The struggle of the great powers for the South Caucasus and Eastern Anatolia at the beginning of the 19th century

Abstract

As is known, the Caucasian mega-region has been an area from time immemorial, dominated by significant military and political forces. At the end of the 18th – beginning of the 19th centuries, both the South Caucasus and Eastern Anatolia became the scene of fierce confrontations between the Russian, British, French, Ottoman and Qajar empires. Already at the beginning of the 19th century, Romanov's Russia pursued an active occupation policy in the South Caucasus, where it faced serious resistance from the High Porte and the Qajars. In addition, the British and French governments, concerned about the advance of the Romanovs to transit channels passing through the Middle East and connecting Europe with rich sources of raw materials and markets of Asian countries, actively intervened in this struggle and in every possible way incited the Tehran and Istanbul courts to go to war with Russia. In general, reviewing the existing socio-economic and political situation in the South Caucasus in the second half of the 18th – early 19th centuries, one can come to the conclusion that during this period there was an unceasing increase in the influence of tsarist Russia, which every year tried in every possible way to expand and tighten its military political statement in the region, at the same time there was a gradual decline in the role and influence of the two southern neighbors of this region – the Ottoman and Qajar states, which for a long time were the main arbiters of political destinies in the South Caucasus. Already at the beginning of the 19th century, hegemonic superiority in this Caucasian region was gradually concentrated in the hands of the Romanovs, and tsarist Russia turned into that military-political center that became the long-term arbiter of the fate of local peoples and nationalities. The leading European powers – France and Great Britain only aspired to become the main masters of the military-political situation in this strategic region. But the remoteness of the South Caucasus from Western Europe, the absence of adjacent territories and common borders forced both London and Paris to stake on Tehran and Istanbul, to try to achieve their goals in this region through the hands of the Ottoman and Qajar military and political forces.