Negotiating Peace in a Russian-Occupied City
During the Russo-Turkish War of 1828–1829, Russian forces entered the eastern Balkans and occupied Adrianople, now Edirne. Representatives of Russia and the Ottoman Empire signed peace there on September 14, 1829. Russian documents used September 2 in the Julian calendar, while the contemporary French printing gave both dates.
Emperor Nicholas I authorized Russian commander Diebitsch to arrange peace, and he appointed Alexei Orlov and Pahlen as plenipotentiaries. Senior Ottoman financial and judicial officials represented Sultan Mahmud II. Sixteen main articles and supplementary documents concerning the principalities' government, compensation, and withdrawal converted military outcomes into specific obligations.
Territory and Merchant Shipping
Russia promised to restore occupied territories including Moldavia, Wallachia, Bulgaria, and Adrianople, while acquiring islands at the Danube's mouth and retaining important territories on the eastern Black Sea coast and in the Caucasus. Article IV confirmed Russian rule over Georgia and other regions and redrew the frontier. Russian-occupied Kars, Bayezid, Erzurum, and other places were included among the territories to be returned.
Article VII protected Russian subjects' commercial activities within Ottoman territory and allowed Russian merchant vessels through the Bosporus and Dardanelles. Passage arrangements also applied to merchant ships traveling to and from Russian Black Sea ports under the flags of states at peace with the Ottoman Empire. These provisions concerned trade and merchant shipping, not unconditional access for all foreign warships.
The Principalities and Greece Followed Separate Procedures
Article V confirmed the religious, internal administrative, and commercial rights of Moldavia and Wallachia under Ottoman suzerainty. A separate instrument replaced rulers' seven-year terms with life tenure, subject to voluntary abdication and lawful removal. The principalities could maintain armed forces for order and quarantine, and their former obligations to supply Constantinople with grain, sheep, timber, and labor were replaced by agreed monetary compensation.
Article VI required implementation of existing Serbian arrangements and restoration of six districts. Under Article X, the Ottoman government accepted the Treaty of London of 1827 and the powers' protocol of March 1829 and was to send representatives to negotiate implementation after ratifications were exchanged. The Adrianople signatures did not settle every subsequent aspect of Greece's statehood and borders at once.
Different Timetables for Ceasefire, Ratification, and Withdrawal
Article XII required immediate orders to land and naval forces to cease hostilities after signature; subsequent occupations could not alter the peace settlement. Article XVI separately required ratification by both states and exchange of instruments within six weeks or sooner. The Russian archival edition preserves Nicholas I's ratification signed in St. Petersburg on September 29, 1829, Old Style, corresponding to October 11 in the Gregorian calendar.
That unilateral instrument is not a record of bilateral exchange. The treaty linked prisoner release, some implementing measures, and residents' periods for disposing of property to the exchange of ratifications. Article XI further provided for phased Russian withdrawal under supplementary arrangements after implementation of frontier, principality, and related provisions, retaining existing administration in occupied areas until evacuation. The signing date is clear, but actual withdrawal depended on subsequent compliance.
Indemnities Became a Means of Continuing Negotiation
Article VIII set compensation for commercial losses at 1.5 million ducats, payable in installments within eighteen months. Article IX separately recognized compensation for war expenses, leaving the amount to agreement. Supplementary arrangements fixed the war indemnity at ten million gold coins and linked phased withdrawal to payment.
Drawing on Ottoman archives, Aslantaş argues that payment pressure prompted repeated negotiations over reductions. An agreement in 1834 lowered annual installments and forgave part of the balance; another in 1836 set further reductions and deadlines, linking withdrawal from Silistra to settlement. The study records payment of the remaining balance in August 1836 and Russia's return of Silistra in September. This was the outcome of continuing bargaining, not evidence that the original indemnity had been paid upon signature.
Residents' Rights and Coercion in Migration
Article XIII proclaimed an amnesty for subjects who had supported either side in the war and allowed affected residents to sell property and move with families and movable possessions within a specified period. Implementation of these choices was nevertheless affected by military and political power. Hacısalihoğlu's study records the sultan ordering local publication of the provisions and the governor of Trabzon reporting that Christians had been informed of migration rights and that compensation for seized property was being addressed.
The same study describes Russian migration subsidies, tax exemptions, and military pressure attracting or compelling Orthodox residents to leave, while Ottoman authorities used amnesties, tax reductions, and clerical mediation to encourage them to remain. Local societies thus continued to experience property disposal, departure, and return after peace. The treaty's language of voluntary migration cannot encompass every resident's experience.