Libmonster ID: RS-621
Author(s) of the publication: V. G. Sirotkin

Moscow, Nauka Publ. 1983. 302 p.

In her new work, Senior Researcher at the Institute of Soviet History of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, Doctor of Historical Sciences, A.M. Stanislavskaya continues her research on Russian foreign policy and international relations in the late 18th and early 19th centuries in the Eastern Mediterranean, which she started more than 20 years ago. As in the previous work 2, the author focuses on the politics of Russia and Greece, this time at a brief stage in 1798-1800, and shows it through the activities of the outstanding Russian naval commander Admiral F. F. Ushakov.

The study is based on an expanded source base compared to the previous literature and significantly changes our understanding of F. F. Ushakov, describing him not only as a naval commander (which is described in detail by E. V. Tarle, A. I. Andrushchenko, etc.), but also as a major political figure of the moderate-liberal trend, one of the representatives of the "course for adaptation". on post-revolutionary relations in Europe " (p. 10). At the same time, the author managed to partially overcome the scheme according to which tsarism was always and everywhere a monster, while its local servants were progressive people, and this progressiveness increased as if in direct dependence on the geographical distance of their place of activity from St. Petersburg.

A. M. Stanislavskaya shows that Ushakov was no exception in Russia's foreign policy at the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th centuries, when he put into practice his "constitutional diplomacy" in the Ionian Archipelago. Some Russian diplomats and politicians acted in a similar way (although perhaps not so noticeably) in the Balkans, in the Italian and German principalities, in Finland and Bessarabia until the European revolutions of the 20s of the XIX century.

Considering in detail a particular episode of Russian military policy in a remote region of Southern Europe, the author solves a more general and complex problem of two methods in the foreign policy of tsardom-a combination of liberal (adaptation) and reactionary (military intervention) methods. The fifth, key chapter of the book is particularly interesting for understanding both methods. The author shows the intense, dramatic struggle over these two methods in the Russian military and diplomatic spheres in the Balkans, using an original and not devoid of artistic imagery-the image of the clash of two personalities, two high-ranking figures of tsarist Russia: military Admiral F. F. Ushakov and diplomat-envoy to Constantinople V. S. Tomara (at the same time, it is true, Ushakov is written out as a person much more vividly).

Both defend the interests of strengthening the military and political positions of tsarism in the Eastern Mediterranean, and see Bonaparte as the main enemy in consular France. Both understand that the struggle against it requires the support of the local population, but both are concerned about the problem of anti-feudal and national liberation movements of the Christian population of the Balkans. On the question of who to rely on, Tomara and Ushakov sharply diverged. The former believed that it was necessary to rely on the hereditary nobility, the church, and traditions, and the latter believed that, perhaps, in Greece it was necessary to attract the bourgeoisie to its side first of all, and therefore it was necessary to expand its political rights. But then "the Ionian Greeks need a constitution, and one that will calm down and reconcile those who were especially aggravated under the French

1 Stanislavskaya A.M. Russko-angliyskiye otnosheniya i problemy Merraniternya (1798-1807 gg.) [Russian - English relations and problems of the Mediterranean (1798-1807)]. Moscow, 1962.

2 Stanislavskaya A.M. Russia and Greece in the late 18th - early 19th centuries. Russian policy in the Ionian Republic. 1798-1807 Moscow, 1976.

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contradictions, will prevent a revolutionary outbreak " (p. 268).

It is very valuable that A. M. Stanislavskaya shows both Ushakov's line and Tomara's line not in isolation, not as the efforts of individuals driven by self-love and personal hostility, but in the context of the struggle that unfolded not only in the Ionian Islands, but also more broadly - in the noble public opinion of Europe and Russia. In 1800, Tomara took over: Ushakov's liberal constitution of 1799 (Temporary Plan) was not adopted, and the republic was imposed an aristocratic constitution of the Venetian model. But the author emphasizes that historically Ushakov was more prescient: when the Russian squadron reappeared in the Ionian Archipelago, Ushakov's principles prevailed in the constitution of 1803 developed by Russian representatives.

Ushakov's political activities are the main topic in the book, but there is another problem that the author has covered in such detail for the first time in Soviet historiography: the methods of domination of Thermidorian France and Bonaparte in the conquered territories. Until now, this problem has been considered in Soviet literature only in relation to Northern Italy, Egypt and Syria (in the monograph "Napoleon Bonaparte" by A. Z. Manfred). A. M. Stanislavskaya examines in detail the short-term stay of the French in the Ionian Islands. Noting the flexibility of their methods, the desire to rely on the middle strata, and the progressive nature of a number of measures taken by the French military administration (limiting the political rights of the aristocracy, abolishing feudal duties of peasants, limiting the arbitrariness of usurers, opening primary schools, printing houses, libraries, teaching in modern Greek, etc.), she nevertheless points out that the French did not violate the traditional social structure Ionian society, which was formed under the 300-year rule of the Venetians, and did not allow the "third estate" to land and power.

