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Keywords

Time scale - century
XVII

Bibliographic description:
Liseytsev D.V. Russian embassy custom at the beginning of the 17th century based on the materials of the clerical work of the Ambassadorial order // Studies in the source study of the history of Russia (until 1917): collection of articles / Russian Academy Sciences, Institute of Russian History; resp. ed. P.N. Zyryanov. M., 2004. S. 216-251.

Article text

Liseytsev D.V.

RUSSIAN AMBASSADOR'S CUSTOM AT THE BEGINNING OF THE 17TH CENTURY ON THE MATERIALS OF THE OFFICE PROCESS OF THE AMBASSADOR'S ORDER

The implementation of international contacts has long implied a number of related rituals, customs and ceremonies. The totality of rituals and rules of behavior for diplomats at foreign courts, as well as ceremonies that took place when receiving foreign ambassadors, gradually formed into a system of diplomatic ceremonial. Relations between states were carried out through a special diplomatic language, using specific terminology. An analysis of the norms of diplomatic etiquette can provide interesting material on the history of foreign policy, international relations and embassy service. Consideration of the "ambassadorial custom" is also interesting from a semiotic point of view, since it provides an opportunity to draw conclusions about the significance for people of the past of symbolic acts adopted in the sphere of international contacts, as well as about the claims put forward by the power in the foreign policy arena.

Analyzing the historiography devoted to the diplomatic ceremonial of the Moscow state, first of all, it should be noted a special monograph by L.A. Yuzefovich. The paper examines in detail the Russian "embassy custom" of the late XV - early XVII century: issues related to the stay of foreign diplomats on the territory of Russia, as well as rules of conduct Russian ambassadors abroad. At the moment, the study of L.A. Yuzefovich is the most authoritative work on the history of diplomatic etiquette of the Moscow State. Yu.N. Dostovalov's article, devoted to the Russian ambassadorial etiquette of the 16th-17th centuries, based mainly on published sources, practically does not bring anything new in comparison with the studies of the previous author. The problem of the influence of the Eastern (Tatar) tradition on the embassy ceremonial of the Moscow state was investigated by N.I. Veselovsky. This, in fact, limits the list of works devoted directly to the history of the "embassy custom" of the Moscow state.

In this work, mainly on the basis of unpublished materials of the clerical work of the Posolsky Prikaz, Russian diplomatic etiquette of the first two decades of the 17th century, a period only partially touched upon in the study of L.A. Yuzefovich, will be considered. An analysis of the diplomatic ceremonial of the Muscovite state at the beginning of the 17th century and the Time of Troubles is of particular interest. By the end of the 16th century, the main diplomatic department of the country (Posolsky Prikaz) and the system of diplomatic etiquette (“ambassadorial custom”) as a whole had already been formed. The difficult circumstances of the Time of Troubles, the frequent change of monarchs, the diplomatic crisis of the Muscovite state, the strengthening of Western influence - all this inevitably had to leave an imprint both on the country's foreign policy as a whole and on the "embassy custom" that existed at the court of Moscow sovereigns.

A study of the documentation of the Posolsky Prikaz and narrative sources (mostly of foreign origin) that have survived to this day allows us to conclude that, in general, the diplomatic ceremonial of the beginning of the 17th century did not undergo major changes compared to the previous period. According to established tradition, a foreign diplomat, immediately after crossing the Russian border, received an accompanying person - a bailiff, who delivered him to Moscow. On the way, the representative of the foreign court was provided with everything necessary: ​​provisions, means of transportation, security. Previous precedents, the rank of a diplomat, and the significance for the Muscovite state of relations with the country he represented directly influenced the honors accorded to him. Russian diplomatic ceremonial implied polite treatment of foreign diplomats. In particular, in 1614, the governors received an order from the Ambassadorial Order regarding the arrival of the English ambassador, so that they would receive the diplomat “with great honor, and feed him, and the nobles, and the people they were given, and in all respect for them and courtesy kept as before ambassadorial custom.

Of considerable importance at the stage of escorting the embassy to Moscow was the provision of provisions and vehicles for the mission. Depending on the rank of the diplomat, his feed content also changed. For example, in 1604, the Ivangorod governors wrote to Moscow: “If it happens, sir, the tsar’s ambassadors will come to Ivangorod, not big and close tsar’s people, and we, your serfs, will teach them to give them food less than your sovereign’s decrees, trying on the painting , looking at the people ". The painting of feed was usually sent from the Ambassadorial order to the cities. In the absence of a new painting, the governors used the old documents. In particular, in 1614, the Arkhangelsk governors gave food to the English embassy according to the painting that had been preserved in the command hut since 1600. The content of foreigners in the Muscovite state was very generous. The English mission of 35 people, traveling to Moscow, for every two days received, in addition to bread and rolls, a yalovitsa, 4 rams, 9 chickens, half a ham, 200 eggs, 8 hryvnias of butter, half a bucket of sour cream and vinegar, a quarter of a pood of salt and a quarter cereals. In addition, the British daily received, depending on their rank, from two to five cups of “hot wine”, three varieties of honey, and also half a bucket of beer. Despite this, there were occasional conflict situations. So, for example, the English ambassador J. Merrick, according to the above painting, refused to take food, arguing that it was not enough.

The Russian side made sure that the foreigners received the food they were entitled to in a timely manner and in full. To do this, it was necessary to appoint reliable people to collect fodder. In 1604, for example, an order was sent to Novgorod: “But they would send clerks for fodder ... standing good ones, whom it is possible to believe, and ordered firmly so that they would not make sales and losses in the stern, and they themselves would not be self-serving, and promises and commemorations were not received from anyone. It should be noted that the feed content of foreign missions was hallmark Asian and East European diplomatic ceremonies. All foreign embassies in Poland were fully supported, they kept foreign missions in the Ottoman Empire and the Crimean Khanate, while in European countries the ambassadors had to live at their own expense.

Foreign missions in Russia were also provided with horses and carts. At the same time, however, vigilantly monitored that only diplomats received transport, while the merchants accompanying them were supposed to hire carts at their own expense. In 1614, the Ambassadorial order ordered the governors to respond to possible requests from the ambassador for additional carts for merchants: “there is no one in any state to give carts to merchants for goods, but to give carts for ambassadors, and for envoys, and for noblemen, and under the people, and although with whom the ambassadors and envoys are merchants, they do not give anyone a cart for them and for their goods. But they ride and carry their goods on their horses or hire them, and it’s not possible to do that past the former customs, which has never happened anywhere else. ”

The task of the city voivods and bailiffs was to create a positive impression of the Moscow State for a foreign diplomat. Along the way the mission was hastily put in order roads, bridges, buildings. In 1604, in anticipation of the arrival of the imperial ambassador G. Logau, in the city of Torzhok, it was ordered to line the dirty yards with straw and brushwood and repair the bridges. Diplomatic ceremonial instructed the governors to ensure that in the cities entrusted to their care, when foreigners traveled, it was “crowded and arranged according to embassy custom: archers and townspeople were in an honorable dress.” In the same 1604 in Livny, during the passage of the Crimean messenger, the voivodes “the best, colored, and equestrian, and smartly ordered to drive close to the embassy roads right and left in crowds, and not in a regiment, and which ... horses under them worse, those were ordered to travel far away, and on foot ... people were ordered to walk therefore ... in crowds. In all likelihood, having given the order to go in “crowds” and not in “regiments”, the Livensky governors ensured that the crowdedness and wealth of the Muscovite state looked more natural in the eyes of the Crimean messenger.

The bailiffs were ordered to prevent the appearance of the poor and the sick on the roads: the corresponding order was preserved in the column about the arrival of the imperial embassy in Moscow in 1604: “so that the sick and the poor on those camps were by no means any kind of person, take care of that tightly.” It was also necessary to protect diplomats from communicating with random people: in almost all surviving orders to bailiffs of the early 17th century. contains the requirement “take care that Russian people do not come to the ambassador, and to the nobles, and to their people .., and German people, and Lithuanians do not come and talk about anything.”

Its peculiarity at the beginning of the XVII century. had the order of meeting of the Swedish and Turkish missions. According to tradition, bailiffs at the border met Swedish diplomats not on behalf of the tsar, but on behalf of the Novgorod governor. This custom was established back in those days when the Novgorod land was not included in the Muscovite state, and "Lord Veliky Novgorod" maintained independent foreign policy relations with foreign powers. By the beginning of the XVII century. contacts with Sweden were already entirely under the control of the Ambassadorial Order, but for reasons of prestige, the Swedish envoys and messengers continued to be told that they should ask the Novgorod governors for permission to enter the Muscovite state. So, in 1607, Swedish messengers were received at the border and escorted to Moscow, allegedly at the behest of the Novgorod governor, Prince A.P. Kurakin. Later, at the end of 1608, when the Moscow government became interested in concluding a military alliance with Sweden, Prince M.V. Skopin-Shuisky, then Novgorod governor, was sent to negotiate with General Delagardie.

Turkish diplomats were met on the southern borders of the country on behalf of the Ryazan governors. For example, in 1614, the nobleman I.G. Odadurov was sent to meet the Turkish mission by order from the Ambassadorial Order, but he had to tell the Turks that he was meeting them from the Ryazan governor, Prince F.I. Lykov-Obolensky. This practice was well established. When the aforementioned Odadurov refused to go to meet the embassy on behalf of the Ryazan governor, fearing thereby dropping his family honor, a severe reprimand was sent from Moscow with an order to put the obstinate nobleman in prison for several days. Among other things, in a rebuke from the Ambassadorial Order it was said: “And before that, they were at a meeting against the Turkish envoys and they used to speak from the Rezan boyars and governors, and from the governors and not to your fatherland: Prince Grigory Volkonsky and others to that mile”.

Arriving at Moscow, the bailiff had to stop a few miles from the capital, at the last camp, and report his arrival to the Posolsky Prikaz. This delay was necessary in order for the embassy clerks to have time to organize the ceremony of welcoming the diplomat. The meeting took place not far from the city wall (“with a shootout” - that is, at the distance of an arrow flight). New bailiffs were sent to meet the foreign diplomat, who from that moment on changed the former, traveling bailiff, who accompanied the foreigner from the border. Depending on the situation, bailiffs could be from one to three people. As a rule, one bailiff was assigned to the messengers, regardless of the country he represented. In 1604, one bailiff was with the imperial messenger; in 1607, the Swedish and the Crimean messengers each had one bailiff; in 1616, one bailiff was listed with the Dutch messenger, in 1617 - with the English. Almost always, one bailiff was assigned to the Crimean and Nogai diplomats of any rank. The exception is the mission of the Crimean messenger Jan-Akhmet-Chelibey in 1604-1605, during which two bailiffs are constantly mentioned. This is probably explained by the size of the mission - 145 people. One bailiff was sometimes sent to diplomats of a higher rank than messengers: in 1608 to the Kalmyk ambassadors, in 1614 to the Danish envoy and to the Kumyk ambassador, in 1615 to the Dutch envoy. One bailiff was supposed to be sent to the Circassian murzas and visiting foreigners, as, for example, in 1609 to the Swedish mercenaries who came for a salary.

Two or three bailiffs were sent to the diplomats of the most significant powers for Russian foreign policy, if they arrived in the rank of envoys or ambassadors. In 1604 the English ambassador was met by three bailiffs; in 1606, two bailiffs were sent to the Polish ambassadors (later their number was increased to three); in 1614, under the English after, there were three bailiffs; two bailiffs were in 1617-1618. under the Persian and Swedish ambassadors.

The more significant the mission was, the more well-born people were appointed to bailiffs. For example, in 1604 Prince F.A. Zvenigorodsky was appointed bailiff to the Persian ambassador; to the Polish ambassadors who arrived to False Dmitry I in 1606, Prince G.K. G. Zasetsky.

Together with the bailiff, an interpreter was sent to meet the foreign ambassador, who translated his speeches, as well as a detachment of boyar children (“oncoming”) who accompanied the foreigner in Moscow to the courtyard. By the time the foreigners met, the “oncoming” had to be “arranged” by one of the discharge clerks and stand in a “regiment”. The number of "counters", depending on the circumstances, could be different. First of all, the rank of a diplomat and the significance for Russian diplomacy of the mission headed by him were taken into account. In 1607, the Swedish messenger B. Neumann and the bailiff were met by 35 "oncoming"; more crowded was the meeting in 1614 of the English ambassador J. Merrick, on whom great hopes were placed in Moscow: the English king James I offered his mediation in the Russian-Swedish negotiations. It seems that this is why Merrick's mission was met near Moscow and accompanied to the courtyard by 60 "on counters". Perhaps the most magnificent reception for the entire period we are considering was given to the Polish ambassadors N. Olesnitsky and A. Gonsevsky at their entrance to Moscow on May 2, 1606: by order of False Dmitry I, they were met by members of the Boyar Duma; At least 200 "drabants" met the bailiffs of the ambassadors.

In the future, after the mission was placed in the courtyard, the "meeting" had to accompany the foreigners during their stay in Moscow on all their trips around the city; they also had to, taking turns, live in the courtyard of the diplomats "for protection". If a diplomat did not leave the yard with his entire mission, only part of his Russian guards went with him to the city. In 1604, the imperial envoy, Metropolitan Dionysius, was escorted to the Kremlin by 20 people; in September 1604, with the Crimean messenger Jan-Akhmet-Chelibey, 30 Russian "oncoming" went to the Kremlin. With the Crimean messenger Khedir-Ulan in 1607, only 10 grooms went to an audience; in the same year, the Swedish messenger B. Neumann was accompanied to the Kremlin by 15 people.

