International Academic Conference 150 years since the Herzegovina Uprising: impact on regional security and European geopolitics, June 10-11, 2025, Belgrade [pp. 45-70]
АУТОР(И) / AUTHOR(S): Richard Sakwa 
DOI: https://doi.org/10.46793/Herzegovina.045S
САЖЕТАК /ABSTRACT:
The Turkish Gambit by Boris Akunin (real name Grigory Chkhartishvili) is a novel set during the 1877-78 Russo-Turkish War. It details the struggles of a hero to thwart a plot; however, the larger story is about the Treaty of San Stefano (March 1878), named after a village within sight of Constantinople/Stamboul, today known as Istanbul. The treaty was controversial from the first, granting Russia the fruits of victory, including territories in the eastern part of the Ottoman Empire, which would have allowed the Armenian nation to be united for the first time since Antiquity, thus averting the later mass destruction (genocide) during the First World War. Russia, however, failed to gain control of the Straits, its long-term ambition. The European powers, and, above all, the British, were resolutely opposed to the terms of San Stefano. The Congress of Berlin (June-July 1878) reversed most of Russia’s gains. Britain had not been involved in the war but emerged as the victor, gaining control over Cyprus, which it later converted into an ownership. The UK still has two major bases on the island, through which it exercises strategic interventions across the Middle East and beyond. The reverses Russia suffered in Berlin resonate to this day
КЉУЧНЕ РЕЧИ / KEYWORDS:
Russia, Ukraine, Donbass War, World order, war, peace, Turkish Gambit
ПРОЈЕКАТ / ACKNOWLEDGEMENT:
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