The Ottoman Empire declared war on Russia in 1768 arguing that Russian activities in Poland-Lithuania were undermining Polish liberty (serbestiyet in Ottoman Turkish) and that despite repeated warnings, Russia continued to increase its military presence in the country in order to destroy said liberty. This argument is underexplored in Ottoman historiography both for its significance for Ottoman-Polish relations and, perhaps more importantly, for the dissemination of a central concept of 18th century debates, that of liberty, in an Ottoman milieu. In fact, the Ottoman Empire had long been interested in Polish questions and defended the integrity and independence of the country, together with the liberties of Polish nobles, against Russian encroachments for a long time in the 18th century. This paper argues that the Ottoman position in Poland allowed the dissemination of Enlightened arguments used by the nobility, such as liberties and even patrie (described as vatan and memleket) enter Ottoman diplomatic parlance to be used consistently throughout the century even into and beyond the French revolution. The Empire was part and participant of European diplomacy, and as such it took part in the circulation of concepts among its rivals. The Transottoman dynamic of diplomatic relationships contributed to the emergence of a common language where concepts were mobile and shared, which made arguments understandable to all parties involved. Taking its cue from Reinhart Koselleck’s Begriffsgeschichte this paper analyses the terminology used in Ottoman diplomatic documents dating from the first half of the 18th century until 1770. Such documents include Ottoman declarations, letters sent to and received from foreign monarchies, minutes of discussions with foreign ambassadors, spy reports and letters sent by Polish-Lithuanian nobles. The aim is to explore especially how the terminology is used and abused in Ottoman-Russian discussions by both sides allowing the creation of a common diplomatic language. This examination will also contribute to debates surrounding Ottoman approach to diplomacy and the debates about an alleged Ottoman belief in an ever-expanding border that was only dismantled in late 18th century.

During the Ottoman-Russian War of 1768-74, Necati Efendi (d. after 1776) served as the secretary to Silahdar Ibrahim Pasha, the Ottoman commander-in-chief of the Crimea. As a result of military events, he was taken prisoner with some 40 other officials: he spent almost four years in Russian captivity (1771-75), only to regain his freedom after the Peace of Küçük Kaynarca in July 1774. This paper relies on Necati Efendi’s captivity narrative, available in a number of manuscripts. While there are a number of embassy reports or comparable records from 18th-century Russia, Necati’s memoirs are the only known captivity narrative. Necati describes both the itinerary of the Ottoman group from Crimea to St Petersburg and their captivity. A primary source of immense significance for our knowledge about the reign of Catherine II and her political relations with the Ottoman Empire, this first-person narrative offers not only descriptions of contemporary St Petersburg, Catherine’s II palace, and diplomatic encounters, but also provides glimpses into the lives of Ottoman captives. Drawing on the concept of semiosphere coined by Yuri Lotman in 1984, I argue that the mobility of knowledge in Necati’s account did not merely take place between Ottoman and Russian borders and as a one-dimensional process of adoption. Rather, the mobility of knowledge in this text can be observed in intertwined spheres and on multiple levels concerning space, time, and in the text itself, i.e. on a dynamic continuum of semiotic systems. Textual representation is a part of this dynamic process of the adoption of knowledge, since intellectual reflections on the real sphere also influences the textual sphere. Thus, Necati Efendi’s experience during his captivity characterized his cognitive understanding of his own world and a foreign culture. In the contemporary Transottoman context of Istanbul and St Petersburg, this analysis allows us to understand cultural dynamics not simply as a static or binary process, but as a continuum in which borders and the peripheries of borders entangle and interconnect to one another in semiospheres. This captivity narrative reveals cognitive entanglements in this context and the form that process take as spaces of new knowledge emerge in the text. Thus, a semiospheric understanding of borders offers the opportunity to revisit the nature of inter-imperial relations against the backdrop of military conflicts during a transitional period in Ottoman politics and modernization in the late 18th century.

