Journal of Irish and Scottish Studies Volume 3: Issue 2 The Patrick Gordon Diary And Its Context AHRC Centre for Irish and Scottish Studies, University of Aberdeen JOURNAL OF IRISH AND SCOTTISH STUDIES Volume 3, Issue 2 Spring 2010 The Patrick Gordon Diary And Its Context Published by the AHRC Centre for Irish and Scottish Studies at the University of Aberdeen in association with The universities of the The Irish-Scottish Academic Initiative ISSN 1753-2396 Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Antony Rowe, Chippenham and Eastbourne Journal of Irish and Scottish Studies General Editor: Cairns Craig Issue Editor: Paul Dukes Associate Editor: Michael Brown Editorial Advisory Board: Fran Brearton, Queen’s University, Belfast Eleanor Bell, University of Strathclyde Ewen Cameron, University of Edinburgh Sean Connolly, Queen’s University, Belfast Patrick Crotty, University of Aberdeen David Dickson, Trinity College, Dublin T. M. Devine, University of Edinburgh David Dumville, University of Aberdeen Aaron Kelly, University of Edinburgh Edna Longley, Queen’s University, Belfast Peter Mackay, Queen’s University, Belfast Shane Alcobia-Murphy, University of Aberdeen Ian Campbell Ross, Trinity College, Dublin Graham Walker, Queen’s University, Belfast International Advisory Board: Don Akenson, Queen’s University, Kingston Tom Brooking, University of Otago Keith Dixon, Université Lumière Lyon 2 Luke Gibbons, Notre Dame Marjorie Howes, Boston College H. Gustav Klaus, University of Rostock Peter Kuch, University of Otago Graeme Morton, University of Guelph Brad Patterson, Victoria University, Wellington Matthew Wickman, Brigham Young David Wilson, University of Toronto The Journal of Irish and Scottish Studies is a peer reviewed journal published twice yearly in autumn and spring by the AHRC Centre for Irish and Scottish Studies at the University of Aberdeen. An electronic reviews section is available on the AHRC Centre’s website at: http://www.abdn.ac.uk/riiss/issjournal.shtml Editorial correspondence, including manuscripts for submission, should be addressed to The Editors, Journal of Irish and Scottish Studies, AHRC Centre for Irish and Scottish Studies, Humanity Manse, 19 College Bounds, University of Aberdeen, AB24 3UG or emailed to: [email protected] Subscription information can be found on www.abdn.ac.uk/riiss/publications Cover image: Patrick Gordon, Lithograph by Kliukvin (early nineteenth century) after a portrait formerly in Winter Palace, St. Petersburg (present whereabouts unknown) from Tagebuch des Generals Patrick Gordon, 1849. CONTENTS Editorial v Patrick Gordon and Russian Court Politics 1 Paul Bushkovitch Patrick Gordon in His Own Words: a Soldier, a Scot, a Catholic 19 Waldemar Kowalski The Gordons and the North of Scotland 39 Barry Robertson Surfing the Waves: Scottish Admirals in Russia in their Baltic 59 Context Steve Murdoch ‘The Greatest Transformation of the World of the Seventeenth 87 Century’ Christoph Witzenrath Scots in Russia and the ‘General Crisis of the Seventeenth 101 Century’ Revisited Paul Dukes Notes on Contributors 119 EDITORIAL The six papers gathered in this collection all originated from a meeting held in Aberdeen in May 2009 to mark the publication of the first volume of Patrick Gordon’s Diary in its original language, a most welcome and significant event after three centuries of delay. Dmitry Fedosov of the Institute of General History of the Russian Academy of Sciences, who is carrying out the onerous task of editing the Diary as well as translating it into Russian, was invited to attend the meeting along with Mikhail Ryzhenkov, the Director of the Russian State Archive of Ancient Acts, in which much material pertinent to the Scottish diaspora is to be found, and Oleg Nozdrin, who lectures in Orel and who, together with Dmitry Fedosov, is compiling a prosopography, ‘Lion Rampant to Double Eagle: Scots in Russia, 1600-1700’. These Russian colleagues all gave most interesting addresses, whetting our appetite for the publication of ‘Lion Rampant’ and of further volumes of the Diary. Paul Bushkovitch, of Yale University, gave the keynote address, ‘Patrick Gordon and Russian Court Politics’, drawing on his intimate knowledge of the subject exhibited to the full in Peter the Great: the Struggle for Power 1671- 1725. As Buskovitch says, throughout Europe, monarchical government in the seventeenth century depended on an intricate network of patronage, in which leading individuals vied for advancement and even survival. Although Gordon had made the close acquaintance of the Polish and Swedish military systems during an apprenticeship lasting ten years, he was taken sharply aback by his first encounters with minor officials in Russia. However, because of his valuable expertise, he rose to become the adviser of the greatest in the land. Bushkovitch illumines this process in the context of the structure of Muscovite high society. The first volume of the Diary is largely devoted to Gordon’s early military experience in Poland. Waldemar Kowalski, of Kielce University, who