint the new hospodars while Russian troops were still in the principalities. He argued that this solution was likely to result in a conflict between the military and the civilian authorities emanating respectively from the Sovereign and Protecting Powers. Obliged to satisfy the avarice of Ottoman ministers, the hospodars would be forced to manip155 Orlov to Kiselev, June 19, 1833, in Zablotskii-Desiatovskii, Graf Kiselev, 4:111. 156 Nesselrode to Kiselev, February 18, 1833, in Zablotskii-Desiatovskii, Graf Kiselev, 4:89. 157 Kiselev, “Remarques sur les observations motivés par ma lettre du 19 Juin, 1833,” in Zablotskii-­ Desiatovskii, Graf Kiselev, 4:93. 158 Ibid., 4:94. 159 Ibid., 4:95.

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ulate the new institutions. Russia’s attempt to restrain them in these efforts would only make the princes more desirous of eliminating her control. Even under the most well-disposed hospodars, argued Kiselev, the boyars would “focus their efforts on alienating the Moldavians and Wallachians from Russia, influenced as they were by foreign powers and desirous of the restoration of the old abuses.”160 Instead, Russia had to secure the confirmation of the Organic Statutes by the Porte and maintain for a certain period both the military occupation and the provisional administration in Moldavia and Wallachia. To compensate the Porte, Kiselev suggested that the payment of tribute begins immediately and not after the two-year exemption stipulated by the Treaty of Adrianople. According to Kiselev, these measures would reassure the Moldavian and Wallachian population of the stability of the reforms, confirm the tsar’s promise not annex the provinces, demonstrate that the military occupation remains a temporary measure, enable Russia to maintain its military position on the Danube, and preserve the internal tranquility of the principalities.161 Kiselev submitted these pieces through Orlov who returned to St. Petersburg in July 1833, immediately after the conclusion of the Russian– Ottoman treaty of Unkiar Skelessi (Hünkâr İskelesi). This treaty guaranteed the tsar’s assistance to the sultan, and secured the closure of the straits to foreign vessels in the event of a war between Russia and a third power. Representing the high point of Russia’s Eastern policy, the treaty was greatly aided by Austrian cooperation. Faithful to the maxims of political legitimism, Metternich supported Russia in so far as it acted in the interest of the preservation of the status quo in the Balkans and the Middle East, which was threatened by Muhammad Ali. However, to ensure Austrian cooperation, the vice-chancellor and the tsar were ready to put an end to the provisional administration in Moldavia and Wallachia. The frustrated Kiselev absolved himself from any responsibility for the consequences of the return of the principalities to the Porte and offered his resignation to Nesselrode.162 At the same time, he tried unsuccess160 “Projet sur la question à savoir: quel serait dans l’état actuel des choses le parti, qu’il faudrait prendre à l’égard des principautés,” in Zablotskii-Desiatovskii, Graf Kiselev, 4:96. 161 Ibid., 4:97. 162 Kiselev to Orlov, July 27, 1833, in Zablotskii-Desiatovskii, Graf Kiselev, 4:115; and Kiselev to Nesselrode, July 27, 1833, RGIA, f. 958, op. 1, d. 624, l. 26.

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fully to obtain the tsar’s permission to come to St. Petersburg for a “definitive report” on the principalities.163 However, this request, just as his letter of resignation reached the addressees only in late October, after Nicholas I and Nesselrode returned to the capital from a meeting with Francis I at Munnichgratz, where they had concluded an agreement committing the two sides to the preservation of the Ottoman Empire.164 Thus, Kiselev failed to convince Nicholas I and Nesselrode to either annex Moldavia and Wallachia or extend the Russian occupation for an indefinite period of time. This failure allows for two conclusions. On the one hand, the tsar and Nesselrode’s refusal to follow Kiselev’s advice greatly detracts from the thesis of Russia’s grand strategy for expansion.165 Instead, it reveals a hierarchy of priorities, in which ideological considerations were ultimately more important than territorial aggrandizement. Eager to maximize Russia’s gains in the Balkan region, Kiselev, like Kapodistrias a decade before him, found an insurmountable obstacle in the policy of monarchical cooperation pursued by the Russian rulers, which subordinated imperial expansion to the preservation of political status quo. At the same time, Kiselev’s insistence on the importance of Russia’s military position on the Danube had the effect of prolonging the provisional administration in the principalities for more than two years after the adoption of the Organic Statutes by the Assemblies of Revision. The measures that Kiselev took during this period are the subject of the next chapter.

163 Kiselev to Orlov, August 30 and December 6, 1833, in Zablotskii-Desiatovskii, Graf Kiselev, 4:116, 117–18. 164 Orlov to Kiselev, October 25, 1833, in Zablotskii-Desiatovskii, Graf Kiselev, 4:116–17. 165 For an interpretation of Russian history as the realization of a grand strategy, see LeDonne, The Grand Strategy.

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A Wel l-Ordered Police State on the Danube

H

istorians who wrote about the Organic Statutes often expressed bafflement at these early Romanian “constitutions” written in cumbersome language, mixing purely “constitutional” subjects with descriptions of militia uniform or specifications on the width of streets.1 Such details not only appear redundant from the point of view of modern constitutional theory, but also reveal an essentially self-defeating attempt to prescribe once, and for all, the activities of individuals and social groups. However, to evaluate the Organic Statutes on the basis of this criterion means to adopt an anachronistic approach. The Russian officials involved in the elaboration and adoption of the statutes were not liberal constitutionalists à la Benjamin Constant. Instead, they were the bearers of the political culture of enlightened absolutism, which left a deep mark on Russia during the eighteenth century but had largely bypassed the principalities. This political culture assumed a constitutionally unlimited power moderated by the ruler’s self-interested care for public welfare. This combination produced the early modern phenomenon of the well-ordered police state (Polizeistaat), which sought to regulate virtually all aspects of human activity to maintain order and increase the country’s wealth.2 1 Emerit, Les Paysans Roumains, 87; Florescu, Essays in Romanian History, 159. For a description of militia uniform, see art. 430 of the Wallachian and art. 265 of the Moldavian statute in Negulescu and Alexianu, Regulamentele organice, 141 and 297, respectively. For regulations regarding the construction of buildings and the widths of the streets, see arts. 25–26 of the Municipal statute of Iași, which constitutes annex F of Chapter 3 of the Moldavian statute, in Negulescu and Alexianu, Regulamentele organice, 241–42. 2 Raeff, The Well-Ordered Police State.

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Originating in the small German states during the 1600s, this form of governance came to inform the policies of the Prussian and Austrian absolutist regimes across the much wider territorial expanses of Eastern Europe.3 The ideology of the Polizeistaat was enhanced in this vast region by semi-orientalizing discourses that framed enlightened absolutist rule in terms of a mission to civilize the backward and “barbaric” indigenous populations of the region.4 Habsburg rulers in particular claimed to bring “good police” to places like Poland and Turkey where it was supposedly lacking on account of “despotic” or “anarchic” governments. The eighteenth-century notion of police was central to this juncture between enlightened despotism as a form of governmentality and the discourse of the civilizing mission.5 Through prevention of crime, the implementation of judicial sentences, the regulation of trade, fire protection, sanitation, the promotion of urban and rural wellfare, policing became a form of social disciplining that helped “polish” the customs, mores, and behavior of the inhabitants and, as a result, make them “civilized.”6 Peter the Great and his successors sought to implement their own version of a well-ordered police state in the vast territories of the Russian empire.7 The attempts of the tsar-reformer to bring “regularity” to civil administration, erratic and largely unsuccessful though they were, certainly point in the direction of Polizeistaat, as does his decision to build St. Petersburg in accordance with a pre-determined plan and his efforts to bring the behaviour and costume of his subjects in line with Western European models.8 The reign of Catherine the Great represented another important chapter in the history of Russia’s well-ordered police state. The empress not only sponsored the translation of works by the major Cameralist authors such as Johann Heinrich Gottlob von Justi and Jakob Friedrich von Bielfeld.9 She also tried to implement their recommendations in the Gubernia Statute of 1775 and the Police Statute of 1782.10 Inasmuch as the Gubernia reform was Catherine’s response 3 Dorwart, Prussian Welfare State. For a revisionist interpretation of the German well-ordered police state, see Wakefield, The Disordered Police State. 4 Ruegg, A l’Est rien de nouveau; Wolff, Inventing Eastern Europe. 5 A nice illustration of this juncture is offered by Wolff in The Idea of Galicia, 13–62. 6 On the social impact of policing in the Habsburg lands, see Vocelka, “Public Opinion,” 121–40. 7 Raeff, The Well-Ordered Police State, 181–218. 8 See Syromiatnikov, “Reguliarnoe” politseiskoe gosudarstvo; Anisimov, Reforms of Peter the Great, 217– 43. 9 See fon Bilfel’d, Nastavleniia politicheskie; Iustii, Osnovanie sily. 10 See de Madariaga, Russia in the Age of Catherine the Great, 292–95.

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to the Pugachev rebellion, it represents an example of the use of “good police” for the pacification of an unstable frontier zone. The same application of the Polizeistaat principles in the process of continental empire-building can be seen in the colonization policies implemented in New Russia by its famous governors-general Potemkin, Richelieu, and Vorontsov.11 Yet what exactly was the early modern police? On the one hand, it constituted the applied side of “population arithmetic” or “statistic,” an eighteenth-century science that assessed the demographic and fiscal potential of a given state. Whereas “statistic” calculated the population resources available for the implementation of a given policy, police helped optimize these resources through social disciplining and the promotion of welfare. This involved both the regulation of trade and public behavior and the management of procreation, births, mortality, healthcare, and life expectancy— the areas that Michel Foucault called the “biopolitics of population.”12 On the other hand, early modern police also helped consolidate the “institutional framework” of the modern state that secured effective management of the population. In fact, the first and foremost aim of the Polizeistaat was disciplining its own officials. The personal style of rule of Peter the Great, Frederick the Great, Joseph II, and Nicholas I helped produce the ideal of the monarch as the first servant of the state, which provided a model for state officials below. In the long term, the ethos of state service helped to transform the state from the ruler’s status into an institution, a bureaucratic mechanism detached from the person of both the official and the ruler. Over the early modern period, this transformation was given theoretical expression in the works of Neostoic authors and cameralistic writers.13 The Organic Statutes of Wallachia and Moldavia of 1831–32 produced by the interaction between Russian officials and native political elites contained elements of population management and administrative disciplining.14 In order to prevent frequent epidemics, they stipulated the creation of a quarantine line along the Danube and introduced medical and san11 On these colonization policies, see Sunderland, Taming the Wild Field. 12 See Foucault, “Right of Death,” 261–62; Rusnock, “Biopolitics.” 13 For Neostoic concept of monarchical service to the state, see Oestreich, Neostoicism and the Early Modern State. For cameralist views on bureaucracy, see Johnson, “The Concept of Bureaucracy in Cameralism.” 14 An attempt to approach the Organic Statutes as a form of political modernization was also made by ­A nastasie Iordache, “Dominarea politică sub imperativul modernizării.”

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itary regulations that built upon the notions and practices of contemporary medical police. The creation of a militia, new regulations for the town police, a census, and fiscal reform likewise helped optimize the population resources of the principalities. Finally, the building of a Polizeistaat on the Danube involved a comprehensive reordering of the public administration of Moldavia and Wallachia that was accompanied by the more precise definition of the functions of each official in order to reduce bribery and corruption. All the above-mentioned aspects of police found their expression in the policies of the Russian occupation authorities in 1828–34, whereby the Organic Statutes and associated legislation became one of the last attempts to implement the well-ordered police state ideal in Eastern Europe. Plague Epidemics and the Creation of the Danubian Quarantine The principles and practices of the eighteenth-century well-ordered police state manifested, above all, in the sanitary policies of the Russian occupation authorities in 1828–34. Faced with major epidemics, the Russian provisional administration in Moldavia and Wallachia sought to protect Russian troops, the local population, and the demographic security of the Russian Empire itself through the application of the principles of medical police.15 The latter involved cooperation between physicians and municipal authorities in an attempt to stimulate population growth and deal with the dangers it presented through public hygiene, food sanitation, regulation of housing, antiepidemic measures, and the organization of the medical profession.16 The first attempts to combat plague and maintain public health and hygiene in the principalities were made long before the arrival of Russian occupation authorities in 1828. A special organization of caretakers (brelsa ciocliilor) in Moldavia existed already in the late seventeenth century. In 1735, the Phanariot hospodar Grigore Ghica II reorganized it to perform burials of those killed by plague and created a similar service in Bucharest after he was transferred there in 1752. He also founded the hospitals at 15 For the eighteenth-century concept of medical police covering much of what Foucault calls the “biopolitics of population,” see George Rosen, “Cameralism and the Concept of Medical Police”; and Rosen, “The Fate of the Concept.” 16 Foucault, “The Politics of Health.”

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the monasteries of St. Pantelemon and St. Vissarion, which were specifically intended for those afflicted by plague,17 while the Moldavian hospodar Grigore Callimahi founded a similar clinic (St. Spiridon) in Iași. As news of the plague outbreak in Silistria in 1784 spread, Wallachian hospodar Mihai Suţu ordered a quarantine and placed a special official (epistat de ciumă) in charge of detachments of auxiliaries (sejmeni) and caretakers.18 In 1786, Suțu’s successor Nicolae Mavrogheni engaged a Vienna-trained Bucharest physician Dumitru Caracaş to draft special instructions for local authorities and residents on how to act in the event of a plague epidemic. In 1813, the Wallachian hospodar Ioan Caragea tried to save the principalities from a major plague outbreak by establishing a quarantine near the Ottoman raia Giurgiu and created the office of supervisor of plague (epistat al lazaretelor). At the same time, a specially appointed boyar commission produced a “Statute for Combating Plague.”19 However, the efforts to prevent the spread of epidemics made by the hospodars of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries were largely ineffective. On the one hand, they remained partial and usually consisted of creating an improvised quarantine around specific places where cases of plague were reported, such as the Ottoman fortresses along the Danube. The personnel that was supposed to run such stations was poorly trained and largely unpaid. To make matters worse, corrupt local authorities soon turned epidemic-prevention measures into a source of abuse and extortion. The caretakers (cioclii) plundered the homes of the plagued, placed the dead and the ill in the same cart, and left them in the open field outside the city. The population was often terrorized by the very officials who were placed in charge of anti-plague policies.20 The latter not only were interested in the prolongation of epidemics in order to continue receiving their salaries but also extorted money from the population by threatening to proclaim their houses contaminated and to take them to the plague hospital where death was almost certain. These abuses led the Prussian consul Ludwig von Kreuchely to speak of the “moral and political plague” afflicting the principalities, while Austrian

17 18 19 20

Iacob, “Istoria igienii în România,” 68. Samarian, Medicina și farmacia, 3:42–43. Nistor, “Ravagiile epidemiilor de ciumă şi holeră,” 358, 360. Samarian, Din epidemologia trecutului românesc, 129–35. Iacob, “Istoria igienii în România,” 292–93.

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subjects decided to create their own caretaker service and plague hospital.21 Finally, the population frequently resisted the anti-epidemic measures prescribed by the medial police and cleaved to religious rituals. The resistance of Bucharest inhabitants forced Ioan Caragea to revoke the “Statute for Combating Plague” less than a month after it was implemented in January 1814.22 The quarantine measures taken by the Iaşi authorities during the 1819 epidemics provoked an outright revolt, which similarly forced hospodar Mihai Suțu to revoke them.23 The deplorable epidemic situation of the principalities in the early nineteenth century placed the establishment of regular quarantine services on the agenda of reform-minded boyars and made them a priority for the Russian occupation authorities after 1828. In their anti-plague policies, the Russian provisional administration followed the Austrian example. Already in 1728, Transylvanian authorities created hospitals along the border with Wallachia that functioned as quarantines. In 1754, on the pretext of a new plague epidemic in the principalities, the Austrian border was closed altogether, and in 1760 a special quarantine guard was created alongside the border guard proper. After the Austrian annexation of Bukovina in 1775, a quarantine was established there as well.24 The Russian authorities first encountered the plague epidemic during the war of 1768–74. At that time, the plague found its way to Moscow where it had a staggering death toll and provoked a riot that compromised the political stability of the empire.25 The absence of stable quarantine institutions in the principalities required Russian authorities to construct several protective barriers along the southern frontiers of the Empire. The experience of 1770– 71 also led Russians diplomats and commanders to perceive Moldavia and Wallachia as unwholesome places. Even when there was no plague, the epidemic situation in the principalities remained a cause for concern for both Russian physicians as well as civil and military authorities.26 In 1808, senator-president of the divans S.S. Kushnikov found the atmosphere of Iași “odorous to the highest degree” as a result of all the burials near 21 Samarian, Din epidemologia trecutului românesc, 394. 22 Nistor, “Ravagiile epidemiilor de ciumă şi holeră,” 371. 23 Ibid., 372–75. 24 Samarian, Din epidemologia trecutului românesc, 174–76. 25 Alexander, Bubonic Plague in Early Modern Russia. 26 On the broader context of the anti-epidemic measures in the Black Sea region, see Robarts, Migration and Disease, 139–68.

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churches within the city limits. Shallow graves and the customary exhumation of corpses for the performance of repeated funeral services caused the spread of “dangerous contagious diseases.” To correct the situation, Kushnikov ordered cemeteries to be transferred to places outside the city boundaries.27 The head of the Russian provisional administration found a willing and capable collaborator in the person of the Moldovalachian Exarch Gavriil. The exarch suggested the creation of four walled cemeteries near each capital city, assigning each parish to one of them and prohibiting priests from performing burial services in the cities.28 However, a year later Gavriil complained that despite Kushnikov’s order to the divan, the local police (Agia) preferred to delay the implementation of this unpopular measure.29 V.I. Krasno-Miloshevich, who replaced Kushnikov in March 1810, still did not find conventional cemeteries in Bucharest and Iaşi. The resistance of the local population to the proposed measure was so great that the Russian senator-president had to address the whole boyar estate to ask them to admonish the population. He considered the Moldavian and Wallachian burial practices superstitious in everything but name and argued that the relocation of the cemeteries “cannot infringe upon the maxims of Christian faith, since both the Russians and other enlightened Christian nations have long abandoned the custom of burial inside the cities.”30 However, the magnitude of discontent was so great that Krasno-Miloshevich postponed the prohibitions on funerals until spring 1811, by which time a church was to be built for the performance of funeral services at each cemetery.31 At the same time, Russia played an ambiguous role in the history of plague epidemics in the principalities. The Russian–Ottoman wars occasioned devastations and famines that made epidemics likely. For example, the evacuation of Russian troops from Moldavia and Wallachia in 1812 was followed by the most devastating plague that had ever afflicted the principalities.32 Having killed some 24,000 inhabitants, the plague reappeared 27 Kushnikov to the Moldavian and Wallachian Divans, March 9, 1809, ANRM, f. 1, op. 1, d. 45, ll. 4–6v. 28 Metropolitan Gavriil to Kushnikov, March 7, 1809, ANRM, f. 1, op. 1, d. 45, l. l.3. 29 Metropolitan Gavriil to Krasno-Miloshevich, June 13, 1810, ANRM, f. 1, op. 1, d. 45, ll. 14–14v. 30 Krasno-Miloshevich to the Moldavian Divan, November 10, 1810, ANRM, f. 1, op. 1, d. 45, ll. 29. 31 Report of Iași commandant to Krasno-Miloshevich, April 16, 1811, ANRM, f. 1, op. 1, d. 45, ll. 36–36v. 32 Nistor, “Ravagiile epidemiilor de ciumă şi holeră,” 370.

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in 1819 and 1824–25, when it took the lives of some in the Ottoman fortress of Brăila and in nearby Bessarabia. The vulnerability of Russian borders to epidemics is confirmed by the preservation of the quarantine along the Dniester for eighteen years after the annexation of Bessarabia and the establishment of a new quarantine along the Pruth.33 In 1826, new cases of a deadly contagious disease were reported in Bucharest and its environs. This triggered a discussion among local physicians on the nature of the disease. On the one hand, there were the so-called “contagionists” who believed that the disease in question was plague (Pestis Orientalis Bubonica) brought by the Ottomans from Egypt and who advocated strict observance of quarantine measures. Opposed to them were those who believed that the disease was endemic to the principalities and represented a variation of southern typhus (Typhus Australis), produced by the “epidemic constitution of the air.”34 Hospodar Ghica followed the advice of the “contagionists” and in August 1827 ordered the creation of quarantine to prevent the spread of the disease. Following the outbreak of the Russian–Ottoman war, Commander in Chief Vitgenshtein established the Bucharest Plague Commission under the presidency of State Councilor P.N. Pizani. However, the anti-epidemic measures of the Russian provisional authorities remained uncoordinated and proved ineffective. According to the field medic of the staff of the Second Army, Khristian Iakovlevich Vitt, each division and regimental physician acted on his own and “in spite of the numerous quarantines established in every village where Russian troops were stationed, it was not clear whether they served to protect a particular place from the penetration of the disease or, by contrast, to seal the disease inside it.”35 After the Russian occupation of the principalities, Russian specialists joined the debate between local “contagionists” and “anti-contagionists,” which quickly became more than a matter of professional medical concern. 33 In 1825, P.D. Kiselev wrote a memorandum in which he pointed to the inability of the civil authorities to interrupt the clandestine connections between the populations on the left and right banks of the Pruth and the Danube, which exposed Bessarabia to plague epidemics. Kiselev argued for the necessity of creating a special border guard service composed of veteran soldiers. See “Zapiska keneralad’iutanta Kiseleva ob ustroenii postoiannoi strazhi na granitse turetskikh vladenii,” November 1, 1825, Epanchin, Ocherk pokhoda, 1:36–41 (separate pagination). 34 Zeidlits, O chume svirepstvovavshei, 19, 64–65; Vitt, O svoistvakh klimata Valakhii i Moldavii, 13, 78–79. 35 Ibid., 174–75.

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Quarantines remained the only effective measure to adopt if the disease was indeed plague. If, by contrast, the disease was a local fever produced by an unwholesome climate, the quarantines were not only unnecessary but also harmful since they kept people in insalubrious places for days. The official definition of the disease also had moral, political, and military implications that were impossible to ignore. Already in the eighteenth century, the Russian commanders preferred not to speak about plague as long as the situation was not pressing out of fear that news of the epidemic would cause panic among soldiers and the local population.36 They also could not abide the reduced mobility of the troops that was the necessary side effect of quarantines. These considerations, as well as the manifest ineffectiveness of the quarantines in 1828, explain an abrupt change of policy in January 1829. At the start of a new military campaign, the “anti-contagionist” Vitt succeeded quarantine advocate Khanov as the chief medic of the staff of the Second Army.37 Concomitantly, the “Bucharest Plague Committee” was replaced by the “Main Commission for the Elimination of Infection,” while the disease itself was reclassified as “contagious fever with dubious symptoms.”38 The Commission attributed the bubons of the sick soldiers to their “relations with indecent women, hard labor, humid weather, and bad food.”39 Subsequent abolition of the quarantines increased the mobility of troops, which helped the Russian army defeat the Ottomans. However, the price of victory was high: the number of people killed by the disease grew to 24,560 in 1829, out of which the Russian military amounted to one-third or 8,600 people.40 Even after experience proved him wrong, Vitt continued to attribute the disease to the unhealthy local climate, which was aggravated by the social habits of the local population. According to him, the “Wallachian pestilence” (iazva) that took many victims among both the military and civilians was produced by the general epidemic constitution of the air, resulting from evaporations of numerous marshes, uncultivated fields, and graves. The real

36 Samarian, Din epidemologia trecutului nostru, 137. 37 Zeidlits, O chume svirepstvovavshei, 83. 38 Samarian, Din epidemologia trecutului românesc, 79; Vitt, O svoistvakh klimata Wallachii i Moldavii, 173. 39 Zeidlits, O chume svirepstvovavshei vo vtoroi russkoi armii, 82. 40 “Otchet general-ad’iutanta Kiseleva po upravleniu Moldavieiu i Valakhieiu s 15-go noiabria 1829 po 1 ianvaria 1830,” in Zablotskii-Desiatovskii, Graf Kiselev, 4:119.

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cause of the disease was, thus, the local population itself, which was “steeped in ignorance and wallowing in vice”: Humiliating laziness deprives them of the basic advantages of life. [Moldavians and Wallachians] want neither to eat good bread nor drink healthy water, breathe fresh air, or have comfortable dwellings. In Moldavia and Wallachia, hardly one sixth of the best land is cultivated. Above that, most of the land has grown wild, covered by wild grass and poisonous plants; the rivers are covered by reeds, the marshes by bulrush, the ponds by silt. The cities and villages are heaped with manure and the decaying bodies of various animals. Living on a great cemetery, this people is drowned in dirt, dung, and marshes… Hence, their bodies are so weak and predisposed to any malevolent disease that spreads easily amongst them.”41

Vitt attributed the failure of the Russian provisional administration to establish medical police in the principalities in 1806–12 to the bad habits of Moldavians and Wallachians, who “became accustomed to laziness and disorder.” He also emphasized the drunkenness and sexual promiscuity of the local inhabitants, which made them sickly and prone to various illnesses. In Vitt’s account, the medical problem emerged as a moral issue, reproducing an essentially medieval understanding of disease as the manifestation of sinfulness. To overcome disease, both physical and moral, the Moldavians and Wallachians needed enlightenment and education that the Russians were best positioned to provide. According to Vitt, “no other people seem to need our Russian well-leavened and well-baked rye bread, good kvass, fresh pickled cabbage, and other greens so badly.”42 Fortunately, the reforms carried out by the Russian provisional administration assured “yearly progress in the enlightenment and correction of mores, the establishment of greater order and advantages to enhance the life of the population, the fertilization or cultivation of land, etc.”43 Kiselev may have agreed with Vitt’s interpretation of the relationship between disease and the moral state of the population, but the epidemic situation forced him adopt more pragmatic measures. In order to combat pes41 Vitt, O svoistvakh klimata Valakhii i Moldavii, 313. 42 Ibid., 314. 43 Ibid., 320.

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tilence, the president-plenipotentiary divided the principalities into special districts in which ispravniks and village heads were charged with reporting all cases of contagion. Special medical administrations created in Bucharest and Iaşi examined the credentials of the physicians in order to assure reliable medical service. In doing so, they had to strike a delicate balance between the scarcity of personnel and the necessity to maintain minimal standards of professionalism. A physician was appointed to each district of the capital and charged with providing medical service to everyone free of charge twice a week at the premises specially rented for that purpose. Along with the inoculation of the population, their functions included the inspection of marketplaces (once a week), hospitals (once a month), and pharmacies (twice a year). On the basis of the data provided by the municipal physicians, the medical councils of the capitals were supposed to file biweekly reports to the government. 44 The Organic Statutes also allocated 150,000 lei for the maintenance of three out of the six hospitals that existed at that time (founded by hospodars or prominent boyar families). The foundation of new pharmacies required the government’s permission, and the owners had to follow pricelists set in Vienna.45 These measures were supplemented with the construction of a quarantine line along the Danube. Made possible by the reincorporation of the former Ottoman fortresses on the left bank of the Danube into Wallachia, the establishment of the quarantine line was one of the priorities of the ministerial instructions that served as the basis for the elaboration of the Organic Statutes.46 The main checkpoints were created in the major entrepots of commerce with the Ottoman Empire: Galaţi, Brăila, Calaraş, Giurgiu, Zimniţa, Izvornik, Kalafat, and Cereneţ.47 In order to prevent the clandestine barter that locals conducted with the right bank, “exchange courts” (menovye dvory) were organized in smaller towns that conducted local trade with the adjacent Ottoman provinces on the right bank of the Danube such as Piopter, Olteniţa, Turnu, Islaz, and Bichet.48 They were subordinated to the 44 See section VIII of the Municipal Statute of Iași, attachment F of Chapter 3 of the Moldavian statute in Negulescu and Alexianu, Regulamentele organice, 246–48. 45 See arts. LXXIV–LXXVII, in Negulescu and Alexianu, Regulamentele organice, 247. 46 “Instructions,” 37–38. These conditions were introduced into the Adrianople treaty. 47 On the impact of the reform on the administrative geography of Wallachia, see Leanca, “Orientalisme, construction territoriale et histoire urbaine.” 48 See Kiselev’s order to the troops of March 10, 1830, RGVIA, f. 438, op. 1, d. 69, ll. 25–25v.

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inspector of the quarantine residing in Bucharest and the vice-inspector at Galaţi. With 1,500 infantry and cavalry militia distributed between fifteen frontier posts, aided by water patrols, there was hope of substantially reducing, if not excluding altogether, unwarranted communication between the two banks of the river. The threat of harsh penalties (hard labor at the mines for those entering the country in violation of quarantines and capital punishment for guards who took bribes) had to make up for the deficiencies in supervision.49 Operating from March 1830, the new quarantine line quickly made a difference as the number of victims of plague fell to just 133.50 Along with the reorganization of the hospitals and the vaccination of the population, the establishment of quarantines was part of the “disciplinary legislation” that, according to Kiselev, had to become an essential part of the Organic Statutes in order to stop the progress of the plague and other epidemics that had destroyed the population of the country.51 However, the significance of the quarantine went beyond purely sanitary considerations. According to ministerial instructions that served as the foundation of the Organic Statute, the quarantine would facilitate Russian communications with the principalities by diminishing the quarantine period at the Pruth line and, at the same time, deprive the Ottomans of the opportunity to penetrate the Wallachian and Moldavian territories at will.52 “Such practices are so contrary to their habits and religious prejudices,” argued the author of the instructions of Dashkov, “that one only has to introduce the strict observation of sanitary regulations in the southern parts of the principalities in order to quell their desire to penetrate here.”53 For this reason, the quarantine line became a means to detach the principalities from the rest of the Ottoman Empire and provide Russia with a well-controlled buffer zone.54 49 The quarantine regulations constituted chapter six of both the Wallachian and the Moldavian Statutes. See Negulescu and Alexianu, Regulamentele organice, 79–104 and 279–290, respectively. 50 “Otchet general-ad’iutanta Kiseleva…,” in Zablotskii-Desiatovskii, Graf Kiselev, 4:122. 51 Kiselev, “Observations sur le projet d’un Conseil Administratif pour la Moldavie,” in AVPRI, f. 331, op. 716/1, d. 3, l. 125v. 52 The political use of quarantines was not a Russian invention. During the Seven Years’ War, the Austrians used their Transylvanian quarantines to prevent their adversaries, the Prussians, from purchasing wool and cattle in the principalities to supply their army. See Samarian, Din epidemologia trecutului românesc, 97. 53 “Instructions,” 38. 54 The new quarantine line along the Danube, coupled with the existing line along the Pruth, made the earlier quarantine service on the Dniester unnecessary, and its abolition in the 1830 was yet another factor contributing to the economic and administrative assimilation of Bessarabia into the Russian Empire.

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Eager to use the quarantine for political purposes, tsarist officials nevertheless doubted its effectiveness once the Russian army left the principalities. In his effort to extend the occupation, Kiselev argued, among other things, that the continued presence of the Russian troops was necessary for the proper functioning of the quarantine since the Moldavians and Wallachians would “remain incapable of inspiring any respect among the Turks” from the right bank of the Danube for a long time.55 In November 1831, the president-plenipotentiary appointed Collegial Councilor Nikolai Mavros the head of the new institution tasked with “connecting the cordon sanitaires of Moldavia and Wallachia to those of Russia and Austria through a system of general observation.” In this way, the new quarantines would “facilitate the commerce of the two provinces with the two empires and would demonstrate to the Austrian government that our agreements with the Ottomans were not hostile to the interests of the neighboring Austrian provinces.” Kiselev believed that “only active surveillance in the course of two or three years could consolidate this useful institution.”56 The Austrian authorities must have shared Kiselev’s doubts about the effectiveness of the Danubian quarantine and preserved their own cordon sanitaire along the border with Wallachia long after it was put into operation. In the words of the future Prussian War Minister Helmuth von Moltke who passed through the principalities in 1835, “the character of quarantine installations was such that any wise traveler would avoid them.”57 At the same time, the testimony of travelers should be taken with a grain of salt: too often their criticism of the quarantine structures exposed their frustration with the requirement to spend weeks in de facto confinement. The Wallachian quarantine, in fact, exhibited a certain efficiency in 1837, when the principalities remained unscathed by yet another plague epidemic that decimated the populations of the right bank of the Danube.58

55 Kiselev to Nesselrode, April 14, 1830, AVPRI, f. 331, op. 716/1, d. 7, ll. 15–15v. 56 Kiselev to Nesselrode, November 26, 1831, AVPRI, f. 331, op. 716/1, d. 7, ll. 294v–295v. 57 Moltke, Lettres sur l’Orient, 8. During the decades that followed, Russian visitors to the principalities also doubted the effectiveness of the border guard service staffed by Moldavian and Wallachian militiamen. See Orbinskii, “Zagranichnye pis’ma,” 1–19. 58 Nistor, “Ravagiile epidemiilor de ciumă şi holeră,” 396–99. Grammont, De l’administration provisoire russe, 50–51. Grammont was Kiselev’s aide-de-camp; he chose to stay in Wallachia after the Russian evacuation of the principalities in 1834.

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Ironically, soon after civilization and enlightenment defeated the plague and the oriental mores of the principalities, Wallachia and Moldavia fell prey to cholera morbus.59 Unlike plague, which periodically appeared in Egypt and Constantinople, cholera was first registered in India in 1817. By way of the Central Asian trade routes, the disease first spread to Russia in 1830 and descended on Europe the next year.60 Not long after the end of the plague epidemic in Moldavia and Wallachia that had threatened the Russian Empire, Kiselev found it necessary to establish a quarantine on the Pruth in order to protect the principalities from the danger that emanated from the Russian provinces.61 Despite Kiselev’s order to blockade the villages and towns in which cases of cholera were reported, the disease affected 63,560 people in the principalities and took the lives of 20,218 of them.62 Somewhat apologetically, Kiselev reported that only one out of every 45 people fell ill in the principalities and only one out of every 142 died, which, in his opinion, was not a bad result, compared to the neighboring Hungary, where one out of every 17 became ill and one out of every 42 died.63 However, Kiselev’s correspondence compromises the picture of a successful struggle against cholera, which the president-plenipotentiary drew in his final report to the emperor. At the high point of the cholera epidemic, the newly created medical service failed and only one physician out of five continued to render service to the population. Civilians were the worst hit. In June 1831, the disease was carrying away 150–180 people per day in Iaşi alone and filled all “from the most opulent boyar to the neediest artisan with such terror that neither persuasion nor force could make them perform their duties.”64 The courts and administrative bodies stopped functioning, officials fled, and Kiselev had to suspend the Moldavian General Assembly for the Revision of the Statutes.65 “All natural relationships dissolve as honor no longer exists and egoism appears here in all its horror,” reported Kiselev to the governor-gen59 60 61 62 63 64

Nistor, “Ravagiile epidemiilor de ciumă şi holeră,” 393–96. McGrew, Russia and the Cholera. Kiselev’s order of December 10, 1830, RGVIA, f. 438, op. 1, d. 69, l. 28–28v. “Vedomost’ o deistivii kholery,” RGVIA, f. 438, op. 1, d. 88, l. 4. “Otchet general-ad’iutanta Kiseleva…,” in Zablotskii-Desiatovskii, Graf Kiselev, 4:123. Kiselev to Nesselrode, Iași, June 10, 1831 in Zablotskii-Desiatovskii, Graf Kiselev, 4:60. According to the French consul Lagan, the epidemics took the lives of 800 inhabitants of Iași in ten days. Lagan to Sebastiani, June 12, 1831, Documente privitoare la istoria românilor, 17:250. 65 Minchaki to Nesselrode, Iași, June 3, 1831, RGIA, f. 958, op. 1, d. 625, ll. 106–107.

