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PDF, English - main document Download (1MB) | Lizenz: Russia in the Holy Land: Acting upon Imperial Russia's Soft Power in the Schools of the Imperial Orthodox Palestine Society (1882-1914) by Sáez Bosch, Paula underlies the terms of Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 Germany

Abstract

The decision of Ibrahim Pascha to allow foreign powers to open consulates in Jerusalem in the 1830s transformed the Holy Land into yet another scenario where the rivalries among the Great Powers for influence over the decaying Ottoman Empire could unfold. The pretext: the Great Powers’ ‘historical’ and ‘moral’ role as protectors of Christian minorities under Muslim rule. Imperial Russia, as part of its self-understanding as the traditional benefactor of Orthodoxy in the Arab provinces and the heir of the demised Byzantine Empire, became engaged, through several institutions and with varied degrees of success, in the protection of Russian pilgrims and the wellbeing of local Orthodox Christian Arab communities in Palestine and the Levant throughout the long 19th century. Yet, the creation of the Imperial Orthodox Palestine Society in 1882 marked the beginning of a new chapter in Russo-Arab relations, by sponsoring, for the first time, the establishment of a strong network of schools that provided access to basic education to previously neglected communities and offered them the possibility to learn Russian. As tools for the projection of Imperial Russia’s soft power across the Levant, the schools welcomed a diversity of students and teachers from the territories of modern-day Israel/Palestine, Lebanon and Syria. By analyzing the biographies of three individuals (Maria Cherkasova, Mikhail Naimy and Kulthum Ode-Vasil’yeva) my master thesis seeks to unravel the variety of perceptions and experiences of Imperial Russia’s soft power among teachers and students of the schools, thus stressing the agency and capacity of negotiation of Arab subjects in the pursual of their own personal and collective goals.