Един епизод от съдбата на Босна, или Балканите между империите (1739–1741)
An Episode in Bosnia’s Fate or the Balkans between the Empires (1739–1741)

Summary/Abstract: Newly traced sources from the Russian archives elucidating the political and diplomatic history of the Western Balkans during the first half of the 18th c. are used in the article. The events that are analyzed show the increased pressure of the imperial periphery on the central authorities; the growing interest of Austria on the Western Balkans and Bosnia in particular; Russian diplomacy becoming better informed allowing its country to pursue more skillfully its foreign policy objectives. At the same time the ever more obvious lag of the Ottoman Empire behind the processes of modernization in Europe made the Porte hostage of its own clumsiness in its contacts with the European Powers and allowed its involvement in a number of combinations mostly by the European Power with the strongest presence in the Eastern Mediterranean, France. This tendency, however began gradually to be displaced. There was an increase in the skill of the officials of the Porte themselves to conduct diplomatic intrigues and to grasp the motives of the actions of one or other European power. What the Western diplomats in the 18th c. regarded as a collapse of the Ottoman might was rather becoming aware of the need for mastering the novelties of the new time so that during the second half of the century in the Empire began to spring up “the clock-towers that put an end to the timelessness of the Empire”.

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