Russia Sentence Examples
In Russia, Joseph Stalin had thousands of writers, intellectuals, and scientists arrested and put into concentration camps.
Early in 1877 the disastrous war with Russia followed.
If it has come to this--we must fight as long as Russia can and as long as there are men able to stand...
She published on her return an account of her experiences, under the title of Through Bolshevik Russia (1920).
In 1920 she went to Russia as a member of one of the various Labour delegations invited to inspect Soviet conditions of government.
On the 16th of January 1547, he was crowned the first Russian tsar by the metropolitan of Moscow; on the 3rd of February in the same year he selected as his wife from among the virgins gathered from all parts of Russia for his inspection, Anastasia Zakharina-Koshkina, the scion of an ancient and noble family better known by its later name of Romanov.
Russia remained constantly above the sea; but there were several oscillations.
Russia in the beginning of October, and are felt on the Caucasus about the middle of November.
Russia, obligated by treaty to defend Serbia, mobilized its army.
Throughout Russia the winter is of long duration.
AdvertisementRussia between May the 18th and the 24th, sa that it is only in June that warm weather sets in definitely, and it reaches its maximum in the first half of July (or of August on the Black Sea coast).
Russia the summer is much warmer than in the corresponding latitudes of France, and really hot weather is.
The temperature drops so rapidly that a month later, about October the oth on the middle Urals and November the 15th throughout Russia, the thermometer ceases to rise above the freezing-point.
The laws and relations of the cyclones and anti-cyclones in Russia are not yet thoroughly understood.
The flora of Russia, which represents an intermediate link between the flora of Germany and the flora of Siberia, is strikingly uniform over a very large area.
AdvertisementReiches (1881); Voyeikov, The Climates of the Globe (Russ., 1884), containing the best general information about the climate of Russia.
The characteristics of the oak region, which comprises all central Russia, are totally different.
Thus the beech (Fagus sylvatica) is unable to survive the continental climate of Russia, and does not penetrate beyond Poland and the S.W.
The silver fir does not extend over Russia, and the oak does not cross the Urals.
In central Russia the species become still more numerous, and, though the local floras are not yet complete, they number 850 to 1050 species in the separate governments, and about 1600 in the best explored parts of the S.W.
AdvertisementRussia, may be subdivided into two zones-an intermediate zone and that of the steppes proper.
Russia, however, towards the Caspian, there is a notable admixture of Asiatic species.
Russia was 'the seat of the empire' of the Khazars, who drove the Bulgarians, descendants of the Huns, from the Don, one Section of them migia.tiug up thu Volga to found there the Bulgarian empire, and the remainder travelling towards the Danube.
The Mongol race is represented in Russia by the Kalmucks, who inhabit the steppes of Astrakhan between the Volga, the Don and the Kuma.
The law of Russia prohibits them from entering Great Russia, only the wealthiest and best educated enjoying this privilege; nevertheless they are met with everywhere, even on the Urals.
AdvertisementRussia, and appearing in larger numbers only in the district of Rostov.
Indeed it is estimated that there are more than 12,000,000 Dissenters in Great Russia alone.
It is this political rather than religious spirit which also underlies the repressive attitude of the government, and of the Orthodox Church as the organ of the government, towards the various dissident sects (Raskolniki, from raskol, schism), which for more than two centuries past have played an important part in the popular life of Russia, and, since the political developments of the end of the 19th and early years of the zoth century, have tended to do so more and more.
On the other hand, Western Protestantism has also made great headway, notably the Stundists, whose rationalisticProtestant teaching has gained a firm foothold especially in Little Russia, where the Raskol never penetrated.
The serfdom which had sprung up in Russia in the 16th century, and became consecrated by law in 1609, taking, however, nearly one hundred and fifty years to attain its full growth, was abolished in 1861.
The redemption was not calculated on the value of the allotments of land, but was considered as a compensation for the loss of the compulsory labour of the serfs; so that throughout Russia, with the exception of a few provinces in the S.E., it was - and still remains, notwithstanding a very great increase in the value of land - much higher than the market value of the allotment.
Every year more than half the adult males (in some districts three-fourths of the men and one-third of the women) quit their homes and wander throughout Russia in search of labour.
In Little Russia, where the allotments were personal (the mir existing only among state peasants), the state of affairs does not differ for the better, on account of the high redemption taxes.
This measure, which was endorsed by the third Duma in an act passed on the 21st of December 1908, is calculated to have far-reaching and profound effects upon the rural economy of Russia.
All over Russia there is a network of such artels - in the cities, in the forests, on the banks of the rivers, on journeys and even in the prisons.
The chief occupation of approximately seven-eighths of the population of European Russia is agriculture, but its character varies considerably according to the soil, the climate and Agri- the geographical position of the different regions.
Flax is almost of as much importance as wheat, and the potato is more cultivated than in any other part of Russia.
In middle Russia the winters are both longer and harder, and agriculture is consequently carried on under greater difficulties.
Since their emancipation in 1861, the peasants of the central governments of Russia have in large numbers drifted away into the black earth zone, or have gone to the factories.
The actual distribution of arable land, forests and meadows, in European Russia and Poland is shown in the following table The land in European Russia and Poland (Caucasia being excluded) is divided amongst the different classes of owners as follows Down to January 1st 1903, the peasants had actually redeemed out of the land allotted to them in 1861 a total of 280,530,516 acres..
Taking the whole of European Russia and Poland, almost exactly two-thirds of the total area is sown every year with cereals.
But generally in from 18 to 33 out of the 72 governments in European Russia (including Caucasia) and Poland the yield of cereals is not sufficient for the wants of the people.
Russia are fine animals, and those of the Kirghiz, though not big, are famous for their endurance.
Of the 55 million sheep kept in Russia only about 15 millions belong to the fine merino breed, and these are pastured chiefly on the Black Sea steppes.
Agriculture stands at a low level in Russia.
The state is the chief owner of forests (almost exclusive owner in Archangel), and owns no less than 289,226,000 acres in European Russia and Poland (235,000,000 acres of good forests), while private persons own 171,800,000 acres, the peasant communities 67,250,000 and the imperial family 22,400,000 acres.
Russia, was reduced to a very low ebb, in consequence of the silkworm disease, and was only renewed with any vigour towards the end of the 'eighties.
Altogether raw silk and silk yarn to an annual value exceeding 1-1 millions sterling are exported from Russia.
As a producer of iron Russia nevertheless runs France neck and neck for the fourth place amongst the iron-producing countries of the world, her annual output having increased from 1,004,800 metric tons in 1891 to 2,808,000 in 1901 and to 2,900,000 in 1904.
The two principal mining centres of European Russia are the Urals, Ekaterinoslav, Kharkov and the Don Cossacks territory.
