Chapter 13 The Treaty of Carlowitz and Its Impact on Russian-Ottoman Relations, 1700–1710
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Abstract
The Congress of Carlowitz (1698–1699) was the first international congress attended by the diplomats of Peter the Great. For the first time, the Russian diplomats confronted with the practice of mediation in peace negotiations. Unlike other powers of the anti-Turkish coalition, Russia agreed to sign with the Ottoman Empire just a truce for two years. The Russian-Turkish treaty lost its power after the Peace of Constantinople (1700). However, contacts established by Russian diplomats with representatives of Sublime Porte at the congress strengthened during the stay of the Russian ambassadors in Istanbul. It had an important role at the beginning of the stay in Istanbul of Peter Tolstoy, the first Russian ambassador who was sent as a permanent resident at the Sublime Porte.
In the future, the Treaty of Carlowitz has been considered by the Russians and the Ottomans as proper practice. The copies of all bilateral treaties signed by the powers participating in the Congress were delivered to Ambassadorial Prikaz (Posolsky Prikaz). They were translated into Russian and copied in Moscow. During negotiations with the Sublime Porte, Russian diplomats appealed regularly to the texts of these treaties in different cases. Peter Tolstoy was primarily interested in how the issues of trade relations and land delimitation had been earlier resolved. In his turn, Peter Shafirov considered the possibility of using of the article from the Polish-Turkish treaty on the expulsion of fugitives as a basis for the expulsion of Karl xii from the Ottoman Empire.
The experience of negotiations through intermediaries was moved forward on the Russian-Turkish negotiations after the Treaty of Pruth (1711). In December 1711, the Turkish side insisted on the participation of English and Dutch ambassadors as mediators during the negotiations with the Russian side. The success of the negotiations in Carlowitz, achieved with the English-Dutch intermediation, became an additional confirmation that the conditions of the new Russian-Turkish treaty would also be respected.