Russia on the Danube: Empire, Elites, and Reform in Moldavia and Wallachia, 1812–1834 by Viktor Taki (review)

Abstract

Historians of the British Empire like to cite Salman Rushdie’s line in the Satanic Verses that the British don’t know their own history because so much of it happened overseas.1 Some of Russia’s history unfolded elsewhere, too. Victor Taki’s book on Russia’s Danubian protectorates provides an intriguing example. Using sources in French, Romanian, and Russian, Taki explores the politics of reform in the principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia across several decades, paying close attention to diverse political interests within those polities and to the tsarist authorities who became arbiters of political developments there for decades. At the core of the book is a period encompassing the aftermaths of two Russo-Ottoman wars (1806–1812 and 1828–1829), over the course of which “Russian provincial authorities” in the region скому контексту и различным этническим группам, населяющим беларуские земли, в первую очередь евреям и татарам. В книге последовательно прослеживается история чешско-беларуских связей – с учетом интересов целевой аудитории. Чешскоязычный читатель получил современное обобщающее исследование, дающее полноценное представление об истории Беларуси.