Invasion of the British. Northern route

Empire is trade

Joseph Chamberlain
(British Colonial Secretary)

The British were not the first to create an effective commercial state. But it was they who were able to create a state where the state, acting as a spokesman for the interests of the commercial class, was also a defender of the interests of the entire society. Only such a harmonious combination made it possible not to cause fatal damage to either business or society. And as a result, everyone benefited from it.

Any national capital always strives for business expansion. At the dawn of capitalism, trade expansion could not help but be associated with armed violence. Only armed force could allow trade to continue uninterrupted and markets to be captured. But only the state has armed force, and state officials do not always understand the vital state interest in direct armed assistance to their private trade. That is why trading companies created by shareholders are able to more quickly respond to all fluctuations in foreign markets, and if necessary, then defend their commercial interests by force of arms. Private trading companies are usually followed in their expansion by the home state. This is exactly what happened with the British.

The first companies were created back in the infancy of the Anglo-British Empire (16th century), in the form of private joint-stock companies and received from the crown (for monetary contributions) various privileges and benefits for carrying out trade operations. Joint stock companies were created through the share contributions of their members. Typically, a meeting of company shareholders elected a management team - a board of directors, which was obliged to report to ordinary shareholders about the company's trading policy and, of course, about the rise or fall in profits for investors. It was the board of directors that then organized expeditions to overseas countries to develop new markets, and accompanied embassies with armed detachments there.

The latter was far from unnecessary. Since at that time trade operations and transactions often took place in an area of ​​increased commercial risk (corsairs, pirates, etc.), as well as due to constant wars with European competitors and native rulers, companies often took on military-political functions . In recent cases, such companies have represented a failure of something like a state within a state. It was precisely this type of company-state that the famous East India Company later became.

One of the very first joint-stock companies was the Moscow Company, renamed from China to Moscow, in 1554. The unusual nature of this renaming was that this company financed the unsuccessful expedition of C. Willoughby and R. Chancellor to search for the Northeast route to China and India. Due to the impossibility of breaking through the ice of the polar ocean, the expedition arrived in Moscow through Arkhangelsk, establishing trade relations with Russia. It was in this way that the Moscow Company arose, which was greatly favored by the Russian tsars.

Already in 1558, Tsar Ivan the Terrible (the tsar most favorable to the British) allowed the company's representative Anthony Jenkins an expedition to Persia to trade with it in transit through Russian territory. Since Russia needed not only a trade, but also a political partnership with England (Grozny, for example, proposed to Queen Elizabeth to marry him), the tsar then permanently allowed the Moscow company to conduct transit trade (along the Volga) with Safavid Iran.

Another circumstance that explained the king’s generosity towards the trade privileges of the British was explained by the possibility of establishing a military alliance with England against Sweden, Denmark and Poland. But the British did not fall for it. But it was the English merchants who, through the port of Narva, which was open to the Baltic for a short time, delivered weapons and military technologies to the Russian troops. The British were also interested in trading with the Russians, bypassing intermediaries and through the more convenient Baltic Sea.

But for the Russian merchants, the unheard-of trade privileges for the British were like a bone in the throat, and they constantly complained to the royal court about commercial oppression from the British, since their trade was ruinous for the Russian merchants. The royal court was forced to listen to them and increase transit duties for the British. And under the new tsars: Fyodor Ioannovich and Boris Godunov, the British were completely deprived of the right to travel through Russia to Persia (Kagarlitsky. B.). However, the Volga route in the 17th century for the British lost its former attractiveness, since sea routes with the East were opened, as well as by land through the lands of the Ottomans.

Even after the Time of Troubles, Russian tsars turned to the Moscow company for help. In dire need of money, the government of Mikhail Romanov made a loan from the company's English merchants in 1618. But the government of Mikhail Romanov did not agree to further requests from English merchants to trade with Iran through Russia. It increasingly sought to take into account the interests of its merchants.

Trade with Russia for the Moscow company was very profitable, and the profits of its investors reached 300–400% of the share capital (Aslanov L.). The main rival for the company in the Russian market were the Dutch, who, like the British, dreamed of monopolizing trade with the “Muscovites” in their hands. To remove their competitors from the Russian market, the English traders of the Moscow Company and their Dutch competitors often resorted to bribing top officials. officials, bringing rich offerings and gifts to the king. The rich Russian market was worth it.

The British needed Russian timber, hemp and other equipment for their fleet. Life in a completely different cultural environment for English merchants in Russia led to the borrowing of many cultural habits of the Muscovites: the desire for luxury, gluttony, keeping dogs and bears. In London it was believed that a long stay in Muscovy corrupted the company’s employees, and they sought to recall the “violators” home. However, some of the employees, in order to avoid returning, “switched to Russian service and even converted to Orthodoxy” (Kagarlitsy B.Yu.).

And yet it was difficult to discern some similarity in two dissimilar peoples, such as the Russians and the British, but the Dutchman Isaac Massa (in the first half of the 17th century) saw this similarity: “The Muscovites are in many ways similar to the English. They are also cunning, they also love glitter and money, and therefore these two nations easily converge and get along well” (Kagarlitsky B.). It is not difficult to notice that the Dutchman had no sympathy for either the Russians or the British.

However, relations between the British and Russians soon clearly deteriorated, and this was due to the news of the revolution in England and the execution of King Charles I. Immediately after this, a royal decree was issued banning trade with England. The Dutch could celebrate their victory over their main trading rival. All attempts by Cromwell to establish trade with Russia were unsuccessful. Alexei Mikhailovich did not want to deal with the king's murderer and usurper of England. Only the return of Charles II Stuart to the royal throne was able to establish diplomatic and trade relations. However, the English trading company failed to regain its former trading privileges (duty-free trade) in Russia; the Dutch firmly occupied their place in the market.

But with the colonization of North America, the Russian market gradually lost its former importance for the British. They now delivered the same mast timber for their fleet and fur across the Atlantic from North America, and even faster than through the ice of the White and Barents Seas. The opportunity to expand trade for the English Moscow Company on the Russian market opened only with the coming to power of Peter I at the beginning of the 18th century.

Elizabethan times were probably the most fertile for the creation of English trading companies; a total of 8 of them were created during the reign of the “Virgin Queen”. In 1588, based on the unification of the Turkish and Venetian companies, the Levantine Company was founded. The company opened its trading posts in the shopping centers of Aleppo and Istanbul and soon began to earn super profits from the resale of Oriental goods to European consumers.

Since the East at that time was self-sufficient and, until the end of the 18th century, practically did not need European goods, the British (like all Europeans, indeed) had to purchase Spanish gold and silver from America, and then exchange it for eastern goods, highly valued in Europe. West: raw silk, silk and cotton fabrics, gum (resin), spices, etc. (Zaplava E.A., Petrunina Zh.V., Tabatsky A.D.).

What was the advantage of Levantine trade? One of its important advantages was the possibility of rapid turnover of capital. L. Marsigli explained the struggle of English merchants for dominance in the Levant in the 17th century: “Turkish trade brings such great profit to the English both for the proximity and for the capable dispatch of the merchants because ships go there and return twice a year.” However, in the 18th century, the British were able to significantly displace the British in the Mediterranean Sea, who were able to establish constant contact with Istanbul at the highest level.

English trade of the Levantine Company in the Eastern Mediterranean reached its highest level in the middle of the 17th century, when it accounted for about 10% of the total volume of English trade operations, and by the end of the 18th century. this figure fell to 1%. (Rodriguez A.M.). The Levantine company existed until 1825; it saw both its heyday in the 17th century and its decline at the beginning of the 18th century, while for a long time was the main competitor of the new favorite in the Asian market - the British East India Company.

The British government sought in every possible way to support the monopoly rights of its companies both domestically and internationally. In case of need, he came to their aid, presenting money, weapons, ships and soldiers. And this help was mutual. Repeatedly, trading companies helped the government out, not only with finances, but also, by organizing colonial conquests and trade with the money of private investors, and expanded the overall expansion of the country whose subjects they were.

Often, such monopoly companies as the Moscow, Levantine and East India companies engaged in diplomatic activities in the countries where they traded, also fought with its competitors in the interests of their country and bore a certain political responsibility to their government (Kagarlitsky B.). In addition, trading companies have always served as an important source of funding for the state budget.

In conditions of insufficient financial income and continuous and fierce colonial rivalry with other European powers, it was extremely profitable for the English state to use the financial, administrative and military resources of its largest companies, while maintaining a reasonable regime of budgetary savings. This was the uniqueness of the British who built their empire (unlike the continental empires of the East and Russia), in which the state and private business went hand in hand, mutually realizing joint commercial and political interests and thereby contributing to the growth of the power of their country in the international arena.

And his wars with Poland and Sweden are the same competition for the best place on the periphery of the world system, among the raw materials appendages of the “core” countries, as the Greek-Turkish or Serbian-Bulgarian (Prussian-Austrian, Prussian-Danish, Swedish-Russian, etc.) wars a lot later. The Crown and the Grand Duchy were far ahead of Muscovy in terms of socio-economic adaptation to this role: the intensification of the corvee economy with the second edition of serfdom, the reform of the farms, private cities established by magnates for large incomes from the export of rye, etc., it also made up for it through military means.

True, having joined the process, Grozny modernized the country more successfully than the current liberals - incl. because, as a tsar, he did not distinguish between personal and state property, and it was technically more difficult to transfer income to London. For more information, see “ Peripheral Empire"—a high-quality retelling by B.Yu. Kagarlitsky of the works of modern historians of the world-system and neo-Marxist school, who restored “on an elevated basis” the concept of development of M.N. Pokrovsky:

icon “Blessed is the army of the Heavenly King”, painted in honor of the capture of Kazan

« The British “discover” Muscovy

At the beginning of the 16th century, the economy of the Muscovite kingdom was developing in much the same way as in other European countries. In 1534, Elena Glinskaya, the mother of the future Tsar Ivan the Terrible, carried out a monetary reform that replaced the coins of various appanage principalities unified system. Conditions arise for the formation of an all-Russian domestic market. Production and trade are growing. The paradox is that economic growth is also accompanied by increasing backwardness of Russia from the West. This apparent contradiction is caused by the fact that, being involved in the general process of development and socio-economic transformation, Russia finds itself on its periphery.

Economic growth occurs against the backdrop of expanding state borders. If Western European countries begin to create colonies in America and on the coast of Africa, then Russia is moving east.

The estates are losing their isolation.

“The transformation of bread into a commodity,” notes Pokrovsky, “made the land that provided the bread a commodity.”

The old relationships of ownership and mutual responsibility are being called into question. However, the boyar estate is not sold or divided; it remains a family inheritance.

Monasteries in Russia most quickly adopt market relations. On the contrary, large boyar estates turned out to be a brake on development. Nevertheless, it was impossible to divide them or sell them on the market due to the remaining political power of the boyars. This also makes the Russian situation in many ways similar to the Spanish one (unlike England, where after the War of the Roses the old aristocracy was largely exterminated and its political influence undermined). Since the expropriation of the boyars was politically difficult and risky, external expansion seemed a reasonable solution: it was possible to obtain land and supply grain to the market without sacrificing the interests of the boyars. However, the war in the Kazan Khanate was not as easy as it seemed at first. After the capture of Kazan, the resistance of local residents in the form of guerrilla warfare continued for about six years. The victory was achieved only through the massive resettlement of Russian colonists from the interior regions of the country to the Volga region. Peasants died in the thousands, but they changed the demographic situation in favor of the conquerors. The nobility, on the contrary, was the loser. During the 6 years of the war, it was never able to seize new estates, and there were even fewer peasants in the western regions. The merchants won more. Merchant capital gained access to river routes leading to Persia, but this only whetted its appetites.