The first to meet a foreign representative (a little further than the bailiff) was a groom (sometimes an interpreter), who handed over saddled horses to the diplomat and his retinue, and also, depending on the time of year, a cart or sleigh. Usually, the groom made a speech when handing over the horses and carriage, in which he reported that the horses in full harness and the cart (or sleigh) were sent to the ambassador as a sign of the king’s special love for his sovereign “from his sovereign’s stables”. Most of the diplomats who arrived in Moscow received horses from the royal stable, but sometimes, depending on the significance of the diplomatic mission for the Moscow state or based on an established tradition, horses were sent from other people. So, if a clergyman was at the head of the mission, horses were sent, as a rule, from the Chudov Monastery: this monastery provided horses in 1604 to the imperial envoy Metropolitan Dionysius, and in 1619 to the Georgian envoy hegumen Khariton. There were frequent cases of sending horses from the head of the Ambassadorial order: to Danish messengers and envoys in 1601-1602. A.I. Vlasyev sent horses, in 1614-1615. - P.A. Tretyakov, in 1619 - I.T. Gramotin; from P.A. Tretyakov, horses were sent in 1614 to a Persian merchant and to a Dutch messenger in 1616. In 1617, a horse was sent to an English messenger from an interpreter.

As a rule, during the entire stay of a diplomat in Moscow, horses for trips to the Posolsky Prikaz and the Kremlin were provided to him by the same person as at the meeting, however, there were exceptions to this rule: in 1615, the Dutch ambassador I. Massa received horses from the embassy clerk, and before leaving, as a sign of royal mercy, he received horses from the sovereign's stable. Sometimes a horse was sent to diplomats from one person, and it was stated that it was sent from a person of a higher position: for example, in 1620, “horses ... were sent to the Kumyk ambassadors, interpreters were sent, and they were revealed from a dumnovo diyak from Ivan Gramotin”. In 1618, horses were not sent to the Kalmyk ambassadors at all: “But horses were not sent under them, they went to the city on foot, because it was dry and stood close to Vvedenskaya Street.” This was done, probably, in view of the small foreign policy significance for the Muscovite state of contacts with the Kalmyk taishas.

Having received the horses, foreign diplomats drove up to the bailiffs, and they turned to them with a demand to get off the horses. After the foreigners descended to the ground, the bailiffs also dismounted and greeted the newcomers. After an exchange of greetings, the bailiffs announced from whom they had been sent to meet the mission. In most cases, it was stated that the meeting was appointed by the sovereign. However, sometimes diplomatic missions received a less honorable reception - in these cases, bailiffs reported that they had been sent from the boyars. In June 1604, at a meeting near Moscow of the imperial envoy of the Tyrnovo Metropolitan Dionysius, it was said that he was being met on the orders of the roundabouts; the Persian "merchant", sent to Moscow with letters from Shah Abbas in 1614, was met from "order people".

On behalf of those who sent them to the meeting, the bailiffs asked the arriving diplomats about their health, then introduced themselves, shook hands with the head of the mission and accompanied the foreigners to the farmstead appointed for their residence. At the same time, the bailiffs had to ride on horseback on both sides of the head of the diplomatic mission, and if he preferred to ride on a sleigh or in a wagon, the bailiffs also had to transfer to him. In addition, it was supposed to ensure that those accompanying the embassy motorcade “the oncoming riders rode arrangedly in front of the ambassador and on both sides, but the roads would not be crossed, and they would not repair enthusiasm in anything, and the embassy people would ride together without tearing” .

The envoys were taken through the streets along a predetermined route; archers stood along the route (they were placed around the city not only on the day of the mission's arrival, but also during all trips of diplomats to the Posolsky Prikaz and the Kremlin). Depending on the situation, archers could stand with or without squeakers; it was considered more honorable if there was an armed guard along the way of the mission. When the messengers passed, the archers, as a rule, stood without squeakers: this was the case during the visit of the Crimean messengers to Moscow in 1604 and 1607. and a Swedish messenger in 1607. When diplomats of a higher rank (envoys and ambassadors) followed the streets of the city, archers were lined up along the streets with guns. In 1607, archers with squeaks stood on the occasion of the arrival of Polish envoys. Sometimes there were not enough archers, and then other people were placed on the streets with weapons. So, during the reception of the English ambassador in the Kremlin in 1615, "in addition to the archer, in addition to the boyars, and from the nobles, and from the clerks there were people with squeakers"; in the same year, when they received the Polish envoy, "where there were not enough archers, and here they stood with squeakers from hundreds and settlements." In 1616-1617. under Khiva, archers were placed along the streets, as well as Cossacks and "black people in clean clothes". Not all envoys were honored with such an honor as an armed archery guard: during trips around Moscow by the Dutch envoy I. Massa, archers stood on the streets without squeakers. Perhaps this is due to the not entirely clear diplomatic status of the merchant Massa: he did not arrive in Moscow directly from Holland: a letter from the Dutch authorities was sent to him in Arkhangelsk.

The bailiffs delivered the foreign mission to the courtyard allotted for it. At that time, English, Polish and Crimean diplomats had their own special courtyards in Moscow. "Aglinskoy Dvor" was located on Ilyinka; in 1614, in connection with the arrival in Moscow of the English ambassador J. Merrick, the English court was hastily put in order. On Ilyinka, the residence of the Polish ambassadors was located - the “Lithuanian courtyard”; in 1609, Swedish mercenaries who came to Moscow for a salary were stationed on it; in 1614, J. Merrick was placed "at the former at the Lithuanian embassy court in China-town" . "Crimean yard" was located in Zamoskvorechye. There is a known case when a Crimean messenger, who arrived in Moscow in June 1618, was placed in the White City on Rozhdestvenskaya Street in the town's yard. Representatives of other foreign courts visited Moscow less often, so at the beginning of the 17th century there were no special courts for them.

For diplomats from most countries, immediately before their arrival, the court of one of the disgraced nobles or the courtyard of the monastery was prepared. They tried to accommodate foreigners not far from the Kremlin. So, in 1601-1602. Danish messengers were settled in the courtyards of the boyar I.N. Romanov and Prince A.D. Sitsky on Tverskaya Street; the imperial messenger in 1604 was placed on Tverskaya in the courtyard of Prince Gagin; in 1604 the imperial envoy, Metropolitan Dionysius, was settled on Ilyinka in the courtyard of the Ryazan archbishop, and Archbishop Theodosius, who arrived in the same year for alms, was installed there; in 1607, a Swedish messenger was posted on Dmitrovka in the courtyard of Prince F.A. Zvenigorodsky (in the book it was recorded that Swedish diplomats were standing in the same courtyard three years earlier). In 1614, Danish envoys were instructed to prepare the courtyard of the Solovetsky Monastery in Kitai-Gorod on Vvedenskaya Street; in 1615 a Polish envoy was stationed in the same courtyard, and in 1616 a messenger from Sweden. In 1615, before the arrival of the Turkish envoy to Moscow, it was ordered to dismantle part of the mansions of the old Godunov court (occupied by Prince D.T. Trubetskoy) and transfer them to the metochion of the Metropolitan of Novgorod. Kalmyk ambassadors in 1618 were placed on Vvedenskaya street.

Having placed foreigners in the courtyard, the bailiffs went with a report to the king. Bailiffs had to be with diplomats almost inseparably. So, of the three bailiffs who were under the English after J. Merrick, the elder was supposed to “visit the ambassador every day of the morning and evening” with a retinue of ten people, and the other two were instructed to “live with the ambassador all day and start, changing, by day”; along with them, ten boyar children constantly stayed in the courtyard.

The duty of bailiffs was also charged with monitoring the connections of the diplomat they served. The embassy order usually supplied the bailiffs with the following order: “And what kind of person will come to the court and learn to speak with the envoys or with their people, and send those, imagining, to the Embassy order.” Accordingly, persons who came into contact, even if unwittingly, with foreign diplomats were subjected to arrest and punishment. For example, in September 1604, the embassy clerk A. Vlasyev submitted to the Boyar Duma the question of a janitor who lived in his hut in the courtyard where the Crimean messengers were stationed. The complexity of the situation was that the janitor had the opportunity to freely talk with the Tatars: “anything that he will talk to the Tatars, but you can’t save him and take him away from it.” As a result, by decision of the Duma, Vlasyev ordered to steal the janitor from the courtyard with the whole family. For communicating with the same Crimean messengers in the fall of 1604, a “small” was arrested who tried to sell bags to the Tatars, as well as a merchant from whom the messengers bought honey. In June 1607, the bailiff brought to the Posolsky Prikaz for questioning a man caught trying to sell a horse to the Crimean messengers. At the beginning of 1614, the Ambassadorial Prikaz received a petition from the Persian ambassador, written at his request by the square clerk A. Zinoviev. In response, the embassy clerks ordered: “that clerk Oleshka ... try with a lie, then he has a place for teaching.” In October 1616, the archer and the archer's wife were brought to the Posolsky Prikaz, who gave wine to the Tatars who were in the retinue of the Crimean ambassador. The offenders were sent to the Streltsy order and ordered to "inflict punishment" so that in the future they "should not steal like that, walking in the bailiff, ... do not walk around the yard and drink from the Tatars."

Russian diplomatic ceremonial forbade a foreign diplomat and members of his mission to move around Moscow unaccompanied. In the case of the visit to Russia of the English Ambassador J. Merrick, the following indication is contained: “And why would the ambassador send his people to bargain or to the Agli guests, and ... let the embassy people go to bargain with bailiffs, with boyar children, ... and let them go to the aglin court to the guest, saying in the Ambassadorial order as a clerk .., and without the bailiff and not talking about them in the Ambassadorial order, the embassy people did not go to bargaining. This aspect of embassy etiquette did not always meet with understanding from foreigners. Thus, the great Lithuanian chancellor Lev Sapega, who arrived at the court of Boris Godunov in 1600, reported in his report to Poland that his mission was constantly surrounded by "great guards" and the ambassadors of the Commonwealth were held "like some kind of captives" .

A few days after arriving in Moscow, foreign messengers were received for the first time at the Posolsky Prikaz. For most of them, the period between their arrival in the capital and the first appointment at the Ambassadorial Office did not exceed ten days. Some persons were on the order the very next day upon arrival in Moscow: in 1609, the Swedish mercenaries were received in this way, in 1616 - the Dutch messenger. The Crimean messengers, who arrived in Moscow in 1617, were received by the embassy clerks two days later; in 1619, four days after his arrival, a Danish messenger was invited to order; nine days passed before the reception of the Crimean messengers in the Ambassadorial Prikaz in 1604 and the English messenger in 1617. Cases when the messengers were not summoned to the Ambassadorial Prikaz for longer than the specified period were rare: for example, in 1618 the embassy clerk accepted the Crimean messengers only later month after their arrival.

On the day of the reception at the farmstead, foreign diplomats were sent their bailiff or translator with boyar children, grooms and archers. Along the streets, as on the day of arrival, archers were placed (sometimes archers even stood in the front chamber of the Ambassadorial order). Dismounting at the entrance to the Posolsky Prikaz, “within a fathom and a half before the attack,” the diplomat entered the building and ended up in the room where the judge of the Posolsky Prikaz was sitting. The embassy retinue got off their horses earlier, at the vestibule of the Discharge Order. The embassy clerk "acted out of his place", followed by a mutual greeting: with representatives of the Christian sovereigns, the clerk "hovered" (asked about health and shook hands), and with Muslim diplomats "rolled" (put his hand on the envoy). After the traditional question about health, the clerk asked the diplomat about the goals of his mission, whether he had letters and "verbal orders". Sometimes, at the same time, letters were confiscated from the messengers for translation. Then the foreigners were escorted back to their farmstead. Shortly thereafter, the messengers received an audience with the king. Sometimes an audience was appointed on the day of the first reception at the Ambassadorial Prikaz (in this case, the ambassador remained to wait for a call at the “Ambassadorial Chamber”, and the judge of the Ambassadorial Prikaz went with a report on him to the tsar).

Diplomats in the rank of envoys and ambassadors, usually, unlike messengers, received an audience with the king without a preliminary visit to the Posolsky Prikaz. Messengers were rarely honored with the honor of receiving an audience before the reception at the Embassy Prikaz: for example, in 1604, without prior questioning in the diplomatic department, Boris Godunov received the imperial messenger B. Merl. And, on the contrary, some ambassadors and envoys, like messengers, had to visit the diplomatic department before being received by the tsar: this was the case with the Persian envoy in 1614, with the Dutch envoy in 1616, with the Kalmyk ambassadors in 1618.

The period between the arrival of diplomats in Moscow and the first audience in the Kremlin was also short and usually did not exceed two weeks. The boyars received the Polish envoy in 1615 on the second day; the Crimean ambassador in the same year received an audience three days later; five days later they received the Crimean ambassador in 1614; English ambassadors in 1604 and 1615 the king received, respectively, a week and ten days later; ten days after the arrival, in 1614, the Danish envoy was also received; the imperial envoy Metropolitan Dionysius in 1604 found himself in the palace two weeks later. Sometimes foreign diplomats had to wait much longer for an audience. The reasons for the delay in the reception could be the absence of the king in the capital - in 1607, the Swedish messenger had to wait for an audience for almost three months, since Vasily Shuisky was with the army near Tula. Another reason for postponing the audience could be complications in relations with the power represented by the diplomat: the Dutch envoy I. Massu, who arrived in Moscow in September 1616, was received only six months later, in April 1617. The reason for this "slowness" was the dissatisfaction of Russian diplomats with the results mediation activity of the Dutch in the Russian-Swedish negotiations. Persian envoy Khoja-Murtoza in 1614-1615. he waited for an audience for two and a half months, probably due to his low social position - the diplomat was a "merchant". Kalmyk ambassadors were not allowed "before the sovereign's eyes" for a month and a half, apparently trying to emphasize how little Moscow diplomacy was interested in contacts with the persons who sent them.

