European Turkey

Whatever “secret purposes in the past”, and

whatever her aims in the future, Russia, wrote Noyes, “has been of lasting

service to European Turkey.” Russia, according

to the author, had played both a positive and a negative role in the Balkans.

She, “more than all other powers combined” brought back to the Greek “the

thought of his heroic origin,” and “awakened” in the Slav “the remembrance of

his ancient dominion.”

Moreover, Russia, “has given laws and

organization to the klephtism of the mountains, and inspiring somewhat of her

own barbaric courage in the timid Wallachs and Bulgarians of the plains, has

taught them to aspire to equality with their Turkish lords. Even the rude

shocks of war have tended to arouse the dormant energies of these Christian race.

The normal spontaneous progress exhibited

by European Turkey, slight though it be, is mainly owing to Russian

influence.”  The American surgeon, proud

of American democratic traditions and critical of Russian imperial despotism,

believed that Russia, by becoming herself thoroughly civilized would be able to

bring about “the blending of the East and the West” and thus make her

contribution to world civilization.

Semi-barbarous rule of the Turk

George Buckham travelled through Bulgaria

in May, 1869. He writes in his Notes from a Journey of a Tourist that Morris,

the American minister to the Sublime Porte, informed him that it was unsafe and

even dangerous to travel outside the cities and towns of the Ottoman Empire

“without strong guards.” The American representative gave him much information

“of great interest” as to the condition of the Turkish state, “its peculiar

government and people, its beauties, agriculture, laws, and products.” Buckham

believed that the “semi-barbarous rule of the Turk” owed its “existence

and retention5’ to the vigilant jealousies of the great powers of Europe who

did not want to disturb the balance of power in this part of the world.   

Buckham wrote that Varna, “a fortified

seaport,” like most Oriental places, looked best from a distance. He noted the

palace of the Pasha of Varna, the mosques, and the “red-tiled” roofs of the

houses which looked picturesque. Like most of the other travelers he was

impressed by the “unceasing variety of charming scenery mountains, hills,

valleys of surpassing beauty. . . What surprised and impressed him most was the

fact that here he saw a truly magnificent and highly cultivated region “in

which all the elements of splendid picturesque scenery and agricultural wealth

seemed to be combined.”