Now Russia is trying to get rid of trade intermediaries - German merchants who control trade in the eastern Baltic through Riga, Revel, Narva. Meanwhile, Russia is not the only country that is hampered by German trade mediation. A new trading power, England, is beginning to rise in Western Europe. She has not yet become mistress of the seas, and the main problem for the development of British merchant capitalism is the Spanish-Portuguese monopoly in the Atlantic. But German domination in the Baltic also restrains the development of English trade. We need new markets and new sources of raw materials. Russia can provide both for English merchant capital.

In 1553, three ships set sail towards Norway, officially with the goal of finding a northern sea route to China, Japan and India. The idea was initially unrealistic. The Northern Sea Route bypassing Siberia and Chukotka could not be properly constructed even in Soviet times with the help of icebreakers. However, in the 16th century, the idea of ​​​​opening a northern route to China did not seem crazy either in England or in Russia itself. Thirty years after the failure of the English expedition, the merchant house of the Stroganovs made a second similar attempt. The Dutch sailors they hired in 1584 tried to do what the British could not, and, naturally, also failed.

Meanwhile, the English expedition initially pursued a much wider range of goals. Its organizers were looking for new markets, because

“our merchants are discovering that the goods and products of England are not in great demand among the countries and peoples around us.”

The ships that set sail carried with them a message from King Edward VI, addressed to nothing less than “all the kings, princes, rulers, judges and governors of the earth.” This was not only a confirmation of the powers of the travelers, who were both merchants and official representatives of their country.

“The letter described the benefits of free trade in terms that nineteenth-century free trade economists would have appreciated,” writes English historian T.S. Willan.

Two ships were lost because the crews were not prepared for sailing in the Far North. The leader of the expedition, Hugh Willoughby, also died along with them. But the third ship, the Edward Bonaventure, under the command of Captain Richard Chancellor, entered the mouth of the Northern Dvina. In February 1554, Chancellor was received in Moscow by Ivan the Terrible as the English ambassador. The Tsar granted the British trade privileges in Russia, including the right to duty-free trade throughout the country [Perhaps under the influence of Chancellor’s expedition, after some time, Tsar Ivan sent his own expedition to China, but by land. In 1567, he sent the Cossack ataman Ivan Petrov with a letter “to unknown peoples.” Together with the Cossack Burkash Yelichev, he walked from the Urals to Beijing, receiving a certificate in Mongolia to pass through the “iron gates” of the Chinese Wall, and then wrote a description of the lands he saw].

After this, Chancellor and his companions returned safely to their homeland. A year later, the Moscow Company was created in London. Its significance is evidenced by the fact that it was the first such company whose charter was approved by parliament. In a certain sense, the Moscow Company turned out to be not only the prototype of trade and political organizations created to work in the West Indies and East Indies, but also the predecessor of transnational corporations of the 20th century.

The company's commercial activities were closely connected with diplomatic ones. English embassies at the royal court protected the interests of merchants, and the company's representative office conducted the affairs of the English crown. While in Muscovy, the British wasted no time. Unlike the notes of other travelers, the texts prepared by Chancellor and his comrade John Hass most closely resemble instructions for commercial use Russia. They describe in detail the economic geography of the kingdom of Ivan the Terrible: where and what is produced, what can be bought, what and where can be sold. Soon after this, the English Courtyard appeared in Moscow - first one building, and then a whole complex of structures - residential, commercial, industrial, the remains of which still exist in Moscow.

The stone house on Varvarka was granted to the British as a gift from the Tsar “as a sign of his special favor.” As Russian sources noted, this was not enough for the company:

“And the Agli Germans built the wooden mansions themselves.”

Soon “English houses” appeared in Kholmogory, Yaroslavl, Borisov and other cities. The company had offices in Novgorod, Pskov, Yaroslavl, Kazan, Astrakhan, Kostroma, and Ivan-gorod. In Yaroslavl, the British set up large warehouses for goods, which were then sent to Asia. Protestant churches also appeared in Muscovy. In general, in relation to the Western Reformation, Moscow rulers did not take the position of outside observers. “The Russian government,” notes the famous researcher I. Lyubmenko, “while being extremely hostile towards Catholics, often showed great tolerance towards Protestants.”

Northern route

The new trade route was important not only for the British, but also for Muscovy. In 1556, a Russian embassy headed by boyar Osip Nepeya arrived in England. Chancellor died delivering the ambassador to London, but completed his mission. Nepeya went down in the history of diplomacy because

“he achieved in London the same benefits that the British received in Moscow.”

However, Russian merchants could not use them. They did not have a fleet capable of making long sea voyages.

Since 1557, regular trade along the northern route began. Initially, these journeys were accompanied by numerous casualties. 6-7 ships left England for navigation, and sometimes no more than half made it back safely. The navigation season was short - the sea froze for 5-6 months. However, as English sailors gained experience sailing in northern latitudes, these voyages became less risky. However, the company periodically complained of losses - Tatar raids, pirates, northern storms - all this damaged trade. The raid of the Crimean Khan Devlet-Girey on Moscow caused the company a loss of a huge sum of 10 thousand rubles at that time (which, however, also testifies to the company’s huge turnover). About 40 Englishmen out of 60 who were in Moscow at that moment died in the fire. The Tatar pogrom apparently made a strong impression on the company's management, and therefore, already under Tsar Feodor, the British donated 350 pounds for the construction of a new stone wall around Moscow.

The company's shareholders were repeatedly encouraged to make additional investments - £50 per share in 1570, £200 in 1572. But they had no intention of stopping the business. And the reason for this is not only high profits, which from time to time it was possible to obtain from trade with Muscovy, but also in the significance of these supplies for the general military-political situation in England. They brought from Russia not just northern goods, but strategic raw materials.

As Willan notes, 16th-century Anglo-Russian trade

"in many ways reminiscent of the exchange that developed between England and her colonies." Wood, wax, leather, meat, lard, sometimes grain, flax, hemp, blubber, resin, ropes, and ship masts were supplied from Russia to England. The king himself was bargaining. According to the British, he was “one of the most important suppliers of wax and sable furs.”

Wax was an extremely profitable commodity - candles were made from it, and huge quantities were required to illuminate Gothic cathedrals. This made it possible for the king to assert that wax was not a simple product, but a sacred, “reserved” one. And kings should trade it. Such a monopoly was a real punishment for other Russian merchants, and it was not cheap for the British, but for Tsar Ivan it turned out to be extremely profitable. As for goods brought from England, the tsar demanded the right of first sale, but paid inaccurately. In this, however, the king also did not differ from his contemporaries. Elizabeth of England also did not like to pay debts.

During the oprichnina, the English company tried to get the tsar to return the money owed to it by the boyars executed by the tsar. The tsar listened to the claims, but did not give the money, recommending his English partners to lend less frequently to the Muscovites. However, sometimes bad debts were returned. During Bose's embassy, ​​Ivan the Terrible suddenly ordered the payment of 3,000 marks, which had already been written off by the company.

"Moscow company"

The British brought paper, sugar, salt, fabrics, dishes, copper, lead tiles for roofing, and luxury goods to Moscow. London cloth in Russian markets was called “lundysh”. “Exotic” goods that came to Russia from America and Asia through the Moscow Company were also of considerable importance. In the lists of goods supplied we also find almonds, raisins, horse harnesses, medicines, musical instruments, halberds, jewelry, dishes and even... lions. They also carried bells and precious metals, which were prohibited for export from England, but by special order of the crown an exception was made for Russia. And yet, what was especially important for Moscow was that lead, gunpowder, saltpeter, sulfur and, apparently, weapons and ammunition arrived on English ships.

Of course, the Moscow Company was not a monopolist in trade with the West. German, Dutch, Italian, Danish, even Spanish and Italian entrepreneurs flocked to Muscovy. However, it was the British who managed to bring trade cooperation to the level of state policy in the 16th century.

In 1557, the British established rope production in Kholmogory. Vologda became another production center of the company. By 1560, local workers had already mastered the technology, and most English craftsmen returned to their homeland. During their stay in Kholmogory, English craftsmen were paid 9 pounds per year (of which 2 pounds per year were deposited into their account in England). This was quite decent money for that time, but the influx of precious metals from America caused rampant inflation, which went down in history as the “price revolution.” As it turns out, this happened not only in Western Europe. 25 years after the first English workshops appeared in Muscovy, a certain John Finch, citing high costs, was already demanding an increase in wages of up to 42 rubles per year - in English money this was 28 pounds. As T.S. rightly notes. Willan, this indicates that the “price revolution” reached Russia during this time.”

In 1558, the representative of the Moscow Company, Anthony Jenkinson, received permission from the tsar for an expedition to Persia and Bukhara along the Volga route. Although a significant part of the purchased goods was lost on the way back, what was brought was enough to justify the company's activities for a long time in a commercial sense. At the same time, the English merchant carried out a diplomatic mission for Ivan the Terrible in Persia. The Moscow Tsar sought an alliance with the Persians against the Turks.

At the dawn of capitalism, politics was openly intertwined with trade. Azerbaijani researcher L.I. Yunusova notes that Jenkinson's commercial success was largely determined by the fact that he was “not just an English merchant, but an envoy of the Russian Tsar.”

Jenkinson's mission marked the beginning of a long period of competition and cooperation between English and Russian capital in the Caspian Sea. On the one hand, Moscow, and later St. Petersburg, needed foreign partners. Trade with Persia was largely transit. The British helped establish trade routes; Persian silk and other goods were exported further to Europe on English and later Dutch ships. But, on the other hand, the partners waged a fierce struggle among themselves. Both of them sought to retain the maximum share of the profits from Persian trade.

Jenkinson achieved trade privileges in Persia similar to those in Moscow. English expeditions to Persia followed one after another - in 1564, 1565, 1568, 1569 and 1579. This caused concern in Moscow, where they did not want to cede such a profitable trade route to foreigners. In the future, the royal court took measures to ensure that the Volga trade remained under its control, and limited the activities of the British in this direction. Trade expeditions to the south could only be undertaken with royal permission and with joint forces. Despite all the problems, Persian trade was a real bonanza for the company, but by the beginning of the 17th century, another, safer and easier route to Persia was being established through the Indian Ocean. The East India Company begins to export Persian goods to the West in significant quantities, thereby reducing the commercial attractiveness of the Volga route. Later, another transit route appeared - through Turkey. Nevertheless, trade with Persia across the Caspian continued, leading to the prosperity of Astrakhan.

Partners or competitors?

Subsequently, the activities of the “Moscow Company” became a topic among Russian historians heated debate. The 19th century historian N. Kostomarov drew attention to the fact that English merchants, organized around the “Moscow Company,” were closely connected with their government and acted in concert, often even to the detriment of their compatriots who did not have political support in London. Kostomarov is convinced that the British had “extensive types of political dominance in Russia.”

It’s easy to guess that this thesis was very popular among Soviet historians, especially in the early years “ cold war" A number of Soviet authors argued that the British found a backward country in Russia and “strove in every possible way to consolidate this backwardness,” “prevented the Russians from mastering and studying advanced technology,” and went “through pressure and blackmail.”

On the contrary, historians of the “Western” persuasion saw in the English merchants representatives of an advanced civilization who brought knowledge to the backward Russian people. Only in the early 60s of the 20th century did Y.S. Lurie tried to demythologize the history of Anglo-Russian relations in the 16th century.