So, some time after arriving in Moscow, the diplomat was given the first audience with the tsar (“they ordered to be with the sovereign on arrival”). According to surviving sources, at the beginning of the 17th century, all audiences with foreign diplomats were given in the Kremlin's "Middle Signature Golden Chamber". If the mission went to the reception directly from the courtyard, then the diplomats rode to the Kremlin on horseback, accompanied by bailiffs. The embassy retinue dismounted at the gates of the Treasury, and the head of the mission rode a little further on horseback - to the first or “middle bull of the Treasury”. If a diplomat was invited to an audience from the Posolsky Prikaz, then he walked from the "Ambassador's Chamber" on foot. In both cases, the mission walked past the Cathedral of the Archangel and entered the Kremlin along the middle staircase (envoys of Muslim sovereigns) or through the porch of the Cathedral of the Annunciation (diplomats are Christians). In office work of the Ambassadorial order of the beginning of the 17th century. managed to find only two indications of a violation of this rule: in 1615 and 1617. the Dutch envoy I. Massa was led into the palace by the middle staircase.

When a diplomat approached the Kremlin, he was organized the so-called "meeting", which could also be different, depending on his rank. The ambassador was usually met in the entrance hall and was escorted to the Middle Subscription Golden Chamber by a member of the sovereign's court and one of the clerks: the English ambassador J. Merrick in 1615, in particular, was met by Prince D. I. Dolgoruky and the second embassy clerk S. Romanchukov. In 1608, two "meetings" were organized for the Polish ambassadors. The meeting of the envoys was less honorable: the Polish envoy M.Kalichevsky and the Danish envoy Ivervint in 1614 were met only by the deacon S.Romanchukov. Messengers "meeting" was not supposed to. The king, meanwhile, was sitting "in his royal place, in a diadem with a scyphedra." Behind the sovereign stood four rynds (two on the right and on the left) in a white dress, gold chains and with axes. In the chamber during an audience with the tsar there were boyars, roundabouts, “great nobles”; in the entry were nobles, boyar children, clerks; on the porch and on the porch of the Cathedral of the Annunciation stood boyar children, clerks and merchants. All participants in the audience had to be in smart clothes (in black hats and "golden coats"), people standing outside the palace were dressed "in clean clothes". In the event of mourning (as was the case in 1604 on the occasion of the death of the queen - nun Alexandra), the participants in the audience dressed in a “quiet dress” - clothes of lilac, cherry and crimson tones.

The diplomat and his retinue who entered the chamber “appeared to strike the sovereign with his forehead” (i.e., announced the arrival) one of the roundabouts. In some cases, during audiences, these functions were performed by the head of the Ambassadorial Department. So, in December 1605, the clerk I. Gramotin “revealed” the Circassian murzas to False Dmitry; in 1609, Swedish mercenaries - V. Telepnev; in 1615 the Dutch envoy - P. Tretyakov. The presented diplomat bowed to the sovereign and delivered a welcoming speech. The beginning of the audience looked somewhat different if the head of the mission was a representative of the foreign Orthodox clergy. In this case, the sovereign got up from the throne and "went under the blessing." After that, the king asked the diplomat about the health of his sovereign (depending on the situation, he did this standing or sitting). So, in 1604, Boris Godunov asked about the health of the Crimean Khan while sitting; while sitting, he was interested in the health of the Swedish king in 1607. Vasily Shuisky. The Russian tsars inquired about the health of the emperor (1604) and the English king (1615) while standing. False Dmitry I, receiving Polish ambassadors in 1606, did not want to get up, asking about the health of King Sigismund III, but after a dispute with diplomats, he made a compromise decision: having received an answer about the good health of the king, the king rose a little on the throne. Vasily Shuisky in 1608 asked about the health of Sigismund III while standing. While standing, Tsar Michael (1616) asked about the health of the Khiva Khan.

After answering a question about health, the ambassador gave the letter, which was accepted by the embassy clerk, and made a speech (a written statement of which was also handed over to the judge of the Ambassadorial order). At the end of the speech, the diplomat and his retinue kissed the king's hand, after which they were allowed to sit on the bench that stood opposite the royal throne. A kind of standard was the bench, which was placed for the Lithuanian ambassadors: "and the bench was like the Lithuanian ambassador." Such a bench in 1614-1615. granted at audiences to the English, Danish and Persian ambassadors. Some diplomats were not allowed to sit down: for example, in June 1604, the imperial messenger "was not a bench" .

The next episode of the audience was a demonstration by the roundabout (or embassy clerk) of the gifts brought by the embassy to the tsar. In the process of "appearing" gifts, diplomats had to stand. Sometimes, after the audience, the gifts presented by the diplomat were returned to the donor (in particular, in 1604, the goblets presented to the tsar by an imperial messenger were returned). After the demonstration of gifts, the messengers received a reciprocal salary (fur coats, ladles, cups), which was handed over to them by a roundabout, embassy or state clerk. In a number of cases, salaries were sent directly to the farmstead with one of the employees of the Ambassadorial order - a clerk or translator. So, for example, in 1604 a salary to the imperial messenger B. Merl was sent with the clerk V. Telepnev, in 1609 to the Swedish mercenaries - with the translator M. Yuryev, in 1617 the sables granted to the yard were delivered to the English messenger R. Swift translator I. Fomin. Ambassadors and envoys at the first audience were not given the royal salary, since it was understood that these diplomats would certainly be received by the king at least once more. The audience was concluded by the speech of the embassy clerk to the diplomats, in which it was reported that they were granted “a place on the table” for food and leave in the courtyard.

The award “on the table of a place for food” meant that instead of a feast at the sovereign, various dishes and drinks would be sent to foreigners in the courtyard. During the period under review, foreign diplomats were invited to feasts only a few times. On October 11, 1604, the English envoy T. Smith was invited to Boris Godunov's feast. It is known that on May 8, 1606, Polish ambassadors N. Olesnitsky and A. Gonsevsky were invited to the wedding feast of False Dmitry I and Marina Mnishek. At the beginning of 1610, Vasily Shuisky gave a feast in honor of the Swedish general J. Delagardi, who had the authority of an ambassador. At the feast on April 14, 1616, the English ambassador J. Merrick was present (the feast took place, according to tradition, in the Faceted Chamber of the Kremlin); in the same Chamber of Facets, a feast took place on June 8, 1617, which was attended by the same J. Merrick, as well as Mongolian and Kyrgyz ambassadors. Soon after the return of the foreign mission to the courtyard, one of the stolniks came to them with food, who regaled the diplomats. Mandatory part feast was the proclamation of toasts to the king, as well as to the sovereign, from whom a diplomat to be treated was sent.

Some messengers did not receive an audience with the king. So, in 1607, without a reception from the sovereign, it was planned to release the Swedish messenger B. Neumann. The reason for this, as mentioned above, was the absence of Tsar Vasily Shuisky in Moscow (he was then with troops near Tula), and also, probably, unwillingness Russian government enter into negotiations with Sweden, which stubbornly imposed its by no means disinterested help on the Muscovite state. The Dutch messenger L. Massa, who arrived in Moscow in 1616, was not at an audience with Tsar Michael. In 1619, the Danish messenger V. von der Guden was denied admission. In such cases, the letter sent by the messenger was accepted in the Ambassadorial order by the judge of this department. A number of messengers received only one audience: in 1604, the imperial messenger was instructed to be at the first audience, "and leave him here to say." In June 1615, the tsar ordered the Crimean messengers "to be at home, sovereign, on arrival and vacation"; one audience was given in 1618 to the Nogai ambassador and to the English messenger. Most of the foreign diplomats received at least one more - "holiday" audience.

It often happened that on the same day audiences were given to several people at once. In this case, foreign diplomats were received in order of priority: while one mission was at an audience, the other waited for its turn in the Ambassadorial order and went to the tsar only after the previous mission went to negotiations or to the courtyard, and the embassy clerk invited them to the reception. When establishing the sequence of reception of foreigners by the tsar, a special hierarchy operated: first of all, representatives of the more significant powers for the Moscow state were received. For example, in 1604, Boris Godunov received Persian and Georgian ambassadors on the same day, and the Persians were the first to be admitted to the sovereign; under False Dmitry I, the Crimean messengers were received after the Swedish prince; in 1614, Mikhail Fedorovich had Crimean ambassadors, and after them a Circassian ambassador was invited; in 1617 the Dutch envoy was received in the first case after the Crimean ambassadors and messengers, and in the second case after the English ambassador; in 1618 the Persian ambassador was received before the Kumyk one. Honors given to foreign diplomats were strictly regulated. So, in the descriptions of simultaneous audiences to the Persian messenger and the Khiva ambassador in 1616-1617, it is indicated that the king was “in a large royal dress”, and the rynds stood at the king “for the Kizylbash (Persian. - D.L.) messenger".

After the translation in the Posolsky Prikaz of the letters submitted by the ambassadors and envoys for negotiations with them, a response commission was appointed, in which, as a rule, one or two boyars, a courtier, a judge of the Posolsky Prikaz and another clerk were appointed (from 1613 - usually the second embassy clerk) . In 1605, the response commission to the English envoy included two boyars, a clerk and an embassy clerk (S.V. Godunov, P.F. Basmanov, I.D. Khvorostinin, A.I. Vlasyev). In November 1607, a response commission was appointed for negotiations with the Polish envoys, consisting of a boyar, a roundabout, duma nobleman, duma embassy clerk and clerk (I.M. Vorotynsky, I.F. Kolychev, V.B. Sukin, V.G. .Telepnev, A.Ivanov). Sometimes, in order to increase the level of representativeness of the response commission, its members were assigned higher ranks: for example, in May 1618, the clerk I. Gramotin, who entered the negotiating commission with the Swedes, was instructed to “write ... dumny”, although in fact he was a dummy clerk became somewhat later. The composition of the commission could be less significant: in 1617, for example, a roundabout and two embassy clerks (N.V. Godunov, P.A. Tretyakov, S. Romanchukov) were appointed to negotiate with the Dutch envoy I. Massa. There were no negotiations with the messengers in the response chamber - all issues were discussed with them by the embassy clerks in the Embassy order or at the Treasury yard (the ceremonial of their receptions in the order remained the same). Before negotiations, ambassadors and envoys, as a rule, were invited to an audience with the king: when such an order was violated in 1607 during negotiations with the Polish ambassadors, they protested. Negotiations were usually conducted in a special "Reply Chamber". In February 1616, the boyars received the messengers "at the Treasury Court in the Kazennaya Polat, because the Reciprocal Polat was not ready for haste." Negotiations could take place in other places: in 1604, negotiations with Metropolitan Dionysius were held at the Treasury Court - on the porch of the Annunciation Cathedral; in 1615, negotiations with the Novgorod embassy were conducted at the Treasury Court, in the Pharmaceutical Chamber, in the Workshop Chamber.

On the day of negotiations, the bailiff was again sent for the ambassadors, and the foreign diplomat again went to receive the king, from where he was sent to the "Reply Chamber". The most junior member of the response commission met the diplomat at the door of the chamber, and the judge of the Ambassadorial order - having moved away from his place a sazhen. The commission was represented by its junior member. After shaking hands, the negotiators sat down on the benches (in 1607, for example, Russian diplomats were sitting "in the shop from the Moscow River", Polish envoys - "in the shop that from Sretenya", and clerks - opposite the envoys). Then the persons assigned to the talks, in order of precedence, delivered a speech representing a reply to the Ambassador's earlier speeches. Then negotiations began. If one of the parties needed to consult among themselves on any issue, they did this in the same chamber, “withdrawing ... to another corner.” When the negotiations came to an end, the clerks went to the tsar with a report on their outcome, and then, returning to the response chamber, released the diplomats to the courtyard. Sometimes negotiations could be completed on the first day, but usually it was necessary to meet in the response chamber more than once. In addition to negotiations in the response chamber, the embassy clerks sometimes came to discuss a number of issues in the courtyard of the ambassadors and envoys, and they, in turn, made proposals to the Posolsky Prikaz, passing them orally or in writing through bailiffs. Diplomats of the highest ranks rarely went to the Posolsky Prikaz for negotiations (for example, in 1615, negotiations were conducted with the Dutch envoy in the order).

