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Manuscript Collections in British Archives Relating to Pre-Petrine Russia

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Manuscript Collections in British Archives Relating to Pre-Petrine Russia NOTE GERALDINE M. PHIPPS Manuscript Collections in British Archives Relating to Pre-Petrine Russia In the year 1553 a group of London merchants commissioned three ships to seek a northeast passage to Cathay and the Indies. Storms and contrary winds drove them off course, separating one ship from its consorts. Two ships, with the expedition's leader, Sir Hugh Willoughby, on the flagship, were forced to seek shelter on the rough, barren shore of Lapland, where, in the ice and cold of the harsh northern winter, their entire crews perished. The Edward Bonaventure, with the expedition's pilot Richard Chancellor in command, finally found refuge in the mouth of the Dvina River within the land of Muscovy. The appearance of this strange ship in northern Russia was quickly reported by the local inhabitants to Tsar Ivan IV, who invited Chancellor to Moscow. At his reception Chancellor presented to the tsar a letter from Edward VI, in which the English king asked any monarch who might receive it to permit English merchants to trade in his country. The tsar's favorable response to the idea of establishing relations with England was embodied in a letter carried back to England by Chancellor. Thus, with the accidental arrival of Chancellor's ship in a Russian harbor began the diplomatic, political, and economic links between England and Russia which have lasted, almost without interruption, until the present day. During the years 1555 to 1682 the aims the two governments pursued in their contacts with each other differed fundamentally." The predominant English interest was trade. Shortly after Chancellor's return the Muscovy Company was founded and received trading charters from the English and Russian governments. Although the Russian tsars generally insisted on dealing directly with their English counterparts rather than with mere merchants, the most common subject dealt with in official English papers was the protection 1. The year 1682 was chosen as the terminal date for the examination of British archives because the accession of Peter I and Ivan V to the Russian throne began a new era in Anglo-Russian relations. The quantity of records available for the years 1682 to 1725 is far greater than that for the years 1553 to 1682. For example, in the Public Record Office's collection of State Papers, Foreign, Russia, there are only three volumes (SP 91/1-3) for the first 130 years of Anglo-Russian relations, while there are six volumes (SP 91/4-9) for the forty-three years of Peter's reign. The documents in the British archives relating to the reign of Peter the Great deserve an article of their own. or expansion of the Muscovy Company's trade. To the tsars commerce was secondary in importance to the more pressing need for political or military aid from England. Requests for military provisions and for soldiers, doctors, or other specialists are recurrent themes in the tsars' letters in this period. Occasionally such appeals were coupled with projects for military or marriage alliances which would bind the two countries more closely together than did the existing economic ties. No English monarch ever committed his country to an alliance with Russia, but each permitted British subjects to enter the tsars' employment. The desire of each government to achieve its own aims and, in the case of England, to protect the interests of its subjects in Russia, resulted in an extensive correspondence between the monarchs and in occasional exchanges of diplomats. In addition, Britons who worked and lived in Russia addressed numerous letters and petitions to the English government; others kept diaries and records of their experiences there. Thus, for the period 1553 to 1682 the British archives contain a wealth of documents relating to Russia which is unsurpassed in Western Europe. The collections include royal letters from Russia; drafts and photocopies of English royal letters; documents relating to the numerous diplomatic missions; letters, petitions, and other records of the Muscovy Company which were submitted to the English government; internal correspondence, reports, and other official documents of the English government bearing upon Russia; and letters and petitions to the English government from Britons in the tsars' service. Although the major portion of the documents preserved in British archives concern the extensive contacts between England and Russia, there are also some which are primarily of interest for the internal history and culture of Muscovy. For example, the British Museum has a copy of the New Trade Statutes of 1667, the Novotorgovy ustav.2 Most of the documents pertaining strictly to the domestic history of Muscovy are copies of Russian records which are probably also available in other European archives. In order to limit the scope of this survey of British archives, it has been decided to omit any comment on such copies of Russian documents; only collections of unique records have been included here. Such a decision effectively confines the discussion to documents relating to contacts between the two governments, to the Muscovy Company and trade, and to those Britons who entered Russian employment. Yet a study of these documents produces more than a mere narrow picture of the economic and diplomatic links forged between Muscovy and one Western European power during these crucial decades of its history. They provide valuable insights into the internal conditions of Muscovy, its economy and military structure, and its people and their customs.3 2. The New Trade Statutes is in Harleian MSS 6356. 3. The richness of British archives as sources for Russian history has not gone unnoticed by historians; but, for some inexplicable reason, almost all the documents .
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