In fact, the activities of the British in Russia were accompanied by numerous mutual claims between Russian and English partners. Complaints by Russian merchants about foreign competition are repeated regularly, starting from the second half of the 16th century and ending with the era of the first Romanovs. In the petition of 1646, submitted to the tsarist government against the “Aglitsky Germans,” the claims made are approximately the same as in documents of an earlier period. The Russians accused the British of manipulating prices, the British, in turn, complained about the unreliability of Russian merchants, frequent delays, and fraud.

Often, the complaints of the British (and foreigners in general) who were in Muscovy in the 16th-17th centuries look quite comical. Thus, foreigners complained that they were being “fed”, clearly trying to harm their health with excessive food. In Muscovy of those times, it was indecent to get up from the table on your own, and if the next day the guests did not complain of feeling unwell due to excessive food and drink, then the feast was considered unsuccessful.

Communicating with Russian partners, the British noticed that they did not keep their words,

“And if they start swearing and swearing, then they probably want to deceive.”

The ability of the Russians to combine ingenuity and enterprise with carelessness and dishonesty could not help but amaze the Protestants, however, as Kostomarov notes, the mutual claims of Russian and Western merchants never prevented them from “deceiving the government together.”

To be fair, it should be noted that in hindsight the situation always looks more dramatic than it actually is. The fact is that cases where the parties separated amicably leave fewer traces in the documents. It is when mutual claims arise that people begin to write complaints and contact various authorities, thereby providing material for future historians. Paradoxically, it is the huge number of various complaints that testifies to the scope and intensity of trade relations between the British and Russians.

In reality, of course, the main problems were not cultural contradictions. Having settled in Muscovy, the British began to trade in the domestic market, successfully competing with local merchants. They organized their own network of suppliers and a wholesale purchasing system, lending to manufacturers [ like later in the Ottoman Empire And ]. This order, Kostomarov notes,

“it was beneficial for small traders and for the people in general, but ruinous for Russian wholesale traders.” The law of merchant capitalism is that whoever has the most capital controls the market. Having an advantage in financial resources, the British occupied more strong positions than their Russian competitors.

The behavior of English merchants in Muscovy caused discontent not only among their competitors among the Russian merchants, but also among many in England itself. In London there was a belief that Russian soil had a corrupting effect on company employees. Once in Muscovy, they quickly became rich, built luxurious mansions that London shareholders could not afford, adopted local customs, kept servants, dogs and bears. They began, like the Moscow boyars, to overeat to the point of stomach cramps. In London it was believed that Russia was corrupting the British with the temptation of excessive freedom, and those who lived in Moscow did not want to return to Puritan abstinence. Ambassador Bowes openly complained to Grozny about his poverty. When company employees were recalled, they did everything to stay. For this reason, some switched to Russian service and even converted to Orthodoxy.

Later, already in the 17th century, the English ambassador John Merick complained to tsarist officials about his own people, merchants and clerks, who, without the knowledge of the company, were marrying Russian women. The ambassador was worried about such marriages exclusively by the material side: by converting to Orthodoxy on the occasion of marriage, the British became Russian subjects and evaded paying debts to their compatriots. Merik demanded that marriages not be allowed until the company confirmed payment of all bills. However, the Russians pretended that they did not understand what they were talking about and assured the Englishman that

“They don’t marry anyone by force and in the Moscow state they don’t leave anyone in captivity.”

Trade with the British was so important for Ivan the Terrible that he ordered boyar Boris Godunov, at that moment a rising star in the Kremlin administration, to deal with their affairs. The British called Godunov in their own way “protector”. The English astrologer, known in Moscow as Elisha Bomeliy, enjoyed particular influence at the tsar’s court. In addition to predicting the future, he also carried out more practical tasks for the ruler: preparing poisons for him, collecting information about boyars suspected of treason.

“The fame of Bomelius,” writes S.F. Platonov, “was so widespread, and the fame of his power was so noisy that even the obscure provincial chronicle of that time told about him in an epic-fairy-tale tone.”

According to the chronicler, the “fierce sorcerer” Bomelius was to blame for all the troubles that the reign of Ivan the Terrible brought upon the country. The English astrologer instilled in the tsar “ferocity” towards his own subjects and turned him in favor of the “Germans” [The idea of ​​foreign influence on the politics of Ivan the Terrible can be traced, as noted by S.F. Platonov, in a number of sources. For example, clerk Ivan Timofeev complains that the tsar, instead of “well-meaning nobles,” brought foreigners closer to him and fell under their influence to such an extent that “his entire inner life fell into the hand of a barbarian.” Platonov notes to this that we are dealing with a clear exaggeration, for “foreigners, although they were part of the oprichnina, did not have any significance in it” (ibid.). Which, in a technical sense, is certainly true. But this is not only about the personal participation of certain overseas guests in making specific decisions. Pointing to the influence of foreigners, Ivan’s contemporaries instinctively felt that the very essence of the tsar’s policy, its logic, was dictated not only by internal circumstances, but also by some other motives, more understandable to foreigners than to Russians].

The question, however, is not what the behavior of the British was, but what the Russian government expected of them. Karamzin is sure that by establishing ties with England, the Tsar of Muscovy took the opportunity to “borrow from foreigners what was most necessary for its civil education.” Historians note that Ivan the Terrible patronized foreigners to such an extent that this was “much offensive to his subjects, whom he willingly humiliated before foreigners.” However, the Russian Tsar's interest in foreigners was quite practical. Ivan the Terrible tried to find a military and commercial ally in Elizabeth of England.

Strategic alliance

The fact that both the English and Russian governments gave preference to organized merchants from the Moscow Company over individual traders, both Russian and British, indicates that both sides tried to solve their problems at the state level. The mutual interest of Elizabeth of England and Ivan the Terrible is completely natural. If the Swedes and Germans needed to maintain trade dominance in the eastern part of the Baltic, then the British, on the contrary, needed to gain access to Russian resources without the mediation of the Riga and Revel merchants. In the same way, Muscovy tried to find direct access to European markets. However, the trade problems of England and Muscovy could not be resolved peacefully.

The German cities of Livonia, which controlled the flow of Russian goods to the West, sought to maintain their position as monopoly intermediaries at any cost. K.N. Bestuzhev-Ryumin in his “Russian History” recalls that the Hanseatic merchants

“they tried to extract as much benefit as possible from this trade, furnishing it with the most restrictive conditions for others: foreigners, especially the Dutch, were forbidden to study in Russian and trade directly with the Russians; the import of silver into Russia was prohibited, trade with Russians on credit was prohibited, etc.”

In 1547, artists and craftsmen recruited for the Russian Tsar in Germany were detained in Lubeck at the request of the Livonians, despite the fact that Emperor Charles V had permission to recruit specialists. Later, a certain Schlitte, a Saxon who was recruiting personnel for Moscow, was taken into custody in Livonia, and one of his people was executed.

In order to understand why government intervention on both the part of London and Moscow was so intense, it is enough to look at the list of goods supplied to each other by both sides: it was not only and not so much about commerce, but about military-technical cooperation.

Individual shipments of weapons can also be supplied by individual traders, but systematic military supplies were already coordinated at the state level in the 16th century. The effectiveness of such cooperation is ensured by the fact that the sale of weapons is combined with the supply of military materials and technology transfer, the arrival of specialists, etc. Supplies from Russia were a decisive factor in the development of the English navy. Russian-English cooperation was part of the Anglo-Spanish confrontation. The Spanish king Philip II was preparing to invade England, and Elizabeth of England urgently created a fleet.

“To cut off England and the Netherlands from Eastern European raw materials meant destroying these states,” wrote historian Ya.S. Lurie. – This is precisely the goal that Philip II achieved in Poland, Sweden and Russia. In Poland, his diplomats had only some success. In Russia they were a complete failure."

“The English fleet, built during these years and which defeated the Spanish Invincible Armada in 1588, was equipped predominantly with Russian materials,”

– notes Swedish historian Arthur Attman.

"Moscow Company" was the official supplier royal navy. “Russia was not a monopoly supplier of ropes and tackle, which were also imported from the Baltic countries, but Russian supplies were especially important for Elizabeth’s fleet, and ropes and tackle were of the same importance to the then fleet as oil was to the modern one,” writes Willan.

English sailors admitted that the gear supplied from Russia was “the best of those brought into the country.” In addition, the ropes and tackle coming from Muscovy were cheaper than those supplied from other places. Therefore, Willan concludes, northern trade “was more important for England than for Russia.”

In turn, Ivan the Terrible asked England for the supply of military materials, weapons, engineers knowledgeable in artillery, and architects familiar with the construction of fortifications. As soon as the Livonian War began in 1557, rumors spread across Europe about English weapons ending up in the hands of the Muscovites. Poland and Sweden protested. In Cologne and Hamburg, large shipments of weapons purchased by the British were blocked, as the Germans feared that the equipment was actually intended for the troops of Ivan the Terrible. Elizabeth of England, of course, denied everything. Not only did she assure other monarchs that there was no military cooperation with Muscovy, she also belittled the scale of trade in every possible way, claiming that we were talking about several merchant ships that almost accidentally sailed into the mouth of the Northern Dvina. The merchants, naturally, were peaceful people who thought exclusively about commercial gain.

One episode testifies to how “peaceful people” the employees of the “Moscow Company” were. In 1570, at the height of the Livonian War, Swedish corsairs attacked English traders transporting “Russian” cargo. As a result of the ensuing battle, the flagship (!) of the Swedes was boarded and captured by “peaceful merchants”. The victorious report was immediately sent by company representatives to Moscow and brought to the attention of the Russian authorities.

Nevertheless, British diplomats throughout Europe refuted “rumors” about military cooperation: a special embassy was sent to the continent for this purpose. Meanwhile, from nowhere, Ivan the Terrible’s troops acquired weapons and military technologies that were suspiciously reminiscent of English ones.

In 1558, company employee Thomas Alcock, captured by the Poles, admitted that military supplies had taken place, but justified himself by saying that

“They only imported old, worthless weapons.”

The engineer Locke would hardly have agreed with this, boasting in his letters that with his help Moscow had learned to make the most advanced weapons available in Europe. Meanwhile, not only English doctors and pharmacists, but also architects and specialists “to erect stone buildings” are arriving in Russia. Considering that Ivan the Terrible wrote directly to London several times that he needed help in carrying out fortification work, it becomes clear what kind of “stone buildings” we are talking about.

The surviving documents also leave no doubt as to what was in the holds of the Moscow Company ships. They carried saltpeter, lead, sulfur, and artillery gunpowder. Although, of course, not all deliveries had a strategic purpose. The British, not being winemakers themselves, brought wine to Muscovy. Moscow consumers were undemanding. That's why they imported

“various spoiled wines, sweet wines, wines with a large admixture of cider.”

Perhaps they carried a lot of other things, because not all deliveries were documented.

The cooperation between England and Muscovy was strategic as well as commercial. Trade of the 16th-17th centuries is inseparable from war. Having opened the route from Northern Europe to the mouth of the Northern Dvina, the British quickly made it attractive to others Western countries. However, the Russian Pomors themselves did not have the technology or resources to build a serious fleet. Moreover, it was basically impossible to create a serious fleet in the north, even if the British helped in its construction. This required not only a lot of wood and know-how. In the end, specialists can be sent from abroad, as Peter I later did. But a strong fleet can only be based in large port cities. The Northern Dvina was too remote from the rest of Russia and had too few resources and people to compete with Riga. And it was unprofitable to develop trade there - the sea freezes in winter. The main flow of Russian goods went through German-owned Revel and Swedish Vyborg.