At the end of the negotiations, the foreign diplomat was assigned the last, "holiday" audience. A separate vacation audience, as mentioned above, was not awarded to all foreigners. Sometimes the reason for the refusal of the last reception was the dissatisfaction of Russian diplomats with the foreign policy line of this or that power. So, the Dutch envoy I. Masse was initially decided to be allowed to be with the king only “on arrival”, and not to give a vacation audience. The reason for this departure from the traditional ceremonial was the dissatisfaction of Russian diplomats with the mediation of the Dutch representatives in the Russian-Swedish negotiations. The beginning of the holiday audience followed the same pattern as the first audience. The diplomat who entered was introduced to the king, then the diplomat bowed to the sovereign and "approached the hand." The next episode was the presentation of the "sovereign's salary" - fur coats, furs, silver cups. Gifts were announced according to the list by the embassy clerk, and they were handed over by stolniks and clerks of the Treasury order. Sometimes the salary was taken directly to the farmstead. Then the judge of the Posolsky Prikaz delivered a speech and presented the ambassador with a reciprocal royal letter, which summed up the negotiations. In a number of cases, the tsar personally turned to the diplomat with a request to convey to his sovereign a bow from him, and also handed ladles of honey to the departing diplomats. So, in 1604, Tsar Boris Godunov and his heir, Tsarevich Fedor, conveyed a bow to Emperor Rudolf II with an imperial messenger; in 1607, Vasily Shuisky personally brought drink to the Crimean messengers; in 1615, Mikhail Romanov served cups with honey from his hands to the Circassian envoys. If a Russian envoy went abroad with a foreign diplomat, he was represented at a vacation audience by an embassy clerk. Then the ambassador went to his courtyard. As a rule, foreigners again received “a place for food on the table”, but there were also cases of their invitation to a feast after a “vacation” (in 1617, the Mongol and Kyrgyz ambassadors were invited to the feast). Some time after the vacation audience, the mission set off on its return journey, accompanied by a bailiff.

The observance of diplomatic etiquette in Moscow was strictly monitored. For example, on February 6, 1608, the audience with the Polish envoys was interrupted due to the refusal of diplomats to bare their heads during the embassy clerk's speech on behalf of the king; later, during the negotiations, the Russian representatives reprimanded the Poles for this act for a long time. The traditional element of the audience was the question of the health of the person who sent the diplomats. Persistent adherence to the established protocol sometimes led to oddities: in 1608, Tsar Vasily Shuisky inquired about the health of King Sigismund III from the Polish ambassadors, who had been in custody in Moscow since 1606, which aroused the irony and indignation of the latter. No less interesting was the incident that took place in 1615 at the reception of the Novgorod embassy in Moscow. Since the ambassadors were sent from the entire "Novgorod state", the judge of the Ambassadorial order at an audience on behalf of the boyars inquired about the health of the Novgorod metropolitan, the consecrated cathedral, the governor of the boyar Odoevsky, nobles, clerks, servicemen and clerks, guests, elders, townspeople and residents.

The ceremonial of receptions of diplomats sent to Moscow not from sovereigns, but from persons of a lower rank, was somewhat different. So, the envoy J. Buchinsky, who arrived in Moscow in 1605 from the Polish magnate Y. Mnishek, was given an audience by the boyars, and not by the tsar. At the end of 1614, while accepting an ambassador from the Kumyk prince in the Ambassadorial order, P. Tretyakov “crouched” with him while sitting, and the ambassador himself was on his knees. In February 1615, the Novgorod ambassadors were received on behalf of the boyars, and they were given a vacation audience in the "Smaller Golden Chamber". In May 1615, the judge of the Posolsky Prikaz received the envoy from the Nogai Murzas not in the order, but in the Yamskaya Sloboda, after greeting him, laid his hand on him and forced him to kneel, and delivered a speech on behalf of the boyars. In 1615, the envoy from the Polish lords M.Kalichevsky was received by the boyars, and the second embassy clerk S.Romanchukov appeared and questioned him about his health. In December 1615, while receiving a messenger from the Dutch mediators at the Russian-Swedish negotiations, P. Tretyakov did not get up, as he usually did, but "rising up a little on the spot, hovered around the messenger and asked him about his health." The ceremonial procedures in these cases were supposed to emphasize the low position of the person who sent his diplomat to Moscow in comparison with the Russian Tsar.

There were also certain rules of conduct that Russian diplomats had to follow during their stay abroad. An important part of their image abroad was a special "ambassadorial outfit", which was supposed to amaze foreigners with splendor and emphasize the greatness of the Russian sovereign. Until recently, researchers had only the most general idea about the Russian “embassy attire” at the beginning of the 17th century. Thanks to the find of A.V. Lavrentiev, who discovered in the manuscript collections of the State Historical Museum an inventory of the dress of the envoy A.I. Vlasyev, who traveled in 1603-1604. with a mission to Denmark, our information about the ceremonial attire of Russian envoys is becoming much wider. The diplomat's costume consisted of velvet caps embroidered with precious stones and pearls, taffia, various necklaces, chains, rings, belts, lace, expensive vessels and even watches. First of all, once abroad, the envoys had to refuse the possible demands of the governors and other officials (in Germany it could be princes, in Poland - pans, in Turkey - pashas, ​​in the Crimea - murzas) to visit them. Russian diplomats should have declared that they were “unfit” to be with someone before an audience with the sovereign. It was necessary to achieve a personal reception and give the letter into the hands of the sovereign. Since in Moscow it was considered the most honorable if a mission was received before other diplomats, then Russian envoys abroad also strove to be received before other envoys. At the same time, they did not stop even before such extraordinary methods as a fight with people of foreign diplomats. In particular, the Russian envoys in Turkey P. Mansurov and S. Samsonov, in their article list, not without pride, recorded how they managed to get ahead of the Polish ambassador at the vizier’s reception: “And how Peter and Semeyka come to the vizier’s court, and across on the left side, the envoy Jan pan Kokhonovskoy is going along the alley to the vizirev and the court of the Polish king, and in front of him there are about 15 Lithuanians, and others go on foot. And seeing Kokhonovskaya Pan Peter and Semeyka, he began to go to the vizier’s court in a hurry so that he could come to the vizier in advance of Peter and Semeyka, and the people in front of Kokhonovskaya arrived and stood in front of the vizier’s gate and the road was taken over from Peter and Semeyka. And Peter and Semeyka ordered the bastard, and the hawk, and their people to keep Pan Kokhonovsky in the alley, and decreeing his people in another place against the vezier gates, and beat them hard from the road. And krechatniks, and hawks, and Petrovs and Semeykins, the people of the Lithuanian king, envoys of Pan Kohonovsky, beat the people against the vezier gates from the road. And Peter and the Family rode up to the vizier in the yard in front of Pan Kokhonov.

It was allowed to go to an audience with a foreign sovereign only after making sure that diplomats from other countries would not be present; in the event that other ambassadors were at the reception, Russian diplomats were ordered to return to the courtyard. In the order to the ambassadors sent to Poland in 1606, the instruction was specifically stipulated to require “that while they were with the king, there were no ambassadors and envoys of other sovereigns” . The credentials for an audience had to be carried to the clerk, at the entrance to the hall it was received by the second envoy, and then handed over to the head of the diplomatic mission. Such an order was prescribed, in particular, to Russian envoys in 1606 in Poland and in 1617 in England. During the reception, the ambassadors had to ensure that when pronouncing the royal name, the sovereign, to whom they rule the embassy, ​​stood up and bared his head; in the event that he did not do this, the ambassadors should have filed a protest. At the audience, Russian diplomats had to follow Russian diplomatic etiquette: it was forbidden to kneel in front of the Crimean Khan, the Persian Shah should not be kissed on the leg, as required by the Persian custom. Being invited to the feast, Russian diplomats demanded that there were no envoys from other countries (in extreme cases, they should have insisted that they be seated at the table above other diplomats). If these conditions were violated, the envoys were ordered to leave the feast in the courtyard. Before leaving for Russia, the diplomat had to check whether the royal title was written correctly in the letter, otherwise the letter should not be accepted. Such an indication can be found in the order to the messenger sent in 1614 to the court of the Holy Roman Emperor.

If Russian diplomats arbitrarily violated the “embassy custom”, then in Russia they were severely punished for this: the case is widely known when the envoys M. Tikhanov and A. Bukharov, who returned from Persia in 1615, were punished for dressing in “shakhovo dress". True, in addition to this, they committed a number of violations of the mandate: being on their way to Khiva, they allowed the khan not to stand up when greeting the king, handed him too many gifts, and in Persia they attended a reception at Shah Abbas I at the same time as the "thieves" embassy, sent from Marina Mnishek and Ivan Zarutsky. Among other things, the ambassadors quarreled among themselves, and the second envoy, A. Bukharov, even called the head of the mission, M. Tikhanov, "a traitor to the sovereign." Envoys S. Ushakov and S. Zaborovsky, who came from the Empire, were also disgraced for misbehavior abroad. German officers. In fairness, it should be noted that cases of misbehavior by Russian diplomats abroad were infrequent. Sometimes the behavior in Krakow of the ambassador of False Dmitry I, the judge of the Ambassadorial order, Afanasy Ivanovich Vlasyev, is condemned, whose actions allegedly bordered on scoffing. Agreeing with the opinion of A.V. Lavrentiev, who claims that Vlasyev’s behavior was in fact “protection of the sovereign’s honor,” we also note that in the eyes of the Poles, the behavior of the Russian ambassador did not look completely awkward. He managed to impress the Poles with the correct Latin pronunciation (according to Polish sources, Vlasyev not only repeated phrases in this language after the cardinal during the solemn wedding with Marina Mnishek in the church of St. Barbara, but also ruled the embassy before the king in Latin). Probably, wanting to surprise the Poles, the ambassador demanded that, in addition to the usual food supply, spices be served to him: saffron, cloves, ginger. Being present at the feast on the occasion of the wedding of King Sigismund, Vlasyev managed to ensure that he was seated at the same table with the king. He probably managed to make a favorable impression on the Poles, who among themselves called him a "Greek". The Frenchman Jacques Margeret also praised Vlasyev's actions in Krakow. Vlasyev's behavior in Krakow allows us to characterize him as an experienced politician and a supporter of thorough observance of all the subtleties of diplomatic ceremonial, who did not want to deviate a single step from the order given to him. It seems that one cannot agree with the opinion of A.V. Lavrentiev, who believes that the appearance of Vlasyev at the ceremony of his wedding with Marina Mniszek not in a “big cap”, but in a tafya - “headdress of the second rank”, was dictated by the desire to belittle the significance of the Krakow ceremony . In fact, the surviving images show us Vlasyev directly at the time of the wedding in the temple, where he could not be in a cap, while in the Russian tradition the tafya was often not even perceived as a headdress.

Despite the fact that the "embassy custom" was well-established and its observance was strictly monitored by the Ambassadorial order, the beginning of the 17th century. was marked by a number of violations and deviations from traditional diplomatic procedures. The first steps in this direction were taken under Boris Godunov. During his reign, the diplomatic ceremonial was somewhat complicated by the fact that along with the tsar, his heir "sovereign prince and prince Fyodor Borisovich of all Russia" was present at the audience. Foreign representatives had to bow separately to the king and prince, and also to present gifts to each of them. Both the tsar and the tsarevich were also asked about the health of the sovereign who sent the diplomat (for 1603-1604, it was possible to record the presence of the tsarevich at audiences with Georgian, Crimean, imperial, English diplomats, as well as foreign Orthodox priests). Probably, constantly involving his son in the receptions of foreign ambassadors, Boris Godunov sought thereby to strengthen his position as a future sovereign. However, it should be noted that cases of participation of heirs in audiences with foreign diplomats took place even before that: in 1578, in particular, Ivan the Terrible received the Danish ambassador Jacob Ulfeldt together with his eldest son Ivan.

A large number of innovations in diplomatic ceremonial dates back to the reign of False Dmitry I, which, of course, was greatly influenced by his long stay in Poland. The impostor, according to the observations of L.A. Yuzefovich, sought to complicate the embassy custom in order to emphasize the significance of his person with the splendor of the ceremonial. So, to the four bells, which, according to custom, stood near the royal throne during audiences, under False Dmitry, a fifth was added, holding, in contrast to them, a naked sword (swordsman). The desire to demonstrate his greatness also explains the refusal of False Dmitry to get up when asked about the health of the Polish king. Of course, the meeting of the Polish ambassadors who arrived in Moscow in May 1606 was arranged with unusual splendor. However, in many cases, False Dmitry, on the contrary, simplified diplomatic procedures - in particular, he personally spoke with the Polish ambassadors, without resorting to the mediation of the embassy clerk, as required custom; in addition, the king entered into verbal squabbles with ambassadors about his title. It is also known that False Dmitry sometimes secretly received Polish diplomats, without the usual splendor for the Moscow court, without boyars and embassy employees. The reception of the envoy A. Gonsevsky in the autumn of 1605 was secret; in the presence of one P.F. Basmanov, the impostor received Polish ambassadors and in May 1606: “what are they (Olesnitsky and Gonsevsky. - D.L.) Rozstrige was told that nothing was found in the Embassy hut”; later, the boyars reproached the Polish ambassadors for “talking with that thief (False Dmitry. - D.L.) secretly and not according to embassy custom. The inconsistency of the behavior of False Dmitry in matters of diplomatic etiquette, in our opinion, is quite understandable. B.A. Uspensky, considering the wedding ceremony of False Dmitry and Marina Mnishek, came to the conclusion that the impostor “simultaneously conducted a dialogue with two societies - Russian and Polish: he ... had to speak two languages, and sometimes he had to do it simultaneously when the same text was intended for two different audiences... the same text had to be read in this case in two different semiotic languages. Probably, the conclusions of B.A. Uspensky can be extended to the diplomatic ceremonies during the reign of the impostor: in conflict with Polish diplomats and making the ceremonies more magnificent, False Dmitry sought to satisfy the Russian “audience”, and using European terminology and simplifying a number of court actions, he tried to please the Polish "listener".