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eral of New Russia M.S. Vorontsov.66 The president-plenipotentiary ordered the temporary evacuation of the population from Iași to the hills surrounding the city, which helped reduce the ravages of cholera and enabled public institutions to resume their work in early August 1831.67 The same measure helped reduce the number of cholera victims in Bucharest: In order to encourage residents to leave the city, Kiselev ordered the construction of temporary huts in the environs beyond the city limits and sold foodstuff there at low prices. At the same time, his continued presence in the capital during the peak of the cholera epidemic had a reassuring impact on the government officials, who did not dare flee unlike their Moldavian counterparts.68 The Creation of Militia and Police Reform In order to provide personnel for quarantine services, the ministerial instructions took for granted the creation of a national militia (gendarmerie). This force had to maintain good order in towns and the countryside, collect taxes, and execute judicial sentences.69 Like many other aspects of the Organic Statutes, the creation of a national militia was proposed by the boyars in the wake of the Etaireia uprising. In their memorandum to the Russian government written at the end of 1821 by Alexandru Villara, the Wallachian boyar émigrés in Braşov pointed to the necessity of reforming different police agencies (Agia and Spătăria in Wallachia or Hatmania in Moldavia). The boyars attributed the abuses of police authorities to the pernicious influence of the Phanariots, whose Greek relatives monopolized the office of Aga (head of Bucharest city police) and used it to perpetuate injustices and extortions against the population. Likewise, the countryside police headed by Spătar was corrupted by the exclusive employment of foreigners, who purchased their appointments and used every opportunity to compensate themselves with vengeance. The boyars proposed replacing Agia and Spătăria with the Bucharest police headed by an autochthonous boyar and the territorial militia to perform border and garrison duty.70 66 67 68 69 70

Kiselev to Vorontsov, Bucharest, July 18, 1831, in Bartenev, Arkhiv kniazia Vorontsova, 38:197. Ibid., 196. Grammont, De l’administration provisoire russe, 33. “Instructions,” 39. Vîrtosu, 1821, 139.

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In a more systematic way, the idea of reforming police agencies was articulated by Barbu Ştirbei, who served as an ispravnik in the 1820s. Identified by Russian consul general Minchaki as one of the most promising young boyars, Ştirbei closely collaborated with Russian authorities throughout the occupation period and was involved in the reform of police institutions. Back in 1827, he submitted a memorandum on the Wallchian administrative system to the committee of reforms established in accordance with the Convention of Akkerman. In it, he attributed the failure of the Spătăria to assure the “security of persons” to the underpayment of its employees, the sale of appointments, and the use of peasant auxiliaries (catanes) instead of professional policemen. Underpaid police captains and colonels would take bribes from peasants designated to perform police services and then release them from duty. The resulting inability of the Spătăria to effectively fight against brigandage was exacerbated by instances of cooperation between individual police officials and the robbers. In order to change the situation, Știrbei suggested augmenting the salaries of police officials and creating a smaller permanent corps of gendarmes. Peasant police auxiliaries (catanes), who were compensated for their functions with tax exemptions, had to be relegated to the category of taxpayers, which would increase state revenues.71 Ştirbei’s suggestions were incorporated into the ministerial instructions written by Dashkov, which envisioned the formation of a new militia as the most important law enforcement agency composed of professional soldiers and officers. The associated expenses had to be compensated by an increase in public revenue that resulted from the elimination of tax exemptions and abuses associated with the sale of offices.72 As with the quarantine service, the militia not only served the general well-being of Moldavia and Wallachia but also helped reduce Ottoman influence on the lands north of the Danube. The anti-Ottoman connotation of the plan was not new. Already at the turn of the nineteenth century, Wallachian hospodar Constantin Ypslianti came up with the plan to create a national militia in order to prevent the rebellious pasha of Vidin Pasvand-Oglu from repeating his devastating 1802 raid on Wallachia. On the eve of the Russian–Ottoman War of 1806–12, the Russian envoy to 71 Știrbei, “Aperçu sur le mode d’administration de la Valachie,” in Georgescu, Mémoires et projets de réforme, 151–52. 72 “Instructions,” 39–40.

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Constantinople A.Ia. Italinskii was instructed to demand Ottoman consent for the creation of a “national force capable of defending this province from its Danubian neighbors.”73 At the same time, the formation of the militia provided an additional tie between the principalities and Russia as the quarantines. Soon after his appointment as president-plenipotentiary, Kiselev found it necessary to give the new militia “a solid and, so to speak, Russian character” in order to make it ready for a possible war with the Ottomans. To this end, Kiselev suggested the admission of 100 young Moldavians and Wallachians to Russian military schools, and the addition of twenty more candidates to that number every year. The proposed measure was supposed to secure “the formation of troops according to the principles of Russian discipline” and contribute to the general consolidation of new institutions.74 The formation of the militia began during the Russian–Ottoman War of 1828–29. In November 1828, Kiselev presented a plan to use Christian volunteers as auxiliaries to Nicholas I’s Chief of Staff I.I. Dibich. In February 1829, soon after his appointment as the commander of the Russian reserves in the principalities, Kiselev initiated the formation of “the national army” of Wallachia.75 His early measures acquired a more systematic character after the end of the war. Following Nicholas I’s order of May 1830, Kiselev appointed Major General S.N. Starov and Colonel Makarov to form Wallachian and Moldavian militia units.76 These new units amounted to 73 Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs A.Ia. Budberg to A.Ia. Italinskii, November 15, 1806, VPR, ser. 1, 3:383. In parallel, the commander of the Russian army that occupied the principalities in November 1806 received the order to assist prince Ypsilanti in the creation of the land militia by assigning retired Russian officers at the head of the detachments of local volunteers. A. Ia. Budberg to I. I. Mikhelson, November 21, 1806, VPR, ser. 1, 3:403. On the creation of this force, see Vîrtosu, “Despre corpul de voluntari.” The deposition of Ypsilanti in August 1807 put an end to this plan. In summer 1812, the last commander in chief of the Russian army on the Danube P.V. Chichagov tried to create an army of 20,000 in Moldavia and Wallachia to participate in the campaign against France’s Illyrian provinces planned by Alexander I on the suggestion of Kapodistrias (see chapter two). However, this plan remained on paper because Alexander I soon recalled Chichagov and his army from the Danube to counter Napoleon’s Grand Armée that was marching on Moscow. See Nistor, “Un proiect de organizare.” 74 Kiselev to Nesselrode, April 14, 1830, AVPRI, f. 331, op. 716/1, d. 7, ll. 14–14v. Kiselev’s suggestion reflected the existing early nineteenth-century practice whereby a considerable number of future Romanian military cadres enrolled into the Russian army. See Ciachir, “Aportul Rusiei,” 95n48. 75 See Ciachir, “Aportul Rusiei,” 92. 76 There are a number of studies on the emergence of the Romanian national army and the role of Russia in this process: Ungureanu, “Contribuția Rusiei la crearea armatei naționale”; Popa, Renaşterea armatei pămîntene; Nistor, “Organizarea armatei naţionale a Moldovei”; Stan, Renaşterea armatei naţionale.

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4,500 troops in Wallachia and 1,500 in Moldavia who were headed by a Great Spătar and a Great Hatman respectively.77 However, it soon became clear that a small and unbalanced Moldavian budget was incapable of supporting even one-third of the Wallachian force, which prompted a further reduction of the size of the Moldavian militia to 1,000 men. To December 1830, this military force took part in the parade organized for the name day of Nicholas I. In the words of a correspondent for the Russian newspaper The Northern Bee, “the regularity of the military formations and movements elicited the inhabitants’ general adoration (voskhi­ shchenie) of and the pious (blagogoveinuiu) gratitude to the august monarch, who was the source of their happiness.”78 The rules of militia formation were included in the Organic Statutes as a separate chapter adopted by the Assembly of Revision without much disagreement. However, the attitude of the broader population toward the new institution was not as rosy as The Northern Bee presented it. Since the military forces in the principalities had long consisted of the Serbian, Bulgarian, and Albanian mercenaries (arnăuţi), the imposition of military duty on the population provoked discontent and led to the peasant mutinies in the Moldavian districts of Roman and Neamţ discussed in the previous chapter.79 Whereas the Moldavian peasants did not want to take up arms, the arnăuţi did not want to put them down. The unemployed mercenaries continuously created trouble for the local authorities in the cities and villages. Although the order to surrender arms was one of the first measures of the Russian provisional administration, in April 1829, MikhailovskiiDanilevskii still found many people carrying daggers and pistols, which “testified to how little people are protected by law, having to think of their

77 The regulations on militia constituted chapter nine of the Wallachian statute and chapter seven of the Moldavian statute. See Negulescu and Alexianu, Regulamentele organice, 133–46 and 291–314, respectively. 78 “O prazdnestve 6-go dekabria v Bukhareste. Izvlechenie iz pratikuliarnogo pis’ma,” RGVIA, f. 438, op.1, d. 139, l. 2. “Perechen’ partikuliarnogo pis’ma,” Bucharest, December 7, 1830, Severnaiia pchela, no. 156, December 30, 1830. Later Russian visitors to the principalities were more critical of the militia. According to R. V. Orbinskii, “[one] can hardly call soldiers these unshod wretches (sorvantsy) who wear hats and caps of all possible shapes and whose weapons consist of old flintlock muskets that are more dangerous for the one who shoots than for the one who is targeted.” See Orbinskii, “Zagranichnye pis’ma,” 4. 79 For an interpretation that emphasizes the military draft as the primary cause of the peasant revolt, see Bitis, Russia and the Eastern Question, 453.

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own defense.”80 In March 1830, Kiselev once again ordered the unemployed arnăuţi to surrender arms and either enter one of the civil estates of the principalities or leave them altogether.81 The order had to be repeated early in 1831, this time explicitly prohibiting “shooting between different houses in the cities.”82 The latter clause demonstrates the determination of the authorities to secure the monopoly on physical violence by depriving various socially prominent elements of the right to exercise force at their own discretion. Unable to prohibit the use of the arnăuţi in the boyar households altogether, the Russian occupation authorities allowed them to bear arms only when accompanying their masters on the trips across the country as protection against highwaymen. Otherwise, the police were empowered to confiscate illegal arms “regardless of the social status of the person.”83 As in other domains, the efforts of the Russian administration to secure the state monopoly on the legitimate exercise of violence were supported by a number of reform-minded boyars. Thus, in September 1830, Nicolae Suțu and Grigore Balș drew the attention of vice president of the Moldavian divan Mirkovich to the widespread brigandage, which they attributed to the vast number of vagabonds in the principality. The boyars suggested that the owners of inns and village pubs be obliged to deliver all unknown people to the police as well as expel all individuals without a profession or property from the country. Suțu and Balș also suggested that landowners be made responsible for the pub owners operating on their lands. According to the boyars, this measure would contribute to social solidarity among the villagers and would deprive malefactors of support from the local population. Finally, the ispravniks were to be given sufficient forces to suppress the brigands.84 The creation of the militia was accompanied by the reorganization of the police. For the first two years of occupation, the most important police functions were performed by the Russian military police. With the end of the 80 Mikhailovskii-Danilevskii, “Zapiski,” 183. 81 “Kopiia s predlozheniia Kiseleva obshchemu sobraniiu Divanov kniazhestva Valakhii,” March 4, 1830, RGVIA, f. 438, op. 1, d. 74, l. 2. 82 “Kopiia s predlozheniia Kiseleva obshchemu sobraniiu Divanov kniazhestva Valakhii,” January 3, 1831, RGVIA, f. 438, op. 1, d. 74, l. 5. 83 Ibid. 84 Nicolae Suțu and Grigoire Balș, “Mémoire sommaire sur quelques projets de biens publique en Moldavie,” September 5, 1830, AVPRI, f. 331, op. 716/1, d. 3, l. 190–91.

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war and the withdrawal of most of the Russian troops from the principalities, local police institutions resumed their functions. Along with their former duties such as internal security, public hygiene, general propriety (blagochinie), and supervision over the trade of staples, police in the capitals (Agia) were given the functions of fire protection, supervision over public health and the prevention of epidemics.85 In order to secure cooperation between Agia and the Russian military authorities, Kiselev appointed special procurators. With the help of four adjuncts, each procurator supervised public welfare foundations, commerce, fire protection, quarantines, and the commission for the accommodation of the Russian troops.86 Next, the functions of the Agia were progressively differentiated from those of the newly established militia. It soon became clear that militia contingents were not numerous enough to maintain order in the cities, guard the borders, and serve in the Danubian quarantine. Eventually the inhabitants of the villages close to the border were recruited into special units (cordonași) that assisted the militia in border security.87 In the meantime, Agia were given their own law enforcement units (dorobanţi), which promised to end the traditional rivalry between Agia and Spătăria (Hatmania in Moldavia).88 Along with the Agia, the important functions of a general police force were entrusted to the municipal authorities of the capitals as well as Brăila and Giurgiu—former Ottoman fortresses and raiale on the left bank of the Danube that had been returned to Wallachia in accordance with the Adrianople peace treaty.89 In March 1830, Kiselev appointed logofăt Alexandru Filipescu, aga Constantin Cantacuzino, vornic de poliție Barbu Ştirbei, Russian army engineer Baumern, and two physicians to form a commission on sanitation and the beautification of Bucharest. The commission had to rid the capital of waste and garbage, repair bridges, create street

85 The functions of Agia were defined in arts. LXXXVIII–XCIII of the Iași Municipal Statute. See Negulescu and Alexianu, Regulamentele organice, 249. 86 Kiselev’s order to Wallachian and Moldavian governments of June 1, 1830, RGVIA, f. 438, op. 1, d. 78, ll. 1–4. 87 RGVIA, f. 438, op. 1, d. 92, ll. 129–130. The peasants in question were to perform their service in return for some privileges and tax exemptions. 88 “Zapiska o formirovanii zemskoi strazhi,” December 12, 1831 and “Dopolnenie no. 1 k zapiske o formirovanii zemskoi strazhi,” RGVIA, f. 438, op. 1, d. 85, ll. 4–6. 89 On the reform of urban administration, see Leanca, “Orientalisme, construction territoriale et histoire urbaine.” 

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lighting, institute fire protection units, improve the provision of prisoners, and propose a means to fund these institutions and functions.90 The proposals of the Bucharest commission were in line with the measures taken by the Russian authorities during the war of 1806–12.91 The commission suggested defining the boundaries of the city, draining the marshes and lakes, paving streets at the expense of homeowners, and obliging them to clean the streets and courtyards. The slaughterhouses, fisheries (les dépôts de poissons), and soap manufactures were to be transferred beyond the city limits. The commission also recommended the formation of a gravediggers’ service, the creation of four walled cemeteries with chapels beyond the confines of the city for the orthodox population and four cemeteries for adherents to other confessions. Finally, the members of the commission suggested the creation of public promenades both in the center and on the outskirts of the city. A special section of the future city statute had to outline the taxes on the population of the capital that would finance these tasks. For the routine execution of general police functions, Iași and Bucharest were divided into four and five districts, respectively, each of which was headed by commissars. Each district was further subdivided into quarters, each supervised by an epistat.92 Apart from the capitals, Kiselev paid special attention to the organization of public welfare in Brăila and Giurgiu.93 In so doing, Kiselev sought to “give the local population a model for the organization of welfare in all the other towns of the principality and thereby leave a memorial to the beneficial actions of the Russian administration.”94 Elaborated by the General Assembly of the Wallachian divans on Kiselev’s order, the town statutes for Brăila and Giurgiu were closely modelled on the Bucharest city statute and delineated the competencies of the police, judicial authorities, and the city magistrate. The latter had to take care of the city’s revenues and expenses, food provision, trade protection, and commercial arbitrage. The city police 90 Kiselev to the General Assembly of the Wallachian Divan, March 5, 1830, RGVIA, f. 438, op. 1, d. 73, ll. 4–5. On creation of a similar commission in Iași, see Kiselev to Mirkovich, May 29, 1830, RGVIA, f. 438, op. 1, d. 73, ll. 6–7. 91 Report of the Commission on Sanitation and Embellishment of Bucharest to Kiselev, July 4, 1830, RGVIA, f. 438, op. 1, d. 73, ll. 8–12. 92 For all these measures, see also sections I–VI of the Iași municipal statute in Negulescu and Alexianu, Regulamentele organice, 240–46. 93 See Kiselev address to the General Assembly of the Wallachian Divans, November 29, 1830, RGVIA, f. 438, op. 1, d. 73, ll. 13–14v. 94 Kiselev to the war minister A.I. Chernyshev, February 7, 1831, RGVIA, f. 438, op. 1, d. 73, l. 33.

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was charged with the supervision of “internal calm and peacefulness,” the prevention of crime, public health, weights and measures, the quality of food, the construction of houses according to confirmed plans, general cleanliness, and fire protection. Special building commissions modeled on those that existed in Russian towns had to elaborate the requirements for public and private buildings, as well as arrange for the construction of broad streets and large squares that were essential for these river ports.95 Half a year after the establishment of the commissions, Kiselev reported (with satisfaction) to Russian War Minister A.I. Chernyshev that not only had the Ottoman fortifications been leveled to create space for the planned construction, but also “the ugly huts and dugouts . . . turned into tidy houses, streets were laid according to the new plan, new squares are created, and many useful and beautiful public buildings, including the quarantine, magistrate, police, customs house, and the barracks of the gendarmerie have either been constructed or rebuilt.”96 Finally, the biggest mosques in the two towns were transformed into the Orthodox churches of St. Nicholas and St. Mikhail, undoubtedly to commemorate the presence of Nicholas I and his younger brother during the siege of Brăila in 1828.97 Alongside the general welfare aspects of the urban police, the presidentplenipotentiary paid attention to their punitive functions, namely the penitentiary system. An inquiry into the conditions of prisoners’ confinement in the capitals led Kiselev to stipulate their daily diet.98 He also ordered the Moldavian authorities to secure proper premises for the Iași prison and eventually to construct a prison castle.99 In one private testimony, a deep moat that had previously been used for the confinement of prisoners in Bucharest was replaced by “a rather good prison” with a church and hospital in which 95 “Gorodovoe polozhenie dlia upravleniia gorodov Zhurzhi i Brailova,” RGVIA, f. 438, op 1, d. 73, ll. 15–26v. Eventually, magistrates were established in all the district towns of Wallachia. The district town magistrates took “tireless care” of the “embellishment of the towns, the straightening and paving of the streets, street lighting, cleaning, management of town revenues” RGVIA, f. 438, op 1, d. 73, ll. 54–54v. 96 Kiselev to Chernyshev, February 7, 1831, RGVIA, f. 438, op 1, d. 73, l. 33v. 97 Kiselev to metropolitan of Wallachia Neofit, February 7, 1831, RGVIA, f. 438, op 1, d. 73, 31–32v. 98 See Kiselev’s orders to Vice-President of the Wallachian Divan Major-General Ditmars from May 21, 1830, and to the Vice-President of the Moldavian Divan Major-General Mirkovich, July 16, 1830 RGVIA, f. 438, op 1, d. 73, ll. 43–44, 45–46. 99 See the report of the Moldavian Administrative Council of August 21, 1832, and Kiselev’s response on that subject to Mirkovich, September 8, 1832. RGVIA, f. 438, op 1, d. 73, 11. 50–51, 52–52v.

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the inmates were separated according to the character of their crimes.100 The president-plenipotentiary also made sure that the hard labor punishments were administered in accordance with the gravity of the committed crime. Whereas previously the convicts were assigned indiscriminately to the three salt mines that differed from one another by the hardship of labor conditions, Kiselev ordered murderers and robbers to be sent to the mine with the harshest conditions and reserve the other two for those who had committed lesser crimes.101 Fiscal Reform and Peasant Obligations Fiscal reform constituted another important aspect of the well-ordered police state that the Russian provisional administration tried to create in Moldavia and Wallachia. The uprising of Tudor Vladimirescu demonstrated that the political instability of the principalities was rooted in, among other things, an inadequate system of taxation and the general weakness of the local administration. Therefore, a fiscal overhaul and a broader reordering of the public administration became one of the priorities of the Russian provisional authorities in 1828–34. A relatively rapid conclusion to the war in 1829 allowed Kiselev to go beyond the narrow goal of securing supplies for the army, which took up too much of the time of his predecessors in 1808– 12. Through his reforming efforts, the Russian president-plenipotentiary found a number of collaborators among the Moldavian and Wallachian boyars who shared with him the idea of an orderly administration and were aware of the need to curb abuses of authority. One such collaborator was Barbu Ştirbei, who viewed the reorganization of the public finances and taxation system as the precondition for the security of property. Ştirbei demonstrated that under currently existing scheme, the place of the ispravnik in district administration equated to that of the hospodar in the whole country. The ispravniks were the real masters 100 “O prasdnestve v Bukhareste. Izvlechenie iz partikuliarnogo pis’ma,” RGVIA, f. 438, op. 1, d. 139, l. 3, note. “Perechen’ partikuliarnogo pis’ma,” Bucharest, December 7, 1830, Severnaia pchela, no. 156, December 30, 1830. Later, the Wallachian Extraordinary Assembly of Revision adopted a special prison statute: “Regulament pentru strejuirea și buna orânduială ce are a se păzi pe la temnițe și închisori,” in Analele parlamentare 1, part 1 (1831): 517–49. 101 Kiselev to Vice-president of the Wallachian Divan Major-General E.L. Dietmars, November 23, 1830, RGVIA, f. 438, op. 1, d. 73, ll. 47–49v.

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of the district: They controlled local finances through sameşi and local justice through district judges and registrars (condicari). The heads of cantons (zapcii) were in fact ispravniks on a smaller scale.102 In the execution of the orders of the central government, ispravniks relied on unpaid agents (slujitori). Slujitori amounted to 300 per district although only one-third of them were in actual service at any one time. The peasantry often suffered from the arbitrary actions of the slujitori since the latter had to equip themselves with horses at their own expense and even pay the central authorities for the right to “serve.”103 The problem of the local administration’s chronic underpayment was exacerbated by the ispravniks’ manipulation of the distribution of taxes and duties under the system of ludori.104 In return for bribes, ispravniks relieved some individuals from the payment of certain taxes and shifted a disproportionate amount of this burden to others. This practice affected not only particular peasant families but also landowners whose peasants were overburdened with state taxes. The control of the treasury over the activities of the ispravniks was illusory since the grand treasurer (vistier), like all other officials, changed yearly. As a result, even a wealthy landowner could quickly be reduced to selling his property by a hostile and rapacious ispravnik, whose formal salary did not exceed 200 ducats a year. In order to check these types of violations of property rights, Ştirbei proposed the abolition of all requisitions in kind and called for the amount of taxes to be fixed in legislation and their collection to be scrutinized by the boyar assembly.105 102 Știrbei, “Aperçu sur le mode d’administration de la Valachie,” in Georgescu, Mémoires et projets de réforme, 153. 103 Ibid., 154. 104 Originally a tax paid by a single individual taxpayer, a ludor, had long become a fictional taxation unit, which usually included several peasant families. The number of peasants assigned to pay a single ludor was established each year by the ispravnik and varied greatly from village to village. Officially the ispravniks’ right to redistribute taxes in this manner served to ameliorate the negative effects of crop failure in some places by shifting the taxation burden on those places where the harvest was satisfactory. However, in practice, the ispravniks used this prerogative to exact bribes from peasant communities and individual landowners. 105 Georgescu, Mémoires et projets de réforme, 154–57, 160–61. Stirbei’s criticisms of the Wallachian local administration were echoed by the Moldavians Nicolae Suțu and Grigore Balș. They likewise suggested curbing the powers of the Moldavian ispravniks by depriving them of the right to impose fines for minor infractions and advised creating permanent commissions in the districts. They also recommended obliging parish priests to carry out a census of the population as well as regularly report births and deaths to the civil authorities. The new census had to serve the basis of a comparative table on the state of all villages that would enable the adjustment of taxes in accordance with the state of each taxpayer. In

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Ştirbei’s critical examination of the local administration must have influenced Kiselev to create investigatory commissions charged with the general revision of the Wallachian districts in December 1829. Using a candidate list provided by the Wallachian divan, the Russian president-plenipotentiary appointed six first-rank boyars currently not employed in the administration to review the situation in the districts and to give everyone “the possibility of filing a complaint without the fear of oppression (pritesneniia) that he or she might suffer.”106 Two boyars and a Russian supervisor were assigned to each of the three groups of districts.107 These revision commissions were ordered to identify the precise reasons for the reduction of the number of poll-tax payers (birnici) and ludori. They also had to investigate cases of unlawful tax exemption and violations of tax privileges by the ispravniks as well as look into unlawful exactions by tax-collectors (sameși).108 Kiselev ordered special attention be paid to cases in which the local authorities justified unlawful labor dues and requisitions of food and fodder to meet the requirements of the Russian army.109 Finally, commissions were supposed to ascertain whether the population had easy access to recompense, investigate cases of unlawful imprisonment, and make sure that local police authorities take proper care of the well-being of the population.110 The results of the investigation surpassed the worst expectations of the Russian officials. In both principalities, local administrators arbitrarily substituted monetary payments for food and fodder deliveries to the Russian troops and pocketed the money. In terms of regular taxation, local authorities not only embezzled a fraction of revenues from registered taxpayers, they order to prevent manipulations and abuses in the allocation and collection of taxes, Suțu and Balș suggested publishing a regularly updated cadastre for each village so that each inhabitant knew how much he or she owned to the treasury. Nicolae Suțu and Grigoire Balș, “Mémoire sommaire sur quelques projets de biens publique en Moldavie,” September 5, 1830, AVPRI, f. 331, op. 716/1, d. 3, l. 185–187. 106 Kiselev’s order to the General Assembly of the Wallachian divans, December 21, 1829, RGVIA, f. 438, op. 1, d. 71, ll. 4–5. Two months later, similar commissions were created in Moldavia. See, Kiselev to Mirkovich (Vice-president of Moldavian Divan), February 17, 1830, RGVIA, f. 438, op. 1, d. 71, ll. 12–14. 107 The Wallachian commission consisted of Alexandru Ghica, Constantin Bălăceanu, Constantin Câmpi­neanu, Dimitrie Chrystomy, Nicolae Filipescu, and Emanoil Florescu. Russian procurators Alekseev, Karneev, and Pizani were ordered to compose daily records of the activities of the commissions. See Kiselev’s order to the General Assembly of the Divans of Wallachia, January 9, 1830, RGVIA, f. 438, op. 1, d. 71, l. 3–3v. 108 “Nastavlenie sledstvennym komissiiam,” RGVIA, f. 438, op. 1, d. 71, ll. 6–7v. 109 Ibid., ll. 8–9. 110 Ibid., l. 10.

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also pocketed the tax payments of a great number of families whose existence they concealed from the treasuries.111 This abusive practice was especially widespread in Moldavia, where the investigatory commission revealed some 16,000 such families. In addition, the commission revealed that the actual number of Moldavian scutelnici surpassed those listed in the treasury records by some 14,000 families.112 This means that the manipulations of the local authorities with respect to fiscal records reduced the tax base of the government by some 120,000 people, or nearly one-eighth of the entire population of the principality. The fiscal census conducted by the revision commissions helped improve tax collection. From then on, fiscal agents from the central and local government had identical copies of census records, which were to be renewed every seven years; i. e., much more often than similar fiscal “revisions” in post-Petrine Russia.113 In order to accommodate the “dead souls” that still accumulated by the end of the seven-year period, the assembly of Wallachia ordered the creation of village caisses (kruzhki), which received one-tenth of the poll-tax (bir) revenues. These funds had to cover the tax obligations of peasants who died during the seven-year period between censuses. This measure sought to put an end to the earlier practice whereby stronger and wealthier peasant families would shift the tax obligations of the dead onto those who were weaker and poorer.114 The introduction of annual records of revenues collected in each village reduced the potential for abuses by tax collection officials.115 These measures, as well as the imposition of a uniform capitation tax (bir) fixed at thirty piastres, improved the fiscal situation of the principalities. Very soon Kiselev could proudly report to the Russian Foreign Ministry about the increase of state revenues and a budget surplus. Streamlining the fiscal system, the “discovery” of the unregistered taxpaying population, the 111 According to the estimations of Grosul, 60 percent of the yearly Moldavian budget was embezzled by the ispravniks. See Grosul, Reformy v Dunaiskikh kniazhestvakh, 214, 217. 112 “Kratkoe obozrenie predmetov, obsledovannykh Revizionnymi Komissiami po Moldavii,” RGVIA, f. 438, op. 1, d. 69, ll. 31–33v. 113 See the stipulations on the fiscal census in arts. 69–95 of the Wallachian statute and arts. 84–99 of the Moldavian statute in Negulescu and Alexianu, Regulamentele organice, 20–26 and 194–196, respectively. 114 “Vedomost’ o deistviiakh departamenta vistiarii Valakhii,” RGVIA, f. 438, op. 1, d. 92, l. 91. 115 Ibid., l. 96–97.

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restriction of tax exemptions to foreign subjects, and the eradication of the most glaring abuses resulted in an increase of revenues over expenditures in Wallachia and, to a lesser extent, in Moldavia. This allowed for the tripling of the tribute the principalities paid to the Porte in accordance with the 1802 hatt-i sherif, which could then be used as a bargaining chip in negotiations with the Ottoman Empire.116 Besides clarifying peasant obligations to the state, the policies of the Russian administration sought to regulate relations between peasants and their lords. The Russian Foreign Ministry declared its intention to take into account the interests of all classes of the population, rather than strengthen the privileges of the boyars at the expense of other groups.117 Accordingly, Russian authorities resisted boyar pressure to double the number of work days peasants owed their landlords and, as a result, the General Assemblies of Revision had to fix their number at twelve as had been the case previously (see chapter five). Not unlike the Habsburg Robotpatent of the eighteenth century, the Organic Statutes also sought to define as precisely as possible the amount of work that peasants actually had to perform for their landlords during one day of labor.118 In practice, peasant work obligations may have increased, as did landowners’ control over peasants: peasants were allowed to move from one landlord to another only once every seven years, and then only if the first landlord could not offer them the amount of land stipulated by the statutes.119 This gave Karl Marx a reason to call the statutes the code of the corvée.120 However, a codified corvée is better than an uncodified one. A legal redefinition of peas116 In 1831, the revenues of Wallachia surpassed expenditures by 1, 143,872 piastres. A smaller and more impoverished Moldavia offered little possibility for the increase of revenues through mere rationalization. On Kiselev’s suggestion, the tax from peasants (bir) grew from 24 to 30 piastres, which increased the state revenue by some 740,000 piastres. Kiselev to Nesselrode, March 4, 1831, AVPRI, f. 133, op. 469 (1831) d. 138., ll. 22–24v. Kiselev informed the Foreign Ministry that the tribute could be increased from 573,235 piastres (in 1801) to 1,500,000 or even 2,000,000 for Wallachia and from 133,753 to 500,000 for Moldavia. 117 Nesselrode to Kiselev, March 24, 1830, RGIA, f. 958, op. 1, d. 623, l. 10. 118 See art. 142 of the Wallachian statute and art. 125 of the Moldavian statute in Negulescu and Alexianu, Regulamentele organice, 38–40 and 201–202, respectively. On the Habsburg Robotpatent, see Ingrao, The Habsburg Monarchy, 94, 171, 185. The revision of the Robotpatent in order to control the exploitation of the peasantry by landlords was an important element of the general Habsburg policy of Bauernschutz informed by cameralist doctrine. 119 See art. 144 of the Wallachian statute and art. 127 of the Moldavian statute in Negulescu and Alexianu, Regulamentele organice, 41 and 203, respectively. 120 Marx, Capital, 221.

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ant labor obligations in the Organic Statute helped make them more uniform and diminished the potential for arbitrary extortions that had often led peasants to flee their landlords and made it difficult for the exchequer to collect the head tax.121 One should not ignore the fact that for the first time in Wallachian history, the state also obliged landlords to provide their peasants with a legally specified amount of land in return for their labor.122 The president-plenipotentiary also took great precautions to diffuse the tensions that might accompany the enforcement of the Financial Statutes. In March 1832, he instructed the Wallachian ispravniks to explain to the inhabitants the advantages of the new system and contribute to the voluntary agreements between peasants and landlords within the limits set by the Statutes.123 Kiselev’s personal inspection of ten districts of Wallachia alerted him to the great discontent of its inhabitants about the original stipulations of the statute regarding the mutual obligations of peasants and landlord. The president-plenipotentiary attributed this discontent to the numerous restrictions the General Assembly of Revision imposed on the right of the peasants to move from one landowner to another. To lessen their anger, it was necessary to make peasant labor obligations strictly proportionate to the value of the land peasants received from landowners and allow peasants to make monetary payments set against local prices to their landlords instead of the labor obligation. Kiselev also suggested increasing the amount of land that the landowners of the sparsely populated plains had to offer to peasants in order to attract people from the mountainous parts of Wallachia.124 In November 1832, the president-plenipotentiary sent the draft of the proposed amendments to the General Assembly.125 Several months of bargaining followed, as the boyars tried to minimize their concessions. They 121 The same approach would later characterize the reform of the inventories carried out during the 1840s in the southwestern provinces of the Russian Empire. This reform sought to generate peasant dues in accordance with the quantity and quality of lands offered to them by the landlords, which necessarily affected the Polish landlords of the right-bank Ukraine. See Miller and Dolbilov, Zapadnyie okrainy Rossiskoi Imperii, 107. 122 See art. 140 of the Wallachian statute in Negulescu and Alexianu, Regulamentele organice, 38. 123 “Bases d’une instruction confidentielle aux différents administrateurs de la Valachie,” March 1832, AVPRI, f. 331, op. 716/1, d. 18, ll. 13–16. 124 Kiselev to the Wallachian Administrative Council, August 10, 1832, in Sturdza-Scheianu, Acte și legiuiri, 1:209–12. 125 “Proiect atingător de legiuirile îndepilinitoare ale Secției a 7-lea, capului al 3-lea din Organicescul Regulament,” in Sturdza-Scheianu, Acte și legiuiri, 1:212–23.

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were ready to allow peasants to pay off their labor obligations only in those cases where the landowner did not need their labor.126 For his part, Kiselev pressured the assembly to give a more equitable assessment of the comparative values of peasant land allotments and their labor dues.127 In the end, the boyars rejected the idea of increasing peasant allotments in the plains region of Wallachia.128 But they had to give up the restriction on peasants’ right to move: in accordance with the amendments voted by the Wallachian assembly in March 1833, the peasants could now leave their landowner even when the latter was able to offer them the stipulated amount of land, and they did not have to wait until the last year of the census period.129 Similar bargaining took place in Moldavia. In March 1832, Kiselev instructed the Moldavian Administrative Council to pay close attention to the mood of the peasantry as the stipulations of the Statute were being applied in order to avoid the peasant mutinies of the previous year.130 In April 1832, the Council was invited to propose amendments to the original stipulations of the Moldavian Statute that had reduced the amount of land landlords offered to the peasants.131 After a draft of the amendments was ready, Kiselev pressed the Administrative Council and the General Assembly to make further modifications in favor of the peasantry.132 He pointed out that the Council’s proposal was overall less favorable to the peasants than the 1805 act of hospodar Alexander Moruzi. The president-plenipotentiary also pointed out that the amount of work in one peasant labor day in Moldavia was one and a half to two times higher than in Ukraine.133 As a 126 “Îndreptări făcute de către Obișnuită Obștească Adunare,” November 24–December 3, 1832, in Analele parlamentare 3, part 2, 154–56. 127 See Kiselev’s address to the Wallachian Assembly of February 20, 1833 followed by “Îndreprări la proiectul îndreptat de către Obișnuită Obștească Adunare a Valahiei asupra drepturilor și datorilor reciproce între proprietari și plugari,” in Analele parlamentare 3, part 2, 158–66. 128 See the opinion of the special commission of the General Assembly, March 10, 1833, in SturdzaScheianu, Acte și legiuiri, 1:248. 129 “Îndreptările făcute la legiuirile clăcii de către Obișnuită Obștească Adunare după băgările de seamă ale Înalt Excelenței Sale domnului deplin împuternicit Prezident,” March 13, 1833, in Analele parlamentare 3, part 2, 172–74. 130 Kiselev to Mirkovich, March 22, 1831, in Sturdza-Scheianu, Acte și legiuiri, 1:100–1. 131 Mirkovich to the Moldavian Administrative Council, April 22, 1832, in Sturdza-Scheianu, Acte și legiuiri, 102. 132 See the project of amendments presented by the Moldavian Administrative Council on January 20, 1833, in Sturdza-Scheianu, Acte și legiuiri privitoare la chestia țărănească, 103–11. 133 See Kiselev’s address to the Moldavian Administrative Council of February 15, 1833, followed by his comments on the Council’s project. Sturdza-Scheianu, Acte și legiuiri, 111–17.

