John Caradja
John George Caradja, also known by his regnal name Ioan Gheorghe Caragea, was a Phanariote Greek Prince of Wallachia, who reigned between August 1812 and September 1818. He was the second, and last, member of the Karatzas or Caradja family to ascend to the Wallachian throne, but one of several to have also held office as Great Dragoman of the Ottoman Empire. Caradja, whose life is relatively obscure up to that point, held two terms as Dragoman. Before 1800, he also embarked on a literary career, participating in the spread of Enlightenment literature throughout the Rum Millet, and becoming noted for his translations from Carlo Goldoni. His progeny included Rallou Karatza-Argyropoulos, who was famous in her own right as a pioneer of modern Greek theater.
Caradja's reign came at the apex of Phanariote influence in the Danubian Principalities, a time marked by political corruption, outside interference, and, increasingly, the affirmation of Romanian nationalism as an alternative to Greek hegemony. His candidacy in Wallachia was supported by Halet Efendi and the Austrian Empire, and made possible by large sums of money that Caradja intended to recover from taxes. He arrived in Bucharest just as Wallachia was recovering from a Russian occupation, and was involved in punishing those whom he regarded as Russophiles—his clampdown resulted in the death of Abdullah Ramiz Efendi and the expulsion of Manuc Bei; the latter spent his remaining years attempting to have Caradja deposed. Caradja was then involved in securing jobs for his Greek retinue or in trafficking high offices in exchange for bribes; in order to meet Ottoman fiscal demands, but also his own financial goals, he created an infamous system of spoliation which perplexed foreign observers and angered the Wallachian public. Having to deal with an outbreak of brigandage, Caradja became known for enforcing capital punishment, as well as torture and amputation.
Shortly into his rule, Wallachia was struck by a wave of the Eastern plague pandemic, locally known as "Caragea's plague". Failing to impose a total quarantine, the Prince successfully isolated himself and his court, while the general population was left to deal with the effects. During the period of recovery, Caradja adopted more lenient positions consonant with enlightened absolutism, and his respect for civil liberties was written down in the 1818 code, Legiuirea lui Caragea. He afforded Wallachian natives a victory by allowing Gheorghe Lazăr to teach a Romanian course at his refurbished princely academy, and also made some efforts to reintegrate disgruntled nationalists into his administration. Though he continued his lavish spending, Caradja became aware that an accounting audit would result in his deposition and death; during his final months in power, he cut down taxes and announced reforms. He also sought to appease the Sublime Porte by intervening to curb the Second Serbian Uprising, and was credited, possibly mistakenly, with murdering the Serb rebel Karađorđe.
Made aware that he had fallen into disgrace at the Porte, and betrayed by his son-in-law Michael Soutzos, Caradja took his family and fortune out of Wallachia in September 1818. He lived in the Swiss Confederacy and the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, supporting the Greek War of Independence, and becoming nominal head of the revolutionary government in the Peloponnese. In his late sixties, he tried but failed to impose himself as a figure of influence in the Hellenic State; he eventually returned to live as a regular citizen in the newly formed Kingdom of Greece, publishing editions of his translations from Goldoni, and dedicating himself to advancing theatrical life in general. He remained generally vilified in Romanian literature and folklore, though he received positive recognition for his leniency toward the outlaw Iancu Jianu. Following John's death, the Caradjas split into Ottoman–Romanian and Greek branches, respectively led by his sons Konstantinos and Georgios.
Biography
Early life and career
According to various accounts, the Caradja family originated in the Republic of Ragusa, the Beylik of Karaman, or the Despotate of Epirus. The name is Turkic and means "roe", being read by Romanian scholar Nicolae Iorga as an indication of the Caradjas' "Asiatic origin". John's great-grandson, Constantin Jean Karadja, proposed that the first family was first attested in the 11th century when an Argyros Karatzas served the Byzantine Empire as Duke of Dyrrhachium. He sees him and other early Karatzas as Hellenized Pechenegs. Another historian, C. G. Patrinelis, sees the clan as probably Karamanlid. Supporting the Epirote or generically Greek hypothesis, authors such as Panagiotis Soutsos and Epaminonda Stamatiade believe that they acquired their aristocratic rank and surname while serving in the Crimean Khanate. The clan was attested within the Phanariote community during the mid-16th century; shortly after, their careers became intertwined with the history of the Danubian Principalities, Wallachia and Moldavia—both of which were tribute-paying vassals of the Ottomans. In the 1560s, when one of Constantine Karatzas' daughters married an Ottoman potentate, Skarlatos "Iskerlet" Beylicci, she signalled the family's political ascent; a century later, Constantine's descendant, Costache Caragea, was serving as Postelnic in Moldavia. He is the common ancestor of all Wallachian Carageas.The future John Caradja was the son of Great Dragoman Georgios Karatzas, and had an uncle, Nicholas, who preceded him as both Great Dragoman and Wallachian Prince ; another uncle, Joannicius, was Patriarch of Constantinople in 1761–1763. According to Prussian consular reports, Nicholas, ultimately sacked by the Ottomans for "having neglected the upkeep of bridges throughout Wallachia", was somewhat supportive of reestablishing the Greek empire. This stance seeped into his translations from Choiseul-Gouffier, which were regarded with suspicion by the Sublime Porte. Born in Istanbul in 1754, John had two brothers, Constantine and Skarlatos, and a sister, Eleni. Their mother Sultana was a Mavrocordatos; through her, John was the grandson of John II Mavrocordatos, who served as Moldavian Prince in the 1740s, and uncle of Alexandros Mavrokordatos. Through this branch, he was also a distant descendant of native Moldavian royalty, leading back to Stephen the Great.