The “Moscow Company” was in intense competition with them [Attman notes that until the beginning of the Livonian War, most of Novgorod’s exports passed through Revel and, in fact, it was as a transit port for Novgorod that this city took shape and flourished (R. 35)]. In order to gain access to new trade routes, Russia needed trading positions in the Baltic, and therefore the German merchants, who were at first opponents and then leading partners of the Novgorodians, again turned into opponents - now for Muscovy. Russia needed its own large port in the Baltic. And with the beginning of the Livonian War, she received it.

Livonian War

Immanuel Wallerstein, in a study of the origins of the modern world economic system, argues that during the Livonian War, Ivan the Terrible tried to “achieve the autonomy of the Russian state in relation to the European world economy,” and in this sense, the tsar’s policy that led to the war was not only not a defeat, but on the contrary, it was a “giant success.” As a result of the policy of Ivan the Terrible, “Russia was not drawn into the European world economy,” which allowed our country to maintain a developed national bourgeoisie and subsequently become not a periphery, but a semi-periphery of world capitalism. It is curious that Wallerstein's reasoning coincides with the official propaganda myth that dominated during Stalin's times. Meanwhile, the Livonian War was not only a disaster in military terms, but was also caused precisely by the desire of the tsarist government to achieve inclusion in the emerging world system at any cost.

In the 16th century, Russia’s integration into the world system was, at first glance, quite successful. As Arthur Attman notes, Russia has always had a trade surplus with Western countries.

“As for the Russian market, from the Middle Ages until at least the mid-17th century, each of these countries was forced to spend precious metals to cover their trade deficit.”

The situation for Russia as a whole was better than for Poland - despite the fact that both countries often traded the same goods (but Poland, unlike Russia, could not act as a supplier of furs on the world market) [Wallerstein believes that Ivan’s policy Grozny helped the Russian bourgeoisie and the monarchy to avoid “at least in that period, the fate that befell the Polish elites.” The paradox is that Russia and Poland laid claim to the same place in the world system, and in this sense, the failure of the tsar’s attempts to conquer Livonia in hindsight can be seen as "luck". But in reality, Moscow’s military defeats did not isolate it from the world system at all, but simply forced it to integrate on less favorable terms. As for Poland, the struggle between it and Russia for a place in the world system continued until Poland disappeared from the map of Europe].

And yet Russian trade in the 16th century is a paradoxical phenomenon. On the one hand, there is a positive balance, a constant influx of hard currency. In other words, Russia benefited from world trade, ensuring capital accumulation. On the other hand, the structure of trade is clearly peripheral. The similarities with the American colonies noted by Willan are far from accidental. The colonies in North America (New England) were initially conceived as raw material bases that were supposed to replace or supplement products received from Russia. However, as noted scholar of colonial history, J. L. Beer,

“Attempts to secure supplies from New England of pitch, tar, hemp and other products necessary for shipbuilding, which continued over a long period, ended in complete failure.”

From the very beginning, free American colonists produced not what the mother country needed, but what was beneficial to them. The economic structure of New England spontaneously reproduced the economy of Britain. In such a situation, supplies of raw materials from Russia remained indispensable for the English fleet and industry throughout the 17th and 18th centuries.

Russia exports raw materials and imports technologies. It competes in the world market with other countries and territories that form the periphery of the emerging world system. This combination of strength and vulnerability predetermined the inevitable aggressiveness of Muscovy's foreign policy, as well as its subsequent failures.

When Wallerstein, comparing Russia with Poland, concludes that Ivan the Terrible fought to avoid the fate of Poland, which became an appendage of the European world system, he is deeply mistaken. The Russian Tsar sought just the opposite, unsuccessfully trying to occupy the same place in the emerging world system that Poland occupied in the 16th-17th centuries. Contemporaries were well aware that Russia and Poland were competitors on the world market. In the 17th century the Dutch sales representatives in Moscow they directly discussed these issues with the tsar, insisting on expanding Russian grain exports.

Contrary to Wallerstein’s opinion, the ruling circles of Russia did not seek to resist the expansion of the West, but, on the contrary, to join the world system - as its periphery, but on their own terms. In turn, Poland and Sweden in this war defended the places that they had already occupied in the world-economy by the middle of the 16th century.

At first, the Livonian War was successful for the Russian troops. Starting hostilities, Ivan the Terrible used a completely ridiculous and deliberately far-fetched pretext, remembering the failure of the Dorpat bishop to pay tribute, which was never mentioned for 50 years. Ideologically, the order was undermined by the reformation, its troops were small in number. Unlike the conflicts of the 17th century, the armament of Russian troops was not yet much inferior to that of the West. The presence of British military specialists also had an effect. Artillery and metalworking were at a completely modern level for those years, which predetermined the rapid success of the tsarist troops at the first stage of the war. The Livonian Order suffered a crushing defeat. In May 1558, Russian troops took Narva, a key port and fortress that opened the road to the Baltic.

In turn, for England, the capture of Narva opened up direct access to Russian raw materials. However, for the shareholders of the Moscow Company this was by no means good news, because the northern route it had mastered with such difficulty was losing its attractiveness. After the Russians took Narva, English ships arrive there. In general, the Narva port was not very convenient, and the conditions for doing business here were incomparably worse than in Revel. However, Narva attracted Western traders. As the American researcher Walter Kirchner notes,

“as in the case of the northern route, traders here were attracted to Russia by the potential opportunities of this market, and not by the real state of affairs.”

In 1566, 42 ships had already visited Narva, and trade was growing rapidly. Compared to this, the 6-7 ships that sailed along the northern route seem like an insignificant trading operation. The monopoly of the Moscow Company does not extend to Narva; everyone who wants to sail here can sail here.

In turn, the company protests and complains that traders who have no experience working in Muscovy are bringing all sorts of rubbish there and are undermining the reputation of English goods. If in the case of the Northern Sea Route, official London was completely on the side of the Moscow Company, protecting its monopoly in every possible way, then in the conflict around the “Narva voyage” the company has to give in. Here trade is already reaching such proportions that military-strategic considerations cannot help but be pushed aside by commercial ones. It is significant that Elizabeth, who previously supported the Moscow Company in everything, is in no hurry to take action against Narva traders this time. The company was not only a trading enterprise, but also a political instrument of England in Russia, however, with the capture of Narva, one of the key political goals was achieved. Of course, this does not at all indicate a change in policy, especially since the compromise reached between the company and its competitors preserves the company's dominant position. Now all English merchants can benefit from her efforts. The issue of Narva trade is discussed in parliament, the monopoly is ultimately confirmed, but in such a form that for the company in a commercial sense it turns out to be a Pyrrhic victory.

Narva swimming

Before the Livonian War, Narva was not so much a trading port as a fortress that blocked the Russians’ access to the Baltic. But after 1559, Narva trade developed rapidly: in addition to the British, merchants from many European countries appeared here. The largest number of ships arrived in Narva from the Netherlands. Having extensive experience in trading in the Baltic, the Dutch immediately took advantage of the new opportunities that opened up. Large-scale construction begins in the city, business life is in full swing. In 1566, 98 ships departing from Narva passed Riga, and only 35 ships left Riga itself to the west. In 1567, at least 70 English ships alone were sent here. With Narva coming under Russian rule, the port of Revel fell into decay (even after the end of the war, Narva continued to undermine its position). Another German port on the Baltic, Koenigsberg, suffered less, because Polish exports went through it.

At first, the Swedes tried to compensate for losses by introducing duty-free trade in Vyborg for Russian merchants. At the same time, Swedish pirates terrorized merchants heading to Narva [Attman notes that Vyborg trade was the subject of concern for Swedish kings throughout the 16th-17th centuries. They consciously pursued a policy that was supposed to direct Russian trade flows through Swedish ports. In 1550, Gustav Vasa prepared a corresponding study of the Russian market. In 1640, the Swedish resident in Moscow, Peter Loofeldt, prepared a new study, where he drew attention to the growing activity of the British and Dutch in Arkhangelsk and proposed measures to strengthen Swedish positions in the Russian market]. To protect the port, the tsar was forced to hire the German privateer Karsten Rohde and asked for help from the British.

Despite all the efforts of the Swedes, Vyborg was unable to occupy a dominant position in the eastern part of the Baltic. The trade goals of the Livonian War were achieved. Meanwhile, when starting the war, Ivan the Terrible relied not only on the merchants, but also on the land-poor nobility. “The bourgeoisie was satisfied,” writes Pokrovsky, “for them, continuing the war no longer made sense. When the Order's embassy came to Moscow to sue for peace, it found support precisely from the Moscow merchant class. But the success made a completely different impression on the “military”. The campaign of 1558 yielded huge booty - the war in a rich, cultural country was not at all like the fight against foreigners in distant Kazan or the pursuit of the elusive Crimeans across the steppes. The landowners were already dreaming of a lasting conquest of all of Livonia and the distribution of rich manors of German knights to the estates. This distribution has actually already begun. But the transition of the entire south-eastern coast of the Baltic to Russian rule raised the whole of Eastern Europe: neither the Swedes nor the Poles could allow this.”

The capture of Revel and Riga would give Russia a chance to enter European trade without intermediaries. Poland could not allow Riga to fall under the rule of Russia, which was its main competitor in the world market. The era of trade wars was beginning, for which Muscovy was not ready, first of all, diplomatically and politically. Having defeated the Livonian knights, Ivan the Terrible faced the combined forces of Sweden and Poland. Polish trading capital was in the same situation as Russian, and therefore Russian domination in the Baltic would have meant disaster for it. In 1561, the Swedes occupied Revel, and the Poles annexed most of Livonia. Ivan the Terrible tried to avoid war with the Swedes, but it was too late. Negotiations with the Swedish king Eric XIV broke down due to a palace coup, after which Johann III became the head of Sweden, categorically rejecting any concessions to the Muscovites.

As Pokrovsky notes, at the first stage of the war the victories of Russian troops

“were ensured only by a colossal numerical superiority: where the order could field hundreds of soldiers, there were tens of thousands of Muscovites.”

With the entry of Sweden and Poland into the war, the balance of power changes. Already the Polish army was difficult to cope with. When superbly armed, organized and trained Swedish troops (perhaps the best in Europe at that time) appeared on the battlefield, the state of affairs became simply catastrophic. Prince Kurbsky, the best of the governors of Grozny, lost the battle of Nevel to 4 thousand Poles, having 15 thousand troops, and in 1564, near Orsha, the Russian army was completely defeated. Senior commanders died, the enemy got guns and convoys. And most importantly, the fighting spirit of the Moscow army was broken. There was a split in the coalition that supported the reforms of Grozny.

Oprichnina

The more complex the military situation became, the narrower the tsar’s room for maneuver became.

“In an environment of foreign policy failures,” writes Soviet historian R.G. Skrynnikov, the tsar’s associates strongly advised to establish a dictatorship in the country and crush the opposition with the help of terror and violence. But in the Russian state, not a single major political decision could be made without approval in the Boyar Duma. Meanwhile, the position of the Duma and church leadership was known and did not promise success for the enterprise.”

Trying to put pressure on the Duma, the tsar left Moscow and announced his abdication of the throne. In front of the whole country, the tsar presented himself as offended and “expelled” by the boyars from his own capital. The Duma was forced to reject the tsar's abdication and itself turned to him with assurances of fidelity.

