1 Chapter 2 Early Modern Russia's Contacts with the World On ...

Chapter 2
Early Modern Russia’s Contacts with the World
On November 12, 1472 (O.S.), according to the Muscovite chronicles, Zoë Paliaologina, the
daughter of the last despotes of Morea, Thomas, and the niece of the last Byzantine emperor,
Constantine XI, after an extensive sea voyage from Rome entered the city of Moscow with her
entourage. Shortly thereafter, she was married to Ivan III, the grand prince of Moscow. At the wedding
ceremony, she adopted the name Sofiia. Earlier, before Constantinople had fallen to the Ottoman Turks
in 1453, she had been brought to Rome and made a ward of the papacy. She was placed under the
custodianship of the Byzantine scholar and churchman Bessarion of Nicea. Bessarion was a supporter of
union with Rome and had been made a cardinal in 1439. Pope Paul II (r. 1462–1471), who hoped to
unite the Eastern and Western churches, directed Bessarion to help arrange the betrothal of Zoë to Ivan.
The Moscow chronicles testify that Cardinal Bessarion sent “a Greek, Iurii by name” (Georgios
Tarchaniotes) to Ivan III in 1469. 1 Georgios Tarchaniotes had been the chamberlain of Zoë’s father in
Morea. 2 Our sources provide various estimates of the numbers of Greeks and Italians in Zoë’s entourage
to Moscow, ranging from 60 to 100. 3 These individuals were instrumental in conducting diplomatic
affairs and in bringing Italian architects and engineers to Russia.
1 PSRL, 12: 120 (6977); 26: 225.
2 Gino Barbieri, Milano e Moscow nella politica del Rinascimento (Bari, 1957), 46–47.
3 Die Chroniken der fränkischenschen Städte. Nürnberg, 5 vols. (Leipzig: S. Hirzel, 1862–1874), 4: 330–331, 5:
468–469; Joannes Martynov, Annus Ecclesiasticus Greco-Slavicus (Brussels: Typis Henrici Goemaere, 1863),
134; PSRL, 11: 147: “the legate Antonio [Cardinal Bonumbre] was sent to her as the Pope’s envoy, and with them
were many Romans, and the envoy of the princess was Dmitrii Manuilovich with many Greeks, and many other
Greeks who served her accompanied her.”
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According to the present scholarly consensus, Peter I ended Russia’s isolation. Nonetheless,
Russia had been far from isolated before Peter’s ascension to the throne. The Russian government had
extensive diplomatic and military dealings with steppe polities—such as the Great and Nogai ordas and
the Crimean, Astrakhan´, and Kazan´ khanates—as well as with Poland-Lithuania and Sweden. It had
diplomatic relations with a number of Italian city states, including Venice and Milan as well as the
Vatican in the second half of the 15th century, with the Ottoman Empire and Holy Roman Emperor from
the end of that century, and with Safavid Persia from the end of the 16th century. It sent envoys and
diplomats to foreign capitals, and it invited in foreign specialists to serve the ruler.
Although Peter is often credited with opening up Russia to the West, some scholars have pointed
to other times and events when Russia opened itself to the West. Jarmo Kotilaine gave much of the
credit for opening Russia’s window on the West to merchants of northwestern Russia. 4 Serhii Plokhy
asserted that the Treaty of Periaslavl´ in 1654 was the “turning point in Moscow’s relations with its
immediate and more distant West” and that “Muscovy began a westward movement that was to be
continued by the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union, first with troops and then with political and
cultural influence.” 5 According to Sergei Bogatyrev, “the early Northern Wars [Russo-Swedish War of
1554–1557 and the Livonian War of 1558–1583] were thus a ‘discovery’ of the West” because they
“constituted a cultural challenge for Muscovites.” 6 Other scholars, like Paul Dukes, however, have a
4 Jarmo Kotilaine, Russia’s Foreign Trade, 355: “the generally negative assessment of most historians is clearly
not compatible with the facts observed in the 1680s and 1690s. On the contrary, the townsmen of northwestern
Russia can claim a great deal of the credit typically attributed to Peter I for opening Russia’s window on Europe.”
5 Serhii Plokhy, The Origins of the Slavic Nations: Premodern Identities in Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 251.
6 Sergei Bogatyrev, “Ivan the Terrible Discovers the West: The Cultural Transformation of Autocracy during the
Early Northern Wars,” Russian History, 34 (2007): 163.
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different view: “The myth persists that Russia was cut off from Western civilization until the reign of
Peter the Great. In fact, ties were often close with the West as well as East” and “Russian culture … was
open … to influences from both Asia and Europe.” 7 Our sources tell us of a Russia that was in almost
continuous communication with European countries from the late 15th century on. This chapter presents
the outlines of the evidence for this assertion through the 18th century. It is not intended to be
exhaustive, which would require a full-scale monograph or more to do it justice. Instead, the goal is to
give the reader a sense of the richness and continuities of those contacts and provide an indication of the
extent to which these contacts were an integral part of early modern Russia.
To make the chapter more accessible to the reader, I have divided the presentation of the
evidence into three parts: 1. those who came to Russia for their own reasons; 2. those who traveled out
of Russia; and 3. those who were invited by the Russian ruler.
Those Who Came to Russia for Their Own Reasons
Foreigners came to Russia during the early modern period for a number of different motivations
other than to work for the Russian ruler. Among those motivations were serving in a diplomatic
contingent, seeking alms, engaging in trade, and reconnoitering or travel.
Ambassadors and Travellers
From the late 15th century on, ambassadors, envoys, and agents of European monarchs, popes,
and charter companies traveled to Russia. Among them were representatives from the Holy Roman
Empire (Nicolaus Poppel, Georg von Thurn, Michael Snups, Dr. Jacob Oesler, Moriz Burgstaller,
Gerbst Ringenberg, Justus Kantiger, Sigismund von Herberstein, and Baron Augustin Freiherr von
7 Paul Dukes, A History of Russia: Medieval, Modern, Contemporary, 2nd ed. (Durham, NC: Duke University
Press, 1990), 4.
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Meyerberg 8 ), Venice (Ambrogio Contarini and Josaphat Barbaro), Sweden (Paul Juusten), the Polish-
Lithuanian Commonwealth (Czech theologian Jan Rokita and the future king of Poland Stanislaus
Poniatowski), the Vatican (Paolo Centurione, Graf von Eberstein, Johannes Stemberg, and Antonio
Possevino), the Russia Company and England (Jerome Horsey, Richard Chancellor, John Hasse, Giles
Fletcher, Jerome Bowes, and Sir Charles Hanbury-Williams), Denmark (David Cochran), and others.
The 17th-century Ambassadorial Chancellery (Posol´skii prikaz) clerk Grigorii Kotoshikhin tells us
different protocols were followed to receive “Imperial, Polish, Danish, English, Danish, Turkish, and
Persian ambassadors,” on the one hand (which was based on how Swedish ambassadors were received),
and “Crimean, Nogai, and Kalmyk ambassadors,” based on steppe diplomatic protocol. 9
The Bohemian Jesuit Jiří David traveled to Russia in the 1680s and reported, among other things,
on military matters. 10 A number of 18th-century British travelers to various parts of the Russian
Empire. 11
8 Augustin Freiherr von Meyerberg, Iter in Moschoviam … ad Tsarem et Magnum Ducem Alexium Mihalowicaz
(1661) in Augustin Freiherr Meyerberg und seine Reise nach Russland, ed. F. von Adelung (St. Petersburg,
1827); Avgustin Maierberg, “Puteshestvie v Moskoviiu,” trans. A. N. Shemiakin, ChOIDR 1873, bks. 3–5.
9 G. K. Kotoshikhin, O Rossii v tsarstvovanie Alekseia Mikhailovicha, ed. G. A. Leont´eva (Moscow: Rosspen,
2000), 91–92; Benjamin Phillip Uroff, “Grigorii Karpovich Kotoshikhin, On Russia in the Reign of Alexis
Mikhailovich: An Anotated Translation,” Ph.D. dissertation, Columbia University, 1970, pp. 138–139
10 Georgius David, Status Modernus Magnae Russiae seu Moscoviae, ed. A. V. Florovskij (The Hague: Mouton,
1965); idem, “Sovremennoe sostoianie velikoi Rusi ili Moscovii,” Voprosy istorii (1961): no. 1, pp. 123–132; no.
3, pp. 92–97; no. 4, pp. 138–147.
11 See, e.g., Beatrice Teissier, Russian Frontiers: Eighteenth-Century British Travellers in the Caspian, Causasus
and Central Asia (Oxford: Signal Books, 2011).
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One point that foreign travelers make is the Muscovite government’s putting them up at way
stations and paying for their food while they were traveling in Russia. 12 These way stations were part of
the iam (often misleadingly translated as postal) system that Muscovy inherited from the Mongols. 13
Another point is their depiction of Muscovy as a despotism or tyranny. 14 While I and others have dealt
with this claim of despotism in our previous writings, I will just say here that the Russian ruler had
restraints placed on his or her actions. 15 They could not do whatever they wanted to. But when the ruler
and the ruling class were in agreement, together they could impose their will on the rest of the
population in a way they may have appeared tyrannical or despotic to foreign observers (see infra
chapter 7 “Governmental Institutions and the Legal System”).
Eastern Church clerics
Eastern Church prelates traveled to Moscow in search of donations. The chronicles report s.a.
1496 (7004) “a hegumen and three elders from the monastery of St. Panteleimon on Mt. Athos came to
12 Eizo Matsuki, “A Diplomatic Custom in Muscovy,” Mediterranean World, 14 (1995): 17–29.
13 Ostrowski, Muscovites and the Mongols, 47. Gustav Alef, “The Origin and Early Development of the
Muscovite Postal Service,” Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas, 15 (1967): 1–15.
14 For an analysis of this depiction in European accounts, see Marshall T. Poe, “A People Born to Slavery”:
Russia in Early Modern European Ethnography, 1476–1748 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2000), 196–226.
15 For a discussion of how applicable this depiction is to Muscovy, see Marshall Poe, “The Truth about Muscovy,”
and Valerie A. Kivelson, “On Words, Sources, and Historical Method: Which Truth about Muscovy?” in Kritika:
Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History, 3, no. 3 (2002): 473–499. See also my treatment in Muscovy and
the Mongols, 85–107 and David Goldfrank’s response in his “Aristotle, Bodin, and Montesquieu to the Rescue:
Making Sense of the Despotism Issue,” in Forschungen zur osteuropäischen Geschichte, 58 (2001): 42–51.
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the grand prince” and were given alms to take with them. 16 We have evidence of other such missions in
1507, 1509, and 1514–1515. 17 In 1517, the heiromonk Isaiah the Serb had arrived in Moscow from the
Monastery of the Holy Forty Martyrs in Xeropotama. One such mission involved the Patriarch of
Constantinople Jeremiah and his entourage, including Metropolitan Hierotheos of Monemvasia and
Archbishop Arsenios of Elasson, both of whom left accounts of their trip. They spent several months in
Moscow during the winter of 1588–1589, much of it against their will, as they waited the alms and for
permission to leave. In order to receive that permission, they ended up signing the document that
established the Moscow patriarchate. 18 In the 17th century, Moscow continued to be visited by Greek
churchmen looking for donations, including, Patriarch Theophanes of Jerusalem, who in 1619
consecrated Philaret as patriarch of Moscow. In the 1650s, Metropolitan Macarius of Antioch, and his
son Paul of Aleppo, who left an extensive account of his trip, spent almost a year there. 19
16 PSRL, 8: 233.
17 See PSRL, 8: 247 for the 1507 mission, and S. A. Belokurev, O biblioteke moskovskikh gosudarei v XVI stoletii
(Moscow: Tipografiia G. Lissnera i A. Geshelia, 1898), 194–195 for the 1509 and 1514–1515 missions.
18 Borys A. Gudziak, Crisis and Reform: The Kyivan Metropolitanate, the Patriarchate of Constantinople, and the
Genesis of the Union of Brest (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute, 1998), 168–187.
19 The Travels of Macarius, Patriarch of Antioch Written by His Attendant Archdeacon Paul of Aleppo, 2 vols.
(London: Oriental Translation Committee, 1829–1836). For an analysis of The Travels, see Charles J. Halperin,
“Friend and Foe in Paul of Aleppo’s Travels of Patriarch Macarios,” Modern Greek Studies Yearbook 14/15
(1998/1999): 97–114.
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There may even have been a Japanese Augustinian monk named Nicholas who traveled to Russia
while on pilgrimage in the 1590s and remained there until the 1610s. 20 If so, the time of his sojourn in
Russia would have followed by only a few years the Tensho embassy sent by the Japanese Christian
daimyo Otomo Sorin (1530–1587) to the Vatican in 1582 and preceded the trip that the Samurai
Hasekura Rokuemon Tsunenega (1571–1622) took to the Vatican in Rome in 1613 as the head of the
Japanese embassy to Europe. 21 The visit to Russia, by all reports, was not a planned or happy one. The
Japanese monk and his patron, the Portuguese Augustinian Nicholas Melo, had been traveling through
Persia on their way to Rome when Shah ’Abbas II redirected them to Moscow along with the embassy
of Sir Anthony Shirley. They were imprisoned by Boris Godunov, released by False Dmitrii I,
reimprisoned by Vasilii Shuiskii, and possibly executed in 1611.
In the 18th century, Eastern Church clerics continued travelling to Russia for alms.
Invaders during the Time of Troubles
Although there were a number of invasions of territory controlled by the Muscovite state, it was
only during the Time of Troubles that any sustained contact of a non-warfare variety occurred. The
False Dmitrii (Grigorii Otrepev) brought with him in his entourage Poles who spent some time in
Moscow.
20 Kirill Evgen´evich Cherevko, “O pervykh Russko-Iaponskikh kontaktakh v kontse XVI–nachale XVII veka,”
Otechestvennaia istoriia, no. 4 (2004): 140–143; cf. Kirill Evgen´evich Cherevko, Zarozhdenie russko-iaponskikh
otnoshenii XVII– XIX veka (Moscow: Nauka, 1999), 14–22.
21 The first Japanese, however, to arrive in Europe is thought to be Bernardo, a Christian convert who followed
Francis Xavier back to India. He arrived in Lisbon in September 1552 and died in 1557. Pasquale d’Elia,
“Bernardo il primo Giaponnese venuto a Roma (1555),” La civiltà cattolica, 102 (1951): pt. 3, pp. 277–287, 527–
535.
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Those Who Traveled Out of Russia
Except for diplomatic missions, very few Russians left Russia. The rulers attempted to keep
control of who entered and who left the country. Among those who were authorized to leave the country
were diplomatic envoys and clerics.
Envoys
In 1512, Vasilii III sent Mikhail Andreevich Alekseev at the head of an embassy to newly
enthroned Selim I (1512–1520) in Constantinople. 22 In 1516, he sent another mission, which was headed
by V. A. Korobov and included the merchants Vasilii Kopylov and Ivan Varavin, to the same sultan.
From the 1550s on, Muscovy developed trade and diplomatic relations with England, and Ivan IV sent
Osip Nepeia as the first Russian envoy to England in 1556. Ivan III and his son Vasilii III sent envoys to
Italian city-states in 1474 (Simeon Tolbuzin), 1488 (Dmitrii and Manuil Ralev), 1493 (Manuel Angelos
and Damiil Mamyrev), 23 1499 (Dmitrii Ralev and Mitrofan Karacharov), 1504 (Dmitrii Ralev and
Mitrofan Karacharov), and in 1525 (Dmitrii Gerasimov). In 1493, in response to the envoy sent by
Johann, the king of Denmark, Ivan III sent his own envoys, Dmitriii Ralev and Dmitrii Zaitsev, to
Johann. 24 In 1515, Vasilii III sent Istoma Malyi and Elizar Sergeev with letters for the Holy Roman
Emperor Maximilian. In 1526, Vasilii III sent three embassies: one to Zigismund, King of Poland (the
okol´nichii Ivan Vasil´evich Liattskii and the d´iak Elizar Ivanov son Tsipliatev); the second to the Holy
Roman Emperor Charles V and his brother Ferdinand (Ivan Liapun Osinin and Andrei Volosatii); and
22 Sbornik Imperatorskogo Russkogo istoricheskogo obshchestva (SIRIO), 148 vols. (St. Petersburg, 1867–1916),
95: 83–89.
23 PSRL, 12: 236.
24 PSRL, 12: 236.
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the third to the Pope Clement VII (Eremei Trusov and Sharap Lodygin). 25 It is a mistake in my opinion
to ignore these contacts, which continued to grow in frequency from the second half of the 15th century
onward. Nor should we dismiss them as inconsequential and as giving Russians a bad reputation, as Paul
Miliukov wrote. 26 The embassies accomplished a great deal for the Muscovite realm and show us the
awareness that the grand princes and their advisors had of other countries and the need for Muscovy to
establish and maintain relations with them. Among the most prominent 17th- and 18th-century
diplomatic missions sent by the tsar were Dmitrii Golitsyn to France and Holland and A. F. Zhirovo-
Zasekin to Persia in 1600. 27
Travel of Monks and Prelates
In addition, Eastern Orthodox Churchmen traveled to and from Muscovite lands. For example,
Rus´ monks, such as Nil Sorskii, spent time at Mt. Athos in the 15th century. In 1649, Arsenii Sukhanov
was sent by the Moscow Patriarchate on a 4-year buying expedition of books to the Near East and Mt.
Athos, and returned with over 500 manuscripts and printed books. 28 But the number of those monks and
25 PSRL, 8: 271–272; 13: 45.
26 P. N. Miliukov, Ocherki po istorii russkoi kul’tury, 3 vols. (Paris: Sovremennyia zapiski, 1930–1964), vol. 3:
Natsionalizm i evropeizm, ??; Paul Miliukov, The Origins of Ideology, ed. and trans. Joseph L. Wieczynski (Gulf
Breeze, FL: Academic International Press, 1974), 100–101.
27 I. V. Magilina, “Proekt antituretskogo dogovora mezhdu Moskovskim gosudarstvom i Persiei v 1600 gody
(rekonstruktsiia po materialam posol´stva kn. A. F. Zhirovo-Zasekina),” Vestnik Volgogradskogo
gosudarstvennogo univesiteta, Series 4, Istoriia, filosofiia, 13, no. 1 (2008): 145−155; idem, Rossiia i proekt
antiosmanskoi ligi v kontse XVI−nachale XVII vv. (Volgograd: MIRIA, 2012), 206−225.
28 S. A. Belokurev, Arsenii Sukhanov (Moscow: Universitetskaia tipografiia, 1891).
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prelates who did travel from Russia were few and were far outnumbered by foreign monks and prelates
who came to Russia.
Unauthorized
A number of members of the ruling class left Russia unauthorized. They included Prince Semen
Fedorovich Belskii and Ivan Vasil´evich Liatskii, along with a number of deti boiarskie, who fled to
Lithuania in 1534. Prince Ivan Dmitrievich Gubka Shuiskii fled to Lithuania around 1536, and the
brother courtiers Mark and Anisim Sarykhozin fled to Lithuania in 1562. 29 The artillery commander
Timofei Ivanovich Teterin-Puchov who fled from imprisonment in the Antoniev Siiskii Monastery to
Lithuania in 1563, and Prince Andrei Kurbskii, along with 12 of his servitors fled to Lithuania in 1564. 30
In the winter of 1663/64, Kotoshikhin was sent as part of a diplomatic mission to negotiate with the
Poles at the Dnepr River. Not wishing to perform an onerous writing assignment for Prince Iurii
Dolgorukii, he fled to Poland, and then via Prussia, Lubeck, and Narva, ended up in Stockholm, where
he wrote his exposition of Russian government and society that was eventually published in 1840 as O
Rossii v tsarstvovanie Alekseia Mikhailovich (On Russia during the Reign of Aleksei Mikhailovich), an
important source for historians about 17th-century Russia. The churchman Artemii, former
archimandrite of the Trinity St. Sergius Monastery, fled to Lithuania from the Solovki Monastery after
1554 where he had been imprisoned after being charged with heresy. The adventurer, poet, and imposter
Timofei Ankudinov (1609–1653) and his companion Konstantin (Kostka) Koniukhovskii traveled in
Europe and the Ottoman Empire for ten years (1643–1653) under various identities, including the claim
29 Staden, Land and Government, 32.
30 For 1534, see PSRL, 26: 315; 29: 13. For 1536, see Rumiantsev redaction, p. 93, n. 3. For 1564, see PSRL, 13:
383; 29: 334; “Akt Litovskoi metriki o begstve kniazia A. M. Kurbskogo,” ed. G. Z. Kuntsevich in IORIaS, 1914,
part 2, book 2, p. 284.
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that he was the son of Tsar Vasilii Shuiskii. He was extradited from Holstein back to Moscow where he
was publicly executed. 31 In the eighteenth century, one of the most prominent defections was that of
Christoph Hermann von Manstein (1711−1757), who fled to Prussia during the reign of Elizabeth after
being accused of treason. He had been born in St. Petersburg, the son of a Baltic German general in
Russian service, and was educated in Prussia before entering the service of Peter II.
Authorized
Ivan Petlin traveled by this river system to China in 1619, but that was more a reconnaissance
mission than an official embassy, and he claimed no territory for Russia along the way. 32
Before Peter I, no Russian ruler had been to Europe. Masquerading as a ship’s carpenter, Peter
Mikhailovich, he left Russia in the spring of 1697, only to return 18 months later at news of the strel´tsi
mutiny. 33 The importance of the ruler’s personal experience with Europe and its subsequent impact on
Russia is difficult to overestimate. It is similar in significance to the many visits Rus´ rulers made to
31 Maureen Perrie, “Timofei Ankudinov 1609–1653,” in Russia’s People of Empire: Life Stories from Eurasia,
1500 to the Present, ed. Stephen M. Norris and Willard Sunderland (Bloomington: Indiana University Press,
2012), 36–46; Gyula Szvák, Delo T. Ankundinova – Az Ankungyinov-Ügy: Evropeiskii avantiurist iz
Moskovii – Egy európai kalandor Moszkóviából (Budapest, 2011).
32 See “Rospis´ kitaiskomu gosudarstvy, i lobinskomu, i inym gosudarstvam, zhilym i kochevnym, i ulusam, i
Velikoi Obi, i rekam i dorogam,” in N. F. Demidova and V. S. Miasnikov, Pervye russkie diplomaty v Kitae
(“Rospis´” I. Petlina i stateinyi spisok F. I. Baikova) (Moscow: Nauka, 1966), 41–55. For an introduction to the
text, see ibid., 11–40; for a commentary, see ibid., 59–64. For a translation into English, see “Between September
23 and November 19, 1619: Ivan Petlin’s Report on His Embassy to the Chinese Empire,” in Russia’s Conquest
of Siberia 1558–1700, 1: pp. 82–91, no. 31.
33 For a readable account of Peter’s trip and its impact on Russia, see Massie, Peter the Great, 155–243.
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Sarai, the capital of the Tatar khans, in the 13th and 14th centuries as well as the time their sons spent
there as hostages. 34 Peter returned to Europe traveling through and then on to Dresden and Carlsbad for
the mineral waters in 1711. He returned in 1712 and 1713 to visit towns in the north German states. In
1716–1717 he visited Denmark and France.
Those Invited by the Russian Ruler
Beyond the diplomatic contacts, a salient feature of Russia’s contact with the outside world was
that skilled individuals from Europe, the Middle East, and western Eurasian steppe came to Russia as
architects, engineers, doctors, military personnel, administrators, etc., although we have little evidence
of skills flowing outward from Russia. From Ivan III in the second half of the 15th century through
Catherine II in the second half of the 18th century, Russian rulers and their hub advisors were directly
responsible for bringing foreign talented and skilled individuals into Russia. They were also responsible
for hindering and preventing skilled individuals from leaving the country.
Doctors
Some 200 foreign physicians and apothecaries (30 from England and Scotland) served the
Muscovite court in the 16th and 17th centuries. 35 In the 17 th century, the government created an
Apothecary Chancery (Aptekarskii prikaz) to oversee the import of European medical personnel,
34 See my “The Mongol Origins of Muscovite Political Institutions,” Slavic Review, 49, no. 4 (1990): 528.
35 Sabine Dumshat, “Mediki iz Anglii i Shotlandii na sluzhbe u Moskovskikh gosudarei: Metodiko-
bibliograficheskii ocherk,” Vestnik Moskovskogo universiteta, series 8: Istoriia, 2000, no. 4: 85–101.
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medical equipment, and medicines. 36 Such contact continued to expand throughout this period. Among
the doctors was the Englishman Samuel Collins who was the physician for Tsar Aleksei from 1659 to
1666 and who wrote an account of his time in Russia. 37 In the 18th century, among the European doctors
who came to Russia were the Scottish physicians John Bell (1691–1780) and John Cook who left travel
accounts. 38
Foreign Administrators
Until the middle of the 15 th century, Muscovite governmental administration was similar to that
of a steppe khanate, based on personal rule and allegiances, for reasons that I explained in Muscovy and
the Mongols. By the end of the 15 th century, Muscovite governmental administration had already begun
the transformation to a dynastic state, similar to that of other sedentary states of Afro-Eurasia. This
transformation took place both in regard to the governing side and the physical manifestation side of
power and authority. The changes involved in this transformation included the establishment of a law
code (1497), setting up the means of maintaining a standing army (1482), creation of symbols of
dynastic rule, and the conversion of the administration from a personal to a professional apparatus.
These transformations coincided with the influx of experienced Greek and Italian governmental
personnel and Italian architectural and engineering masters.
36 Eve Levin, “The Administration of Western Medicine in Seventeenth-Century Russia,” in Modernizing
Muscovy: Reform and Social Change in Seventeenth-Century Russia, ed. Jarmo Kotilaine and Marshall Poe
(London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2004), 363.
37 Samuel Collins, The Present State of Russia (London, 1667).
38 John Bell, Travels from St. Petersburg in Russia to Diverse Parts of Asia, 2 vols. (Glasgow: Robert and
Andrew Foulis, 1763). John Cook, Voyages and Travels through the Russian Empire, Tartary, and Part of the
Kingdom of Persia, 2 vols. (Edinburgh: Printed for the Author, 1770).
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Among the Italian administrators was Jacobo, who was master of the mint in 1463. 39 He was
followed by Gian Battista della Volpe (Ivan Friazin), a native of Vicenza, who also served as the main
liaison for Ivan III in the negotiations surrounding his marriage to Zoë.
Among the Greeks in Moscow was Demetrios Kabakes (Cavathis) Ralevs (Raoul), who, like
Georgios Tarchaniotes, came from Morea and was a student of Georgios Gemistos Plethon, a Platonist
philosopher at the Morean court. 40 Demetrios accompanied Zoë on her trip to Moscow in May 1472 and
stayed until January 1473. He returned to Moscow as an envoy in 1474. 41 He has been described as a
“daring social and political reformer,” but his brief stays may have allowed him the opportunity to
convey only his philosophical views of governing, similar to what Al-Maghili (ca. 1425–1504) did a
couple of decades later in Songhay (see chapter 7 “Governmental Institutions and the Legal System”).
Subsequently, Andreas Paliaologus, the titular despot of Morea went to Moscow in 1480 and again in
the winter of 1489/90. Andreas’ daughter Maria went to Moscow to marry Vasilii Mikhailovich, prince
of Vereia. 42
The double-headed eagle, which became the Russia state symbol, was similar to and could have
been based on the Palaiologan family symbol (with a simpilema, or dynastic cipher on the breast of the
bird). Zoë/Sofia was entitled to its use, not so much because she was the niece of the last Palaiologan
39 Barbieri, Milano e Mosca, 82–84: letter of Francesco Sforza to Jacobo, “Monetario monet auri et argenti totius
regni Illustrissimi domini Albi imperatoris” (ibid., 82).
40 Nevra Necipoğlu, Bzyantium between the Ottomans and the Latins: Politics and Society in the Late Empire
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 274–276. Cf. S[terios N.] Fassoulakis [Phassoulakes], The
Byzantine Family of Raoul-Ral(l)es (Athens: S. Fassoulakis, 1973), 83−85.
41 PSRL, 25: 300, 305.
42 Later, Prince Michael and Maria fled to Lithuania over the matter of some jewels they received from Sofia as
part of Maria’s dowry. PSRL, 6 (1st ed., 1853): 235; 20: 350; and 24: 202–203.
14

