Tidings from a Faraway East: The Russian Empire and Morocco
2011; Routledge; Volume: 33; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1080/07075332.2011.555386
ISSN1949-6540
Autores Tópico(s)Security, Politics, and Digital Transformation
ResumoAbstract In 1898 the Russian Empire opened a consulate in Tangier, its first formal diplomatic mission in Morocco. This article examines the reasons behind Russia's approaches to the Sultanate in the wider context of Russian relations with the Arab Middle East. Russia's policy toward Morocco reflected a desire to build influence in the Arab world through ‘soft’ power - peaceful diplomacy laden with benevolent cultural and economic values. Strikingly, much Russian diplomatic rhetoric emphasized or pretended to cultural commonalities between Russia and the Middle East, focused on shared experiences of Islam, to position Russia as an influential ‘honest broker’ between Morocco and encroaching Western imperialist powers. This did not prevent France's establishment of a protectorate in 1912, but Russian goals in Morocco remained consistent through the First World War and up to the time of the Revolution of 1917, and mirrored efforts elsewhere in the Arab world. Keywords: RussiaMoroccoMiddle Eastimperialismgreat power politics Notes 1. Sankt-Peterburgskie vedomosti, 24 July 1901, No. 200, 3. 2. A[rkhiv] v[neshnei] p[olitiki] R[ossiiskoi] I[mperii], f. 151, op. 482, d. 2744, ll. 99-100. 3. AVPRI, f. 151, op. 482, d. 2744, ll. 92-96. 4. Moskovskie vedomosti, 31 July 1901, No. 209, 2; 1 Aug. 1901, No. 209, 2; 2 Aug. 1901, No. 210, 2; 3 Aug. 1901, no. 211, 2; 4 Aug. 1901, no. 212, 2; 5 Aug. 1901, no. 213, 2. 5. Examples include T. Stavrou, Russian Interests in Palestine, 1882–1914: A Study of Religious and Educational Enterprise (Thessaloniki, 1963); A.L. Tibawi, ‘Russian Cultural Penetration of Syria-Palestine in the Nineteenth Century’, Journal of the Royal Central Asian Society, liii, 2 (1966), 166–82 and liii, 3 (1966), 309–23; D. Hopwood, The Russian Presence in Syria and Palestine, 1843–1914: Church and Politics in the Near East (Oxford, 1969); and D.M. Goldfrank, The Origins of the Crimean War (New York, 1994). 6. E.W. Said, Orientalism (New York, 1978), 1, opens his well-known analysis by listing Russia among other powers that engaged in ‘Orientalism, a way of coming to terms with the Orient that is based on the Orient's special place in European Western experience’ (original emphasis). For similar theoretical frameworks guiding this literature, see M.-L. Pratt, Imperial Eyes: Studies in Travel Writing and Transculturation (New York, 1992) and D. Spurr, The Rhetoric of Empire: Colonial Discourse in Journalism, Travel Writing, and Imperial Administration (Durham, 1993). 7. For the most recent work of this type, see S. Dickinson, ‘Russia's First “Orient”: Characterizing the Crimea in 1787’, Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History, iii, 1 (2002), 3–25; S. Kirillina, ‘Islam and its Adherents as Represented in Russian Pilgrims’ Reports of the Eighteenth Century’, in N. Hanna and R. Abbas (eds), Society and Economy in Egypt and the Eastern Mediterranean, 1600–1900: Essays in Honor of André Raymond (Cairo, 2005), 217–45; and E. Andreeva, Russia and Iran in the Great Game: Travelogues and Orientalism (New York, 2007). 