History, with its complex sequence of events and its vast variety of personalities, political entities, and cultures, is an inexhaustible source for drawing analogies that enable us to understand the present and predict the future. Just as in painting the color palette is combined to create a complete picture, in historical narrative events are combined using structured analogies to illuminate the past, draw parallels with the present and have a foresight on the future.

Structured analogies in history serve as powerful tools for comprehension, providing insights into the complexity of human behavior, the nature of societies and cultures, political systems, and geopolitical aspirations. By juxtaposing past and present conditions, historians and scholars offer new perspectives and encourage deeper understanding. In today’s age of unprecedented global challenges, upheavals, and conflicts, the need for structured analogies in history has never been more pressing. By engaging with the past through analogical thinking, we gain perspective for the present and cultivate wisdom for the future. 

The Eastern Question extending from antiquity to the present day is a great reservoir of conclusions and lessons learned through the use of structured analogies, in order to understand contemporary developments and project them into the future. As we navigate the complexity of this great issue which has occupied humanity for many centuries and continues to trouble us today with its modern manifestations, we will draw an example of analogical thinking from 19th Century scholars, using two bibliographic sources from the Library of Congress of United States. 

In 1835, David Urquhart, a Scottish diplomat and politician, in his monograph entitled "England and Russia" (David Urquhart, England & Russia: Being a Fifth Edition of England, France, Russia & Turkey, James Ridgway & Sons, 169, Piccadilly, London, 1835), expresses his bitter accusations against Russia’s expansionist policy, trying to sway common opinion and induce the British political establishment to take vigorous action to nullify Russian ambitions. The Treaty of Adrianople in 1829, after the Ottoman defeat in the Russo-Turkish War, with the Russian troops in the outskirts of Constantinople, and the alliance treaty between Russia and the Ottoman Empire signed at Unkiar Skelessi in 1833, obtained as a reward after the Russian assistance to the Porte for the suppression of the Mehemet Ali’s of Egypt revolt, raised alarm in Great Britain which perceived Russian control over the Dardanelles as a threat to its interests in the Eastern Mediterranean and its access to its colonies in Asia and Africa. 

In his work Urquhart notes a remarkable identity of the position of Great Britain, or rather Europe, and Russia, with that of Athens and Macedonia during the reign of Philip II. According to Urquhart, both Macedonia under Philipp II and Russia in the 19th Century pursued expansionist agendas. Philip II sought to expand Macedonian influence into the other Greek city-states and beyond, while Russia aimed to expand its territory and influence across Eastern Europe and Central Asia. Both Macedonia and Russia were monarchies maintaining centralized authority over their realm, both masterfully combined arms and diplomacy, deception and falsehood. On the other hand, Athens and Great Britain, both maritime and colonial powers in the era, Urquhart maintains, while alarmed by the development of the events and the expansionist movements of their adversaries, are distinguished by their inaction and fear, and their confidence in their maritime supremacy, commercial prosperity, and superiority of their civilizations, over barbarian power. 

Eighteen years later, in 1852 during the development of crisis which led to the Crimean War , the American statesman, Henry Winter Davies, published his book, "The War of Ormuzd and Ahriman in the Nineteenth Century" (Henry Winter Davies, The War of Ormuzd and Ahriman in the Nineteenth Century, James S. Walters, 244 Baltimore St., Baltimore, 1852) considering the United States as the political Ormuzd – the supreme deity in Zoroastrianism, the embodiment of truth, goodness and order – and the Russian Empire as political Ahriman – the antagonist of Ormuzd, representing the forces of chaos, darkness, and destruction – emphasizing the need for joint action by the United States and Great Britain to counter Russian expansion and the danger of Europe’s transformation into a vast dictatorship.

Davies builds on Urquhart’s analogies, paralleling Europe to Ancient Greece and the Russian Empire to Philip’s Macedonia. He claims that in the same way Philip II subjugated the rest of Greece, Russia would proceed to impose her rule over the whole Europe. For Davies, Europe of nineteenth century and ancient Greece were two peninsulas jutting out from the continent whose southern portions were occupied by numerous highly civilized, populous, powerful, but jealous and discordant governments, while north of them stretched a wide expanse, inhabited by semi-barbarous tribes scattered over a sparsely populated country of great but undeveloped resources. In both cases Thessaly and Poland respectively, were laid between the growing, aggressive, and semi-barbarous empires of the north and the civilized states in the south. Athens with her scattered dependencies, her naval power and commercial activity resembled England, and the Bosporus and Byzantium were to Athens what the Bosporus and Constantinople, Egypt and Euphrates were to England. Sparta with her military might and lofty spirit corresponded to France, while Boeotia, with its alternating roles, was the nineteenth century’s Germany. According to Davies, Russia was waiting for the favorable opportunity to shew itself as the governing power of Europe and the lesson identified from ancient Greece, ought to be used to avoid repetition. 

Urquhart’s and Davies’ analogies with ancient Greece, was a tool to foresee the future and mobilize public opinion and their governments to address the risks as they perceived them. As it turned out in retrospect, these risks did not materialize, and the reasons are complex and require special study. Perhaps the Crimean War that followed a few years later acted as a deterrent, or even was an unnecessary war, that broke out due to overestimations and great fears of a rising and culturally diverse entity.

Today, in a fluid - in terms of geopolitical developments – era, the use of structured analogies, chosen correctly with objective criteria, and without prejudices, could lead as to objective and useful predictions for the future? But this reflection would probably be the subject of a later post.