A victor’s draft language can be inferred from textual traces

Evidence

The classical case in diplomatic re­ lations between Russia and Middle Eastern states is the Treaty of Ku¨c¸u¨k Kay­ narca of 16/21 July 1774, in which the twenty-seventh and concluding article requires that the treaty be ratified by the commanders-in-chief of the Russian and Ottoman armies, who, on behalf of their sovereigns, will sign and seal the document, the one in the Turkish and Italian languages, the other in the Russian and Italian languages. It would appear that the treaty was originally drafted in Russian. The situation at the time—the imposition of the treaty by a victorious Russia on a defeated Turkey—makes this probable; the actual Italian text, in Article XIII of which the Turkish title padis¸ah is transcribed as “padischag,” following Russian orthography, makes this certain. — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 969

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Drafters concealed sweeping powers behind innocuous-sounding definitions. — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the…, 776