8. See for example T. Barrett, At the Edge of Empire: The Terek Cossacks and the North Caucasus Frontier, 1700–1860 (Boulder, 1999); N. Knight, ‘Grigor’ev in Orenburg, 1851-1862: Russian Orientalism in the Service of Empire?,’ Slavic Review, lix, 1 (2000), 74–100; R.P. Geraci, Window on the East: National and Imperial Identities in Late Tsarist Russia (Ithaca, 2001); and R.D. Crews, For Prophet and Tsar: Islam and Empire in Russia and Central Asia (Cambridge, 2006). 9. Works advancing these arguments include R. Crews, ‘Empire and the Confessional State: Islam and Religious Politics in Nineteenth-Century Russia’, American Historical Review, cviii, 1 (2003), 50–83; E.M. Kane, ‘Pilgrims, Holy Places, and the Multi-Confessional Empire: Russian Policy toward the Ottoman Empire under Tsar Nicholas I, 1825–1855’, (Ph.D. dissertation, Princeton University, 2005); and P. du Quenoy, ‘The Russian Empire and Egypt, 1900–1915: A Case of Public Diplomacy’, Journal of World History, xix, 2 (2008), 214–33. Soviet and post-Soviet historians also made this argument to appeal to solidarity with Third-World nations. For specific works on Morocco, see T. L. Musatova, ‘K istorii russko-marokkanskikh otnoshenii kontsa XIX v.’, Sovetskie arkhivy, vi (1984), 54–9; ‘Sviazi Rossii i Marokko v XIX v.’, Aziia i Afrika segondia, i (1987), 97–103; and ‘Pervoe Marokkanskoe posol’stvo v Rossii’, Aziia i Afrika segondia, ix (1988), 48–50. Discussing Morocco's colonization, N.P. Podgornova, ‘Istoriia sviazei Rossii s Marokko’, in N.P. Podgornova (ed), Rossiia-Marokko: Istoriia sviazei dvukh stran: v dokumentakh i materialakh (1777–1916) (Moscow, 1999), 18, presents Russia as ‘not playing a role in this process’. 10. E. Burke, III, Prelude to Protectorate in Morocco: Precolonial Protest and Resistance, 1860–1912 (Chicago, 1976), 26. 11. See B.M. Dantsig, ‘Zabytaia stranitsa iz istorii russko-marokkanskikh otnoshenii v poslednei chetverti XVIII v.’, Problemy vostokovedeniia, i (1959), 87–93; A. Dziubinski, ‘Maghreb i Rosja w ostatniej cwierci XVIII i na poczatku XIX wieku’, Przeglad Historyczny, lxv, 1 (1974), 47–60. 12. For a few accounts of these contacts, see ‘Iz zapisi v vakhtennom zhurnale komandira rossiiskogo fregata “Sviatoi Pavel” N. S. Skuratova o poezdke v g. Tanzher’, in T.L. Musatova, Rossiia – Marokko: dalekoe i blizkoe proshloe: Ocherki istorii russko-marokkanskikh sviazei v XVIII – nachale XX v. (Moscow, 1990), 19–22; V.P. Botkin, Pis'ma ob Ispanii (Leningrad, 1976), 119–34; and A. de Demidoff, Étapes maritimes sur les cotés d'Espagne de la Catalogne à l'Andalousie. Souvenirs d'un voyage executé en 1847 (Florence, 1858), ii. 191–210. 13. AVPRI, f. 161, op. 8, d. 17, ll. 1-2. 14. Ibid., ll. 35-36. 15. AVPRI, f.151, op. 482, d. 2728, ll. 3-7. 16. For the full text of the Madrid convention, see http://historicaltextarchive.com/sections.php?op=viewarticle&artid=20 [Accessed 5 April 2009]. 17. AVPRI, f. 151, op. 482, d. 2728, l. 59. 18. AVPRI, f. 133, op. 470, d. 91, ll. 102-103. 19. AVPRI, f. 151, op. 482, d. 2728, ll. 91-93. 20. Ibid., ll. 103-105. 21. Ibid., l. 105. 22. Ibid., d. 2728, ll. 134-136. 23. Ibid., l. 135. 