Changes in the diplomatic ceremonial that took place during the reign of False Dmitry I were largely dictated by the tsar's desire to imitate European, and, above all, Polish models. Probably, under the influence of the impressions received during his stay in the capital of the Commonwealth, the impostor established the position of a swordsman at his court. The meeting of Polish ambassadors in May 1606 was also arranged in a European manner: in their diary entries, Polish diplomats noted that near Moscow they were met by “drabantami” with halberds made “like those of His Majesty the King, ... according to the sides are written in Latin letters: "Demetrius Iwanowicz"". Boyarin P.F. Basmanov, sent to meet the ambassadors, was "in a hussar dress, with a mace." This was also a significant violation of tradition: later, during the reign of Mikhail Romanov, the famous freethinker Prince I.A. Khvorostinin, among other sins, was accused of wanting to go to negotiations with foreigners, dressed like a hussar.

Some deviations from the traditional "embassy custom" can be noted even after the overthrow of False Dmitry. At the same time, it is necessary to single out one significant point: if Boris Godunov and the impostor went to change the norms of diplomatic ceremonial, based on their own interests and ideas, then the sovereigns who followed them allowed innovations in this area only by force. In 1610, for example, Tsar Vasily IV was forced to allow Swedish ambassadors to appear in the Kremlin for an audience in arms, which was considered absolutely unacceptable by Russian court etiquette. A witness to the events of the Time of Troubles, the Swede Peter Petrey explained this event as follows: “To them (foreign ambassadors. - D.L.) ... it is not allowed to come to the Grand Duke with his canes and weapons; even before entering the Kremlin, they must leave all this in their home. But the royal Swedish ambassador, Count Jacob de la Gardie, did not want to do this ... he said that before he laid down his weapon, like a prisoner, he would rather lose his honor and not see the clear eyes of the Grand Duke. Shuisky looked at this with displeasure, but it was much more necessary for him to see the clear eyes of the count than his count ... That's why then they allowed the count and all his senior officers ... to come with weapons to the Grand Duke. This Count Jacob was the first to appear with weapons in the hall of the Grand Duke.

In general, under Vasily Shuisky and at the beginning of the reign of Mikhail Romanov, serious deviations from the diplomatic ceremonial adopted at the Moscow court cannot be found. But at the same time, due to serious complications in Russia's relations with neighboring powers, the Posolsky Prikaz was forced to make some changes (in the direction of simplification) of the ceremonies that Russian diplomats were supposed to follow abroad. In particular, in a number of cases, the traditional ban on visiting anyone before an audience with a foreign sovereign was lifted. So, in 1613, the envoy to Poland, D. Oladyin, was allowed, if the Poles insisted, to "willy-nilly go" to Hetman Khodkevich

Candidate of Historical Sciences L. YUZEFOVYCH.

MESSAGE WITHOUT WORDS

Science and life // Illustrations

Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I receives ambassadors from Grand Duke Vasily Ivanovich. Engraving from 1515.

Ivan III proclaims victory over the Horde Khan. 1478.

Exit of Russian troops to the river Ugra. The so-called standing on the Ugra freed Russia from Horde dependence. 1480.

These medieval European coins, in different time found in Moscow treasures - a clear evidence of the active contacts of Western countries with the growing strength of Russia.

Turkish horseman with captured Christians.

Russian clothes of the 16th century.

German diplomat and traveler Sigismund von Herberstein during his first trip to Muscovy (he visited it twice). His "Notes on Muscovy" told Europe about a hitherto unfamiliar country.

Pskov in the 16th century. Sketch in an essay on Muscovy by Sigismund Herberstein.

Image of Basil III (he ruled from 1505 to 1533).

Almost until the end of the 15th century, Western Europe had a very vague understanding of what Muscovite Rus was. Some considered it "Asian Sarmatia", others - Herodotus' Scythia, drawing information about it from the writings of ancient authors, others - a continuation of Lapland, and the Italian Paolo Giovio, in order to convey the striking difference between Muscovy and the civilizational space familiar to him, likened it to "other worlds of Democritus" . The set of these scientific speculations quickly turned into archaic, as soon as Moscow, having emerged from international isolation, turned its face to the West.

For only a few decades after the "standing on the Ugra" in 1480, which put an end to the Tatar yoke, Russian ambassadors began to appear not only in Vilna, Bakhchisarai or Wallachian Suceava, but also in Krakow, Marienburg, Regensburg, Toledo, London, Copenhagen, Stockholm , Rome, Venice, Florence, Istanbul. Western diplomats also came to Moscow with increasing frequency. It was believed that God, having divided the universe between his earthly deputies, obliged them "through the ambassadors and envoys of the exile" with each other in order to maintain the balance, peace and unity of the Christian world.

Beginning with recent years During the reign of Ivan III, residents of Moscow could observe on the streets of the capital many foreign diplomats of all ranks - from simple messengers with several companions to "great" ambassadors, surrounded by a retinue of hundreds of nobles and servants. Representing a parade of national clothes and customs, they solemnly entered the city and followed with even greater splendor to an audience in the Kremlin. And thousands of spectators crowded on the roadsides, climbed on the ramparts and took the fortress walls, on the roofs of houses and churches. All this was not only not forbidden, on the contrary, it was encouraged and even organized by the authorities, who used any moments for public representation of their own greatness.

From the south, through the Wild Field, Vorotynsk, Borovsk and Putivl, the same way that the Horde "strong ambassadors" recently came for tribute, now the envoys of the Crimean and Nogai khans came to Moscow. On the way, they were accompanied by a reinforced Russian escort, who made sure that the embassy retinue, accustomed to raids, did not rob roadside villages ("offenses and violence would not be repaired against Christianity"). The lords of the Brilliant Porte sent their representatives along the same route - the “Turkish” sultans, who, as Russian diplomatic documents expressed with oriental flamboyance, “exceed the songs of the Sirin with their serenity of face.”

From the north, from the "shelter" of the Nikolo-Korelsky Monastery on the White Sea, later - from the "new Arkhangelsk city", through Kholmogory, Vologda and Yaroslavl, English diplomats moved towards Moscow, more concerned with trade issues than political ones, and merchants, at the same time fulfilling diplomatic missions. instructions. Sometimes they were carried along the rivers Sukhona and Dvina - in summer on boats, in winter on sledges along river ice(the river route in Russia was called "God's road", which, unlike land roads, "cannot be adopted, appeased, or closed").

Ambassadors of Basil III, on their way to the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, back in 1524, on their way to Spain, were the first of the Russians to visit England, but constant contacts with London helped to establish the case. In 1553, King Edward VI sent an expedition in search of a northeastern sea passage to India, and one of its ships ("Edward - Good Beginning") was carried by a storm to the Russian coast. Its captain, Richard Chancellor, posed as a royal ambassador, was taken to Moscow and received by Ivan the Terrible. Since then, contacts have become regular. The British fleet needed wood, hemp, resin, tar. England began a great litigation on the seas with the Spanish monarchy. Cannons thundered on the English Channel and off the coast South America, but the agents of Elizabeth I and Philip II played their game at the Moscow court.

From the east, along the Volga and the Oka, the ambassadors of the Kazan and Astrakhan khans came until their possessions were annexed to Russia. Later, the embassies "Kizilbash" (Persian), "Iberian" (Georgian), "Cherkasy" (Kabardian) followed the same path.

From the west, through Novgorod and Pskov, the Swedes, Danes, representatives of Prussia and the Livonian Order rode. Ambassadors of the Habsburgs passed through Smolensk, huge Polish-Lithuanian embassies moved, looking more like military detachments than diplomatic missions. The latter arrived more often than anyone else, although the actual Polish diplomats were still relatively rare guests until the beginning of the 17th century - in relations with Moscow, the country was usually represented by Lithuanian figures. (So ​​it was before the Union of Lublin in 1569, which united the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Poland into one state - the Commonwealth.) Messengers between Moscow and Vilna scurried incessantly, and at least once every two or three years the parties exchanged embassies<...>

The whole atmosphere that surrounded the ambassadors from the moment they crossed the border was a kind of wordless message, whose meaning was easily understood by experienced addressees. The procedure for dealing with foreign diplomats, the audience ceremonial, the clothes of the courtiers at the reception, the assortment of dishes at the gala dinner - everything, right down to the color of the wax to which the seal was applied, was subject to certain rules related to the ideology of power and the specific political situation.

The rules of conduct for their own representatives abroad were the embassy custom of a particular country. Codes of such norms have long existed in the Venetian Republic and in the Vatican, and in the first half of the 16th century they were drawn up first in the Holy Roman Empire, then in France and other European monarchies, thereby turning into a protocol.

Around the same time, under Vasily III, Moscow in a relatively short time managed to create its own embassy service, taking into account the international position of the country, its size and customs, and develop its own diplomatic etiquette, flexible enough to use it in contacts equally with the East and with West. In subsequent decades, both were constantly changing, sensitively reacting to changes in the surrounding world. Imperial (hereinafter referred to as the Holy Roman Empire) diplomat Daniel von Buchau, comparing the observations of his compatriot Sigismund Herberstein relating to the first quarter of the 16th century, and his own impressions of a trip to Russia in 1575-1576, concluded: over the past half century There have been great changes in the reception and maintenance of ambassadors.

In relations with the West and with the Ottoman Empire, Moscow immediately acted as an equal and sovereign partner. Those rules that regulated its relations with the Horde or with the Russian inheritances were unacceptable here, the new position of the country required other forms of state rituals. The former semi-domestic life of the Grand Horse chambers was rapidly fading into the past, the front side of the life of the Moscow sovereigns was gaining more and more brilliance. In this heady atmosphere of the rapid rise of Moscow, the norms of Russian diplomatic life, etiquette and ceremonial have developed.

Western European diplomats of the 15th-17th centuries wrote a lot about Russian diplomatic ceremonial and etiquette, but their view is an outsider's view. The opportunity to see the subject from the inside, from the point of view of the bearers of the tradition itself, is provided by the so-called embassy books - collections of official documents related to the departure of Russian embassies abroad and the stay of foreign missions in Russia. These "books" began to be compiled long before 1549, when, as is commonly believed, the Posolsky Prikaz was established. They include a variety of documents and, above all, texts of treaties, messages from monarchs (if foreign, then in translation), correspondence of embassy clerks with bailiffs and governors of border cities. Then embassy passports (“dangerous letters”), orders to Russian diplomats serving abroad (“punishment memory”), their lengthy reports compiled upon their return to Moscow (“article lists”), as well as those sent by courier brief messages about the political situation abroad (“news lists”, or “news”). Finally, letters of credence (“believers”), descriptions of audiences and gala dinners, protocols of negotiations, lists of gifts, registers of supplied food, and much more.

Russia concluded the first agreements on diplomatic ceremonial (“ambassadorial rank”) with the Commonwealth, Sweden and the Holy Roman Empire in the 70s of the 17th century. But even then, only particulars were regulated. No matter how you call the element that gave birth to it - the national spirit or the collective mind - the Russian embassy custom (up to the radical reforms of Peter's time) remained just a custom. For two centuries, its norms lived in an oral tradition based only on precedent and experience, and were neither written down separately, nor even more so collected in a single set or approved by some official acts.

Therefore, it is difficult to reconstruct it from the chaotic multitude of elements at our disposal. But recreated from fragments and slips of the tongue, this forever disappeared order of life amazes with the thoughtful proportionality of its parts, the richness of symbolism and the abundance of meanings contained in it.

QUESTION ABOUT "BROTHERHOOD"

In 1574, the interpreter of one of the Swedish embassies, Abraham Nielsen, who had been forcibly left in Moscow five years earlier with the aim of “teaching the Sveyan language to the shy children,” was finally released to his homeland. However, he did not reach Sweden. The Russian authorities detained him at the border, in Oreshka. The reasons were quite good - Nielsen was found to have several papers that he "stole by lasciviousness." There is nothing extraordinary here, members of diplomatic missions have never shunned espionage. ironic expression espion honorable(fr. - honorary spy) came into use at about the same time. In the case of Nielsen, something else is curious: during the search, among other papers, the royal “pedigrees” were “taken out” from him. A year later, during the Russian-Swedish embassy congress on the Sestra River, the boyars, remembering this story, accused Nielsen of "sneaking and writing out the relationship of our sovereign."

Surprisingly, it is not the "lacundry", but the subject to which it is directed. In order to understand why the Swedes needed the family tree of Ivan the Terrible and why this caused alarm in Moscow, it is necessary to consider the “Nielsen case” from the angle of the political views of the era regarding relations between monarchs and states.

In the diplomatic language of the XV-XVII centuries there was an important term - "brotherhood". But he did not express kinship and not the nature of the relationship between sovereigns, but their equality. With the rulers, whom the Russian sovereigns considered lower than themselves by origin or by the level of power, they could be “in friendship and in neighborhood” (in good neighborly relations), “in friendship and in love” (in peaceful relations), “in unity” ( in union), but in no way "in brotherhood". Otherwise, their "honor" suffered. At the same time, even the monarchs at war with each other continued to call each other "brothers", if this was accepted before the outbreak of hostilities.

Russian sovereigns did not consider all their diplomatic partners equal to themselves. Vasily III did not recognize the master of the Livonian Order as a “brother”, since he was a vassal (“goldovnik”) of the Holy Roman Empire (although in Russia they perfectly understood the nominal nature of this dependence). Sending a letter with an Indian merchant to his overlord Babur Pasha, Vasily III "did not order him about brotherhood", because "it is not known how he is in the Indian state - a sovereign or a constable" (viceroy). Kazan Khan Abdul-Latif was recognized as the "brother" of the Grand Duke only in "oral speeches", but not in official documents. Later, at the end of the century, the Kakhetian king Alexander I, who recognized their “high hand” over himself, could not claim the honor of being “in brotherhood” with Fyodor Ivanovich and Boris Godunov.

