Legal History at the Margins of the Ottoman and Russian Empires

Session Submission Type: Panel

Brief Description

Recent scholarly work has firmly repositioned the late Ottoman empire within an international framework and challenged older approaches to Ottoman relations with its counterparts, especially the Russian Empire. Much of this new research is driven by legal history—from analyses of the construction of imperial citizenship, to the contests over property rights, legal reform, and imperial governance. Drawing on this new scholarship, this panel examines how regimes of domestic and international law shaped political contests between the Russian and Ottoman empires, and between the Ottoman empire and successor states in the Balkans. Focusing on three critical phases in which the Ottomans renegotiated their position vis-à-vis Europe—the mid-18th century, the aftermath of the Greek Revolution in the 1830s, and the fallout from the Russo-Ottoman War of 1877-78 in the Balkans—this panel considers the central place of law in clashes with Europe and among locals. These papers show that events at the edges of the Ottoman domains drove legal experiments around international law, imperial administration, and regimes of property rights.

Sub Unit

• History: 1800-1900

Chair

• Emily Greble, Vanderbilt U

Papers

• Recognizing Empire: How Muscovy Became Russia, from the Ottoman Legal Viewpoint - Will Smiley, U of New Hampshire

• Formalizing Autonomy: Imperial Law in the Ottoman Balkans - Aimee M. Genell, Boston U

• The 'Abandoned Land': Muslim Refugees’ Property in the Post-Ottoman Balkans - Vladimir Hamed-Troyansky, UC Santa Barbara

Discussant

• Emily Greble, Vanderbilt U