A Framework for the Study of the Black Sea World, 1789-1915

Studies of the nineteenth-century Ottoman and Russian Empires as well as of the numerous nation-states that came into existence around the Black Sea have mostly been pursued separately. This article attempts to offer an alternative framework of analysis for the study of the Black Sea world during the nineteenth century. It starts off from Femand Braudel's approach to the sixteenth-century Mediterranean world in order to discuss whether and to what extent the Black Sea region could also be conceived as a world. Not only structural similarities but also historically-specific circumstances are emphasized for supporting the parallel drawn between the sixteenth-century Mediterranean and the nineteenth-century Black Sea. A number of further intellectual questions are raised in order to demonstrate that a holistic perspective has much to offer for re-directing academic research into more promising problem areas.