Having undermined the political position of the Duma, the tsar announced that in order to “protect” his life he was forced to divide his entire land into “zemshchina” and “oprichnina”. If the “zemshchina” remained under the control of the Boyar Duma, then the oprichnina was subordinated to the personal power of Ivan the Terrible. Here everything was organized as in an appanage principality; affairs were in charge of the tsar’s appointees who did not have a noble background. “High-born” nobles who had no connections with the boyar aristocracy were selected here. Foreigners were willingly taken into oprichnina service. The oprichnina army equipped in this way became the tsar’s reliable weapon in the fight against internal opposition.

Moscow witnessed bloody executions. Real and imaginary opponents of the tsar, accused of conspiracy, ascended to the scaffold. At the direction of Ivan the Terrible, the chronicles were corrected in accordance with the changed political situation, and the legends about boyar conspiracies recorded under the dictation of the tsar’s people replaced non-existent investigative materials.

However, the oprichnina was not just a terrorist organization in the service of the tsar. Oprichnina meant the beginning of a large land redistribution. In the territory of the oprichnina, the confiscation of boyar estates began, which provided for the tsar's nominees. The Tsar twice tried to satisfy the land hunger of the minor nobility. The first time was during the Kazan campaign, the second time during the Livonian War. But in neither case was the goal achieved. The only way out was the expropriation of the feudal aristocracy. In the territory of the oprichnina, not only unbridled terror began against the old boyar families and their supporters, but also land redistribution. In place of feudal estates, much smaller landowner farms arose. The boyar estate was large enough to live its own closed life. It supplied only the surplus of its production to the market. The new estates, on the contrary, were not self-sufficient; from the very beginning they produced a significant part of their products for exchange on the market.

The redistribution of property that took place in the oprichnina is strikingly similar to what happened in England several decades earlier during the Reformation carried out by Henry VIII. The English aristocracy was largely exterminated already during the War of the Scarlet and White Roses, and therefore huge monastic possessions were destroyed. The “new nobility”, which settled on the occupied land, laid the foundations of rural capitalism. The more the estates focused on the market, the stronger the connection between the “new nobility” and the urban bourgeoisie became: in the civil war of the 17th century they acted as allies.

The land redistribution carried out by Ivan the Terrible also received the full support of commercial capital. It is significant that all the main trading cities and routes fell into the oprichnina:

“Of all the roads that connected Moscow with the borders, only the roads to the south, to Tula and Ryazan, were left unattended by the oprichnina,” writes the famous historian S.F. Platonov, “we think because their customs and other income was not great, and their entire extent was in troubled places in southern Ukraine.”

This approach cannot be explained by concerns about defense - from a military point of view, it was the unsafe southern roads that should have attracted attention in the first place. But the oprichnina was not so much a military organization as a socio-political one.

“It was not for nothing that the British, who were dealing with the northern regions, asked that they too be transferred to the jurisdiction of the oprichnina,” notes Platonov, “it was not without reason that the Stroganovs were drawn there too: commercial and industrial capital, of course, needed the support of the administration that was in charge of the region , and, apparently, was not afraid of the horrors with which we associate the idea of ​​the oprichnina.”

Mikhail Pokrovsky, quoting this statement, sarcastically adds:

“One would still be afraid of what was created with the participation of this very capital.”

Skrynnikov also notes the economic successes of the British achieved in the oprichnina. They were given the right to search for iron in the oprichnina districts, “and where they successfully find it, build a house for making this iron.” The privileges of foreign capital in the oprichnina were not limited to this.

“It is curious that it was the oprichnina government that for the first time in Russian history granted concessions to foreign capital, and that these concessions were located exclusively within the oprichnina.”

As Pokrovsky notes, the oprichnina represented the expropriation of the boyars by the petty nobility, focused on commodity production, primarily on the grain trade. Oprichnina, Pokrovsky believes, “followed the line of natural economic development.”

Meanwhile, the Livonian War was hopelessly lost. Attacks against the Swedes in Reval were launched twice - in 1570 and 1577, both times ending in heavy defeats. In 1571, the Crimean Tatars reached Moscow, subjecting the city to terrible destruction. Contemporaries wrote about 800 thousand dead and 150 thousand taken into slavery. Even if these data are exaggerated, we are talking about a real catastrophe in a country whose population did not exceed 10 million.

The oprichnina terror takes on a “senseless and merciless” character against the backdrop of military failures and a chronic lack of funds. Expropriations turn into ordinary robbery, not only in favor of the treasury, but also in favor of the guardsmen themselves. Discontent is growing in the country, to which the authorities are responding by intensifying terror. The tsar’s destruction of Veliky Novgorod in January 1570 became the pinnacle of madness. First, the tsar and the guardsmen massacred almost the entire local elite, including women and children. The clergy did not escape reprisals either. Then a real pogrom began in the city.

According to the famous historian R.G. Skrynnikov, the guardsmen “made a formal attack on the city. They plundered the Novgorod market and divided the most valuable of the loot among themselves. They dumped simple goods, such as lard, wax, flax, into large heaps and burned them. During the days of the pogrom, large reserves of goods intended for trade with the West were destroyed. Not only the auctions, but also the houses of the townspeople were robbed. The guardsmen broke gates, exposed doors, and broke windows. Townspeople who tried to resist the violence were killed on the spot. The royal servants persecuted the poor with particular cruelty. As a result of the famine, many beggars gathered in Novgorod. In severe frosts, the king ordered them all to be driven out of the city gates. Most of these people died from cold and hunger.”

Despite the terror, and to a large extent because of it, the government's position remained unstable. In 1567, Ivan the Terrible stipulated in his letters that he would receive political asylum in England in case he was defeated by his enemies in his homeland. And more weapons. And architects for the construction of fortresses. And even better - the English fleet for the war with Poland and Sweden. Elizabeth promises refuge. Weapons, apparently, continue to arrive, although clearly not in the quantities that Tsar Ivan expected. But the queen refuses to openly enter into the Livonian War. Naturally, the cunning and cautious Elizabeth could not agree to this. And this is not only a matter of fear of a war on two fronts - a conflict with Spain is brewing, and a war in the Baltic is an unaffordable luxury for England. In addition, the fleet that is to “rule the seas” has not yet been built (it is for its creation that ropes and masts from Narva are needed). But Elizabeth has another reason for caution. No matter how important its interests in Russia are, the British are also actively trading in Poland and do not intend to sacrifice it. London is quite happy with the current state of affairs.

However, having refused to send Moscow a military fleet, Elizabeth did not completely ignore the requests of her partner. In 1572, at least 16 English sailors were in the royal service in Narva. They are trying to create a Russian navy in the Baltic 130 years before Peter the Great, train people, help build ships. Only later, in 1582, two English warships were sent to the White Sea, and all merchants were “told by the sovereign’s word” to wait for the British, and then go in a caravan “with all the ships together.”

The embassy of Thomas Randolph in 1568 confronts the king with a fact: we will trade, but we will not conclude an open military alliance. Ivan the Terrible repeatedly expressed his displeasure, but, in turn, was forced to accept the conditions of the British, realizing that he simply had no other choice. The privileges of the “Moscow Company” were confirmed in 1569 to the maximum extent and were, according to Lyubimenko,

"undoubtedly the culminating point in the history of successes achieved by the company with the Russian supreme power."

Soon after this, difficulties began. In 1571, against the backdrop of a worsening military situation in Livonia, Ivan the Terrible again tried to get direct intervention from the British. The Tsar repeatedly complained that Elizabeth was interested in “not royal” affairs, but “merchant” affairs - trade, finance. It must be said that these complaints were clearly demagogic - the tsar himself also did not disdain trade. But such complaints should, in modern terms, shift the focus of the discussion from trade to military-political issues. Having failed to achieve what he wanted, the Moscow Tsar tried to influence the trade interests of the British. Privileges were revoked and British goods were seized. It is significant that this crisis in Anglo-Russian relations coincides with the crisis of Ivan’s regime. But the king was in a disadvantageous position. In 1572, trade was resumed on English terms.

Disaster in Livonia and Dutch successes

In 1581 Narva was lost. Together with her, the Swedes occupied the old Novgorod fortress of Ivangorod. The Livonian War finally took on a catastrophic character for Muscovy. A year later, the privileges of the British in Russia were once again confirmed, but to a limited extent. Ivan the Terrible again tries to use trade as a reason for an open alliance, this time a dynastic one. He asks for the hand of an English princess from the House of Tudor [In popular historical literature There is a widespread claim that the king asked for the hand of Elizabeth of England herself. However, there is no confirmation of this in the documents].

In general, this idea originated back in 1568, but only now became the subject of diplomatic negotiations. The Russian ambassador Fyodor Pisemsky was introduced to Lady Mary Hastings, who, apparently, did not make much of an impression on him. The British delayed, and in 1584 Ivan the Terrible died.

The result of the reign of Ivan the Terrible was a lost war in Livonia and internal disorder in the state. The struggle for the Baltic coast turned into a complete defeat for Russia, when it was necessary not only to abandon the captured ports in the Baltic, but also to cede its own territories. Polish troops led by Stefan Batory found themselves at the walls of Smolensk and almost took the city. The Moscow state was devastated by the war and weakened. Swedish hegemony was established in the Baltic for more than a hundred years. The Swedes captured not only the trading centers of the Baltics, but, later, also the sparsely populated strip of land between Narva and Lake Ladoga. This territory in itself had no value, but its possession finally guaranteed control over the Novgorod trade routes.

After the catastrophic defeat in the Livonian War, Russia risked finding itself not so much on the periphery of the emerging world system as outside it. And it was precisely in this that the tragedy of the historical fate of the Russian state manifested itself. The only real alternative to peripheral development was isolation and stagnation.

On the contrary, England achieved its goals, although not in full. It did not receive free access to the Russian market, but it provided systematic supplies of raw materials and materials for the emerging fleet during the most difficult period of the conflict with Spain. In 1588, the Spanish Invincible Armada was destroyed, Britain took the first decisive step towards becoming "Mistress of the Seas". And yet, the defeat of Muscovy in the Livonian War was at the same time a major defeat for England in the struggle for direct access to Russian resources. Already at the end of the 16th century, Anglo-Dutch trade rivalry intensified. Recent allies in the fight against Spain, the English and Dutch bourgeoisie enter into a battle for dominance in the markets. Throughout the 17th century, this confrontation leads to constant conflicts, ending in war three times. This struggle is also being waged on Russian territory, and the Dutch, following in the footsteps of the British, are increasingly pushing them back.

The first Dutch ship entered the mouth of the Northern Dvina in 1578. This was not yet a serious threat to the British. Besides them, Swedes, French, Germans and even Spaniards also traded in the north, but no one could seriously undermine the position of London merchants. However, soon Dutch merchants, fleeing the pursuit of Danish pirates, accidentally discovered a new harbor, more convenient than the one used by the British. This harbor, located near the Michael-Arkhangelsk monastery, became the beginning of the city of Arkhangelsk. The Dutch asked to move trade here. The British resisted, but there was nothing to do, and in 1583-1584 the main port of the Russian North was built here.

Arkhangelsk harbor was the most convenient of all that existed in the Russian North. However, it was shallow, like most Dutch harbors. She was ideally suited for lighter Dutch ships. The displacement of the English ships was large, and therefore for the Moscow Company the transfer of trade to Arkhangelsk meant additional difficulties.

After the opening of the Arkhangelsk port, the rivalry between the British and the Dutch intensifies. Holland, having defended its freedom in the fight against the Spanish crown, turns into a leading maritime power. If at the beginning of the struggle for independence the Dutch bourgeoisie needed the support of the English monarchy against a common enemy, now the two most advanced countries in Europe find themselves first as competitors and then as enemies. Russia is becoming one of the arenas for their rivalry. The Dutch exported furs, caviar, hemp, flax, resin, lard, soap, and ship masts from Muscovy. English and Dutch embassies to Moscow follow one after another. The British are unsuccessfully trying to prevent their rivals from entering the interior of the country. During the Anglo-Dutch wars, both sides tried to persuade the king to prohibit the supply of masts - a strategic raw material - to their opponents. The Moscow government preferred neutrality, banning the removal of masts to both warring states for the duration of hostilities.

