Bosporus

   A strait connecting the Sea of Marmara with the Black Sea, 20 miles long and less than 3 miles across at its widest. Bosporus literally means “ox ford” and is traditionally connected with the legendary figure of Io, who in the form of a heifer crossed the Thracian Bosporus in her wanderings. Byzantine emperors and Ottoman sultans constructed fortifications along its shores because of its proximity to Constantinople. With the growing influence of the European powers in the nineteenth century, rules were codified to govern the transit of vessels through the strait. The Treaty of Kuchuk Kainarji in 1774 and the Treaty of Inkiar Skelessi in 1833 gave the Russian government the right to navigate freely in Ottoman waters through the Bosporus, but its strategic value made it a central issue of the Straits Question, and the second treaty was reversed by the London Straits Convention in 1841.

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   FURTHER READING:

    Anderson, M. S. The Eastern Question 1774-1923. London: Macmillan, 1966;

    Jelavich, Barbara. A Century of Russian Foreign Policy 1814-1914. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1964;

    Karsh, Efraim, and Inari Karsh, Empires of the Sand: The Struggle for Mastery in the Middle East 1789-1923. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999.

   ANDREKOS VARNAVA