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Link to original content: https://doi.org/10.1163/18763316-04102002
The brief and little known Russian occupation of the Levantine port of Beirut in 1773–1774 reveals much about the nature of Russian engagement with the Arab Middle East. Rather than passing as an insignificant episode, it instead complemented a well documented Russian desire to play an expanded role in the Levant and take advantage of Catherine II’s first war with the Ottoman empire (1768–1774) to establish forward positions in the Mediterranean. Alongside the Russian naval victory at Chesme in July 1770, Russia accepted alliance overtures from Egypt’s Mameluk governor Ali Bey, who was in rebellion against the Ottoman Sultan. In a complicated series of diplomatic and military maneuvers, Russian forces offered to aid Ali and his allies. By 1773 this process came to involve an agreement with the Druze Emir Yusuf al-Shihab, who accepted Russian protection as part of a military alliance that called for a Russian attack on Beirut in exchange for tribute. Yusuf’s inability to pay the tribute led to a prolonged Russian presence in Beirut, but the situation’s eventual resolution and the Kücük Kainardja peace treaty of 1774 led to the Russians’ departure. Despite the episode’s brevity, it nevertheless allowed for the development of pronounced Russian intentions to create favorable relationships with the peoples and leaders of the Levant. The Russian relationship with Yusuf and other local potentates, moreover, mirrored Russia’s interactions with peoples and leaders on its vast steppe frontier, indicating another axis of imperial advance.
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William Persen, “The Russian Occupations of Beirut, 1772–1774,” Journal of the Royal Central Asian Society 42, nos. 3–4 (1955): 275.
P. Perminov, “Tri epizoda iz istorii russko-arabskikh sviazei v XVIII veke. Epizod vtoroi: vziatie Beiruta,” Aziia i Afrika segodnia 8 (1987): 56–58.
Auriant, “Catherine II et l’Orient, 1770–1774 (documents inédits),” Acropole 5 (1930): 195.
Rafeq, Province of Damascus, 252–271. For a near contemporary account, see C.-F. Volney, Travels through Syria and Egypt, in the Years 1783, 1784, and 1785, 2 vols. (London: Robinson, 1787), 2: 110–115.
Lusignan, History, 105–107; Auriant, “Catherine II et l’Orient,” 209.
Édouard Lockroy, Ahmed le boucher (Paris: Ollendorf, 1888), 73.
Giovanni Mariti, Istoria della guerra della Soria. Parte II. Proseguita fino alla morte di Aly-Bey dell’Egitto (Florence: Cambiagi, 1774), 124–125; Charles-Roux, Les Échelles, 104; Marcel, Égypte, 237. The Russian military effort in the Mediterranean was crewed largely by local sailors and soldiers hired for that purpose.
Charles-Roux, Les Échelles, 105; Volney, Travels, 2: 120–121; Marcel, Égypte, 237–238.
Perminov, “Vziatie Beiruta,” 57–58; Al-Shihabi, Lubnan, 98; Tannus Shidyaq, Kitab akhbar al’ayan fi jabal lubnan (Beirut: Bustani, 1859), 394; Volney, Travels, 2: 122. The language about Russian protection, along with the other terms, is in Bazili, Siriia i Palestina, 55.
Charles-Roux, Les Échelles, 213; Volney, Travels, 2: 122–123.
Charles-Roux, Les Échelles, 212; Lockroy, Ahmed le boucher, 99; al-Shihabi, Lubnan, 99. Shidyaq, Kitab, 395, claims that it was paid in full.
P. Perminov, “Tri epizoda iz istorii russko-arabskikh sviazei v XVIII veke. Epizod tretii: pervyi russkii konsul v Aleksandrii,” Aziia i Afrika segodnia 9 (1987): 51–54.
See Paul du Quenoy, “The Russian Empire and Egypt, 1900-1915: A Case of Public Diplomacy,” Journal of World History 19, no. 2 (2008): 213–233. On the Cold War relationship, see Rami Ginat, The Soviet Union and Egypt, 1945–1955 (New York: Routledge, 1993) and Rashid Khalidi, Sowing Crisis: The Cold War and American Dominance in the Middle East (Boston: Beacon, 2009).
Michael Khodarkovsky, Russia’s Steppe Frontier: The Making of a Colonial Empire, 1500–1800 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002), 50–69.
A. Sokolov, “Arkhipelagskaia kampaniia 1769–1774,” Zapiski gidrograficheskogo departamenta Morskogo ministerstva VII (1849): 379.
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The brief and little known Russian occupation of the Levantine port of Beirut in 1773–1774 reveals much about the nature of Russian engagement with the Arab Middle East. Rather than passing as an insignificant episode, it instead complemented a well documented Russian desire to play an expanded role in the Levant and take advantage of Catherine II’s first war with the Ottoman empire (1768–1774) to establish forward positions in the Mediterranean. Alongside the Russian naval victory at Chesme in July 1770, Russia accepted alliance overtures from Egypt’s Mameluk governor Ali Bey, who was in rebellion against the Ottoman Sultan. In a complicated series of diplomatic and military maneuvers, Russian forces offered to aid Ali and his allies. By 1773 this process came to involve an agreement with the Druze Emir Yusuf al-Shihab, who accepted Russian protection as part of a military alliance that called for a Russian attack on Beirut in exchange for tribute. Yusuf’s inability to pay the tribute led to a prolonged Russian presence in Beirut, but the situation’s eventual resolution and the Kücük Kainardja peace treaty of 1774 led to the Russians’ departure. Despite the episode’s brevity, it nevertheless allowed for the development of pronounced Russian intentions to create favorable relationships with the peoples and leaders of the Levant. The Russian relationship with Yusuf and other local potentates, moreover, mirrored Russia’s interactions with peoples and leaders on its vast steppe frontier, indicating another axis of imperial advance.
| All Time | Past 365 days | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 763 | 95 | 24 |
| Full Text Views | 259 | 4 | 0 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 65 | 3 | 1 |