emperor of Constantinople but as the result of her father’s position as ruler of Morea. 43 With the
presence of a number of Morean Greeks prominent in the Muscovite government of Ivan III and given
his marriage to Zoë/Sofia and adoption of a state symbol that was similar to that of Morea, one may
hypothesize that the Muscovite polity’s transformation from a steppe khanate-type government to a
dynastic state was, at least, informed by those who had taken part in the Morean despotate. 44
Prominent among the Greeks who served in government positions were representatives of four
families: the Angelos-Doukas, the Lascaris, the Rhallis (Ralev, Larev), and the Tarchaniotes
(Trakhaniot). 45 They would have encountered descendents of Greeks in the government already. The
most outstanding was Dmitrii Vladimirovich Khovrin, who was from a Greek family that came to
43 See also Gustav Alef, “The Adoption of the Muscovite Two-Headed Eagle: A Discordant View,” Speculum: A
Journal of Mediaeval Studies, 41, no. 1 (1966): 1–21, repr. in Gustave Alef, Rulers and Nobles in Fifteenth-
Century Muscovy (London: Variorum, 1983), item 9, where he argued that “the prototype for the Russian eagle is
Byzantine, specifically Morean” (14). Alef further hypothesized that Ivan III adopted it to counter in an equal
manner the Holy Roman Emperor, whose insignia was also a double-headed eagle. Alef’s hypothesis could be
supported by the evidence of the Muscovite emblem from 1497, which shows a double-headed eagle very similar
to that of the Habsburgs (that is, with a crown on each eagle’s head). The Palaiologan and later Russian emblems
show one crown between the two heads.
44 On Morea from 1407 to 1460, see Nevra Necipoğlu, Byzantium between the Ottomans and the Latins: Politics
and Society in the Late Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 259–284.
45 For a discussion of the members of these families in Muscovy, See Robert Croskey, “Byzantine Greeks in Late
Fifteenth- and Early Sixteenth-Century Russia,” in The Byzantine Legacy in Eastern Europe, ed. Lowell Clucas
(Boulder, CO: East European Monographs, 1988), 35–56.
15