The amount of iron and steel produced in the Urals is not quite 20% of the total in all European Russia and Poland.
The output of coal in the Urals is, altogether, less than 3% of the total for all the empire and 4% of the output of European Russia (exclusive of Poland) alone.
At one time all Russia was supplied with salt from the Urals, but at the present time the output is extremely small, less than 350 tons annually.
Russia is much more important.
Coal takes, however, an altogether secondary place as a fuel in Russia; wood is much more extensively used, not only for domestic, but also for industrial purposes.
Manufacturing industry in the modern sense can hardly be said to have existed in Russia ' See Russian Journal of Financial Statistics, in English (2 vols., St Petersburg, 1901).
The peculiar feature of Russian industry is the development out of the domestic petty handicrafts of central Russia of a semifactory on a large scale.
Owing to the forced abstention from agricultural labour in the winter months the peasants of central Russia, more especially those of the governments of Moscow, Vladimir, Yaroslavl, Kostroma, Tver, Smolensk and Ryazan have for centuries carried on a variety of domestic handicrafts during the period of compulsory leisure.
Flour-mills play an important part in the general industry of Russia, and there are several tobacco and hemp factories.
The wealth of Russia consisting mainly of raw produce, the trade of the country turns chiefly on the purchase of this for export, and on the sale of manufactured and imported goods I in exchange.
Altogether, no fewer than 16,600 fairs are held in Russia, 85% of them in European Russia.
The two best customers of Russia are Germany, which takes 23.3% of her total exports, and the United Kingdom, which takes 22.9%.
The countries from which Russia buys most extensively are Germany (34%), the United Kingdom (152) and the United States (92).
In 1860 Russia possessed less than 1000 m.
This railway has become important for the export of raw cotton from Central Asia to Russia.
A third line of great importance is the junction line between the Transcaucasian railway - which runs from Batum and Poti to Baku, via Tiflis, with a branch line to Kars - and the railway system of Russia proper.
Rittich, " Die Ethnographic Russlands " in Petermanns Mitteilungen, Erganzungsheft 54 (Gotha, 1878); C. Joubert, Russia as it really is (London, 1904).
This question has given rise to an enormous amount of discussion among learned men, and some of the disputants have not yet laid down their arms; but for impartial outsiders who have carefully studied the evidence there can be little doubt that 1 See Researches into the State of Fisheries in Russia (9 vols.), edited by Minister of Finance (1896, Russian); Kusnetzow's Fischerei and Thiererbeutung in den Gewassern Russlands (1898).
The khanate closely connected with the history of Russia was that of Kipchak or the Golden Horde, the khans of which settled, as we have seen, on the lower Volga and built for themselves a capital called Sarai.
Here they had their headquarters and held Russia in subjection for nearly three centuries.
Already Dimitri of the Don was called the grand-prince of all Russia, but the assumption of such an ambitious title was hardly justified by facts, because there were still in his time principalities with grand princes who claimed to be independent.
Now the tsar of Muscovy and of all Russia adopted the airs and methods of a Tatar khan and surrounded himself with the pomp and splendours of a Byzantine emperor.
When the two became united under one ruler towards the end of the 14th century they formed a broad strip of territory stretching from the Baltic to the Black Sea and separating Russia from central Europe.
He not only insisted that his daughter's religion should be duly respected, but he constituted himself the protector of the Orthodox population and this led to a new war in 1499, which went on till 1503, when it was concluded by the cession to Russia of Chernigov, Starodub and 17 other towns.
Boris has often been called the creator of serfage in Russia, but in reality he merely accelerated a process which was the natural result of economic conditions.
Such had been for a considerable time the condition of Russia, and the small proprietors were now becoming so impoverished that they could no longer fulfil their duties to the state.
Russia was thus in a very critical condition.
At the conclusion of the armistice in 1632, during a short interregnum in Poland, he attempted to avenge past injuries and recover lost territory; but the campaign was not successful, and in 1634 he signed a definitive treaty by no means favourable to Russia.
In the reign of Michael's successor, Alexius (1645-76), the country recovered its strength so rapidly that the tsar was tempted to revive the energetic aggressive policy and put forward claims to Livonia, Lithuania and Little Russia, but he was obliged to moderate his pretensions.
Smolensk and Chernigov were definitely incorporated in the tsardom of Muscovy, and great progress was made towards the absorption of Little Russia.
Roughly speaking, Little Russia, otherwise called the Ukraine, may be described as the basin of the Dnieper southward of the 51st parallel of latitude.
For some time Tsar Alexius hesitated, because he knew that intervention could entail a war with Poland, but after consulting a National Assembly on the subject, he decided to take Little Russia under his protection, and in January 1654 a great Cossack assembly ratified the arrangement, on the understanding that a large part of the old local autonomy should be preserved.
In the expected war with Poland, which followed quickly, the Russians were so successful that the arrangement was upheld; but it was soon found that the Cossacks, though they professed unbounded devotion to the Orthodox tsar, disliked Muscovite, quite as much as Polish, interference in their internal affairs, and some of their leaders were in favour of substituting federation with Poland for annexation by Russia.
The incident afforded a new proof, where no proof was required, that the autocratic power in Russia was supreme.
F o i Notwithstanding the efforts of the Poles and the Military Orders to exclude Russia from the shores of the Baltic and keep her in a state of isolation, she was coming slowly into closer relations with central and western Europe.
Already the desire to make his country a great naval power was becoming his ruling passion, and when he found by experience that the White Sea, Russia's sole maritime outlet, had great practical inconveniences as a naval base, he revived the project of getting a firm footing on the shores of the Black Sea or the Baltic. At first he gave the preference to the former, and with the aid of a flotilla of small craft, constructed on a tributary of the Don, he succeeded in capturing Azov from the Turks.
During a halt of a few days in Poland on his way back from Vienna, King Augustus had explained to him a project for partitioning the transBaltic provinces of Sweden, by which Poland should recover Livonia and annex Esthonia, Russia should obtain Ingria and Karelia, and Denmark should take possession of Holstein.
Several of his immediate predecessors had come to recognize that Russia, with her antiquated military organization, was unable to cope with her Western neighbours, and had begun to organize, with the help of foreigners, a military force more in accordance with modern requirements; but the progress made in that direction had been slow and unsatisfactory.
Her hatred of Germans showed itself likewise in her persistent struggle with Frederick the Great, which cost Russia 300,000 men and 30 millions of roubles - an enormous sum for those days - but in the choice of a successor she could not follow her natural inclinations, for among the few descendants of Michael Romanov there was no one, even in the female line, who could be called a genuine Russian.