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result, the amendments to the Statute adopted by the Moldavian General Assembly in 1833 asserted the principle that “the amount of land accorded by the landlords should reflect the real needs of the peasants, while peasant labor obligations should correspond to the value of the land peasants receive.”134 However, in practice, the concessions that Kiselev managed to extract from the Moldavian landowners were minimal: the maximum size of peasant allotments increased by just one hectare.135 Administrative and Judiciary Reform Along with measures aimed at the rationalization of the taxation system and the definition of what they considered the equitable formula of the dues and obligations of peasants and landlords, the Russian provisional authorities sought to construct an institutional mechanism that would guarantee the economic development of the principalities. Back in 1809, the Russian commander in chief P.I. Bagration pointed out to the Wallachian divan that a “reasonable economy constitutes one of the major factors contributing to the well-being of the land and demonstrates good government.”136 Twenty years later, Kiselev expressed essentially the same idea, arguing that “economy, as the veritable source of all benefits in all aspects of human life, should be considered a conserving principle in matters of the administration of the State. In this respect, it should definitely become the object of all sound legislation by the government.”137 To manage the economy, still conceived in the early modern sense of general welfare, Russian occupation authorities established administrative councils as separate bodies alongside the judicial divans that became the highest courts of the country.138 The Administrative Councils consisted 134 See the definitive text of Section VII of Chapter III of the Moldavian statute voted by the Assembly, in Sturdza-Scheianu, Acte și legiuiri, 120. 135 Grosul, Reformy v Dunaiskikh kniazhestvakh, 293; Emerit, Les Paysans Roumains, 113, 119. 136 “Iz predlozheniia P.I. Bagrationa Divanu Valashskogo kniazhestva o podatiakh i povinnostiakh zhitelei, January 28, 1810,” in Berezniakov and Bogdanova, Bagration v Dunaiskikh kniazhestvakh, 84. 137 “Observations sur le projet d’un Conseil Administrative pour la Moldavie,” AVPRI, f. 331, op. 716/1, d. 3, l. 124. 138 It is noteworthy that the decision to separate executive and judicial divans met with “extreme mistrust and hidden discontent” on the part of the Wallachian boyars who, according to the French consul Lagan, were “foreign to the idea of justice.” Lagan to Polignac, July 30, 1830, in Documente privitoare la istoria românilor, 17:240.

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of the departments of Interior (headed by the Great Vornic) and Finances (headed by the Great Vistier), each of which was further subdivided into several sections. The Interior was placed in charge of agriculture and industry, general police, and sanitary measures, as well as statistics. The Department of Finances had to take care of finances and commerce. Each of these areas was supervised by a section head that reported to his respective minister. Kiselev initially planned to include the five section heads in the Administrative Council alongside the ministers.139 The Russian Foreign Ministry, by contrast, recommended excluding the heads of sections from the Administrative Council but including the state secretary (Postelnic) into it.140 At the same time, the Ministry approved the division of economic functions between the Department of the Interior and the Department of Finances, and their subdivision into sections was retained.141 Alongside the three main ministers, the reformed government also included the Great Logofăt of Justice, the Logofăt of Religious Affairs, and the Great Spătar (the commander of the militia), who performed the functions of Ministers of Justice, Religious Affairs, and Police, respectively. Nevertheless, the members of the Administrative Council played a more important role than other ministers: the Council was regularly convoked twice a week and represented an actual policy-making body that prepared drafts of the laws for the General Assemblies.142 The principle of functional division of power that informed the reorganization of the central government was also applied to the local administration, whose officials were transformed into agents of the Ministers of the Interior and Finances. The Interior Ministry consolidated its control over the ispravniks, who consequently lost their financial and judicial functions.143 The Finances Ministry subordinated the sameşi, who previously used to levy and collect taxes arbitrarily, but now, at least in theory, became fully account-

139 “Observations sur le projet d’un Conseil Administrative pour la Moldavie,” AVPRI, f. 331, op. 716/1, d. 3, ll. 124–124v. 140 See “Remarques sur le projet de Règlement pour la Valachie présenté au Ministère Impériale par la ­Comité du Bucharest,” RGIA, f. 958, op 1, d. 623, l. 47. 141 The structure of the Administrative Council and the functions of its constitutive parts were stipulated in Chapter IV of both the Wallachian and the Moldavian Statutes. Negulescu and Alexianu, Regu­ lamentele organice, 69–73 and 267–70, respectively. 142 See arts. 148–150 of the Wallachian statute and arts. 133–138 of the Moldavian statute, in Negulescu and Alexianu, Regulamentele organice, 70 and 267, respectively. 143 Art. 147 of the Wallachian statute, in Negulescu and Alexianu, Regulamentele organice, 69.

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able to the Great Vistier who reported yearly to the Ordinary Assembly.144 This division of the local administration represented a departure from previous administrative practices, in accordance with which the most important officials at the local level, the district ispravniks, were appointed by the hospodars on the recommendation of the Great Vistier.145 These arrangements reflected contemporary Russian institutional developments through which the main provincial officials and bodies (governors and gubernia boards) were gradually subordinated by the Ministry of Interior, while the Ministry of Finance gradually built up its own network of local officials using gubernia treasury boards as its basis.146 Along with the formal redistribution of prerogatives in accordance with the principle of the division of administrative functions, the Russian provisional administration took measures to transform the character of public service. The authors of the Statute not only sought to clearly define the functions of each official but also outlined the details of the office’s actual work, schedule, and locations where official transactions were to take place.147 All these measures were supposed to have a “disciplinary” effect on the officials, from the lowest subordinate of the district ispravnik up to ministers. The abolition of remuneration in kind and the increase in official salaries likewise produced this effect.148 The separation of administrative and judicial powers was accompanied by judicial reform. To this end, ministerial instructions to the Committee of Reforms stipulated the formation of courts of first instance with strictly prescribed judicial functions in districts. The instructions also mentioned the possibility of establishing lesser courts in big villages that would be composed of village elders and presided over by village heads (staroste or vornicei) in order to facilitate trials on lesser violations. In order to put an end to the sale of offices and bribes, the instructions suggested making all the judges, including members of the judicial divan and the Logofăts, more per144 Art. 152 of the Wallachian statute, in Negulescu and Alexianu, Regulamentele organice, 72. 145 In compensation for losing control over the ispravniks (later called prefects), the Great Treasurer came to control all tax collection after the abolition of the hospodar’s personal treasury. 146 Orlovsky, The Limits of Reform, 31–32. Yaney, The Systematization of Russian Government, 206, 217–19. 147 Apart from detailed instructions on the fiscal census, the statutes also stipulated the method of keeping the accounts of the treasury. See arts. 133–137 of the Wallachian statute and arts. 110–117 of the Moldavian statute, in Negulescu and Alexianu, Regulamentele organice, 35–37 and 199–200, respectively. 148 A specially appointed commission reduced the number of officials and used the released funds to increase the salary of the rest. See Grosul, Reformy v Dunaiskikh kniazhestvakh, 171.

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manently established in their positions.149 The same effect was to be achieved through the abolition of the notorious principle of retroactive judicial decision, whereby litigation could restart at the beginning of each new reign. In order to secure commercial activities from the interference of state functionaries, the instructions required the formation of commercial tribunals on the European model. Finally, the General Assemblies had to elaborate new civil and penal codes that would provide the basis for the satisfactory functioning of the reformed judiciary.150 In his comments on the chapter of the statutes devoted to the judiciary, Kiselev suggested the division of the whole judicial system into three levels with district tribunals, the judicial divans of Bucharest and Craiova, and the Supreme Divan serving as the courts of the first, second, and third instance, respectively.151 Kiselev was against the special treatment of noble lawbreakers whereby they were sent directly to the Supreme Divan, bypassing the first two courts. In his opinion, the nobility’s greater enlightenment as compared to other groups in the population made the crimes committed by the nobles appear all the more serious.152 The president-plenipotentiary also insisted on following the example of Russia in the abolition of judicial torture and capital punishment that had hitherto been practiced in Moldavia and Wallachia. A reader of Beccaria, Kiselev pointed out that, in order to be effective, punishments had to be moderate and reversible.153 In accordance with ministerial instructions and the observations of the president-plenipotentiary, the Organic Statutes adopted by the Wallachian and Moldavian Assemblies of Revision created tribunals of the first instance in districts that dealt with civil cases and smaller property claims. Their decisions could be appealed at the judicial divans, which constituted appellate courts that also considered larger property claims. In Wallachia, the judicial divan also judged criminal cases, whereas in Moldavia, the latter were placed within the jurisdiction of a special criminal tribunal. Apart from that, the statutes presumed the creation of commercial tribunals—partly appointed by the hospodar, partly elected by merchants—that dealt with commercial dis149 “Instructions,” 41–43. 150 Ibid., 45. 151 Kiselev, “Observations sur le chapitre VIII (L’ordre judiciaire),” AVPRI, f. 331, op. 716/1, d. 3, l. 114. 152 Ibid., l. 119v. 153 Ibid., ll. 120–120v. See art. 355 of the Moldavian statute, which abolished torture in Negulescu and Alexianu, Regulamentele organice, 326.

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putes. Finally, the Supreme Divans constituted courts of last appeal in both principalities. 154 Despite their commitment to the principle of the separation of judicial and administrative powers, the Organic Statutes still contained some vestiges of their overlap. Although Kiselev sought to render judges independent from the hospodar, he feared that complete autonomy would provide corrupt judges with a guarantee of security. As a result, the president-plenipotentiary suggested retaining hospodars’ right to change the composition of the Supreme Divan for the first six years of their reign until the improvement of public mores made the replacement of judges unnecessary.155 Accordingly, the statutes affirmed the three-year service term of judges and left it to the hospodars and General Assemblies to decide on the principle of lifetime appointment of judges in ten years.156 At the local level, the incomplete separation of judicial and administrative powers manifested in the creation of the courts of correctional police that punished petty crimes with imprisonment for a period of up to five days.157 The reorganization of the judiciary resulted in the timelier functioning of courts, although it did not resolve all issues. According to the data provided by the Wallachian assembly in 1834, the courts at all levels considered and passed judgements on 8,970 cases during the reign of Grigore IV Ghica (1822–28) and another 4,500 cases from the moment of the Russian occupation of principalities in April 1828 until September 1831. The new organization of the judiciary permitted the resolution of 21,451 cases in the twenty-six months following October 1, 1831. However, the judicial backlog remained huge, amounting to some 40,622 cases in Wallachia at the end of Russia’s provisional administration in the principalities.158 In the opinion of the Wallachian assembly, many of the legal processes would end on their own if there existed a land cadaster. A quick elimination of this backlog likewise 154 See art. 212–213 of the Wallachian statute and arts. 279–280 of the Moldavian in Negulescu and Alexianu, Regulamentele organice, 105 and 315, respectively. 155 Kiselev, “Observations sur le chapitre VIII (L’ordre judiciaire),” AVPRI, f. 331, op. 716/1, d. 3, l. 115. 156 See art. 215 of the Wallachian statute and arts. 284–285 of the Moldavian statute in Negulescu and Alexianu, Regulamentele organice, 105–106 and 316, respectively. 157 Kiselev, “Observations sur le chapitre VIII (L’ordre judiciaire),” AVPRI, f. 331, op. 716/1, d. 3, l. 119. See also arts. 316–318 of the Wallachian statute and arts. 342–345 of the Moldavian statute in Negulescu and Alexianu, Regulamentele organice, 120 and 324–25, respectively. 158 “Obshchie svedeniia o polozhenii sudilishcha v Valakhii,” RGVIA, f. 438, op. 1, d. 92, ll. 64v–65v.

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depended on the composition of Wallachian legal code that would complement the existing code of hospodar Ioan Caragea from 1818. However, the assembly deemed the latter task impossible to carry out quickly because of the “lack of the requisite number of people with necessary legal knowledge and credentials.”159 Foreign Subjects, Dedicated Monasteries, and Censorship The Russian president-plenipotentiary also had to deal with the issue of sudiți or “foreign subjects,” that is, individuals who enjoyed the protection of foreign consuls and were exempt from the jurisdiction of the Moldavian and Wallachian authorities as well as from many local taxes. This phenomenon had its roots in the regime of capitulations established between the Ottoman Empire and European powers in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, to which Russia was connected by the treaty of Kuchuk-Kainarji. The number of foreign subjects, particularly the Austrian ones, in the principalities began to grow steadily after the creation of foreign consulates in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.160 Already before 1828, the hospodars resisted the extension of the regime of capitulations to the principalities and tried to stop the growth of the number of foreign subjects.161 Thus, in 1824, Ioan Alexandru Sturdza complained to the Porte about the numerous abuses of sudiți who used consular protection to engage in speculation, married rich Moldovan women to become landowners, or used their exemptions from taxes and dues to compete unfairly against native craftsmen and merchants. Eager to prevent the formulation of new plans by etairists, many of whom were foreign subjects, the Ottoman government supported the Moldavian hospodar, who ordered the metropolitan to prohibit marriages between Moldavian women and foreigners. The hospodar also appointed a special boyar commission to review and reduce the lists of foreign subjects in the principalities.162 Initially, Russian consuls offered protection to various individuals on a par with their Western counterparts. Yet, the Russian approach changed after 159 Ibid., ll. 65v–66. 160 Hepper, Austria și Principatele Dunârene. 161 Ionescu-Dolj, “Contribuții la istoria luptei duse de domnitorii români.” 162 See Iorga, “Plăngerea lui Ioan Sturdza.”

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1828. The Russian provisional administration in Moldavia and Wallachia quickly came to view the proliferation of foreign subjects as a problem and took measures to reduce their number. The Russian Foreign Ministry took advantage of the revocation of Austrian consuls from Iași and Bucharest following the outbreak of the war to place some 15,000 families of Austrian subjects under its jurisdiction, whereupon Minchaki proceeded to re-examine their documents and reduce their number to 2,000 or 3,000 families.163 In its efforts to reduce the number of foreign subjects in the principalities, the Russian provisional authorities were aided by several reform-minded boyars. In September 1830, Nicolae Suțu and Grigore Balș complained to the Vice-President Mirkovich about the policies of the Austrian consuls, who took advantage of the weakness of the local administration in Moldavia to appoint agents (staroste) in each district. Without being officially recognized by the Austrian government, these agents “formed a separate counteradministration” in the country. With the help of secretaries and entire chancelleries, Austrian agents enriched themselves by selling, at will, the status of Austrian subjects, which subtracted a growing number inhabitants from Moldavian jurisdiction.164 Soon upon his appointment as president-plenipotentiary, Kiselev came to share Minchaki’s view that the sale of patents by foreign consuls was an abuse that deprived the principalities of a significant part of their economically active population and substantial revenue. He was also mindful of the possibilities for local influence that this practice offered to foreign consuls as exposed by his intelligence agent Liprandi.165 In Kiselev’s opinion, the sup163 As reported by France’s special envoy to the Ottoman Empire, Baron Charles Bois-le-Comte to the French Minister of Foreign Affairs Henri de Rigny, May 10, 1834, in Documente privitoare la istoria românilor, 17:330–31. Originally dispatched to mediate the conflict between Muhammad Ali and the Mahmud II, Bois-le-Comte passed through Wallachia and Moldavia on his way back to Paris in spring 1834 and composed a detailed review of the principalities. 164 Nicolae Suțu and Grigoire Balș, “Mémoire sommaire sur quelques projets de biens publique en Moldavie,” September 5, 1830, AVPRI, f. 331, op. 716/1, d. 3, l. 191. 165 In his review of Moldavia and Wallachia written in 1831, Liprandi specifically decried the growing influence of Austrian agents upon the boyars. The Russian agent argued that whereas twenty years previously, the boyars were oriented towards Russia, now they sought personal protection from the Austrian authorities, bought estates in Transylvania, and sent their children to Austria for education. A number of Moldavian boyars drew handsome revenues from their estates in Bessarabia, which they spent in the principality or deposited in Austrian banks. Liprandi, “Kratkoe obozrenie kniazhestv Moldavii i Valakhii,” in ChIOIDR, no. 4 (1861): 136–37. On Austrian policy toward the principalities during this period, see Sedivy, “From Hostility to Cooperation?” 630–61.

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pression of the regime of protected individuals was an important aspect of the struggle against the influence of other great powers and was essential for the consolidation of Russia’s position in the principalities. It could not have escaped Kiselev’s notice that some of the peasants who mutinied against the military draft in Moldavia in May 1831 claimed exemption from it by virtue of being Hungarian colonists from Transylvania. In order to deprive other great powers of this important instrument of local influence, the presidentplenipotentiary sought to make all foreign subjects residing in the principalities subject to local laws as well as prohibit foreigners from purchasing land or entering a profession without naturalization. The foreign consuls immediately contested the legality of this approach from the point of view of the Ottoman capitulations. Already in February 1830, Nesselrode communicated to Kiselev the demarche of the Austrian envoy to St. Petersburg Count Ficquelmont concerning the alleged infringement of the prospective Organic Statutes on the commercial immunities of Austrian subjects in the principalities.166 Kiselev replied that the statutes did not infringe upon anybody’s rights, but only sought to eliminate abuses. He reported that as many as 6,000 families did not pay any taxes by virtue of Austrian consular protection, and that the Austrian consuls made handsome sums from the sale of patents of protection. Kiselev also pointed out that the preservation of this abusive practice was advantageous for Austrian trade and that the Austrians encouraged boyars to purchase luxury items, which had a pernicious effect on the local economy.167 In his response to Ficquelmont, Nesselrode recognized the rights of Austrian subjects according to the Ottoman–Austrian treaties, but rejected any claims made on the basis of the hrisovs, letters, and patents that recent hospodars granted to the Austrian consuls.168 He also assured the Austrian representative that the reforms prepared by the Russian administration, such as the abolition of the scutelnici, would not infringe on the rights of the Austrian subjects in any way.169 A year later, Ficquelmont defended the right of Austrian subjects to appeal the decisions of the hospodars in Constantinople in accordance with the Austro–Ottoman treaties. The Austrian envoy protested against 166 Nesselrode to Kiselev, February 28, 1830, AVPRI, f. 331, op. 716/1, d. 7, l. 1–2v. 167 Kiselev to Nesselrode, March 27, 1830, AVPRI, f. 331, op. 716/1, d. 7, l. 7–8v. 168 Nesselrode to Kiselev, October 12, 1830, RGIA, f. 958, op. 1, d. 623, l. 65. 169 Nesselrode to Ficquelmont, December 12, 1830, in VPR, 17:216–17.

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the judicial clauses of the Organic Statutes according to which the Supreme Divans represented the court of final appeal.170 Kiselev replied to these accusations with quotations from the statutes that demonstrated that the latter did not infringe in any way on the right of Austrian subjects to appeal decisions made by the Supreme Divans in the Ottoman capital when it was the matter of legal disputes between them.171 At the same time, the presidentplenipotentiary argued that any modifications in the text of the statutes seeking to establish the right of foreign subjects to bring legal suits against Moldavian and Wallachian subjects to Constantinople would be “incompatible with the interests of the Protecting Power” and would “infringe on the privileges guaranteed to these provinces and the independence of their internal administration.”172 In February 1831, the French consul Lagan likewise wrote directly to Kiselev to protest against the equalization of the legal status of French and Wallachian subjects.173 Later, he protested against the billeting of Russian troops in the houses of French subjects and the attempt to impose the requirement to purchase patents on foreign artisans alongside Wallachians.174 Deprived of St. Petersburg’s support, Kiselev had to assure the French representative that he would not take any measures that would contradict existing treaties.175 The responsiveness of the president-plenipotentiary to the concerns of the French consul may have reflected his desire to focus his efforts on Austrian subjects, who were particularly numerous in the principalities. If this is correct, this strategy failed since soon thereafter the French, British, and Austrian consuls joined forces to defend their subjects’ right to appeal directly to the Porte in any legal conflict between them and Moldavian and Wallachian subjects or authorities.176 In their defense of the immunities of foreign subjects under the Ottoman capitulations, the consuls of the European powers expected to be supported 170 Nesselrode to Kiselev, October 3, 1831, AVPRI, f. 331, op. 716/1, d. 7, ll. 268–269v. 171 Kiselev to Nesselrode, November 26, 1831, AVPRI, f. 331, op. 716/1, d. 7, l. 273v. 172 Ibid., ll. 274–274v. 173 See Lagan to Sebastiani, February 21, 1831, in Documente privitoare la istoria românilor, 17:245. 174 Lagan to Kiselev, May 18, 1832, in Documente privitoare la istoria românilor, 17:277. 175 Lagan to Sebastiani, November 25, 1831, and the director of Kiselev’s chancellery Karneev to Lagan, May 1832, in Documente privitoare la istoria românilor, 17:258 and 278, respectively. 176 Lagan to Sebastiani, December 26, 1831 and May 31, 1832 in Documente privitoare la istoria românilor, 17:260 and 278–79, respectively.

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by the Ottoman government. They argued that the respect of such immunities in Moldavia and Wallachia represented the only remaining link between the principalities and the Ottoman Empire in the wake of the Treaty of Adrianople.177 The foreign consuls implied that the preservation of the extraterritoriality of the foreign economic agents was in the best interest of the Ottoman Empire and that it was under Russian attack. The Russian threat allowed Western diplomats to affirm a principle that became an important instrument of Western colonialism in Asia during the nineteenth century. For its part, the Russian Foreign Ministry proved ready to give up certain aspects of extraterritoriality of Russian subjects in the principalities, compensated as it was by the possibility of direct influence on the hospodars and the Assemblies accorded to Russian consuls by the Organic Statutes. Much to the annoyance of the European agents, the Russian consulate reminded Russian subjects in the principalities of the prohibition on real estate purchases, a ban all foreign subjects had routinely ignored until then.178 Whereas Kiselev’s tensions with the Austrians were caused by his efforts to reduce the number of foreign subjects in the principalities, his conflict with the British consul E.L. Blutte centered on the issue of free trade. As has been noted above, the Treaty of Adrianople abolished the Ottoman commercial monopoly in Moldavia and Wallachia and accorded to the inhabitants of the principalities “complete freedom of commerce for all the products of their land and industry without any restrictions, except for those that the hospodars, in concert with the divans, would find necessary to impose for the provisioning of the country.”179 In accordance with these principles, the Organic Statutes prescribed the formation of grain deposits in case of famine.180 The implementation of this measure led to a major clash between Kiselev and Blutte, who represented the interests of the Ionian merchants involved in grain export.181 In early 1832, the British consul protested the 177 See Lagan to Sebastiani, May 31, 1832, and Lagan to Broglie, Febraury 21, 1833, in Documente privitoare la istoria românilor, 17:278–79 and 287, respectively. 178 Lagan to Sebastiani, June 28, 1832, in Documente privitoare la istoria românilor, 17:280. 179 See the separate act on Moldavia and Wallachia in VPR, ser 2, 8:272. For the corresponding stipulations of ministerial instructions to the Committee of Reforms, see, “Instructions,” 35–36. 180 See arts. 154, 166–173, of the Wallachian statute and arts. 148, 159–160 of the Moldavian statute in Negulescu and Alexianu, Regulamentele organice, 75–77 and 272–74, respectively. 181 The conflict with Blutte over the grain trade was but the first in a series of tensions that developed between Russia and Great Britain over commerce on the lower Danube. The Russian minister of Finance Egor Kankrin foresaw as early as 1829 that the abolition of the Ottoman trade monopoly in the princi-

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arrest of several Ionian merchants and the seizure of their merchandise by the Russian authorities in Galați for the supposed violation of the Organic Statutes’ clauses on grain deposits. During a personal meeting with Blutte on April 8, 1832, Kiselev accused him of supporting the oppositional attitudes of the boyars, after which the British consul left the country and filed a complaint about Kiselev’s actions with the British ambassadors in Vienna and St. Petersburg. The British and the Russian governments adopted a conciliatory posture: the British ambassador in St. Petersburg, Lord Ponsonby, reprimanded Blutte for his unauthorized departure, while Nesselrode reminded Kiselev of the necessity to respect the rights of foreign subjects.182 Kiselev’s conflict with the foreign consuls resulted from his effort to extricate the principalities from the regime of capitulations, which he believed to be in Russia’s best interest. In doing so, he defended the principle of territorial sovereignty that was inherent in the logic of the well-ordered police state, but which was fundamentally incompatible with the de facto extraterritoriality of foreign subjects defended by the British, Austrian, and French consuls. Inasmuch as territorial sovereignty was an important corollary of modern statehood, Kiselev emerged in this episode as an inadvertent contributor to Romanian nation-state building: some fifty years later, Romania’s proclamation of independence will put a definitive end to the regime of capitulations. However, Kiselev’s defense of the principle of territorial sovereignty in the principalities found its limits in Nicholas I’s and Nesselrode’s Eastern policy which, it will be remembered, aimed to preserve the Ottoman Empire as a convenient weak neighbor rather than break it up into a collection of small nation-states. As a result, the practical policies of the Russian provisional administration in 1828–34 struck a delicate balance between efforts to reduce the influence of the Porte and Western powers in the principalities and the desire to maintain the political status quo in the East. This meant palities would make them, with time, Russia’s competitors on the European grain market. See Grosul, Reformy v Dunaiskikh kniazhestvakh, 222–23. Russian authorities realized this fact in the late 1830s and since then and until the Crimean war, used the quarantines in the Danubian delta (that became part of the Russian Empire in 1829) in order to give Odessa an advantage as a grain entrepot in comparison with Galați and Brăilă. This, in turn, led to the discussion of the issue in the British parliament and to the protests of the British Foreign Office to the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. This conflict contributed to the growth of Russophobic attitudes in Great Britain in the decades prior to the Crimean war. See Florescu, “Les Incidents de Sulina,” 38–46; Ardeleanu, Evoluţia intereselor, 33–64. 182 Florescu, Essays on Romanian History, 212–13.

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that Russian defense of the principle of territorial sovereignty of Moldavia and Wallachia did not move beyond certain limits. These limits become evident in Kiselev’s treatment of the question of the so-called “dedicated monasteries.” The earlier efforts of Exarch Gavriil to stop the abuses of the Greek hegumens and eventually replace them with native abbots came to naught after the Peace of Bucharest and the return of Moldavia and Wallachia to the Ottoman Empire. Eight years later, a surge of anti-Greek sentiment in the wake of the Etaireia uprising allowed the first native hospodars to convince the Porte to transfer control of the “dedicated monasteries” to them. Although the revenues of such monasteries had to be equally divided between the principal monasteries, the public treasury, and the needs of the dedicated monasteries themselves, in practice their rapacious exploitation continued because the hospodars pocketed all the funds that were supposed to secure the restoration and maintenance of the monasteries. In the wake of the Convention of Akkerman, the “dedicated monasteries” returned to the control of the Greek hegumens, although neither the convention itself nor the Separate Act on Moldavia and Wallachia that accompanied it contained any stipulations to this effect.183 The Moldavian and Wallachian boyars were certainly in favor of extracting the monasteries from the Greek control,184 yet Kiselev also had to take into consideration the interests of the Eastern patriarchates, particularly since Russia’s relations with them were again becoming quite close after their neartotal estrangement in the late eighteenth and the early nineteenth century.185 As a result, the president-plenipotentiary foiled the attempt of the members of the Special Committee for the Elaboration of the Statutes to create a legal loophole for the eventual abolition of Eastern Orthodox Churches’ control over the dedicated monasteries.186 Instead, Kiselev established a special committee composed of boyars, members of the native clergy, and representatives of the “Greek churches” charged with the elimination of abuses in the administration of the “dedicated monasteries” and the more equitable dis183 As is clear from Mihai Sturdza’s memorandum on the subject of the “dedicated monasteries” written in 1827. See Documente privitoare la istoria românilor, supp. 1, 5:13–14. 184 Ibid. 185 See Kapterev, “Snosheniia Rossii.” 186 Ungureanu, “Elaborarea Regulamentului Organic,” in Bădărău and Vitcu, Regulamentul Organic al Moldovei, 111.

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tribution of their revenues.187 In accordance with Kiselev’s observations, the Organic Statutes obliged the monasteries to contribute one-fourth of their revenues to local charity organizations. The commission had to ascertain the revenues of the monasteries in order to establish the precise sum of their contribution to welfare institutions.188 However, the issue was still unresolved when the Russians evacuated the principalities in 1834 and remained so for decades. As late as 1851, Barbu Stirbei, who by then had become the hospodar of Wallachia, asked Kiselev for assistance in securing the quarter of the revenues of the monastery properties intended for the Wallachian welfare budget.189 The “dedicated monasteries” remained an important source of revenue for the Eastern patriarchates until the 1860s, when the Romanian government finally nationalized them.190 *** Kiselev’s clash with the British consul and the concerted opposition of other Western diplomatic agents to his efforts to eliminate the principle of extra­ territoriality of foreign subjects demonstrated how contested Russia’s position in Moldavia and Wallachia remained, despite the reaffirmation of its formal protectorate in the principalities. It led the president-plenipotentiary to conceptualize the reformed Moldavian and Wallachian institutions as the means of “guarding the southern provinces [of the Russian Empire] from the pernicious influence of disorder and anarchy caused by a vicious regime in the principalities.”191 He argued for the necessity of conditioning the appointment of new hospodars on their obligation to “supervise the public press and the importation and sale of foreign newspapers, which in view of the geographical situation of the principalities, can become a source of disorders not only for these countries, but also for the neighboring provinces” of the Russian Empire.192 187 See the decision of the Wallachian Extraordinary Assembly of Revision on the creation of the commission and its composition on April 2, 1831 in Analele parlamentare 1, part 1, 583–83. 188 See “Exposé des modifications adoptées aux chapitres I–V and VIII–IX du Réglement par la section Moldave du Comité,” AVPRI, f. 331, op. 716/1, d. 14, l. 95 and art. 363 of the Wallachian statute in Negulescu and Alexianu, Regulamentele organice, 127–28. 189 Stirbei to Kiselev, February 16, 1851, Bucharest, RGIA, f. 958, op. 1, d. 593, ll. 1–2. 190 See Iordachi, “From Imperial Entanglements to National Disentanglement,” 135–37. 191 Kiselev to Nesselrode, March 8, 1832, in Zablotskii-Desiatovskii, Graf Kiselev, 4:69. 192 Kiselev to Butenev, April 2, 1832, in Zablotskii-Desiatovskii, Graf Kiselev, 4:72–73; Documente privitoare la istoria românilor, supl. 1, 4:96–98.

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The measures Kiselev took to combat political subversion in the principalities had some local precedents. The legal code of Moldavian hospodar Scarlat Callimachi adopted in 1818 prohibited the formation of secret societies.193 In 1823, after a failed attempt by the former etairists, Serbians, and arnăuţi to start a new anti-Ottoman uprising, the Moldavian divan addressed hopsodar Ioan Alexandru Sturdza with a request to expel all the Greeks from the country. The divan also proposed instituting censorship and temporarily prohibiting all private correspondence with other countries.194 Apart from the persecution of the oppositional boyars, the 1820s witnessed the appearance of repressive measures against the emerging “public,” which presented the principalities’ rulers with a completely new type of political opposition. Whereas earlier political opposition took the form of rival boyar clans, the post-1821 period was characterized by the gradual emergence of the public sphere. This nascent sphere included a large number of non-noble elements who took advantage of new forms of sociability, such as coffeehouses where patrons discussed political events. Fearing possible political implications, Wallachian hospodar Grigore Ghica ordered the closure of the coffeehouse in Bucharest owned by the British subject Ștefan Sagiadino. In 1824, the government also prohibited the distribution and reading of newspapers in taverns and coffeehouses.195 Kiselev used the publication of the first Romanian-language periodicals as the pretext for the introduction of press censorship.196 In 1829, Kiselev’s predecessor Zheltukhin approved requests from Ion Heliade-Rădulescu and Gheorghe Asachi to found the journals Curierul Românesc (in Wallachia) and Albina Românească (in Moldavia).197 At the end of 1831, Kiselev called on the Moldavian Board of Schools (Epitropia şcolilor) to censor the Moldavian periodical.198 The next year, censorship of the two journals was transferred to the Administrative Councils. The goal of censorship, in Kiselev’s estimation, was to avoid “mistakes and false interpretations” of the official news, which would provide an opportunity for “ill-intentioned individuals” to pursue 193 Georgescu, Ideile politice, 134. 194 Iordache, Principatele Române în epocă modernă, 199. 195 Georgescu, Din corespondenţa diplomatică, 44. 196 On the institution of censorship, see Radu R. Rosetti, “Despre cenzura în Moldova.” 197 See Asachi to Minchaki, February 20, 1829 and Mirkovich to Asachi, April 7, 1829, Uricarul, 8:103–6. 198 Secretary of State (Postelnic) Nicolae Canta to Asachi, January 15, 1832, Uricarul, 8:201.

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their projects. All official publications of an administrative or judicial character had to be approved by the head of the Department of Internal Affairs and the Minister of Justice, respectively. In order to provide readers with news from abroad, the editors of Curierul Românesc and Albina Românească were allowed to use the materials from the newspapers of St. Petersburg and Odessa, as well as content from Oesterreichische Beobachter and Staatliche Gazette von Preussen.199 These measures were accompanied by control over the importation of books and the supervision of local presses. Back in 1829, A.I. MikhailovskiiDanilevskii could still purchase European books that were prohibited in Russia at a Bucharest bookstore.200 To put an end to this situation, Kiselev authorized the Administrative Councils to prohibit the importation of foreign books that “professed ideas contrary to the principles of religion and morality and were subversive of public order.”201 It is noteworthy that the Administrative Councils tried to attenuate the rigor of Kiselev’s orders with respect to foreign literature. According to the proposal of the Moldavian Administrative Council of March 24, 1832, the sale of foreign literature was to remain free, and the secretary of state (Postelnic) was empowered to censor all foreign publications in Romanian accessible to the wider public. However, Kiselev insisted that the principles of freedom of commerce could not be fully applied to the sale of “dangerous books.”202 In December 1832, the Russian ambassador to Vienna, S.S. Tatishchev, informed Kiselev about the dispatch of revolutionary literature from Paris to the Bucharest book dealer Thierry. Among other things, the books sent to Thierry contained the biography of Antoni Jan Ostrowski, one of the leaders of Polish revolutionaries in 1830–31. This, according to Tatishchev, suggested the involvement of the Polish Revolutionary Committee in Paris.203 Kiselev reacted to this news by requesting the list of officially prohibited revolutionary publications from St. Petersburg and ordered the creation of Wallachian and Moldavian Censorship Committees headed by State Secretaries Barbu 199 Kiselev to the Administrative Councils of Moldavia and Wallachia, March 14, 1832, AVPRI, f. 331, op. 716/1, d. 17, ll. 2–3v. By the last, Kiselev must have meant the Allgemeine Preußische Staats-Zeitung. 200 Mikhailovskii-Danilevskii, “Zapiski,” 191. 201 Kiselev to Administrative Councils of Moldavia and Wallachia, AVPRI, f. 331, op. 716/1, d. 17, ll. 3–3v. 202 Rosetti, “Despre cenzura în Moldova,” 307. 203 Tatishchev to Kiselev, December 21, 1832, 1833, AVPRI, f. 331, op 716/1, d. 17, ll. 8–8v.