Moscow in 1403, served as state treasurer (1491–1509) under both Ivan III and Vasilii III 46 and is listed
as a boyar between 1492 and 1494. 47
According to the Muscovite chronicles, Ivan Ral´ Paleolog (Johannes Ralles Paliaologos) arrived
in Moscow s.a. 1485 “with his wife and children.” 48 European sources indicate that Johannes was in
Germany as late as 1482, 49 but the chronicles state that he and his family came from Constantinople. His
sons Dmitrii and Manuil became boyars and were active in Muscovite government service for over 17
years (from 1488 to 1505), also serving as envoys to Europe. 50 Their task on those trips was to recruit
artisans, craftsmen, and other specialists for the grand prince. 51 They were sent, according to information
supplied by the chronicles, as envoys to Rome, Venice, and Milan in 1488 with a report about the
victory of Muscovite forces against Kazan´. 52 In 1489/90, they returned to Moscow with Andreas, the
46 Pamiatniki diplomaticheskikh snoshenii drevnei Rossii s derzhavami inostrannymi, pt. 1: Snosheniia s
gosudarstvami evropeiskimi (St. Petersburg, 1851), col. 82 (1491); Razriadnaia kniga, 1475–1598, compiled by
V. I. Buganov, edited by M. N. Tikhomirov (Moscow: Nauka, 1966), 44 (1511).
47 SIRIO, 35: 75, no. 18, and 35: 114, no. 24.
48 PSRL, 12: 216 (6993), 222 (6998); 27: 287.
49 E. Ch. Skrzhinskaia, “Kto byli Ralevy, posly Ivana III v Italiiu (k istorii italo-russkikh sviazei v XV veke,” in
Problemy istorii mezhdunarodnykh otnoshenii: sbornik statei pamiati Akademika E. V. Tarle (Leningrad: Nauka,
1972), 267–281 (here: 280); A. L. Khoreshkevich, Russkoe gosudarstvo v sisteme mezhdunarodnykh otnoshenii
kontsa XV–nachala XVI v. (Moscow: Nauka, 1980), 211; Fassoulakis, The Byzantine Family of Raoul-Ral(l)es`;
Nicolae Iorga, Notes et extraits pour servir à l’histoire des Croisades au XVe siècle (Bucharest, 1915), 5: 126.
50 PSRL, 12: 219 (6996: Dmitrii and Manuel sent to Rome, Venice, and Milan), 222 (6998), 236 (7001), 238
(7002), 249 (7007), 258 (7013).
51 Croskey, “Byzantine Greeks,” 39.
52 PSRL, 27: 288.
16

other of Sofia, as well as with Pietro Antonio Solari and his pupil, known only as “Zamantonii,” both
of whom were called in the chronicles “masters of walls and palaces.” 53 The chronicles also tell us that
they brought “the cannon monger Jacob along with his wife; the silver master Khristofor with two pupils
from Rome; Albert the German from Lübeck; Karl with his pupil from Milan, Pietro Raika, who was a
Greek from Venice; chaplain of the white monks of the Augustinian order Ivan Spasitel´ the organ
player; as well as Leon, the Jewish doctor from Venice.” 54 Likewise, s.a. 1505 (7013), the chronicles
report that Dmitrii Ralev and Mitrofan Karacharov returned “from beyond the seas” bringing “numerous
masters, silversmiths, gunmakers, and builders” with them. 55
Architects and Engineers
The evidence concerning Italian architects and engineers in early modern Russia is extensive.
Perhaps the most visible evidence of these Italian connections is the kremlin in Moscow. 56 The present-
day appearance of the kremlin is the result of the inviting by Ivan III and Vasilii III of Italian architects
from Venice and Milan. The crenellation of the kremlin walls is an Italianate swallow tail style similar
53 PSRL, 12: 222 (Shumilov); 18: 272–273; 24: 206; 28: 154.
54 PSRL, 12: 222 (Shumilov); 18: 272–273; 24: 206; 28: 154.
55 PSRL, 6.2 (2nd ed., 2001): col. 371; 8: 244; 12: 258; 20: 375; 26: 296; Ioasafovskaia letopisʹ′, ed. A. A. Zimin
(Moscow: Akademiia nauk SSSR, 1957) 146.
56 For a discussion of Italian architectural influence in the Moscow Kremlin, see William Craft Brumfield, A
History of Russian Architecture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 95–106; and idem, Gold in
Azure: One Thousand Years of Russian Architecture (Boston: David R. Godine, 1983), 139–157; and Dmitry
Shvidkovskiy [Dmitrii Olegovich Shvidkovskii], Russian Architecture and the West, photographs by Yekaterina
Shorban, trans. Antony Wood (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007), 81–82, 84–107.
17

to those topping the walls of the Scaliger dynasty’s “Old Castle” (Castelvecchio) as well as the Ponte
Scaligero and the no-longer-standing Ponte Pietra over the Adige River in Verona.
I have presented our evidence for these Italian architects and engineers in Russia in “Appendix 1:
Italian Architects and Engineers in Russia at the End of the Fifteenth and Beginning of the Sixteenth
Century.” The appendix goes into some detail about these architects and engineers because when
historians have described their activities, they usually mention only the most prominent of the Italians
and skip over the rest. This skipping over serves to diminish the extent of their presence and activity,
which was substantial. All in all, over 20 Italian architects and engineers have been identified in the
chronicles, military registers, and archive of the Ambassadorial chancellery as doing work in Russia
between 1475 and 1538. That number compares favorably with the number of Italian and other foreign
architects and engineers in Russia in the 18th cenutry. The work the Italian architects did in the late
15th/early 16th centuries included building walls and towers of kremlins, constructing churches, making
bells, and rebuilding wooden towns, as well as being in charge of artillery. Evidence of Italian influence
on Russian manuscript page ornamentation has also been found 57 and on other buildings that are not
attributed to Italians. Shvidkovskiy identified “Italianisms” (i.e., Italian decorative motifs) in buildings
of the era of Boris Godunov. Since we have no evidence of Russian architects who traveled to Italy in
the second half of the 16th century or Italian architects who traveled to Muscovy at that time, we can
propose that the knowledge of such Italian motifs had been introduced in the first half of the 16th
century by Italians invited to Muscovy by grand princes Ivan III and Vasilii III. These examples may
reflect Russians’ having absorbed these Italian techniques. Influence on cannon mongering and other
weaponry were no doubt also learned by Russians.
57 T. B. Ukhova, “O kharaktere prelomleniia Ital´ianskikh ornametal´nykh obrazov v russkoi rukopisnoi praktike,”
in Gosudarstvennyi muzei moskovskogo Kremlia. Materialy i issledovaniia, vol. 3: Iskusstvo Moskvy perioda
formirovaniia Russkogo tsentralizovannogo gosudarstva (Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1980), 154–164.
18

Non-Italian architects and engineers
In the 17th century, a number of non-Italian architects and engineers also served the Russian
ruler. In 1624–1625, Tsar Mikhail invited the English clockmaker and master builder Christopher
Halloway along with the Russian stonemason Bazhen Ogurtsov add a multi-tiered top with a stone tent
roof to the Spassky Tower on the Moscow kremlin wall. 58 It included naked decorative statues, which
Tsar Mikhail reportedly ordered clothed. Halloway also made a chiming clock for the Spassky Tower
and added a water-lifting device to the Sviblovo Tower, which gave it the name Vodozvodnaia (Water)
Tower. The water then ran through lead pipes to the kremlin palace and garden. A document from 1631
recommended hiring Dutch workers who could build bridges, buildings, and roads. 59 Cornelius Klaus, a
Dutch engineer built forts in Rostov and at Terki in the 1630s. In 1634, a Swedish mason constructed a
stone bridge in Moscow. 60 During the regency of Sofia, a number of stone buildings, including the new
Ambassadorial chancellery, were built in Moscow. In 1689, the French traveler La Neuville remarked
that within the previous few years, “three thousand Houses were built of stone in Moscow.” 61
In the 18th century, more Italian architects were invited to Russia, such as Francesco Bartolomeo
Rastrelli (1700–1771), who arrived with his father the sculptor Carlo Bartolomeo Rastrelli (1675–1744)
in St. Petersburg in 1715. The younger Rastrelli developed a method by which he combined the
Muscovite baroque style of the late 17th century with the Italian architectural style of the early 18th
58 Williams, Bells of Russia, 73.
59 Fuhrmann, Origins, 198. Cf. A. Lappo-Danilevskii, “Inozemtsy v Rossii v tsarstvovanie Mikhaila
Fedorovicha,” ZhMNP 241 (October 1885): 66–105.
60 Fuhrmann, Origins, 199 [citing Solov’ev, Istoriia, 9: 306; and Lubimenko, “Trud inozemtsev,” 62].
61 Foy de la Neuville, An Account of Muscovy: As It Was in the Year 1689 (London: Printed for Edward Castle,
next Scotland Yard, by Whitehall, 1699), 92. Hughes referred to Le Neuville’s number as “a characteristic degree
of exaggeration.” Hughes, Sophia, 151.
19

century. He built a palace for Prince Dmitrii Kantemir (1673–1723), the former ruler of Moldavia and
father of the writer Antiokh Kantemir, in 1721, and was appointed senior court architect in 1730.
Among the buildings that he constructed were the Petrodvorets Palace in Peterhof (1747–1755), St.
Andrews Church in Kyiv (1748–1767), Smolny Convent in St. Petersburg (1748–1764), the Vorontsov
Palace in St. Petersburg (1749–1757), the Catherine Palace in Tsarskoe selo (1752–1756), the Stroganov
Palace in St. Petersburg (1753–1754), and the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg (1754–1762). In 1766, the
Italian architect Antonio Rinaldi built a palace for Gregory Orlov at Gatchina. In 1768, Rinaldi
constructed the Marble Palace in St. Petersburg facing the Neva River for Orlov. Other Italian architects
who worked in Russia in the second half of the 18th century included Giacomo Quarenghi (1744–1817),
Vincenzo Brenna (1747–1820), and Carlo Rossi (1775–1849).
The Scottish architect Charles Cameron (1743–1812) went to Russia in 1779. He was the main
architect for refurbishing the so-called the Catherinian Palace in Tsarskoe selo. The German architect
Johann Friedrich Braunstein had built a summer residence there in 1717 for Catherine I. Empress
Elizabeth had it torn down and commissioned Rastrelli to build a grand palace, which he did in his
Italianate rococo style. Catherine II did not much like it and commissioned Cameron to refurbish one of
the wings, which he did in neo-Palladian style. He also designed and supervised construction of the
Agate rooms in a Greek revival style, Catherine’s personal apartments, and the Cameron Gallery in the
neo-classical style. In addition, he also designed and supervised the construction of a town, Sofia, as an
administrative center where workers and Scottish craftsmen whom he invited could live while they
worked on the refurbishing. Cameron is also known for the Pavlovsk Palace. 62
A French architect, Michel Vallin de la Mothe, whom his cousin, the architect J. F. Blondel
recommended to the Russian ambassador in Paris, Aleksei Petrovich Bestuzhev-Ryumin, was invited to
62 Dimitri Shvidkovsky [D. O. Shvidkovskii], The Empress and the Architect: British Architecture and Gardens at
the Court of Catherine the Great (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996).
20

go to Russia. Mothe built the gallery for the new Academy of Arts. Catherine II comissioned Mothe to
build a small palace (later called the Little Hermitage) as her personal retreat from the Winter Palace,
which she had found overwhelming. The French sculptor Ètienne Maurice Falconet spent 12 years in
Russia from 1766 to 1778 working on the equestrian statue of Peter I, the “Bronze Horseman.” His
apprentice, Marie-Anne Collot, then 18 years old, came with him and did the head and face of the rider.
Noted for her busts of famous people, she was elected to the Russian Imperial Academy of Art in 1767.
Lithuanians, Tatars, and Ruthenians
Lithuanian nobles and Tatar princes who came over to the service of the Muscovite ruler were an
essential part of the rise of the Muscovite principality to empire.
During the 15 th and early 16 th centuries, Lithuanian noblemen entered the service of the
Muscovite grand prince. According to the study of Oswald Backus, there were four main motivations for
the desertion of Lithuanian nobles for Moscow: (1) “dissatisfaction with the tendency toward
centralization”; (2) “the preferred position of Catholicism” in Lithuania although “it rarely played a
decisive role”; (3) “a feeling [among West Russian boyars] that their areas were being treated unfairly in
comparison with other areas”; and (4) “a combination of political and military factors” including
“[c]ompetition between members of the same local princely families,” He continued: “Muscovite policy
may well have included encouragement of strife between members of border families,” and “[p]erhaps
Moscow’s growing military power encouraged nobles to consider desertion as a way of gaining more
lands and even higher offices but also as a means of avoiding eventual conquest.” 63 The most prominent
of the Lithuanian nobility in Muscovy were the Patrikeevs. By the last decade of the fifteenth century,
63 Oswald Backus, Motives of West Russian Nobles in Deserting Lithuania for Moscow 1377−1514 (Lawrence:
University of Kansas Press, 1957), 107−110.
21

they dominated the boyar duma. 64 In 1490, three members of their clan (Prince Iurii Iur´evich, Prince
Daniil Shchenia Vasil´evich, and Prince Ivan Bulgak Vasil´evich) and a brother-in-law (Prince Semen
Ivanovich Riapolovskii) were boyars in a duma of 16 members. All but Daniel Shchenia Vasil´evich
were disgraced in connection with the succession crisis of 1497–1502. According to Herberstein, Vasilii
III subsequently used some 1,500 Lithuanians and “various foreign riff-raff” (vsiakii prishly sbrod) as
infantry near Tula against the Crimean Tatars in 1517. 65
The military role of Tatars as commanders of regiments in the Muscovite army had a long
tradition. According to the Muscovite chronicles and military registers, in the 15th century a number of
them, such as Tsarevich Kasim in 1450 and 1467, Tsarevich Mehmed Emin in 1487 and 1496, and
Tsarevich Saltagan (Saltygan) in 1499, commanded regiments against the Tatars of Kazanʹ′. Others, such
as Tsarevich Danyar in 1473 and Tsarevich Saltagan (Saltygan) in 1491, commanded regiments against
the Great Orda. In yet other cases, Tsarevich Yakup commanded a regiment against Dmitrii Shemiaka in
Kokshenga in 1452, and Tsarevich Danyar commanded a regiment against Novgorod in 1471 and
1478. 66
In the 16th century, Tsarevich Kudai Kul converted to Christianity as Peter Ibramovich in 1505,
married the sister of Grand Prince Vasilii III and was appointed commander to the main regiment of the
Muscovite army in 1506. For the next 17 years, Vasilii III and Tsarevich Peter were inseparable, except
when Peter commanded the defense of Moscow against the Crimean Tatar attack of 1521 (Vasilii fled
the city for safety). Their close relationship led the historian A. A. Zimin to suggest that Vasilii planned
to declare Peter as his successor. Tsarevich Peter’s death in 1523 may have prompted Vasilii to divorce
64 Nancy Shields Kollmann, “Consensus Politics: The Dynastic Crisis of the 1490s Reconsidered,” Russian
Review, 45 (1986): 235–267.
65 Herberstein, Rerum Moscoviticarum Commentarii, 179.
66 PSRL, vols. 6, 12, 13, 18; Ioasafovskaia letopisʹ′; and Razriadnaia kniga, 1475–1598, 17–35.
22