Within a few months of her accession, having heard that the publication of the famous French Encyclopedie was in danger of being stopped by the French government on account of its irreligious spirit, she proposed to Diderot that he should complete his great work in Russia under her protection.
The next country to feel the expansive tendencies of Russia was Poland, which had now very little Poland.
Whilst Russia, Austria, Prussia and France were becoming powerful monarchies with centralized administration, Poland had remained a weak feudal republic with an elected king chosen under foreign influence and fettered by constitutional restrictions.
This led to the second partition (1793), by which Russia obtained the eastern provinces with three millions of inhabitants.
When the patriots under Koscziusko made a desperate effort to recover the national independence the struggle produced a third partition (1795), by which the remainder of the kingdom was again divided between Russia, Prussia and Austria.
Russia's advance westward raised indirectly the Eastern Question, because it threatened two of France's traditional allies, Sweden and Poland, and Choiseul considered that the best means of checkmating Catherine's 7l aryl, aggressive schemes was to incite France's third traditional ally, Turkey, to attack her.
The Tatars of the Bug, of the Crimea and of the Kuban were liberated from the suzerainty of the Porte; Azov, Kinburn and all the fortified places of the Crimea were ceded to Russia; the Bosphorus and Dardanelles were opened to Russian merchant vessels; and Russian ambassadors obtained the right to intervene in favour of the inhabitants of the Danubian principalities.
It was intended that Russia should take what remained of the northern coast of the Black Sea, Austria should annex the Turkish provinces contiguous to her territory, the Danubian principalities and Bessarabia should be formed into an independent kingdom called Dacia, the Turks should be expelled from Europe, the Byzantine empire should be resuscitated, and the grand-duke Constantine, second son of the Russian heir-apparent, should be placed on the throne of the Palaeologi.
At that time, in respect of foreign affairs, Russia was entering on a new phase of her history.
The sovereigns of Sardinia, Naples, Portugal and Spain were dethroned, the pope was driven from Rome, the Rhine Confederation was extended till France obtained a footing on the Baltic, the grand-duchy of Warsaw was reorganized and strengthened, the promised evacuation of Prussia was indefinitely postponed, an armistice between Russia and Turkey was negotiated by French diplomacy in such a way that the Russian troops should evacuate the Danubian principalities, which Alexander intended to annex to his empire, and the scheme for breaking up the Ottoman empire and ruining England by the conquest of India, which had been one of the most attractive baits in the Tilsit negotiations, but which had not been formulated in the treaty, was no longer spoken of.
Russia now remained the only unconquered power on the continent, and it was evident that the final struggle with her could not be long delayed.
In Russia such societies began to be formed about 1816.
The Decembrists' abortive attempt at revolution and the Polish insurrection of 1831, which he crushed with great severity, confirmed him in his conviction that Russia must be ruled with a strong hand.
Here, on the 14th of September 1829, was signed a treaty by which the Porte ceded to Russia the islands at the mouth of the Danube and several districts on the Asiatic frontier, granted full liberty to Russian navigation and commerce in the Black Sea, and guaranteed the autonomous rights previously accorded to Moldavia, Walachia and Servia.
The result of the war was to make Russia supreme at Constantinople; and before long an opportunity of further increasing her influence was created by Mehemet Ali, the ambitious pasha of Egypt, who in November 1831 began a war with his sovereign in Syria, gained a series of victories over the Turkish forces in Asia Minor and threatened Constantinople.
In a secret article of the treaty the sultan undertook in the event of a casus foederis arising, and in consideration of being relieved of his obligations under the articles of the public treaty, to close the Dardanelles to the warships of all nations " au besoin," which meant in effect that in the event of Russia being threatened with an attack from the Mediterranean he would close the Dardanelles against the invader.
For the first time in the history of Russia public opinion in the modern sense became a power in the state and influenced strongly the policy of the government.
In short, it became only too evident that there was no royal road to national prosperity, and that Russia, like other nations, must be content to advance slowly and laboriously along the rough path of painful experience.
In return for these services Bismarck helped Russia to recover a portion of what she had lost by the Crimean War, for it was thanks to his connivance and diplomatic support that she was able in 1871 to denounce with impunity the clauses of the treaty of Paris which limited Russian armament in the Black Sea.
Six years later began the rapid expansion of Russia in Central Asia, and at the end xxiii.
Even in European Russia the regions near the frontier contain a great variety of nationalities, languages and religions.
He suspected Bismarck of harbouring hostile designs against Russia, and he came to recognize that the permanent weakening of France was not in accordance with Russian political interests.
From that time Russia gravitated slowly towards an alliance with France, and sought to create a counterpoise against the Triple Alliance of Germany, Austria and Italy.
In the complimentary speeches delivered by the president of the French Republic and the tsar, France and Russia were referred to as allies, and the term " nations alliees " was afterwards repeatedly used on occasions of a similar kind.
The forward movement of Russia was thus stopped in the direction of Herat, but it continued with great activity farther east in the region of the Pamirs, until another Anglo-Russian convention was signed in 1895.
When the British government seemed disposed to use coercive measures for the protection of the Armenians, he gave it clearly to be understood that any such proceeding would be opposed by Russia.
In Asia, after the accession of Nicholas II., the expansion of Russia, following the line of least resistance and stimulated by the construction of the Trans-Siberian railway, took the direction of northern China and the effete little kingdom of Korea.
This grandiose project was unexpectedly destroyed by the energetic resistance of Japan, who had ear-marked the Hermit Kingdom for herself, and who declared plainly that she would never tolerate the exclusive influence of Russia in Manchuria.
In France the Revolution had been the work of the middle classes; in Russia an indigenous middle class has, comparatively speaking, no existence, the peasants forming the overwhelming majority of the population.'
The supreme peril to the autocracy in Russia lay in the genuine grievances of the peasants, less political than economic, which had opened their minds to revolutionary propaganda.
In 1909 the number of exiles for political reasons from Russia was reckoned at 180,000; but the third Duma, purged and packed by an ingenious franchise system, was in its third year passing measures of beneficent legislation, in complete harmony with the government.
For days the whole mechanism of civilized existence in Russia was at a standstill, all intercourse 4 Sazonov's sentence of twenty years' hard labour was commuted by Nicholas II.
Stolypin of the fact that there was plenty of land in Russia for the peasants without any attack on private property.
A year later the Duma again came into collision with the government in a matter highly illuminating of the struggle between the ancient traditions and the new ideas in Russia.
At first it had seemed that the new birth of Russia would lead to a revival of pan-Slavism, directed not, Neo-Slav as in the middle of the i 9th century, against Austria and pan= but against Germany.
As an international force Russia had been, of course, all but completely crippled by the outcome of the Japanese War and the subsequent revolution.