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Ştirbei and Nicolae Suţu, respectively. The latter were empowered to inspect the accounts of foreign book deliveries at the custom houses and demand that all libraries and booksellers submit their catalogues of foreign books.204 Special fines were introduced for the owners of book stores that sold unauthorized literature.205 Later on, the functions of these ad hoc Censorship Committees were transferred to the newly created office of inspector. His competence, however, did not include spiritual literature, which remained under the control of the metropolitan’s office. Nevertheless, despite the apparent rigor of these measures, the censorship of foreign books remained relatively lenient, especially for books privately imported by the great boyars.206 Kiselev’s measures with respect to press censorship reveal a significant reconceptualization of the role of the Organic Statutes that reflected the predicament of the Russian Empire in the early 1830s. New revolutionary upheaval in Western Europe in 1830 echoed in the Polish November uprising of that year, and this animated boyar opposition to the Organic Statutes over the course of 1831. At the same time, the revolution in Paris resulted in a Franco–British rapprochement that translated into, among other things, the concerted efforts of British and French diplomacy to roll back Russia’s recent acquisitions in the East. In this context, Russian policy makers no longer viewed the Organic Statutes solely as a means to minimize the Ottoman presence north of the Danube and to turn Moldavia and Wallachia into a powerbase for future Russian operations against the Ottoman army. Now the principalities were also supposed to serve as the bulwark against subversive political tendencies that originated in the West. This change in priorities did not constitute a deviation from the principles of the well-ordered police state, which informed the elaboration of the Organic Statutes and the public welfare measures of the Russian provisional administration analyzed in this chapter. Instead, it reflected the general transformation that the Polizeistaat underwent at the turn of the nineteenth century under the influence of the French revolution and subsequent revolutionary upheavals. As the absolutist rulers of Central and Eastern Europe increasingly found their authority challenged by liberals and radicals, population management and administrative disciplining—the two basic elements 204 Rosetti, “Despre cenzura în Moldova,” 302–3, 307. 205 Ibid., 307. 206 Ibid., 311.

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of the eighteenth-century well-ordered police state—were supplemented with political police, the goal of which was to fight against secret societies and subversive ideas.207 The creation of the notorious Third Section in Russia in 1826, like the earlier establishment of the political police in Austria and Prussia, signified the transformation of the early modern Polizeistaat into a police state in the modern (and largely pejorative) sense of the term.208 These concurrent attempts of Russian diplomats to use the Organic Statutes to counteract subversive ideas and activities in the principalities are discussed in the next chapter.

207 On this transformation in the character of the Habsburg Polizeistaat, see Bernard, From Enlightenment to Police State. See also Emerson, Metternich and the Political Police. 208 On the Third Section, see Monas, The Third Section.

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Russian Policies in Moldavia and Wa l lachia A fter 1834

T

he Russian occupation of the principalities came to an end with the conclusion of the Convention of St. Petersburg, which was signed by Nesselrode and a representative of the Ottoman Empire, Fethi Ahmet Pasha, on January 17, 1834.1 In accordance with this agreement, the Ottoman government issued a hatt-i sherif confirming the statutes as well as the modifications introduced into them in 1832 and 1833.2 It was also formally decided that the Porte would appoint the hospodars from the lists of several candidates selected by Kiselev and handed to Ahmet Pasha during his journey through Iaşi on February 25, 1834. Kiselev and Nesselrode had already discussed the possible candidates for the Moldavian and Wallachian thrones in 1830. This was before the affair of Sion forced the vice-chancellor to forgo convening the Extraordinary Assemblies for Election as outlined by the Organic Statutes and instead allow the Porte to choose the first hospodars from among the individuals shortlisted by Russia. Kiselev initially favored Grigore Sturdza in Moldavia and Iordache Filipescu in Wallachia.3 He also mentioned Alexandru Ghica (in Moldavia) and Grigore Brâncoveanu (in 1 See art. 2 of the Convention of St. Petersburg, in Noradounghian, Recueil d’actes internationaux, 2:233–34. 2 The text of the hatt-i sherif is published in Documente privitoare la istoria românilor, 17:475–78. 3 Vice president of the Moldavian Divan Mirkovich characterized Grigore Sturdza as “The most honorable of all Moldavian boyars, who enjoys universal respect. Having served as a great vistier and great logofăt under hospodar Scarlat Callimachi, he distinguished himself by disinterestedness. His advanced age and weakness forced him to lead a reclusive life and make his mind and knowledge useless for state service.” “Svedeniia o dostoinstvakh i sposobnostiakh nekotorykh pervoklasnykh boiar,” in Mirkovich and Mirkovich, Fedor Mirkovich, 2:201.

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Wallachia), but characterized both of them as the pro-Austrian.4 Nesselrode found that the qualities of the main candidates communicated by Kiselev “hardly recommended them,” but he did not expressly reject any of them.5 Kiselev raised the issue again in April 1832, when he wrote to Butenev that the two principal candidates to the Wallachian throne, former prince Grigore Ghica and Grigore Brâncoveanu, as well as all the Moldavian candidates “held rather suspicious attitudes toward the Organic Statutes.” It was therefore imperative to condition the appointment of the hospodars on their formal pledge to respect the statutes as well as any subsequent modifications pertaining to lord-peasant relations that the president-plenipotentiary was about to introduce (see chapter six). The prospective hospodars also had to accept all the civil and military promotions the Russian provisional administration awarded to its loyal and zealous servants among the boyars, and maintain all current officials in their posts for several years. Finally, the hospodars had to agree to surveil the press and the sale of foreign books and periodicals which, “given the geographical situation of the principalities, could become a source of disorder and perturbations not only for them, but also for the neighboring provinces.”6 By early 1834, the list of potential candidates to the thrones of the principalities had changed somewhat. In Wallachia, alongside candidates from the older generation, such as former hospodar Grigore Ghica, Grigore Brâncoveanu, and Iordache Filipescu, the potential candidates now included the younger boyars who performed important public functions under the Russian provisional administration. In this group were the brothers Gheorghe Bibescu and Barbu Știrbei and the younger half-bother of the former hospo4 Kiselev’s opinion of Brâncoveanu could have been informed by Minchaki’s evaluation of him as “an educated and experienced person, but weak, letting his wife and his retinue govern him. Despite having a reputation as the richest proprietor of Wallachia, he is still greedy and as a result, little loved by the majority of his compatriots. He is also blamed for being predisposed in favor of Austria which had given his ancestor the princely title and a domain in Transylvania in return for his devotion and services.” “Podrobnoe obozrenie kniazhestv,” RGVIA. F. 438. Op. 1, d. 111, l. 36v. Kiselev’s opinion of the Moldavian hatman Alexandru Ghica could have been informed by Mirkovich. The latter characterized Ghica as “the enemy of abuses,” who “enjoyed the love of the people and respect for his wellknown honesty.” At the same time, Ghica proved to be “inefficient and careless in the conduct of official business and was ultimately removed from the executive divan for evident opposition to the orders of our government, to which he is not loyal because of his total adherence to the pro-Austrian party.” Mirkovich and Mirkovich, Fedor Mirkovich, 2:206. 5 See Nesselrode to Kiselev, November 27, 1830, in VPR, 17:177 and 180n4. 6 Kiselev to Butenev, April 2, 1832, in Zablotskii-Desiatovskii, Graf Kiselev, 4:72–73.

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Fig. 1v. Auguste Raffet (1804–1860): The Wallachian General Assembly of the Boyars ( July 15, 1837) (engraving, 1837)

dar, the Great Spătar Alexandru Ghica, who commanded the newly created Wallachian militia and was a favorite of Kiselev.7 On his passage through Bucharest in March 1834, Fethi Ahmet Pasha was lodged and entertained in the house of Alexandru Ghica’s brother Mihai, which helps explain why the Porte approved his candidacy the following April. The choice of someone who was not yet forty certainly upset the older boyars, who unsuccessfully petitioned in favor of former hospodar Grigore Ghica.8 As a result, the young hospodar soon encountered strong opposition in the assembly (see below). In Moldavia, older candidates like Grigore Sturdza and Alexandru Ghica had to yield to Mihai Sturdza, who used his long-established relations with the Russian Foreign Ministry and his position as the Great Vistier to court the favor of both the Protecting and the Sovereign Powers. To secure his confirmation by the Porte, Sturdza had his mistress Smaranda Balș hand over 7 Minchaki characterized Wallachian spătar Alexandru Ghica as a young man “without much intellect, yet with some education” who “in the course of his service has acquired a reputation of integrity which is uncommon in this country.” “Podroboe obozrenie kniazhestv,” RGVIA. F. 438. Op. 1, d. 111, l. 35. Wallachian spătar Alexandru Ghica should not be confused with the Moldavian hatman Alexandru Ghica mentioned above. 8 See the reports of the Prussian consul in Bucharest Constantin Sakellario to the Prussian ambassador in Constantinople Karl von Martens on March 14 and 28, 1834, in Documente privitoare la istoria românilor, 10:460–62.

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all her money and jewels. However, after all the bribes were paid, Sturdza had to fulfill one last condition, namely, he had to marry the daughter of the Porte’s key Christian official: the prince of Samos and former caimacam of Moldavia Ștefan Vogoride.9 Unable to obtain the Moldavian throne for himself, Vogoride managed to convince Mahmud II to appoint him Moldavia’s official representative (capuchehaia) in Constantinople; Vogoride also postponed Sturdza’s appointment until the latter married his daughter, which the Moldavian boyar did to the understandable consternation of his mistress.10 Among other things, the example of Vogoride demonstrates that, despite the definitive return to native rule, Phanariot influence in the principalities was not over. Whereas Vogoride became the Moldavian capuchehaia, his counterpart for Wallachia was Nikolaos Aristarchis, the Grand Logothete of the Constantinople patriarchate. Another important figure in the principalities with Phanariot origins was the son of the former hospodar of Wallachia Alexandru Suțu Nicolae, who became Great Postelnic of Moldavia and Mihai Sturdza’s closest associate.11 Finally, the list of prominent Greeks in the principalities includes Nikolai Mavros, the son of the Great Hatman of Moldavia Gheorghe Mavros who entered Russian service in 1828. In 1831, Kiselev appointed Nikolai Mavros the director of the Danubian quarantine—a post which he would retain for two decades. These individuals became the object of anti-Phanariot sentiment that continued to animate the Moldavian and Wallachian boyar class in the decades to come.12 Summoned to Constantinople, Mihai Sturdza and Alexandru Ghica received the sultan’s investiture on May 19, 1834, a month after Kiselev handed his duties over to Vice President of the Divans General F.Ia. Mirkovich and left Iași accompanied by crowds of respectful Moldavians.13 The Russian Foreign On Vogoride, see Philliou, Biography of an Empire. Rosetti, Amintiri, 164–66. On Nicolae Suțu, see Suțu, Mémoires. For boyar discontent at the appointment of the Greek capuchehaie, see Sakellario to Martens, April 25, 1834, in Documente privitoare la istoria românilor, 10:462–63. On the perpetuation of the antiGreek sentiment after 1834, see Iordachi, “From Imperial Entanglements to National Disentanglement,” 130–31. 13 See the account of Kiselev’s departure in [Piccolos], Paul Kisseleff; and Mirkovich and Mirkovich, F ­ edor Mirkovich, 1:57. In accordance with Kiselev’s suggestion, Russia maintained a garrison force at Silistria and along the road for two more years until the payment of the reduced military contribution by the Porte. See “Projet sur la question à savoir: quel serait dans l’état actuel des choses le parti, qu’il faudrait prendre à l’égard des principautés,” Zablotskii-Desiatovskii, Graf Kiselev, 4:97–98.

9 10 11 12

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Ministry expected the newly appointed hospodars to be obedient agents in its struggle with revolutionary subversion. In his first message to Sturdza, the Russian consul general Minchaki admonished him to take note of “anything that might indicate a certain tendency among the young people to become captivated by liberal ideas” and “eliminate the spirit of innovation and trouble that could manifest itself in unripe minds.” In order to achieve this effect, the hospodars had to “organize the education of the youth in the spirit of moderation,” “keep the articles published in the Bucharest and Iaşi newspapers within prescribed limits,” and enforce “the rules of censorship established by the president-plenipotentiary.” Finally, the hospodars were supposed to “avoid welcoming worthless people who seek to penetrate the provinces in order to create trouble and compromise the tranquility of our neighboring provinces.”14 Exactly fourteen years later, “the spirit of innovation and trouble” manifested itself in the form of the Wallachian revolution. In June 1848, the young people “captivated by liberal ideas” managed to rally the population of Bucharest, topple the hospodar, and establish a revolutionary government that proclaimed national independence and abolished the Organic Statute.15 Although the Wallachian revolution was suppressed by Ottoman and Russian troops three months later, the events of 1848 demonstrated the failure of the Organic Statutes as a tool of anti-revolutionary policies. In the years that followed, Wallachian revolutionary émigrés lobbied European governments and public opinion to support the idea of the emancipation of the principalities from Russian control and their unification into a Romanian nation-state.16 Russia and the Problem of Unification of the Principalities In their accounts of the political developments of the 1820s, 1830s, and 1840s, modern Romanian historians emphasized the unpopularity of Russian policies and stressed Russia’s refusal to sanction the unification of Moldavia and Wallachia in 1829, despite the supposedly universal desire of Moldavians and Wallachians to form a single state.17 This argument is based on the reports of 14 15 16 17

Minchaki to Mihai Sturdza, July 28, 1834, in Documente privitoare la istoria românilor, supp. 1, 5:66. “Proclamațiune și programul revoluționar,” June 9, 1848, in Bodea, 1848 la Români, 1:537–41. On their activities, see Jianu, A Circle of Friends. See Iordache, Principatele Române în epocă modernă; Platon, Moldova şi inceputurile revoluţiei, 72–87.

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French diplomats and, in particular, Baron Charles de Bois-le-Comte, who in 1832–33 helped mediate the conflict between Mahmud II and Muhammad Ali and later became the French ambassador in Constantinople.18 According to Bois-le-Comte, the Russian Foreign Ministry’s instructions on the desirability of a rapprochement between Moldavia and Wallachia led one of the members of the Moldavian Committee of Reform, Iordache Catargi to propose a union of the two provinces under a single government. Agreed to by the entire committee, Catargi’s proposal was approved by Kiselev and Minchaki and communicated to the Russian Foreign Ministry. The latter invited the committee to elaborate a plan for such a unification that would have to be approved by the Russian government and the boyar assemblies.19 According to Bois-le-Comte, the Russian government abandoned the project after Catargi suggested that the formula adopted by the great powers with respect to Greece in 1829–30 could serve as a template: place the united principalities under the rule of a prince unrelated to any of the three neighboring empires. Intended to “eliminate any jealousies” between the great powers, Catargi’s proposal supposedly made Russia fear the hostile intentions on the part of the boyars. Alternatively, Bois-le-Comte attributed the Russian refusal to pursue the project to the personal ambitions of Kiselev, to whom other Russian generals ascribed the desire to follow the example of Napoleon’s marshal Bernadotte and become the ruler of the principalities.20 The French authors of the 1850s fleshed out Bois-le-Comte’s story and attributed Russia’s initial interest in the project of unification—as well as its subsequent abandonment—to the desire of the Russian court to place a Romanov Grand Duke on the Moldovalachian throne, which Catargi’s formula would have rendered impossible. The French authors also treated this episode as a manifestation of Russia’s early hostility to the project of Romanian national independence, a point that was readily picked up by later Romanian historians.21 18 During his inspection tour around European Turkey, Bois-le-Comte visited Moldavia and Wallachia in May 1834, shortly after Kiselev’s departure from the principalities and the appointment of the new hospodars. 19 Bois-le-Comte to the French Foreign Minister Henri de Rigny, May 17, 1834, in Documente privitoare la istoria românilor, 17:394. 20 Ibid. The British consul L.E. Blutte similarly alleged that Kiselev had princely ambitions. See Bitis, Russia and the Eastern Question, 448. 21 Girardin, Souvenirs des voyages, 302; Regnaut, Histoire politique et sociale, 181–82; Chopin and Ubicini, Provinces Danubiennes, 148.

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The only true element in the story told by Bois-le-Comte, the French publicists of the 1850s, and Romanian historians is that the Russian diplomats indeed floated the possibility of the unification of Moldavia and Wallachia before the Moldavian and Wallachian boyars expressed their interest in the same idea. The famous “Greek project” of Catherine the Great called for the unification of Moldavia and Wallachia into the state of Dacia under a hereditary Christian prince. The new state had to remain “entirely independent,” never to be annexed by either Austria or Russia, who would instead protect it from subjugation by any other power.22 Two decades later, the Russian consul general in Moldavia V.F. Malinovskii, came forward with the idea of a federation of Moldavia, Wallachia, and Transylvania that was part of his broader plan for restructuring Southeastern and Central Europe along national lines.23 On the eve of Stroganov’s appointment as the Russian envoy to Constantinople in 1816, Kapodistrias proposed that tsar Alexander I place the principalities under the rule of German princes. In March 1828, he likewise advised the Russian Foreign Ministry to turn Moldavia and Wallachia into a Dacian kingdom under the rule of a single German prince (see chapter four). In the late 1820s, the possibility of Moldavian and Wallachian unification was also raised by D.V. Dashkov and A.S. Sturdza. In his review of Russia’s influence over the principalities on the eve of the Convention of Akkerman in 1826, Dashkov mentioned this possibility in the event of a new Russian– Ottoman war and the Russian occupation of the principalities (see chapter three). At the same time, Dashkov did not mention it in the ministerial instructions to the Russian negotiators at Adrianople he wrote in spring 1829. His memorandum on Russia’s Eastern Policy, which he prepared for the Special Committee on Eastern Affairs in September 1829, referred to the replacement of the Ottoman Empire in Europe with a series of Christian states as a question of distant future. For his part, A.S. Sturdza expressed support for the unification of Moldavia and Wallachia under a foreign prince (probably under the influence of Kapodistrias) in his correspondence with Dashkov in the summer of 1828 (see chapter four). However, this proposal entered neither Sturdza’s 1828 “Plan for a Constitution for Moldavia and Wallachia,” nor his 22 Catherine II to Joseph II, September 10, 1782, Russkii arkhiv, kn. 1 (1880): 289. 23 This plan constituted the third (unpublished) part of Malinovskii’s “Considerations on War and Peace” (1803). See Dostian, Russkaia obshchestvennaia mysl’, 62.

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draft of the Moldavian and Wallachian statutes of May 1829. All of this means that the Russian Foreign Ministry rejected the idea of the transformation of Moldavia and Wallachia into a single state on the basis of what later became known as “the Greek model” before the formation of the Special Committee for Reform, before the conclusion of the Treaty of Adrianople, and before Kiselev’s appointment as president-plenipotentiary of the divans. This decision is explained by the overall direction of Russia’s Eastern policy in the late 1820s and the early 1830s. The application of the “Greek formula” to the principalities would have necessarily compromised the integrity of the Ottoman Empire, the benefits of which were clearly formulated by Dashkov in his instructions for the Adrianople negotiations and in his memorandum that informed the decision of the Special Committee on Eastern Affairs from early September 1829. Nor was “the Greek formula” practicable given the ongoing tributary relations between the principalities and the Ottoman Empire.24 The prospect of becoming a vassal of the sultan, even if purely nominal, greatly dampened the enthusiasm of the small European dynasties as late as 1866, when the Romanian elites overthrew the first hospodar of the United Principalities Alexandu Ioan Cuza and looked for a foreign prince. Even more ridiculous was the idea of placing a representative of the Romanovs or even one of their German relatives such as Prince Oldenburg (as the members of the Committee of Reform had allegedly intended) on the Moldovalachian throne.25 Bois-le-Comte’s attempt to attribute the Russian rejection of unification to Kiselev’s princely ambitions frustrated by Catargi’s proposal does not look credible either. In 1831, the president-plenipotentiary turned down the Wallachian Assembly’s offer of the honorary citizenship, which would make possible his election as hospodar. At the same time, the Russian diplomats stood behind the legal administrative rapprochement of Moldavia and Wallachia. In his proposal for the future peace treaty written in March 1828, A.S. Sturdza expressed the idea of “federative pact” between Moldavia and Wallachia that would introduce the principle of reciprocal naturalization (droit reciproque d’ indigenat).26 24 By contrast, Greece was proclaimed independent from the Ottoman Empire by the London Protocol of February 1830. 25 According to Saint-Marc Girardin, Souvenirs des voyages, 202. 26 See “Canevas du traité du paix Russe,” March 1828, RGIA, f. 1630, op. 1, d. 211, l. 4v.

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Sturdza developed this principle in a proposal for a special convention on Moldavia and Wallachia, which he submitted to Nesselrode in May 1829, when the Russian Foreign Ministry was preparing instructions for the peace negotiations with the Ottomans. The proposed convention allowed for the double election of the same individual as hospodar of both principalities.27 Some three decades later, this formula was adopted by the Convention of Paris in the wake of the Crimean war, which allowed for the effective unification of Moldavia and Wallachia through the double election of Alexandru Ioan Cuza. Although these stipulations did not end up in the Treaty of Adrianople, the Russian Foreign Ministry found some benefits in A.S. Sturdza’s idea of legal rapprochement between the two principalities. The ministerial instructions to the Committee of Reform written by Dashkov called on the Assemblies of Revision to adopt the principle of double citizenship (cobourgoisie) to allow the inhabitants of one principality to possess property and seek public appointment in the other. The two governments were to conclude conventions for the joint maintenance of quarantines and border security, the extradition of criminals, customs, and currency rates. All these measures were to eliminate ill will in the relationship between Moldavia and Wallachia and bring closer together the two peoples, “whose identity in religion, origin, and the current situation must keep them united in all circumstances.”28 The Russian Foreign Ministry’s interest in a legal-administrative rapprochement between Moldavia and Wallachia that would stop short of their actual unification is likewise explained by the general direction of Russia’s Eastern policy. In the late 1820s and early 1830s, Russia sought to weaken the Porte’s hold over the principalities and replace it with Russian influence, all without terminating the Porte’s formal sovereignty. As a result, Nesselrode wrote to Kiselev about the need to bring the interests of Moldavians and Wallachians even closer together “in order to form a polit27 See “Projet de l’acte séparé ou de Convention spéciale sur les Principautés de Moldavie et de la Valachie,” submitted by Sturdza to Nesselrode in May 1829, IRLI, f. 283, op. 2, d. 3, l. 90. 28 “Instructions,” 50. The Ministerial Committee, which reviewed the drafts of the Organic Statutes in the autumn 1830, contributed to uniformization of the political space of the principalities by curbing the traditional autonomy of Oltenia within Wallachia. Traditionally governed by a special divan in Craiova, Oltenia was now placed under the administration of a lieutenant of the central government (caimacam). Iordache, Principatele Române în epocă modernă, 222.

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ical community of sorts, which would consolidate their future and, at the same time, serve as an even greater guarantee against encroachments on the part of the Suzerain power.”29 The unification of Moldavia and Wallachia was not necessarily “the universal desire of this country” in the early 1830s, contrary to the assertions of the French diplomats and later Romanian historians. In fact, the first partisan of unification in Wallachia in modern times was the Phanariot prince Constantin Ypsilanti, who briefly became the hospodar of both principalities at the beginning of the Russian–Ottoman War of 1806–12. Perhaps precisely for this reason no native Wallachian boyar expressed interest in this idea prior to the Russian–Ottoman War of 1828–29. The rapid growth of the number of boyars in Moldavia caused by the hospodars’ sale of ranks for money during the 1810s and 1820s explains the 1831 refusal of the Wallachian Assembly of Revision to admit Moldavians to public appointments in Wallachia as followed from the principle of double citizenship (cobourgoisie) suggested in the ministerial instructions.30 Three years later, Bois-le-Comte reported the same fear of the Wallachians lest the numerous Moldavian boyars occupy all public appointments in the united principality.31 One should not overestimate the popularity of the idea of unification among the Moldavian elite at the time of the Russian occupation. Admittedly, the project had a longer history here since already in 1807, an anonymous Moldavian author addressed a memorandum to Napoleon with the idea of creating a unitary and independent Romanian state that would serve as “a formidable barrier between the North and the South.”32 However, one finds no evidence of continued interest in this project on the part of the native Moldavian boyars during the 1810s and the 1820s. If anything, here, as in Wallachia, the idea of unification attracted the Phanariots, specif29 Nesselrode to Kiselev, March 24, 1830, RGIA, f. 958, op. 1, d. 623, l. 9v. Kiselev responded to Nesselrode’s suggestion by providing a summary of divergences between the Wallachian and Moldavian drafts of the statute and suggested adjustments. See Kiselev to Nesselrode, April 14, 1830, AVPRI, f. 331, op 716/1, d. 7, ll. 16–18v. However, neither he nor the vice-chancellor ever evoked the prospect of the unification of the principalities into a single state. 30 Kiselev to Nesselrode, June 20, 1831, RGIA, f. 958, op. 1, d. 625, l. 115v. 31 Bois-le-Comte directly attributed the idea of unification under the rule of a foreign prince only to the son of the former hospodar Grigore IV Ghica (Constantin?) as well as to an obscure second-class Wallachian boyar Opreanu. See Bois-le-Comte’s reports to Rigny of May 17 and 18, 1834, in Documente privitoare la istoria românilor, 17:394, 398. 32 Vîrtosu, “Napoleon Bonaparte și dorințele,” 415–19; Georgescu, Ideile politice, 158.

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ically the hospodar Mihai Suțu, who joined Philiki Etaireia with the hope of extending his rule over both principalities. At the same time, one does not find unification among the demands of the boyar radicals of the early 1820s. The petitions of second-class Moldavian boyars protesting against the Organic Statutes in 1830 do not mention it either. The dearth of boyar memoranda on the subject of unification in the late 1820s and the early 1830s likewise suggests that one should not overestimate the popularity of this idea among the Moldavian and Wallachian elites of the period. Whereas the demand for the replacement of the Phanariots by native rulers can be found in dozens of boyar petitions addressed to Russia and the Ottoman Empire in the wake of the Etaireia uprising, there is only one Moldavian and one Wallachian document proposing the unification of the principalities under a foreign prince in the entire period from 1828– 34. The brief Moldavian piece demanded the establishment of “a permanent monarchical government” and the unification of the two principalities under “a single prince and the protection of all the powers so that all external and internal influence and preponderance comes to an end once and for all.”33 Although Catargi’s authorship of this unsigned document cannot be excluded, there is no evidence that it received unanimous support of other members of the Committee of Reform as Bois-le-Comte alleged.34 The more elaborate Wallachian project synthesized the demands first formulated by the émigré Wallachian boyars in the wake of the Etaireia uprising with the new scenarios that became conceivable after the London Protocol of March 1829, whereby Britain, France, and Russia agreed to establish an autonomous Greek kingdom under the rule of a hereditary Christian prince. The project called for the unification of Moldavia and Wallachia into a single state that would “purchase its independence” from the Ottoman Empire with a yearly payment corresponding to the combined tribute that Moldavia and 33 The Moldavian memorandum is published in Documente privitoare la istoria românilor, 21:146. According to Vlad Georgescu, the memorandum was written before July 1829. See Georgescu, Mémoires et projets de réforme 1769–1830, 33. 34 In fact, there is no documentary evidence that Catargi advocated for unification of the principalities under a foreign prince in 1829–30 at all. The assumption of some historians that Catargi expressed the idea of the unification of the principalities during the first session of the Moldavian Ordinary Assembly in 1832–33 does not find confirmation in its records. In fact, Catargi was not even elected a member of this assembly. See the list of the assembly members in Analele parlamentare 3, part 2, I–VII. For the argument that Catargi’s project of unification was inspired by the British consul E.L. Blutte, see Platon, Moldova și începuturile revoluției din 1848, 84, note 94.

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Wallachia had hitherto delivered to the Porte. The government of the united principality—a limited monarchy—was to be given to a German prince chosen by Austria, France, and England. Russia and the Ottoman Empire would be able to define the prince’s title “without further interfering in anything else.”35 Represented by native agents in Constantinople, the united principality would reintegrate the Ottoman raiale on the left bank of the Danube, enjoy the freedom of commerce, as well as form a native army of 25,000.36 Unless a forgery, the document may have come from the Văcărescu family, whose representatives had demonstrated pro-Ottoman attitudes in the past and tried to resist Russian policies after 1828.37 Barbu Văcărescu chose a pro-Ottoman orientation after the suppression of the Etaireia uprising and came to Constantinople together with Grigore Ghica to petition the Porte for the appointment of a native hospodar. In Spring 1831, he unsuccessfully tried to sabotage the work of the Wallachian Assembly of Revision of the Statutes, while his relative Iancu Văcărescu had earlier protested against the exile of Metropolitan Grigore. The Văcărescus were the likely authors of a petition against the reforms the Porte received in March 1831, according to the Russian envoy in Constantinople Butenev.38 At least a demarche of this kind meshed well with a markedly pro-Ottoman attitude that the Văcărescus demonstrated in the wake of the Etaireia uprising in order to secure the appointment of a native hospodar, namely Grigore Ghica who was their ally. The attitude of the Văcărescus toward the Ottoman Empire began to change after 1829 inasmuch as it became clear that the latter was in no position to challenge the Russian Empire. Increased dependence of the Porte on Russia in the wake of Unkiar Skelessi could only strengthen their desire to put an end to Ottoman sovereignty. According to the French consul Lagan, 35 “Cererele ce ar fi putut face Valahia și Moldavia la un congres de prinți creștini pentru siguranța lor cea din afară și statornicirea cea dinlăuntru,” 1829, in Documente privitoare la istoria românilor, 10:648. 36 Ibid., 10:649. 37 The document is not dated and not signed. Its publisher, the doyen of Romanian historians Nicolae Iorga, confessed that he had obtained the manuscript from the Iași historian V.A. Urechia, who “believed to have brought it together with the library of the Văcarescus.” Documente privitoare la istoria românilor, 10:649n. It is notable that Barbu Văcărescu was a member of the boyar lieutenancy that liaised with Tudor Vladimirescu and the Etaireia in January 1821. Minchaki characterized him as “an octogenarian who became knowledgeable through long experience and conscientious enough, yet weak and governed by his retinue.” “Podrobnoe obozrenie kniazhestv,” RGVIA. F. 438, op. 1, d. 111, l. 34 v. 38 Grosul, Reformy v Dunaiskikh kniazhestvakh, 253.

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in the second half of 1833, “some Wallachian boyars” were ready to pay Russia the balance of the military contribution that the Treaty of Adrianople had imposed on the Ottoman government in exchange for independence.39 However, this scheme not only ran into the French and British policy of supporting the preservation of the Ottoman Empire, but also had precious few supporters ready to pursue it. Although Lagan repeatedly stressed the discontent of the Wallachians and Moldavians with the Russian protectorate, he doubted that those boyars who had come up with the idea of buying their independence from the Porte would ever muster the courage to actually make this offer to the Ottoman government.40 According to Lagan’s subordinate in Iași, Alfred Mimaut, some Moldavian boyars likewise desired to purchase their right to elect the hospodar as well as place the principality under the collective guarantee of the European powers, but they also lacked the courage to make such an offer to the Ottomans.41 The reports of Bois-le-Comte and the French consuls do not quite substantiate the broad claims of Romanian historians about the supposedly universal popularity of the idea to unify the principalities in the early 1830s. Nor should they be taken at face value. The French diplomats were not impartial observers, but participants in the geopolitical and ideological struggle over the Eastern Question. Their descriptions of the political attitudes of the principalities were manifestations of and weapons in this struggle as much as they were an objective rendering of what actually took place. Accordingly, these reports should be viewed as illustrations of the agenda of French diplomats rather than evidence of the universally shared aspirations of Moldavian and Wallachian elites. This agenda was the product of the revolution of July 1830. This revolution not only introduced a limited monarchy along the lines of the British in France but also led to a Franco-British rapprochement. The latter meant France’s de facto realignment with the British policy of the preservation of the territorial integrity of the Ottoman Empire as a means to check “the Russian menace.” At the same time, Louis-Philippe’s agents were no longer constrained by the counter-revolutionary principles of the Restoration era 39 Lagan to Broglie, August 23, 1833, in Documente privitoare la istoria românilor, 17:303. See also Boisle-Comte to Broglie, May 17, 1834, in Documente privitoare la istoria românilor, 17:393. 40 Lagan to Broglie, November 3, 1833, in Documente privitoare la istoria românilor, 17:304. 41 Mimaut to Broglie, November 30, 1833, in Documente privitoare la istoria românilor, 17:306–7.

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and readily resurrected those aspects of revolutionary and Napoleonic foreign policy that were compatible with the Franco-British rapprochement. Included in this was the promotion of the idea of nationality in Eastern Europe in ways that did not immediately endanger the existence of the Ottoman Empire, but in the long term could undermine Russia’s influence in the Balkans. Russia’s Eastern policy presented a number of challenges to this agenda. The tsar’s renunciation of territorial annexations in European Turkey in 1829 went against the trope of Russian expansionism that characterized the mounting Western European Russophobia of the 1830s.42 His intervention in the Muhammad Ali crisis undermined the assumption that destruction of the Ottoman Empire was Russia’s most fervent desire. Russian activities in Moldavia and Wallachia presented an even greater predicament for Russia’s traditional adversaries in the Eastern Question. The reforms of the late 1820s and the early 1830s helped “civilize” the principalities, as Bois-le-Comte and other French diplomats had to admit themselves. However, the sponsor of these reforms, and thus the promoter of “civilization,” was the “barbarous” Russia rather than enlightened France. This paradox added an extra dose of bile to the reports of the French agents. Further, the French diplomats were ill-prepared to offer Moldavian and Wallachian elites an alternative to Russian “enlightenment.” For all their personal interest in the idea of the unification and independence of the principalities, the French agents sought above all to defend the regime established through the Ottoman capitulations, which represented one of the last vestiges of Ottoman suzerainty over Moldavia and Wallachia. They necessarily had to pour cold water on those few boyars who, in the late 1820s and the early 1830s, indeed expressed a desire to get rid of the Russian protection by “purchasing” their formal independence from the Porte. These goals and the dilemmas of post-1830 French diplomacy were reflected in the words Bois-le-Comte directed to Barbu Știrbei, one of Kiselev’s principal collaborators in the Wallachian administration, in May 1834. The French diplomat predicted that Russia’s predominance in the 42 On British Russophobia in the period, see Gleason, The Genesis of Russophobia in Britain. On the same process in France, see Cadot, La Russie dans la vie intellectuelle française; Corbet, A l’ ère des nationalismes; Adamovsky, Euro-Orientalism. For a general discussion of Western European perspectives on Russia during the 1830s and the 1840s, see Malia, Russia Under the Western Eyes, 100–75.

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principalities would continue for the time being and advised the Wallachian boyar to focus his efforts on moderating this influence. Bois-le-Comte argued that the best way to achieve this goal would be by “helping Europe learn who you are and by drawing attention to what happens in your country...”: Publish in our press. Put into circulation the idea—so widespread among you—of turning the principalities into a Dukedom of Dacia or a Danubian confederation... Keep on sending your children to study in France, continue to use the language that increasingly puts you in touch with the intellectual developments of the epoch. Let Europe become accustomed to the existence of the Wallachian nation, appreciate its importance and sympathize with it... Help create this force of opinion in the minds, this moral existence, that in the case of nations should precede their political existence... and you could wait for an opportunity with greater security and greater confidence.”43

This passage demonstrates not so much what Știrbei and other Wallachian boyars aspired to in the early 1830s, as what the French diplomats wanted them to do. Their goal was to shape the political attitudes of the Moldavian and Wallachian elites as well as French public opinion to fit the July Monarchy’s vision of the European political order. By interpreting the agenda of the French diplomats as a description of the actual state of affairs in the principalities in the early 1830s, modern Romanian historians commit the fallacy of anachronism. They attribute to the Wallachian and Moldavian boyars of this period the programs and aspirations of the first generation of modern Romanian nationalists that crystallized under the influence of French and British diplomats during the 1840s and the 1850s. Instead of examining how the political project of the unification of the principalities won the hearts and minds of a large segment of Moldavian and Wallachian elites, the national historiography implicitly suggests that the vision of a Romanian nation-state was always there and spontaneously commanded universal allegiance. This attempt to portray as primordial and selfevident what in fact was a rather late invention is undoubtedly part of modern nationalism’s tendency to mystify and obscure its origins. 43 Bois-le-Comte to Rigny, May 18, 1834, in Documente privitoare la istoria românilor, 17:398–99.

