Politics and watermelons : cross-border political networks in the Polish-Moldavian-Ottoman context in the seventeenth century

Abstract

This dissertation addresses the cross-border political networks between members of the Polish-Lithuanian, Ottoman and Moldavian political elites in the seventeenth century (1595-1711).Throughout this period, the Porte and the Commonwealth remained locked in an intermittent rivalry for dominance in the principality of Moldavia, with the Moldavian rulers trying to navigate between the two larger powers. In historiography, these developments are usually interpreted as a policy driven by states' geopolitical interests, seeing states as homogenous, undifferentiated actors. However, in an interesting twist, each of respective polities experienced the rise of factions and,correspondingly, a devolution of power from the political center towards patronage-based elite networks. By tying these two phenomena, the present study focuses on instances of cross-border patronage that emerged during this period of the long seventeenth century. The main object of this dissertation argues that rather than 'state interest,' factional interests and the individual agendas of members of Polish-Lithuanian, Ottoman and Moldavian elite shaped the course of the entangled history. Despite religious, social and political differences, the actors involved were embedded in a complex system of political networks that straddled across territorial and religious boundaries. In doing so, this dissertation focuses on the interlocking peripheries of eastern European empires,directing attention to the relationship between the processes of state formation, political infighting and agency of the imperial periphery in shaping political hierarchies and practices in the three polities throughout the seventeenth century, which cannot be accommodated by state-oriented models.