On national the 30th of July 1907 she signed a convention with position Japan of mutual respect for treaty and territorial of Russia.
Documents relating to the political and social movements in Russia (London, 1897).
It has generally come to be that of Germany and, so far as the finances of the countries allow, of Austria and Russia; British India also affords not a few examples of the same method.
The Trans-Siberian railway was a military necessity if Russia was to exercise dominion throughout Siberia and maintain a port on the Yellow Sea or the Sea of Japan.
In Hungary and Russia a zone-tariff system is in operation, whereby the charge per mile decreases progressively with the length of the journey, the traveller paying according to the number of zones he has passed through and not simply according to the distance traversed.
He served as judge of the Superior Court (1865-72), as secretary of war (1876) and as attorneygeneral of the United States (1876-77) in President Grant's cabinet; and as minister to Austria-Hungary (1882-84) and to Russia (1884-85) .
But a year later he acquiesced in the establishment of a Labour council of action, and in the threat of a general strike in case of any military or naval intervention against the Soviet Government of Russia.
The town was again transferred to Russia by the peace of Berlin (1878).
Politically he was a pupil of Alexis Bestuzhev; consequently, when in the middle 'fifties Russia suddenly turned Francophil instead of Francophobe, Panin's position became extremely difficult.
Panin was the inventor of the famous "Northern Accord," which aimed at opposing a combination of Russia, Prussia, Poland, Sweden, and perhaps Great Britain, against the Bourbon-Habsburg League.
Great Britain, for instance, could never be persuaded that it was as much in her interests as in the interests of Russia to subsidize the antiFrench party in Sweden.
Yet the idea of the "Northern Accord," though never quite realized, had important political consequences and influenced the policy of Russia for many years.
All the diplomatic questions concerning Russia from 1762 to 1783 are intimately associated with the name of Panin.
It was only when the impossibility of realizing the "Northern Accord" became patent that his influence began to wane, and Russia sacrificed millions of roubles fruitlessly in the endeavour to carry out his pet scheme.
But he did not foresee the complications which were likely to arise from Russia's interference in the domestic affairs of Poland.
He was forced to acquiesce in the first partition of Poland, and when Russia came off third best, Gregory Orlov declared in the council that the minister who had signed such a partition treaty was worthy of death.
The Troitsk or Trinity monastery is the most sacred spot in " middle Russia, the Great Russians regarding it with more veneration than even the cathedrals and relics of the Kremlin at Moscow.
His monastery acquired great fame and became the wealthiest in middle Russia.
The foreign policy of this period brought about the complete isolation of Austria, and the ingratitude towards Russia, as shown during the period of the Crimean War, which has become proverbial, caused a permanent estrangement between the two great Eastern empires and the imperial families.
The story of the Jews in Russia and Rumania remains a black spot on the European record.
In Russia the Jews are more numerous and more harshly treated than in any other part of the world.
Despite a huge emigration of Jews from Russia, the congestion within the pale is the cause of terrible destitution and misery.
The immigration of Jews from Russia was mainly responsible for the ineffective yet oppressive Aliens Act of 1905.
After the Declaration of Independence, Jews are found all over America, where they have long enjoyed complete emancipation, and have enormously increased in numbers, owing particularly to immigration from Russia.
The Jews of America have also taken a foremost place in the succour of their oppressed brethren in Russia and other parts of the world.
While in Russia this took the form of actual massacre, in Germany and Austria it assumed the shape of social and civic ostracism.
Baron Hirsch (q.v.) founded the Jewish colonial association, which has undertaken vast colonizing and educational enterprises, especially in Argentina, and more recently the Jewish territorial organization has been started to found a home for the oppressed Jews of Russia.
Rightly or wrongly, he was held personally responsible for the rapprochement with France and Russia and the opposition to the Powers of the Triple Alliance; and this attitude had its effect on his career when Leo XIII.
The countries which accept the largest share of Cretan produce are Turkey, England, Egypt, Austria and Russia.
The allied powers (France, England and Russia) decided, however, that Crete should not be included amongst the islands annexed to the newly-formed kingdom of Greece; but recognizing that some change was necessary, they obtained from the sultan Mahmud II.
Eventually the Cretan chiefs invoked the mediation of England, which Turkey, exhausted by her struggle with Russia, was ready to accept, and the convention known as the Pact of Halepa was drawn up in 1878 under the auspices of Mr Sandwith, the British consul, and Adossides Pasha, both of whom enjoyed the confidence of the Cretan population.
After the revolution in Russia in the spring of 1917 Mr. Henderson visited that country on behalf of the British Government.
In the autumn of 1921 he undertook the general supervision of relief work in Russia, first having exacted, as a condition, the release of all American prisoners held by the Soviet authorities.
King George married, on the 27th of October 1867, the grand duchess Olga Constantinovna of Russia, who became distinguished in Greece for her activity on behalf of charitable objects.
Augustus, who showed neither talent nor inclination for government, was content to leave Poland under the influence of Russia, and Saxony to the rule of his ministers.
Though he was unable to reach Khiva the results of the journey afforded a great deal of political, geographical and military information, especially as to the advance of Russia in central Asia.
Two years later, having meanwhile left England, he entered the service of Turkey in the war with Russia.
The two states were conquered by Abdur Rahman in 1882, but were assigned to Russia by the Durand agreement of 1893.
Since that agreement Russia has retired from all districts previously occupied by her on the left bank of the Panja, or upper Oxus.
The tribes 'to the north, subject to Russia, are naturally more peaceable, and have been brought into some degree of discipline.
In the southern half of the range are the chief mining districts of Russia.
Ex Ploration The progress of geodetic surveys in Russia had long ago extended across the European half of the great empire, St Petersburg being connected with Tiflis on the southern slopes of the Caucasus by a direct system of triangulation carried out with the highest scientific precision.
St Petersburg, again, is connected with Greenwich by European systems of triangulation; and the Greenwich meridian is adopted by Russia as the zero for all her longitude values.
But beyond the eastern shores of the Caspian no system of direct geodetic measurements by first-class triangulation has been possible, and the surveys of Asiatic Russia are separated from those of Europe by the width of that inland sea.
The astronomical observatory at Tashkent is adopted for the initial starting-point of the trans-Caspian triangulation of Russia; the triangulation ranks as second-class only, and now extends to the Pamir frontier beyond Osh.
He visited the sources of the Hwang-ho (Yellow river) and the Salween, and then returned to Russia.
On the western edge of the Kashgar plains, the political boundary between Russia and China is defined by the meridional range of Sarikol.
Asiatic Russia, especially eastern Siberia and Mongolia, have been brought within the sphere of Russian exploration, with results so surprising as to form an epoch in the history of Asia.