24. For studies of these relationships, see D. Schimmelpenninck van der Oye, Toward the Rising Sun: Russian Ideologies of Empire and the Path to War with Japan (DeKalb, 2001), 24–60; and Russian Orientalism: Asia in the Russian Mind from Peter the Great to the Emigration (New Haven, 2010); A. Schmid, Korea between Two Empires, 1895–1919 (New York, 2002); F. Kazemzadeh, Russia and Britain in Persia, 1864–1914 (New Haven, 1968); A.V. Ignat'ev, ‘Politika v Evrope, na Blizhnem i Srednem Vostoke’, in A.V. Ignat'ev (ed), Istoriia vneshnei politiki Rossii (Moscow, 1999), Konets XIX – nachalo XX veka, v. 121–32; and du Quenoy, ‘The Russian Empire and Egypt’. 25. A. Sumarokov, Kartiny Afriki i Azii (russkogo puteshestvennika) (St Petersburg, 1883), 7–41. 26. K.A. Viazemskii, ‘Puteshestvie v Marokko,’ in Musatova, ed., Rossiia – Marokko, 78–90. 27. AVPRI, f. 133, op. 469, d. 74, ll. 29-30. 28. AVPRI, f. 159, op. 749/1, d. 1202/1, ll. 1, 12. 29. Ibid., ll. 6, 9. 30. Korostovets subsequently held diplomatic posts in Tientsin, Beijing, Urga, and Tangier itself. In 1913–17 he was Russia's Ambassador to Persia. 31. AVPRI, f. 151, op. 482, d. 2729, ll. 30-68. 32. AVPRI, f. 159, op. 749/1, d. 1202/1, l. 35. 33. AVPRI, f. 151, op. 482, d. 2731, ll. 40-70. 34. AVPRI, f. 149, op. 502b, d. 5360, l. 29; f. 151, op. 482, d. 1368, l. 2. 35. Ibid., d. 5363, l. 5. 36. AVPRI, f. 151, op. 482, d. 1368, ll. 5-6. 37. Ibid., ll. 3-4. 38 Ibid., ll. 74-75. 39 Ibid., l. 2. 40. Ibid., ll. 12-13. Slippery ideas of citizenship were common in Tangier. According to F.V. Parsons, The Origins of the Morocco Question, 1880–1900 (London, 1976), 541, Brazil's consul, a local Moroccan Jew, was known to sell his country's citizenship. 41. AVPRI, f. 151, op. 482, d. 1368, ll. 52-53; f. Otchety MID, op. 475, d. 126, ll. 177-179. 42. Ibid., d. 1369, ll. 9–22. 43. AVPRI, f. 137, op. 475, d. 128, l. 78. 44. AVPRI, f. 151, op. 482, d. 1369, ll. 21–22. 45. Ibid., ll. 24–26. 46. Ibid., ll. 26–27. 47. AVPRI, f. 151, op. 482, d. 1369, ll. 30–34. According to a British diplomat, Ba Ahmad was ‘practically Sultan’, see Parsons, Origins of the Morocco Question, 495. 48. A.J.P. Taylor, ‘British Policy in Morocco, 1886–1902’, English Historical Review, lxvi (1951), 364–5. 49. AVPRI, f. 137, op. 475, d. 128, l. 78. 50. Ibid., d. 130, l. 66. 51. AVPRI, f. 151, op. 482, d. 1369, ll. 33–34. 52. Ibid., d. 2729, l. 71. On Morocco's growing export economy, see C.R. Pennell, Morocco Since 1830 (London, 2000), 116–18. 53. AVPRI, f. 137, op. 475, d. 128, l. 76. 54. Parsons, Morocco Question, 290, 333, quotation from p. 503. 55. AVPRI, f. 149, op. 502b, d. 5361, ll. 1–2. Bakherakht's wife Alexandrine was born a Polish countess and had been briefly married to Grand Duke Ludwig IV of Hesse-Darmstadt, thus making her Empress Aleksandra's ex-stepmother. 56. Ibid., ll. 3–4. 57. AVPRI, f. 151, op. 482, d. 1369, ll. 107–108. 58. Ibid., d. 1370, l. 107. Abdel Aziz's personal possessions included a London taxicab and a solid gold telephone. 59. J.M. Abun-Nasr, A History of the Magrib in the Islamic Period (Cambridge, 1987), 306–8. For a longer description of Abdel Aziz's reforms, see Pennell, Morocco Since 1830, 121–32, and Burke, Prelude to Protectorate, 35–67, as well as two helpful general volumes: E. Gellner and C. Micaud (eds), Arabs and Berbers: From Tribe to Nation in North Africa (London, 1973) and M. El Mansour, Morocco in the Reign of Mawlay Sulayman (Wisbech, 1990). 60. AVPRI, f. 151, op. 482, d. 1370, l. 107. On the French financial role, see Pennell, Morocco Since 1830, 124–5. 