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Political Tensions in Moldavia and Wallachia in the Late 1830s An examination of the political conflict in the principalities helps explain the emergence of modern Romanian nationalism as the predominant ideology of the younger generation of the Wallachian and Moldavian elites by 1848. Continued struggle between the hospodars and the boyar assemblies, in which the Russian consul was supposed to act as arbiter, proved to be a less opportune combination for the perpetuation of Russia’s political and moral dominance in the principalities than might appear at first sight.44 The outcomes of the conflicts between the hospodars and the opposition ultimately depended on the personal qualities of the princes, their ability to control the assemblies, and their relations with the Russian consuls. Despite the existence of similar institutional frameworks in the post-1834 period, the situations in the two principalities were markedly different. The Moldavian hospodar Mihai Sturdza managed to neutralize boyar opposition early on and secured the favorable composition of the assembly, effectively pushing discontent toward the extra-legal forms of resistance. By contrast, in Wallachia, boyar opposition proved much stronger, and while the princes dissolved the assembly several times, they never managed to make it an obedient instrument of their policies. As a result, the Russian consuls in Iași and Bucharest for most of the 1830s and 1840s followed two essentially different strategies in order to maintain hegemony. Whereas in Moldavia they tried to counterbalance the strong prince by cooperating with the opposition, in Wallachia they found it necessary to support the weaker princes against the stronger opposition. Soon after his appointment, Mihai Sturdza clashed with the Moldavian boyars, the result of which was that both the hospodar and the opposition tried to enlist the support of the Russian Consul General P.I. Rikman, Russia’s ambassador in Constantinople Butenev, Emperor Nicholas I, and even the chief of the Russian secret police, A.Kh. Berkendorf.45 The opposition, which included half a dozen boyars of the first rank and a number 44 An insight into the Moldavian and Wallachian politics of this period was offered by the future Russian Foreign Minister N.K. Girs who began his diplomatic service in the Russian consulate in Moldavia during the 1840s. See Jelavic and Jelavic, The Education of a Russian Statesman. 45 See their memoranda published in Documente privitoare la istoria românilor, 17:554–56, 569–78, 536– 48, 580–82, respectively.

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of smaller boyars, complained that the hospodar withheld the monetary compensation they were supposed to receive in return for the abolition of the scutelnici in the statutes. Sturdza also allegedly embezzled public funds, arbitrarily prohibited the export of cereals, manipulated the tax farms, sold boyar ranks, and re-established the practice of personal petitions to the prince, thus circumventing normal judicial procedures. When apprised of the first manifestations of political conflict in the principalities since his departure in April 1834, Kiselev reminded Sturdza that the Organic Statutes applied to him too and advised the hospodar to coopt into the government some of the signatories of the petitions in order to “calm spirits.”46 In response, Sturdza offered a point-by-point refutation of the boyar accusations and advanced a slate of amendments to the statute that explicitly prohibited any public assemblies, defined such activities as criminal, and prescribed the procedures to be adopted against the culprits.47 As a former member of the Moldavian Committee of Reforms, Sturdza was well positioned to remind the Russian consul general that one of the goals of the new institutions was to “abolish the abusive privileges of the noble caste and to suppress its pernicious influence upon the country.” The hospodar pointed out that the aristocracy had always been hostile to the statutes and that it had always “violated them out of its egoistic and detrimental interests.”48 Suppression of aristocratic factions was, therefore, indispensable for the stability of the new institutions.49 An outspoken adversary of the boyar radicals and staunch defender of great boyar privileges during the 1820s, Mihai Sturdza turned into a champion of absolutist rule after his appointment and modified his views accordingly. In the 1830s and 1840s, he actively elevated people to the boyar ranks for money—a policy he had vehemently criticized in the 1820s.50 On a rhetorical level, his criticism of the cărvunarii of the 1820s gave way to the criticism of aristocracy, which “used 46 Kiselev to Sturdza, February 1, 1836, St. Petersburg, in Documente privitoare la istoria românilor, supp. 1, vol. 4, 116–17. 47 Mihai Sturdza “Éclaircissements sur le mémoire,” February 25, 1836, RGIA, f. 958, op. 1, d. 640, ll. 1–4. 48 Mihai Sturdza to (the Russian consul general in Bucharest) Rikman, April 30, 1836, RGIA, f. 958, op. 1, d. 637, l. 2v. 49 See “Proekt zapreta protivopravitel’stvenyikh sobranii v kniazhestvakh,” RGIA, f. 958, op. 1, op. 1, d. 639, ll. 1–2v. 50 Between 1828 and 1849 the number of Moldavian boyar families increased from 902 in to 3,325. Platon and Platon, Boierimea din Moldova, 100.

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to enjoy exclusive rights and onerous privileges,” was “hostile to the statute,” and “displayed an obvious tendency for returning to the past.” The Russian consul in Iași, K.P. Bezak, took the side of Sturdza’s critics. According to him, Sturdza’s decision to deny public appointments to some major Moldavian boyars like Nicolae Rosetti-Roznovanu, Alexandru Ghica, and Constantin Sturdza, fed their oppositional attitudes, which were then exploited by French and the British agents.51 However, the hospodar was more concerned with elimination of personal rivals and was extremely reluctant to take any measures against “foreign influence” that could earn him the hostility of either the broader boyar class or the foreign consuls. When Bezak pointed to the intrigues of his French and British consuls who frequented the homes of the boyars, the prince claimed he could not do anything to prohibit his subjects from maintaining connections with foreign agents.52 At the same time, the hospodar invented a conspiracy against his person in order to justify the appointment of his preferred candidates to all the most important positions in the public administration.53 Instead of coopting individual members of the opposition as Bezak suggested, Sturdza secretly organized public letters of support for his policies.54 Such “populist” measures infuriated the Russian consul, who could not “concede to the public any right to interfere in the affairs of the administration.”55 In 1838, Sturdza was skillful enough to secure the replacement of Bezak by Karl fon Kotsebu, who remained in this post for the next decade.56 However, the new consul adopted a similar attitude as his predecessor and soon began to criticize the Moldavian hospodar. Before long, Sturdza was complaining to Nesselrode that Kotsebu collected calumnies against him. The hospodar denounced the consuls’s efforts to “create a majority within 51 K.P. Bezak to K.K. Rodofinikin (the head of the Asian Department of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs), November 9, 1837, in Varta and Varta, Moldova și Țara Românească, 76–78. 52 Bezak to Rodofinikin September 3, 1837, in Varta and Varta, Moldova și Țara Românească, 70–72. 53 Ibid. 54 See one of such addresses forwarded by Sturdza to Bezak on November 3, 1837, in Documente privitoare la istoria românilor, supp. 1, 4:135–36. 55 Bezak to Nesselrode, March 1838, in Varta and Varta, Moldova și Țara Românească, 89–90. 56 See Sturdza’s complaints to Nesselrode and the Russian consul general P.I. Rikman in March 1838 as well as Nesselrode’s message to Sturdza of April 9, 1838, announcing Bezak’s replacement with Kotsebu, in Documente privitoare la istoria românilor, supp. 1, 4:155–164 and 177, respectively. Karl fon Kotsebu was the son of August von Kotzebue, a German playwright who was a Russian secret agent in German lands assassinated by Karl Sand in 1819.

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the assembly that would be hostile to the government” as well as to undermine his princely authority by accepting the petitions of the peasants and private individuals.57 Three years later, he complained again of Kotsebu’s intrigues, in particular, the consul’s attempts to restore to his post the exiled metropolitan of Moldavia Veniamin Costache, who was one of the leaders of boyar opposition against the hospodar.58 Sturdza failed to repeat his success and have Kotsebu replaced, yet the consul’s efforts to control the hospodar were hardly successful either. Kotsebu denounced Sturdza’s manipulation of the voting process to secure a favorable outcome of the elections to the boyar assembly (in 1842 and 1847).59 The Russian consul also condemned Sturdza’s authoritarian tendencies that earned the prince the “personal hatred of the boyars” and caused “the silent fermentation of the lower classes.” When in January 1842 an antigovernment pamphlet was found in the courts of the Russian and Austrian consulates, Kotsebu had to admit that it was written “not without a certain understanding of the actual state of things.” According to the Russian consul, the abuses of the hospodar’s officials were so widespread that Sturdza “had to blame himself for the mistrust of his subjects.”60 Unable to change the behavior of the hospodar, Kotsebu nevertheless warned Nesselrode that Sturdza’s skillful evasion of responsibility for his wrongdoings contributed to “the unfortunate conviction of the public that the Russian government does not care about the fate of Moldavians.”61 The correctness of the consul’s assessment is demonstrated by the “Confederative Conspiracy” of October 1839. The conspirators, who remained largely unknown, criticized multiple violations of the Organic Statute related to the collection of taxes and peasant labor obligations to the landlords, as well as denounced the proliferation of Jewish leaseholders, abusive distortions of the fiscal census, the miscarriage of justice in the courts, exorbitant customs tariffs, mismanagement of the monastery properties, Sturdza’s use of the 57 See Sturdza’s memorandum containing his grievances against the Russian consul, which he presented to the Russian government in 1839, in Georgescu, Mémoires et projets de réforme, 1831–1848, 135–36. 58 See Sturdza to Butenev, November 24, 1842, and Sturdza to Nesselrode, December 3, 1842, in Documente privitoare la istoria românilor, supp. 1, 6:423–26 and 6:437–441, respectively. 59 See Kotsebu to Nesselrode, April 27, 1842, and Tumansky to Nesselrode, August 16, 1847, in Varta and Varta, Moldova și Țara Românească, 379 and 551, respectively. 60 Kotsebu to Nesselrode, January 8, 1842, in Varta and Varta, Moldova și Țara Românească. 61 Kotsebu to Nesselrode, June 16, 1841, in Varta and Varta, Moldova și Țara Românească, 350.

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public treasury for private purposes, his interference in the elections to the General Assembly, the sale of boyar titles, and the neglect of schools and hospitals.62 According to the conspirators, “all the stipulations of the statute and all the laws are treated like playing cards.”63 The conspirators were highly disappointed by the failure of the boyar petitions submitted in 1835 and 1836 to the Protecting Power, and concluded that Russia, “driven by its policy, cares only for its own particular interests.” Having failed to secure any outside assistance, the conspirators pledged to take up arms to enforce the statute.64 In view of Russia’s failure to restrain Sturdza’s authoritarian tendencies during the 1830s, the conspirators no longer entertained any hope of achieving their political goals through the intercession of the Russian government. Their cool attitude toward the northern empire manifested itself in their intention to seek the replacement of the Russian protectorate in Moldavia with the collective guarantee of the great powers.65 At the same time, one should not exaggerate the degree of the conspirators’ anti-Russian sentiments or view them as later-day Romanian nationalists.66 Their main enemy was still the hospodar, not Russia. Their goal was to restore the Organic Statute, not to abolish it. The conspirators envisioned Moldavia not as part of the Romanian nation-state including all the territories populated by ethnic Romanians, but as part of a Danubian confederation that, alongside Wallachia, had to include Slavic Serbia.67 They also failed to demand the civic equality of all the inhabitants, which constitutes one of the indispensable preconditions of a modern nation.68 Their social program was, in fact, quite close to that of the “carbonari” of the early 1820s: although the conspirators denounced the great boyar aristocracy, 62 “Mémoire pour toutes les violations des lois et tous les abus qui se commet en Moldavie depuis l’introduction des nouvelles institutions,” October 1839, in Georgescu, Mémoires et projets de réforme, 1830– 1848, 113–15. The Confederative Conspiracy is often associated with the name Leonte Radu, who was little more than a transcriber of the plans of the conspirators. The only great boyar mentioned by Radu was aga Alexandru Rosetti, who was in charge of the Iași police at the time of the Russian occupation and was characterized by the vice president of the Moldavian Divan Mirkovich as a “diligent and active man.” See “Svedeniia o dostoinstvakh nekotorykh pervoklasnykh boiar kniazhestva Moldavii,” Mirkovich and Mirkovich, Feodor Iakovlevich Mirkovich, 2:206. 63 “Mémoire pour toutes les violations,” in Georgescu, Mémoires et projets de réforme, 1830–1848, 114. 64 Ibid., 115. 65 Ibid., 119. 66 As Gheorghe Platon does in Moldova și începuturile revoluției din 1848, 141–44. 67 “Mémoire pour toutes les violations,” in Georgescu, Mémoires et projets de réforme, 1830–1848, 119. 68 Hroch, “From National Movement to the Fully-Formed Nation.”

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they were eager to turn the entire boyar class into a truly hereditary nobility and thereby perpetuate its privileged status with respect to the rest of the population.69 *** The problems that the Russian diplomats experienced in Moldavia soon paled in comparison to those they encountered in Wallachia. Hospodar Alexandru Ghica (1834–42) lacked Sturdza’s ruthlessness and skill in the suppression of boyar opposition. In his relations with the bellicose assembly, Ghica greatly depended on the support of the Russian consul general. As a result, Wallachian opposition figures came to target the Organic Statute and the Russian interference it authorized. In this sense, Wallachia differed from Moldavia, where the opposition focused their criticism on Sturdza’s arbitrariness and decried his violations of the statute. Political tensions in Wallachia reached a crisis point in the summer of 1837 in the controversy around the so-called additional article of the Organic Statute which prohibited the hospodars and the assemblies from making any changes to the statutes without the consent of the Sovereign and Protective Powers. This principle was originally suggested by Dashkov in the ministerial instructions that served as the basis for the work of the Committee of Reform in 1829–30.70 The original text of the Organic Statutes adopted by the Wallachian Assembly of Revision in 1831 prohibited the hospodars and the assemblies from adopting laws that would “infringe upon the privileges of this country guaranteed by different treaties or hatt-i sherifs or the rights of the Sovereign and Protective Powers.”71 However, just before the Ottoman ratification of the statutes in July 1834, the Russian envoy in Constantinople Butenev, acting on the advice of Kiselev, introduced an additional clause whereby “all subsequent modifications that the hospodars might want to make to the Organic Statute will not take place except by the special authorization of the Porte and the consent of the Russian Court.”72 69 70 71 72

“Mémoire pour toutes les violations,” in Georgescu, Mémoires et projets de réforme, 1830–1848, 119. See “Instructions,” 23. See art 53 of the Wallachian statute in Negulescu and Alexianu, Regulamentele organice, 11. See “Extrait de la note adressée par le Consulat général à Son Altesse le Prince régnant,” July 28, 1834, in Documente privitoare la istoria românilor, supp. 1, 4:464.

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In March 1837, the Wallachian Committee of Revision that had to present the definitive version of the Organic Statute for confirmation by the General Assembly found that this clause represented an unjustified addition to the original text of the statute adopted by the Wallachian Assembly of Revision in 1831.73 This argument advanced by the opposition, which was led by the former colonel of the Wallachian militia Ion Câmpineanu, became dominant within the assembly, which voted to reject the additional article on July 15, 1837.74 In response, Petr Rikman, Minchaki’s successor as the Russian consul general in the principalities, protested what he considered to be an infringement on the rights of the Sovereign and Protective Powers and demanded that the discussions of the assembly be halted.75 The assembly complied with the hospodar’s order to the same effect only after submitting to him a statement in which it vindicated its position.76 Kiselev, whose opinion was solicited by the Russian Foreign Ministry, supported Rikman’s proposal to dissolve the assembly and replace it with an administrative council as well as impose a “severe punishment on the instigators of the disorder.”77 Kiselev also found it necessary to expel from the militia all those who demonstrated a “hostile disposition” and could be considered part of the “violent faction in the assembly.”78 These measures had to remain limited to Wallachia only in order to demonstrate that “as long as the Moldavians perform their duties, the privileges that had been accorded to them will remain rigorously observed.”79 At the same time, Kiselev noted that all such measures would remain ineffective if the governments of Wallachia and Moldavia do not take “serious measures to destroy the germ of propaganda (propagandisme) that has been planted in the principalities for three years under the protection of the [foreign] consuls and adopted, as they say, by a part of the nobility.”80 73 “Raportul comisiunei de revisuire a Regulamentului Organic către Obșteasca Adunare,” March 23, in Documente privitoare la istoria românilor, supp. 1, 4:471–73. 74 See the minutes of the Assembly’s session of July 15, Documente privitoare la istoria românilor, supp. 1, 4:474–75. 75 See Rikman to Ghica, July 17, 1837, in Documente privitoare la istoria românilor, 10:482–83. 76 See Ghica’s address to the Assembly, July 18, 1837, in Documente privitoare la istoria românilor, supp. 1, 4:475–76 and the Assembly’s response to Ghica, July 21, 1837, in Documente privitoare la istoria românilor, 10:483–85. 77 See Kiselev’s memorandum of October 18, 1837, RGIA, f. 958, op. 1, d. 624, l. 33. 78 Ibid. 79 Ibid., l. 33v. 80 Ibid.

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The difficulties the Russian Foreign Ministry and its agents encountered in Wallachia gave Kiselev a moment of Schadefreude and an opening to criticize the fundamental decisions that were taken with respect of the principalities either before his appointment as the head of the Russian provisional administration or against his advice. The former president-plenipotentiary argued that the “present political organization of the principalities was vicious in its very basis” because of a fundamental contradiction between the initial intent behind the Organic Statutes and the new goals of Russian policy after 1829. Kiselev pointed out that the ministerial instructions that served as the basis of the Organic Statutes developed out of the principles enshrined in the Convention of Akkerman, which sought “the almost complete independence of the principalities from the Porte.”81 Accordingly, the early chapters of the statutes drafted on the basis of these instructions prior to Kiselev’s appointment to the principalities were premised on the creation of the boyar assemblies “in order to limit the authority of the hospodars” (maitriser le pouvoir des Hospodars) as agents of the Porte. By contrast, the Treaties of Adrianople and Unkiar Skelessi sought to consolidate the Porte’s sovereignty over the two provinces, and yet the Organic Statutes gave “no repressive authority . . . to the Porte or Russia (except for the additional clause which I proposed and which the assembly has just opposed) with respect to the entire governmental apparatus of the principalities.” With the establishment of the independent Greek kingdom and the concession of hereditary power to Serbian prince Miloš, “the ideas of independence, encouraged by foreigners, progress further in the minds of the hospodars and the nobility.”82 For these reasons, Kiselev expected that “time and the general agitation of minds in Europe would affect the principalities in a manner that would be disastrous for their well-being and disadvantageous for Russia.”83 At the same time, Kiselev argued that the organization that he had introduced was better than nothing and, in fact, “suited Russian interests.” According to him, Russia’s “influence in the principalities, based on legal foundations, always gives us the possibility and power to resolutely combat propagandistic activities” (l’action de la propagande).84 In the absence of an 81 82 83 84

Ibid., ll. 34–34v. Ibid., l. 34v. Ibid., l. 35. Ibid., ll. 35–35v.

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institutionalized Russian protectorate over Moldavia and Wallachia, “our adversaries would have freely extended their pernicious activities into the countries that border the southern provinces of Russia, and the danger of moral contamination would have become all the more immediate” (emphasis in the original). This consideration led Kiselev to view the principalities “not only as our first defensive line against the plague, but also as an outpost of the cordon sanitaire Russia erected in the south against the penetration of ideas that were undermining public order and peace”85 (my italics). Kiselev recognized that the advanced position (poste avancée) Russia had in the principalities did not provide it with complete security. And yet, this position constituted a “real advantage,” which it had to “preserve and strengthen through the systematic use of the means of legal influence that could help victoriously suppress the efforts at revolutionary propaganda in the principalities.”86 According to Kiselev this was the important task that the Russian consul general had to constantly keep in mind. A Cordon Sanitaire for the Empire? Following Kiselev’s advice, the Russian representative in Constantinople obtained the sultan’s firman, which ordered the next assembly to accept the “additional article” on May 10, 1838.87 This measure did not eliminate the Wallachian opposition, but rather gave it a different character over the next decade. The most important outcome of the first round of political struggle in Wallachia was the formulation of the political program of the Wallachian opposition that differed markedly from boyar projects in the previous period. Those who signed the “Act of Unity and Independence” in November 1838 proclaimed the goal of protecting Wallachian sovereignty, freedom, and independence from the numerous violations of the Ottoman Empire and Russia and called on “the Wallachians of Moldavia” as well as “their brothers who suffer under the most tyrannical yokes” to join with them to constitute “one and the same people governed by the same head and ruled in

85 Ibid., l. 35v. 86 Ibid., l. 38. 87 See Ghica’s address to the Assembly transmitting the firman of the Porte on May 9, 1838, and the obliging decision of the Assembly of May 10, 1838, in Analele Parlamentare, vol. 8, part. 1, 33–35.

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accordance with the same laws.”88 The authors asserted that the misfortunes of Wallachia would come to an end with the election of a new prince “known for his virtue and patriotism” and the transformation of princely authority into a hereditary office. A “Separate Act for the Nomination of the Wallachian Sovereign” accorded the would-be prince dictatorial powers for the duration of the war of independence that the authors considered inevitable, after which he would adopt “The Constitution of the Wallachians.”89 This document proclaimed the personal liberty of all Wallachians and their equality before the law, equal access to all public and military appointments, and freedom of expression. The prince would have to be the head of the executive and share legislative authority with the assembly, which would hold ministers responsible for their actions and vote on the state budget.90 It is impossible to say for sure how far Câmpineanu and his followers planned to extend voting rights since only a fragment of the “Constitution of Wallachians” survived. However, the French diplomat Felix Colson, who collaborated with Câmpineanu on this plan, reported that the leader of the Wallachian opposition eagerly accepted universal suffrage.91 The democratic tendencies of Câmpineanu were partially confirmed by the Russian consul general Rikman, who reported that the opposition planned to include representatives of towns and village communes in the General Assembly and sought to persuade them to elect a new prince who would be more sympathetic to the wishes of the “Wallachian patriots.”92 In contrast to the Moldavian radicals of the early 1820s who limited the political nation to the boyar class, Câmpineanu and his supporters for the first time were willing to enfranchise the non-privileged classes. In this respect, Câmpineanu’s program constituted the first formulation of modern Romanian nationalism as a political project. Having failed to achieve their goals through parliamentary action, the Wallachian opposition began looking for foreign help. First, they tried to exploit the personal rivalry between Alexandru Ghica and Mihai Sturdza and proposed to the Moldavian hospodar Sturdza a joint action with the goal of uniting the principalities under the latter’s scepter—a plan Sturdza 88 89 90 91 92

“Acte d’union et d’independence,” November 1, 1838, in Bodea, 1848 la Români, 1:120–23. “Acte Séparé de nomination du souverain des Valaques,” in Bodea, 1848 la Români, 1:125–26. “Constitution des Valaques,” in Bodea, 1848 la Români, 1:126–27. Colson, De la Pologne et des Slaves, 214. Rikman to Nesselrode, March 19, 1838, in Varta and Varta, Moldova și Țara Românească, 96.

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eagerly embraced out of the sheer desire to shake off the tutelage of the Russian consuls.93 Câmpineanu also established a liaison with representatives of the Polish political émigrés whose leader in Paris, Adam Czartoryski, retained his youthful interest in the idea of a Balkan federation, which he now sought to use against Russia.94 Czartoryski’s example encouraged Câmpineanu and his followers to think big, and as a result they drew up a program for “achieving the complete independence of all the scattered members of our nation.”95 The role of the Ottoman government in the affair of the “additional article” explained why Câmpineanu’s project was almost as anti-Ottoman as it was anti-Russian: the “Act of Union and Independence” declared a break in the bond between Wallachia and the Porte due to the latter’s violation of the conditions of “the treaty of 1460.”96 Finally, the program was also anti-Habsburg because it anticipated a joint action in Transylvania with Hungarians, which was to provide a link to the Polish territories to the north of the Carpathians at the very moment of the joint Polish-Hungarian uprising against the Russian Empire. In his project, Câmpineanu forwent the centuries-old practice of Wallachian and Moldavian elites, whereby the latter sought to extend or defend their political autonomy against the encroachments of an ascendant empire through an alliance and cooperation with another one or two neighboring great powers. In contrast to this traditional strategy, Câmpineanu defined his project in ways that made it incompatible with the interests of the Romanovs, Ottomans, and Habsburgs and instead staked its success on France and Great Britain. The Wallachian leader and his supporters, thus, made a clear choice between the “Europe of the two,” represented by the British and French liberal parliamentary regimes, and the “Europe of the three,” which included absolutist and autocratic Austria, Prussia, and Russia. In fact, the only “traditional” element of Câmpineanu’s strategy was his alliance with the Poles that built on the close relations between Moldavian elites and those of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth during the early modern period. 93 On Mihai Sturdza’s negotiations with the Wallachian opposition, see Platon, Moldova şi inceputurile revoluţiei, 135–39. 94 See Holban, “Emigrația polona,” 325–43. See also Campbell, French Influence, 52, 54–55, 115, 117. 95 Panaitescu, “Planurile lui Câmpineanu,” 87–89. 96 “Acte d’union et d’independence,” in Bodea, 1848 la Români, 1:122.

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In order to obtain support for these ambitious designs, Câmpineanu undertook a trip to Paris and London in 1839. During his meetings with Czartoryski, the French prime minister Adolphe Thiers, and the British prime minister Palmerston, Câmpineanu received a sympathetic welcome, but obtained no practical support. Such a disheartening outcome can be attributed to a number of fundamental miscalculations that characterized the international aspect of Câmpineanu’s scheme. In 1839, just as seven years previously, the existence of the Ottoman empire was threatened by the ambitions of its rebellious Egyptian vassal Muhammad Ali, and the primary interest of Great Britain consisted of preventing the Ottoman collapse. This explains Britain’s reserved response to Câmpineanu’s plan which called for the complete independence of Wallachia from the Ottoman Empire. Nor could the Foreign Office be enthusiastic about the Wallachian leader’s idea of an uprising in Transylvania. From the British point of view, Austria was an important counterweight to Russia and this Central European power supported British efforts to preserve the integrity of the Ottoman Empire. For its part, France was still open to the idea of the partition of Turkey and supported Muhammad Ali in his conflict with the sultan; yet the Quais d’Orsay considered the question of the principalities to be dependent on the overall resolution of the Eastern Question. Unlike some of its consular agents in Moldavia and Wallachia during the 1830s and 1840s, the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not consider the Wallachian opposition a serious force at this point. Thus, a potential Wallachian–French alliance was not worth risking a direct confrontation with Russia over the latter’s formal status in the principalities. Finally, despite its jealous attitude toward Russian predominance in Moldavia and Wallachia, Vienna was rather cooperative with St. Petersburg in the matter of surveillance over politically subversive activities and individuals. Having sensed the anti-Habsburg slant of Câmpineanu’s relations with the Polish revolutionaries, the Austrian police arrested the leader of the Wallachian opposition when he was about to cross the Wallachian border on his return trip from Paris and extradited him to the Wallachian authorities.97

97 Florescu, The Struggle Against Russia, 167; for the account of Câmpineanu’s “national party” see 163–78.

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From the Russian perspective, the most disturbing element in the entire affair was the role of the British and French consulates. Rikman’s successor in Bucharest V.P. Titov reported to Nesselrode that the members of Câmpineanu’s party maintained a lively correspondence with their leader abroad, which “escaped the surveillance measures of the government” due to the assistance of the British consul Robert Colquhoun and his couriers.98 The passivity of Colquhoun’s French counterpart, Marquis Chateaugiron, in this affair was more than compensated for by the active involvement of Chateaugiron’s subordinate Felix Colson, who went out his way to support the oppositional boyars. Even after a personal quarrel with his superior deprived Colson of his post in the French consulate, he continued to support Câmpineanu and his project. In February 1839, Colson accompanied Câmpineanu to Paris, where he introduced the Wallachian oppositionist to Adolphe Thiers and other notable political figures. Parallel to these efforts, the French diplomat mounted a campaign to denounce Russian dominance in the principalities in the periodicals Le National and La Commerce.99 Since the French press was delivered to Bucharest by the Austrian post, Wallachian censorship was powerless to prevent the distribution of these periodicals among the upper classes of the principality.100 In a situation where the majority of prominent families in Bucharest had French tutors for their children or sent them to study in France, Titov was certain that “in the long run, a grouping ( foyer) of illintentioned individuals (malveillants), with the aid of the periodical press, will manage to feed the embers of upheaval in Wallachia, especially if helped by foreign consuls.”101 The failure of the maritime powers to intervene on the side of Câmpineanu’s party and the condemnation of the latter by the sultan brought about another change of strategy by the opposition. Their later attempts to unseat the prince and/or challenge Russian hegemony in the principalities took the form of clandestine conspiracies. The first and the most important of these took place in 1840. Under the leadership of Dimitrie Filipescu, several lesser 98 Russian consul general P.V. Titov to Nesselrode, September 28, 1839, in Varta and Varta, Moldova și Țara Românească, 218. 99 Colson’s publications include: Le précis des droits des Moldaves et des Valaques and Coup d’oeil rapide. 100 Titov to Nesselrode, October 19, 1839, in Varta and Varta, Moldova și Țara Românească, 236. 101 Titov to Nesselrode, n/d, in Varta and Varta, Moldova și Țara Românească, 241.

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officials of the treasury and former members of the Wallachian panduri and militia, including the famous future revolutionary Nicolae Bălcescu, planned to assassinate the hospodar and the principal officials in order to come to power and establish a republican government under the mantle of “New Rome.”102 According to the report of Ia.A. Dashkov (Titov’s successor as Russian consul general and D.V. Dashkov’s second cousin once removed), the conspirators bought some land in the vicinity of Bucharest to which they planned to bring some 300 to 400 panduri from Oltenia, who were expected to ignite an uprising in the capital.103 The investigation and trial of the conspirators revealed the limits of repressive policies. For one thing, the hospodar’s absence from Bucharest when the plot was exposed allowed the conspirators to destroy much of the incriminating evidence, whereby it became impossible to prove the participation of prominent boyars, if the latter had indeed taken place.104 Since the Organic Statutes did not stipulate punishments for crimes against the state, the Russian consul general suggested applying legislation against brigandage.105 Although the majority of the members of the conspiracy were from humble social origins, its leader, Dimitrie Filipescu came from one of the most ancient and prominent Wallachian families. In fact, Dimitie Filipescu’s uncle Iordache Filipescu, was the Great Ban of Little Wallachia at the time of the conspiracy, which explains the apparent uneasiness of the High Court of the Ministry of Justice during the trial of the conspirators.106 Once again, an attempt at regime change involved foreign subjects who benefited from consular protection and could, thus, escape unscathed. This time, the individuals in question were Austrian subject Etienne Mourgo 102 Ia. A. Dashkov to Nesselrode, October 24, 1840, and January 23, 1841, Bucharest, in Varta and Varta, Moldova și Țara Românească, 283, 329. Ia.A. Dashkov served as the Russian consul general in the principalities in 1840–47. 103 Dashkov to Nesselrode, November 7, 1840, Bucharest, in Varta and Varta, Moldova și Țara Românească, 292. 104 “Concluzie din raportul către domn al comisiei de anchetă,” December 10, 1840, in Bodea, 1848 la Români, 1:161. 105 Dashkov to Nesselrode, November 14, 1840, in Varta and Varta, Moldova și Țara Românească, 295. 106 Dashkov to Nesselrode, June 11, 1841, in Varta and Varta, Moldova și Țara Românească, 347–48. Since Dimitrie Filipescu consistently pleaded not guilty, four members of the court suggested rescinding the final sentence that condemned the main conspirators of low social origins to hard labor and Filipescu to eight years of imprisonment in a monastery. The Ministry of Justice to Alexandru G ­ hica, May 13, 1841, in Varta and Varta, Moldova și Țara Românească, 334–41. Nevertheless, Ghica endorsed the sentence. See Varta and Varta, Moldova și Țara, 341–42.

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(Ștefan Murgu) and the Frenchmen Jean Alexander Vaillant. The latter was a professor of letters and a correspondent of the French periodical Le National that earlier had relied on Colson’s materials in its diatribes against the Russian protectorate in the principalities.107 Vaillant’s activities also extended to Moldavia, where he was the principal inspiration behind the secret Masonic society of St. John the Baptist that included a number of professors and priests.108 Although the statute of the society also called on its members “to fight against tyranny and aristocracy,” the investigation undertaken by the Moldavian authorities did not produce any evidence of concrete anti-governmental activities.109 The Russian consul Karl fon Kotsebu believed that these aspirations merited an exemplary punishment and denounced hospodar Mihai Sturdza’s efforts to conceal “the real intentions of the conspirators” from the public. Russian consular reports reveal that the hospodars constituted a problem for the maintenance of Russian hegemony in the principalities that was almost as important as boyar opposition in the assemblies or anti-governmental conspiracies. The perceived injustices of Ghica’s and Sturdza’s rule delegitimized the political regime that Russia introduced in the principalities in order to consolidate its political dominance. Even though they recognized the inefficient and corrupt character of the hospodars’ government, Russian consuls continued to support the princes that Russia itself had placed on the Wallachian and Moldavian thrones in 1834. The decision to forgo the election of the hospodars in 1834 in favor of direct appointment did not contribute to Russia’s popularity among the boyars, while the indefinite term of their service allowed both hospodars greater freedom than their predecessors with defined terms had enjoyed. At the same time, neither Ghica nor Sturdza were anything but effective instruments of the policy of the cordon sanitaire that was supposed to stop the spread of subversive ideas. Although they could be harsh and ruthless toward their political rivals among the Wallachian and Moldavian boyars, both princes proved unwilling to apply repressive measures to the subject of foreign powers, the 107 Dashkov to Nesselrode, October 31, 1840, in Varta and Varta, Moldova și Țara Românească, 288. 108 “Traduction d’un rapport adressé à l’Hospodar de Moldavie par le Conseil Administratif,” June 9, 1841, in Varta and Varta, Moldova și Țara Românească, 345–46. 109 See the text of the oath of the secret organization in Varta and Varta, Moldova și Țara Românească, 353.