Russia, Persia, Afghanistan, Baluchistan, India and China have all revised their borders, and with the revision the political relations between these countries have acquired a new and more assured basis.
The advance of Russia to the Turkoman deserts and the Oxus demanded a definite boundary between her trans-Caspian conquests and the kingdom of Afghanistan.
This was determined Southern boundary on the north-west by the Russo-Afghan Boundary Coin of Russia m i ss i on of 1884-1886.
Eastwards of this the great Kashgar depression, which includes the Tarim desert, separates Russia from the vast sterile highlands of Tibet; and a continuous series of desert spaces of low elevation, marking the limits of a primeval inland sea from the Sarikol meridional watershed to the Khingan mountains on the western borders of Manchuria, divide her from the northern provinces of China.
From the Khingan ranges to the Pacific, south of the Amur, stretch the rich districts of Manchuria, a province which connects Russia with the Korea by a series of valleys formed by the Sungari and its affluents - a land of hill and plain, forest and swamp, possessing a delightful climate, and vast undeveloped agricultural resources.
The sturgeons, which abound in the Black Sea and Caspian, and ascend the rivers that fall into them, are also found in Asiatic Russia, and an allied form extends to southern China.
The Turks are Mahommedans; their tribes extend up the Oxus to the borders of Afghanistan and Persia, and to the Caspian, and under the name of Kirghiz into Russia, and their language is spoken over a large part of western Asia.
The Aryans appear to have been settled to the north of the Hindu Kush, and to have migrated south-eastwards about 150o B.C. Their original home has been a subject of much discussion, but the view now prevalent is that they arose in southern Russia or Asia Minor, whence a section spread eastwards and divided into two closely related branches - the Hindus and Iranians.
The advance of Russia in Asia is entirely different from that of the other powers, since it has taken place by land and not by sea.
As the Russian possessions in Asia are continuous with European Russia, it is only natural that they should have been russified far more thoroughly than the British possessions have been anglicized.
He nourished the grandiose idea of driving out the hordes of Tamerlane, freeing all Russia from the Tatar yoke, and proclaiming himself emperor of the North and East.
The commercial importance of the town dates from the second half of the r9th century; in 1870 its population had risen to 38,000, and after it was brought into railway connexion with Kharkov and Voronezh, and thus with the fertile provinces of south and south-east Russia, the increase was still more rapid, the number reaching 56,047 in 1885, and 58,928 in 1900 - Greeks, Jews, Armenians and West-Europeans being important elements.
In that year he was made an adjutant-general, lieutenant-colonel of the Preobrazhensky Guards, a member of the council of state, and, in the words of a foreign contemporary diplomatist, "the most influential personage in Russia."
Somewhat later he was created a count, and appointed commander-in-chief and governor-general of "New Russia," as the conquered provinces in the Ukraine were then called.
He was deeply interested in the question of the southern boundaries of Russia and consequently ij1 the fate of the Turkish Empire.
The same year the second Turkish War began, and the founder of New Russia took upon himself the responsibilities of commanderin-chief.
Towards the foothills of the Caucasus they are clothed with thick forests, while in the west they merge into the steppes of south Russia or end in marshy ground, choked with reeds and rushes, in the delta of the Kuban.
The very extensive internal trade with Russia can only be mentioned.
The principal approach to Caucasia from Russia by rail is the line that runs from Rostov-on-Don to Vladikavkaz at the foot of the central Caucasus range.
This railway, together with the driving roads over the Caucasus mountains via the Mamison pass (the Ossetic military road) and the Darial pass (the Georgian military road), and the route across the Black Sea to Poti or Batum are the chief means of communication between southern Russia and Transcaucasia.
In 1770, during the course of a war between Russia and Turkey, the Russians crossed over the Caucasus and assisted the Imeretians to resist the Turks, and from the time of the ensuing peace of Kuchuk-kainarji the Georgian principalities looked to their powerful northern neighbour as their protector against the southern aggressors the Turks.
In 1783 George XIII., prince of Georgia and Mingrelia, formally put himself under the suzerainty of Russia, and after his death Georgia was converted (r80r) into a Russian province.
By the peace of Gulistan in 1813 Persia ceded to Russia several districts in eastern Caucasia, from Lenkoran northwards to Derbent.
Nevertheless the mountain tribes who inhabited the higher parts of the Caucasus were still independent, and their subjugation cost Russia a sustained effort of thirty years, during the course of which her military commanders were more than once brought almost to the point of despair by the tenacity, the devotion and the adroitness and daring which the mountaineers displayed in a harassing guerilla warfare.
After acquiring the northern edge of the Armenian plateau, partly from Persia in 1828 and partly from Turkey in 1829, Russia crushed a rising which had broken out in the Caspian coast districts of Daghestan on the north of the Caucasus.
During the RussoTurkish War of 1877-78 the self-exiled Circassians and other Caucasian mountaineers, supported by a force of 14,000 Turks, made a determined attempt to wrest their native glens from the power of Russia; but, after suffering a severe defeat at the hands of General Alkhazov, the Turks withdrew, and were accompanied by some 30,000 Abkhasians, who settled in Asia Minor.
By the ensuing peace of Adrianople, Russia still further enlarged her Transcaucasian territories by the acquisition of the districts of Kars, Batum and Ardahan.
After a peaceful period of a quarter of a century the Armenian subjects of Russia in Transcaucasia were filled with bitterness and discontent by the confiscation of the properties of their national (Gregorian) church by the Russian treasury.
In 1785 Bentham started, by way of Italy and Constantinople, on a visit to his brother, Samuel Bentham, a naval engineer, holding the rank of colonel in the Russian service; and it was in Russia that he wrote his Defence of Usury.
In the 18th century it had two illustrious guests in Peter the Great of Russia and Christian VII.
Great tracts of low country along the southern shores of the Baltic and in northern Russia are covered with forests of spruce.
His own violations of the treaties of Luneville and Amiens were overlooked; and in particular men forgot that the weakening of the Knights of St John by the recent confiscation of their lands in France and Spain, and the protracted delay of Russia and Prussia to guarantee their tenure of power in Malta, furnished England with good reasons for keeping her hold on that island.
These actions proclaimed so unmistakably Napoleon's intention of making Italy an annexe of France as to convince Francis of Austria and Alexander of Russia that war with him was inevitable.
Disputes with Russia respecting Malta and the British maritime code kept the two states apart for nearly a year; and Austria was too timid to move.
Negotiations with England and Russia served to show the extent of his ambition.
Both Russia and Prussia now agreed rigorously to exclude British ships and goods from their dominions.
After some diplomatic fencing Russia and Prussia broke with England and entered upon what was, officially at least, a state of war with her.
