Abstract
Tsar Aleksei decided to seek the creation of a broad-based Christian coalition to come to the aid of embattled Poland in 1672.2 This was a novel diplomatic initiative for the Russians, who announced thereby their arrival as a participant in the Concert of Europe. Perhaps more han anything recognition of such status was the tsar’s aim, for he likely had few illusions that he could persuade his fellow Europeans to end their internecine warfare and join forces with him in a crusade against the Ottoman Turks and their vassals, the Crimean Tatars. The Europeans accepted the Russian application to enter this community of sovereign states, for in 1675 Imperial, Prussian, and Dutch ambassadors joined the Danish permanent resident in efforts aimed at convincing the tsar to invade Swedish-held territory along the Baltic littoral.
... your esteemed envoy Andrei Vinius, whom we could not dismiss from here without bestowing him with dignified praise...1
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Notes
The Muscovites were developing plans to launch a military campaign toward the Crimea to aid the Poles, but they remained on the shelf; until 1676, they limited themselves to defensive actions when faced with Crimean Tatar or Ottoman aggression, and to backing Cossack or Kalmyk raids against the Turks and Ottomans (see A.V. Malov, Moskovskie vybornyepoïki soldatskogo stroia v nachal’nyi period svoei istorü 16S6-1671 gg., Moscow: Drevlekhranilishche, 2006, 556–7).
Iurkin, Andrei, 108, 111; Arkheograficheskaia kommissia, Dopolneniia k aktam istoricheskim, vol. 6, St. Petersburg: E. Prats, 1857, 161.
Iurkin, Andrei, 151–2; Lindsey A.J. Hughes, Russia and the West: The Life of a Seventeenth-Century Westernizer, Prince Vasily Vasil’evich Golitsyn (1643–1714), Newtonville, MA: Oriental Research Partners, 1984, 39–40.
Extant records seem to indicate that under Paulsen’ s management it still operated in 1686 and 1687 (M.I. Avtokratova et al., eds, Tsentralnyi Gosudarstvennyi Arkhiv Drevnikh Aktov SSSR, PutevoditeV, vol.1, Moskva: Glavarkhiv, 1991, 238).
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© 2013 Kees Boterbloem
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Boterbloem, K. (2013). Intrepid Diplomat. In: Moderniser of Russia. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137323675_5
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