Trade competition and diplomatic intrigue are accompanied by an ideological struggle. Contemporaries wrote that the Dutch

“they tried to humiliate and ridicule the British, drew caricatures of them, wrote lampoons.”

British representatives in Moscow complained that

“The Dutch deliberately put a false English mark (a tailless lion with three overturned crowns) on their worst cloth in order to discredit British goods, and also spread all sorts of tales about England.”

But the most effective way to win over the sympathy of the Moscow elite was ordinary bribes. The Russian market was affected by the same factors that influenced the global economic situation. The Dutch were, first and foremost, trade intermediaries. But this is precisely what predetermined their dominant role in the 17th century.

“The Dutch lag behind the British in the field of formal legal matters,” writes the Dutch historian J.V. Veluvenkamp, ​​- was compensated by an obvious advance in the field of practical commerce. In essence, the foreign trade of the British consisted of the export of English products, primarily woolen fabrics, and the import of goods intended for sale in England. The Dutch were engaged in international intermediary trade, and therefore could supply all those goods for which there was demand, and buy all those that were offered. This meant that in Russia they could offer a much larger range of goods than the British.”

They imported large quantities of silver, which the state needed to mint its own coins, as well as gold. Two-thirds of the silver entering the Russian market was brought from Holland, and no more than a quarter from England.

Throughout the 17th century, the position of the Moscow Company weakened, and Dutch merchants strengthened their presence in the Russian market.

“Their goods,” wrote a Soviet researcher, “were of higher quality. The British themselves admitted this. Further, they were richer and had more opportunities for bribery, although they resorted to it only in extreme cases. But their gifts and offerings to the king were both more magnificent and luxurious than the English ones. Finally, they were able from the very beginning to create for themselves a reputation as disinterested and honest traders.”

To this, historians often add that the Dutch acted more in the spirit of free enterprise, while the British were organized around the monopoly “Moscow Company” into a trade and political structure closely linked to the state. Thus, the defeat of the British in the 17th century was caused by the same thing that ensured their impressive success in the middle of the 16th century. The Moscow Company, being closely connected with the royal court in London, was an ideal partner for Ivan the Terrible during the preparation for the Livonian War and at the height of hostilities. During these times, as Lyubimenko writes admiringly, the English ambassador “dared to enter the Tsar without taking off his hat.” But after the defeat in the war, all this no longer mattered to the Moscow government. While Ivan the Terrible was alive, the old relationship remained, but with his death everything inevitably had to change.

Chapter "The English King".

Falsification of history to the detriment of the interests of the Moscow kingdom....

And the cruelty of the king, who “finished off” the little people along with the “strong ones in Israel” (Kurbsky’s claim against him), destroyed “many and many more,” with the ruin and depopulation of the center of the country (including forest cover around Moscow has risen almost to modern levels- instead of the “great plowing” under his truly Terrible grandfather, and indeed father) - the usual price for the country’s openness to the market, see the consequences of reforms in Russia and Ukraine. For some reason, the free market (or European integration) does not take root without “bloodshed”, see the exploits of Pinochet

Holy prince-ancestor and Yaroslavl connections

Secondly, Ivan the Terrible, like the liberal reformers, is mystically connected with the city of Yaroslavl - . See the recording of S.V. Gorodilin’s report on the cult of St. Feodor and his veneration by the “English king” at the conference on the cult of saints in the Middle Ages of Western and Eastern Europe, November 12-14, 2014.

The first positive evidence of the veneration of the Yaroslavl princes by the sovereign dates back to the period after his marriage to Elena Glinskaya: with his new wife in 1528-1529. went to the shrines of northern cities and monasteries. Chronicle news suggests that the ruling couple visited Yaroslavl twice: at the beginning, on the way from Rostov to Vologda, and at the very end: “and on the way back to Moscow I was in Yaroslavl.”

The next stage in the development of the cult of Fyodor, David and Constantine is the era of Ivan Vasilyevich himself. Fedora recorded an important aspect of the transformation of perception and veneration that took place new edition Lives created for the Degree Book (SK). In comparison with the Antonievsky edition that preceded it, all the motives of the Horde episode, associated with the prince’s succession of royal power from the khan, are consciously strengthened there:

“You always commanded him to sit in front of you, and put your royal crown on his head all the days, and put his crown on his drachma and other royal attire.”

“Send him away with great honor, and place a royal crown on him,”

and with the transfer by Khan Fedor of the cities, the names of which are given: they turn out to be Kazan, “Blgary”, “Balamaty”, “Aresk”, Korsun, Chernigov.

Fyodor and his sons are included by the SK among the relatives of the Moscow princes, representing in some way their forerunner in power over the “kingdoms.” In this context, the images of Yaroslavl miracle workers on the frescoes of the Annunciation and Archangel Cathedrals (probably the Golden Chamber) in the Kremlin and the Assumption Cathedral in Sviyazhsk, as well as the Church of Fyodor, David and Constantine built in Kazan after its capture, can be considered.

In the middle of the 16th century. The limits of the Rurik princes, the duty of maintaining the memory of whom as deceased “relatives” is assumed by the Moscow sovereign, are expanding extremely. As A.V. showed Sirenov, then, on the initiative of Ivan Vasilyevich, descriptions of princely necropolises in the main cathedrals of the centers of Moscow Rus' are made and lists of regular memorial services for the deceased princes are determined by sovereign decrees. An expression of these processes is the Tsar’s Synodik sent to Patriarch Joasaph II in 1557, where the commemoration of the relatives of the “Righteous Tsar and Grand Duke Ivan Vasilyevich of All Rus'” already includes about 200 representatives of the Rurikovichs. At the same time, the list of holy princes, the royal relatives, whose holiness is beginning to be revered at the state level, is also increasing. This is also reflected in the Tsar’s Synodikon, which opens with a list of holy princes – the Rurikovichs. Present there is also “the prince of the monastery Theodore” with “his children” David and Konstantin.

But what does liberal reformers have to do with it (besides the understandable similarity in compradorism with today’s replacement for the Mongols - a power comparable to the Horde in market power, aggressiveness and the number of innocent people killed)? Since 1991, Yaroslavl has been a testing ground for reforms, an invariably pro-market region (at least the authorities). Yes, and today's icon. liberals - B.E. Nemtsov - was able to be elected to the regional Duma there, which “popular opinion” could not have allowed elsewhere, due to the reformers’ painfully specific reputation. And in terms of love for the fair sex, Boris Efimovich is compared with Ivan Vasilyevich - adjusted for worse administrative resources and b O greater humanity of this age. Speaking with the directness of a Roman, both are inclined to sing everything that moves; a mystical connection, it manifests itself in unexpected places, the spirit blows wherever it wants.

Actually, St. Fyodor Cherny should have long ago become the patron saint of the “liberal opposition”, incl. because to please the Mongols, he stormed his own city (Mozhaisk, possibly Yaroslavl), if they had been more well-read in Russian history. It is in the example of St. Fyodor the Tsar (in correspondence with Kurbsky) justified the opinion that a ruler could commit any crime, kill many, many, and yet be considered a saint.

Kowtow to foreigners

Thirdly, it was Grozny who began the groveling before the West, which so outraged patriots under other autocrats, and remained in the USSR, like the dead grabbing the living:

“...we are accustomed to thinking that the influx of “Germans”, people from the West, falls on the eve and era of reform. But this is also characteristic of Ivan the Terrible’s reign, albeit in more modest forms. He allows the Lutherans to establish a church in Moscow, takes care of it (recovering from the metropolitan for some offense caused to it), and praises German customs. Among the guardsmen there are many foreigners, they are held in high esteem (Russian sources call Johann Taube “Prince Ivan Tuv”), and are appointed regimental commanders, as if anticipating Peter’s hired generals.

Ivan the Terrible goes so far as to consider Magnus of Livonia to be his heir. The Tsar expressed this intention to Magnus in the presence of foreign ambassadors and the Zemstvo Boyar Duma in June 1570. This is how an eyewitness who was in Magnus’s retinue that day reports Ivan the Terrible’s speech:

“Dear brother, in view of the confidence that you and the German people have in me, and my devotion to the latter (for I myself am of German origin and Saxon blood), despite the fact that I have two sons, one seventeen and the other thirteen years old, - your lordship , when I am gone, he will be my heir and the sovereign of my country.”

Let the tsar be deceitful and say so out of calculation in order to intimidate his eldest son and the relatives around him on his mother’s side, the late Anastasia Romanova, who constituted the most influential group in the Zemstvo Boyar Duma. But even in this case, the king’s speech in highest degree eloquently. However, there is information that Grozny did provide special benefits to foreigners. G. Staden directly writes about this, claiming that all of them, except the Jews, are given food money and estates. To this he adds:

“Previously, the Grand Duke often issued letters to some foreigners stating that they had the right not to appear in court on the claims of the Russians, even if they accused them, except for two dates a year: the day of the Nativity of Christ and Peter and Paul<…>A foreigner had the right to complain about the Russians at least every day.” So, foreigners are given advantages over natives. They are almost beyond jurisdiction...”

A.M. Panchenko. Russian culture on the eve of Peter’s reforms // From the history of Russian culture. T. 3. M. 1996. P. 179 - 180.

Sovrisk and performance

Fourthly, the “English Tsar” quoted all cultural forms supported by the “democratic intelligentsia”, to performance art, etc. Sovriska (see the hanging of Prince Ovtsyn next to a sheep, and in the organization of public executions the same shocking demos “artistry” is visible ", see the story about Khariton Beloulin). And he himself belonged to this latter group - the best writer of that time, although not rich in minds and pens, like Akunin and Ulitskaya now. But compare his style (“And how much they drank at Storozhekh! There’s no one to close the monastery, grass grows at a meal,” see Message of 1573, though in translation) with the style of Kurbsky, also a good rhetorician - but too traditional, without individuality language and innovations. the language is archaic and rather clumsy.

Let me summarize

Spiritual secretions of Messrs. liberals with pro-Europeans are so strong and emotionally charged because they express a problem that psychologists call projection - when an external event suddenly touches something bad, shameful that an individual feels in himself, but does not dare admit. And then he denounces others, because he wants to realize this tendency in himself, but does not dare. In contrast to their competitively successful version - the Black Hundreds, guards, etc. of the Zaputinites (since they are implementing the same reforms for the same - murderous - dependent development, but under the anesthesia of patriotic demagoguery). And the “English Tsar” is, yes, quite a symbol of this policy: it is only important to understand it correctly.

In the winter of 1552, a lively meeting of the largest English merchants and shipowners took place in London. An extremely important circumstance was the reason for this meeting.

In the middle of the 16th century. England was experiencing a severe economic crisis, one of those crises when, in limited conditions of trade routes, the acquisition of new sales and export markets becomes a matter of life or death. England's maritime trade fell catastrophically every year. The Spaniards and Portuguese reigned on the oceans in those days.

By right of “pioneers,” the Spaniards monopolized the sea routes to the New World (North America) across the Atlantic Ocean, and the Portuguese - the circum-African route to the East Indies and jealously guarded them with arms in hand.

Access to America, India, China and the “Spice Islands” (Moluccas, Indonesia), places where all kinds of exotic treasures were found, was in fact almost closed to English sailors.

