Rusya Araştırmaları Dergisi

Yazarlar: Oktay BERBER, Uğur ŞAKAR

Konular:Tarih, Uluslararası İlişkiler

Anahtar Kelimeler:Tsar Alexander III,Abdulhamid II,Alexander Battenberg,Prince Ferdinand,Stambolov

Özet: The 1877-1878 Ottoman-Russian War (93 War) is considered as a new period in the relations between the Russian Empire with the Ottoman Empire and European states. The San Stefano Treaty, signed between the Ottoman State and the Russian Empire at the end of this war, caused serious problems in international politics. The coming to being of Great Bulgaria, which was one of the results of this treaty, was one of the issues that great powers could not accept. The Berlin Treaty, which discussed and reached decisions on the problems arising from the San Stefano Treaty brought a great disappointment to both the Bulgarians and Russians. Because the idea of Great Bulgaria fizzled out with the signing of the treaty. As a result, the Bulgarian problem emerged as an issue in international politics and it became a part of the Eastern question. Resolving the Bulgarian problem thus became one of the primary issues for Nelidov, who was appointed the Ambassador of the Russian Empire to Istanbul. From 1883 to 1897, when he was dismissed as the Russian Ambassador to Istanbul, he made a lot of effort and initiated numerous projects for solving the problem. In this regard, he sometimes tried to directly intervene in the appointment of regents or the election of the prince in the management of Bulgaria. One of Nelidov’s top priorities in the Bulgarian problem regarded the distance created between the Bulgarians and the Russian administration as power changed hands. This was because, from the mid- 1880s, the Bulgarians no longer viewed the Russians as their protectors, despite Russia having aided the emergence of Great Bulgaria through San Stefanos. Nelidov, in the plans he proposed to Petersburg, insisted that the most important thing to do was to establish an administration that would restore Russian influence in Bulgaria. He had many meetings in Istanbul in this regard and made a great effort to pull the Ottoman Empire to the side of the Russian Empire. However, with the accession of Nikolay II to the tsarist authority in 1894, the Russian administration started taking steps to maintain the current situation in the Balkans by considering the changing balances in Europe. This change in the policy of the Russian administration shook Nelidov's position which was pegged on following an aggressive policy. He was finally replaced by Zinoviev in 1897. This study looks at the activities of Aleksandr Ivanovich Nelidov regarding the Bulgarian problem from his appointment as the Ambassador of Istanbul to his departure.

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