2026 Theses Doctoral

The Russian Empire Adrift: Nationality, Property, Commerce, and Sovereignty in the Wartime and Revolutionary Black Sea, 1914–1923

Bilalutdinov, Azat

This dissertation is a transnational history of state succession in the Black Sea region during the upheaval of 1914–1923. Based on research in multiple multilingual archives across Türkiye, Ukraine, Russia, Georgia, France, Britain, the United States, Poland and the Netherlands. It traces how the property, interests, and rights of the Russian imperial state and its subjects were transferred amid war, revolution, and the collapse of the Romanov and Ottoman empires.

During the war those belligerents instituted enemy-alien regimes and economic blockades to restrict commerce, and seize assets deemed hostile. By the end of 1918 the antagonist states had no undisputed legitimate authority to settle the conflict: restitute property, resolve indemnities, and repatriate war captives. The Ottoman Empire fell under Allied occupation and effectively ceased to be a sovereign state, while the revolutions of 1917 brought about the breakdown of the Russian Empire. Amid the multiple civil wars that followed, new states and governments sought recognition in the postwar settlement by claiming succession to imperial assets and jurisdiction over former tsarist subjects. These developments raised a crucial question: who had the legitimate authority to speak on behalf of the fallen empire?

The dissertation views the “Greater War” (1914–1923) as a global moment for the non-dominant nations of Eurasian empires. Groups previously little known to Great Power decision-makers gained new opportunities to present their national aspirations to an international public and to emerging institutions of global governance. During the war, the belligerents sought to exploit religious and ethnic opposition within enemy empires by sponsoring anti-imperial organizations and movements. After the revolutions of 1917 and the collapse of imperial authority, the world war fractured into multiple civil wars, and numerous post-imperial states sought recognition and external support. Most sent delegations to the Paris Peace Conference and mounted diplomatic campaigns in major European capitals.

This dissertation takes Ukraine as a crucial case for tracing the transition from wartime anti-imperial exile politics to post-imperial politics, from the Brest-Litovsk order to the Versailles settlement, and from Central Powers intervention to Allied intervention in the former Romanov Empire. The Ottoman Empire had served as an important base for the anti-Romanov Ukrainian movement during the war. In 1918, together with the other Central Powers, the Ottoman Empire recognized Ukraine as an independent state and as a partner in a future regional settlement that was never fully realized because of the empire’s imminent defeat. The Allied occupation of Istanbul, by powers that did not recognize Ukrainian independence, interrupted the emerging Ottoman-Ukrainian cooperation over prisoner repatriation and trade. At the same time, however, occupied Istanbul became a crucial diplomatic hub and platform for the Ukrainian National Republic and other Ukrainian organizations, as well as for many other post-imperial nations of the region.

Istanbul also offers a valuable analytical lens for moving beyond national-territorial actors and examining the fate of commercial enterprises and maritime trade during war and imperial collapse. During World War I, the city served as a chokepoint that obstructed Russian imperial logistics, trade, and supply lines. During the armistice period, it became a vital supply line for the civil wars unfolding across the Black Sea region, serving as a key operational center for Allied intervention and support for anti-Bolshevik forces. From Istanbul, the Allies regulated Black Sea navigation, distributed military and humanitarian aid, enforced the blockade against Soviet Russia, and arbitrated disputes among the competing successors of the Russian Empire over its assets and legal legacy. Existing scholarship has focused primarily on Istanbul as a refuge for former Russian imperial subjects. Taking displacement as one of its central themes, this dissertation shows that the Ottoman capital was also a key center of the broader international diplomacy of Russian imperial collapse.