Moscow was vigilant in ensuring that the Grand Dukes were called "brothers" by the most powerful rulers of the East and West. When in 1515 the Turkish ambassador Kamal-beg, in a list of boyar speeches he made, which the embassy clerks carefully compared with the original, wrote down “about friendship, about love” of Vasily III with the Sultan, but omitted “about brotherhood”, he was forced to correct this supposedly accidental omission.

A different situation developed in relations with the Crimea, which claimed the political legacy of the Golden Horde. Your right to "brotherhood" with the khans Ivan III, Vasily III and even Ivan the Terrible had to buy for money or, more often, for rich gifts. In 1491, the Crimean Khan Mengli-Girey informed Ivan III: “Now the brotherhood will accept that, now that request is gyrfalcons, sables, fish teeth” (walrus tusk. - approx. L.Yu.). In another charter, the “sign of brotherhood”, that is, the condition for his recognition as a khan, are furs and silver utensils, in the third - a certain Crimean “prayer”, captured somewhere in the Wild Field by a Cossack gang.

In turn, Ivan the Terrible, for various reasons, did not recognize some European monarchs as "brothers". He constantly emphasized the antiquity of the Rurik dynasty and the divine origin of his own power, so for him the very possibility of recognizing “brotherhood” included not only the absolute sovereignty of this sovereign, but also his importance in international politics and, of course, his origin.

The Habsburg diplomat Johann Hoffmann, who visited Moscow in 1559, reported that the Russian tsar considered the Swedish king "a merchant and a peasant" and the Danish king "the king of water and salt." Indeed, Ivan the Terrible did not recognize the "brothers" of the kings of Sweden and Denmark. When in the same year representatives of the Danish king Christian III asked "to make him equal with the sovereign", the boyars not only refused to discuss this issue with the ambassadors, but also demanded that in the letters sent to the king, the king called him his "father ".

It is difficult to say for sure why Grozny did not agree, at least formally, to equate Christian III and his successor Frederick II, sovereign and hereditary monarchs, to himself. Denmark was a traditionally friendly power (under Boris Godunov and Mikhail Fedorovich, two attempts were made - unsuccessful, however - to marry Danish princes to the royal daughters). But, apparently, Ivan IV considered her power to be greatly shaken after Sweden, having terminated the Kalmar Union in 1523, came out of the power of Copenhagen. Moreover, Moscow knew about the hierarchy of Catholic sovereigns, which, before the Reformation, was periodically established by special papal bulls. In any case, even under Vasily III in Russia, a translated document was known under the title “ European country kings", where the monarchs were listed in order of seniority Western Europe. In this register, the Holy Roman Emperor ("Caesar") was ranked first, and the Danish king was penultimate, below the Hungarian, Portuguese, Czech and Scottish. Probably, the power of Denmark was considered insufficient for the Russian tsar to recognize its rulers as his "brothers".

Much clearer is the attitude of Ivan the Terrible to the Swedish king Gustav Vasa and his sons - Eric XIV and Johan III. There was no question of "brotherhood" with them because of their low origin. The tsar argued that this was "a male family, not a sovereign." In fact, Gustav I, who was elected to the throne after being expelled from the country of the Danes, came from a noble noble family, but even in this capacity, being an elective monarch, he could not claim equality with Ivan the Terrible - the sovereign "from his forefathers."

Gustav Vasa (“Gastaus the king”) in Moscow was considered not even a nobleman, but a simple merchant. Grozny claimed that in his youth, the future king of Sweden, "dressing himself in mittens," examined the fat and wax brought to Vyborg by the Novgorod "guests." In 1557, A.F. Adashev and clerk I.M. Viskovaty told the Swedish ambassadors: “We’ll tell you about your sovereign in court, and not in reproach, to whom he was born, and how he traded animals and came to the Svei land, and then did it recently.” Perhaps this is a distorted echo of one of the episodes of the turbulent life of Gustav Vasa: in 1519 he was imprisoned by the Danes and escaped from there, dressed in the dress of a cattle driver. In Sweden, all this was perceived extremely painfully. The fact that the founder of the dynasty was declared a meat merchant not “in reproach”, but “in court”, did not change matters.

However, before pressing political interests, the nuances of etiquette receded into the background, and the question of "brotherhood" became nothing more than an additional trump card in the diplomatic game. In 1567, a Russian-Swedish alliance was concluded, directed against the Polish-Lithuanian state. And only then Ivan the Terrible "granted" Eric XIV - "made him with him in brotherhood." The recognition of equality was not unconditional. It could come into force only if the Swedish king took away his wife from his brother Johan, Duke of Finland, who was then in prison, and sent her to the king. Grozny intended to marry her (later he justified this "non-Christian thought" by the fact that he considered the duke dead and his wife a widow).

Johan was married to Catherine Jagiellon, the sister of the Polish King Sigismund II Augustus. Seven years earlier, Grozny himself unsuccessfully wooed her (according to legend, the king sent him a white mare instead of a bride as a mockery) and now, taking advantage of the moment, he decided, with her husband still alive, to get her as a wife, apparently with a two-fold goal: to repay the past humiliation, and most importantly, after the death of the elderly and childless Sigismund II, to acquire the right to the Polish throne for himself or his possible sons from this marriage. (The soundness of the idea itself is proved by the fact that the son of Katerina and Johan later became the Polish king Sigismund III.)

Eric XIV, already at that time showing signs of mental breakdown, promised to fulfill an unprecedented royal demand. Soon, however, he was deposed; his brother (whose wife was never dared to be taken to Moscow) ascended the throne under the name of Johan III. He agreed to confirm the agreement with Russia that was beneficial for Sweden, concluded by his predecessor, but, of course, minus the clause about his own wife. Meanwhile, praising Eric XIV with “brotherhood”, in the text of the agreement (“until the end”) of 1567, Grozny specifically stipulated that if Catherine Jagiellon was not sent to Moscow, then his oath would lose force - “that final letter is not a letter and the brotherhood is not into a brotherhood." And so it happened, everything returned to normal: the king flatly refused to recognize Yuhan III as his “brother”.

That is why it was not the plans of the fortresses, not the secret speeches of the boyars dissatisfied with the autocracy of Grozny, but the royal genealogy that interested the interpreter Nielsen and those who gave him such an order. In Stockholm, they wanted to prove that the tsar does not descend from Augustus Caesar, and not even from the great princes of Kyiv, but only from the princes of Moscow - recent tributaries of the Horde. This information would make it easier for the Swedish side to conduct a controversy about the "brotherhood". The refusal of Ivan the Terrible to recognize the kings of Sweden as equal partners resulted in a number of norms of the Russian-Swedish embassy custom that were humiliating for their dignity. It was the desire to abolish them that caused Nielsen's "folly".

In 1576, the Transylvanian (“sevengradtsky”) prince Stefan Batory was elected to the vacated Polish throne, whom the tsar also did not recognize as a “brother” due to “kindred baseness”. In addition, Grozny invariably insisted on the initial superiority of a hereditary monarch over an elected one. He himself is the sovereign "by God's will", and Batory - "by the many-rebellious human desire"; the Russian sovereign is called upon to “own the people”, and the Polish one is only to “arrange them”. In the correspondence between them, replete with mutual attacks, Grozny even once remarked: "It is honor for you to fight with me, and dishonor for me with you."

Batory in his letter for the first time addressed the tsar with “you” (in speeches and messages in the first person, Russian sovereigns have long spoken of themselves in the plural), and his ambassadors in Moscow did not fail to remind Ivan the Terrible that Sigismund II Augustus always wrote to him “you , you". This innovation did not make any impression on the king, his decision remained unshakable.

The point here is not only and not so much in the "kind baseness" of the Polish king or the method of his accession to the throne. First of all, the election of Batory inevitably entailed a sharp deterioration in relations with the Commonwealth, because it meant the victory of the party that advocated war with Moscow. But in the Commonwealth there was also an influential pro-Moscow group, which twice offered Grozny or Tsarevich Fedor to take the vacant Polish throne: after the death of Sigismund II Augustus in 1572 and after the sudden departure from Krakow of Henry of Anjou (he was elected king at the electoral diet, but in June 1574 year, having learned about the death of his brother, Charles IX, he preferred the vacated French throne to the Polish one and secretly fled to Paris). It was then that the king had far-reaching plans. Renouncing power over the Polish lands proper, he wanted to separately take the throne of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, break the Union of Lublin and thus bloodlessly unite all the lands that were once part of Kievan Rus under his scepter.

With the election of Stefan Batory, these plans collapsed and the issue of recognizing the new Polish king as a "brother" was directly related to the events of 1574-1576.

“Brotherhood” is a purely diplomatic term. When in 1495 Grand Duke Lithuanian Alexander Kazimirovich married Elena Ivanovna, sister of Vasily III, the latter called him "brother and son-in-law", and King Sigismund I, respectively, "brother and matchmaker." Ivan the Terrible, substituting concepts from different semantic series, deliberately mixed political and consanguineous categories. He told the Polish ambassadors who arrived in Moscow that even if Batory had been the son of Sigismund II Augustus, then even then he would have turned out to be his tsar, not a brother, but a nephew. In this case, he could be considered a brother only to Tsarevich Ivan Ivanovich. At these words, as the ambassadors write in the diary, the tsar "pointed his finger at his son, for he was sitting next to him."

Only towards the end of his life after the heavy defeats inflicted on him by Batory, Grozny, resigned, was forced to recognize him as a "brother". Fyodor Ivanovich "made in brotherhood" with him the kings of Denmark and Sweden, and the Russian sovereigns themselves have already achieved the unconditional right to be "brothers" of the Crimean khans. At the same time, they continued to use the vocabulary of other kinship relationships in politics. The German princes, dependent on the Holy Roman Empire, called the king "uncle", because they were the "sons" of the Habsburgs, and they were "brothers" to the Russian sovereigns. Until 1632, when this tradition was considered indecent in Moscow, the Duke of Holstein in his letters to Mikhail Fedorovich called him “uncle and in-law” (“brother-in-law”).

The last word was used in a figurative sense, denoting an indefinite friendly relationship. According to this logic, the Crimean Khan, being a vassal Turkish Sultan, was also the royal "nephew", however, in relations with him, such an approach was apparently considered inapplicable in principle.

By the end of the 16th century, the very term "brotherhood", as it was interpreted by Moscow diplomats, acquired a stricter meaning - the concept of sovereignty became its main content. Neither the origin of the monarch, nor his role in international affairs, nor the antiquity of the dynasty were taken into account. The king automatically recognized the equality of all sovereigns, independent of any earthly power.

See in a room on the same topic

AMBASSADOR'S RITE

Diplomatic etiquette and the order of foreign policy relations in the Russian state in the 16th-17th centuries.

By. began to take shape under Ivan III and finally took shape in the 16th century. In a basis of P. about. the concept of "sovereign honor", that is, the dignity of the Russian state, was laid. The "sovereign honor" was expressed in the correct name and title of the king, in giving his ambassadors the first place, etc. Relations with foreign states were conducted through "great ambassadors", "light ambassadors" - envoys and "messengers" - depending on the importance and the purpose of the embassy, ​​and sometimes from the remoteness of the destination. The ambassadors acted on the basis of the Embassy order(see) detailed instructions; they could not decide anything on their own without relations with Moscow. Upon returning from the embassy, ​​the ambassadors submitted detailed reports in the form of diaries (the so-called article lists) to the Posolsky Prikaz.

When foreign ambassadors arrived in the Russian state, they were met at the border by a bailiff, who was appointed by the governor of the border town to accompany them and supply them with food on the way, which, according to the old Russian custom, was given to them at the expense of the treasury. A few miles before Moscow, the ambassadors stopped to wait for permission to enter the capital; on the appointed day, carriages and riding horses were sent to them from the royal stable. The entrance to the city took place with great solemnity and attracted a large gathering of people; troops were all over the place. To accommodate foreign ambassadors in Moscow in the 17th century. the Embassy Court was arranged; in addition, there were (in some cases as early as the 16th century) separate courtyards for Lithuanian, Tatar, and Ukrainian ambassadors. The ambassadors were kept under the strictest surveillance to avoid espionage on their part; bailiffs were with them all the time. The departure for the audience took place with even greater pomp than the entry into Moscow. The ambassadors descended at some distance from the Red Porch; nobles, clerks and merchants in "golden clothes" stood on the stairs and in the palace chambers. The ambassadors were met by the boyars assigned to that. The king received, sitting on the throne, "in a large outfit", that is, in a caftan of gold brocade, in the "cap of Monomakh", with a scepter in his hand, sometimes with a "royal apple" ("power") in the other. In front of him stood rynds, that is, young courtiers in white caftans with silver axes in their hands; boyars sat along the walls; the ambassador was "revealed", that is, represented, by one of the roundabouts. After an exchange of mutual greetings, the ambassador presented a "believing" (credential) letter, which was accepted by the embassy clerk. Then the ambassador and his retinue were allowed to kiss the royal hand, after which the king immediately washed his hand from a silver washstand. Kissing the hand was the privilege of Christian ambassadors; Muslim ambassadors, the king put his hand on his head. At the end of this ceremony, the ambassadors put a bench against the throne. After sitting for a while, they short speech stated the purpose of the embassy and "revealed" the gifts sent to the king. On the day of the audience, it was supposed to invite ambassadors to dinner in the presence of the king, in the palace, or to send royal treats to them at the Embassy Court. A few days later a more modest, business-like audience was scheduled, after which they met in the "reciprocal chamber" with persons appointed to be "in response", that is, to negotiate.

Before leaving, a farewell audience took place.

Treaties were sealed by an oath, the kissing of the cross and the application of a seal; the signing of the treaty by the king was not accepted. By. existed in this form until Peter I.