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Russian consuls identified as the instigators of opposition movements and conspiracies.110 By the early 1840s, their support of the hospodars earned the Russian Empire the strong distrust of Moldavian and Wallachian elites. Alexandru Ghica and Mihai Sturdza both sought to turn oppositional movements and conspiracies into a means of maximizing their personal authority. In practice, their strategy boiled down to the demands for greater discretionary powers, which they justified with the need to overcome political subversion, the evidence of which was never lacking. At the same time, both princes would make occasional clandestine overtures to the oppositional boyars in their own or in the neighboring principality in order to increase their informal influence. For example, throughout the duration of the Câmpineanu affair, Mihai Sturdza maintained connections with the Wallachian opposition, whose support he hoped to use in order to unseat Alexandru Ghica and become the ruler of both principalities.111 The Moldavian prince proved extremely unwilling to render his account of this liaison when summoned to do so by the Russian consul general.112 Although Alexandru Ghica was much less savvy, he likewise played both sides. In his private conversations with the boyars, Ghica adopted a very tolerant attitude toward the disorders in the assembly and, at the same time, ceaselessly alerted the Russian consulate to “the danger that these disorders presented to the future tranquility of the principality.”113 To make matters worse, the Wallachian ruler eventually fueled the conspiratorial activities that led to the so-called Bulgarian Etaireia of 1842. Based in the former Ottoman raia Brăila, this secret association sought to organize an anti-Ottoman revolt in Bulgaria, where several abortive uprisings had been recently severely repressed by the Ottomans.114 According to the Russian consul general Ia.A. Dashkov, Ghica sought to use this revolt in order to divert public attention away from 110 After the discovery of the St. John the Baptist Conspiracy in 1841, Sturdza permitted Vaillant to leave Iași, just as Ghica had permitted him to escape unscathed in the wake of Filipescu’s conspiracy in Wallachia in 1840. Dashkov to Nesselrode, June 17, 1841, in Varta and Varta, Moldova și Țara Românească, 352. 111 Rikman to Nesselrode, March 27, 1839, in Varta and Varta, Moldova și Țara Românească, 104–5. 112 Varta and Varta, Moldova și Țara Românească, 98–103. 113 “Aperçu sur l’état actuel de l’administration en Valachie, ” May 1839, in Varta and Varta, Moldova și Țara Românească, 120. 114 Pinson, “Ottoman Bulgaria in the First Tanzimat Period.”

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the abuses in the Wallachian administration.115 Alternatively, the prince may have wanted to compromise some of his enemies among the Wallachian boyars by getting them involved in the conspiracy and then asking the Russian consulate intervene on his side.116 Ghica’s intrigues ultimately caused his own downfall: the Bulgarian Etaireia episode forced the Russian Foreign Ministry to replace their inefficient, untrustworthy, and politically costly client. The Wallachian hospodar elections of 1842 were the only time when an Extraordinary Assembly of Election was convoked in accordance with the stipulations of the Organic Statutes. For a brief moment, the elections brought Russia back to the position it occupied in the principalities in wake of the Treaty of Adrianople. The Wallachian boyars respectfully asked the Russian consul general for his opinion on the best candidate for the throne.117 The choice of Gheorghe Bibescu as Ghica’s successor likewise seemed opportune. Bibescu served as Great Logofăt (minister of justice) during the Russian occupation of 1828–34 and was the younger brother of Barbu Știrbei, another of Kiselev’s important Wallachian collaborators. Bibescu shared the reformist impulse of his elder brother, with whom he studied in Paris during the late 1810s. At the same time, unlike Știrbei, Bibescu preferred to stay out of public administration during Ghica’s reign so he did not compromise himself in the eyes of the boyar opposition. This assured his relatively smooth election in December 1842.118 In the spirit of reconciliation, the new hospodar immediately liberated Dumitru Filipescu, Nicolae Bălcescu, and other convicted members of Filipescu’s conspiracy against Ghica. Before long, however, Bibescu clashed with the assembly over the issue of the mining concession to the Russian engineer Aleksandr Trandafilov. The latter approached the Wallachian government with a proposal to conduct a geological exploration for gold and other metals in the Carpathian mountains with the view of their exploitation over a twelve-year period on the condition of paying one-tenth of the net profit to both the landowner and the state.119 The Wallachian Administrative Council issued a favorable opinion of Trandafilov’s proposal in August 1843 and Bibescu dispatched it to the 115 Dashkov to Nesselrode, March 3, 1842, in Varta and Varta, Moldova și Țara Românească, 373. 116 Dashkov to Nesselrode, March 17, 1842, in Varta and Varta, Moldova și Țara Românească, 375. 117 Dashkov to Neselrode, October 31, 1842, in Varta and Varta, Moldova și Țara Românească, 381–82. 118 Daskov to Nesselrode, November 1842, in Varta and Varta, Moldova și Țara Românească, 388. 119 Trandafilov to Bibescu, March 1843, in Bibescu, Roumanie (1843–1859), 45–46.

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General Assembly for approval.120 At the time, the text of Trandafilov’s prospective contract became public, which prompted a strong reaction in the assembly.121 In its address to the prince, the assembly demanded the annulment of the decision of the Administrative Council on the grounds that it contradicted the stipulations of the Organic Statute on the mining rights of landowners.122 In his response to the assembly, Bibescu argued that the decision of the Administrative Council was, in fact, based on the stipulations of the Organic Statute, and he accused the assembly of “exceeding the limits of its competency” and threatened it with dissolution for failing to “loyally assist the government.”123 However, the assembly launched a counterattack against the hospodar, accusing him of surpassing the limits of his authority and calling on Sovereign and the Protective powers for support.124 Russian consul general Dashkov attributed this conflict to the frustrated personal ambitions of some boyars and to Bibescu’s impetuosity.125 At the same time, he reported foreign diplomats’ attempts to take advantage of the situation. According to Dashkov, the French consul Adolphe Billecocq was the “kingpin” of the boyar agitation in the assembly.126 In order to create a pretext that would allow other European powers to interfere in the affairs of the principalities, the French agent tried to place the princes in a situation in which they would be forced either “to commit the sin of ingratitude toward the protecting power or to resign altogether.” Parallel with this effort, Billecocq encouraged the Ottoman Empire to appoint caimacams to Bucharest and Iași to “counterbalance Russia’s influence.”127 120 “Procès-verbal du Conseil administrative extraordinaire,” August 19, 1843, in Bibescu, Roumanie (1843–1859), 47–48. 121 The draft of the contract is published in Bibescu, Roumanie (1843–1859), 49–51. 122 See the address of the General Assembly to Bibescu, February 6, 1844, in Bibescu, Roumanie (1843– 1859), 51–53. Arts. 178 and 179 of the Wallachian statute accorded to the proprietors the right to begin the exploitation of the mineral riches found on their lands within eighteen months of their discovery on condition of paying one tenth the net profit to the government. If the proprietor did not begin the exploitation with this period, the right to do it passed to the government which would leave one tenth of the net profit to the proprietor. Negulescu and Alexianu, Regulamentele organice, 78. 123 Bibescu to the General Assembly, February 15, 1844, in Bibescu, Roumanie (1843–1859), 54–55. 124 The address of the Assembly to Bibescu, March 24, 1844, in Bibescu, Roumanie (1843–1859), 56–57. 125 Daskov to Nesselrode, February 15, 1844, in Varta and Varta, Moldova și Țara Românească, 411. 126 Dashkov to Nesselrode, April 18, 1844, in Varta and Varta, Moldova și Țara Românească, 414. 127 Ibid., 415. Curiously, the formulations of the Russian consul reproduced verbatim the letter that the Wallachian agent in Vienna Philippsborn addressed to hospodar Bibescu ten days earlier. See Philippsborn to Bibescu, April 8, 1844, in Bibescu, Roumanie d’Adrianople a Balta-Liman, 227.

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In order to thwart the designs of the French consul, Dashkov solicited the aid of Kiselev, who maintained close relations with the Bibescu family and, at the same time, received appeals from the members of the opposition in the assembly.128 The former president-plenipotentiary was himself aware of the damage that the hospodar’s conflict with the assembly could cause to Russia’s position in the principalities. Still before Dashkov’s request could reach him, Kiselev advised the hospodar to use “rattles of all kinds” (hochets de toutes sortes), act by “moral force,” and “maneuver” in order to secure a majority in the assembly and ultimately win broader public approval.129 Kiselev warned the opposition against any associations with “the enemies of order and their subversive ideas,” whose efforts to provoke “a general upheaval in the principalities” would only force the Sovereign and Protective powers to intervene jointly in order “to cut the evil out at its root.”130 In the end, the resistance that Bibescu encountered on the part of the assembly forced him to commit what Dashkov had called “the sin of ingratitude towards the protecting power”: the hospodar rejected not only Trandafilov’s offer, but the later application of an official of the Russian consulate Ignatii Iakovenko for a mining concession on monastic lands.131 Even though Russian subjects failed to obtain any commercial advantage in Wallachia, the Trandafilov affair added fuel to the fire in terms of antiRussian propaganda: former conspirator Valliant insinuated in his History of Romania (1844) that the Russian engineers came to Wallachia “with the intention of preparing for the complete occupation of the country by Russia.”132 At the same time, Bibescu’s concession in the Trandafilov affair hardly diffused the opposition. The boyars remained deeply resentful of the hospodar’s dissolution of the assembly in March 1844, his rule by decree for the next two years, as well as his manipulations of the 1846 elections to 128 See Dashkov to Kiselev, April 12, 1844, in Varta and Varta, Moldova și Țara Românească, 413–14. 129 See Kiselev letters to Bibescu of April 14, 1844 and May 1, 1844, in Bibescu, Roumanie d’Adrianople à Balta-Liman, 223 and 234, respectively. 130 Kiselev to (one of the members of the oppositional Assembly) Grigore Cantacuzino, April 14, 1844, in Bibescu, Roumanie d’Adrianople a Balta-Liman, 230–31. 131 Journal du Conseil Administrative, February 19, 1845, in Bibescu, Roumanie (1843–1859), 2:58–59. 132 Vaillant, La Romanie, 2:438. Vaillant’s insinuation was later creatively amplified by other anti-­Russian authors, both French and Wallachian, but debunked by the first serious Romanian historian A.D. Xenopol (who was anything but a Russophile himself). See Regnault, Histoire politique et sociale, 240–42; Chopin and Ubicini, Provinces Danubiennes et Roumaines, 164–66; [Heliade-Radulesco], Le Protectorat du Czar, 27; Xenopol, Istoria românilor, 11: 153–59.

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secure a more cooperative chamber. In the words of the opposition’s leader Metropolitan Neofit, the institutions that before 1842 had been “manipulated and evaded, have since been blatantly violated and suppressed.” A loyal collaborator of the Russian provisional administration in 1828–34, Neofit complained to Kiselev that even the right of protest that traditionally belonged to the upper clergy was now thrown into question. “After successive destruction of the rights purchased with so many the sacrifices,” wrote the metropolitan, “the Wallachians have now lost the right to complain that the last Turkish province currently enjoys.”133 The Limits of Hegemony The clash between Bibescu and Neofit, both of whom loyally served the Russian provisional administration in 1828–1834, testifies to the absence of a consolidated “Russian party” in Wallachia similar to the one that existed at the same period of time in Greece.134 More broadly, the political conflicts of the late 1830s and the 1840s revealed the mounting difficulty of maintaining Russian hegemony in the principalities. A political hegemony presupposes the ability of whoever holds the ultimate power to convince representatives of different social groups that the existing order, despite particular frustrations that it causes to each of them, is nevertheless the best of all possible ones. As such, a hegemony is what makes unnecessary the application of force to secure compliance. The fourth and fifth decades of the nineteenth century represent an important period in the Russian relations with Moldavia and Wallachia, for it was during this period that Russia lost the political hegemony that it used to have as the sponsor of comprehensive reforms in the immediate aftermath of the Russian–Ottoman War of 1828–29. The limits of Russia’s influence upon the Moldavian and Wallachian elites were especially evident in the domain of education. Even at the high point of this influence in the wake of the peace of Adrianople, Russia did not attract the boyar sons, who sought to complete their studies abroad. Before long, the Russian consuls began sending alarming reports on the state of the Moldavian and Wallachian youth, who fell under the influence 133 Neofit to Kiselev, July 24, 1847, Bucharest, RGIA, f. 958, op. 1, d. 382, ll. 19–20. 134 On the “Russian party” in Greece in the same period, see Misiurevich, Stanovlenie natsional’nogo gosudarstva; Frary, Russia and the Making of Modern Greek Identity, 155–240.

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of radical ideas in Western Europe. Already in the late 1837, Bezak argued that the progress of “liberal and subversive ideas in the principalities” could be checked through “moral education” of boyar sons in their own country and not in Paris, “from where the Moldavian youth bring ideas that are too broad for the small Moldavian state.”135 A decade later, Kotsebu drew the attention of the Moldavian government to “the young who got their studies abroad. Although few in number, they keep frequent unions, launch incendiary ideas and try to rally the middle class.”136 However, the efforts of the Russian agents to change the situation remained inconsequential. Thus, Mihai Sturdza rejected Bezak’s suggestion to replace the French professors in the recently established St. Michael’s Academy with the German teachers on the ground that the boyars “had specifically insisted that sciences be taught to their sons in French.”137 For his part, Dashkov opined that a reform of Moldavian higher education that could make it an alternative to education abroad “had to be postponed for the moment because of the lack of necessary funds.”138 The project of sending several young Wallachians per year to study in Russian military schools that Bibescu had discussed with Kiselev soon after his election pales in comparison with the hundreds of young Wallachians and Moldavians who studied in Paris, Berlin, or Vienna during the 1840s.139 As if to confirm this overall tendency, the hospodar himself sent his son to a French military school to the great annoyance of Nicholas I, Nesselrode, and Kiselev himself.140 Unable to change the educational preferences of the younger generation, Bibescu chose to promote French education inside Wallachia and began inviting French professors to the principalities.141 As a means of checking the spread of “subversive ideas,” this measure was highly questionable. The French educators who came to Wallachia in the wake of the Russian– Ottoman War of 1828–29 often contributed to the radicalization of the 135 Bezak to Rodofinikin, November 9, 1837, in Varta and Varta, Moldova și Țara Românească, 76–78. 136 Kotsebu to Neselrode, February 28, 1846, in Varta and Varta, Moldova și Țara Românească, 464. 137 Bezak to Rodofinikin, September 3, 1837, in Varta and Varta, Moldova și Țara Românească, 70–72. 138 Dashkov to Nesselrode, July 19, 1845, in Varta and Varta, Moldova și Țara Românească, 438. 139 Kiselev to Bibescu, June 14, 1843, in Bibescu, Roumanie d’Adrianople a Balta-Liman, 195. 140 Kiselev to Bibescu, August 6, 1847, in Bibescu, Roumanie d’Adrianople a Balta-Liman, 314–15. 141 See Bibescu’s correspondence with the French Minister of Education Salvandy and the law on public education passed by the Assembly on March 2, 1847, in Bibescu, Roumanie d’Adrianople a Balta-­ Liman, 337–47.

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younger generation of the boyars. Thus, both Colson and Vaillant, the two French mentors of Câmpineanu’s and Filipescu’s co-conspirators originally served as private tutors for the Văcărescu and the Filipescu families, respectively. As a head of a boarding school at St. Sava College and a private tutor during the 1830s, Vaillant also counted among his pupils the scions of the Rosetti, Golescu, and Ghica families, who became the first political nationalists and the founders of the Romanian Liberal Party.142 Upon returning to Paris, both Colson and Vaillant actively promoted the concept of Moldavia and Wallachia as offshoots of Latin civilization languishing under the Russian yoke and supported the young Wallachians who came to complete their studies in the French capital. The revolutionary events of 1848 in the principalities marked the entry of the younger generation of Moldavian and Wallachian elites to the political scene. Galvanized by the news of the new revolution in Paris, Moldavia demonstrated the first signs of unrest already at the end of March, when hospodar Sturdza invited the oppositional boyars to submit a petition expressing their grievances. Signed by some 340 boyars, clergymen, and military men, the petition demanded the introduction of habeas corpus, the abolition of corporal punishment in the militia, the speedy promotion of officers on the basis of merit, the improvement of commercial tribunals and better policing of the markets, promotion and higher salaries for worthy public officials, reform of criminal courts and sentences, the assembly’s control over public appointments, the recognition of its (the assembly’s) right to legislative initiative, and the re-election of the assembly without governmental interference. Gathered in the Iași hotel “St. Petersburg,” the petitioners also proclaimed the “sacred preservation of the Organic Statute” that Sturdza had modified and manipulated on several occasions during his reign.143 Despite their ostensibly loyal stance toward Russia (or, perhaps, precisely because of it), Sturdza did not accept the petition that he himself invited, and instead ordered the troops to arrest or disperse the opposition. Although it was nipped in the bud, the Moldavian revolutionary movement produced a political program. 142 On Vaillant’s educational activities in Wallachia, see Drace-Francis, The Making of Modern Romanian Culture, 104. 143 “Petițiunea-proclamaținune în numele tuturor stărilor Moldovei,” March 28, 1848, in Bodea, 1848 la Români, 1:359–61.

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In May 1848, some those who managed to escape to Transylvania issued a proclamation that called for the abolition of peasant labor obligations to the landlords, the suppression of noble privileges, equal access to public appointments, as well as the “unification of Moldavia and Wallachia into single independent Romanian state.”144 The tensions in Moldavia were soon eclipsed by the events in Bucharest in June 1848. The revolutionary agitation among the militia and town dwellers by the members of Frația (Brotherhood) society forced Hospodar Bibescu to accept a provisional government, some of whose members had been involved in Dimitrie Filipescu’s conspiracy of 1840 while others had taken part in the revolutionary events in Paris.145 The Proclamation of Islaz that sparked the revolution on June 9, 1848 claimed the administrative and legal independence of the country on the basis of the Ottoman capitulations, equality of political rights, freedom of the press, equal taxation, the election of hospodars for a term of five years, the responsibility of ministers before an assembly representing all social groups, the formation of a national guard, the nationalization of dedicated monasteries, the abolition of peasant labor obligations and their endowment with land, the abolition of boyar titles, and educational reform.146 The easiness with which the scions of the great boyar families among the revolutionary leaders—brothers Golescu and Brătianu, C. A. Rosetti and Ion Ghica—renounced their estate privileges was not altogether without precedent among the nineteenth-century European aristocracy. While the majority of the aristocratic class reacted to the French Revolution by doggedly defending their contested political role and social privileges, the most perceptive of them realized that the best way to maintain and further enhance their political power consisted in becoming the overt or hidden leaders of the radicals. Best expressed by the character of Tancred in Giovanni Lampedusa’s novel The Leopard (“If we want things to stay as they are, things will have to change”), this political strategy found its earliest expression in Moldavia in the plan for an “aristo-democratic” republic proposed by Great 144 “Prințipile noastre pentru reformarea patriei,” May 12/14, 1848, in Bodea, 1848 la Români, 1:506–7. 145 Frația was founded by Nicolae Bălacescu, the former participant of the Filipescu’s conspiracy, immediately upon his liberation by Bibescu in 1843. It soon came to include other notable Wallachian “­Forty-Eighters” such as Ion Ghica, Cristian Tell, Alexandru Golescu, and C.A. Rosetti. 146 “Proclamațiune și programul revoluționar,” June 9, 1848, in Bodea, 1848 la Români, 1:537–38.

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Logofăt Dimitrie Sturdza in 1802.147 The same “aristo-democratic” tendency persisted in the activities of the Wallachian “fortyeighters,” whose eventual political victory and would result in the perpetuation of the liberal aristocratic oligarchy in modern Romania despite the formal abolition of boyar titles in 1858 and the successive expansion of the franchise. In contrast to their Moldavian counterparts, the Wallachian revolutionaries from the very beginning proclaimed the abolition of the Organic Statute for “contradicting the legislative rights of the Romanian people and the treaties that recognize its autonomy.”148 Although the revolutionaries did not directly accuse Russia of anything, they preemptively protested before the Porte, France, Germany, and England against “any invasion into this country that would begrudge our happiness and stifle independence from inside.”149 The revolutionary government indeed barely survived the summer, haunted as it was by the rumors of impending Russian occupation and nearly toppled by the counter-revolutionary coup of Metropolitan Neofit. However, like their Moldavian counterparts, the Wallachian revolutionaries did not fail to demonstrate their attitude toward Russia by publicly burning a copy of the Organic Statute in the center of Bucharest in September 1848, a week before their movement was suppressed by the Ottoman troops that occupied Wallachia at the prompting of the Russian government.150 The story of the emergence of modern Romanian nationalism in the proclamations and programs of “the generation of 1848” usually focuses on the “discovery” of the Latin origins of the Romanians and the attendant French republican influences.151 This thesis is broadly correct as a reflection of the predominant cultural orientation of the younger generation of Moldavian and Wallachian elites in the mid-nineteenth century. At the same time, it should have become clear by now that invoking the historical privileges 147 Presented to Napoleon, this plan was, in fact, more democratic than the “constitution of carbonari” of 1822 inasmuch as, alongside an executive divan of fifteen great boyars and a judicial divan of fifteen representatives of the boyars of all ranks elected for life, it also presupposed the creation of a lower chamber composed of the deputies of all social classes who would review and approve annual budgets. Vîrtosu, Napoleon Bonaparte și proiectul, 32–39. 148 “Proclamațiune și programul revoluționar,”534. 149 Ibid., 541. 150 The best essay-length discussion of the revolution in Romanian is Berindei, 1848 în Ţările Române. See also Bodea, Lupta românilor pentru unitatea națională, 119–80; and Hitchins, The Romanians, 231–73. 151 See, for instance, Iorga, Histoire des relations entre la France et les Roumains; Campbell, French Influence.

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of the principalities as defined by the Ottoman “capitulations” and confirmed by the Russian–Ottoman treaties represented an important element of the invention of national tradition in the boyar memoranda and proposals alongside references to the Latin roots of Wallachians and Moldavians. Nor should one overestimate the role of the pro-French orientation in the concrete actions of the “forty-eighters.” Although the February revolution in Paris was paramount for triggering the events in Iaşi and Bucharest as elsewhere in Europe, the failure of the French Second Republic to provide more than moral support to the “young Romanians,” forced them to follow in the steps of the boyar radicals of the 1820s and turn to the Porte. Already in May 1848, one month before the outbreak of the revolution in Wallachia, its future leaders dispatched an emissary to Constantinople to “re-establish the principality in the sense of its ancient capitulations with the Sublime Porte.” The “good Wallachians,” as the revolutionaries called themselves, sought to agree with the Porte on “the means of common resistance to the Russian aggressions” and wanted the Ottoman government to “put an end to all the interventions of Russian agents in the affairs of [Wallachia] as contradicting the interests of the Sublime Porte and the principality.”152 They also suggested to Suleiman Pasha, the Ottoman representative dispatched to Wallachia in spring 1848, that the sultan repeal the Organic Statute in favor of the “old capitulations,” which the statute supposedly violated. When Nicholas I announced the joint Russian–Ottoman occupation of the principalities “to restore order threatened by a turbulent minority,” the Wallachian revolutionary government responded with a lengthy memorandum affirming the right of the nation to regulate its political existence on the basis of the Ottoman “capitulations.”153 The memorandum cited multiple violations of the “capitulations” by the Russian government in the post-1829 period as proof that Russia had essentially forfeited its status as the legitimate guarantor of Wallachian autonomy. Shortly before the Wallachian revolution was crushed, one of its leaders, Alexandru Golescu, addressed a memorandum to the democratic public in Western Europe that likewise ref152 See the accreditation letters to Ion Ghica of May 17, 1848, in Bodea, 1848 la Români, 1:352–54. 153 “Răspunsul locotinenţei domneşti la circularea rusească din 19 iulie, 1848,” in Anul 1848 în Principatele Romăne, 4:157–67. In parallel, the Moldavian “fortyeighters” who took refuge in Brașov expressed their wish to “consolidate the treaties of their ancestors” with the Porte to the Ottoman representative Suleiman-Pasha. Bodea, 1848 la Români, 1:644.

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erenced the ancient treaties the principalities had with the Ottoman Empire that had allegedly been violated by Russia.154 A similarly lengthy and acid account of Russia’s violations of the privileges of Moldavia based on the Ottoman capitulations was offered in the Program of the National Party of Moldavia, written in August 1848 by Mihai Kogălniceanu.155 For its part, the Russian Foreign Ministry questioned the sincerity of the declarations of loyalty to the Porte made by the Wallachian revolutionaries. The ministry argued that their true goal was to restore “their ancient nationality on a historical basis that had never existed.” According to the revolutionaries, Moldavia and Wallachia would “cease to be provinces and constitute under the name of a Daco-Roman kingdom a new separate and independent state, into which they invite their brothers from Moldavia, Bucovina, Transylvania, and Bessarabia.” Such a project, the ministry argued, threatened the very existence of the Ottoman Empire: “Once the Moldovlachians separate from Turkey in the name of their putative nationality, whose origin is lost to history, one will soon see Bulgaria, Rumelia, and other diverse races of the Ottoman Empire each demand independence in order to form a separate state of its own.” The ministry refused to view the revolutionaries as the true representatives of the Wallachian people and appealed to the provisions of the Russian–Ottoman treaties to justify military intervention.156 Following the suppression of the Wallachian revolution, the Russian– Ottoman convention of Balta-Liman of April 1849 re-established the political regime introduced in the early 1830s, albeit in a modified form. The election of the hospodars once again gave way to their appointment by the Porte, and their term of service was once again limited to seven years. The ordinary and extraordinary assemblies were abolished, “having occasioned regrettable clashes and even open insubordination.” The functions of the yearly budget review and the allocation of taxes were given to the divans’ ad hoc com154 See “Istoricul ultimelor evenimente petrecute în Principate, memoriu de Al. G. Golescu,” in Anul 1848 în Principatele Romăne, 4:634–70. The same tendency to present the Wallachian revolution as a return to the spirit and letter of the Ottoman “capitulations” can be found in the accounts of the 1848 events written by one of the leaders of the revolutionary government and the spiritual father of the “1848 generation,” Ion Heliade Rădulescu. See [Heliade-Radulescu], Le Protectorat du Czar; ­R adulesco, Mémoires. 155 See “Dorințele partidei naționale din Moldova,” in Bodea, 1848 la Români, 1:668–82. 156 See the circular note of the Russian Foreign Ministry to its representatives abroad of July 19, 1848, in Anul 1848 în Principatele Romăne, 2:612.

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mittees, which were “composed of the most respectable and trustworthy boyars and some representatives of the clergy.”157 The Special Committee of Revision had to review the existing institutions in order to eliminate abuses and offer suggestions for “organic improvement.” The Ottoman and Russian troops were to remain in the principalities until the completion of their work and the restoration of tranquility.158 For the duration of the military occupation, special Russian and Ottoman commissars were to supervise the course of affairs and “offer their councils and opinions to the hospodars on particularly important abuses or measures that could be harmful to the security of the principalities.”159 However, the restoration of order was achieved at a steep price as is clear from the memorandum that the newly appointed Wallachian hospodar Barbu Știrbei addressed to Nesselrode and Kiselev in 1851. Having served as the secretary of the Wallachian section of the Committee of Reform in 1829– 30, Știrbei became Great Logofăt (Minister of Justice) under the hospodar Alexandru Ghica. This gave Știrbei an opportunity to make use of his legal education and elaborate a new commercial code for Wallachia closely based on the Napoleonic Code, as well as caused him to streamline the procedures in the criminal and civil codes. After Ghica’s deposition in 1842, Știrbei was one of the candidates for hospodar, but he withdrew his candidacy in favor of his brother Gheorghe Bibescu. In 1849, he was appointed Wallachian hospodar, only to realize the fragility of the political system of which he was part. Știrbei argued that the primitive mores of the inhabitants used to sustain the tranquility of the country. However, “this simplicity and habit of respect and submission to the established government have been irreversibly altered with time.” The revolutionary events of 1848 sowed “pernicious seeds of insubordination and anarchy for the future.”160 In this situation, the government could not really find firm support among the peasantry since they were still “unable to understand the source of good or bad things that happen to them.” The bourgeoisie was “almost non-existent in Wallachia” and the few elements of it that did begin to appear “still do not understand their 157 “Akt zakliuchennyi v Balta Limane,” April 19, 1949, in Iuzefovich, Dogovory Rossii s Vostokom, 104. 158 Ibid., 105. 159 Ibid., 106. 160 See the memorandum of Barbu Știrbei on the situation of the principalities, attached to his letter to Kiselev of February 16, 1851, RGIA, f. 958, op.1, d. 643, l. 4.

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real interests and duties.” This left only the class of public employees. With few exceptions, argued Știrbei, this class became used to exploiting the country for its profit: “They are the enemies of any benevolent government, and yet it is the only active class here that is ready to offer its skills to any ambitious individual who would want to channel them to the work of destruction, only to quarrel over the spoils of the overthrown government and begin anew the day after.” To make matters worse, the Convention of Balta-Liman again limited the hospodars’ reign to seven years and thereby removed “the only guarantee against bad passions,” that the election of hospodars for life had offered. As a result, “the smallest boyar secretly imagines himself a hospodar” and works to “overthrow the existing order with little reserve, since he knows that the maximum punishment for him would be imprisonment in a monastery for several months.”161 Știrbei also decried the increased influence of the Porte in the principalities after 1848. Whereas Alexandru Ghica and Gheorghe Bibescu hardly wrote ten letters to the Ottoman government in the fourteen years that they ruled Wallachia, now the Porte “wants to interfere in the smallest details of administration and exercises active, jealous, and humiliating surveillance.” Moreover, in the wake of the Convention of Balta-Liman, the Ottoman government emerged as the principal sponsor of political transformation in Moldavia and Wallachia. “The Porte is known for its frequent changes of policy,” wrote Știrbei, and this constitutes “the lure that helped it attract the boyars and enabled it to assert its predominant influence over them; and then any change is advantageous to her.” The continuation of the joint Russian–Ottoman occupation could only aggravate the situation, but the evacuation of the principalities would certainly be followed by another attempt to overthrow the government. The only idea that Știrbei could propose in response to this predicament was to deploy 500 Swiss mercenaries in Bucharest in the hope that “this small elite corps will oppose the perturbators and will serve as a model of discipline and excellence for the militia” whose loyalty the hospodar doubted.162

161 Ibid., l. 5. 162 Ibid., l. 6.

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Știrbei decried situation in which he found himself. With an empty treasury and a huge public debt, he was forced to “do all the work himself: watch over everything, review everything—including the most insignificant issue, and personally motivate employees from the greatest to the smallest, otherwise nothing will function.” He also had to struggle with the powerful foreign consuls, who “serve as the instigators of revolutionaries” and who “contested the prerogatives of the government, including its right to police their protégés.” According to Știrbei, the consuls profited from the presence of the Ottoman army in order to place the principalities on equal footing with other Turkish provinces and apply to them the capitulations that the Porte granted to the European powers in total disregard for “the immunities of the principalities, and the rights that had been reserved for them by the solicitude of the previous administration.”163 Whereas Știrbei’s memorandum emphasized the lack of a solid social basis for the political regime of Wallachia and Moldavia, Kiselev’s former secret agent in the principalities, I.P. Liprandi, focused on the cultural politics of the principalities in the middle of the century and explained their implications for Russia. In his ethnographic, political, and military survey of the principalities presented to the Russian commander in chief M.D. Gorchakov at the beginning of the Crimean War, Liprandi demonstrated that, since the 1830s, Western European visitors to Moldavia and Wallachia propagated the idea among the young generation of “acquiring independence through the creation of a Dacian kingdom.” The unfortunate choice of hospodars and the intrigues of the Phanariots, who remained in the principalities, contributed to the spread of this “Western teaching.” As a result, the principalities became a “secret club of all the demagogues of all European countries,” who enjoyed the protection of the foreign consuls, while the younger generation of boyars came to hate the present order and “focuses its hatred primarily on Russia, which had created and is now maintaining this order.”164 Liprandi also identified the specific cultural strategies that young boyars used in order to undermine the age-old ties that still attached common Moldavians and Wallachians to Russia, such as numerous words of Slavic origin in the language and the Cyrillic script used in liturgical texts. 163 Ibid., ll. 7–7v. 164 Liprandi, “Kratkii ocherk etnograficheskogo, politicheskogo, moral’nogo i voennogo sostoianiia khristianskikh oblastei Turetskoi imperii. Pridunaiskie kniazhestva,” ChIOIDR, no. 4 (1876): 4–6.

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Educated in Paris and Vienna, writers of both principalities got carried away by the idea that they were “the true descendants of the ancient Romans and, as such, shared a common origin with Western Europeans, whom they should try to imitate in everything, from language to the mode of thinking, mores, government, and even religion.” Accordingly, they were trying to replace Church Slavonic with the Latin alphabet and substitute French, Italian, and Latin terms for Slavic words that had long been in use. Liprandi further demonstrated that in this linguistic effort, the young Moldavians and Wallachians followed the example of Transylvanian Romanians, who had switched to the Latin alphabet long ago and “eagerly converted from Eastern Orthodoxy to the Western Union.”165 Whereas Liprandi observed the situation in the principalities from afar, the veteran of the Danubian campaign of 1853–54 P.V. Alabin came to similar conclusions through direct observation. He realized that “the majority of thinking Moldo-Wallachians are hostile toward us for they belong to the new generation whose liberal ideas were frustrated in 1848 because of us.” As older boyars departed from the political scene, argued Alabin, there was no one to raise a voice for Russia: “Whatever good we have done for Moldavia and Wallachia is forgotten, although it cost us a lot of blood. Now they remember only that we did not allow the principalities to adopt the forms upon which, in their opinion, depends the happiness of the country.” Unlike some of his comrades-in-arms in the Russian army, Alabin remained unconvinced by the outward expressions of sympathy, loyalty, and love demonstrated by Romanians in 1853 and concluded pessimistically that, “if we happen to lose this war, they will no longer be constrained by anything and will try to pay us back for 1848.”166 Alabin’s words turned out to be doubly prophetic. After Austria demanded the withdrawal of Russian troops from the principalities in June 1854, the Romanians barely lamented their departure. Russia’s subsequent defeat in Crimea put an end to its protectorate over the Danubian principalities. The Treaty of Paris of 1856 preserved the formal sovereignty of the Ottoman Empire over Moldavia and Wallachia and placed them under the collective guarantee of all major European powers. The treaty also called for 165 Ibid., 6–7. 166 Alabin, Chetyre voiny, 2:43.

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Chapter VII

ad hoc Assemblies of the Moldavian and Wallachian divans under the supervision of representatives of the European powers in order to elaborate the principles on which the future government of the principalities would be based. The Paris Convention of August 7, 1858, which replaced the Organic Statutes as the formal constitution of the principalities, did not satisfy the ad hoc assemblies’ demand for the outright transformation of Moldavia and Wallachia into single state under the rule of a representative from a European dynasty. Nevertheless, it allowed for the unification of Moldavia and Wallachia, which produced the United Principalities sharing legislative and judicial bodies. The convention also did not prohibit the double election of Alexandru Ioan Cuza to the thrones of Moldavia and Wallachia in January 1859, which signaled the birth of modern Romania.

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A

cursory glance at the history of Imperial Russia’s relations with the Orthodox subject peoples in the Ottoman Empire during the nineteenth century might lead one to conclude that Russia quickly lost influence over the elites of the emergent Balkan nation-states after it contributed to their struggle for autonomy and independence. One might further be inclined to explain this loss of influence by the weakening of confessional identity among the elites of Southeastern Europe that earlier had made them view the tsars as champions of their religious rights and as potential liberators from Ottoman control. Modern Balkan national identities sometimes emerged in explicit opposition to the idea of a supra-national religious community of Greek Orthodox peoples that had informed Russia’s Eastern policy since Peter the Great.1 The beginning of the age of nationalism in the Balkans heightened tensions between particular Balkan peoples. These tensions undermined the Orthodox commonwealth, the ghost of which the tsars evoked in their manifestos. This representation of Imperial Russia’s Balkan entanglements rests on the assumption that Russia was a traditionalist power that sought to contain the political transformation of the region even though its military interventions often triggered irrevocable changes. It presents Imperial Russia’s Eastern policy as reactive and seeking to forestall the ultimately inevitable process of political modernization. Certainly, the efforts of Nicholas I and other Russian rulers to contain revolution in Europe and at home might contribute to the perception of their policy as fundamentally conservative. The preservation and stability of their empire were, undoubtedly, the overall goals 1 Vovchenko, Containing Balkan Nationalisms.

