|
|
The Habsburgs and the Rurikids in the early modern period: diplomacy and mutual perception (1558-1598)
PANOV, Vladimir Genadjevič
This thesis explores the exchange of diplomatic missions between the Holy Roman Empire and the Muscovite tsardom in the second half of the 16th century, along with their fecial ceremonial, in the light of mutual perceptions of the two state entities' ambassadorial circles. The author studied both archival and published diplomatic sources of Austrian and Russian origin together with literary sources and ego-documents of the time using up-to-date historical and interdisciplinary methods of study including linguistics and anthropology. A concise but comprehensive review of diplomatic missions of 1558-1598 was presented as a factual background, after which light was shed on four aspects of fecial ceremonial that reflected the mutual perceptions of imperial and Muscovite emissaries in the fullest way possible, namely the welcoming ceremonies and audiences, the gifts, the feasts and the mutual salutatuons of the monarchs. The author came to conclusion that the tsars' emissaries almost totally shyed away from "nonservice" accounts, leaving no space for their personal traits and opinions in documents, whereas their imperial counterparts left some rich descriptions of Muscovite daily life and mores, accounts that are nevertheless rarely studied. Having analysed the said desctiptions, the author tried to grasp when and why the imperial diplomats were motivated by stereotypes or biased discourses that were sometimes established by no less than Siegmund Herberstein, and when they expressed a fresh and unbiased outlook on their opponents. In the end, having matched the results of the ambassadorial missions and the mutual perceptions of the diplomats, the author concluded that the last Rurikids saw their relations with the Austrian Habsburgs not only as a field of foreign policy achievements, but as a paragon and a tool of self-representation and of promoting their political status both at home and abroad.
|
guest ::