61. AVPRI, f. 133, op. 470, d. 100, ll. 84–85; f. 151, op. 482, d. 2744, ll. 65–66. 62. A.J. Dawson, Things Seen in Morocco, Being a Bundle of Jottings, Notes, Impressions, Tales, and Tributes (London, 1904), 296. 63. G. Saint-René Taillandier, Les origines du Maroc français. Récit d'une mission (1901–1906) (Paris, 1930), 112. 64. AVPRI, f. 151, op. 482, d. 2744, ll. 19–20. 65. Ibid., ll. 19–20. 66. AVPRI, f. 151, op. 482, d. 1370, l. 132. 67. Ibid., d. 1372, ll. 52–53. 68. Ibid., ll. 90–93. 69. Taylor, ‘British Policy’, 347. 70. AVPRI, f. 137, op. 475, d. 132, ll. 60–62. 71. AVPRI, f. 151, op. 482, d. 2744, l. 141. 72. In October 1904 Spain also adhered to the agreement. 73. AVPRI, f. 151, op. 482, d. 1387, l. 39. 74. AVPRI, f. 133, op. 470, d. 121, ll. 1–2. 75. R.M. Connaughton, The War of the Rising Sun and the Tumbling Bear (New York, 1988), 250. The ships that called at Tangier included those that had fired on British fishing trawlers during the Dogger Bank incident. The Royal Navy shadowed the squadron as it approached Tangier. For a full account of the visit, see C. Pleshakov, The Tsar's Last Armada: The Epic Voyage to the Battle of Tsushima (New York, 2003), 94–113. 76. AVPRI, f. 133, op. 470, d. 121, l. 3. He did not mention an incident in which one of the squadron's transport ships accidentally cut the port's only underwater telegraph line when weighing anchor. See Pleshakov, Last Armada, 112-–13. 77. AVPRI, f. 151, op. 482, d. 2729, ll. 2–3; J. Caillé, La Petite Histoire du Maroc de 1850 à 1912 (Casablanca, 1954), 188. 78. Caillé, Petite Histoire, 188. 79. According to Pleshakov, Last Armada (pp. 115–33), the stop was controversial enough that the British Foreign Office sent the French government an angry dispatch demanding that it not allow the Russian fleet to take on supplies at Dakar, its next port of call. It was ignored by the local governor. 80. Caillé, Petite Histoire, 186–7. Like many Russian noblemen who interacted with Europeans, Bakherakht affected a French particule and was known among them as ‘M. de Bacheracht’. 81. AVPRI, f. 133, op. 470, d. 189, ll. 3–4. 82. On tourism, see Pennell, Morocco Since 1830, 120-–1. 83. AVPRI, f. 151, op. 482, d. 1384, l. 41. 84. See du Quenoy, ‘The Russian Empire and Egypt’. 85. AVPRI, f. 151, op. 482, d. 2752, l. 2. Eighty years later Musatova, ‘Pervoe Marokkanskoe posol'stvo’, (p. 50), claimed that ‘the rise of friendly relations between Russia and Morocco remained a good event in the memory of our countries’, leading to ‘equal and mutually advantageous cooperation’. 86. See the notations on Russia's role in E.N. Anderson, The First Moroccan Crisis, 1904–1906 (Chicago, 1966), 358, 391. 87. AVPRI, f. 151, op. 482, d. 1387, ll. 17–18. After Algeciras, Bakherakht became Russia's Ambassador to Switzerland, a position he held until his death in October 1916. 88. On Russia's fiscal crisis and its role in French loan policy, see A. Ascher, The Revolution of 1905: Authority Restored (Stanford, 1992), 54-–7. See also D.C.B. Lieven, Russia and the Origins of the First World War (London, 1983), 29. 89. AVPRI, f. 151, op. 482, d. 2752, ll. 3. 90. Ibid., d. 1390, ll. 50–53. 91. Ibid., d. 2752, ll. 18–23; f. 159, op. 749/3, d. 77, ll. 14–22. 92. Ibid., d. 2752, ll. 1–4. 93. For a detailed study, see Burke, Prelude to Protectorate, 99-–127 and A. Allah Arawi, Les origines sociales et culturelles du nationalisme marocain, 1830–1912 (Paris, 1977). 