I should probably do a separate post on the slave raids the Crimean Khanate conducted in eastern Europe (and the Barbary corsairs up to Iceland, 1624!) but the short version is that 15 years after the Muslim Turks invaded and conquered the Christians of Constantinople in 1453, the Khanate began slave raids they called ‘harvesting of the steppe', making huge bank by sending the slaves across the Black Sea to the newly renamed Istanbul:
The Turks especially like blonde women but were quite enthusiastic about buying brunettes and redheads as well. Somewhere in the neighborhood of three million people were enslaved and let's just say this history engendered a lot of bad blood. The last harvest of the steppe was in 1769 when about 20,000 people were enslaved, to be sold in Crimea and resold in Istanbul.
As noted over the years:
... And back to the Cossacks. A couple weeks ago we posted "Little Has Changed Between Turkey, Russia Despite Reconciliation" with this introduction:
Whenever I think about Turkish-Russian relations I think of this painting:
... That's "Reply of the Zaporozhian Cossacks" by Repin, hanging in the State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg.
As the story goes, in 1676 the Turkish Sultan, despite being beaten by the Cossacks when he tried to invade what is now southern Ukraine, demanded these guys surrender and submit to Turkish rule.
As can be seen, the Cossacks thought this was the funniest thing they had ever heard and wrote a letter in response.
A very profane, very defiant, very vulgar, very contemptuous letter.
These old boys just cracked themselves up with their letter.
And that's what I think of when I think of Russians and Turks.
If interested, chapter 16 of THE TRAVELS OF PERO TAFUR (1435-1439) has his account of a visit to the already established pre-1453 slave market in Caffa (Feodosia) Crimea (also home of the European branch of the black plague). And:
And now, on to Catherine and Potemkin. From the Exploring History blog, January 2016:
In 2014, Vladimir Putin took Crimea as part of the Russian Federation. But about two centuries ago, Russia, under Catherine the Great, did the same. Explore how Catherine the Great annexed the Crimean Peninsula more two centuries before Putin did.
During the early months of 2014, the world watched how Russia retaken Crimea from Ukraine. The Russian army marched into the peninsula, securing Russia’s control. But Crimea had been part of Russia before all of this, during the times of the Soviet Union and the time of Tsarist Russia. Crimea was the apple of the eye of many Tsars. But a Tsarina managed to take the lands – Catherine the Great. With war and political maneuvering, she succeeded in annexing Crimea.Background
Crimea is a peninsula located in the northern shores of the Black Sea. It is connected to Ukraine through the Isthmus of Perekop. It also separated the Black Sea from the Sea of Azov. In the Middle Ages, during the western migration of Central Asians, a group of Mongols settled in the Peninsula, who became known as Tatars and established a Khanate. For the following centuries, the Khanate flourished through trade and raid with the Rus in the north.
For the Tsars of Russia, Crimea held a strategic value. For centuries, the raids of the Tatars to southern Russian towns were a menace and dictated the turn of Russian history several times. To capture Crimea meant an end to the Khanate and to the problematic raids that crippled the Russian frontiers. It also meant an expansion in the network of trade as well as the military capability for Russia. Control of the Crimean Peninsula meant access to the Black Sea and ultimately with the Mediterranean Sea and the rest of Europe. Its conquest for the access of the sea began with Peter the Great. After the Great Northern War, the Baltic Sea offered a glimpse of the west, but its freezing waters for more than half of the year limited travel for Russia. The warm waters of the Black Sea offered a better alternative. It would allow Russia to increase trade and communication with the west. In political and military terms, capturing Crimea meant better participation in the politics of the Balkans and Asia Minor. And for these reasons, Russia desired Crimea and its surrounding territories tremendously.
At the time of Catherine the Great, Russia was at its pinnacle. The energy of military conquest and aggressive expansion soared once again, making Russia a great power in Europe and the largest empire in the world, spanning three continents – Europe, Asia and North America.
While Russia boasted a golden age, otherwise happened in its surrounding neighbors in the south. The Ottoman Empire was in a state of stagnation and even decay. The Siege of Vienna in 1689 marked the end of her strong role in Eastern Europe. Incompetence, decadence and corruption of the Sultans and government officials led to its state. Although in peace, the once mighty Turkish Empire was rotting from the inside. The same also occurred to their client state – the Crimean Khanate. Centuries of prosperity through raids ended with the growing military capability of the Russians. The power of the Russian military in the early 18th century took away the number one source of income for the Khanate - plunder and slave trade. In 1736, the Russians inflicted a humiliating defeat for the Tatars when they burned the Khanate’s capital of Bakhchisarai. And so by the time of Catherine the Great, the Crimean Khanate and the Ottoman Empire were ripe for conquest.
Russo-Ottoman War of 1768 to 1774
Prologue
The conquest for Crimea began accidentally for Russia. In 1768, Catherine launched one of her major foreign policy project – the conquest of Poland. She installed her lover, Stanislaw Poniatowski, as the King of Poland. But not all Polish nobles welcomed the Russian-backed King and rebelled. Russian forces assisted in crushing the rebellious nobles. In September of 1768, a group of Polish rebels escaped to Ottoman territories. Russians continued to pursue them within the Turkish territory, leading to the burning of a town. In Istambul, due to the incident in the borders, war mongering officials, who saw war as a way to revitalize the empire, clamor for tough. Sultan Mustafa III gave in and declared war against Russia.....
Stanislaw Poniatowski