his wife Solomoniia, with whom he had not produced any heirs, and marry Elena Glinskaia since he did
not want any of his brothers to succeed him. 67
In the first Muscovite campaign against Livonia in 1558, Tsar Shah-Ali, the former khan of
Kazanʹ′, commanded the main regiment, Tsarevich Tokhtamysh commanded the vanguard, and
Tsarevich Kaibula (Abdulla) commanded the right wing. 68 Shah-Ali continued to command regiments
for Muscovy until his death in 1567. Tokhtamysh commanded the vanguard in Smolensk in 1562 and in
the Polotsk campaign of 1563. Tsarevich Bekbulat, the brother of Tokhtamysh, commanded Muscovite
regiments between 1562 and 1566. Tsarevich Ibak was one of the commanders of the main regiment in
1560 at Pskov, in 1562 at Smolensk, the rear regiment against Polotsk in 1563, and served in the
Muscovite army until 1567. Tsarevich Kaibula commanded the left-wing regiment in the Polotsk
campaign of 1563. 69 Likewise, Tsar Simeon Kasaevich (formerly Yadigâr Mehmet) commanded
Muscovite regiments mainly on the southern frontier after he converted to Orthodoxy in 1553 until his
death in 1565, but he also commanded a regiment at Velikie Luki in 1562 and the right-wing regiment in
the Polotsk campaign of 1563. Prince Ivan Magmetovich Kanbarov, who had converted to Russian
Orthodoxy, served as commander of the rearguard of the Russian army at Viaz´ma in 1564. Later that
year, he was a commander of the main regiment that attacked Ozerishche. By 1565, he was serving in
67 Donald Ostrowski, “The Extraordinary Career of Tsarevich Kudai Kul/Peter in the Context of Relations
between Muscovy and Kazanʹ′,” in States, Societies, Cultures: East and West: Essays in Honor of Jaroslaw
Pelenski, ed. Janusz Duzinkiewicz, Myroslav Popovych, Vladyslav Verstiuk, and Natalia Yakovenko (New York:
Ross Publishing, 2004), 697–719.
68 See George Vernadsky, A History of Russia, 5 vols. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1943–1969), vol. 5:
The Tsardom of Muscovy 1547–1682, 94.
69 See Janet Martin, “Tatars in the Muscovite Army during the Livonian War,” in The Military and Society in
Russia, 1450–1917, ed. Eric Lohr and Marshall Poe (Leiden: Brill, 2002), 366–371.
23

Pskov, where in 1567 he helped turn back a Lithuanian attack. 70 In addition, Tsar Alexander (formerly
Ötemish-Girey) accompanied Ivan IV on the Polotsk campaign, but he was too young to be in
command. 71
Simeon Bekbulatovich is one of the only Tatars to have commanded regiments in the Muscovite
army both before conversion (as Saín Bulat) and after conversion (as Simeon Bekbulatovich), which
occurred by July 15, 1573. 72 During his career he had three identities, each associated with a different
name. As Saín Bulat he became khan of the Kasimov Khanate and was, according to a genealogical
analysis done in the 19th century, a great grandson of Akhmat, the last khan of the Great Orda, and a
descendant of Chinggis Khan through his eldest son Jochi. As a Muscovite serving prince, under the
name Simeon Bekbulatovich, he was a prominent military and political figure who was involved in one
of the more puzzling episodes in Russian history—his replacing Tsar Ivan IV as grand prince of all Rusʹ′
in 1575–1576. Later he was made grand prince of Tver´, and still later he was tonsured and ended his
days as the Elder Stefan, being buried in the Simonov Monastery in Moscow. In certain respects his
career paralleled that of his wife’s great grandfather Kudai Kul (Peter Ibraimov) and in other respects
went beyond it. 73
70 Razriadnaia kniga 1475–1598 gg., 209, 211, 221.
71 See Martin, “Tatars in the Muscovite Army,” 368–369.
72 N. M. Karamzin, Istoriia Gosudarstva Rossiiskogo, 5th ed. (St. Petersburg: Eduard Prats, 1843), 9: col. 149,
citing Delo Datsk., no. 2, fol. 41 that by July 15, 1573, he was called Simeon. Cf. Velʹ′iaminov-Zernov,
Issledovaniia o kasimovskikh tsariakh, 2: 3, 11–24; and N. V. Lileev, Simeon Bekbulatovich (Tverʹ′: Tipografiia
Gubernskogo Pravleniia, 1891) 17–20.
73 See my “Simeon Bekbulatovich’s Remarkable Career as Tatar Khan, Grand Prince of Rusʹ′, and Monastic
Elder,” Russian History/Histoire Russe 39, nos. 3/4 (2012): 269–299 and my “Response.” Ibid., 339–345.
24

Others
Kazanian Tatar officials 74
Tatars in Russian cavalry 75
Another individual, who though neither a Lithuanian nor a Tatar, followed in the path of these
predecessors, was Ernst Johann von Biron (1690–1772). He was from Courland and became the favorite
of the future Empress Anna Ioannovna. Although he was reviled at the time and after by members of the
Russian nobility, such as Aleksei Bestuzhev-Riumen, whom Biron had replaced as the object of Anna’s
affection, and his influence characterized as the bironovshchina (tyranny of Biron), he was a capable
administrator who had the complete trust of the ruler. 76 Even more prominent than Biron, another
German, Heinrich Johann Friedrich (Andrei Ivanovich) Osterman (1686–1747) dominated foreign
affairs. He was from Westphalia, where his father was a pastor. He entered Russian service in 1697 and
rose through various government positions to become minister of foreign affairs (1734–1740) and then
vice-chancellor (1740–1741). In 1714, Heinrich Fick (1679–1750) entered Russian service. Fick had
been born in Hamburg but served as a Swedish military officer from 1700 to 1710. Because of his
experience in Sweden, Peter I sent Fick to Stockholm to study the Swedish colleges directly. His report,
according to his biographer A. R. Cederberg, contributed directly to the Petrine administrative reforms. 77
74 Romaniello, The Elusive Empire
75 Romaniello, The Elusive Empire
76 Evgenii V. Anisimov, Five Empresses: Court Life in Eighteenth-Century Russia, trans. Kathleen Carroll
(Westport, CT: Praeger, 2004), 72–73, 96–97, 100–101.
77 A. R. Cederberg, Heinrich Fick. Ein Beitrag zur russischen Geschichte des XVIII. Jahrhunderts (Dorpat/Tartu:
K. Mattiesens Buchdreckerei, 1930). Cf. Peterson, Peter the Great’s Administrative and Judicial Reforms, passim.
25

On a less serious though still important note, Anna had two European-born court jesters. One of
them was Pietro Mira (Pedrillo), an Italian violinist who came to St. Petersburg during the reign of Peter
I, stayed on as court jester under Anna, then returned to Italy. 78
Scottish, Dutch, and German Mercenaries
During the 16th and 17th centuries, thousands of European mercenaries went to Russia. During
the reign of Ivan IV, a number of those European mercenaries left written accounts of their sojourn,
including Hans Slitte, 79 Johann Taube and Elbert Kruse, 80 and Albert Schlichting. 81 During the Time of
Troubles, we find the French mercenary Jacques Margeret, who served in the Russian army from 1600
78 Anisimov, Five Empresses, 89.
79 See his Letter to the Danish king Christian III. F. Adelung, Kritisch-Literarische Übersicht der Reisenden in
Russland bis 1700, 2 vols. (St. Petersburg, 1846), 1: 205–208; Magazin für die neue Histoire und Geographie
(MHG), 22 vols., ed. A. F. Büsching (Hamburg and Halle, 1746–1788), here: 7 (1773): 299. Slitte also tried albeit
unsuccessfully to recruit large numbers of other European mercenaries.
80 “Erschreckliche / greuliche und unerhorte Tyranney Iwan Wasilowictz / jtzo regierenden Grossfürsten in der
Muscow,” in Beiträge zur Kenntnis Russlands und seiner Geschichte, ed. G. Ewers and M. von Englehardt
(Dorpat, 1816), 185–238; “Poslanie Ioganna Taube i Elberta Kruze kak istoricheskii istochnik,” ed. and trans. M.
G. Roginskii, in Russkii istoricheskii zhurnal, 8 (1922): 10–59.
81 “Nova ex Moscovia per nobilem Albertum Schlichting allta de Principis Iwani vita et tyranide,” in Scriptores
rerum polonicarum, ed. J. Szujski, 20 vols (Cracow, 1872–1917), 1: 145–147; Hugh Graham, trans. and ed., “‘A
Brief Account of the Character and Brutal Rule of Vasil´evich, Tyrant of Muscovy’ (Albert Schlichting on Ivan
Groznyi), Canadian-American Slavic Studies, 9 (1975): 204–272 (an English translation of Schichting’s account
appears on pp. 267–272).
26

to 1606 and left an account of Russia during the time he was there. 82 The Hanoverian mercenary Conrad
Bussow, who after serving in the Polish and Swedish armies, fled to Moscow and served in the Russia
army from 1601 to 1606. He was given an estate in Kaluga, but subsequently fell in with, in turn,
Bolotnikov, Sapieha, and False Dmitrii II. By 1611, convinced that the Poles had lost, Bussow went to
Riga and wrote an account of the last years of the reign of Boris Godunov and the Time of Troubles to
1611. 83
Based on his sojourn in Russian in 1588–1589, Giles Fletcher indicates 4,300 Polish mercenaries
in Russian service; another 4,000 “Chirchasses” (Ukrainian Cossacks) under the Poles but 3,500 of
whom were stationed in garrisons “abroad”; around 150 Dutch and Scots; and about 100 “Greekes,
Turks, Danes, and Sweadens, all in one band.” 84 Boris Godunov employed a German bodyguard. In
1609, according to Conrad Bussow, 3,000 “Germans and troops from other nations” under the command
of Jakob de las Gardie arrived from Sweden with Prince Michael Vasil´evich Skopin-Shuiskii to assist
in the battle against the Poles. In 1610, Charles IX of Sweden (r. 1604–1611) sent 10,000 mercenary
soldiers to Tsar Vasilii Shuiskii to aid him in his battle against the Poles. In the 1630s, Patriarch Filaret
and Tsar Mikhail hired a number of European mercenaries for the initial attempt to form new model
regiments (soldaty). Two agents, the Scottish Col. Alexander Leslie and the Holsteiner Heinrich von
82 Jacques Margeret, Estat d l’Empire de Russie et Grand Duché de Muscovie (Paris, 1607); Jacques Margeret,
The Russian Empire and the Grand Duchy of Muscovy, ed. and trans. Chester S. L. Dunning (Pittsburgh:
University of Pittsburgh Press, 1983.
83 Conrad Bussow, The Disturbed State of the Russian Realm, trans. and ed. G. Edward Orchard (Montreal:
McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1994).
84 Giles Fletcher, Of the Russe Common Wealth: Or, Maner of gouernement of the Russe emperour, (commonly
called the Emperour of Moskouia) with the manners, and fashions of the people of that countrey (London: Printed
by T[homas] D[awson] for Thomas Charde, 1591), 55–56.
27

Dam were ordered by Mikhail on January 25, 1631, to go abroad and recruit 5,000 soldiers and the
necessary officers to command them. 85 According to the historian of the Smolensk War E. D.
Stashevskii, Leslie hired 2,200 mercenaries in northern Germany and Van Dama hired 1,760
mercenaries further west in Europe. 86 A few thousand more English, Dutch, and German officers were
recruited by Sir John Hebdon (ca. 1612−1670) between 1660 and 1663. 87 The present-day military
historian William Reger IV estimated the number of foreign military officers in Russia between 1640
and 1670 as anywhere from 4,000 to 7,000, but “the total number of foreign officers probably rarely
exceeded 3,000–4,000 or so in any given year….” 88
Among the most prominent of the mercenaries who went to Russia was the Scot Patrick Gordon
(1635–1699). Entering the service of Tsar Aleksei in 1661, he was sent on a mission to England in 1665.
He visited England again in 1686. Gordon was awarded the rank of major-general in 1678 and
lieutentant-general in 1683 for his service. He served as quartermaster during Golitsyn’s two campaigns
against the Crimean khanate in 1687 and 1689. Siding with the forces supporting Peter I in the
overthrow of the regent, the tsarevna Sofiia Alekseevna, in 1689, he gained the trust of Peter, who
regarded Gordon in much the same way Vasilii III trusted Tsarevich Peter and Ivan IV trusted Simeon
Bekbulatovich in that he left him in command of Moscow during his travels to Europe and appointed
him general-in-chief of the army. Gordon left a 6-volume diary of his experience, but it has yet to be
85 SGGD, 3: 316–322. The document includes the insturction not to hire Frenchmen becaue they were Catholic.
86 E. D. Stashevskii, Smolenskaia voina, 1632–1634 g.g. Organizatsiia i sostoianie Moskovskoi armii (Kiev:
Univ. tip. Akts. Ob-va pechat. i izd. dela N. T. Korchak-Novitskogo, 1919), 55–56.
87 SGGD, vol. 3, no. 81; I. Ia. Gurliand, Ivan Gebdon, kommissarius i rezident: materʹialy po istorii
administratsiia Moskovskogo gosudarstva vtoroi poloviny XVII veka (Iaroslavlʹ: Tip. Gub. pravleniia, 1903), 25.
88 W. M. Reger IV, “Baptizing Mars: The Conversion of European Mercenaries,” in The Military and Society in
Russia 1450–1917, ed. Eric Lohr and Marshall Poe (Leiden: Brill, 2002), 390.
28

