and the Balkans, scoring impressive victories over large Turkish forces and appealing to the Christians to rise against their masters; another Russian army invaded and eventually captured the Crimea. A Russian fleet under Alexis Orlov sailed from the Baltic to Turkish waters and sank the Ottoman navy in the Bay of Chesme on July 6, 1770; however, it did not dare to try to force the Straits. After Alexis Orlov's expedition Russia maintained for a considerable period of time a direct interest in the Mediterranean - witness Paul's efforts at the end of the century to gain Malta and the Ionian islands - and gave up its attempt to obtain a permanent foothold there only in the reign of Alexander I, under British pressure. In spite of the fact that the Russian drive into the Balkans had bogged down, Turkey was ready in the summer of 1774 to make peace.
By the Treaty of Kuchuk Kainarji, Russia received the strategic points of Kinburn, Yenikale and Kerch in and near the Crimea as well as part of the Black Sea coast, west and east of the peninsula, reaching almost to the foot of the Caucasian range and including Azov. The Crimean Tartars were proclaimed independent, although they recognized the sultan as caliph, that is, the religious leader of Islam. Russia obtained the right of free commercial navigation in Turkish waters, including permission to send merchantmen through the Straits. Moldavia and Wallachia were returned to Turkey, but they were to be leniently ruled, and Russia reserved the prerogative to intervene on their behalf. Also, Russia acquired the right to build an Orthodox church in Constantinople, while the Turks promised to protect Christian churches and to accept Russian representations in behalf of the new church to be built in the capital. The provisions of the treaty relating to Christians and Christian worship became the basis of many subsequent Russian claims in regard to Turkey.
Although the First Turkish War in Catherine the Great's reign marked the first decisive defeat of Turkey by Russia and although the Treaty of Kuchuk Kainarji reflected the Russian victory, Russian aims had received only partial satisfaction. Some of the northern littoral of the Black Sea remained Turkish, while the Crimea became independent. From the Ottoman point of view, the war was a disaster which could only be remedied by exaction of revenge and by restoration of Turkey's former position by force of arms. The unstable political situation in the Crimea added to the tension. In 1783 Russia moved in to annex the Crimea, causing many Crimean Tartars to flee to the sultan's domain. By 1785 Russia had built a sizable fleet in the Black Sea, with its main base in Sevastopol. At the same time Potemkin made a great effort to populate and develop the newly-won southern lands. The display which Potemkin put up for Catherine the Great, Emperor Joseph II of Austria, and the Polish king Stanislaw Poniatowski when they visited the area in early 1787 gave rise to the expression 'Potemkin villages,' i.e., pieces of stage decor which passed at a distance for real buildings and communities. Actually, without minimizing Potemkin's showmanship, recent studies by Soloveytchik and others indicate that progress in southern Russia had proved to be real enough.
At that time Potemkin and Catherine the Great nursed very far-reaching aims which came to be known as 'the Greek project.' Roughly speaking, the project involved conquering the Ottomans, or at least their European possessions, and establishing - re-establishing the sponsors of the project insisted - a great Christian empire centered on Constantinople. Catherine the Great had her second grandson named Constantine, entrusted him to a Greek nurse, and ordered medals struck with a reproduction of St. Sophia! Austria finally agreed to allow the project after receiving assurance that the new empire would be entirely separate from Russia and after an offer of compensations in the Balkans and other advantages. Yet, like many other overly ambitious schemes, the Greek project proved to be ephemeral. Neither it nor its chief promoter Potemkin survived the Second Turkish War.
Turkey declared war on Russia in 1787 after the Russians rejected an ultimatum demanding that they evacuate the Crimea and the northern Black Sea littoral. The Porte enjoyed the sympathy of several major European powers, especially Great Britain which almost entered the war in 1791, and before long Sweden gave active support by attacking Russia. Catherine the Great had Austria as her military ally. The Second Turkish War, 1787-92, was confined to land action. Russian troops led by Suvorov scored a series of brilliant victories over Turkish forces, notably in 1790 when Suvorov stormed and won the supposedly impregnable fortress of Ismail. Incidentally, it was Michael Kutuzov, the hero of 1812, who first broke into Ismail. At the end of the war, Suvorov was marching on
Constantinople. By the Treaty of Jassy, signed on January 9, 1792, Russia gained the fortress of Ochakov and the Black Sea shore up to the Dniester River, while Turkey recognized Russian annexation of the Crimea. Russia had reached what appeared to be her natural boundaries in the south; the Turkish problem could be considered essentially solved.
Catherine the Great's Polish policy turned out to be as impressive as her relations with Turkey. In a sense the partitioning of Poland, an important European state, represented a greater tour de force than the capture of a huge segment of a largely uninhabited steppe from the Ottomans. But, whereas the settlement with Turkey proved definitive and, as many scholars have insisted, logical and natural, the same could not be asserted by any stretch of the imagination in the case of Poland. Indeed, the partitioning of that country left Russia and Europe with a constant source of pain and conflict.
It has often been said, and with some reason, that Poland was ready for partitioning in the second half of the eighteenth century. Decentralization and weakening of central power in that country rapidly gathered momentum from about the middle of the seventeenth century. Elected kings proved increasingly unable to control their unruly subjects. The only other seat of central authority, the
The weakness of the Polish government acquired additional significance because that government had to face many grave problems. The Polish king ruled over Poles, Lithuanians, White Russians, Ukrainians, and Jews, not to mention smaller ethnic groups, over Catholics, Orthodox, Protestants, and subjects of Hebrew faith. He had to contend with an extremely strong and independent gentry, which, composing some eight per cent of the population, arrogated to itself all 'Polish liberties,' while keeping the bulk of the people, the peasants, in the worst condition of serfdom imaginable.
And he had to deal with powerful and greedy neighbors who surrounded Poland on three sides.
The last point deserves emphasis, because, after all, Poland did not partition itself: it was divided by three mighty aggressors. In fact, in the eighteenth century, Polish society experienced an intellectual and cultural revival which began to spread to politics. Given time, Poland might well have successfully reformed itself. But its neighbors were determined that it would not have the time. It was the misfortune of Poland that precisely when its political future began to look more promising, Catherine the Great finally agreed to a plan of partition of the kind which Prussia and Austria had been advancing from the days of Peter the Great.
The last king of Poland - and Catherine the Great's former lover - Stanislaw Poniatowski, who reigned from 1764 to 1795, tried to introduce certain reforms but failed to obtain firm support from Russia and Prussia, which countries had agreed in 1764 to co-operate in Polish affairs. In 1766-68 the allies reopened the issue of the dissidents, that is, the Orthodox and the Protestants, and forced the Polish government to grant them equal rights with the Catholics. That concession in turn led to violent protest within Poland, the formation of the Confederation of Bar, and civil war, with France lending some support to the Confederation, and Turkey even using the pretext of defending 'Polish liberties' to declare war on Russia. Eventually Russian troops subdued the Confederates, and the first partition of Poland came in 1772.
That unusual attempt to solve the Polish problem stemmed in large part from complicated considerations of power politics: Russia had been so successful in the Turkish War that Austria was alarmed for its position; Frederick the Great of Prussia proposed the partition of a part of Poland as a way to satisfy Catherine the Great's expansionist ambitions and at the same time to provide compensation for Austria - which in effect had taken the