94. AVPRI, f. 151, op. 482, d. 1390, ll. 376–377. 95. Ibid., d. 2752, l. 25. 96. AVPRI, f. 159, op. 749/3, d. 77, ll. 21–74. 97. AVPRI, f. 151, op. 482, d. 1393, ll. 72–75. 98. Burke, Prelude to Protectorate, 163–99. 99. I. Christina Barlow, The Agadir Crisis (Chapel Hill, 1940), 192–200, 243–5. 100. AVPRI, f. 133, op. 470, d. 84, ll. 1–28; f. 159, op. 726, d. 3, ll. 1–2, 16–.39, 93, 98, 111–112, 123–124. On wider Russian diplomacy at the time, see A.S. Avetian, ‘Soglashenie s Germaniei. Rossiia v mezhdunarodnykh konfliktakh 1911 goda’, in Ignat'ev (ed), Istoriia vneshnei politiki, V, 268–73. 101. AVPRI, f. 159, op. 336/2, d. 755, ll. 45–46. On Botkin's professional future see D. MacLaren McDonald, United Government and Foreign Policy in Russia, 1900–1914 (Cambridge, 1992), 201. 102. AVPRI, f. 133, op. 470, d. 115, ll. 29–32, 66; d. 189, ll. 19–29. Spain's consuls continued to represent Russian interests in Spanish Morocco. 103. Ibid., d. 268, ll. 5–8. 104. Ibid., ll. 19–24. 105. AVPRI, f. 159, op. 726, d. 3, ll. 1–2. On the operations of Russia's consular regime in Egypt, see du Quenoy, ‘The Russian Empire and Egypt’. 106. AVPRI, f. 133, op. 470, d. 84, l. 16. 107. For the war's impact on Russian trade, see A. Bernard, L'Afrique du nord pendant la grande guerre (Paris, 1926), 41, 59. 108. AVPRI, f. 133, op. 470, d. 62, l. 115. 109. V. Lutsky, Modern History of the Arab Countries (Moscow, 1969), 308. 110. AVPRI, f. 133, op. 470, d. 62, l. 158. On Russia's attitude toward French North Africa in the First World War, see M. Hadhri, L'URSS et le Maghreb: de la Révolution d'octobre à l'indépendence de l'Algérie, 1917–1962 (Paris, 1985), 19. 111. G.H. Stuart, The International City of Tangier (Stanford, 1955), i. 39. 112. Caillé, Petite Histoire, 186. 113. M. Omar el-Hajoui, Histoire diplomatique du Maroc (1900–1912) (Paris, 1937) and H. Emil Brenning, Die großen Mächte und Marokko in den Jahren vor dem Marokko-Abkommen vom 8. April 1904 (1898–1904) (Berlin, 1934), make no mention of it. Anderson, First Moroccan Crisis, and Parsons, Morocco Question, only mention it fleetingly. 114. Burke, Prelude to Protectorate, 51. 115. AVPRI, f. 151, op. 482, d. 2752, l. 2. 116. See Kane, ‘Pilgrims, Holy Places, and the Multi-Confessional Empire’. 117. R[ossiiskii] G[osudarstvennyi] I[storicheskii] A[rkhiv], f. 821, op. 150, ed. khr. 409, l. 14. 118. D. Arapov, ‘Russkii posol v Turtsii N. V. Charykov i ego “zakliuchenie” po “musul’manskomu voprosu”’, Vestnik Evrazii, ii (2002), 155. 119. R.D. Crews, ‘Allies in God's Command: Muslim Communities and the State in Imperial Russia’ (Ph.D. dissertation, Princeton University, 1999), 27. 120. Quoted in Idem, For Prophet and Tsar, 348. 121. Dickinson, ‘Russia's First “Orient”’, 5–6, makes this point in reference to the Crimea. 122. See Sumarokov, Kartiny Afriki i Azii; Viazemskii, ‘Puteshestvie v Marokko’; and V.I. Nemirovich-Danchenko, Krai zolotogo zakata (Ocherki tainstvennogo Magriba) (Berlin, 1921). Additional informationNotes on contributorsPaul du Quenoy An earlier version was read before the Association for the Study of Nationalities in New York in April 2009. The author wishes to thank Seymour Becker, Eileen Kane and two anonymous readers for their helpful comments.
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