published in full in the language it was written; namely, English. 89 Another Scot, Paul Menesius
(Menzies) (1637–1694), went into the service of Tsar Aleksei in 1661 after defecting from the Polish
army. In 1672–1673, Menesius went on a diplomatic mission to Prussia, Dresden, Austria, Venice, and
the Vatican to enlist support for Russia’s war against the Ottoman Empire. After returning to Russia in
1674, according to La Neuville, he was promoted to major-general and made the tutor for the future
Peter I until 1682 when the regent Sofiia sent him to serve in Smolensk. 90 In 1689, he was under the
command of Golitsyn in the campaign against the Crimean Tatars. Subsequently he too supported Peter
during the overthrow of Sofiia. 91
The German-born Georg Wilhelm de Gennin (1676–1750) became a Russian military officer
invited by Franz Lefort in 1697 during Peter’s Grand Embassy. He fought in the Northern War as an
artillery officer and fortification engineer. Subsequently he managed the Olonets iron founderies and
still later the government factories in the Urals. Among the towns he is considered to have helped in
founding are Petrozavodsk, Ekaterinburg, and Perm´, and in 1735, he wrote an account of the factories
89 A one-volume abbreviated version appeared in Aberdeen in 1859. Passages from the Diary of General Patrick
Gordon of Auchleuchries, A.D. 1635-A.D. 1699 (Aberdeen: Printed for the Spalding Club, 1859).
A three-volume German translation appeared between 1849 and 1852 as Tagebuch des Generalen Patrick
Gordon, während seiner Kriegsdienste unter den Schweden und Polen vom Jahre 1655 bis 1661, und seines
Aufenthaltes in Russland vom Jahre 1661 bis 1699, 3 vols., ed. M. A. Obolenski and M. C. Posselt (Moscow:
Univ.-Buchdr., 1849–1852). The first 2 volumes of his diary appeared in Russian translation in 2000 and 2002,
respectively. The English edition of those 2 volumes was published by the University of Aberdeen in 2009. The
Diary of General Patrick Gordon of Auchleuchries, 1635–1699, vol. 1: 1635–1659, vol. 2: 1659–1667, ed.
Dmitry Fedosov (Aberdeen: University of Aberdeen, 2009).
90 La Neuville, An Account of Muscovy, 6–7.
91 A. Francis Steuart, Scottish Influences in Russian History (Glasgow: James Maclehose, 1913), 37–38.
29

of the Urals and western Siberia. 92 In 1721, the Danish-born German soldier-engineer Count Burkhard
Christoph von Münnich (1683–1767) entered Russian service with plans to build a fortress at Kronstadt.
Over the course of the next four decades he was involved in a number of engineering projects and
reform of the Russian army.
In 1698, the Norwegian Corneilius Cruys (1655–1727) entered Russian service as a vice-admiral
and became one of the most important naval advisors of Peter I. In 1704, the Dane Vitus Bering (1681–
1741) entered Russian service in the navy. Between 1725 and 1730, he led the first Kamchatka
expedition, which discovered the sea and strait named after him. He died while leading the second
Kamchatka expedition. Bering’s second in command was another Dane, Martin Spangburg (d. 1761),
who subsequently led a naval expedition to Honshu in 1738. In 1788, the American John Paul Jones (as
Pavel Dzhonz) went into service as rear admiral for Catherine II. He was given command of the 24-gun
flagship Vladimir. In June at a battle on the Liman, an inlet of the Black Sea, during the siege of
Ochakov, he repulsed an Ottoman attack. Recalled to St. Petersburg, he was awarded the Order of St.
Anne, but left Russian service soon after as a result of becoming disgruntled with intrigues against him
instigated by Gregory Potemkin and Prince Charles of Nassau-Siegen, another foreign mercenary. 93
Learned Monks from the Kievan Academy and Other Churchmen
In 1518, Maksim the Greek arrived in Moscow, having been sent by the Patriarch of
Constantinople at the request of Grand Prince Vasilii III for a learned translator. Along with him,
92 G. V. Gennin, Opisanie Ural´skikh i Siberskikh zavodov (1735; Moscow: Gosudarstvennoe izdatel´stvo
“Istoriia zavodov”, 1937); translated into English as Description of Ural and Siberian Factories in 1735
(Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Libraries and National Science Foundation, 1992).
93 F. A. Golder, John Paul Jones in Russia (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Page, 1927); Lincoln Lorenz, The
Admiral and the Empress: John Paul Jones and Catherine the Great (New York, Bookman Associates, 1954).
30

esides the Muscovite envoys, the merchants Vasilii Kopylov and Ivan Varavin, were an envoy of the
Patriarch of Constantinople, Metropolitan Gregory, the Patriarch’s deacon Dionysios, the former
hegumen of the Panteleimon Monastry Savva, a Greek cleric Neofont, and Lavrentii the Bulgarian. 94
Archbishop Arsenios subsequently stayed on in Moscow to help with the transition of Moscow
to a patriarchate. In 1605, he placed the crown of Vladimir Monomakh on the head of Pseudo-Dmitrii in
the Arkhangel´sk Cathedral. 95 Another influx of skilled Greek ecclesiastics occurred after the
establishment of the patriarchate, this time to impart knowledge about proper church administrative
procedures and performance of religious rituals as well as matters of doctrine.
Tsar Aleksei invited learned monks from the Kiev Academy 96 to help with book correcting,
including Epifanii Slavinetskii (1649), Arsenii Satanovskii (1649), and Damskin Ptitskii (1650). The
Greek archimandrite Dionysios lived in Moscow from 1655 to 1669 and worked on book correcting. He
headed the Moscow printing office (1663–1669), and declared that the mistakes in Russian books were
the result of the Moscow metropolitans no longer being appointed by the Patriarch of Constantinople
after 1448. Later in the 17th century, clerics from the Kievan Academy, such as Simeon Polotskii
(1629–1680), who arrived in Moscow in 1663, made an impact on Muscovite culture in the areas of
poetry, playwriting, and theology. Feofan Prokopovich arrived in Moscow in 1716 at the invitation of
Peter I and became Peter’s panegyrist and chief advisor on religious matters. The Likhudes brothers
94 PSRL, 13: 28; SRIO, 495.
95 A. Dmitrievskii, Arkhiepiskop elassonskii Arsenii i memuary ego iz russkoi istorii (Kiev: Tip. Imp. universiteta
sv. Vladimira, 1899).
96 On the Kiev Academy, see Alexander Sydoroenko, The Kievan Academy in the Seventeenth Century (Ottowa:
University of Ottawa Press, 1977).
31

from Greece taught at the Slaviano-Greek-Latin Academy. 97 Arsenios the Greek and Dionysios Iberites
translated Greek works into Russian in the mid-17th century. Paisos Ligarides (1609–1708), who was
trained at the Uniate St. Athanasius college in Rome and who became Metropolitan of Gaza, was invited
to come to Moscow by Patriarch Nikon in 1657. He came not then but in 1662 at the invitation of Tsar
Aleksei and became an important advisor to him in regard to the Nikon affair. 98
These learned monks were predecessors to the European scientists and mathematicians who
came to Russia to work at the Academy of Sciences. It may seem a bit of a stretch to pivot from learned
Russian, Ukrainian, and Greek monks to European scientists, but both groups were engaging in a similar
and often overlapping intellectual activities. As Nikolaos Chrissidis wrote about the instruction at the
Slavo-Greco-Latin Academy by the Leichoudes brothers during the 1680s and 1690s “sanctioned
philosophical and scientific inverstigation as tools for understanding the material world; it also signified
the first steps towards the institutionalization of scientific education in Russia.” 99
European scientists and mathematicians
The Petersburg Academy of Sciences (the forerunner of the Russian Academy of Sciences) was
established by a Senate decree of January 28 (O.S.), 1724, with the approval of Peter I. 100 The origins of
the Academy of Sciences are credited to conversations and correspondence that Peter had with the
97 Nikolaos A. Chrissidis, “A Jesuit Aristotle in Seventeenth-Century Russia: Cosmology and the Planetary
System in the Slavo-Greco-Latin Academy,” in Modernizing Muscovy, 391–416.
98 Ihor Ševčenko, “A New Greek Source for the Nikon Affair: Sixty-One Answers Given by Paisios Ligarides to
Tsar Aleksej Mixajlovič,” Palaeoslavica, 7 (1999): 65–83; cf. Lupinin, Religious Revolt, 99–100.
99 Chrissidis, “Jesuit Aristotle,” 393.
100 Petr Petrovich Pekarskii, Istoriia Imperatorskoi akademii nauk v Peterburge, 2 vols. (St. Petersburg:
Izdatel´stvo Otdeleniia russkogo iazyka i slovesnosti Imperatorskoi akademii nauk, 1870–1873).
32

German philosopher and mathematician Gottfried Leibniz, whom Peter had met on several occasions.
The Academy benefited in its early years from a close connection to the University of Leipzig. Within
its first two years, the Academy of Sciences had attracted 16 European scholars (13 Germans, 2 Swiss,
and 1 Frenchman). 101 Over the course of the 18th century, the Academy of Sciences attracted many
more European-born scholars and scientists.
The Swiss mathematicians Daniel and Nicholaus Bernoulli, sons of Johann Bernoulli, were
invited by Peter I and went to St. Petersburg as professor of mathematics and physiology, respectively.
Johann died of appendicitis in 1726 and Daniel returned to the University of Basel in 1733, but not
before arranging for a replacement for his brother at the Academy of Sciences. The Swiss physicist and
mathematician Leonhard Euler (1707–1783) arrived in St. Petersburg on May 17, 1727, and was given
the position in physics at the Academy of Sciences. 102 After the death of the Empress Anna Ioannovna in
the fall of 1740, Euler, according to his unpublished autobiography, became concerned about the
political turmoil and heightened xenophobia. 103 Euler accepted the invitation of Frederick II to come to
Berlin in 1741. After Catherine II ascended the throne in 1762, she invited Euler back to St. Petersburg,
an invitation he accepted in 1766.
101 Joseph Lawrence Black, G. F. Müller and the Imperial Academy of Sciences, 1725–1783: First Steps in the
Development of the Historical Sciences in Russia (Kingston-Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1986),
11.
102 William Dunham, Euler: The Master of Us All (Washington, DC: Mathematical Association of America,
1999); Emil Alfred Fellmann, Leonhard Euler, trans. Erika Gautschi and Walter Gautschi (Basel: Birkhäuser,
2007).
103 According to Ron Calinger, “Leonhard Euler: The First St. Petersburg Years (1727–1741),” Historia
Mathematica 23 (1996): 157.
33

The mathematician and astronomer Anders Johan Lexell (Andrei Ivanovich Leksel) (1740–
1784), who was born and educated in Sweden, arrived in St. Petersburg in 1768 on the recommendation
of Euler. Except for an 18-month tour of European cities in 1780–1781, Lexell remained in St.
Petersburg until his own death, replacing Euler after the latter died in 1783. Other foreign
mathematicians who were given positions at the Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg were the
German mathematician Christian Goldbach (1690–1764), who was known for stating what became
known as the Goldbach Conjecture, that all even integers greater than 2 can be expressed as the sum of
two primes (so, e.g., 4 = 3+1; 6 = 3+3; 8= 7+1, etc.). He came to St. Petersburg in 1725 where he was
appointed to a position in mathematics at the Academy of Sciences. In 1728, he became tutor to Tsar
Peter II, and in 1742 entered the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He died in Moscow.
The German philospher and mathematician Georg Bernhard Bülfinger (1693–1750) occupied the
Chair of Logic, Metaphysics, and Moral Obligation at the Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg from
1725 to 1731. The German botanist Johann Georg Gmelin (1709–1755) received a fellowship from the
Academy of Sciences in 1728 and became professor of chemistry and natural history in 1731. From
1733 to 1736, he and Stepan Krasheninnikov (at the time his student) traveled across Siberia cataloging
flora. They then joined Vitus Bering’s second Kamchatka expedition until 1743. Gmelin left Russia for
Tübingen in 1747 where he was appointed professor of medicine. The German embryologist Caspar
Friedrich Wolff (1733–1794) occupied the Chair of Anatomy at the Academy of Sciences in St.
Petersburg for 27 years from 1767 until his death.
The French astronomer and geographer Joseph-Nicolas Delisle arrived in Russia in 1726 where
he set up and ran the school of astronomy. A map he prepared of the North Pacific was used by Vitus
Bering. In 1747, Delisle returned to France and constructed his own observatory. The physicist Georg
Wolfgang Kraft (1701–1754), was invited by Bülfinger to go to St. Petersburg, which he did in 1725.
34

Kraft helped set up the department of mathematics at the Academy of Sciences. In 1744, he returned to
Tübingen where he became professor of mathematics.
The Leipzig historian Gerhard Friedrich Müller (1705–1783) went to St. Petersburg in 1725. He
took part in the Second Kamchatka expedition between 1733 and 1743. Upon returning to St.
Petersburg, he began studying the primary sources for Rus´ history. His study of the chronicles led him
to propose the influence of Scadinavians on early Rus´. His views became the basis of the Norman
theory, which Lomonosov reacted strongly against (see infra chapter 9 “Education and Culture”). In
1766, Müller became head of the Russian national archive. Müller must be considered one of the most
important figures in the early development of Russian historical studies. 104 Johann Eberhard Fischer
(1697–1771) replaced Müller and, although there was animosity between them, he edited and published
Müller’s notes on Siberia. Two other Leipzig historians, Gottlieb-Siegried Bayer (1694–1738) and J.-P.
Kohl (1698–1778), were important in the first years of the Academy. Subsequently, August Ludwig von
Schlözer from the University of Göttingen arrived in St. Petersburg in 1761 as Müller’s assistant. After
learning Russian, he was appointed by Catherine II as professor of Russian history and as a full member
of the Academy in 1765. In 1767, he returned to Göttingen but continued to have an impact on Russian
historical study, including publication of a 3-volume editon of the Rus´ Primary Chronicle. 105 Finally,
one should not overlook the German astronomer Gottfried Heinsius (1709–1769) who studied at the
University of Leipzig and went to St. Petersburg in 1736, leaving in 1743.
Foreign Quarter in Moscow and Other Settlements
104 Black, G. F. Müller and the Imperial Academy of Sciences, 199–213.
105 August Ludwig von Schlözer, Nestor. Ruskie letopisi na drevle-slavenskom iazyke (St. Petersburg:
Imperatorskaia tipografia, 1809–1819).
35

