Treaty of Kucuk Kaynarca (1774): Russia Gains the Black Sea

The Treaty of Kucuk Kaynarca (also spelled Küçük Kaynarca or Kuchuk Kainarji) was signed on 21 July 1774 near the Danube in what is now Bulgaria. It ended the Russo-Turkish War of 1768–1774 in a clear Russian victory. The Ottoman Empire gave up its control of the Crimean Khanate, Russia won a foothold on the Black Sea, and new clauses about Orthodox Christians gave Russia a voice in Ottoman affairs for the next century.

Background: the war of 1768–1774

The war began in autumn 1768. Russian intervention in Poland, and a border incident in which Cossacks pursuing Polish rebels attacked the town of Balta on Ottoman-protected territory, led the Ottomans to declare war. Empress Catherine II accepted the challenge with ambitious aims in the south.

The war went badly for the Ottomans almost from the start. Field Marshal Pyotr Rumyantsev won major victories at Larga and Kagul in Moldavia in 1770, and in the same year a Russian fleet destroyed the Ottoman navy at the Battle of Chesma. In 1771 Russian troops overran the Crimea.

Peace talks at Focsani in 1772 and Bucharest in 1773 failed, mainly over the future of Crimea. Both sides were exhausted. Russia faced the Pugachev Rebellion, a vast peasant and Cossack rising in the Volga region, while the Ottomans had a new sultan, Abdulhamid I, after Mustafa III died in January 1774.

The final campaign and the signing

In June 1774 Rumyantsev crossed the Danube, and on 20 June Russian forces under Alexander Suvorov and Mikhail Kamensky routed a large Ottoman army at Kozludzha. The Russians then cut off the grand vizier, Muhsinzade Mehmed Pasha, in his camp at Shumen.

The grand vizier asked for terms. Negotiations took place at Rumyantsev’s headquarters at the village of Kucuk Kaynarca, and the treaty was signed after only a few days of talks on 21 July 1774. The date is often said to have been chosen as the anniversary of the Treaty of the Pruth of 1711, in which Peter the Great had been forced to make concessions to the Ottomans. Both sides ratified the treaty by early 1775.

The main terms

The treaty had 28 public articles and two separate secret articles. Its most important terms were:

• Crimea: The Crimean Khanate became independent of the Ottoman Empire. The sultan kept only religious authority over the Crimean Tatars as caliph, the first time this title was given such weight in an international treaty.
• Territory: Russia gained Azov, the fortresses of Kerch and Yenikale controlling the strait into the Sea of Azov, Kinburn at the mouth of the Dnieper, part of the steppe between the Dnieper and Southern Bug rivers, and Greater and Lesser Kabarda in the north Caucasus.
• Navigation and trade: Russian merchant ships gained the right to sail freely on the Black Sea and through the Bosporus and Dardanelles, and Russia could open consulates in the empire.
• Danubian principalities: Moldavia and Wallachia were returned to the Ottomans, but Russia gained the right to speak on their behalf.
• Religion: The Porte promised to protect the Christian religion and its churches, and Russia could build an Orthodox church in the Galata district of Istanbul and make representations concerning it.
• Money: The Ottomans agreed to pay a war indemnity of 4.5 million rubles in instalments.

Why Russia could dictate the terms

Russia’s bargaining power rested on its military record. Its armies had beaten the Ottomans in every major field battle, its troops stood south of the Danube, and its fleet had shown it could operate in the Aegean. The Ottoman army, by contrast, suffered from poor supply, desertion and divided command.

Catherine nevertheless had reasons to settle quickly. The Pugachev Rebellion was spreading along the Volga, the war was draining the treasury, and Austria and Prussia were watching Russian gains with suspicion. The First Partition of Poland in 1772 had already shown how closely the great powers balanced one another’s gains. A rapid peace on favourable terms suited both Rumyantsev and the empress.

Key people

• Catherine II (1729–1796): Empress of Russia, whose government set the war aims.
• Pyotr Rumyantsev (1725–1796): Russian field marshal, victor of Larga and Kagul, who negotiated the peace; he was later honoured with the name Zadunaisky, “trans-Danubian”.
• Abdulhamid I (1725–1789): Ottoman sultan from January 1774, who inherited the lost war.
• Muhsinzade Mehmed Pasha (died 1774): Ottoman grand vizier who accepted the terms; he died shortly after the treaty was signed.
• Alexander Suvorov (1730–1800): Russian general whose victory at Kozludzha forced the Ottomans to negotiate.

Consequences

In Istanbul the treaty was received as a severe humiliation. The Crimean Tatars were Muslims whose khans had been Ottoman vassals since the late 15th century, and their loss was widely seen as the first surrender of a largely Muslim land to a Christian power. Ottoman statesmen delayed full implementation for several years and tried, without success, to soften the Crimean clauses through further negotiation.

The treaty transformed the balance of power around the Black Sea. For the first time Russia had secure access to its waters, and the Black Sea ceased to be an Ottoman lake. Crimean independence proved short-lived. The khanate was weak and divided, Russia backed its own candidate, Shahin Giray, as khan from 1777, and the Ottomans recognised him in the Convention of Aynalikavak in 1779. Russia then annexed Crimea in 1783.

Russia soon built new ports and naval bases on its southern coast, among them Kherson, founded in 1778, and Sevastopol, founded in 1783. Russian merchant traffic through the Straits grew in the following decades.

The Ottomans tried to recover their losses in a new war in 1787–1792 but were defeated again, and the Treaty of Jassy in 1792 pushed the border west to the Dniester. The defeat of 1774 also convinced Ottoman reformers that the old army could not match European forces, a lesson that inspired the military reforms of Selim III.

Legacy and debate

The religious clauses had the longest afterlife. In the 19th century Russia claimed that the treaty made it the protector of all Orthodox Christians in the Ottoman Empire. This claim was one of the causes of the Crimean War in 1853.

Historians now read the text more narrowly. The American historian Roderic Davison showed in 1976 that the treaty gave Russia rights over one church in Istanbul and over the Danubian principalities, not a general protectorate. The broad interpretation was built up later by Russian diplomats and by European observers.

Timeline

• 1768, autumn: The Ottoman Empire declares war on Russia.
• 1770, July–August: Russian victories at Larga, Chesma and Kagul.
• 1771: Russian forces occupy the Crimea.
• 1772–1773: Peace talks at Focsani and Bucharest fail.
• 1774, January: Sultan Mustafa III dies; Abdulhamid I succeeds him.
• 1774, 20 June: Ottoman defeat at Kozludzha.
• 1774, 21 July: The treaty is signed at Kucuk Kaynarca.
• 1783: Russia annexes the Crimean Khanate.
• 1792: The Treaty of Jassy confirms Russian gains after a new war.

Why it matters

Kucuk Kaynarca marked the moment when Russia replaced the Ottoman Empire as the dominant power on the northern Black Sea coast. It opened the way to the annexation of Crimea and the founding of new Russian ports, and its clauses on Orthodox Christians helped create the “Eastern Question”, the long European rivalry over the fate of the weakening Ottoman Empire.