The Ottoman Empire as well as Poland-Lithuania considered themselves historical great powers and acted within the framework of cultural practices of their time, compensating military weakness with a grandiose political misé-en-scene adapted to the discourses of the late 18th century. In 1789, the Polish opposition sent Piotr Potocki as an envoy to Istanbul, but initially—to the disappointment of the Ottoman side—without permission to conclude a military alliance. It was not until the Swedish-Russian peace of August 1790 that Warsaw instructed Potocki to enter into an alliance with Istanbul on the condition that Prussia would wage war against Russia and that Poland would be granted generous trade privileges. This latter demand prolonged the negotiations, while the situation for Poland continued to deteriorate. After the adoption of the Polish constitution on May 3, 1791, the fragile state of suspension from the Russian threat could not be maintained for long. The Sublime Porte concluded an armistice with Saint Petersburg three months later, which led to the Peace of Jassy in January 1792. The second and third partitions of Poland-Lithuania quickly followed. This paper explores the detailed report on Potocki’s legation in the Transottoman context, allowing us—in its 1894 edition— a closer look at Polish-Ottoman mutual perception at that time. The report, with its meticulous description of the Ottoman court protocol, in particular the ritual of gift-giving, offers valuable insights into the material and non-material dimensions of this entanglement, such as the common luxury culture, and the constructed ‘Europeanness’ or ‘Turkicity.’ Such concepts, however, did not induce the protagonists to construct insurmountable cultural boundaries in their political negotiations and in the rules of the game of power politics. Instead, the text clearly illustrates that, in contrast, the Ottoman Empire was integrated into the political framework of the “European equilibrium,” an idea which was eventually adapted by decision makers in Istanbul itself as “Avrupa mevazinesine.” Thus, if Istanbul at that time was not necessarily a center of European power politics, the city was still an attractive political meeting point and market place of diplomatic information

The Treaty of Jassy on 9 January 1792 between the Ottoman Empire and Russia ended the war of 1787-92 by recognizing Russian rule over the fortress of Očakov (annexed in 1788), the coastal strips between Dniester and Bug rivers on the Black Sea, and the Crimea (annexed in 1783). Article 10 of the treaty stipulated that both sides should send a legation to each other’s court. Thus, Catherine II commissioned Field Marshal Michail Illarionovič Kutuzov (d. 1813) as envoy to Istanbul, while Selim III sent Mustafa Rasih Efendi, the beylerbeyi of Rumelia (d. 1804), to St Petersburg. In January 1793, Mustafa Rasih embarked on his journey to St Petersburg with a delegation. Catherine received them at her court; however, it was not possible to achieve concrete results, so the Ottomans left for Istanbul on 8 February 1794. Both Kutuzov and Mustafa Rasih traveled in a large delegation. Two persons who participated in the Russian delegation are of immense interest, since both published eyewitness reports later on: Johann Christian Struve (1768-1812) was a member of a family that had fostered close contacts with Russia and that had held positions in the Russian administration. Struve himself served as a qualified assessor in the Russian Foreign Office in St Petersburg for many years. He traveled from Vienna to the Crimea in 1791; on the return passage, he journeyed to the Russian capital, where he joined the delegation to Istanbul. Struve published his memoires in 1801 under the title Reise eines jungen Russen von Wien über Jassy in die Crimm: und ausführliches Tagebuch der im Jahr 1793 von St. Petersburg nach Constantinopel geschickten russisch-kaiserlichen Gesandtschaft. Likewise, Heinrich Christoph von Reimers (1768-1812), who came from Reval (Tallinn), was working as a translator in the Russian Foreign Office when he joined the delegation. The letters he wrote to a friend during his trip to the Ottoman realm were published as Reise der Russisch-Kaiserlichen Ausserordentlichen Gesandtschaft an die Othomanische Pforte im Jahr 1793: drei Theile: vertrauter Briefe eines Ehstlanders an einen seiner Freunde in Reval: mit Kupfern und einer Karte. This paper introduces both relatively unknown reports from the Transottoman context of Ottoman-Russian relations and discusses the mobility of knowledge in these accounts. This analysis allows us to further understand coeval imperial policy-making and the underlying narrative strategies of such reports.