We need, nevertheless, to keep things in perspective. Moscow was not Venice or Constantinople
in terms of frequency of contacts. It was a relatively remote area geographically. Nor were Russian
officials all that friendly or welcoming. Yet, among other evidence of foreign presence before the 18th
century was a kitai gorod (lit. “China Town”), a “German Settlement,” and a “New German Settlement”
(Novaia nemetskaia sloboda) or quarter for European foreigners in Moscow. Vasilii III is credited with
establishing the first settlement for European foreigners in the Moscow suburb of Nalivka. In the
Crimean Tatar attack of 1571, this settlement was burned downed. Ivan IV brought European prisoners
to another settlement near Moscow at the mouth of the Iauza River. Boris Godunov was known to be a
patron of European foreigners, many of whom settled there. During the Time of Troubles (1605–1613),
that foreign settlement was burned and its inhabitants either fled Moscow or settled in other areas of the
city. Tsar Aleksei decreed in 1652 the building of a New German Settlement on the site of the Old
German Settlement where all European foreigners were to reside. Martha Luby Lahana, in her
dissertation on the New German Settlement, cautiously estimated a population ranging between 1,000
and 3,500 people. 106 The German quarter is where Peter I initially learned about European ways from
Patrick Gordon, Franz Lefort, and others.
The American historian Sam Baron pointed to the following reasons for the lack of “mass influx
of skilled and enterprising immigrants” (the “pull”) to Russia: 1) distance from European countries; 2)
unfavorable reputation; 3) an alien language and religion; 4) men were not “free” in the same sense as
they were “in England, France, and the Low Countries”; 5) the “economic environment” was not
“inviting”; 6) limited markets; 7) the “labor force [was] mostly illiterate, innumerate, and with low
levels of skills”; 8) “its government was notorious for harsh and arbitrary interference in economic
106 On the European quarter in Moscow in the 17th century, see Martha Luby Lahana, “Novaia Nemetskaia
Sloboda: Seventeenth Century Moscow’s Foreign Suburb” (Ph.D. dissertation, University of North Carolina,
1983), 235.
36

affairs”; and 9) the government not infrequently hindered and prevented specialists from leaving. 107 The
first reason – distance – must be qualified as difficulty of land travel, since North America was even
further away and the sea voyage long and perilous. Under no. 2 “unfavorable reputation” one might
place most of the other reasons Baron gave. The “alien” language and religion would not be a concern
for those who were seeking religious freedom.
At different times, European specialists were precluded from traveling to Russia by European
monarch fearful they would help Russia. When Ivan IV sent his envoy Osip Nepeia to England, he met
with Queen Mary and King Philip. They gave him a lion and lioness for Ivan and sent him back to
Russia with Jenkinson, according to Furhmann, “with a doctor, a pharmacist, two coopers, seven rope
masters, furriers and foresters, some copper smiths and ten apprentices.” 108 Osip also asked for
“ammunition and artillery,” but the Venetian ambassador wrote that the Swedes had raised objections. 109
Ivan’s letter to Elizabeth I in 1567 asked for an architect “which can make castells, towers and palaces –
a Doctor and a potycary, and other masters suche as are coming to seke ought gold and silver.” 110 The
Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand I asked Elizabeth, according to De Madariaga, “not to suppply such a
dangerous monarch with weapons.” 111 Elizabeth sent some architects for fortification building and
around 12 craftsmen (Fuhrmann, 45).
In 1688/89, the Russian government, prompted by Vasilii Vasil´evich Golitsyn, issued a decree
that invited Huguenots, who had fled France because of the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes (1685), to
107 Samuel H. Baron, “Technology Transfer to Seventeenth-Century Russia in Comparative-Historical
Perspective,” Forschungen zur osteuropäischen Geschichte, 54 (1998): 35.
108 Fuhrmann, Origins, 45.
109 See Willan, Early History, 17 [citing Calendar of State Papers Venetian, 1556-57, 1005].
110 Fuhrmann, Origins, 45.
111 De Madariaga, Ivan IV, 126; citing Willan, Early History, 12ff and 52ff, and Esper, “Arms Embargo.”
37

come to Russia to settle. 112 That invitation resulted in no verifiable immigration. 113 Another decree,
issued by Peter I in 1702, did result in some French Huguenots coming to Russia, but apparently not
staying. 114
In manifestos of 1762 and 1763, Catherine II invited Europeans to settle in Russia. In great part
as a result of bans put on publication of the manifestos in Austria, France, Spain, Sweden, and other
countries, recruitment was generally limited to the German states. These considerations help to explain
why the immigrants to Russia in response to these manifestos were Germans, a large number of whom
were farmers who settled on the central Volga River area. 115 They tended, however, to be treated by the
local officials as though they were state peasants rather than as private entrepreneurs. Catherine II
maintained correspondence with a number of philosophes including Voltaire and Diderot. 116 In 1765,
she found out from her ambassador to France and Holland, Dmitrii Golitsyn, that the impecunious
Diderot, the founder of the Encyclopédie, was selling his library for 15,000 livres. She paid the asking
price. In addition, she stipulated that the library would revert to St. Petersburg only after Diderot’s
death: “It would have been cruel and unjust to separate a scholar from his books.” 117 Finally she paid
him 1,000 livres a year (initially part of the purchase price, then, when in the following year his salary
112 Polnoe sobranie rossiiskoi imperii, 1 st series, (St. Petersburg, 1830), 3: 8−9 (no. 1331).
113 Baron, “Technology Transfer,” 35; cf. Jurgen Kämmerer, Russland und die Hugenotten im 18. Jahrhundert
(1689−1789) (Wiesbaden: O. Harrassowitz, 1978), 19−26.
114 Kämmerer, Russland und die Hugenotten, 47−48.
115 Roger P. Bartlett, Human Capital: The Settlement of Foreigners in Russia 1762–1804 (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1979), 57–58.
116 Isabel de Madariaga, “Catherine and the Philosophes,” in Russia and the West in the Eighteenth Century, ed.
Anthony G. Cross (Newtonville, MA: Oriental Research Partners, 1983), 30–52.
117 G. P. Gooch, Catherine the Great: And Other Studies (London: Longmans, Green, 1954), 60.
38

was not paid out of the treasury, she stipulated that his future salary be paid in one lump sum of 50,000
livres) to serve as the librarian of this Imperial library annex in Paris. In return, Diderot recruited
talented individuals to go to Russia, including Falconet. Diderot visited Russia in 1773−74. Among
other activities, he wrote a memorandum on the German settlements on the Volga pointing out the
reasons for their lack of success. 118
Trade Contacts and Manufacturing
Russia, long before Peter I, was not only dealing in trade with central Asian pastoralists, it was
also dealing in trade with the Ottoman Empire, Safavid Persia, and Mughal India. One of the most
famous works by a Russian in the 15th century was Journey beyond Three Seas by the merchant
Afanasii Nikitin. In Journey, Afanasii recounts how he traveled to Persia and India as part of a trading
expedition, the problems he encountered, and how he never gave up his Orthodox faith. 119
Trade routes extended down the Volga River to the Caspian Sea and westwards through to the
Baltic Sea. Russia was connected indirectly with the silk and spice routes. Archaeological digs have
turned up Chinese items and Persian silk in Rus´ territory. With a common interest in a possible anti-
Ottoman alliance, Russia after the end of the Livonian War and the accession of Shah ’Abbas to the
throne in Iran, Russia and Persia began to formalize trade relations. Silk was diverted to the northern
route away from the Levant. The anti-Ottoman alliance never crystallized and trade fell off after the
death of ’Abbas in 1629. But it was revived by merchants in the second half of the 17th century when
the Armenian Trading Company helped make the route from Isfahan through Moscow to Amsterdam a
118 Roger P. Bartlett, “Diderot and the Foreign Colonies of Catherine II,” Cahiers du Monde russe et soviétique
23, no 2 (1982): 221–241.
119 Mary Jane Maxwell, “Afanasii Nikitin: An Orthodox Russian’s Spiritual Voyage in the Dar al-Islam,
1468−1475,” Journal of World History, 17, no. 3 (2006): 243−266.
39

heavily traded one in metals, silk, and textiles. 120 Russia was also engaging in trade through Astrakhan´
with India from the second half of the 16th century on. By the second half of the 17th century, an Indian
diaspora community lived on the lower Volga River and Indian merchants were residing in Moscow. 121
Grain and forest products, such as flax, honey, and timber, were being shipped to Europe through
the Baltic Sea. In return, European countries were paying a substantial amount in gold and silver. Some
of the bullion stayed in the Rus´ principalities and some of it went down the Volga for trade. Russian
rulers attempted to prohibit the export of gold and silver but were not entirely successful. Grain was
being shipped up and down the Dnepr River and connected with the grain trade of Poland down the
Wisła River. 122
As early as the second half of the 15th century we find evidence of fur trading with Venice. In
1486, Iurii Trakhaniot is recorded as taking live sables with him on a diplomatic mission to Italy. The
historian of early Russian diplomacy Robert Croskey has suggested that ermine might also have been
brought and have been the inspiration for da Vinci’s Lady with an Ermine (dated between 1483 and
120 Rudi Matthee, “Anti-Ottoman Politics and Transit Rights: the Seventeenth-Century Trade in Silk between
Safavid Iran and Muscovy,” Cahiers du Monde Russe, 35 (1994): 739–761; Stefan Tröbst, “Isfahan – Moskau –
Amsterdam. Zur Entstehungsgeschichte des moskauischen Transitprivilegs für die armenische Handelskompanie
in Persien (1666–1676),” Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas, 41 (1993): 180–209.
121 Stephen Frederic Dale, Indian Merchants and Euraisan Trade, 1600–1750 (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1994), 78–127.
122 Carol B. Stevens, “Trade and Muscovite Economic Policy toward Ukraine: The Movement of Cereal Grains
during the Second Half of the Seventeenth Century,” in Ukrainian Economic History: Interpretive Essays, ed. I.
S. Koropeskyj (Cambridge, MA: Distributed by Harvard University Press for the Harvard Ukrainian Research
Institute, 1991), 172–185.
40

1492) rather than the 1476 Russian embassy to Milan as art historians have supposed. 123 Baldessarre
Castiglione, in the second book of The Courtier recounts a story told by the Magnifico Giuliano that he
claimed was told him by a fellow Tuscan, a merchant of Lucca: about going to the Borysthenes, the
border between Poland and Russia, to buy sables from Russian fur traders. It was so cold that when the
Russian mechants spoke, their words froze in the air. The Poles who accompanied the Lucca merchant
built a fire in the middle of the frozen river that thawed the words. Since the price asked was too high
the merchant would not have accepted the offer, even if the Russian fur traders had not left an hour
earlier. 124 All this was told within the context of recounting tall tales, but to be even halfway plausible,
the possibility of at least a nascent fur trade with Russia had to be assumed.
In the middle of the 16th century, Ivan IV welcomed English merchants. 125 The Russia Company
wanted to use Russia as a route to Persia, but the Russian rulers and merchants wanted that trade for
Russia. 126 Thus, Russia before Peter was far from isolated commercially; in fact, considering its
123 Robert M. Croskey and E. C. Ronquist, “George Trakhaniot’s Description of Russia in 1486,” Russian
History/Historie Russe 17, no. 1 (1990): 58–59.
124 Baldessarre Castiglione Il libro del cortigiano 2 vols. (Milan, 1803), 1: 182, 184. Baldassarre Castiglione, The
Courtier, trans. Leonard Eckstein Opdycke (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1903), 132–133.
125 T. S. Willan, The Early History of the Russia Company, 1553−1603 (Manchester: Manchester University
Press, 1956), 10–14.
126 Prominent among the 17th-century English merchants and diplomats was Sir John Merrick. See Geraldine M.
Phipps, Sir John Merrick: English Merchant-Diplomat in Seventeenth Century Russia (Newtonville, MA: Oriental
Research Partners, 1983), 6 on the issue of English merchant travel to Persia.
41

geographic location, it was relatively well connected. 127 In the 17th century, Dutch agents contracted
with Russian leather (iufti) manufacturers in Iaroslavl´ and other towns. 128 The Dutch diplomatic agent,
geographer, and merchant Isaac Massa had arrived in Moscow in 1600 when he was the age of 13 and
resided there as a merchant’s apprentice until 1609. He wrote an account of Muscovy from the reign of
Ivan IV to 1610 and provided eyewitness testimony of events during the Time of Troubles. 129
Trade with Persia began after 1556, when Muscovy took Astrakhan´, but it is not until the mid-
17th century that we find a Russian caravan to Persia or Astrakhan´ as often as once a year.
In 1482, Ivan III had made a request of the Hungarian king Matthias Corvinus for experts to
assist in prospecting for copper, but was declined. A similar request to the Holy Roman Emperor
Maximilian I in 1490 may have led to the creation of a copper manufactory near the Tsil´ma River. 130 In
1547, Ivan IV sent the German Protestant merchant Hans Schlitte to the Holy Roman Emperor Charles
127 Subsequently, the rise of a commercial town elite in the 19th century began to fashion “a system of national
power.” Among other indications of the system of national power based on the towns was when grain was being
exported from the countryside in the 1890s leading to famine in the countryside to pay back loans to France and
Germany for industrialization, as well as in 1917 and the subsequent Civil War when the urban elites confiscated
the grain from the countryside to feed the urban population at the expense of the rural population.
128 For a historical imaginative account of such a contractual relationship, see Jarmo T. Kotilaine, “Artisans: The
Prokofiev Family,” in Portraits of Old Russia: Imagined Lives of Ordinary People, ed. Donald Ostrowski and
Marshall T. Poe (Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 2011), 188−197.
129 Isaac Massa, A Short History of the Beginnings and Origins of These Present Wars in Moscow: Under the
Reign of Various Sovereigns Down to the Year 1610, ed. and trans. G. E. Orchard (Toronto: University of Toronto
Press, 1982).
130 A. A. Kuzin, Istoriia otkrytii rudnykh mestorozhedenii v Rossii do serediny XIX v. (Moscow, 1961), 52–53; L.
Maleev, “Altaiskii gornyi okrug,” Russkaia Starina 139 (1909): 301. Cf. Fuhrmann, Origins of Capitalism, 39.
42

V to indicate that he (Ivan) was interested in restoring unity and that Charles’ sending some craftsmen
and technicians would be a sign of good will. We can suppose, as Fuhrmann did, that Ivan was more
interested in the craftsmen than in unity for, as von Staden later wrote: “The Grand Prince would like to,
and is of the opinion that he ought to, maintain friendship with the Roman Emperor until he acquires all
kinds of craftsmen and so many thousands of [mercenary] soldiers that he can resist the Crimea
Khan.” 131
In 1632, the Dutch merchant Andrei Vinius was contracted along with his brother Abraham and
another Dutch merchant Julius Willeken by Tsar Mikhail’s government to set up a water-powered
ironworks in Tula, which became operational by 1637. Later in 1632, Vinius brought own two more
Dutch merchants Peter Marselis (1605–16??) and Thomas de Swaen. Subsequently Willeken was
granted the resin (smola) trade through Archangel. Vinius’ assistants Peter Marselis and Thielemann Lus
Akkema ousted him. from the Tula operations. By 1662, Marselis and Akema owned six iron factories
and operated four others in Tula. 132 Foreigners in the tsar’s service had to make a contractual agreement
to pass on their skills to the Russians who were assigned to work with them. 133
Olearius reports that not
all foreign craftsmen abided by this contractual agreement since they felt their usefulness to the tsar
would end when Russians knew how to do what they did. 134
131 Von Staden, Land and Government, 61.
132 Joseph T. Furhmann, The Origins of Capitalism in Russia: Industry and Progress in the Sixteenth and
Seventeenth Centuries (Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1972), 98.
133 Tsvetaev, Protestantstvo i protestanty, 397–401, 713; cf. Iosif Gamel’, Description of the Tula Weapon
Factory in Regard to Historical and Technical Aspects, trans. Edwin A. Battison (Washington, DC: Amerind,
1988), 46–47; and Kliuchevskii, Kurs, 3: 265.
134 Olearius, Travels, 160.
43