It was possible to penetrate there only secretly, with the greatest danger, for the Spaniards and Portuguese in their zone of influence captured or sank all foreign ships as pirates. The disruption of England's maritime, that is, foreign, trade had a disastrous effect on the state of its internal trade.

Not yet possessing a sufficiently strong navy, England did not dare in those years to enter into an open struggle with Spain and Portugal. In such circumstances, the only way out for trading England was to find and build their own new sea route to overseas lands.

In this regard, the leaders of the commercial circles of England turned to Sebastian Cabot, the famous navigator and geographer of the first half of the 16th century.

Cabot, an Italian by birth, believed that the southern sea routes to the Far East should correspond to similar routes in the north. It was assumed that the western route there would go past Greenland, the eastern route along the northern coasts of Europe and Asia.

The elderly Cabot (he was already 80 years old) had long insisted on the need to build a northeastern route to Asia. Cabot was sure that by sailing the Arctic Ocean in the warm season and taking advantage of favorable winds and currents, he could easily reach the mysterious Sipango (Japan) within three months, from where it was not so far to the “gold-bearing mine”, according to the stories of Marco Polo, China and to the treasured “Spice Islands”.

Cabot presented his thoughts on this matter in detail and convincingly at a crowded meeting of the “money people” of London. They fully approved the project and established the "Company of Merchant Explorers for the Discovery of Unknown Countries" with a fixed capital of 6,000 pounds sterling.

Following this, they began to equip three ships, and in May 1553 a small flotilla under the overall command of Hugh-Willoughby sailed from the coast of England.

Due to bad weather the sailing was very slow. Near the northwestern coast of Scandinavia, a strong storm separated the ships. Two of them, as it turned out later, died lost in ice off the coast of Russian Lapland, the third - “Edward - a good enterprise”, whose commander was Richard Chancellor, sailed safely to the southern coast of the White Sea.

Having landed on land, at the mouth of the Northern Dvina, not far from Kholmogory, Chancellor learned that he was in the possession of the Moscow Tsar.

“That same summer,” reports the Dvina Chronicle of 1553, “on the 24th day of August, a ship arrived from the sea at the mouth of the Dvina River and made a mistake: Ambassador Knight, and with him guests, arrived in Kholmogory in small ships from King Edward of Aglina.” Merchants were called “guests” in old Rus'.

So, during the reign of Ivan the Terrible, the British, in search of a new sea route to the Far East, accidentally “discovered” something almost unknown to them until then - the Muscovite state or, in Western European terminology, Muscovy.

After looking around the new places, Chancellor, who had a royal letter of recommendation with him, took on the role of ambassador. With the permission of Grozny, in November he set off along the sleigh route to Moscow, where he was very favorably received by the Tsar.

Chancellor's request to allow the British to continue to use the White Sea route for trade relations with Russia was respected:

“The Sovereign Tsar and Grand Duke (Dvina Chronicle) granted the Agli lands to the royal ambassador Knight and the guests; he ordered them to travel safely on ships to their Russian state with trade from overseas and ordered them to buy and build yards without restrictions.”

Until the spring of 1554, Chancellor lived in Russia, first in Moscow, then on the Northern Dvina. Both here and there he carefully collected information about Russian trade, about the requirements of the Russian market, about the roads leading to Asia.

In the spring, having profitably sold the goods he brought with him in Kholmogory and loaded the ship with furs, skins, whale oil and samples of other Russian goods, Chancellor sailed to his homeland with a letter from Ivan the Terrible. From that moment on, constant trade and diplomatic relations between Russia and England began.

In London, a fascinating story by a brave sailor about Muscovy - the country he had newly discovered, its size and abundance natural resources made a great impression.

True, Muscovy was not China or India, but it was much closer to England and, as a sales and export market, was a very valuable acquisition; This was clearly evidenced by the goods brought by Chancellor.

The “Company of Merchant-Seekers” was transformed into the “Russian or Moscow Company”, which, without giving up the idea of ​​laying new way to the Far Eastern markets, its main goal was monopoly trade with Russia.

Chancellor's second trip to Muscovy was made in 1555 on behalf of the company. He was accompanied by two agents, equipped special instructions, which contained a program of extensive commercial operations. In Moscow, the British received an even more gracious welcome than the first time.

At the request of Ivan the Terrible, a trade agreement was approved, according to which the British received broad rights and advantages. Among them, extremely important was the right of duty-free trade throughout Russia, the right to set up one’s own trading posts (trading yards) in a number of cities, as well as the right of free entry into Russia and exit from it to other countries, in other words, the right clear path to the east. On top of this, Grozny personally gave the British a large house on Varvarka, in Kitai-Gorod.

The favor shown by Ivan the Terrible towards the British was due to the political considerations of the far-sighted tsar.

Poland, the Livonian Order and Sweden have long interfered with Russia's peaceful relations with the rest of Europe. As a result, the Russian state urgently needed a free road to the West, and just at this time Moscow was on the eve of the Livonian War for the possession of harbors on the Baltic shores.

Because of this, strong, regular relations with England acquired especially important importance for Moscow. It was necessary to closely interest the British in “Muscovite” affairs, because the British had every opportunity to deliver to Russia not only various goods, but also military equipment, so necessary for the war, through the free northern route.

Chancellor himself did not have to reap the benefits of his successful “discovery” of Muscovy. In 1556, returning to England accompanied by the royal ambassador Osip Nepeya (the first Russian to visit England), Chancellor died in a shipwreck off the coast of Scotland.

Nepeya escaped and was received with great honor in London by Queen Mary, the nobility and representatives of trading circles. In London, in accordance with the privileges received by the British in Russia, the Moscow ambassador negotiated, in general, the same benefits for the Russians in the event of their coming to England on trade matters.

In addition, he received (which was very important) permission to hire doctors, engineers, gunsmiths and other technicians into the Russian service.

For its part, the Moscow company decided, without wasting time, to use the favorable circumstances to penetrate into the depths of Asia.

In achieving the goals set by the company, great services were provided by one of its agents, a very experienced merchant traveler, Anthony Jenkinson, who arrived in Moscow in 1557 together with Osip Nepeya.

Jenkinson was entrusted with the mission to carry out an expedition to China through Muscovy and Central Asia. In those years, the company had not yet completely abandoned its intention to reach the empire of the Bogdykhans this way, since there were persistent rumors in the West that merchant caravans were traveling from China to Bukhara and back.

The situation was very suitable for such a journey: at this time (1552-1556), the Volga khanates fell one after another - Kazan and Astrakhan, and the entire great Volga route, the “highway to India,” as they thought in the West then, already belonged to Russia.

Jenkinson, who now took Chancellor's place, was both a brave traveler and a cunning diplomat. He managed to please Grozny so much that he not only allowed the British to travel along the Volga, but also provided them with letters of recommendation to the ruling princes of the Trans-Caspian regions.

These letters more than once saved Jenkinson and his companions from trouble, for the name of the Russian Tsar was highly respected in the East.

In the spring of 1558, Jenkins left Moscow by water for an expedition to Central Asia. This was the first trip in the 16th century. Western Europeans to Asia through Muscovy.

Having descended the Moscow River and Oka River, the British sailed to Nizhny, where they waited for the arrival of the governor, who was traveling with 500 large ships, archers, provisions, ammunition and goods to Astrakhan to rule the newly conquered region.

Under the protection of the archers, the voyage along the Volga to Astrakhan went quite safely. In those days, famine and plague were raging in Astrakhan, and therefore the British hastened to get out to the sea.

A week later, having withstood a strong storm, they landed in Dead Kultuk Bay. Having unloaded their ship here and hired 1000 camels from the local khan, the British moved further by land, carrying a huge cargo of goods for exchange.

This part of Jenkinson's journey shows why it was no longer possible to use caravan routes in the Transcaspian region. Security on the roads did not yet exist, the desert was infested with gangs of robbers, and the rulers of the places through which the caravan line ran, themselves indulged in robberies.

Only eight months after leaving Moscow, the British, having endured a number of dangerous clashes with nomads, suffering terribly from the heat and lack of water in the sandy steppes, finally arrived in big city Bukhara.

Here travelers awaited complete disappointment. It was not possible to travel further towards China due to the military actions of the Samarkand Khan.

As prudent as he was enterprising, Jenkinson, having completed his trading operations, set off on his return journey in time, thanks to which he happily escaped the siege of the city and the subsequent general massacre.

Jenkinson returned to Moscow almost a year and a half later along the same route and with generally the same adventures. As a gift to Ivan the Terrible, he brought 25 Russian slaves he had bought in the Trans-Caspian lands, a white yak tail (Tibetan bull), a Chinese horsetail and a Tatar drum.

From his trip, Jenkinson gained the impression that the British needed to establish trade relations with Iran, where he organized an expedition in 1562.

Having descended down the Volga in the spring of this year, Jenkinson sailed into the Caspian Sea for the second time and crossed it towards Derbent. The voyage was very difficult due to frequent shoals, a storm that lasted seven days, and the possibility of falling into the hands of pirates.

Having reached Derbent, the British purchased camels and horses and moved further through the Shirvan land to the city of Shemakha, where they were hospitably greeted by the local prince Abdul Khan.

Jenkinson very colorfully describes the fertile lands of the southeastern Caucasus, through which he passed, but in which he did not always feel good, despite the rich nature and beautiful views. Travelers constantly had to fear attacks from semi-wild mountaineers, who took prisoners to their villages.

Only six months after leaving Moscow did the British reach the Iranian city of Qazvin, where the Shah was then located. Here the Persians, mistaking the British unknown to them for the Portuguese hostile to Iran, were just about to seize Jenkinson and send him to Constantinople as a gift to the Sultan.

The intercession of the aforementioned Shirvan Khan, a vassal of the Shah, saved Jenkinson from such a sad fate. Jenkinson lived in Qazvin all winter, getting to know the conditions of the local market and establishing trade relations with Iranian and Indian merchants.

The tireless agent of the Moscow Company returned to Moscow with rich gifts for Grozny from the Shah in the same way, wandering around the East, as the first time, for a year and a half.

Jenkinson's travels across Muscovy and Asia did not pass without leaving a mark on geographical science. In those days, trade expeditions were not given a scientific character, but usually the merchant traveler or one of his companions was also a geographer.

For purely practical purposes, it was necessary to become familiar with the geography of the new country, the location of its trading cities, large fairs, roads to them, etc. Regarding all this, they tried to collect as much information as possible, personally checked it, compiled detailed descriptions, and sketched out drawings.

In accordance with this, Jenkinson, an educated man, always carefully described his routes, noting the longitude and latitude of the places he passed, certain features of them, corrected and supplemented the information already available on this matter.

In the sixties of the 16th century. Jenkinson's report on his first expedition to the Trans-Caspian regions was published, to which a land map was attached: “Russia, Muscovy and Tartaria.”

Compiled by Jenkinson on the basis of several astronomical points he himself determined, this map was, despite some errors against reality, a big step forward compared to at least Herberstein’s map (1549).

Reproduced for the first time in Ortelius's atlas (1571), Jenkinson's map is illustrated with pictures from the life of nomadic peoples, images of various animals, mountains, wooded areas, etc.

The drawings are accompanied by explanations in Latin, beginning like this: “The inhabitants of these countries worship the sun in the form of a red canvas...”, “These rocks, reminiscent of the appearance of people, pack animals, and other livestock...”, “The Kyrgyz people live in crowds, t . i.e. “hordes”, etc.