The duchy of Warsaw and the fortress of Danzig formed new outworks of his power and enabled him to overawe Russia.
The House of Habsburg now ceded Salzburg and the Inn-Viertel to Napoleon (for his ally, the king of Bavaria); a great portion of the spoils which Austria had torn from Poland in 1795 went to the grand duchy of Warsaw, or Russia; and the cession of her provinces Carinthia, Carniola and Istria to the French empire cut her off from all access to the sea.
The addition of large territories to the grand duchy of Warsaw after the war of 1809 aroused the fears of the tsar respecting the Poles; and he regarded all Napoleon's actions as inspired by hostility to Russia.
If the Continental System was inevitable the war with Russia was inevitable.
That state, where Bernadotte had latterly been chosen as crown prince, decided to throw off the yoke of the Continental System and join England and Russia, gaining from the latter power the promise of Norway at the expense of Denmark.
Certainly he needed her support during that campaign; but many good judges have inclined to the belief that the whole-hearted support of Poles and Lithuanians would have been of still greater value, and that the organization of their resources might well have occupied him during the winter of 1812-1813, and would have furnished him with a new and advanced base from which to strike at the heart of Russia in the early summer of 1813.
France had subjected half the continent; but her hold on Spain was weakened by Wellington's blow at Salamanca; and now Frenchmen heard that their army in Russia was "dead."
He therefore heard without dismay at the end of March that Prussia had joined Russia in a league in which Sweden was now an active participant.
Events had shown that, even after losing half a million of men in Russia, he was a match for her and Prussia combined.
These terms, it should be noted, would have kept Napoleon's empire intact except in Illyria; while the peace would have enabled him to reorganize his army and recover a host of French prisoners from Russia.
The return of French prisoners from Russia, Germany, England and Spain would furnish him with an army far larger than that which had won renown in 1814.
So far back as the 13th of March, six days before he reached Paris, the powers at Vienna declared him an outlaw; and four days later Great Britain, Russia, Austria and Prussia bound themselves to put 150,000 men into the field to end his rule.
To leave such a foe in his rear, while he plunged into the heart of Russia would have been hazardous indeed.
He soon convinced himself that western Europe had nothing to fear from Charles, and that no bribes were necessary to turn the Swedish arms from Germany to Russia.
The highlands of Daghestan were for many years the stronghold of the Circassians in their struggle against Russia, especially under the leadership of Shamyl, whose last stand was made on the steep mountain fastness of Gunib, 74 m.
The wild boar is still found in Europe, in marshy woodland districts where there is plenty of cover, and it is fairly plentiful in Spain, Austria, Russia and Germany, particularly in the Black Forest.
It is also shot in great forest drives in Austria, Germany and Russia.
In 1905 the treaty ending the war between Japan and Russia was negotiated in what is known as the Peace Building in this yard.
Other important industries are wood-carving (of an artistic excellence long unknown), artistic iron-working, jewelling, bronze-casting, the production of steam-engines, machinery, matches (largely exported to Turkey, Egypt, Russia, Austria-Hungary and Greece), clock-making, wool-weaving and the manufacture of chemical manures.
In Russia the domovoi (house spirit) is an important personage in folk-belief; he may object to certain kinds of animals, or to certain colours in cattle; and must, generally speaking, be propitiated and cared for.
The soil is almost throughout "black earth," and Podolia is one of the most fertile governments of Russia.
After Moscow, Podolia is the most densely inhabited government of Russia outside Poland.
The Poles retained Podolia until the third division of their country in 1193, when it was taken by Russia.
He married in 1803 Eleanora, daughter of William Shairp, consulgeneral for Russia, and widow of Thomas Yeldham of St Petersburg.
Direct trade with the East Indies began about 1785, with Russia in 1787.
In 1906 the United States contributed 65% of the commercial cotton, British India 19%,19%, Egypt 7%, and Russia 3%.
The production is not sufficient to meet the home demand; during the five years of normal trade before the war with Russia Japan imported annually about 800,000 bales of cotton, chiefly from British India, China and the United States, and during the same period exported each year some 2000 bales, mainly to Korea.
Some cotton is produced in European Russia in the southern Caucasus, but Turkestan in central Asia is by far the 1 Cotton Production 1906, U.S.A. Bureau of the Census, Bulletin No.
The production of cotton in Russia in 1906 was estimated at 675,000 bales of Soo lb each.
British dependence on American supplies is greater even than that of the continent of Europe, for Russia possesses some internal supplies, and more Indian cotton is used in continental countries than in England.
Russia, too, is developing her internal supplies.
The liturgy of the Lutheran church of Russia has, since 1898, been based on his Liturgische Formulare (1872).
Manchuria was claimed by Russia as her particular sphere of interest towards the close of the 19th century, and in the course of the disturbances of 1900 Russian troops occupied various parts of the country.
Eventually a Manchurian convention was arranged between China and Russia, by which Russia was to evacuate the province; but no actual ratification of this convention was made by Russia.
British capital has been invested in the extension of the Chinese Northern railway to Niu-chwang, and the fact was officially recognized by an agreement between Great Britain and Russia in 1899.
Although petroleum wells in Russia have not the depth of many of those in the United States, the disturbed character of the strata, with consequent liability to caving, and the occurrence of hard concretions, render drilling a lengthy and expensive Drilling in operation.
It is usual to begin by making an excava- Russia.
In Russia, until 1875, the crude oil was carried in barrels on Persian carts known as " arbas."
The system is largely employed in Russia, and its use has been frequently attempted in the United States, but the results have not been satisfactory, on account, it is said, of the much greater quantity of dissolved gas contained in the American oil, the larger proportion of kerosene which such oil yields, and the less fluid character of the residue.
The stills employed in Russia and Galicia are usually smaller than those already described.
Eichler, of Baku, is stated to have been the first to introduce, in Russia, the use of sulphuric acid, followed by that of soda lye, and his process is in universal use at the present time.
Not the Western Crusades but an Eastern rival, Timur (Tamerlane), king of Transoxiana and conqueror of southern Russia and India, was destined to arrest the progress of Bayezid; and from the battle of Angora (1402) till the days of Murad II.
In 1833 he became a fellow of the Linnean Society, and in 1844 he was made a knight of the order of St Vladimir by the emperor of Russia.
Apart from the important part which he took in helping to co-ordinate and draft the Civil Code, Cambaceres did the state good service in many directions, notably by seeking to curb the impetuosity of the emperor, and to prevent enterprises so fatal as the intervention in Spanish affairs (1808) and the invasion of Russia (1812) proved to be.
At last, in 1165, he was successful; and, after passing through many dangers, reached the court of Yaroslav, grand prince of Russia, at Kiev.