According to figures compiled by Fuhrmann, 57 manufactories were found in Russia during the
16th and 17th centuries. Of those, 33 (58%) were founded by foreigners; 12 (21%) by the State; 3 (5%)
by Russian nobles; 8 (14%) by Russian commoners; and 1 (2%) by the Church. 135 Of these, again
according to Fuhrmann, 7 (12%) were built during the 16th century; 2 (4%) from 1600 through the
1620s; 22 (39%) from the 1630s through the 1660s; and 26 (45%) from the 1660s through the 1690s. 136
Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich purchased from a Russian merchant a telescope in 1614 only six years
after it had become available in Europe and five years after Galileo’s improvement of Hans
Lippershay’s version. He also purchased faceted spectacles that provided the viewer multiple images, a
device to calculate phases of the moon, and a sundial, among the earliest sundials in Russia. 137
In addition, the Friedrich (Frederik), a three-masted ship, the first to be constructed according to
European design in Russia, was completed in 1636 in Balakhna on the Volga River by shipbuilders from
Holstein with the aid of Russian carpenters. It was named after Duke Friedrich III of Holstein. 138
Conclusion
Paul of Aleppo describes his and his father’s meeting a governor (voevode) of Kolomna who was
an Arab raised in Damascus. He had been a household slave of “Sultan Mahomet” (probably Mehmed
III [r. 1595–1603]), then of the Persian shah (possibly as a result of the Ottoman-Persian wars of 1603 to
1618). After he returned to Istanbul, he became Sanjak of Jemah and Hemel (Emessa), then Aga of the
135 Furhmann, Origins of Capitalism, 244.
136 Furhmann, Origins of Capitalism, 244–245.
137 S. I. Sobolʹ′, “Opticheskie instrumenty i svedeniia o nikh v dopetrovskoi Rusi,” in Trudy Instituta istorii
estestvoznaniia AN SSSR, 3 (1949): 138. See also W. F. Ryan, “Scientific Instruments in Russia from the Middle
Ages to Peter the Great,” in Annals of Science, 49, no. 4 (1991): 377.
138 Olearius, Travels, 292. See also infra chapter 5 “Military Techniques, Tactics, and Strategies.”
44

Revenue. Thirty-five years before their meeting him, he had accompanied “Sultan Othman” (Osman II
[r. 1618–1622]) on an expedition against Poland. The Ottoman army was defeated (the reference here
probably being to the Battle of Chocim, which resulted in a defeat for the Ottoman army occurred in
September/October 1621), and the future governor of Kolomna was captured, becoming a household
slave “of the Crâl” (Polish king). Subsequently he fled to Kiev, then to Moscow. He entered the service
of Tsar Mikhail, who “caused him to be baptized, and gave him rank and office.” This governor was
reputed to be pious, just, and beloved, while also being learned in Arabic. 139 Subsequently, when he lost
his position, Patriarch Macarios wrote a petition to Tsar Aleksei in his behalf, which resulted in his
being appointed governor of Kashira “for the length of his life.” 140 Insofar as we can believe the story
that the governor told Macarios and Paul, the career is a remarkable one indicating the rewarding of
talent not only in Muscovy but also in the Ottoman and Persian empires. Given the career of this
unnamed voevoda and the evidence I have presented in this chapter, it seems that notions of a backward,
stagnant, and xenophobic Muscovy that was transformed and modernized into “Russia” by Peter I need
to undergo some serious reconsideration.
While English, French, Germans, Greeks, Italians, Scots, Tatars, and others came to Russia
during this period of the late 15th through the 18th centuries to be employed for their skills, there is little
evidence of skilled Russians going to Europe to be employed similarly. In addition, Russian xenophobia
and suspicion toward the “Latins” and the Tatars was stirred up by the Russian Orthodox Church. It also
contributed to the so-called “national” reaction against the Poles during and after the Time of Troubles.
Yet, all was forgiven a foreigner once he or she converted to Russian Orthodoxy and thus became a
Russian.
139 Travels of Macarius, 1: 306–307.
140 Travels of Macarius, 2: 279.
45

Transfer of the capital to St. Petersburg made it easier for diplomats to access the Russian court
because they could now come entirely by sea. Moscow required a trek of many days from the Baltic
through what appeared to European travelers to be seemingly endless dense forests. These barrier trees
helped to hinder the penetration into Russia by invading armies from the west. 141 It was somewhat easier
to reach Moscow from the Caspian Sea, requiring only a boat trip up the Volga and its tributary the Oka
to the Moskva River. Although pirates and Tatars still raided the Volga River route, merchants and other
travellers would travel in groups and maintained armed escorts. Yet, it was not until the reign of
Catherine II that St. Petersburg became integrated into the “European” circuit of capitals. As the French
diplomat Louis Philippe Ségur wrote, “before her [Catherine II], St. Petersburg—built in the land of cold
and ice—was almost unnoticed and might as well have been in Asia. In her reign, Russia became a
European state. St. Petersburg took a prominent place among the capitals of the educated world.” 142
The policy of inviting in foreign specialists to work and live in Russia comes to a more or less
abrupt halt toward the end of the reign of Catherine II. The French Revolution and subsequent
141 As a German general said in World War II, which could apply to the early modern Russia as well:
“The spaces seemed endless, the horizons nebulous. We were depressed by the monotony of the landscape, and
the immensity of the stretches of forest, marsh and plain. Good roads were so few, and bad tracks so numerous,
while rain quickly turned the sand or loam into a morass. The villages looked wretched and melancholy, with their
straw-thatched wooden houses. Nature was hard, and in her midst were human beings just as hard and
insensitive—indifferent to weather, hunger, and thirst, and almost as indifferent to life and losses, pestilence, and
famine. The Russian civilian was tough, and the Russian soldier still tougher. He seemed to have an illimitable
capacity for obedience and endurance.” Quoted in Liddell-Hart, History of the Second World War, 162.
142 Louis-Philippe Ségur, Memoires: ou Souvenirs et anecdotes, 3 vols. (Paris: Colburn, 1825), 2: 185; L. F.
Segiur, “Zapiski o prebyvanii v Rossii v tsarstvovanie Ekateriny II,” in Rossiia XVIII v. glazami inostrantsev, ed.
Iu. A. Limonov (Leningrad: Lenizdat, 1989), 324.
46

Napoleonic Wars make the Russian rulers and their advisors suspicious of European ideas and their
being brought into Russia by Europeans.
From the contracting of Italian architects and engineers by Ivan III for design and construction
projects as well as artillery and seigeworks to Aleksei’s use of veterans from the Thirty Years War for
transforming the Russian military; from Ivan IV’s negotiations with Elizabeth I of England in the 1560s
over his proposal of marriage to Tsar Mikhail negotiations in the 1640s with the King of Denmark over
the proposed marriage of Mikhail’s daughter Irina to the Danish crown prince Waldemar, and from
Archbishop Gennadii’s importation in the 1490s of techniques of the Spanish Inquisition to the
importation in the second half of the 17th century of Renaissance humanist learning by Ruthenian
ecclesiastics trained in Kiev, we have to conclude that Russia was not cut off from Europe in any
meaningful sense. To be sure, one can find more examples of contacts with Europe in the 18th century
than in the 17th, and more in the 17th than in the 16th, and so forth. But this represents only an
increasing involvement with Europe over the course of the 15th through 18th centuries than a sudden
and dramatic “turn to the West” at any specific point during this period. The quantity of foreign
specialists who came to Russia in the 18 th century increased markedly over the previous 250 years.
Foreigners invited by the ruler into Russia numbered in the 10s in the late 15th and early 16th centuries,
in the 100s in the later 16th century, in the 1000s in the 17th century, and in the 10,000s in the 18th
century. But the policy of the Russian rulers was not qualitatively different. A Peter I or a Catherine II
inviting skilled and talented foreigners to Russia was completely coincident with the policies of all
Russian rulers from the second half of the 15th century to almost the end of the 18th century.
Xenophobia did exist in Russia, but the rulers and their advisors of the early modern period, no matter
what they may have felt about foreigners personally, welcomed them and the talents they brought,
because they saw the benefits for themselves and for their realm.
47

Unintegrated fragment: Aleksei Mikhaolovich ordered Polish servicemen and prisoners of war to be
transferred to the Trans-Kama line for military service. 143
Appendix 2.1: Italian Architects and Engineers in Russia at the End of the Fifteenth and Beginning of
the Sixteenth Century.
The Moscow Chronicles, which are our main source for the activities of the Italian architects and
engineers in Moscow, tell us that Marco the Italian (Marko Friazin) worked on the Moscow kremlin at
the invitation of Ivan III during the late 1480s. 144 Yet, he was not the first of the Italian architects and
engineers in Moscow.
After May 21, 1474, when the vaults of the Dormition Cathedral, which were then being
constructed, collapsed, Ivan III sent an envoy, Semion Tolbuzin, to engage an architect-engineer capable
of completing the Cathedral. As a result, Aristotele Fioravanti (Ridolfo Fioraventi degli Alberti), one of
the most distinguished Italian architects, went to Moscow and supervised construction of the Dormition
Cathedral from 1475 to 1479. 145 Aristotele was one of the most prominent Italian architects of the time.
He was born between 1415 and 1420, the son of the architect Fioravente Fioraventi and worked in
143 B. E. Nolde, La Formation de l’Empire Russe. Etudes, Notes, Documents, 2 vols. (Paris, 1952–1953), 1: 192.
144 PSRL, 25: 332; 12: 219 (6995), 231 (6999). According to V. N. Lazarev, this Marco is often mistakenly
referred to as “Ruffo.” V. N. Lazarev, “Iskusstvo srednevekovoi Rusi i Zapad (XI–XV vv.),” in XIII
Mezhdunarodnyi kongress istoricheskikh nauk. Moskva, 16–23 avgusta 1970 g.: doklady kongressa (Moscow,
1973), 43; idem Vizantiiskoe i drevnerusskoe iskusstvo. Stat´i i materialy (Moscow: Nauka, 1978);
145 PSRL, 4.1.2 (2nd ed.): 516; 6 (1st ed., 1853): 19, 34, 199–200, 205–207, 221; 8: 181, 201; 12: 157 (6983),
180 (6986), 192 (6987); 18: 250; 20: 302, 319–320, 335; 22: 496, 534; 23: 193; 24: 194; 25: 303, 317, 324; 26:
257–258; 27: 281, 354; 28: 138, 146, 309; Ioasafovskaia letopis´, 89, 237. S. M. Zemtsov and V. L. Glazychev,
Aristotel´ F´oravanti (Moscow: Stroiizdat, 1985).
48

Bologna before 1458. There, he worked on making bells and on solving the engineering problem of
lifting them into place. In 1453, he reconstructed the Gothic façade of the Palazzo del Podestà in
Bologna into a Renaissance style façade, and in 1455 he relocated the bell tower of St. Mark’s. Between
1458 and 1464, he was in the service of the Duke of Milan Francesco Sforza (1401−1466). From 1464
to 1473, he was the architect of the Bologna guild. In 1467, the guild allowed him to go to Hungary to
work for Matthias Corvinus (1443–1497) building bridges across the Danube. Among the other cities
and towns he worked on were Cento, Florence, Mantua, Naples, Rome, and Venice. 146 He is credited
with bringing to Moscow Italian technology for the casting of bells and cannon as well as for minting
coins. The Moscow cannon yard has been directly attributed to his work. 147 The Russian chronicles
report s.a. 1477 that he constructed a bridge across the Volkhov River in Novgorod. 148 The Sofiiskaia II
and L´vov chronicles report s.a. 1482 that he was in charge of the artillery (kn[ia]z´ veliki posla i
Aristotelia s pushkami) during the Muscovite attack on Kazan´. 149 These chronicles also report s.a.
1482/83 that he was subject to arrest for his request to be allowed to return to Italy. 150 The Sofiiskaia II
Chronicle reports s.a. 1485 that he was again in charge of the artillery in the attack on Tver´. 151
Apparently a Venetian master, known only as “Venedits´kii,” also came with Aristotele, for he is
146 S. Tugnoli Pattaro, “Le opera bolognese di Aristotele Fioravanti architetto e ingegnere,” Arte Lombarda, new
series, 44/45 (1976): 35−70.
147 Edward V. Williams, The Bells of Russia: History and Technology (Princeton: Pinceton University Press,
1985), 42.
148 PSRL, 8: 192; 12 :180; 20: 328; 21: 547; 25: 314; Ioasafovskaia letopis´, 108.
149 PSRL, 6 (1st ed., 1853): 234; 6.2 (2nd ed., 2001): 315; 20: 349.
150 PSRL, 6 (1st ed., 1853): 235; 6.2 (2nd ed., 2001): 315; 20: 349.
151 PSRL, 6 (1st ed., 1853): 237; 6.2 (2nd ed., 2001): 322.
49

described as restoring the top part of the Church of the Dormition in the Simeonov Monastery in
1476/77. 152
The Moscow chronicles report s.a. 1485 that Antoni the Italian (Onton Friazin) worked on the
walls and towers of the Moscow kremlin including the gun towers (strel´nitsy) of the secret Cheshkov
gate. 153 They further report s.a. 1487 that Pietro Antonio Solari (Petr Friazin), a Swiss-Italian architect,
came to Moscow at the invitation of Ivan III. 154 Pietro was born in Carono, Ticino, around 1445 and
served as an apprentice under his father Guiniforte Solari, who was a sculptor and architect. From 1476
to 1481, he and his father supervised the continuation of construction on Milan’s main cathedral, the
Duomo di Milano, and they worked together on Milan’s Ospedale Maggiore. Besides overseeing a
number of construction projects in Milan, he made a sculpted tomb of Bishop Marco de Capitani in the
cathedral of the town of Alessandria. After coming to Moscow in the embassy of Dmitrii and Manuil
Ralev, he supervised construction of the kremlin walls and towers (except those fronting on the
Neglinnaia River). 155 The Muscovite chronicles report s.a. 1490 that he completed two gun towers on
the Borovitskii and Sts. Constantine and Helen gates. 156 He also completed the Frolovskii and Nikol´skii
152 PSRL, 23: 177; 24: 195; 28: 147, 312.
153 PSRL, 4.1.2 (2nd ed.): 585; 6 (1st ed., 1853): 36, 278; 8: 216; 18:271; 22: 503; 26: 277; 27: 159, 287, 358;
Ioasafovskaia letopis´, 125. According to B. N. Floria, “Russkie posol´stva v Italiiu i nachalo stroitel´stva
Moskovskogo Kremlia,” in Gosudarstvennyi muzei Moskovskogo Kremlia. Materialy i issledovaniia, vol. 3
(Moscow, 1980), 12–18, Anton arrived in Moscow in 1485.
154 PSRL, 4.1.2 (2nd ed.): 528; 21: 554; 20: 505; 26: 280; M. N. Tikhomirov, Kratkie zametki o letopisnyx
proizvedeniiakh v rukopisnykh sobraniikh (Moscow: Akademiia nauk SSSR, 1962), 26.
155 PSRL, 25: 331, 332; 12: 222, 223 (6998), 228 (231), Prilozh. 263.
156 PSRL, 4.1.2 (2nd ed.): 528; 6 (1st ed., 1853): 38; 12: 223; 18:273; 20: 355; 22: 505; 23: 187; 24: 207; 25: 331;
26: 280; 27: 290, 360; 28: 320; Ioasafovskaia letopis´, 128–129.
50

gun towers and “the wall to the Neglinnaia.” 157 On the top of the tower of the Spassky Gates, the main
entrance to the kremlin from Red Square, is an inscription stating that Ivan III, in the 30 th year of his
reign (1491), had Pietro Antonio Solari build the tower:
IOANNES VASILII DEI GRATIA MAGNUS
DUX VOLoDIMERIÆ MOSC VIÆ NOV
OGARDIÆ TFERIÆ PLESCoVIÆ VETICIÆ
ONGARIÆ PERMIÆ BUOLGARIÆ ET
ALIAS TOTIUS Q RAXIE D -NUS
A˜NO 3oIMPERII SUI HAS TURRES Co˜DERE
F.ET STATUIT PETRUS ANToNIUS S LARIUS
MEDIoLANENSIS A˜NoN˜A D -NI 1491. K. M. IP. 158
Pietro and Marco supervised the building of the Palace of Facets, 159 which bears the same kind of
pointed-pyramid façade as the Palazzo dei Diamante in Ferrara (1493) and the Casa de los Picos in
Segovia (end of 15th century). Pietro Solari died in May 1493. 160
157 PSRL, 4.1.2 (2nd ed.): 530; 6 (1st ed., 1853): 38; 8: 221, 223; 12: 228, 231, 263; 18:274; 20: 355, 356; 22: 507;
23: 188; 24: 207, 208; 25: 332; 26: 286, 287; 27: 159, 290, 291, 361; 28: 155, 156, 321; Ioasafovskaia letopis´,
129, 182.
158 K. A. Khreptovich-Butenev, “Latinskaia nadpis´ na Spasskikh vorotakh i ikh tvorets Petr-Antonii Solari,” in
Sbornik statei v chest´ grafini Praskov´i Sergeevny Uvarovoi, 1885–1915 (Moscow: A. A. Levenson, 1916), 215–
228 (here, 215).
159 PSRL, 4.1.2 (2nd ed.): 530; 8: 231; 20: 356; 22: 507; 24: 208; 25: 332; 27: 291, 361; 28: 156, 321;
Ioasafovskaia letopis´, 182.
160 PSRL, 22: 507.
51

