O problelmă litigioasă în raporturile suedo-turce: navigaţia vaselor comerciale suedeze pe Marea Neagră (1821-1827)
A LITIGIOUS ISSUE IN THE SWEDISH-TURKISH RELATIONS: NAVIGATION OF SWEDISH COMMERCIAL NAVES IN THE BLACK SEA (1821−1827)

Summary/Abstract: The first attempts of the Swedish diplomacy to determine the Porte to grant Sweden the right for free navigation in the Black sea for its commercial ships dates back to 1774. The issue was reopened in 1804 and in 1805 Sweden determined the Porte to grant it that privilege, but in onerous conditions. The issue became rather complicated in 1821, when the hostilities triggered by the Greek insurrection provoked serious problems for the commercial navigation on the Black sea. The Porte used that pretext to justify its general restrictions, adopted despite the stipulations included in the commercial treaties with other states. The evolution of the Russo-Turkish relations, as it seemed in 1826, was about to open the possibility to finally end the litigation with the Porte which lasted for several years and produced great economic loss. The most important event, from this perspective was the Russo-Turkish Conference from Akkerman, who was about the open its works on July 14th 1826. As a consequence, the Swedish government decided to solve this problem through Russia’s intervention but, in the meantime, the Porte reached the conclusion that it had to avoid Russia’s interference in its negotiation with Sweden. To Carl Gustaf Löwenhielm’s satisfaction, the Porte itself came to his help refusing to accept Russia’s mediation which would have meant for Sweden the imposition of the stipulations of the Akkerman Convention. Thus, Löwenhielm managed, finally, to solve this litigious issue which influenced for half a century the relations between Sweden and the Ottoman Empire, concluding and signing, on May 28th 1827, the Commercial Treaty between the United Kingdom of Sweden and Norway and the Porte. We are aware that we presented this episode only partially, because we used information coming only from the reports of the Swedish diplomats accredited to Istanbul. Even within these documentary limits, we consider that we brought in the scientific circuit information of a certain value, which corroborated with information from other sources can contribute to the formation of a complete image of the commercial relations between Sweden and the Porte.

• Details
• Contents