With this end in view he grasped eagerly at the proffered mediation of Russia, and without resigning the treasury sailed for Europe in May 1813.
On his return to Russia he was created a boyar of the first class and entrusted with the direction of the foreign office, with the title of "Guardian of the great Tsarish Seal and Director of the great Imperial Offices."
It was Orduin who first abolished the onerous system of tolls on exports and imports, and established a combination of native merchants for promoting direct commercial relations between Sweden and Russia.
He also set on foot a postal system between Muscovy, Courland and Poland, and introduced gazettes and bills of exchange into Russia.
He travelled a great deal in Europe, Egypt, Palestine, Russia, Algeria and America, and between 1853 and 1863 was largely occupied with researches into the history and methods of marine propulsion.
On June 24, 200 Russian soldiers landed on Mount Athos, and a month later 600 of the monks were deported to Russia, where they were distributed as prisoners in various monasteries.
In the years following the peace she applied herself to finding allies in France and Russia who would help her to recover Silesia.
In the second half of the 15th century Bolgari became part of the Kazan kingdom, lost its commercial and political importance, and was annexed to Russia after the fall of Kazan.
His fine presence and his tact on ceremonial occasions rendered the state some service when in 1896 he received the Tsar of Russia at Paris, and in 1897 returned his visit, after which meeting the momentous Franco-Russian alliance was publicly announced.
It had long the reputation of being almost constantly ice-bound, but after the Norwegian captain Johannesen had demonstrated its accessibility in 1869, and Nordenskield had crossed it to the mouth of the Yenisei in 1875, it was considered by many to offer a possible trade route between European Russia and the north of Siberia.
Of Russia in Europe only the more densely peopled governments have been surveyed, since 1816, in the manner of other European countries, while for most regions there R are only so-called "military surveys."
Surveys in Asiatic Russia are conducted by the topographical departments organized at Orenburg, Tashkent, Omsk, Irkutsk and Tiflis.
The basis of the population is Canadian, and the immigration has been chiefly from (I) the British Isles, (2) United States, (3) continent of Europe (chiefly Austria, Hungary and Russia).
He used his influence with the emperor of Russia, as also with the emperors of China and Japan and with the shah of Persia, to secure the free practice of their religion for Roman Catholics within their respective dominions.
In Russia, a country which had not the same historical antecedents with the Western nations, properly so called, and which is in fact more correctly classed as Eastern, whilst slavery had disappeared, serfdom was in force down to our own days.
A circular was soon after sent to the governors and marshals of the nobility all over Russia proper, informing them of this desire of the Lithuanian nobles, and setting out the fundamental principles which should be observed " if the nobles of the provinces should express a similar desire."
His negotiations with Russia proved futile, and after a year's absence he returned to New York.
In 1858 the representatives of Austria, Belgium, France, the Netherlands, Piedmont, Russia, the Holy See, Sweden, Tuscany and Turkey appropriated the sum of 400,000 francs in recognition of the use of his instruments in those countries.
Russia annexed it in 1772.
He had joined the Social Democratic movement which in those days was spreading widely in Russia.
But he rightly felt that the social catastrophe would be most likely to break out in Russia, as the worst governed and the least civilized country.
We cannot ignore the fact that this or that issue of the military operations will facilitate or render more difficult our work of liberation in Russia.
And it came to pass that the Kaiser, who deemed himself the champion of monarchical principle in Europe, should assist him and his retinue to reach Russia after the overthrow of the Tsar.
Asiatic Turkey is conterminous on the east with Russia and Persia; in the southwest it encloses on the west, north and north-east the independent part of Arabia.
Then came forced loans and debased currency (1788), producing still more acute distress until, in 1791, at the close of the two years' war with Russia, in which the disaster which attended Ottoman arms may be largely ascribed to the penury of the Ottoman treasury, Selim III., the first of the " reforming sultans, " attempted, with but little practical success, to introduce radical reforms into the administrative organization of his empire.
Russia declined to countenance the negotiations in any way.
This raised strong objections on the part of Russia, and led to the Black Sea Basin agreement reserving to Russia the sole right to construct railways in the northern portion of Asia Minor.
Dissensions among the Cossacks led to the recognition by Turkey of Doroshenko, the hetman of the Sari Kamish, as ruler of the Ukraine; the Zaporog Cossacks, his antagonists, applied for aid to Russia.
In 1678 the Turks succeeded in taking Cehrin, but their losses were very heavy, and on the 8th of January 1681 a treaty was signed at Radzyn whereby the territory in dispute was ceded to Russia.
This was the signal for a general coalition against Turkey; Venice, Poland and the pope allied themselves with the Austrians; Russia, Tuscany and Malta joined in the attack.
Russia, driven from Azov in 1695, succeeded in capturing it in the following year; Venice continued to press the Turks; in this condition of affairs Hussein Kuprili (q.v.) was called to office; England and Holland urged Turkey to Ibrahim, Ahmed II., 1691-1695.
On the 4th, Russia concluded a two years' armistice, but remained in possession of Azov, which was formally ceded to her by the definitive treaty of peace signed at Constantinople on the 13th of June 1700.
These were naturally dismissed after the defeat of the Russians; the former made good his escape to Russia, the latter was executed.
Russia having thus lost all the advantage gained by the peace of Karlowitz, Venice was next taken in hand, she having invaded the Bosnian frontier and incited the Montenegrins to revolt, besides capturing Turkish ships in the Mediterranean.
Meanwhile relations with Russia continued strained.
But, though the questions at issue between Russia and Turkey in Poland and the northern littoral of the Black Sea were thus for the time settled, the aggressive designs of Russia in the Caucasus and in Persia soon caused a renewal of anxiety at Constantinople.
Again war all but broke out; but, through the intervention of France, a treaty of partition was signed at Constantinople on the 23rd of June 1724, whereby the shores of the Caspian from the junction of the Kur and the Arras (Araxes) northwards should belong to Russia, while the western provinces of Persia should fall to the share of Turkey.
Russia's designs on Poland now brought about war.
France thereupon declared war against Russia and her ally Austria, and her envoy, the marquis de Villeneuve, urged Turkey to join by representing the danger of allowing Russian influence to extend.
Turkey had cause of complaint against Russia for refusing to allow the Crimean troops to march through Daghestan during the Persian campaign, and on the 28th of May 1736, war was declared, in spite of the efforts of England and Holland.
To the refusal of the sultan's representatives to concede any of her demands, Austria replied by revealing the existence of an alliance with Russia, which she threatened to make actively offensive if her terms were refused.
This was conceded; on the 1st of September, under the mediation of the French ambassador Villeneuve, the preliminaries were signed; on the 4th the grand vizier made his formal entrance into the city, where on the 18th the definitive treaties with Austria and Russia were signed.