In 1494, Aloisio da Carezano (Alvisio da Milano) arrived in Moscow from Milan with the
embassy of Manuil Angelov and Daniil Mamyrev along with other masters, including Bernadino da
Borgomanero. 161 Aloisio da Carezano replaced Pietro Solari as court architect in charge of palaces and
fortifications. He was responsible for rebuilding the towers and wall of the side of the kremlin that
fronted on the Neglinnaia River. Between 1499 and 1508, he supervised construction of the stone
chambers that became the first three floors of the Terem Palace. 162 The Italian blacksmith Michael
Parpajone, according to the historian Piero Cazzola, concluded a contract with Aloisio da Carezano in
Milan in December 1493 and arrived in Moscow in 1494 with a group of Italians who had been invited
by Aloisio. 163
In November 1504, another Aloisio, called Aleviz Novyi (the “New”) in the chronicles, arrived
in Moscow after having traveled by way of the Crimean Khanate with the embassy of Dmitrii Ralev and
Mitrofan Karcharov. 164 This Aloisio has been identified with Aloisio (Alvise) Lamberti da Montagnana,
but this identification has been disputed. 165 While in Venice in 1494, Aloisio Lamberti da Montagnana
161 PSRL, 8: 228; 12: 238 (7002); 20: 361; 28: 325; Ioasafovskaia letopis´, 188. P. Cazzola, “Mastri Frjazy di
origine piemontese al Cremlino di Mosca,” Bollettino della Società piemontese di archeologia e di belle arti, new
series, 30/31 (1976–1977): 93–101.
162 PSRL, 6 (1st ed., 1853): 43; 8: 237; 12: 249 (7007); 20: 368–369; 28: 332; Ioasafovskaia letopis´, 138.
163 Cazzola, “Mastri Frjazy di origine piemontese,” 93–101.
164 For a study of Aloisio’s Crimean sojourn and its influence on his work in Russia, see A. Vlasiuk, “O rabote
zodchego Aleviza Novogo v Bakhchisarae i v Moskovskom kremle,” Arkhitekturnoe nasledsvo, 10 (1958): 101–
110.
165 N. L. Ernst, “Bakhchisaraiskii Khanskii dvorets i arkhitektor vel. kn. Ivana III friazin Aleviz Novyi,” Izvestiia
Tavricheskogo obshchestva istorii, arkheologii i etnografii, 2, no. 59 (Simferopol´, 1928): 39–54. Another Italian
master, a sculptor known in the Russian source as “Grigorii Vorenza,” who also came with Dmitrii Ralev and
52

sculpted the Scuola di San Marco. In Ferrara in 1498, he sculpted the tomb of Tomasini Gruamonti. He
is also supposed to have done the altar of the Montagna cathedral, the chapel of Santa Maria of the
Miracle in Lonigo, the altar of the monastery church in Monteortone, the sculpted part of the church of
San Benedetto in Padua, the bishop’s chapel and sacristy church of Santa Maria del Carmine in Padua,
the chapel of the Madonna in Trieste, the church in Kostocce and in Tenee, the altar church in Nanto, the
chapel of Reveze in Brendole, and the church of the Birth of Christ in Palazzo Foratti in Montagne. 166
From 1505 to 1508, Aloisio the New supervised construction of the Archangel Cathedral
(Arkhangel´skii sobor) in the Moscow kremlin, and the church of John the Forerunner by the Borovitskii
gate. 167 Since our evidence of Aloisio Lamberti da Montagna in Italy ends just before our evidence of
Aloisio the New begins in Russia, I am inclined to accept the identification of them as the same person.
In the chronicles between s.a. 1508 and s.a. 1518 a number of construction projects are attributed to
“Aloisio the Italian” without specifying which Aloisio. In 1508, Ivan III commissioned “Aloisio the
Italian to dig a moat around the town [vkrugъ grada] of Moscow, as well as ponds, and to reinforce
Mitrofan Karcharov, was detained in the Crimea. We know this from an inquiry that Ivan III made to Khan
Mengli-Girey in 1505. SIRIO, 41: 558.
166 S. S. Podъiapol´skii, “Ital´ianskie stroitel´nye mastera v Rossii v kontse XV–nachale XVI veka podannym
pis´mennykh isochnikov (opyt sostavleniia slovaria),” in Restavratsiia i arkhitekturnaia arkheologiia. Novye
materialy i issledovaniia, ed. A. L. Batalov and I. A. Bondarenko (Moscow: VNIITAG, 1991), 224.
167 PSRL, 6 (1 st ed., 1853): 53; 8: 249; 13: 10; 23: 198. On the identification, see Sergio Bettini, “Alvise Lamberti
da Montagna. Un grande artista veneto in Russia,” Le Tre Venezie: rivista d’umanità lettere ed arti, 19 (1944):
17–31. See also Podъiapol´skii, “Ital´ianskie stroitel´nye mastera,” 221, 224. On the dispute, see Lazarev,
Vizantiiskoe i drevnerusskoe iskusstvo, 286–287, 290–291.
53

them with bricks and stones.” 168 The chronicles s.a. 1514 credit Aloisio the Italian with building 11
stone churches in Moscow. 169
In 1508, Aloisio supervised the construction of a dam on the Neglinnaia River. Between 1508
and 1516, he had a canal dug from the Neglinnaia to the Moscow River, along the eastern front of the
kremlin wall. 170 In his honor, it was later called the Alevizov moat, but in the 19 th century it was filled
in. In 1516, he is reported to have supervised the building of a bridge over the Neglinnaia River.
From s.a. 1505 to s.a. 1508, the chronicles state that Bon the Italian directed work on the John of
the Ladder Church in the Moscow kremlin. 171 He has been identified with Mastroban, who was sent by
Vasilii III in 1508/9 with another Italian master, Vartolomei, to work on the wooden town of
Dorogobuzh. 172 He was among a number of Italian architects and engineers who worked outside
Moscow. The Nizhegorod Chronicle tells us s.a.1508 that Vasilii III sent Petr Frenchiushko (Pietro
Francesco) the Italian to Niznii Novogord to resore the town walls. 173 One copy of the Nizhegorod
Chronicle reports that he returned there in 1510 to oversee a total of seven versts of work on the town
168 PSRL, 6 (1 st ed., 1853): 247; 6.2 (2nd ed., 2001): 399; 13: 8; 20: 380; 26: 299; 28: 342; Ioasafovskaia letopis´,
153.
169 PSRL, 6 (1 st ed., 1853): 254; 8: 254–255; 13: 18; 20: 387; 23: 200; 28: 348.
170 PSRL, 12: 238 (7002), 249 (7007); 13: 8, 10 (7016), 58 (7039/7040).
171 PSRL, 6 (1st ed., 1853): 53; 8: 249; 13: 10.
172 Razriadnaia kniga 1475–1605 gg., comp. N. G. Savich, ed. V. I. Buganov (Moscow: Akademiia nauk SSSR,
Institut istorii SSSR, 1977), 110.
173 A. S. Gatsiskii, Nizhegorodskii letopisets (Nizhnii Novgorod, 1886), 29; PSRL, 6 (1st ed., 1853): 247; 13: 8;
20: 380; 26: 299; 28: 342.
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wall. 174 The Novgorod IV chronicle reports s.a. 1515 that an Italian master (no name given) constructed
the Dormition (Uspenskii) church with a chapel of Nicholas in Tikhvin (Tifin). 175 The Pskov Chronicle
reports s.a. 1516/17 that “Ivan Friazin” (Giovanni the Italian) reconstructed 40 sazhens (around 280
feet) of the fallen wall of the Pskov kremlin (krom). 176
In 1528, Peter the Italian was sent by Pope Clement VII to Russia most likely with the returning
embassy of Trusov and Lodygin, who apparently had been sent by Vasilii III with a request for
architects and engineers. 177 Peter the Italian has been identified with the Petr Maloi (Peter the Small) of
the Muscovite chronicles and with Pietro Annibale (Hannibal). 178 According to the Russian architectural
historian Dimitrii Shvidkovskiy, Petr Maloi designed and built the Church of the Resurrection
174 Cited in I. A. Kir´ianov, Starinnye kreposti Nizhegorodskogo Povolzh´ia (Gor´kii: Gorkovskoe knizhnoe
izdatel´stvo, 1961), 35.
175 PSRL, 4.1.3 (2nd ed.): 539–540 (??). Cf. the Voskresensk Novoierusalimsk Chronicle continuation of the Sofia
II Chronicle, which mentions completion of the church but not an Italian. PSRL, 6 (1st ed., 1853): 280
176 Pskovskie letopisi, 2 vols., ed. A. N. Nasonov (Moscow: Akademiia nauk SSSR, 1940, 1955), 1: 98; 2: 260.
PSRL, 6.2 (2nd ed., 2001): 260.
177 Jüri Kivimäe, “Petr Frjazin or Peter Hannibal? An Italian Architect in Late Medieval Russia and Livonia,”
Forschungen zue osteuopäischen Geschichte 52 (1996): 23–24.
178 Podъiapol´skii, “Ital´ianskie stroitel´nye mastera,” 226, 227, and 228; and Kivimäe, “Petr Frjazin,” 24.
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(Vozneseniia) in Kolomenskoe at the order of Vasilii III between 1529 and 1532. 179 V. A. Bulkin
suggested that the Church of the Dormition in the Moscow kremlin by Aristotle Fioravante was the
model, but B. P. Dedushkino and William Brumfield have proposed that the architect used the Church of
Metropolitan Peter (Upper Petrovskii Monastery in Moscow) built by Aloisio Lamberti in 1514–15 as
his prototype. 180 The Muscovite chronicles report that in 1531/32, Petr Maloi the Italian laid the
foundation in the Moscow kremlin for the Voskresenie church, the construction of which was completed
in 1543. 181 The Vologda-Perm´ Chronicle and the Russian Chronograph report s.a. 1534 that he
constructed the wooden-dirt wall fortification of the Kitai Gorod in Moscow. 182 A number of chronicles
report s.a. 1535 that he also constructed the subsequent stone wall fortification of the Kitai Gorod and
four towers with gates. 183 After converting to Russian Orthodoxy by 1535, 184 he received a pomest´e
and grand princely immunity grants. The Russian Chronograph reports s.a. 1536 that he constructed the
179 Shvidkovskiy, Russian Architecture and the West, 113–114. Shvidkovskiy discussed what he considered to be
two innovations in Petr Maloi’s design for the church: the tent-shaped roof and the throne that faces away from
the altar (ibid., 114–123). The church was built in honor of the birth of Vasilii’s son, the future Ivan IV. In 1974,
Bulkin had proposed Petr Maloi as the architect. V. A. Bulkin, “O tserkvi Vozneseniia v Kolomenskom,” in
Kul´tura srednevekovoi Rusi. Posviashhetsia 70-letiiu M. K. Kargera, ed. A. N. Kirpichnikov and N. A.
Rappoport (Moscow: Nauka, 1974), 116.
180 Bulkin, “O tserkvi Vozneseniia v Kolomenskom,” 114; B. P. Dedushkino, “K istorii ansamblia moskovskogo
Vysoko-Petrovskogo monastyria,” in Drevnerusskoe iskusstvo XVII v., ed. V. N. Lazarev, O. N. Podobedova, and
V. V. Kostochkin (Moscow: Nauka, 1964), 253–271; Brumfield, History of Russian Architecture, 114.
181 PSRL, 13: 145; 20: 463–464; 29: 144.
182 PSRL, 22: 523; 26: 315–316, 323.
183 PSRL, 8: 289; 13: 85, 423; 20: 429; 22: 523–524; 26: 316, 322; 29: 130.
184 PSRL, 13: 94; 20: 429; 29: 17, where he is referred to as “newly baptized” (novokreshchenoi) (?)
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fortification of the town of Pronsk. 185 The Novgorod IV Chronicle tells us that in the summer of 1538 he
was sent to Pskov to build a timber fence across the estuary of the Velikaia River. 186 He is reported by
the chronicles s.a 1538 to have constructed the dirt wall fortification of the town of Sebezh
(Ivangorod), 187 and then he fled to Livonia. He told the Bishop of Dorpat there that he had been hired
for a three-year stint by the grand prince, but had been required to stay 11 years. 188
The Muscovite chronicles report s.a. 1532/33 that Nikolai the Foreigner (nemchin), also known
as “comrade Liudoviko” (Liudovikov tovarishch), and Nikolai the Italian, forged the great “Good
News” (blagovestnik) bell. 189 Nikolai also constructed “three gun towers (strel´nitsy).” 190 The Pskov
Chronicle reports s.a. 1537/38 that an Italian master constructed a wooden wall at the entrance to Pskov
and a double gate with lattice work. 191 Grigorii Mistrobonov is recorded in the List of the Tsar’s Archive
as being a “town master.” According to a document dated 1538, he was sent with Peter the Italian to the
besieged town of Sebezh. 192
185 PSRL, 22: 524.
186 PSRL, 4 (1st?? ed.): 302.
187 PSRL, 26: 316, 322.
188 For Peter the Italian’s flight to Livonia and his interrogation by the Bishop of Dorpat, see Kivimäe, “Petr
Frjazin,” 26–28.
189 PSRL, 26: 315, 323.
190 PSRL, 8: 284; 13: 72; 20: 418; 26: 315, 323; 27: 161.
191 Pskovskie letopisi, 1: 1009. (?)
192 Opisi Tsarskogo arkhiva i arkhiva Posol´skogo prikaza 1614 g. (Moscow, 1960), 41; AI, 1: 202–204.
57