Explorations in Muscovite History

ISBN-13: 9780860783022 / Angielski / Twarda / 1991 / 336 str.

Samuel H. Baron

Opis

The main themes of this volume are the explorations and geographical discoveries, and the economic circumstances that lay behind the establishment of commercial relations between Muscovite Russia and Elizabethan England. It also includes four hitherto unpublished studies, together with additional notes to other articles. In the opening pieces Samuel Baron pursues his researches into socio-economic history, with particular reference to the development of commerce and mercantilism in Russia during the 16th-and 17th-centuries. The following section then deals with the discovery of the sea route round the north of Norway, looking on the one hand at the position of seafaring in Russia and the role the Russians themselves may have played in these explorations, for instance in the discovery of Spitsbergen, and on the other at the English quest for a northeastern passage to China. Other articles examine the spread in the West of geographical knowledge about Muscovy, as revealed by the development of cartography, and finally focus on the work of Herberstein and its importance as a stimulus for the English expedition of 1583 that led to the opening of direct Anglo-Russian relations. Les explorations et les decouvertes geographiques, ainsi que les circonstances economiques A la base de la creation des rapports commerciaux entre la Russie moscovite et la Angleterre elisabethaine forment les themes principaux de ce volume. Quatre etudes jusqu ici inedites sont aussi inclues, ainsi que des notes supplementaires. Samuel Baron debute cet ouvrage en poursuivant ses recherches sur la histoire socio-economique et se refere en particulier au developpement du mercantilisme en Russie durant les 16e et 17e siecles. La section suivante traite de la decouverte de la voie maritime passant au Nord de la Norvege; y sont examines da une part, le rAle des Russes quant A ces explorations, comme celle, par exemple, qui mena A la decouverte de Spitsbergen et, da autre part, la poursuite anglaise da un passage au Nord-Est vers la Chine. Da autres articles examinent la etendue des connaissances occidentales sur la Moscovie, qui sont revelees par la evolution de la cartographie. Pour finir, la auteur se concentre sur les travaux da Herberstein et leur importance en tant que facteur de stimulation pour la expedition anglaise de 1553, qui mena A la ouverture de relations directes entre la Angleterre et la Russie."

Spis treści

Contents: Entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship in 16th- and 17th-century Russia; The gosti revisited; Fletcher's mission to Moscow and the Andrew Marsh affair; Was Krizanic; a mercantilist?; Shipbuilding and seafaring in 16th-century Russia; Did the Russians discover Spitsbergen?; Muscovy and the English quest for a Northeastern passage to Cathay (1553-1584); Thrust and parry: Anglo-Russian relations in the Muscovite north; Purchas on Russia and Central Asia; A.L. Ordin-Naschchokin and the Orel affair; William Borough and the Jenkinson Map of Russia (1562); B.A. Rybakov on the Jenkinson Map of Russia; Herberstein's image of Russia and its transmission through later writers; Herberstein and the English "discovery" of Muscovy; The influence of Herberstein's Rerum Moscoviticarum Commentarii in 16th-century England; Index.

O autorze

Samuel H. Baron