Little is known about John himself before the age of 55, when he took over as Great Dragoman; an oil portrait, probably done in 1795 shows him wearing the clothes of a high Ottoman dignitary, though it remains unclear whether he actually held any offices at that time. He first came into contact with military and political figures of the Habsburg monarchy during the preceding Habsburg–Ottoman War, when he served as a translator for armistice negotiations in Giurgiu ; in early 1792, he visited Prussia and performed similar duties. Historian Arnold Winckler describes Caradja as the secretary to Dragoman Constantine Ypsilantis, noting that this position brought Caradja into contact with a diplomatic agent of the Habsburgs, Franz von Fleischhackl. During 1792–1793, Ypsilantis published the military training manual Usūl ü Fenn-i Harb, which was based on Marquis de Vauban's Traité de la guerre en général. Turkologist Johann Strauss argues that Caradja may have been the work's secondary author. 21st-century archival research has uncovered Caradja's contribution as a translator of Enlightenment poetry: by 1800, he had produced manuscript versions of Demofonte, Ipermestra, and L'isola disabitata. He married Eleni Skanavi, the daughter of a banker, whose aunt was the wife of Nicholas Mavrogenes. The couple had five children. The best known among them is Princess Rallou, born in 1799 at Istanbul, who married Georgios Argyropoulos ; another daughter, Roxani or Roxandra, known to have been born in 1783, was the wife of Michael Soutzos from 1812, while the youngest, Smaragda, married Spyridon Demetrios Mavrogenis; John and Eleni's two sons were called Georgios and Konstantinos.
The Karatzas' political triumph coincided with the Eastern Question, which saw a frail Ottoman Empire attempting to recover its losses with increased taxation, while the Principalities became a target for competition between the Habsburgs and the Russian Empire; in both settings, the non-native Phanariotes were important players. During Nicholas' reign, Habsburg diplomats claimed that Wallachia was falling into Russian hands. Acting on the Ottomans with "extreme rudeness", they obtained his swift removal. The rejection of outside pressures was also becoming noted before John took charge: a wave of peasant riots in 1804–1805 was followed by a more peaceful interval, which lasted to 1811 when 800 Bucharest merchants staged a protest against new taxes.
Caradja first served as Grand Dragoman between 19 October and 18 November 1808, just as Sultan Mahmud II was consolidating his reign; P. Soutsos later recounted that, during his tenure, he managed to persuade Mahmud not to carry a murderous purge of the Greek Orthodox community—as argued by C. J. Karadja, this information is probably false. In 1808–1809, a homonymous cousin, John N. Caradja, himself noted for his literary translations, took over John's position as Grand Dragoman. John's own prospects changed for the better after the Russo-Turkish War of 1806–1812. He began his second stint as Dragoman on 7 August 1812, replacing Panagiotis Moutouzis, and subsequently worked to become Wallachian Prince, hoping to outplay his powerful rivals from the Mourouzis family. His candidacy was publicly backed by the Austrian Empire, formed in 1804 from parts of the older Habsburg realm, as well by the Ottoman intriguer, Halet Efendi. He reputedly rewarded intercessions on his behalf with 8,000 bags of Guilder, a "colossal sum" that he intended to recover from Wallachia's taxpayers. According to notes kept by the French émigré Alexandre de Langeron, Caradja surpassed all Phanariote candidates in being both "greedy and unrepentant" with his quest for the throne. Mahmud finally awarded Caradja his throne on 27 August 1812, though he only presented him with the ceremonial fur hat on 22 October, at a time when the plague pandemic was killing 3,000 Istanbul residents each day. During these dates, regal power in Wallachia was held by Rallou's husband Argyropoulos, as Caimacam. Both the Caimacam and the Prince were closely supervised by the Ottoman authorities of Ruschuk.