ON THE QUESTION OF THE CONCEPTS OF “GENOA LAKE” AND “OTTOMAN LAKE”

Abstract

In Europe in past centuries, maritime issues became a subject of study and discussion, and in the course of the debate on this issue, two opposing points of view emerged. Various doctrines were formulated under the names „Mare liberum” (Free Sea) and „Mare clausum” (Closed Sea). The author of the first theory was the Dutch diplomat and lawyer Hugo Grotius (1583–1645), who represented the interests of the large Dutch merchants and bourgeoisie. He wrote a treatise “On the Right of Prey” [Hugo de Groot, 1864], one of whose twelve chapters he himself published under the title „De mare libero” (1609). The second theory belongs to the English politician and orientalist John Selden (1584–1654). His treatise reflects the desire of Great Britain, surrounded by the sea, to control its territorial waters, since, in his opinion, the sea should not be available to everyone, and a particular political entity should have the right to „close” it in accordance with its strategic goals [Seldeni: MDC XXXV]. In short, the status of the seas, and in this case the Black Sea, has always been considered in terms of movement across it, whether
trade across the Black Sea was accessible to all, and whether any country had a monopoly on international trade across the Black Sea.
In the Middle Ages (13th–18th centuries) the Black Sea, when it was in the hands of Italian colonists and merchants, was known as the „Genoa Lake,” and during the Ottoman Empire, it was known as the „Ottoman Lake,” with its functional load in the form of maritime caravan trade, meeting the status of a “Closed Sea.” In the late Middle Ages, caravan traffic did not cease, although it was significantly limited and reduced for those who were not Ottoman subjects or did not wish to comply with the trade and tax laws of the Ottoman Empire. Among these states was the city-republic of Genoa, which itself once owned the Black Sea under the name „Genoa Lake.”