The treaty with Russia provided that Azov should be razed and its territory devastated to form a barrier, Russia having the right to erect a new fortress at Cherkask, an island in the Don, near Azov, and Turkey to build one on the border of Kuban near Azov.
But Taganrog was not to be refortified, and Russia was to have no war-ships on the sea of Azov or the Black Sea.
The attitude of the northern powers, however, and especially of Russia, towards Poland was beginning to excite the sultan's liveliest suspicions; and these the accession, in 1762, of the masterful Catherine II.
From the committee of patriots at Warsaw complaints and warnings were carried to Constantinople; and the cession of Podolia was offered as the price of a Turkish attack on Russia.
At last, on the 6th of October 1768, on the refusal of the Russian minister to give guarantees for the withdrawal of the Russian troops from Poland and the abandonment of Russia's claim to interfere with the liberties of the republic, war was declared and the Russian representative was imprisoned in the Seven Towers.
The war that followed marks an epoch in the decay of the Ottoman Empire and in the expansion of Russia.
Russia, however, retained the fortresses of Kerch, Yenikale and Kinburn, with the desert country between the Bug and the Dnieper, while Ochakov was left to the Turks.
Azov and its district were annexed to Russia, and the two Kabardias were transferred subject to the consent of the khan of the Crimea.
Russia undertook to evacuate Mingrelia and Georgia.
This article is of great historical importance as forming the basis of the later claim of Russia to possess by treaty the right to protect the Orthodox subjects of the Porte.'
It was not long before Russia showed that it was not the independence but the absorption of the Crimea which she desired.
The Porte, unable to resist, was obliged to consent to the convention of Ainali Ka y ak (March 10, 1779) whereby the Russian partisan, Shahin Girai, was recognized as khan of the Crimea, the admission of Russian vessels to navigate Turkish waters was reaffirmed and Russia's right of intervention in the affairs of the Danubian principalities was formally recognized.
Five years later Potemkin induced the chiefs of the Crimea and Kuban to hold a meeting at which the annexation of their country to Russia was declared, Turkey giving her consent by a convention, signed at Constantinople, on the 8th of January 1784, by which the stipulations as to the liberty of the Tatars contained in the treaty of Kuchuk Kainarji and the convention of Ainali Ka y ak were abrogated.
Turkey now joined Great Britain and Russia against France.'
The treaty of alliance with Russia was signed on the 23rd of December 1798, that with Great Britain on the 5th of January 1799.
Russia, desirous of deriving some return for the support which she had given the sultan during his rupture with the French, induced the Porte to address to her a note in which the right of intervention in the affairs of the principalities, conferred on her by the treaty of Kainarji and reaffirmed in the convention of Ainali Ka y ak, was converted into a specific stipulation that the hospodars should be appointed in future for seven years and should not be dismissed without the concurrence of the Russian ambassador at Constantinople.
Russia and England hereupon used threatening language, and Turkey replaced the hospodars.
But war was nevertheless declared on the 27th of December 1806, and Russia occupied the principalities.
The British ambassador sought by every means in his power to induce Turkey to give way to Russia, going so far as to guarantee the withdrawal of the Russian troops from Moldo-Walachia if the Porte remained at peace, and threatening that if Turkey persisted in her opposition England would join with Russia against her.
An ultimatum was presented ordering Turkey within twenty-four hours to dismiss the French ambassador, hand over the Turkish fleet, and make peace with Russia.
All officers who were partisans of the reforms were obliged to take refuge in flight; and Turkey's position would have been desperate but for the conclusion of the peace of Tilsit (July 7, 1807) between Russia and France, to which Turkey also became a party.
Turkey was at this time the only neutral state in Europe; it was of vital im- Treaty of portance that she should not be absorbed into the Napoleonic system, as in that case Russia would have been exposed to a simultaneous attack from France, Austria, Turkey and Persia.
Accordingly, though France made every attempt to induce Turkey to adopt her side, the young Stratford Canning succeeded in causing the resumption of the peace negotiations at Bucharest, broken off through Russia's terms being considered too onerous, and followed by the capture of Izmail and Bender.
The British diplomatist secured his first triumph in the signature of the treaty of Bucharest (May 28, 1812) whereby Khotin, Bender, Kilia and Akkerman were left to Russia; the frontier was fixed at the Pruth; the Asiatic boundary was slightly modified.
In the course of the war with Persia Russia had received permission from the Ottoman government to use, for a limited time, the easy road from the Black Sea to Tiflis by way of the valley of the Rion (Phasis) for the transport of troops and supplies, and this permission had been several times renewed.
Wishing to make this important privilege permanent, Russia by secret articles of the Treaty of Bucharest had secured the cession of this district, in return for an undertaking to destroy the forts of Kilia and Izmail on the Danube.
But the sultan refused to ratify these articles, and the relations between Russia and Turkey were therefore determined by the patent treaty only, which positively stipulated for the evacuation by the Russians of every spot occupied by them on Turkish soil in Asia.
The dispute, at first of little importance, developed in seriousness during the next year or two, owing to the avowed intention of Russia, which by conquest or treaties with independent chiefs had acquired all the high land between the Caspian and the Black Sea, to take possession of the low lands along the coast, between Anapa and Poti, of which the sultan claimed the sovereignty.
But nothing could be done until the Porte should have come to terms with Russia as to the Treaty of Bucharest; for, as the British ambassador, Sir Robert Liston, was instructed to point out to the Ottoman government, " it is impossible to guarantee the possession of a territory of which the limits are not determined."
The Ottoman Empire thus remained outside the European concert; Russia maintained her claim to a special right of isolated intervention in its affairs; and the renewal of war between Russia and Turkey was only postponed by the preoccupation of Alexander with his dream of the " Confederation of Europe."
The execution of the patriarch Gregorios, as technically responsible for the revolt, was an outrage to all Christendom; and it led at once to a breach of diplomatic relations with Russia.
The mutual slaughter of barbarians in the Levant seemed, even to George Canning, a lesser evil than a renewed Armageddon in Europe; and all the resources of diplomacy were set in motion to heal the rupture between Turkey and Russia.
The sole outcome of the conference was the offer in March 1825 of the joint mediation of Austria and Russia, which the Porte rejected.
At the close of 1825 an isolated intervention of Russia had seemed probable.
A great army was assembled in the south of Russia, and the emperor Alexander had gone to place himself at its head when he died (Dec. 22, 1825).
Russia, meanwhile, had seized the occasion to send to Constantinople an ultimatum demanding satisfaction for her own particular grievances; the Porte resented the intrusion of new demands before the others had been dealt with, and hurried on preparations for war.