It is a commonplace in biographies of Disraeli (later Lord Beaconsfield) that his attitude to the East and the Eastern Question is essential for understanding his complex persona and the most crucial period of his career, yet until now this topic has not been researched in detail. Disraeli and the Eastern Question now fills this gap, providing the first complete reconstruction of Disraeli's attitudes towards the East and the Eastern Question as a whole, from his early youth onwards, and using a wide range of primary sources, from Disraeli's private papers, correspondence, and novels, the manus ... More

It is a commonplace in biographies of Disraeli (later Lord Beaconsfield) that his attitude to the East and the Eastern Question is essential for understanding his complex persona and the most crucial period of his career, yet until now this topic has not been researched in detail. Disraeli and the Eastern Question now fills this gap, providing the first complete reconstruction of Disraeli's attitudes towards the East and the Eastern Question as a whole, from his early youth onwards, and using a wide range of primary sources, from Disraeli's private papers, correspondence, and novels, the manuscript collections of Queen Victoria and the prime minister's closest associates, to the minutes of parliamentary debates and the official correspondence of the Foreign Office, as well as Russian, Serbian, Bulgarian, and Albanian documents. Blending a biographical approach with the history of ideas, Miloš Ković analyses Disraeli's role in the Eastern Crisis, at the Congress of Berlin, and after, to provide a full intellectual biography of his attitudes to the Eastern Question and how these affected the history of international relations in the late nineteenth century.