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of the Russian tsars—not unlike those of rulers at all times and in all places. However, the means employed by Russian rulers to pursue these otherwise traditional, not to say banal, goals, could have serious transformative effects on particular peoples and territories.2 The Organic Statutes of Moldavia and Wallachia of 1831–32, elaborated and adopted under the supervision of the Russian provisional administration, constitute a case in point. The statutes were intended to turn the principalities into a controllable buffer zone and secure Russia’s southwestern frontiers. However, in doing so, they significantly modernized the political and administrative institutions of Moldavia and Wallachia and laid the foundation of the Romanian nation-state. This study presented the reforms of the late 1820s and the early 1830s as the product of the evolution of relations between the Russian Empire and the elites of the principalities since the early years of the nineteenth century. By the Russian–Ottoman War of 1806–12, the boyars of Moldavia and Wallachia had largely lost whatever emotional attachment they might have once had toward Russia as a great co-religionist power. On the one hand, the conflicts and tensions generated by frequent Russian–Ottoman wars and, consequently, recurring occupations of the principalities greatly reduced the number of boyars who wanted to become subjects of the Russian tsar as had been the case during the rule of Peter the Great and Catherine the Great. On the other hand, great power rivalry in the context of the Eastern Question strengthened the Realpolitik mindset of the boyars at the expense of sentimental attachment. And yet, despite the considerable cooling of the boyars’ attitudes toward the great northern power, Russia maintained a leading influence over the principalities for several decades after the 1812 peace of Bucharest, the starting point of this study. The key to Russia’s predominance was its politics of reform, which gave new meaning to Russia’s stance as protector of the Orthodox subjects of the Ottomans in general, and the sultan’s two vassal principalities in particular. Repeated military occupations of Moldavia and Wallachia and the permanent presence of Russian consuls in Iași and Bucharest led to the involvement of Russian diplomats and commanders in the local administration and made them aware of rampant abuse. Familiarity with local conditions resulted in 2 Ilya Vinkovetsky makes the same argument with reference to Russian policy in Bulgaria in 1878–79. Vinkovetsky, “Strategists and Ideologues,” 751–91.

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a remarkably critical assessment of the moral qualities of Moldavians and Wallachians. This attitude contrasted with the nineteenth-century infatuation of educated Russians with the more distant and, therefore, less familiar, Greeks, Serbs and Bulgarians. It also informed the growing resolve of Russian policy makers to reform Moldavian and Wallachian institutions and curb abusive practices that threatened to tarnish Russia’s image as the protector of the principalities. One encounters the first manifestations of this approach already during the Russian–Ottoman war and the Russian occupation of the principalities in 1806–12. The attempts of the senator-president of the Moldavian and Wallachian divans S.S. Kushnikov, Russian commander P.I. Bagration, and Exarch Gavriil to rationalize local administration and eliminate abuses admittedly had very limited results. Yet they anticipated much more comprehensive and systematic reform efforts decades later. The war and occupation of 1806–12 is also significant inasmuch as it revealed the highly factional nature of Moldavian and Wallachian elites, which was both a danger to and an opportunity for Russia. On the one hand, competing boyar factions threatened to compromise the unity of the provisional administration and its policy. On the other hand, clashes between boyars made the Russian authorities the arbiter of intra-elite conflicts and helped Russia maintain its predominant position in the principalities. Renewed political tensions between the Phanariot princes and the Wallachian and Moldavian boyars after 1812 likewise contributed to the emergence of reform as the leitmotif of Imperial Russia’s relations with the elites of the principalities. In this period, both the Phanariots and native boyars sought to secure Russia’s consent for particular administrative and fiscal measures that would redefine the political structure of the principalities in their favor. This necessarily placed tsarist diplomats in the position of mediator over their conflicts and provided Russia with an additional instrument of influence in the region. The makers of Russia’s Eastern policy during this period promoted a vision of political order for post-Napoleonic Europe, the Ottoman Empire, and Russia based on a respect for local laws and customs and the co-option of regional and local elites. Informed by these principles, the Bessarabian experiment of Alexander I and Ioannis Kapodistrias provided the link between Russia’s Eastern policy, its European strategy, and projects of transformation within the political space of Russia itself. 325

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The Etaireia uprising of 1821 in Moldavia and Wallachia and its disavowal by Alexander I for the sake of preserving the Holy Alliance put an end to the tsar’s “constitutionalism,” just as it temporarily sidelined Russia’s championing of the interests of Orthodox co-religionists. However, reform remained a leitmotif of Russia’s relations with the elites of Moldavia and Wallachia during the 1820s and the early 1830s. The abolition of Phanariot rule by the Porte in 1822 and the appointment of the first native princes in over a century did not end intra-elite tensions in the principalities. If anything, infighting became even more acute during the 1820s, when the policies of the new hospodars alienated conservative great boyars. Although the official break in Russian–Ottoman relations in July 1821 led to the temporary withdrawal of the Russian consuls from the principalities, the conflict between rival boyar factions perpetuated Russia’s role as arbiter of intra-elite conflicts in Moldavia and Wallachia. Between the outbreak of the Etaireia uprising and the beginning of the Russian–Ottoman War of 1828–29, the Russian government received no less than forty-three petitions and memoranda from the Moldavian and Wallachian boyars calling for Russian intervention and containing outlines for political reform projects in the principalities. This was considerably more than the number of appeals the boyars addressed to the Sovereign Power, the Porte (27), and ten times more than they sent to neighboring Austria (4). One could repeat ad nauseam—as did the French consuls in their reports to Paris—how weary the Moldavian and Wallachian boyars were of the Russian protectorate, yet the fact remains that during the 1820s, Russia received more boyar memoranda than all the other great powers combined. By the end of the 1820s, autocratic Russia was the only great power that was willing and able to sponsor political reforms in Moldavia and Wallachia, where different factions of the indigenous boyar class were interested in some redefinition of the existing institutions. Ottoman Turkey, in the midst of its deepest political crisis, was hardly in a position to orchestrate such reforms; its own incipient Westernization policies had not yet produced officials able to speak the political language of the boyars, who increasingly incorporated Western idioms. Great Britain, France, or Austria were better suited for such a role, yet their interest consisted in the preservation of the Ottoman Empire as a bulwark against the sometimes real, but for the most part largely imagined, expansionism of Russia. For this reason, British, French, and Austrian diplo326

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Conclusion

mats opposed expanding the autonomy of the principalities from Constantinople, which could further undermine the already weak power of the sultan. The overview of boyar reform projects in the 1820s analyzed in this study demonstrated that different groupings within the boyar class had different, sometimes widely divergent interests. The small boyars took advantage of the temporary emigration of the great boyars to Transylvania, Bukovina, and Bessarabia in the wake the Etaireia uprising in order to curry favor with the Ottomans and redefine the political system of the principalities in their favor. They gained some influence over Grigore Ghica and Ioan Alexandru Sturdza—the first native hospodars appointed by the Porte after a century of Phanariot rule in Wallachia and Moldavia. In response, the émigré great boyars denounced small boyar radicalism and the hospodars’ policy of promoting “unworthy individuals” to positions of importance within the government. Particularly prominent in Moldavia, this conflict between the conservative great boyars and the small boyar “carbonari” was further aggravated by the personal rivalries between individual great boyars, some of whom opportunistically allied with boyar radicals in their efforts to succeed Ioan Alexandru Sturdza and Grigore Ghica, whose seven-year terms of service were coming to an end in the late 1820s. Great boyar efforts to influence the direction of Russian policy became all the more relevant after the reactivation of Russia’s Eastern policy following the ascent of Nicholas I to the throne. The Russian–Ottoman Convention of Akkerman of September 25, 1826 stipulated the elaboration of the statutes for Moldavia and Wallachia, which triggered a new round of boyar memoranda and reform plans. Although the first committees of reform convened under the presidency of the Russian consul general in 1827 did not produce any drafts of the statutes, the work of these committees enabled tsarist diplomats to formulate a more precise reform agenda. This agenda was implemented after the Russian–Ottoman War of 1828–29, which made possible the elaboration of the Organic Statutes of Moldavia and Wallachia under the supervision of the Russian provisional authorities in the principalities. Ever since Karl Marx condemned the Organic Statutes as codes of corvée labor, historians have tended to see them as the product of Russia’s political concessions to the interests of the conservative great boyars. However, this study demonstrates that the political victory of the great boyars over the radical boyars in the 1820s was not inevitable. Admittedly, the rheto327

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Conclusion

ric of the Moldavian “carbonari” as well as their often pro-Ottoman political orientation during the 1820s greatly helped the conservative great boyars denounce them as the enemies of order to the Russian authorities. At the same time, the small boyars’ demands for greater equality within the boyar class corresponded to the Russian concept of the nobility as well as the practices of local government introduced by the gubernia reform of Catherine the Great, which was reproduced in a modified form in Bessarabia after 1812. The Russian Foreign Ministry’s instructions to the Committee of Reforms charged with the elaboration of the Organic Statutes in June 1829 initially presupposed the participation of second-class boyars in the Ordinary Assembly and in the elections of the hospodars. The subsequent narrowing of the composition of the Assemblies and the decision to have the first hospodars appointed by the Porte rather than elected was the result of the political circumstances of 1830–31. The petitions of the smaller boyars against the drafts of the statutes prepared by the great boyar members of the Committee of Reform reached the Russian authorities in the wake of the July Revolution in France and the Polish November uprising of 1830, which aggravated the conservative tendencies of Nicholas I and vice-chancellor Nesselrode. Even after this policy shift, Russian authorities tried to maintain a balance between the interests of the great and those of the small boyars by having the Assemblies of Revision recognize the nobility of all three classes of boyars, not just those of the first class. The monetary compensation that the Russian Foreign Ministry agreed to offer the boyars in return for abolishing the scutelnici was ultimately paid by the peasants, whose tax burden increased in accordance with the statutes. However, these concessions to boyar interests should be weighed against the efforts of President-Plenipotentiary P.D. Kiselev to secure a clear definition of the mutual responsibilities of the peasants and the landlords in the spirit of the eighteenth-century Bauernschutz policy of the Central European rulers. The reform of the police, the creation of a militia, and the reorganization of administrative and judicial institutions similarly did not seek after the satisfaction of the particular interests of any specific segment of Moldavian and Wallachian elites. Once again, Russia’s initial objective consisted of turning Moldavia and Wallachia into a controllable buffer zone and reducing Ottoman influence over them. However, the means employed to achieve this goal belonged to the toolkit of the early modern well-ordered police 328

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state. The Polizeistaat represented an early version of the welfare state and an important stage in the emergence of modern territorial statehood, which had largely failed to develop in eighteenth-century Moldavia and Wallachia. By introducing practices of “good policing” in the principalities, the Russian provisional administration in the late 1820s and early 1830s helped consolidate territorial statehood on the lower Danube and thereby contributed, however inadvertently, to the transformation of two medieval frontier principalities into the modern Romanian nation-state. This study demonstrated that the makers of Russia’s Eastern policy initially conceived of the Organic Statutes as a means to minimize Ottoman influence in Moldavia and Wallachia. The political stability of the principalities was to be achieved through the regularization of the local administration and the creation of borders that were impenetrable to epidemics and other unsavory elements of Ottoman influence. In this respect, the creation and implementation of the statutes can be considered an important moment in the struggle between the two continental empires for the redefinition of the character of a shared frontier zone. As a result, the unstable and permeable Islamic frontier was transformed into a fixed and formally demarcated border along European lines. However, the reduction of the Ottoman presence in Moldavia and Wallachia coincided with the activation of British and French policy in the principalities. The head of the Russian provisional administration P.D. Kiselev responded to this new challenge by trying to turn Moldavia and Wallachia into a barrier against the political “subversion” he associated with the activities of Western diplomatic agents. This shift in focus informed both Kiselev’s attempts to extract Moldavia and Wallachia from the scope of Ottoman capitulations to the Western powers, as well as his efforts to institute censorship of local and foreign publications in the principalities. The desire of tsarist officials to turn Moldavia and Wallachia into a cordon sanitaire for the Russian Empire against the revolutionary threat emanating from the West became even more pronounced after the appointment of the hospodars and the Russian evacuation of the principalities in 1834. The failure of this strategy over the next two decades owed not so much to the shortcomings of the reforms in the early 1830s, as to the policy pursued (or not) by the Russian Empire thereafter. Although the Organic Statutes caused greater or lesser dissatisfaction among different groups within the 329

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Moldavian and Wallachian population, in itself, this dissatisfaction does not explain the erosion of Russian hegemony in the principalities in the second half of the 1830s and the 1840s. If anything, it created the preconditions for the continuation of the very reform politics that had served Russia well in the previous two decades. In fact, a constant redefinition of the existing settlement in favor of this or that group among the divided and dissatisfied political elites of the principalities—a permanent reform of sorts—was the only means to ground Russia’s control over the principalities in something more stable and durable than the sheer force of arms in the long run. However, such an approach was quite alien to Nicholas I and his agents, who viewed reform as a one-time rationalistic overhaul of local institutions rather than a continuous process of renegotiation. Inspired by the principles of the eighteenth-century well-ordered police state, this overhaul was supposed to define, once and for all, the functions of particular individuals and social groups as well as their relations to one another. In this sense, the Organic Statutes were quite different from the constitutions of the Atlantic revolutionary age, which were often limited to the formulation of a few fundamental principles and, at the same time, allowed for an open-ended political process. This fundamental difference between Central European Polizeistaat and Western constitutionalism would only become more pronounced after 1815, when the absolutist regimes of Central and Eastern Europe employed the institutions and practices of the well-ordered police state to prevent future revolutions and maintain the status quo. Once Russia’s refusal to permit any modifications to the statutes became clear, Moldavian and Wallachian elites ceased to view the great northern power as a source of potential political change. As the younger generation of Moldavian and Wallachian elites began to look for alternative sponsors, the end of Russian control over the principalities was only a matter of time, or, rather, military defeat, which came with the Crimean War. It took the Bolshevik takeover in 1917, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of 1939, and the forced imposition of the Communist regime after 1945 to make Romanian elites persistently and irredeemably Russophobic; yet the origins of this antiRussian sentiment are undoubtedly found in the narrowly repressive attitude adopted by the Russian government after 1834.3 3 For the subsequent evolution of Romanian perceptions on Russia, see Ivanov, Imaginea ruşilor.

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At the same time, Russia’s ultimate loss of influence over Moldavia and Wallachia should not obscure the fact that, for a long time, Russian policy was broadly successful in the principalities. For over half a century, Russia was the effective arbiter of the political struggles between different segments of the Moldavian and Wallachian elites, and it used this position to transform the principalities into a governable buffer zone. This policy was part of the broader approach of post-Petrine Russian rulers who, despite their reputation for expansionism, often preferred preponderant influence over weak neighbors to outright annexation. In fact, annexation was a fall-back option when their preferred strategy no longer worked, as happened in Poland in the late eighteenth century. The multiple challenges the absorbed Polish territories posed to the successors of Catherine the Great suggest that Russia’s failure to annex Moldavia and Wallachia in the early 1830s was, in fact, a blessing in disguise. As if recognizing this, the Russian minister of war Aleksei Kuropatkin argued on the eve of the First World War that the annexation of the principalities would have made their culturally distinctive population outrightly hostile to the Russian people and would have produced “another Poland.”4 The fact that Moldavia and Wallachia never quite became a second Poland may well be the most significant achievement of the Russian policy in the principalities analyzed in this study.

4 Kuropatkin, Zadachi russkoi armii, 2:338.

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A ppe n di x 1 Boyar Ranks of Moldavia in 1829 First Class

Logofăt de Țara de Jos Logofăt de Țara de Sus Vornic de Țara de Jos Vornic de Țara de Sus Vornic de Obște Hatman de Poliție Vistier Postelnic

Second Class

Vornic de Poliție Hatman de Prut Vornic de Aprod Aga Spătar Ban Camaraș Comis Caminar

Third Class

Paharnic Serdar Stolnic Armaș Medelnicer Clucer Sluger Pitar Jitnicer Șatrari

All boyars during the actual performance of their public functions bore the epithet of “Vel” (from Slavic “velikii” or Great). Upon stepping down, they only retained their rank without the epithet of “Great.” All boyars from the Great Logofăt to the Great Ban were called great boyars. They had the right to wear a beard and ride on horseback. The boyars in the ranks below that of the Great Ban were called small boyars. All the great boyars had initially been the members of the princely divan, yet at the time of the Russian–Ottoman War of 1828–1829, the divan included only the Great Logofăt of the Low Country (Țara de Jos), two Great Vornics of the Low Country (Țara de Jos), two Great Vornics of the High Country (Țara de Sus), the Great Vornic of Public Works (de Obște), Great Vornic of Police, the Great Spătar and the Great Ban. All great boyars with the exception of the Great Logofăt, Great Vornic, and Great Hatman had the right to occupy the lucrative position of district ispravnik without the loss of their rank. The small boyars rarely were appointed to the position of ispravnik and usually had to content themselves with the position of samiș or agent of the treasury (vistieria). Others managed to gain employment in the department of foreign affairs (the office of Great Postelnic). All boyars and their properties without exception were exempt from all forms of taxation. In addition, they had the right to a number of scutelnici (depending upon their class and rank). During the performance of their official functions, boyars received a salary as well as additional emoluments pertaining to their office.

Based on “Ordre actuel de nobles de Moldavie,” RGIA, f. 1630, op. 1, d. 117, ll. 3–4.

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A ppe n di x 2 Boyar Ranks of Wallachia in 1829 Class

Rank

Name

First Class

Great Ban

Grigore Brâncoveanu Constantin Crețulescu Barbu Văcarescu Constantin Bălăceanu

Number 4

Vornic de Țara de Sus (The Grigore Băleanu High Country) Grigore Filipescu Mihai Ghica

3

Vornic de Țara de Jos (The Low Country)

Mihai Mano Gheorghe Filipescu Tudor Văcărescu

3

The Third Vornic

Constantin Dudescu Nicolae Golescu Gheorghe Golescu Barbu Grădișteanu Alexandru Ghica Iancu Știrbei

6

The Fourth Vornic

Dumitru Racoviță Grigore Rallet Dumitru Știrbei Grigore Romanița Constantin Câmpineanu Alexandru Ghica

6

Logofăt de Țara de Sus (The High Country)

Mihai Racoviță Ștefan Bellu Alexandru Filipescu

3

Vornic de Țara de Jos (The Low Country)

Constantin Golescu Ștefan Nestor Dimitrie Rallet

3

Logofăt of Foreign Affairs

Iancu Văcărescu Mihai Cornescu

2

Logofăt de Obște

Emanoil Băleanu Dumitru Hrisoscoleo Iancu Făleșeanu Pana Costescu

4

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Append i x 2

Hatman

Ștefan Bălăceanu Mihai Filipescu Constantin Ghica Nicolae Filipescu Alexandru Villara Dumitru Ghica Constantin Cornescu

7

Vistier

Iancu Mosco

1

Vornic de Poliție

Alexandru Nințulescu Nicolae Ghica Alexandru Crețulescu Iancu Cocorescu

4

Postelnic

Alexandru Argiropulo Filip Lenș

2

Aga

Constantin Bellu Constantin Bălăceanu Gheorghe Florescu Constantin Cantacuzino Matei Cantacuzino Emanoil Florescu Constantin Rallet Grigore Filipescu

8

Camaraș

Constatin Zefeari Iancu Ghica

2 Total: 59

Second Class

Clucer

19

Caminar

41

Paharnic

33

Stolnic

55

Comis

13

Serdar

95

Medelnicer

110

Slujer

110

Pitar

50

Șatrari

32

Clucer de Arie

50

Vameș

2

Camaraș de Ocne

2 Total: 612

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Append i x 2

Third Class

Second Logofăt of the Divan

18

Divictar

1

Second Logofăt de Obște

3

Second Vistier

93

Second Postelnic

4

Capitan de Dorobanți

7

Capitan de Lefedji

12

Third Logofăt of the Divan

72

Third Logofăt de Obște

2

Third Vistier

42

Logofăt de Spătărie

7

Logofăt de Agie

11

Logofăt de Vornic de Poliție

7

Third Postelnic

6

Vătaf de Aprozi

6

Ceauș de Aprozi

7

Staroste de negustori

3

Polcovnic and capitan de cozaci Vătaf de Divan

143 11

Vătaf de Vestiarie

8

Vătaf de Paharnicel

7

Ceauș de Paharnicel

3

Vătaf de Curte

1

Ceauș de Hatman

2

Second Spătar

3

Baș-Belocbași

17

Ceauș de Spătar

9

Ceauș de Aga

13

Staroste de brutari

2

Second Comis

8

Second Pitar

4

Second Armaș

20

336

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Append i x 2

Second Gramatic

1

Second Portar

2

Meimarbașa

3

Third Comis

2

Third Armaș

1

Second Portar de Craiova

1

Boierinași

59

Grand Total:1292

Total: 562

Based on the list of Wallachian boyar ranks found at RGIA, f. 1630, op. 1, d. 118, ll. 3–4v.

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G l oss a r y

Aga: Originally an Ottoman military rank, the aga was in charge of the police in Iași and Bucharest. After 1832, he commanded a special detachment of mounted gendarmes called dorobanți. Anaphora: Report of the General Assembly of the Divans to the hospodars on the affairs of the country. Bir: Direct tax. Birnici: The mass of inhabitants who did not have any privileges and were liable for all taxes, charges, and labor. Breslași: Skilled workers in the private service of the boyars, lived on boyar lands, and were exempt from state taxes and public labor obligations. Bresle: Merchants, usually of Greek or other foreign origin, who enjoyed certain privileges on basis of the patents of the hospodars. Capanli: Ottoman merchants in the principalities who secured supplies for the Ottoman capital. Capuchehaie: Representatives of Moldavia and Wallachia in Constantinople. In the period under consideration, these positions were usually occupied by Greeks. Caimacam: A lieutenant who represented the hospodar from the moment of his investiture by the Porte to the moment of his arrival in the principality. Catanes: Wallachian gendarmes before 1829 who were recruited from common taxpayers and given exemptions from certain taxes and public labor obligations. Cisle: Tax quotas imposed on Moldavian peasants. Hrisov (chrisobule): A patent of the hospodar bearing the great stamp. Hatmania: Moldavian ministry of police headed by the Great Hatman. Logofăt: Head of the judiciary; after 1829 the Great Logofăt became the Minister of Justice. 339

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Glossar y

Ludori: Wallachian taxation units composed of several peasant families. Mazili: Originally déclassé boyars who no longer exercised official functions but retained certain privileges. They were not collectively responsible in matters of taxation and were exempt from indirect taxes and corporal punishment. They were analogous to Russian single homesteaders. Obștească Adunare: A general assembly composed of high clergy and all firstclass boyars. Postelnic: Secretary of the hospodar who was in charge of relations with foreign diplomats. Raia (plural raiale): Territories around Ottoman fortresses that had been separated from the principalities and transferred to Ottoman rule. Ruptași: A semi-privileged group of the principalities’ population composed of the descendants of clergymen. Rusumaturi: Taxes on sheep, pigs, beehives, and wine as well as customs duties and the revenue of salt mines which formed the private treasury of the hospodars. Scutelnici: Peasants exempt from direct state taxation and public labor obligations and placed in the private service of the boyars. Slugi or poslușnici: Individuals exempt from the payment of direct taxes and public labor obligations and placed in the exclusive service of monasteries. Slujitori: Individuals exempt from the payment of direct taxes and public labor obligations and charged with the execution of administrative orders. Spătărie: Wallachian ministry of police headed by the Great Spătar. Sudiți: Foreign subjects who enjoyed certain privileges and were placed under the jurisdiction of foreign consuls. Vornic: Originally the hospodar’s majordomo, the Great Vornic eventually became the minister of interior in both principalities.

340

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B i bl iogr a ph y

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I n de x

Arsenije III Crnojevic, Serbian Patriarch, 21 Asachi, Gheorghe, 157, 182, 202, 273 assemblies assemblies of the divans, 179, 183, 184, 188, 251, 255 projected legislative assemblies in the Russian Empire, 78 projects of legislative assemblies in the principalities, 68, 139–41, 175, 177, 188, 328: in Moldavia, 91, 92, 131–33, 201, 204, 313; in Wallachia 106, 158, 301, 314 See also Assemblies Ad Hoc; Assembly of the Land; Extraordinary Assemblies of Revision of Organic Statutes; Ordinary General Assemblies; Kiselev, and boyar opposition Assemblies Ad Hoc 1857, 322 Assembly of the Land, 18, 91, 180 Austrian Empire, 3, 29, 69, 71, 95, 109, 207, 221, 283 and the boyars of Moldavia and Wallachia, 35, 60, 117, 122, 160, 161, 182, 266, 278, 288, 302, 326 and the post-Napoleonic order, 11, 99, 101, 302 and the Russian policies in Moldavia and Wallachia, 31, 220, 222, 223, 243, 270 police and anti-epidemic measures, 81, 232, 243, 276 policy in the Eastern Question, 64, 93, 94, 121, 136, 137, 224, 283, 303, 321, 326 policy of protection of the peasantry, 26, 195, 257, 328 subjects in Moldavia and Wallachia, 235, 236, 265–68, 305 Russian cooperation with, 84, 227, 228 See also Habsburg Monarchy Aynalikavak, Convention of, 36, 38, 97

Abdur-Rezak, 33 Adrianople, Peace treaty of, negotiation and elaboration of, 184–89 impact of, 191, 198, 220–22, 226, 228, 241, 250, 269, 283–85, 289, 299, 308, 311 Aix-la-Chapelle (Aachen), Congress of, 87 Ahmed Pasha, Laz Aziz, 41 Akkerman, Convention of, 138–47, 162, 175, 187, 283, 299, 327 impact of, 152–56, 178, 183, 246, 271 Alabin, P.V., 321 Alekseev T.S., 255 Aleksei I, Mikhailovich, Tsar of Russia, 21–23 Alexander I, Emperor of Russia Bessarabian “experiment,” 72, 73, 76, 148, 192, 201, 235 boyar appeals to, 38, 90, 92, 107, 115–17, 120–22, 124, 125, 135 confrontation with Napoleon, 71, 73, 74, 247 constitutional projects, 11, 76–79, 99, 101 Eastern policy of, 3, 40, 67, 79, 80, 84, 85, 87, 104, 136, 164, 204 Holy Alliance and legitimism, 95, 101, 102, 129, 131, 135 policy with respect of the principalities, 43, 50, 55, 58, 71, 88, 96, 283 policy in Poland, 74–79, 100, 101, 151, 202 Alexis of Russia, see Aleksei Mikhailovich, Tsar of Russia Alopeus, D.M., 100 Amvrosii (Serebriannikov), Archbishop, 52, 54 Ancillion, Friedrich, 194 Anna Ioannovna, Empress of Russia, 28 Archipelago, 64, 65, 69, 163, 224 Arghiropoulo, Alexandru, 335 Aristarchis, Nikolaos, 280 arnăuți, 105, 273 disarmament of, 248–49

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I ndex

Azov, 21–22 Baden, Grand Duchy of, 99 Bagration, P.I., 41, 47–48, 50–51, 60, 196, 260, 325 Balkan confederation, projects of, 82, 163, 185, 186, 302 See also Danubian confederation Bakhmetiev, A.N., 73, 75, 76, 90, 147, 201 Balashev, A.D., 78 Bălăceanu, Constantin, 89, 123, 211, 255, 334, 335 Bălăceanu, Ștefan, 157, 160, 182, 335 Bălcescu, Nicolae, 305, 308 Băleanu, Grigore, 115, 160, 334 Băleanu, Emanoil, 160, 334 Balș, Grigore, 249, 254, 255, 266 Balș, Lupul, 89, 95, 120, 121 Balș, Smaranda, 279 Balș, Theodor (Todorache), 134, 206 Basarab, Laiota, Hospodar of Wallachia, 31 Batin, Battle of, 41 Bavaria, Kingdom of, 99 Bayezid II, 172 Beccaria, Cesare, 263 Begidov, D.G., 206 Bellu, Alexandru, 160 Bellu, Constantin, 335 Bellu, Ștefan, 334 Benaki, L.P., 103 Bentham, Jeremy, 194 Berkendorf, A. Kh., 292 Bernadotte, J.-B. J. (Karl XIV Juhan), 282 Bessarabia, 59, 68, 71, 79, 81–83, 98, 103, 141, 144, 182, 192, 195, 266, 317, 328 Alexander I’s visit to, 87, 90, 92 boyar emigration to, 108, 327 curtailment of Bessarabian autonomy, 147–51 “Rules for the Temporary Administration of Bessarabia,” 72–74, 163 Russian annexation of, 167, 238 “Statute of the Formation of Bessarabian Province,” 75, 76, 86, 128, 129, 201 Bezak, K.P., 294, 312 Bezborodko, A.A., 40 Bibescu, Gheorghe, Hospodar of Wallachia, 160, 278, 308–12, 314, 318, 319 Bielfeld, Jacob Friedrich von, 232 Billecocq, Adolphe, 309 Bludov, D.M., 149, 196 Blutte, E.L., 269, 270, 282, 287 Bocca di Cattaro, 70

Bogdan III, Hospodar of Moldavia, 36 Bois-le-Comte, Charles, 211, 266, 282–84, 286, 287, 289, 290 Bourbons, dynasty, 11, 12 boyar memoranda and petitions to Austrian Empire, 64, 107 to Great Britain, 171; to France 155, 286 to Ottoman Empire, 116, 118, 122, 127, 132, 288 to Russia 32, 50, 90, 91, 107, 116–21, 124, 125, 130–35, 139, 144–46, 153, 157–59, 172, 173, 176, 177, 183, 184, 198, 200, 204, 245, 246, 271, 292, 326, 327 boyars delegations to Catherine II, 29, 30, 36, 39 delegations to the Porte, 117, 124, 139 differences between Moldavian and Wallachian boyars, 46, 123, 286 interim boyar government in Wallachia, early 1821, 105–107, 117, 160 relations with Philiki Etaireia, 103 See also tensions; boyar memoranda and petitions, Ordinary General Assemblies, their conflict with hospodars; Kiselev, and boyar opposition; Brăila, 34, 41, 121, 164, 173, 238, 241, 250, 251, 252, 270, 307 Brâncoveanu, Gheorghe, 107, 110, 113, 124, 160, 177, 277, 378, 334 Brâncoveanu, Constantin, Hospodar of Wallachia, 2, 22, 24, 25 Brașov (Kronstadt), 106, 115, 116, 118, 121, 122, 124, 131, 158, 245 Brătianu brothers, 314 Brunnov, F.I., 143 Bucharest Congress of, 31–36 Peace Treaty of, 37, 38, 61, 71, 72, 123, 145, 148, 271, 324: Ottoman violation of, 80, 81, 83–87, 89, 93, 97, 130, 141 revolutionary events of, 1848, 314–16 urban development in, 234–38, 245, 250–52 Bulgari, M.N., 189 Bulgaria, 1, 4, 82, 163, 170, 189, 307, 317, 324 Burgheli, Constantin, 200 Butenev, A.P., 197, 223, 225, 226, 272, 278, 288, 292, 295, 297 Byzantium, 17, 18, 68 Byzantine tradition, 64, 65 Byzantine law, 92, 148

366

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I ndex

Callimachi, family, 95, 112 Callimachi, Grigore, Hospodar of Moldavia, 235 Callimachi, Scarlat, Hospodar of Moldavia and the boyar opposition, 89, 90, 95 appointment as the hospodar of Wallachia in 1821, 106, 113 legal code of 92, 133, 273 negotiations with Russia, 90, 92–96 proposal to reform taxation, 93 sale of boyar titles, 89, 172, 173, taxation policies and reform proposals, 95, 96 tensions with Russia, 87, 88 violations of the Bucharest Peace treaty, 80, 83, 86 cameralism, 9, 232–34, 257 Canning, George, 137 Canning, Stratford, 171 Câmpineanu, Ion, 298, 301, 302, 304, 307 Câmpineanu, Constantin, 255 Cantacuzino, Grigore, 310 Cantacuzino, Gheorghe, 134, 176 Cantacuzino, Constantin, 250, 335 Cantacuzino, Matei, 335 Cantacuzino, Mihai, 31, 34, 36, 112 Cantacuzino, Toma, 25 Cantacuzino, Șerban, Hospodar of Wallachia, 21 Cantacuzino-Pașcanu, Constantin, 182 Cantemir, Antioch, Hospodar of Moldavia, 22 Cantemir, Dimitrie, Hospodar of Moldavia, 2, 22–25, 46, 171 Cantemir, Constantin, Hospodar of Moldavia, 21, 24 Cantemir dynasty, 24 Caragea, Ioan, Hospodar of Wallachia anti-epidemic measures, 235, 236 and the boyar opposition, 89 legal code of, 92, 106, 265 proposal to reform taxation, 93 relations with Russia, 90, 92–94 taxation policies and reform proposals, 93, 96 violations of the Bucharest Peace treaty, 80, 83, 86 Caracaș, Dumitru, 235 Charles XII, King of Sweden, 24 Carp, Constantin, 200 Carp, Petru, 129 Katakazi, G.A., 202 Catargi, Iordache, 58, 134, 155, 157, 158, 170, 183, 199, 206, 282, 287

Catherine II, Empress of Russia, 3, 11, 52, 71, 204, 331 administrative reform under, 232, 328 and the boyar of Moldavia and Wallachia, 29 30, 33, 34, 36, 110, 324 and the nobility, 77, 78, 129, 151 Greek project of, 64, 82, 283 policy towards the Ottoman Empire, 31, 63 Cereneț, 241 Chateaubriand François-René de, 194 Chateaugiron, Charles Hippolyte Le Prestre, 304 Chernyshev, A.I., 189, 251, 252 Chernyshev, Z.G., 34 cholera, epidemic of, 212, 244, 245 Chrystoma, Dimitrie, 255 Chichagov, P.V., 71–73, 249 censuses, 54, 141, 155, 157, 180, 234, 254, 256, 259, 262, 295 Cocorescu, Ioan, 117, 335 Colquhoun, Robert, 304 Colson, Felix, 301, 304, 313 Conachi, Costache, 132, 133, 176, 177, 183, 199 Constant, Benjamin, 194, 231 Constantin Șerban, Hospodar of Moldavia, 22 Constantinople, Patriarchate of, 53, 280 constitutions Constitution of “Carbonari,” 125–29, 131, 155, 315 Constitutional Charter of France, 14, 99 Constitutional Charter of Poland, 11, 79 Constitutional Charter of the Russian Empire, 11, 78, 79, 151 constitutionalism, 11, 76, 330 of Alexander I, 99, 100, 101, 326 consuls of European powers, 265–70, 294, 298, 304, 320, 326: Austria, 81, 266–68; France, 289, 294, 326; Great Britain, 294 of Russia, 37, 81, 86–87, 96, 97, 141, 144, 159–61, 307, 311, 324: as political arbiters in the principalities 4, 217, 269, 292, 302, 306; and Russian “representations” to the Porte, 37, 88; their presidency in the Committees of Reform of 1827, 155; and Russian subjects in the principalities, 174, 175, 265 Corfu, 66, 67, 70 Cornescu, Constantin, 335 Cornescu, Mihai, 160, 334 Cossacks, 1, 20, 22, 77, 150, 171, 206, 212 Costescu, Pana, 334 Costin, boyar family, 18

367

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Craiova, 263, 285 Crețulescu, Alexandru, 335 Crețulescu, Constantin, 49, 211, 334 Crimean Khanate, 3, 32 Crimean campaign of 1689, 21 Crimean war, 15, 270, 285, 320, 330 Cuza, Alexandru Ioan, Hospodar of Moldavia and Wallachia, 284, 285, 322 Czartoryski, Adam, 11, 82, 302, 303 Czernowitz, 116, 125, 129, 131, 132, 134, 135

Ottoman demands to extradite Greek followers, 121 massacres of the Muslims, 98 uprising of, 109–11, 125, 155, 245, 271, 326, 327: Ottoman repression of 109, 288; Russian disavowal of 98, 99, 103, 326 Extraordinary Assemblies for Election of Hospodars, 199, 213, 216, 258, 277, 328 principles of their formation, 126, 153–55, 172, 179; in Moldavia 116, 198; in Wallachia 308 Extraordinary Assemblies of Revision of Organic Statutes, 229, 244, 285 principles of their formation, 178, 208–10: in Moldavia, 212, 214, 215, 244; in Wallachia, 210, 211, 248, 253, 256, 258, 286, 288, 297, 298