Diplomatic Dictionary. - M.: State publishing house of political literature. A. Ya. Vyshinsky, S. A. Lozovsky. 1948 .

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slide 1

Since the time of Ivan III, Russian diplomacy faced such difficult tasks that in the end it was necessary to create a special diplomatic department to solve them. Initially, foreign policy issues were within the exclusive competence of the Grand Duke himself and the Boyar Duma. At first, mainly foreigners who were in the Moscow service, Italians and Greeks, were sent as ambassadors, but already under Vasily III they were supplanted by the Russians. Ivan III Vasily III Appendix to the information and historical project "History of Russian Diplomacy"

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Ivan the Terrible In 1549, Ivan the Terrible handed over the entire "embassy business" to the clerk Ivan Mikhailovich Viskovaty. It is believed that this was the beginning of the Posolsky Prikaz as a special institution, although, as some researchers believe, such a department existed before. Obviously, in the circle of people who in one way or another came into contact with diplomatic activity, ideas were formed about what the embassy custom should be. In Russia XV - XVII centuries. it was precisely custom based on precedent and experience; its norms were neither written down, nor collected in a single code, much less approved by any official acts, even if unilaterally. They were preserved in the memory, passed down from generation to generation, the bearers of which were embassy clerks and clerks, court officials, Russian diplomats and statesmen, including the sovereign himself. Western European ambassadors and travelers who visited Russia in the 15th - 17th centuries wrote a lot about the diplomatic etiquette of the Moscow court - Italians, Germans, British, Danes, Swedes, Poles. They were people of different levels of culture and different writing talent. In addition, the general tone of their notes often depended on the nature of the reception given to them in Moscow, on the specific political situation. The fate of their compositions was also different. Some were reprinted many times and were widely known, others were buried for a long time in the archives of diplomatic offices. These writings should be trusted with caution, but it is precisely about the embassy custom that they provide extremely valuable information, and about those aspects of it that were not recorded by Russian sources. Being, as a rule, diplomats, the authors proceeded from their own experience, described events and ceremonies from the point of view of participants, direct witnesses, and did not present third-hand facts, as was often the case when they described other aspects of Russian life.

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From farm to backyard

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The solemn entry into Moscow of foreign embassies, which was watched by thousands of Muscovites, was a fascinating spectacle. Its script was drawn up in advance, and the directors were bit clerks and clerks of the Ambassadorial order. They determined the day and time of entry into the capital. The latter depended on the weather and time of year, but with slight fluctuations, it was always scheduled for the morning hours. So it was in all major cities, not only in Moscow. In 1574, for example, the bailiff of the Volosh governor Bogdan, worried that he would not be able to fulfill the order, wrote from near Novgorod to the governor about his ward: he, sir, rides according to his custom, gets up early.” Horses were sent to the last camp before Moscow, on which they were supposed to arrive at the place of the official meeting. Sometimes the horses were brought along the route from the lodging for the night to the settlement or handed over immediately before the meeting. Horses were provided thoroughbred, in expensive attire, under embroidered saddles, often with brocade collars and reins made in the form of silver or gilded chains through the link. These chains especially surprised foreigners. Their links were wide and long, but flat. The same chains, only shorter, were sometimes hung on the legs of horses. When moving, they made a ringing, which seemed unusually melodic to some, strange to others. The Italian R. Barberini, who was in Moscow in 1565, reported that luxuriously dressed Russian noblemen on magnificently dressed horses accompanied ambassadors who rode "on the most nasty and badly harnessed horses." This message is completely untrustworthy, it stands in direct connection with the general hostility of Barberini towards Russia. Ugly horses could in no way contribute to the “honor” of the sovereign, since they were sent on his behalf, from his stables.

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The ambassadors had to enter the city without fail on horseback, which often served as the cause of fierce disputes between them and the Russian bailiffs. When in 1582 the Russian envoy F. I. Pisemsky in England was provided with a carriage from Elizabeth I, then, accordingly, the Englishman J. Bowes, who arrived in Russia on a return visit the following year, Ivan the Terrible sent a “coach” to Yaroslavl.

However, on behalf of the royal name, horses were provided only to the ambassadors themselves, and the retinue received them on behalf of "neighbors". So, in 1593, an argamak and a pacer were sent to N. Varkoch and his son from Fyodor Ivanovich, and the retinue nobles from Boris Godunov, the royal brother-in-law, received geldings. Accordingly, the horse attire also varied. Diplomats of the lowest rank - according to their social status "young people" - horses were sent not from the sovereign, but from the embassy clerks. Often the messengers entered the capital on their own horses, for the very ceremony of their entry was not so solemn and attracted much fewer spectators. Entrance of the Austrian embassy to Moscow

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"Kolymaga" Nevertheless, the "kolymaga" remained on the last camp in front of Moscow, and for the solemn entry into the city, the tsar's pacer was brought to the ambassador. True, the embassy book does not tell us what happened next, we learn about it from the notes of an English merchant who lived in Russia at that time.

Slide 7


Such a gross violation of ceremonial norms, which Bowes allowed himself, is a unique case. The ambassador was forgiven and the incident was left without consequences only because Grozny at that time hoped for an Anglo-Russian alliance. Neither the provided horse, nor its decoration could be refused, as well as other forms of royal "salary". Because the mercy shown by the king in relation to the ambassador should have been obvious, demonstrative. It seemed to the arrogant and arrogant Bowes that the pacer sent to him was not as good as the horse under Prince IV Sitsky who met him. Refusing to mount the pacer, Bowes set off on foot, because, presumably, he was also not allowed to ride in a carriage. The Muscovites who gathered to admire the spectacle of the embassy procession, which this time moved at the speed of a pedestrian, were dissatisfied. From the crowd, derisive cries addressed to Bowes were heard: "Karlukha!" As the merchant writes, this meant “crane legs.” Probably, the English ambassador had a lanky figure, and irritated Muscovites called him that in a mockery.

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The ambassadors of the east, primarily the Crimean and Nogai, sent expensive fur coats from the tsar directly to the meeting place. At any time of the year, the ambassadors immediately put them on. In Russian diplomatic vocabulary there was even a special term - "counter salary". Unlike the horses provided to Western diplomats, these fur coats became the full property of the khan's envoys and were not taken back to the treasury. But to some extent, these norms have a common basis: they publicly manifested the wealth and generosity of the sovereign. In addition, the Crimean ambassadors, who rode through the streets of Moscow in fur coats bestowed, served the “honor” of the tsar: in Russia, only the elder could give clothes to the younger, subordinate or subject, and therefore Russian diplomats abroad were strictly forbidden to appear in public in a foreign dress presented to them.

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After a mutual introduction and pronunciation of stereotyped ceremonial formulas, everyone again mounted their horses and the procession ceremoniously followed into the city, to the indicated courtyard. The clerks of the Discharge Order, whose duties included monitoring the observance of local norms, arranged everyone “in their places”, depending on their gender and rank, made sure that no one crossed the road to the ambassadors and “did not fix them with enthusiasm”, since curious Muscovites crowded the streets , and to admire the spectacle of the embassy procession, many went on horseback. By tradition, bailiffs and "oncoming" had to go with the ambassadors in a row, to the right of them. The right side was considered more honorable, and if the ambassadors did not like this order, and this usually happened, then the Russians were located on both sides of them: the elder rode on the right, the rest on the left.

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Ambassadorial “Korm” Since the meeting of foreign diplomats of all ranks at the Russian border, they have switched to full state provision food. In Moscow, such an order was considered the only correct form maintenance of the embassies, and in 1585 L. Novosiltsev, while in Vienna, noted with surprise that the Spanish and papal ambassadors living at the court of the emperor "eat their own, not the royal" . The Dutchman I. Massa in his notes repeatedly reports that this or that ambassador in Moscow was released by the tsar from all costs - for him this is a custom that deserved approval and was undeservedly not accepted in Europe.

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Perhaps such a tradition has been preserved in Russia since the time of the inter-princely congresses of the Mongol period, when their participants were kept at the expense of the prince in whose land they were located. Indeed, if in Russia foreign diplomats received food supplies from the moment they entered the territory and before they crossed the border, then in Persia, for example, Russians began to receive “food” only after the first audience with the shah. In both Persia and Turkey, food was stopped after a farewell audience (“vacation”). The Russian envoy, Novosiltsev, thought that he should have been treated in Turkey in the same way that Turkish people were treated in Russia. However, despite the flattering and promising assurance, Novosiltsev, as he notes in his article list: "they did not give any stern on the way." In the Crimea, Russian and Polish-Lithuanian diplomats ate at their own expense; supplies on the way back were not always given, and then in small quantities. The custom of supplying ambassadors with food was borrowed from Eastern diplomatic practice, but in Russia it acquired new features.

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"Korm" was issued by all means in kind. When in 1599 the Georgian ambassadors were given money for food, although honey and beer continued to be supplied, this caused great discontent in Moscow. Food was provided in sufficient quantities. I. Kobenzel wrote that the content that was determined for his embassy, ​​"not only for thirty, but also for three hundred people would be good." Only occasionally there were misunderstandings due to the quality and range of products. European ambassadors were always better supplied than the Crimean and Nogai ones, from whom, under Ivan III, the skins of eaten rams were even taken back. Danish Ambassador

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“Fodder” was issued to foreign diplomats depending on their rank. Here, as in many other elements of the Russian embassy custom, the norms adopted in relation to representatives served as a kind of unit of measurement. In the 17th century an even stricter regulation was adopted: the envoy received the same amount of food as the third member of the "great" embassy, ​​the messenger - as the "secretary", and the envoy's retinue - half as much. In 1592, for example, on the 9th day of an audience with Fyodor Ivanovich, the Polish ambassador P. Volk, members of his mission and retinue (a total of 35 people) received the following food: 3 sheep, 2 black grouse, 2 ducklings, 10 chickens, 15 “pounded” rolls , a bucket of raspberry honey, 2 buckets of boyar honey, a bucket of wine, a bucket of sour cream, a pood of butter and 300 eggs. The quantity and quality of the “food” also depended on the honors given to this embassy.

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The “reduction of food”, as well as the refusal of its individual varieties, were a sign of royal dislike, a means of influencing ambassadors within the framework of the Russian ambassadorial custom. But it was considered impossible to completely stop the supply of food, because this was already a violation of the embassy custom itself, many of the norms of which rested on ideas about after, as a guest of the sovereign.

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Was there a hand wash?

In 1614, the Russian envoy I. Fomin, while in Prague, at the court of the Habsburgs, was surprised to hear, and later set out in his article list, the story of how Ivan the Terrible in anger ordered a hat to be nailed to the head of a certain ambassador who refused to undress before king's head. The Dutch traveler I. Dankert, who lived in Russia in 1609-1611, associated this story with the Italian ambassador, and the Englishman S Collins, who wrote his notes in the third quarter of the 17th century, called the French ambassador a victim of royal cruelty, while assuring that with J. Bowes, the ambassador of Elizabeth of England, who also did not take off his hat to the king, Terrible did not dare to do such a thing.

But a similar act was attributed to the ruler Vlad IV, who ruled in Muntenia (Eastern Wallachia) in 1456-1462 and 1477. Better known as Dracula in German pamphlets and flyers of the 16th century. he became the embodiment of cruelty on the throne, a bloody monster. A written story about him was brought from Hungary by the Russian diplomat Fyodor Kuritsyn under Ivan III, and later the story of the “Mutyansk governor” was popular in Russia in several versions: one of them says that Dracula, angry with the Turkish ambassadors, commanded “an iron nail sew caps on their heads.

It is obvious that both Fomin's interlocutors in Prague, and Dankert, and Collins stated not real fact(by the way, under Grozny, French diplomats did not visit Moscow), but a legend, and a fairly well-known one at that. Perhaps it was based on fables about Dracula, or perhaps we have before us a “wandering plot” associated with various historical characters. But it is significant that in numerous Western European writings about Russia written by contemporaries of Ivan the Terrible, there is no story about the “nailed” hat. He appeared in Russia later, after the events of the Time of Troubles, when, on the one hand, interest in the Russian state intensified in the West, and, on the other hand, the very person of Grozny managed to be shrouded in a fog of legend.

The spread of such legends was actively promoted by the government and magnates of the Polish-Lithuanian state, in the fight against which Russian diplomacy tried to rely on the help of England, Denmark, and the Habsburg Empire. Accordingly, the diplomacy of the Commonwealth sought to turn Western public opinion against Russia. For example, the work of A. Schlichting, who vividly spoke about the cruelties of Grozny, was rewritten by the author by order of Sigismund II Augustus, after which it acquired even greater polemical sharpness; then the Polish king sent this new version to Rome to induce the papacy to break off diplomatic relations with Moscow. It is possible that Kurbsky also wrote his "History of the Grand Duke of Moscow" on the direct order of the Polish and Lithuanian magnates. Poles and residents of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania often accompanied Western European diplomats, merchants, travelers to Russia, served as guides and interpreters for them, and for a long time information about the mysterious Muscovy in Europe was drawn from the Latin writings of Polish authors, from Polish-Lithuanian journalism directed against Russian state.

In Vilna and Krakow, they sought to belittle the authority of the Russian sovereigns, to declare them the heirs not of the great princes of Kyiv, but only the descendants of the specific Moscow princes - Horde tributaries. In this case, Russia could not claim the return of its western territories, torn away during the Horde yoke. In such aspirations, the well-known story about the reception ceremony in Moscow of the ambassadors of the Golden and Great Horde originates. This humiliating ceremonial, which Ivan III allegedly obeyed until he abandoned it at the insistence of Sophia Paleolog, and which Jan Dlugosh first spoke about in his History of Poland (late 15th century), is described in most detail by Michalon Litvin.

