Relaţiile Principatelor Dunărene cu Imperiul Otoman şi Rusia în viziunea unui istoric din Moscova – studiu de caz
One Moscow historian’s view on the Relations of the Danube Principalities with the Ottoman Empire and with Russia

Summary/Abstract: The work by L.E. Semionova entitled „The Principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia. The end of the 14th and beginning of the 19th centuries. (Sketches of the history of foreign policy). Moscow, 2006” is on the list of books relating to the history of the Danube principalities recently published in Russia. The book contains sketches written by the author at different times. One of the larger sketches is dedicated to the problem of „capitulation” and relations of the Danube Principalities with the Ottoman Empire. The author proceeds from the biased opinion that Muslim canons forbid to sign Capitulation agreements conferring rights and privileges. Based on this opinion, the author of the book simply ignores abundant sources which testify to the existence of such documents concerning the Danube Principalities as well as other countries, though the author states that she used all the known sources. Attempt of the author made to solve the question about the Origin of Capitulation based on unpublished sources of the 18th c. from the Russian archives was doomed to failure beforehand, inasmuch „capitulations” practically appear at the same time as Islam. In fact, the author tried to establish the appearance of the forged „capitulation” texts relating to the Danube Principalities. However her arguments that these texts couldn’t appear before or after the Focsani Congress are unconvincing. And the general conclusion that these texts were drawn up in the last decades of the 18th century is known as early as the beginning of the 20th century. Several sketches of the book are dedicated to the relations of the Danube Principalities with Russia in the 17th and beginning of the 19th centuries. Trying to cover the question of the formation of the pro-Russian orientation of the local boyars, especially in Moldavia, L.E. Semionova follows some of the Soviet authors of the 50ies of the 20th. As a matter of fact, material produced by the author was compared with other sources that testify to the most likely “pro-Christian” orientation of the Moldavian politicians and their assurances to form part of Russia or be under its patronage relate to tactics and strategy. Their true intentions lied in preservation of their State system and abolition of the Ottoman suzerainty. The book also contains a number of contradictory conclusions and factual mistakes. Proceeding from the foregoing, unfortunately the book published in 2006 does not reflect the contemporary scientific opinion on the many subjects under discussion. That’s why this book can’t serve as a valuable basis for further scientific research.

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