Tsar and Sultan: Russian Encounters with the Ottoman Empire

(Hardback)

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Tsar and Sultan offers a unique insight into Russian Orientalism as the intellectual force behind Russian-Ottoman encounters. Through war diaries and memoirs, accounts of captivity and diplomatic correspondences, Victor Taki's analysis of military documents demonstrates a crucial aspect of Russia's discovery of the Orient based on its rivalry with the Ottoman Empire. Narratives depicting the brutal realities of Russian-Turkish military conflicts influenced the Orientalisation of the Ottoman Empire. In turn, Russian identity was built as the counter-image to the demonised Turk. This book explains the significance of Russian Orientalism on Russian identity and national policies of westernisation. Students of both European and Middle East studies will appreciate Taki's unique approach to Russian-Turkish relations and their influence on Eurasian history.

Reviews

Takis monograph is an original interpretation of the Orientalist paradigm as a strategy of Russian Westernization and a reflection of its discontents. It is also a significant contribution to the study of Russian Orientalism previously limited to the Muslim borderlands of the Romanov Empire. * Canadian Slavonic Papers *

Author Bio

Victor Taki is Research Fellow, Centre of Ukrainian and Belorussian Studies, Moscow State University. He previously held a Post Doctoral Fellowship at University of Alberta, Canada and holds a PhD from Central European University.