Danubian Confederation, projects of, 137, 291, 296 See also Balkan Confederation Dashkov, D.V. and the idea of unification of Moldavia and Wallachia, 283 and the Organic Statutes, 202, 209 and Russian policy in the principalities, 138–43, 164, 167, 168, 173, 213 instructions of, 175–81, 242, 246, 285, 297 role in the definition of Russia’s Eastern policy, 138, 185–89, 284 service in Russia’s Constantinople mission, 129 Dashkov, Ia.A., 305–10, 312 Dibich, I. I., 165, 184, 189, 191, 192, 197, 198, 226, 247 Dionysius, Patriarch of Constantinople, 21 Dionisie (Lupu), Metropolitan of Wallachia, 107, 120 Donici, Andronache, 125 Dosifei (Dosoftei), Metropolitan of Moldavia, 20, 21, 29, 55 Doukas, Neophitos, 111 Drăghici, Manolache, 157, 176 Duca, Constantin, Hospodar of Moldavia, 22 Duca, Iancu, 200 Dudescu, Constantin, 334

Fălcoianu, Ioan, 334 Fereos, Rigas, 65, 69, 111, 112, 114 Fethi Ahmet Pasha, 277, 279 Fath-Ali, Shah, 137 Ficquelmont, Karl Ludwig von, 267 Filipescu family, 42, 313 Filipescu, Alexandru, 110, 160, 250, 334 Filipescu, Dimitrie, 304, 305, 307, 308, 313, 314 Filipescu, Grigore, 334 Filipescu, Iordache, 160, 182, 277, 278, 305, 334 Filipescu, Constantin, 49, 50, 55, 89 Filipescu, Мihai, 117, 146, 335 Filipescu, Nicolae, 255, 335 Filitti, Ioan C., 128 Finland, Grand Duchy of, 58, 75, 76, 79, 147, Florescu, Gheorghe, 335 Florescu, Еmanoil, 255, 335 Florescu, Radu, 7 Focșani, Congress of, 31, 32, 36 Fonton, A.A. 59 Fonton, F.P., 1–3, 15 Foucault, Michel, 233, 234 France Bourbon restoration, 194 Napoleonic France, 11, 40, 42, 65, 71, 74, 193 policy in the Eastern Question, 31, 66, 84, 224, 287–90, 303, 326 relations with the elites of Moldavia and Wallachia, 60, 291, 302, 304, 315 Revolution of 1830, 220, 328 Russian occupation of, 194 Second Empire, 196 fortresses. See Ottoman Empire: Danubian fortresses

Eastern Question, 7, 8, 104, 137, 138, 289, 303, 324 Eliade, Pompiliu, 194 Enlightenment, 64, 67, 81, 194 Greek Enlightenment, 111 Erbiceanu, Constantin, 52 Etaireia (Philiki Etaireia), 13, 98, 102, 104 boyar association with, 105, 110, 113, 115–17, 119, 160, 288 Bulgarian Etaireia of 1842, 307, 308 Etaireia of Rigas Velestinlis, 112 Greek followers of, 105, 111, 113, 287

368

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I ndex

Francis I, Emperor of Austria, 107, 117, 122, 229 Frederick II, King of Prussia, 233 frontiers contested frontier zones, 9, 12, 66, 233 Danubian frontier zone, 5, 13, 27, 329 Ottoman, 10 steppe, 3

Golescu family, 313, 314 Golescu, Alexandru, 111, 314, 316 Golescu, Gheorghe (Iordache), 334 Golescu, Constantin (Dinicu), 111, 160, 334 Golescu, Nicolae, 117, 334 Golescu, Ștefan, 111 Golitsyn, A.N., 56, 104, 132, 189 Gorchakov, M.D., 320 Grădișteanu, Barbu, 334 Grădișteanu, Șerban, 56 Great Britain, 66, 84, 93, 121, 136, 137, 224, 269, 270, 287, 302, 303, 326 Greece, Kingdom of, 1, 287, 299 Greeks, 17, 63, 69, 81, 98, 102, 103, 114, 137, 280, 325 anti-Greek sentiment in the principalities, 88, 90, 106, 109, 116–18, 127, 273 See also Phanariots Grigore, Metropolitan of Wallachia, 197, 211, 288 Grosul, V.Ia., 256 Guizot, François, 194

Galați, 98, 270 Gavriil Bănulescu-Bodoni, Exarkh of Moldavia and Wallachia, 51, 52, 54–59, 89, 90, 95, 197, 237, 271, 325 Gedeon, Metropolitan of Moldavia, 21, 23, 33 Gentz, Friedrich von, 123 Georgescu, Vlad, 60, 131 Gheorghe Ștefan, Hospodar of Moldavia 21, 23 Ghervas, Stella, 175 Ghica, family, 112, 313 Ghica, Alexandru, Wallachian boyar (1796– 1861), 160, 255, 334 as hospodar of Wallachia, Alexandru II Ghica, 279, 280, 297, 298, 301, 306–308, 318, 319 Ghica, Alexandru (Moldavian boyar), 277, 278, 294 Ghica, Constantin, Wallachian boyar 49, 335 Ghica, Constantin, Moldavian boyar 89, 95 Ghica, Dumitru, Wallachian boyar, 112, 335 Ghica, Dumitru, Moldavian boyar, 205 Ghica, Grigore II, Hospodar of Moldavia, Hospodar of Wallachia, 111, 234 Ghica, Grigore III, Hospodar of Moldavia, Hospodar of Wallachia, 37, 112, 215 Ghica, Grigore as hospodar of Wallachia, Grigore IV, 122–24, 139, 152, 159, 238, 264, 273, 327 as leader of anti-Phanriote boyars, 89, 107 as leader of the boyar delegation to the Porte in 1822, 288 as member of interim boyar government in 1821, 113, 117, after deposition, 278, 279, 286 Ghica, Iancu, 335 Ghica, Ion, 314, 316 Ghica, Mihai 279, 334 Ghica, Nicolae, 117, 335 Gibbon, Edward, 194 Giurgiu, 106, 109, 121, 173, 235, 241, 250, 251 Girs, A.A., 129 Girs, N.K., 292 Giurescu, Constantin, 36 Golden Horde, 76

Habsburg dynasty, 5, 12, 25, 27, 302 Habsburg Monarchy, 10, 29, 69, 195. See also Austrian Empire Habsburg policies, 13, 26, 232, 257, 276 Halet Effendi, 94 Hangerli family, 95 hatt-i sherifs, of 1802, 38–40, 86–88, 92, 94, 97, 134, 139, 144, 172, 200, 257 of 1827, 154, 155, 200 of 1834, 277 See also Ottoman Empire Heliade-Rădulescu, Ion, 273, 317 Hermeziu, Gheorghe, 200 Holy Alliance, 15, 16, 84, 85, 95, 99, 100, 101, 163, 220, 326 Holy Synod of the Russian Empire, 15, 52–57, 104, 120, 132, 189 hospodars appointment by the Porte 19, 25, 37, 64, 171, 223, 227, 317, 327 appointment in 1834, 277–79, 306, 329 boyar demand for native hospodars, 123, 124, 314 constitutional limitations on the power of, 122, 140, 143, 174, 297, 299: according to the Organic Statutes 217, 328 elections of: 1842 Wallachian hospodar elections, 308; in early history of Mol-

369

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I ndex

davia and Wallachia 19, 31, 32, 53; boyar demand for election of native hospodars 117, 124, 126, 133, 153, 172; Russia and the question of hospodar elections, 139–41, 154, 157, 164, 173, 177, 179, 188, 208, 212, 213, 219, 220; according to the Organic Statutes 216; seven-year term of 38, 39, 87, 92–94, 139, 143, 319 See also boyars; Phanariots Hrisoscoleo, Dimitrie, 334 Hume, David, 194

and Russia’s Eastern policy, 83–85, 87, 137, 138, 163, 173, 176, 189, 229, as Alexander I’s foreign minister, 76, 79, 99–101, 104 as governor of Greece, 163 early career, 66–68 his plan of diversion against French Empire’s Illyrian provinces, 69–71 Russian criticism of, 77, 78 Kara Mustafa, Grand Vizier, 25 Karadjordje (Djordje Petrović), 71 Karazin, V.N., 77, 78 Karneev, K.A., 255 Khanov, S.F., 238 Khitrovo, N.Z., 43 Khmelnytsky, Bogdan, 20 Kiev, 22, 49, 50, 52, 81, 166, 192, 195 Kiselev, P.D., 7, 160, 214, 280, 328, 329 and the Assemblies of Revision, 208–12 and the boyar opposition, 196–206, 211 and foreign subjects, 266–70 and the choice of hospodars, 213, 277–79 and the peasant obligations, 194, 197, 215, 258–60 and the question of unification of Moldavia and Wallachia, 282, 285 and Russia’s Eastern policy, 219, 221, 224–26, 229 and Wallachian and Moldavian militia, 247, 250 anti-revolutionary attitudes and policies, 271, 273, 27, 297–300 desire to annex the principalities, 221, 226 education and early career, 191–93 measures against plague and cholera, 238, 240, 242, 243–45 public welfare measures, 250–52 reform of local administration and taxation, 253, 255–57 relations with hospodars and boyars after 1834, 293, 310–12, 318 relations with Nicholas, 192, 195, 196 tensions with Nesselrode, 227, 228 Kishinev (Chișinau), 75, 89, 90, 116, 119, 129, 135 kocabasi, 64 Kochubei, V.P. 52, 189 Kogălniceanu, Mihai, 317 Konstantin Pavlovich, Grand Duke, 70, 202 Kotsebu, Karl fon, 294, 295, 306, 312 Krasno-Miloshevich, V.I., 50, 51, 237 Kreuchely, Karl Ludwig von, 235 Krinitskii, N.A., 75

Iakovenko I.P., 310 Iași Peace of, 37, 52, 145 Revolutionary events of 1848, in, 313–14 urban development in, 231, 236–37, 241, 250–52 Ibrahim-Pasha, Kavalali, 225, 226 Ignace, Metropolitan of Wallachia, 55, 56, 80, 81, 83, 103, 176 Illyrian Provinces of the French Empire, 66, 72, 73, 247 plan of expedition against, 69–71 Inzov, I.N., 108 Ioachim, Patriarch, 20 Ioasaf, monk, 203 Iorga, Nicolae, 288 Isaev, I., 43 Isaiah, archimandrite, 21 ispravniks, 26, 40, 51, 152, 205, 241, 249, 258, 262 abuses of, 43, 45, 90, 169, 170, 254–56: measures taken to curb abuses, 47, 48, 91, 157, 158, 175, 261 Italiniskii, A.Ia., 80, 247 Italy, 80, 156 Russian policy in, 11, 99–101 Ivan V, Tsar of Russia, 21 Joseph II, 64, 195, 233 Justi, Johann Heinrich Gottlob von, 232 Justinian I, 148 Kamenskii, N.F., 41, 59 Kankrin, E.F., 269 Kapodistrias, Ioannis and Bessarabia, 72, 73, 148, 149 and the Danubian principalities, 68, 69, 84, 88, 90, 92–94, 96, 283 and Philiki Etaireia, 98, 102–104

370

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Kucuk-Kainarji, Peace of, 29, 33–38, 63, 64, 81, 86, 97, 143, 145, 265 Kulevca, Battle of, 184 Kuropatkin, A.N., 331 Kutuzov, M.I., 41, 59, 69, 71, 80 Kushnikov, S.S., 44–46, 48–51, 236, 237, 325

Mavros, Gheorghe, 280 Mavros, Nicolae, 243, 280 Maximillian II, King of Bavaria, 102 Mehmed IV, Ottoman sultan, 32, 34, 35, 36, 38, 172 Mehmed Said Galip Pasha, Grand Vizier, 127 Meiendorf, B.F. fon, 43 Menshikov, A.S., 165, 195 Metternich, Klemens von, 11, 94, 99–101, 103, 108, 123, 137, 212, 228 Michael of Russia, see Mikhail Fedorovich Romanov Mihăescu, Scarlat 117 Mikhail Fedorovich Romanov, Tsar of Russia, 22 Mikhailovskii-Danilevskii, A.I., 248, 274 Mikhelson, I.N., 40 Miloradovich, M.A., 42, 49, 50 Miloš Obrenović, 108, 299 Mimaut, Alfred, 289 Minchaki, M.Ia., 131, 136, 152, 165, 175–77, 183, 202, 208, 211, 266, 281, 282, 298 and the boyars of Moldavia and Wallachia, 157, 159–62, 182, 246, 278, 279, 288 as president of the Committee of Reform, 155–59, 177, 178, 196, 199 Mirkovich, F.Ia., 182, 183, 200, 249, 266, 277, 278, 280, 296 his reports on the abuses in Moldavian administration, 168–70 and the Affair of Sion, 203–205 Mircha the Old, Hospodar of Wallachia, 31 Moisiodax, Iosipos, 111 Moldovalachian Commission, 58 Moltke, Helmuth von, 243 monasteries, dedicated, 56, 57, 106, 118, 127, 271, 272 nationalization of, 314 See also Organic Statutes; stipulations on dedicated monasteries Montesquieu, Charles Louis, 6, 194 Morea, 63, 64, 69, 156, 224 Moruzi family, 95 Moruzi, Alexandru, Hospodar of Moldavia, Hospodar of Wallachia, 39, 40, 96, 259 Moruzi, Constantin, Hospodar of Moldavia, 81, 112 Mosco, Iancu, 335 Movilă, boyar family, 18 Muhammad Ali, Governor of Egypt, 224, 225, 228, 266, 282, 303 Muller, Johannes von, 194 Munnich, Burkhard Christoph von, 28

Lagan, Charles, 145, 155, 203, 206, 211, 212, 244, 260, 268, 288, 289 Laibach, Congress of, 103, 163, Lampedusa, Giuseppe, 314 Langeron, A.F., 43, 50, 103 Lashkarev, S.L., 37, 40 Lazarev, M.P., 225 Lazăr, Gheorghe, 111 Ledoulx, Charles, 46, 57 legitimism, 11, 99–101, 103, 129, 135, 228 Lelli, K.F., 155, 160, 161, Lenș, Filip, 117, 335 Leon (Gheucă), Metropolitan of Moldavia, 52 Lippa, baron von, 160, 182 Liprandi, I.P., 160, 161, 199, 203, 266, 320, 321 Liven, Kh. A., 202 Locke, John, 194 London, Convention of, 187 Louis-Philippe I, King of France, 289 Lupu, Vasile, Hospodar of Moldavia, 21 Ludwig I, King of Bavaria, 102 Lutsk Treaty, 22, 24 Macedonski, Dimitrie, 114 Mahmud II, Ottoman sultan, 94, 162, 223, 225, 266, 280, 282 Malinovskii, V.F., 283 Manega, P.V., 148 Mano, Mihai, 334 Manuk-bei (Manuk Mirzoian), 50, 82, 83, 85 Margotti, Johann, 206 Mariia Fedorovna, Empress, 49 Martens, Karl von, 279 Marx, Karl, 257, 327 Matsuzato, Kimitaka, 148 Mavrogheni, Nicolae, 112, 235 Marvrocordat, Alexandru, Moldavian boyar, 205 Mavrocordat, Constantin, Hospodar of Wallachia, Hospodar of Moldavia, 26, 27, 47, 119, 183, 215 Mavrocordat, Nicolae, Hospodar of Wallachia, 30 Mavrocordat (Firaris), Alexandru, Hospodar of Moldavia, 28, 113 Mavromihalis, Petro-bei, 103

371

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I ndex

Murat, Ioachim, 99 Muraviev, N.N., 225 Murgu, Ștefan, 306 Mustafa Pasha Bayraktar, 82

Nințulescu, Alexandru, 335 North, Frederick, 102 Novosil’tsev, N.N., 78 Obreskov, A.M., 33–36 Odessa, 63, 87, 102, 103, 164, 270, 274 Oldenburg, P.G. Prince, 284 Olimpiotul, Iordache, 105, 113 Orbinskii, R.V., 248 Ordinary General Assemblies, 4, 179–81, 197, 200, 216–18, 261, 264, 269, 282, 299, 328 principles of their formation, 166, 168, 172, 174, 207, 208: in Moldavia, 223, 259, 260, 287, 296; in Wallachia, 195, 223, 251, 253, 254, 256, 258, 259, 262, 264, 265, 272, 284 their conflict with the hospodars, 279, 292, 297, 298, 300, 306–10, 317 See also Extraordinary Assemblies of Revision of Organic Statutes Organic Statutes, 4, 6, 7, 14, 134, 219, 221, 231, 293, 296, 305, 308, 309, 313, 322, 324, 330 adoption by the Extraordinary Assemblies of Revision, 208, 211, 212, 215, 229, 263 and well-ordered police state, 233, 234 approval by the Porte, 198, 214, 222, 228 constitutional aspects, 216, 217 elaboration of 157, 159, 197, 285, 327, 328 instructions for 175 opposition to, 197, 203, 224, 278, 281, 287, 297, 315, 316 purpose of, 275, 276, 299, 329 stipulations: on boyar ranks, 217, 218; on dedicated monasteries, 272; on foreign subjects, 269–71; on militia, 245, 248; judiciary, 267, 268; on peasant obligations 257, 258; on quarantine and sanitary measures 241, 242; violations of, 270, 295 Orlov, A.G., 63 Orlov, A.F., 187, 195, 225, 227, 228 Orlov, G.G., 31, 32 Ostrowski, Antoni Jan, 274 Ottoman dynasty, 13, 27, 302 Ottoman Empire capitulations to European nations, 118, 265–68, 270, 290, 320, 329 capitulations to Moldavian and Wallachian hospodars, 36, 90, 122–25, 140, 142, 172, 314–17 capitulations of, forged texts of, 31 commercial monopoly in the principalities, 18, 32, 141, 144, 156, 173, 175, 269:

Naples, Kingdom of, 99–101 Napoleon Bonaparte, 59, 66, 68–75, 282, 286, 290 Moldavian appeals to, 42, 155, 286, 315 Napoleon’s policy in Poland, 74–75 318 Napoleonic wars, 68, 70, 79, 80, 147, 192 War of 1812, 59, 71–74, 247 Post-Napoleonic settlement 79, 85, 101, 325 Napoleonic code, influence of, 147–49, 318 nationalism, 13 in the Balkans, 13, 323 Romanian nationalism, 4, 14, 17, 292, 301, 315 Neamț, 248 Necul, logofăt, 23 Neculce, Ion, 24 Negel, Șerban, 128 Negri, Constantin, 122 Neofit, bishop, Metropolitan of Wallachia, 197, 252, 311, 315 Nesselrode, K.V., 79, 87, 119, 137, 138, 143, 153, 156, 163, 166, 167, 174, 185, 198, 205, 206, 207, 277, 285, 295, 304, 312, 318, 328 and the question of election of hospodars, 212, 213, 278, and the question of unification of Moldavia and Wallachia, 286 and Russia’s Eastern policy, 131, 135, 189, 270 attitude towards the boyars, 132, 136, 170 cooperation with the Austrian Empire, 220, 227, 229, 267, 270 role in the elaboration of the Organic Statutes, 199, 202, 210 Nestor, Ștefan, 334 New Russia, 64, 87, 103, 148, 194, 195, 245 colonization of 63, 147, 233, Nicholas I, Emperor of Russia, 233, 247, 248, 252, 312, 328, 330 and the Holy Alliance, 16, 323 boyar appeals to, 170, 292 during the Russian–Ottoman War of 1828–1829, 1, 3, 162, 165, 167, 177 Eastern policy of, 136–38, 189, 220, 225, 229, 270, 327 internal policies of, 151 response to the Wallachian revolution of 1848, 316

372

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I ndex

Boyar demands to limit or abolish 90, 121, 130, 133 governors of the Danubian fortresses, 34, 38, 70, 81 tribute paid to, 17, 19, 26, 31, 91, 131, 141, 144, 164, 171, 228, 287: temporary exemptions from, 33, 38, 40, 83, 97, 124, 134; violations of exemptions from, 38, 80, 83, 86, 89, 144; Russia’s offer to increase, 141, 144, 164, 172, 173, 175, 187, 188, 257

Philipsborn, A.G., von 309 Pizani, A.N., 86, 88, 90, 95, 108, 155 Pizani P.N., 238, 255 Pini, A.A., 80, 86, 94, 95, 107, 117, 124, 131, 156 plagues, 186, 237 1814 epidemic, 236, 1828–1830 epidemic, 238, 239, 242 1837 epidemic, 243 early anti-epidemic measures, 234–35 See also cholera, quarantine Platon, Gheorghe, 298 Podolia, 73–75, 108, 147 Pogor, Vasile, 199, 200, 205 Poland Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, 12, 13, 20, 21, 27, 232: partitions of 74; Russian policy in, 10, 11, 331 Kingdom of Poland (after 1815), 74–79, 99, 147, 151, 221: Sejm of 1818, 76, 77; Sejm of 1820 100, 101, 131, 151; Uprising of November 1830 202, 207 police, 58, 74, 128, 149, 156, 158, 207, 233, 237, 255, 261, 264 medical police, 234, 236, 240, political police ,276, 292, 303, reform of, 245, 246, 249–52, 328 well-ordered police state, 9, 231–34, 252, 253, 270, 275, 330 Ponsonby, John, 270 Potemkin, G.A., 34, 40, 52, 233 Pototskaia, S.S., 192 Prozorovskii, A.A., 30, 41, 44, 50, 53 Prussia, Kingdom, of 27, 35, 100, 193, 276, 302 Pruth Campaign, 1, 2, 22–25, 28, 30, 49, 171

Paisios, Patriarch of Jerusalem, 21, 22 Palen, F.P., 166, 167, 168, 169, 178, 192, 197 Palmerston, Henry Temple, 303 Panaite, Viorel, 18 Pandurs, 105, 106, 109, 114, 160, 305 Panin, N.I., 11, 36 Pan-Slavism, 15, 70, 226 Paris 1856 Peace Treaty of, 321 1858 Convention of, 285, 322 Paskevich, K.F., 206 Pasvan-Oglu, 38, 246 Paul I, 3 peasants obligations to the landlords, 27, 119, 121, 204, 295, 314: boyar attempts to increase 6, 119, 124, 152, 158, 196; Russian efforts to regulate 181, 195, 209, 214, 215, 257–60, 278 resistance to military draft, 205, 206, 208, 212, 213, 248 Perovskii, V.A., 195 Persia, 137 Pestel, P.I., 192 Peter I, the Great, Emperor of Russia, 1, 2, 21–25, 39, 49, 210, 232, 233 reforms of 9, 44 Peter III, Emperor of Russia, 193 Petru Rareș, Hospodar of Moldavia, 171 Petrović, Djordje, see Karadjordje Phanariots, 14, 53, 60, 109, 326, 327 boyar criticism of, 29, 30, 32, 90, 91, 106, 107, 110, 115, 117–19, 125, 127, 134, 280 intermarriage with the boyars, 111, 112 relations with Etaireia, 112–14, 116 Russia’s attitude to 38, 39, 64, 68, 69, 95, 96, 139, 145 policies of, 25, 26, 92, 195, 200, 234 See also boyars; hospodars Pharmakis, Ioannis, 105

quarantines early temporary quarantines, 235, 236, 238, 239 Danubian quarantine, 241, 242, 245, 246, 250, 252, 280: proposals to establish 81, 97, 172, 187, 188, 233; political uses of 242, 243 See also plague Racoviță family, 112 Racoviță, Dumitru, 334 Racoviță, Mihai, Hospodar of Moldavia, 22 Racoviță, Mihai, Wallachian, boyar, 334 Radovici, Emanoil, 200 Radu, Leontie, 296 raiale, 38, 93, 250, 288 demands for the return of the lands il-

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legally alienated into, 33, 34, 38, 86, 93, 94, 97; demands for the reintegration of, 23, 115, 121, 125, 141, 143, 164, 172, 175, 187; reintegration of, in Wallachia, 188, 250, 288 reforms 1827, Committees of, 156, 158, 246, 327 1829–1830, Committee of, 206, 215, 218, 223, 282, 284, 287, 297, 318: formation of 177, 178, 182; instructions to, 179–81, 188, 214, 262, 269, 285, 293, 328; smallboyar criticism of, 183, 184, 199, 200 boyar resistance to, 194, 196–98, 209, 222, 223, 288 during Russian occupation of Moldavia and Wallachia in 1806–12, 44, 45, 47, 48, 54, 55, 57 of the Phanariotes, 26, 27 politics of, 4, 9–12, 60, 67, 149, 162, 164 Russian sponsorship of, 3, 7, 14, 191, 196, 240, 267, 290, 311, 324, 326 See also boyar memoranda and petitions; Peter I, the Great, reforms of; Catherine II, administrative reform of 1775; Alexander I, constitutional projects revolutions French Revolution of 1789, 11, 65, 100, 275, 314: its influence in Southeastern Europe 64, 127, 128 Revolution of 1830, 202, 220, 275, 289, 328 Revolution of 1848: in Moldavia 313, 314; in Wallachia: 111, 281, 314–17 Russia’s reaction to, 9, 11, 12, 16, 67, 74, 84, 85, 100, 136, 163, 209, 212, 274, 275, 281, 298–300, 323, 329 Ragusa, Republic of, 35 Rallet, Dimitrie, 334 Rallet, Constantin, 335 Rallet, Grigore, 334 Rassevat, Battle of, 41 Raynal, Guillaume Thomas Francois, 194 Repnin, N.V., 36 Ribop’er, A.I., 132, 139, 143 Richelieu, Armand-Emmanuel du Plessis, 100, 233 Rigny, Henri de, 266 Roman, 205, 206, 248 Romaniță, Grigore, 334 Romanov, dynasty, 13, 284, 302 Rosetti family, 313 Rosetti, Alexandru, 296 Rosetti, Constantin A., 314

Rosetti, Radu, 58 Rosetti-Roznovanu, Iordache, 90–93, 113, 120, 129–31, 135, 153, 158, 160, 178, 182, 198 Rosetti-Roznovanu, Nicolae, 135, 153, 155, 158, 160, 198, 294 Rot, L.O., 164, 165 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 194 Rikman, Petr fon, 292, 298, 301, 304 Ruckman, see Rikman Rudzevich, A.Ia., 164 Rumiantsev, N.P., 67, 68 Rumiantsev, P.A., 30, 33–35, 36, 39, 40 Rushchuk, Russian victory at, 69 Russian–Ottoman Wars of 1768–1774, 3, 29, 44, 63, 110, 112, 145, 184, 236 of 1787–1792, 29, 40, 113 of 1806–1812, 28, 40, 79, 82, 105, 155, 164, 165, 184, 246, 251, 286, 324, 325 of 1828–1829, 1, 3, 5, 162, 164, 165, 167, 177, 192, 195, 247, 286, 312, 326, 327 See also Crimean Campaign of 1689; Pruth Campaign Sagadino, Ștefan, 273 Sakellario, Constantin, 279 Saint-Petersburg 1826 Protocol of, 137 1834 Convention of, 277 Savitskii, V.Ia., 45, 49 Saxony, Kingdom of, 99 Sébastiani de la Porta, Horace François Bastien, O. F. B., 40 Selim III, 41 Selunskii, I.V. 40 Semenova, L.E., 36, 51 Septinsular Republic, 55, 67, 80, 156, Serbia, 1, 4, 41, 70, 71, 82, 84, 85, 137, 163, 188, 189, 296 Serbian Uprising of, 1804–1813, 80 Serbian autonomy, 84 serfdom (in the principalities) abolition of, 26, 119, 124, 195, 215 boyar attempt to restore, 152, 158 Severin, I. I., 37 Shumla, 41, 165, 175 Silistria, 41, 165, 184, 205, 235, 280 Sion, Antioch, 202–206, 208, 212, 277 scutelnici abolition of, 141, 143, 172, 175, 180, 196, 197, 204, 209, 210, 215, 267, 293, 328 abuses with, 45, 166, 256

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boyar right to, 26, 121, 126, 144, 152 proposals to limit the number of, 91, 93, 94, 106, 133, 155, 157, 173 Slobozia, Truce of, 40 Smith, Adam, 194 Sobieski, Jan, King of Poland, 20, 25 Sof ’ia, Tsarevna, regent of Russia, 21 soft power, 12, 65 Spain, 99, 100, 101 Speranskii, M.M., 59, 138, 196 Starov, S.N., 247 Știrbei, Barbu, 290, 291, 308, 334 and censorship, 274 as a candidate to Wallachian throne in 1834, 278 as a collaborator of Kiselev, 160, 250, 253 as hospodar of Wallachia in 1849–1853, 272, 318–20 as a member of the Reform Committee, 1829–1830, 182 reform proposals, 158, 176, 177, 246, 253–55 Stroganov, G.A., 80, 84–88, 90, 95–98, 108, 136, 138, 139, 145, 176, 283 Sturdza family, 135 Sturdza, Alecu, 203, 205 Sturdza, A.S., 72, 73, 84, 102, 163, 164–68, 173–77, 179, 181, 188, 283–85 Sturdza, Gheorghe, 125 Sturdza, Grigore, 277, 279 Sturdza, Dimitrie, 315 Sturdza, Dumitru, 111 Sturdza, Ioan Alexandru, Hospodar of Moldavia, 127, 130, 131, 135, 139, 155, 159, 205 as the leader of the boyar delegation to the Porte, 117 attempt to reduce the number of foreign subjects in Moldavia, 265 relations with the boyar radicals, 122, 125, 273, 327 sale of the boyar titles, 123, 134, 151, 161, 200 taxation of great boyar estates, 122, 132, 152 Sturdza, Constantin, 294 Sturdza, Mihai, 112, 131, 133, 135, 153, 154, 157, 160, 161, 172, 173, 177, 178, 181, 182, 183, 198, 199, 202, 213, 271, 279, 280; as Hospodar of Moldavia 281, 292–97, 301, 306, 307, 312, 313 Sturdza, Petrache, 125 Sturdza, S.D., 68, 71, 72, 112

Suleiman I the Magnificent, Ottoman sultan, 171 Suleiman Pasha, 316 Suțu family, 95 Suțu, Alexandru, Hospodar of Wallachia, Hospodar of Moldavia 96, 105, 106, 113, 280 Suțu, Mihai (1730–1803), Hospodar of Wallachia, Hospodar of Moldavia, 235 Suțu, Mihai II (1784–1864), Hospodar of Moldavia, 96, 103, 108, 113, 116, 121, 125, 236, 287 Suțu, Nicolae, 113, 249, 254, 255, 266, 274, 280 Sweden, 10, 12 Tatars, 3, 26 Tatishchev, S.S., 274 Tăutu, Ionică, 125, 127, 128, 133, 171 taxation assemblies’ control over, 140, 174, 217 Bessarabia’s exemption from, 72; boyar exemption from, 26, 132, 133, 152, 333 boyar proposals to reform taxation, 90–92, 121, 126, 130, 134, 158, 176, 253, 314 clergy’s exemption from, 55 collection of taxes, 46, 47, 175, 245, 262 direct tax, 86, 93, 121, 124, 134, 172, 176, 250, 256–58 extraordinary taxes, 51, 60, 90, 95, 96 foreign subjects’ exemption from, 257, 265, 267; indirect taxes, 86, 96, 121, 134, 166, 172, 176, 180, 181, 196 land tax, 180: boyar resistance to, 196, 208 municipal taxes, 251 Phanariot policies of, 30, 32, 38, 55, 88 Russian efforts to control and reform, 39, 48, 58, 81, 87, 92, 96, 97, 144, 155, 164, 174, 175, 177, 260 tax burden of the peasantry, 217, 328 tax farming, 167, 180, 203, 293 tax units (ludori and cisle), 26, 141, 254: abuses with, 51, 159, 254, 261; abolition of, 181 See also scutelnici: Ottoman Empire, tribute to Tell, Christian, 314 tensions between “native” boyars and Phanariotes, 13, 27, 28, 56, 65, 88–93, 110–18, 127: Russian attitude to 88, 94–96, 135 tensions between first- and second-class boyars in Moldavia, 119–21, 123, 125– 34, 171, 172, 183, 184, 199–202: Russian

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attitude to tensions, 136, 144, 154, 155, 157, 181, 216–18 Theotokis, Nikephoros, 111 Thiers, Adolphe, 194, 303, 304 Tilsit, Peace Treaty of, 40, 55, 67 Titov, V.P., 304 Tolstoi, P.A., 189 Tomara, V.S., 38, 88 Trandafilov, Aleksandr, 308, 309, 310 Transylvania, 83, 94, 106, 108, 115, 117, 120, 161, 266, 267, 278, 283, 302, 303, 314, 317, 327 “Transylvanian School,” 14, 111, 321 Troppau, Congress of, 100 Turgenev, S.I., 109 Turnu, 121, 173, 241

Vidin, 38, 43, 109, 246 Vienna, Congress of, 67, 73, 80, 83, 85, 102, 193, 224 Vigel’ F.F., 148, 149 Villara, Alexandru, 121, 124, 157, 160, 176, 178, 182, 202, 245, 335 Viollier, Jean, 156, 183 Vitgenshtein, P.Kh., 108, 120, 164, 165, 192, 238 Vitt, Kh., Ia., 238–40 Vladimirescu, Tudor, 105–109, 115–17, 119, 120, 145, 158, 160, 204, 253, 288 anti-boyar and anti-Phanariot tendencies, 106 relations with Etaireia, 108, 113 contacts with Ottoman authorities, 109 Vogoride, Ștefan, 106, 112, 122, 125, 280 Voinov, A.L., 164 Volney, Constantin-Francois, 194 Voltaire, Francois-Marie Arouet, 194 Vorontsov, M.S., 130, 139, 143, 147–50, 194, 202, 233, 245 Vorontsov, S.R., 147

Unification of Moldavia and Wallachia, 42, 54, 281, 285, 314, 322 boyar attitude to, 286–89 French diplomats’ interest in, 290, 291 Russian attitude to, 141, 173, 176, 188, 189, 283–85 Unkiar Skelessi, Treaty of, 228, 288, 299 Ureche, boyar family, 18 Urechia, V.A., 288 Urusova, P.P., 191 Uvarov, S.S., 196

Warsaw 77, 78, 100, 223 Grand Duchy of, 74, 99, 202 Wellington, Arthur Wellesley, Duke of, 137 Westernization: of Moldavia and Wallachia, 4, 6 Wittgenstein, P.Kh., see Vitgenshtein, P. Kh.

Văcărescu family, 153, 348, 349 288, 313, Văcărescu, Barbu, 113, 117, 124, 152, 160, 221, 288, 334 Văcărescu, Tudor, 334 Văcărescu, Șerban, 49 Văcărescu, Ioan (Iancu), 211, 257, 288, 334 Vaillant, Jean Alexandre, 306, 307, 313 Vardalakhos K., 103 Varlaam, Constantin, 49, 50, 56 Varna, 165 Veniamin (Costache), Metropolitan of Moldavia, 52, 53, 128, 132, 198, 295 Veniamin of Lesbos, 111 Venice, Republic of, 66, Viazemskii, A.A., 30

Xenopol, Alexandru D., 6, 127, 129, 310 Ypsilanti, Alexandru, Hospodar of Wallachia, 27, 37, 64, 65 Ypsilanti, A.K. major-general, 98, 103, 105– 109, 113–16, 119, 120, 145, 158 Ypsilanti, Constantin, Hospodar of Wallachia, 28, 39, 40, 42, 44, 49, 57, 81, 82, 83, 85, 96, 247, 286 Zass, A.P., 43 Zefeari, Constantin, 335 Zheltukhin, P.F., 166, 177, 182, 183, 191–94, 198, 273

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