Ruscuk'dan Besarabya'ya: Manuk Bey ve Bir Osmanlı-Rus Aracısı'nın 19. Yüzyıl Başındaki Kariyeri
From Ruscuk to Bessarabia: Manuk Bey and the Career of an Ottoman-Russian Middleman at the Beginning of the 19th Century

Summary/Abstract: The life and political career of Manuk Mirzayan (d. 1817), the Armenian money-lender and acolyte of Mustapha Pasha Bairaktar, the ayan of Ruscuk, presents a good case of study of a Ottoman-Russian middleman of the early 19th century Balkans. As a product of the complicated internal and international problems of the Ottoman Balkans, he aptly managed to survive amongst the conflict between two empires and even benefited from the international conflicts as a middleman. By tracing his activities from Ruscuk to Bessarabia, this paper argues that Manuk’s decisions can be considered as strategies to improve his status and secure his life in an environment about which he could only speculate but which clearly favored agents who could cater to the competing interests of different empires and political factions.

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