[CATHERINE II DE RUSSIE] Nouvelles réglementations, en turc, concernant les lois et prescriptions de l'empire de toutes les Russies

Very rare first edition of the Ottoman Turkish translation of Catherine II's new regulations for the administration of the governorates of the Russian Empire, published in Saint Petersburg in 1780.

In the aftermath of the Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca, signed in 1774, Russian expansion towards the Black Sea could no longer be confined to the seizure of fortresses and territory. The newly acquired provinces had to be governed, their inhabitants introduced to the institutions of the Empire, and its regulations made accessible to populations unable to read Russian. The present volume records this decisive transition from military conquest to civil administration through the translation into Ottoman Turkish, printed in Arabic script, of one of the principal domestic reforms of Catherine II's reign.

The work is divided into two parts. The first, dated 12 November 1775 within the volume, contains the opening twenty-eight chapters of the reform, pp. 1-190. The second, corresponding to a supplementary text prepared towards the end of the decade and published in Saint Petersburg at the beginning of 1780, comprises chapters 29-31, pp. 191-248. The continuous pagination thus brings together two successive stages of the legislation under the general publication date of 1780.

Quarto, 248 pages, 20.8 x 27 cm.

Modern period-style binding in half mottled sheep with small corners, unlettered spine with five raised bands decorated with gilt double fillets and thistle tools, marbled paper boards, red edges. Pale dampstaining to the upper right margins of the opening leaves.

The Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca had brought the Russo-Ottoman War of 1768-1774 to an end and profoundly altered the balance of power around the Black Sea. Azov, Kerch, Yenikale and Kinburn passed under Russian sovereignty, together with territories around the mouths of the Dnieper and Bug rivers. The Crimean Khanate was declared independent of the Ottoman Empire, but remained subject to increasing Russian influence until its formal annexation in 1783. The newly acquired lands formed part of a southern frontier then undergoing extensive reorganisation, particularly around the governorates of Azov and Novorossiysk, whose inhabitants included substantial Turkic-speaking Tatar and Nogai communities.

Promulgated in November 1775, the reform of the governorates responded to a broader crisis in imperial administration, made particularly apparent by the Pugachev Rebellion. Catherine II sought to replace the existing patchwork of territorial divisions with a more uniform network of governorates and districts, organised partly according to population. The legislation multiplied local institutions, distinguished more clearly between administrative, judicial and fiscal functions, and strengthened the presence of the state throughout the provinces. It consequently established one of the principal frameworks of Russian territorial government for the following decades.

The Ottoman Turkish translation of the legislation should probably be understood within this effort to extend Russian administrative order among the Turkic-speaking populations of the new southern borderlands. The book may have served interpreters and government officials as well as local notables required to understand the institutions now responsible for justice, taxation and provincial administration. It therefore translated more than a body of law: it rendered the very language of imperial rule into another political and linguistic tradition.

Crimea still occupied a separate position. The khanate remained officially independent, while its final ruler, Şahin Giray, pursued his own military, fiscal and administrative reforms under Russian protection.

The volume is also typographically significant. At a time when Arabic-script printing remained comparatively little developed within the Russian Empire, the production in Saint Petersburg of such an extensive legislative text in Ottoman Turkish required an unusual combination of linguistic, administrative and technical expertise. The work belongs to the early efforts of the Russian state to employ oriental-language printing not merely for scholarly or diplomatic purposes, but as a practical instrument of government.

A very rare record of the passage from conquest to administration, this Ottoman Turkish translation of Catherine II's provincial reform documents at once Russian expansion towards the Black Sea, the incorporation of new Muslim and Turkic-speaking subjects, and the still little explored beginnings of an imperial policy pursued through law and print.