Why did the Russians want Constantinople? : Russia from the 9th century to 1917

Abstract

The aim of this dissertation is to analyse through the available literature why the Russians aspired to have and to hold Constantinople. Before Russia was a true entity, the people of Kiev and Novgorod made raids on Constantinople towards the last centuries of the first millennium. Over the centuries that followed, Russia became a major power by mastery over their neighbours and breaking into warm waters. Like the other Great Powers over time, they wished to expand. For the Russians, the important areas were into the Baltic and Black Seas. The latter would provide the conduit to the Mediterranean while both routes would facilitate trade with European nations. On the other hand, the Great Powers saw the potential threat of the Russian Bear and strove to limit their hegemony. Self-interest was always the key for the Great Powers. Peter the Great and the Catherine the Great put Russia well and truly on the European map. They gained Baltic and the Black Sea domination which was not always viewed favourably by the other powers who sought to limit their progress. This all culminated in the Eastern Question particularly over the 18th and 19th centuries where the Great Powers feared Russian expansion into their own preferred areas of interest. The Russians tried to make themselves European but were not necessarily welcomed as such by European nations who saw them as a threat. Over the period of over a millennium covered here, there were many opportunities to take Constantinople but two stand out, namely for Catherine the Great and finally for Nicholas II. The Russian Revolution put paid to the latter but the reasons for Catherine’s failure to seize the moment are shrouded in a degree of mystery. There was always the awareness that diplomatic and military opposition would limit predatory moves and these will be discussed on the ensuing pages.