According to him, the Grand Duke was supposed to meet the messengers of the Horde outside the city, bring them a bowl of koumiss and, if milk spilled, lick the spilled drops from the mane of the embassy horse. Then he, on foot, led this horse, on which the khan's representative was seated, through the whole city to the Kremlin, where the ambassador sat on the grand prince's throne, and the prince himself, kneeling, listened to his speeches.

Unfortunately, we do not know what the embassy custom was that was practiced in Moscow's relations with the Great Horde - the documentation of these relations has not reached us, and the annalistic news is too short. But indirect evidence allows us to reject the stories of Polish-Lithuanian authors as legendary. If the ceremonial described by Michalon Litvin actually existed, then the Crimean khans, who considered themselves the heirs of the Golden Horde, should have made attempts to at least partially restore it. However, there is no trace of these attempts either in 1521, when, after a successful raid by the Crimeans, Vasily III gave Mohammed-Girey a “given letter”, or half a century after the burning of Moscow by Devlet-Girey. At the same time, the Crimean khans during the entire XVI century. retained many norms of embassy custom that were humiliating for Russian sovereigns: primacy in toasting and writing titles, certain behavioral features at audiences of Crimean diplomats, etc. Most likely, these same norms were also applied in Moscow’s relations with the Great Horde. Although, it is possible that the great princes met the Horde ambassadors before the settlement, as Ivan the Terrible later met, for example, the Astrakhan khansha (“queen”) Nur-Saltan, and also brought them a cup of drink - most likely, after all, with honey, and not with koumiss. The “Chronicle of Lithuanian and Zhmoitskaya” (beginning of the 16th century) insists, however, on koumiss, but does not report at all on other elements of the meeting described by Michalon Litvin.

The grain of truth that exists in the stories of Polish-Lithuanian authors is shrouded in a thick fog of legend, and this legend had a pronounced political character: it invariably surfaced during periods of aggravation of relations between Moscow and Vilna, when the ideologists of the Commonwealth used it based on modern tasks. Stefan Batory, the Transylvanian prince, who at the accession to the throne of the Jagiellons did not even speak Polish and spoke Latin with his subjects, was, of course, not an expert in Russian history. However, there were people who pointed out to him the facts necessary for the controversy. In one of his messages to Ivan the Terrible, the king, emphasizing the former dependence of Moscow on the khans, did not fail to recall that the king's ancestors were forced to lick mare's milk spilled on the manes of Tatar horses.

Or another legend - that the Russian sovereigns, dressed in a simple dress and mixed with a crowd of Muscovites, incognito admired the spectacle of the solemn entry into the capital of Western European embassies. In the 17th century Many foreigners wrote about this, but the first news of this kind is contained in a poem by the Polish writer and diplomat G. Pelgrimovsky, who described the stay of L. Sapieha's embassy in Russia in 1600–1601. It would seem that this legend is quite harmless: about which of the great rulers of antiquity and the Middle Ages - from Julius Caesar to Haroun al-Rashid, they were not told that they were in the clothes of private individuals, wandering around the city, listening to the conversations of their own subjects. But here we are talking about other. Firstly, the reader was given the impression of the unusual splendor of the embassy train and, consequently, the wealth and power of the Polish king. Secondly, there was an idea of ​​the wretchedness of the Moscow court, because for the tsar himself the opportunity to stare at the embassy procession was so seductive that it made him forget about dignity and the royal "rank".

But if the story of the nailed hat or the anecdote about the secret excursions of the tsar around Moscow were not taken seriously by researchers of modern times, then much more "lucky" reports of a special washbasin, from which the Russian sovereigns, right in the reception chamber, allegedly washed their hand after kissing it with ambassadors. Catholics. This washstand perfectly correlated with the well-known hostility and distrust of Russians towards the “Latins”, and even V. O. Klyuchevsky did not doubt its existence. Meanwhile, we are also dealing with a legend whose origin and existence can be traced.

First of all, it turns out that of the dozens of foreign diplomats who visited Russia in the 16th century. and those who described the reception ceremonial in the Kremlin Palace, only two talk about the procedure for washing hands - S. Gerberstein and A. Possevino. Moreover, one important fact follows from their writings: neither of them observed this procedure with their own eyes. Possevino referred to Herberstein, who had visited Moscow half a century earlier, and he, in turn, also wrote from someone else's words.

In his notes, Possevino reports that he reproached Ivan the Terrible for following such a humiliating custom for foreigners, and "the tsar tried to justify himself, but could not do it." However, in the embassy book, which describes in detail the stay of the papal legate in Moscow, the whole story looks completely different.

Indeed, in February 1582, Possevino filed a letter addressed to Grozny, where, among other things, he asked the king to abandon the custom of washing hands. Falling into obvious exaggerations, which Russian diplomats had no difficulty in refuting, he wrote that Emperor Rudolph II and other Western European monarchs do not send their representatives to Moscow for the reason that the tsar, “if he speaks with ambassadors or envoys, washes his hands before them , as it were, the sovereigns from whom they came are not pure, and the faith in which they live is, as it were, filthy ... ”Although by that time Possevino had already visited Grozny several times, he did not appeal to personal impressions, because, apparently, he didn’t have any, and openly indicated “Zhigimont Herberstein” as the source of his information: he “wrote great books about the speeches and customs of Moscow, which there are few books in all states.”

The result of this letter was unexpected: the boyars flatly refused to recognize the existence of such a custom. “That we do not know,” they answered, “how ambassadors or envoys live, and the sovereign would wash his hands of those for ambassadors, inserting which impurity about their sovereigns; then he himself, Anthony, saw everything with the sovereign, and not alone, as the sovereign had many times at the embassy. The sovereign ... accepted you with his royal hands, but did not wash his hands for that - some dashing untruthful person started those words. Regarding Herberstein's work, the boyars told Possevino that he "has nothing to listen to such old troublesome books."

Let us leave aside the characterization by the boyars of Herberstein's Notes on Muscovy. In general, their answer is clear and unambiguous, it is based on the real situation of the audiences given by Possevino and, among other things, is trustworthy for two reasons: firstly, the Russian embassy books never mention the washstand as an attribute of the tsar's diplomatic receptions; secondly, in the same letter, Possevino asked Grozny to abolish the strictness in the maintenance of foreign embassies in Moscow, and the boyars did not at all think to deny the existence of these strictnesses, but simply answered that “so the leader” and, therefore, this issue is not subject to further discussion. In the same way, they could explain the custom of washing hands, if it were accepted at the Moscow court, but they did not explain.

But why did Herberstein and Possevino pay attention to the ill-fated washstand?

It is easy to see that the missions with which these two diplomats came to Moscow are extremely similar: they acted as mediators in peace negotiations between Russia and the Polish-Lithuanian state. In addition, both the papal ambassadors who accompanied Herberstein in 1526, and the visit of Possevino, the Vatican had quite definite hopes - mediation, as it was believed in Rome, should have created favorable conditions, if not for the complete conversion to Catholicism of Vasily III and Ivan the Terrible, then at least for their acceptance of the Florentine Union; at worst, they hoped to get permission from them to build Catholic churches in Russia. In exchange for this, the Vatican could facilitate the conclusion of a more favorable peace treaty for Moscow. Naturally, in Vilna and Krakow they tried to show the impracticability of such plans, the resolute and uncompromising hostility of the Russian sovereigns to the Catholics, and thereby, demonstrating to the mediators the illusory nature of their hopes, to persuade them to defend, above all, the interests of the king. That is probably why, in the conversations that the royal diplomats had with Herberstein and Possevino, who were passing through the Polish and Lithuanian lands on the way to Moscow, the legend of the royal washstand surfaced. In a letter to the tsar, the papal legate involuntarily let slip about one more source of his information, apart from Herberstein's book: discussions about a harmful custom end with the phrase that "this is not pleasant" to Stefan Batory. Consequently, the issue was discussed with the king himself or with his associates, and it is unlikely that the topic was raised by chance. It can even be assumed that it was precisely at the Polish royal court that they explained to the papal envoy the importance of short message Herberstein. They explained it in order to induce them to refuse from the trip to Moscow and participation in the negotiations in general, or at least from protecting the interests of the Russian side. But Possevino drew his own conclusions from this. On the way to the implementation of his missionary plans, the royal washstand was a significant obstacle, and the legate included the clause on the rejection of it in his minimum program, which he put forward without achieving more.

Let's note one more detail. Strictly speaking, Possevino does not speak of the fact that the king washes his hand precisely after it has been kissed by the ambassadors. Since he himself did not see this procedure, believing that they made an exception for him, but apparently heard different things, then he expresses himself very vaguely. According to him, it turns out that during an audience with foreign diplomats, Grozny simply washes both hands. The historical figure, with whom in this case a parallel is drawn, is not directly named, although it is implied - this is Pontius Pilate; it does not mean washing, but a symbolic washing. The king thus does not cleanse only one hand defiled by a kiss, but, as it were, gets rid of the sin that consisted in the very communication with the Catholics. It is not physical impurity that is washed away by water, which could still be endured, but spiritual filth, the compulsion of a sinful conversation with heretics and apostates from the true faith is testified before God. In any case, this interpretation of this procedure follows from Possevino's reasoning.

But if it's not a kiss, then the accusation of the papal legate generally loses its meaning: after all, Russian sovereigns communicated with non-Christians not only in the reception room. If, as Possevino believes, the washing of hands was a demonstrative action undertaken exclusively in front of Western European diplomats with the intention of humiliating those sovereigns, then it is enough to compare the text of his later notes with a letter submitted to Ivan the Terrible directly in Moscow to make sure of the following: a malicious custom is depicted in them differently, one message contradicting another.

The letter says that the king, talking with the ambassadors, "washes his hands before them." But the notes paint a completely different picture: this procedure takes place not in the presence of ambassadors, but “after they have left.” On the basis of his own experience and explanations given by the boyars, Possevino reluctantly admits that the custom so hated by him has no public connotation, is performed in private and is not included in the audience ceremonial. Therefore, there is no offense for the ambassadors in the royal washing.

Nevertheless, Possevino enters into his notes a lengthy message about him. For what purpose? Obviously, with the same one that his Polish-Lithuanian interlocutors pursued. Having not succeeded in trying to reconcile Ivan the Terrible with Catholicism (at a debate about faith, the tsar, in a rage, called the Pope a “wolf”), Possevino sought to show that he failed due to objective reasons, due to the extraordinary hostility of Russian sovereigns to foreigners, and in particular to the Catholics, and not through his, Possevino, fault; he himself did his best. The mention of the notorious washstand, whose existence the papal legate may have begun to doubt, should have helped him justify the failure of his own mission before the Vatican.

Let's try to understand the origin of this strange legend, which has been used in anti-Moscow propaganda for two centuries and has survived to this day.

First, there is no doubt an allusion to the gospel legend of Pontius Pilate - this is, so to speak, a speculative source. Secondly, a jug of wine or honey standing in the reception room for treating ambassadors could be mistaken for a washstand (or deliberately passed off as it), since refreshments were not always followed, and the purpose of the jug was not clear to everyone. A. Olearius, who visited Moscow with the Holstein embassy in 1634, also speaks of the royal washstand and tub, although he himself did not see the procedure for washing hands, but again refers to Possevino and Herberstein. At the same time, he left a drawing made from memory depicting an audience with Mikhail Fedorovich. In this drawing, a certain vessel is indeed placed to the right of the throne, although it does not look more like a washstand (“handy”), which usually had the shape of a tall mug with a spout, but an oriental kumgan. But he does not stand in a tub, about which Olearius, apparently under the influence of Possevino, writes, but on a dish hardly suitable for washing; the drawing in the Holstein diplomat's book contradicts his own text. Describing the audience with Mikhail Fedorovich and the royal washstand, Olearius retells in detail the corresponding place from Possevino's notes: in other words, he saw what he was ready to see in advance.

And one more indirect evidence in favor of the fact that the washing of hands at the audience was not accepted. If indeed the rumors about him were so wide use that, as Possevino writes, the Western European monarchs were even going to break off relations with Moscow because of this, it is unlikely that the same monarchs would send washstands to the Russian sovereigns as diplomatic gifts. For example, in 1648, Alexei Mikhailovich received two such gifts at once - from the Polish king Jan Casimir and from the Swedish queen Christina. In 1676, the Austrian ambassadors brought a precious washstand to the tsar; gold and silver tubs were sent as a gift. Apparently, the situation was the same in the 16th century.

Returning to Possevino's notes, we note that the writings of Western diplomats who visited Russia in the 16th-17th centuries are replete with inaccuracies and exaggerations, sometimes quite deliberate exaggerations. Often these books quite expressively demonstrate the author's lack of desire to penetrate into the peculiarities of the life and life of another people, to understand someone else's system of values, although it would be wrong to equally refer to the smart and observant Herberstein and, say, to Barberini, who did not notice anything in Russia except own inconvenience. But a separate exaggeration or biased interpretation of some fact is not yet a legend. Curious are the legends that passed from mouth to mouth, from book to book. Sometimes they could play a purely entertaining role, but they were often used in journalism directed against the Russian state. And it is no coincidence that the embassy custom served as the material for them, capable of expressing a political idea not in a word, not in an abstract concept that does not affect the imagination and is accessible to a few, but much more visibly and impressively - through a symbolic action, ceremony, deed.