Promoting the slogan "Freedom, equality and fraternity!", the first consul, as shown by A.M. Stanislavskaya on the basis of his correspondence on the Ionian question, actually wanted to turn the archipelago into a rear base for supplying his army in Egypt. As a result, the author emphasizes (referring also to the opinion of modern Greek historians), disappointment soon set in. The peasants began to oppose the French, the reactionary opposition of the nobility and clergy revived, and the arrival of Ushakov's troops on the islands by the majority of the population was perceived as getting rid of foreign rule and hoping for a national revival.

Not everything was equally successful in the author's interesting and factual work. The essential question - how Catherine II and Paul I viewed the policy of adaptation to post-revolutionary conditions-is not clearly answered in the work. However, the author, relying on the latest Soviet and foreign studies3, largely departs from the traditional ideas about Paul I as just a landowner-tyrant who suffered from mental disorders, and sees in his short reign real attempts to rebuild internal governance in Russia (to improve finances, punish embezzlers, strengthen discipline in the army, etc.). police, etc.). A. M. Stanislavskaya notes the continuity of the foreign policy line of Catherine II and Paul I:" It doesn't matter who reigns in France (i.e., the Bourbons or the Bonaparts - V. S.), as long as the rule is monarchical, " said Paul I (p. 287). But this is where it stops, avoiding a more specific author's characterization: both monarchs had only "vague guesses" on this point (p.287).

Elsewhere, describing Catherine II's note "On measures for the restoration of the royal government in France" (1792), which is very important for understanding the policy of tsarism, the author repeats: she had "only vague amorphous beginnings of the idea of adapting to the new state of things" (p. 6). Unfortunately, in the assessment of this program declaration A. M. Stanislavskaya apparently accepted the point of view of K. E. Djedjula, who saw in the note of Catherine II (due to the use of a very inaccurate translation in the "Russian Archive") only the usual product of ultra-royalist propaganda .4 In fact, the situation was rather the opposite - it is here that the basic principles of the adaptation policy are set out: attraction to the side

3 Eidelman N. Ya. The Edge of Centuries, Moscow, 1982; Paul I: A Reassessment of his Life and Reign, Pittsburgh, 1979.

4 For a critique of this opinion by K. E. Dzhedzhuly, see: Narochnitsky A. L. Russia and the Napoleonic Wars, Wars for Domination over Europe. - Voprosy istorii, 1979, N 4, p. 68.

page 131

anti-French coalitions of the bourgeoisie and the upper peasantry by retaining their land and other property and allowing these "new owners" to gain political power through parliament .5 In fact, Ushakov carried out the same program, and it is unlikely that any of the dignitaries and military leaders, even of a liberal persuasion, would have dared to take such an action as the development and application of a progressive constitution, without having the tsar's sanction, which, however, the author admits: Paul I "did not pass-at least in part - consciousness of accomplished changes" (p. 287).

There are some factual inaccuracies in the book. It is unlikely that the period of 1798-1807 can be defined as a single "period of war with France" (p. 3) . There were several wars here, interspersed with peaceful respites, in 1801-1804. Russia and France were even in a state of legally formed peace. Such neologisms as "the big bourgeois French Republic" (p. 29), "reactively" (p. 30 - on the impact of the revolution on Europe), "the cleverest monarch" (p. 6), etc. fall out of the general style of the book.

In general, Stanislavskaya managed to create an original study that significantly expands our understanding of the practical results of adapting the foreign policy of tsarism to the development of capitalism and the conditions that emerged in Europe after the French bourgeois Revolution of the late XVIII century.

5 The same ideas were then developed by the "young friends" of Alexander I in the Anglo-Russian Convention of 1805 "On measures for the establishment of Peace in Europe", in the recommendations of Russian diplomats to royalist emigrants in 1807, and finally reflected in Russia's policy of 1813-1815 in relation to the Bourbons (for more details, see: Sirotkin V. G. The Great French Bourgeois Revolution, Napoleon and Autocratic Russia. - History of the USSR, 1981, N 5).

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V. G. Sirotkin, A. M. STANISLAVSKAYA. POLITICHESKAYA DEYATEL'NOST ' F. F. USHAKOV V GREKE [POLITICAL ACTIVITY OF F. F. USHAKOV IN GREECE]. 1798-1800 // Belgrade: Library of Serbia (LIBRARY.RS). Updated: 29.01.2025. URL: https://library.rs/m/articles/view/A-M-STANISLAVSKAYA-POLITICHESKAYA-DEYATEL-NOST-F-F-USHAKOV-V-GREKE-POLITICAL-ACTIVITY-OF-F-F-USHAKOV-IN-GREECE-1798-1800 (date of access: 19.02.2025).

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