has carried on pertinent researches in Scotland as well as in his homeland, is supremely fitted to the task of a commentary on ‘Patrick Gordon in His Own Words: a Soldier, a Scot, a Catholic’. Kowalski adds to our understanding of Gordon’s first years as a military man at a critical time for Poland, ‘The vi Editorial Deluge’ of the 1650s. He also underlines the manner in which our hero depended on his fellow countrymen and his faith to sustain him through mortal danger. Kowalski does not shrink from pointing out errors and misunderstandings in the Diary, few though they might have been, in his rounded appreciation of a valuable source for Polish as well as European history. When Patrick Gordon answered the enquiry of a fellow Scot for the names of his parents in 1654, his questioner disdainfully responded: ‘Gordon and Ogilvie! These ar two great clannes, sure you must be a gentleman’. We are indeed indebted to Barry Robertson of University of Aberdeen for guiding us through a major genealogical thicket in the shape of ‘The Gordons and the North of Scotland’. From the ‘myths and romanticism’ of the medieval origins to a major shift in its fortunes in the 1690s, the family experienced many vicissitudes in its fortunes, and Barry Robertson, who belongs to North East Scotland, makes good use of his provenance as well of his scholarship in his exposition. Another son of Aberdeenshire, Steve Murdoch of St. Andrews, has produced a wide range of publications on the Scottish diaspora, especially to Scandinavia in the seventeenth century. In collaboration with Alexia Grosjean, he is also responsible for a remarkable database, located at www.st-andrews. ac.uk/history/ssne. Having already extended his attention on occasion beyond the centre to the east of the continent, he now takes to the sea in ‘Surfing the Waves: the Scottish Diaspora in Maritime Warfare in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries: Russia in the Baltic Context’. Murdoch clearly establishes a pattern of migration for Scottish sailors, from Denmark-Norway to Sweden and then on to Russia. Thus, he demonstrates that, by the time of Peter the Great’s first manoeuvres on the White Sea in 1694 with Patrick Gordon as Rear-Admiral, mariners from the homeland were poised to take advantage of the opportunities soon to be offered as the Russian Navy took shape in the early eighteenth century. Until the end of the seventeenth century, Russian activity had been confined for the most part to dry land. Its growth had gone largely unheeded by observers accustomed to think of empire as an overseas phenomenon. However, John E. Wills has argued that: ‘The greatest geopolitical transformation of the world of the seventeenth century was the explosive expansion of trade and settlement across Siberia’. Christoph Witzenrath, until recently Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at Aberdeen University, subjects this assertion to a telling analysis, drawing on his remarkable monograph, Cossacks and the Russian The Patrick Gordon Diary And Its Context vii Empire, 1598 – 1725. Far from subjecting Siberia to their absolutist control, Witzenrath points out, the Romanovs ruled east of the Urals through a virtual compromise with Cossack bands, who played a vital role in the exploitation of this vast region remote from Moscow. The great historian S. M. Soloviev dubbed foreign mercenaries ‘the Cossacks of Western Europe’, yet few of them penetrated Siberia in the seventeenth century. Gordon himself was told soon after his arrival in Moscow that ‘they would not only not dismiss me, but send me to Siberia or some remote place’ if he persisted in his wish to return to Poland. In fact, although he was to serve in Russia for nearly forty years, he never went even as far as the Volga. The boundaries of the activities of the Scottish and other mercenaries can be taken as an indication of the perimeters of the much-discussed ‘General Crisis’ of the seventeenth century suggested by Eric Hobsbawm in 1954 and revived by Geoffrey Parker and others in 2008. Returning to a subject which he first addressed thirty years ago, Paul Dukes makes use of Patrick Gordon and other Scots in Russia to maintain that the east of Europe needs to be included with the west and centre of the continent in any meaningful consideration of the ‘General Crisis’ and its sequel. These essays are aimed at enhancing appreciation of Patrick Gordon and his Diary in their context, the subsequent volumes of which will be published by the Research Institute of Irish and Scottish Studies at the University of Aberdeen. When the complete Diary is available, our understanding of the role of Scots in eastern Europe will be ready for further revaluation, which we look forward to publishing in a future issue of the Journal of Irish and Scottish Studies. Paul Dukes University of Aberdeen Patrick Gordon and Russian Court Politics Paul Bushkovitch Peter the Great’s transformation of Russia in the years 1689 – 1725 is one of the eternal themes of Russian historiography, and is likely to remain so.