How Russia Lost Bulgaria, 1878–1886
How Russia Lost Bulgaria, 1878–1886

Author: Mikhail S. Rekun

Publisher: Lexington Books

Published: 2018-11-23

Total Pages: 241

ISBN-13: 1498559646

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How Russia Lost Bulgaria looks at the rapid breakdown in Russo-Bulgarian relations in the years following the Russian liberation of Bulgaria in the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878. Initially, the Russian Empire and the Principality of Bulgaria were close allies, bound together by sentiment, by geopolitical reality, and by strong administrative links – the Bulgarian Minister of War was a Russian general on detached duty from the Imperial Army, to pick just one example. Yet by 1886, only eight years later, relations degenerated to such a point that a Russian-backed coup overthrew the Bulgarian monarch. The two countries would cut diplomatic relations for years. How Russia Lost Bulgaria argues that the behavior of Russian military and diplomatic agents in Bulgaria caused this rapid turnabout. These agents acted in a tactless, obnoxious fashion that offended the pride and sensibilities of both local Bulgarian politicians and of the German-born, Russian-appointed Prince Alexander von Battenberg. Having a Russian Consul-General refer to the leader of Bulgaria’s majority party as an “unwashed, uncombed, country bumpkin” did not improve relations, certainly. But to write off Russia’s agents in Bulgaria as bunglers and imbeciles is neither accurate nor intellectually satisfying. Underlying their actions is the fact that the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs was a weak and disorganized institution, and it failed to either develop a coherent policy approach to relations with Bulgaria, or to force its agents to carry out an approach once it was developed. Left to their own devices, Russian agents in Bulgaria fell back on their own ideas of how to advance the Russian Empire’s position, and in so doing they drove Russia’s relationship with a vital client state straight into the ground.

Infidels
Infidels

Author: Andrew Wheatcroft

Publisher: Random House

Published: 2004-06-15

Total Pages: 649

ISBN-13: 1588363902

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Here is the first panoptic history of the long struggle between the Christian West and Islam. In this dazzlingly written, acutely nuanced account, Andrew Wheatcroft tracks a deep fault line of animosity between civilizations. He begins with a stunning account of the Battle of Lepanto in 1571, then turns to the main zones of conflict: Spain, from which the descendants of the Moors were eventually expelled; the Middle East, where Crusaders and Muslims clashed for years; and the Balkans, where distant memories spurred atrocities even into the twentieth century. Throughout, Wheatcroft delves beneath stereotypes, looking incisively at how images, ideas, language, and technology (from the printing press to the Internet), as well as politics, religion, and conquest, have allowed each side to demonize the other, revive old grievances, and fuel across centuries a seemingly unquenchable enmity. Finally, Wheatcroft tells how this fraught history led to our present maelstrom. We cannot, he argues, come to terms with today’s perplexing animosities without confronting this dark past.