Thanks to such explanations, Jenkinson’s “descriptive” map is now of some interest as a historical document. The notes (reports) of Jenkinson, as well as other agents of the company, which are part of the extensive literature in our historiography, known under the general name “Tales of Foreigners about the Moscow State,” are also very valuable historical and geographical material.

Iran has long been a supplier of raw silk, a product highly valued in the West. In this regard, the Moscow company organized several expeditions to the “land of silk and roses” in Jenkinson’s footsteps.

These trips, despite the large costs and dangers associated with sailing along the Volga and Caspian Sea and traveling through Transcaucasia, turned out to be extremely profitable for the British. For example, the expedition of 1578 - 1581. brought 106% income to the company's shareholders; earlier trips to Iran were also quite lucrative.

But the greatest income, and with much less risk than from Iranian trade, was received by the British from their business operations directly in Muscovy itself.

Every year, English ships regularly arrived at the mouth of the Northern Dvina with a large cargo of various goods. The voyage from England to Pomerania required only a month in favorable weather.

The notes and reports of the company's agents give a clear idea of ​​what the British traded, what the prices were for various products, what goods the trading parties preferred, etc.

The British brought cloth, paper fabrics, tin, weapons, ammunition, sulfur, saltpeter, horse harness, and various metal products; They supplied the royal court with special fabrics, gilded halberds, pistols, pharmaceutical drugs, and musical instruments.

In addition, they also traded foreign products, which representatives of other Western European states later pointed out with displeasure to the Moscow government.

From Russia the British exported furs, leather, blubber, flax, salted fish, lard, oil, wax, hemp, walrus ivory (in the old days - a surrogate for ivory), timber, etc.

Thanks to the activities of the Moscow Company, trade relations between Russia and the West in the 16th century. significantly strengthened and expanded. The greatest demand in Russia was cloth, then cotton fabrics and metals: lead made into roof tiles, tin in the form of pewter, copper and iron.

The size of the profits of the British can be judged by the following example: they sold a piece (cut) of cloth in Russia at three times the cost plus transportation costs. In turn, the British were most interested in blubber, wax (in Russia a “reserved commodity” due to its very wide consumption for church needs) and hemp.

Interest in the latter is explained by the following circumstance. Having initially engaged exclusively in the export of raw materials from Russia, the company soon came to the conclusion that it would be more profitable to process some products locally with the help of specialists sent from England.

Ivan the Terrible willingly gave permission to establish English factories in Russia; he even donated large tracts of land to the company for this purpose, in the hope that the British, according to their promise, would teach the Russians new useful crafts.

The main English production in Moscow was rope manufacturing.

The first rope yard appeared in Vologda, the second in Kholmogory, and later their number increased.

The business of these enterprises was excellent. Thanks to the cheapness of Russian raw materials and local labor, the company prevailed over other Western European competitors and over time became the main supplier of ship gear for the English fleet.

The cheapness of this equipment did not come at the expense of its quality. Back in 1582, William Borrow, controller of the English fleet, officially certified “Russian ropes” as the best delivered to England.

Moreover: many believed that one of the main reasons for the great victory in 1588 of the British over the “Invincible Armada” of the Spanish king was the excellent equipment of the English fleet, taken from Muscovy, from where magnificent timber for masts was also delivered.

Under Grozny, the British were allowed to search for iron ore on Vychegda, where an iron smelter was established in 1569. Workers for this work were sent from England.

The news has been preserved that in Moscow, in the English yard, it was also possible to smelt ore. The company received the right to export manufactured iron to England with payment to the Russian treasury of “one money per pound.”

Grozny’s hopes that the British would familiarize Russian workers with the technology of their production were not justified; contrary to their solemn promise, the British did not even think of doing this.

In general, “enlightened sailors” tried in every possible way to use Muscovy exclusively as their colonial sales market and an abundant source of all kinds of raw materials.

They drew everything they could from Russia, trying to give it as little as possible. For a long time and in large number Living in a country that had so hospitably received them, the British, in addition to trade, then, if possible, avoided getting close to the local population, which in their eyes was, of course, “barbaric.”

The nature and methods of activity of the company’s agents and other English “cultural traders” convincingly indicate that the British in Russia at that time were very far from any truly cultural tasks.

IN short term The British established their trading yards, in addition to Moscow and Kholmogory, in Vologda, Yaroslavl, and later in Novgorod, Kazan and Narva, temporarily (1558-1581), which belonged to Moscow.

They settled down with special comfort at the mouth of the Northern Dvina, on Yagorny Island, which they nicknamed “Island of Roses” because in the spring it was completely covered with red rose hips.

Here, next to a stream with excellent drinking water, they built a spacious house for visitors and large warehouses for goods. From this base, in winter and summer, by water and by land, on horses, boats, and deer, they traveled in all directions of the vast Pomerania, to Mezen, Pechora, and Perm, exploring the region and looking for new places of profitable trading.

At the same time, they were also interested in the Trans-Urals, where there were areas rich in fur, and the great Ob River flowed. Relatively close behind it, according to the geographical concepts of that time, Kambalu (Beijing), the capital of China, was supposedly already located, as depicted, for example, on Herberstein’s map.

So, getting to the Ob meant building a new road through the “land of furs and snow” to the Far Eastern markets. In this regard, the British undertook several expeditions towards Siberia, which, however, did not produce positive results.

In the White Sea Pomerania, the British over time faced very dangerous rivals in the form of the Dutch.

Dutch merchant ships began to appear on Murman back in 1565, and 10 years later they penetrated into the mouth of the Northern Dvina, where a little later (1583-1584) a new “haven” (harbour) was founded specifically for “overseas trade”, the city of Arkhangelsk.

Despite all sorts of tricks, intrigues and even open violence on the part of the British (they tried to detain Dutch ships), they failed to “drive” the Dutch out of the Russian market.

However, until the death of Grozny, the British generally retained almost all the privileges, and under Grozny’s successors - Fyodor Ivanovich, Boris Godunov, Vasily Shuisky, they, in comparison with other foreigners, still continued to enjoy some advantages.

Project for the capture of Muscovy by England

“Dark days” came for the British at the beginning of the 17th century, during the years of the peasant war and foreign intervention, when the established ties between Russia and the West were temporarily broken, and trade life within the country froze.

The “income” of the British from Muscovy at this time completely ceased. Then the British, fearing that ultimately the Polish intervention, as well as the Swedish one (Sweden captured Novgorod), could be crowned with success, decided for their part to occupy Pomerania and the Volga route by armed means.

This military expedition was to be led by Colonel Chamberlain, who served in a mercenary foreign detachment under Vasily Shuisky.

All expenses for this “profitable enterprise” were borne by the Moscow Company, and the expedition project, developed by the company’s agent John Merrick, was, after detailed discussion in London, sanctioned by King James I.

The draft unabashedly asserted that there was “no injustice or insult to anyone, no violation or evasion of treaties concluded with any of the other states” and that, on the contrary, there was a lot of “philanthropy for the oppressed Russian people” in it. , who, supposedly, having fallen in love with the English for their excellent qualities and behavior, “wants to surrender under the authority of the English king more than anyone else.”

In case of success, which was not in doubt, King James personally was to regularly receive considerable income in the future from the “newly acquired lands.”

But, as one might expect, this “brilliant project” remained just a project. When Merrick and Roussel (also an agent of the company) arrived in Moscow in the spring of 1613, the Russian people had already expelled the most dangerous invaders - the Poles - from their land.

A new permanent government was formed in Russia, which the British wisely hastened to “recognize.”

The “Merrick-Chamberlain project”, which was not put into action, significantly recalls historical milestones in the history of Western countries’ raids on Russia, where England was always ready to share the “pie” with the winner in order to save its economic, narrowly selfish interests.

In the 16th century, people rediscovered the world. The harsh Middle Ages are ending, the era of great geographical discoveries forces Europeans to change their idea of ​​the Earth.

It was still dangerous to set out in search of new lands, but the desire to make money by delivering overseas goods at a huge markup prevails. The Spanish and Portuguese are rapidly expanding their colonial possessions, but England still rules the seas. In an effort to explore alternative routes to India and China, the British climb far to the north. And then Muscovy appears on their way.

Three ships sailed from the shores of Albion in May 1553. The small expedition was led by Hugh Willoughby and Richard Chancellor. The two ships ran aground off the Lapland coast and Willoughby's crew most likely perished in early 1554. Dozens of corpses were later found by Pomors. Death overtook the sailors instantly during their everyday activities. Even the captain himself, according to Karamzin, sat with the magazine in his hands and did not think about anything.

The ship "Eduard Bonaventure"

The fate of the third ship, the Eduard Bonaventura, was incomparably happier. Captain Richard Chancellor and his assistant Clement Adams managed to reach the Dvina Bay in August 1553, where the anchor was dropped. “Looking around and looking for a way, they noticed a fishing boat in the distance. Captain Chancellor with several people went to her to establish relations with the fishermen who were there and find out from them what kind of country is here, what people are and what their way of life is. However, the fishermen, struck by the strange appearance and size of his ship (for they had never seen anything like it here until that time), immediately fled; he still followed them and finally caught up with them. When Chancellor approached them, the fishermen, dead with fear, fell prostrate before him and were about to kiss his feet. But he, in his usual great courtesy, looked kindly at them, encouraging them with signs and gestures, refusing their signs of respect, and with friendly affection raised them from the ground.” Chancellor immediately realized that the country he discovered was not India at all, but decided to establish trade and diplomatic ties with the local rulers.

Richard Chancellor

Russia in the 16th century had already gained a foothold in the consciousness of the enlightened minds of Europe, but such distant Western guests had not yet looked into Muscovy itself from the land of ice and frost. The local authorities did not have any ready-made orders regarding the appearance of foreigners. Chancellor was informed that the state was ruled by Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich, and only he had the right to decide such important issues. The Englishman replied that “... they are looking for his friendship and want to enter into trade relations with the Muscovites, from which both Kingdoms can receive great benefits.”

Plan of Moscow, 1618

A messenger was hastily sent to Moscow. Ivan the Terrible's response was positive, and envoys from the distant land arrived in the Russian capital. The city made a great impression on Richard Chancellor: “Moscow itself is very large. I believe that the city as a whole is larger than London and its suburbs. But it is built very roughly and stands without any order. All houses are wooden, which is very dangerous in terms of fire. There is a beautiful castle in Moscow, the high walls of which are built of brick. They say that these walls are 18 feet thick, but I don’t believe it, they don’t seem that way. However, I don’t know this for sure, since no foreigner is allowed to examine them.” The traveler describes in detail the fairs of the Russian north, Vologda, Yaroslavl, Pskov, Novgorod, and characterizes these settlements as rich and commercially developed.

Viktor Vasnetsov, "Tsar Ivan the Terrible"

The terrible king listened carefully to the Englishman and gave his consent to trade with Britain. In 1554, Chancellor returned to London and began organizing the Moscow Company. In 1555, Richard once again visited Moscow, where he settled legal and commercial issues. The British Queen Mary approved the charter of the new structure. The Moscow company included 150-400 people, and the association itself had the character of a joint-stock company. In 1556, the Russian official Osip Nepeya traveled to England, who successfully returned to his homeland and brought to Moscow “many craftsmen, doctors, gold and silver seekers.” Russia was already thinking about developing the mining and pharmacy business, although it would only seriously move forward under Peter.

London, 16th century

The British established a strong foothold in Russia - they owned trading yards and trading posts in Yaroslavl, Vologda, Astrakhan, Novgorod, Kostroma, Ivangorod, on the shores of the White Sea, where the outlines of the future Arkhangelsk would appear in the 1580s. On Varvarka, the Moscow company acquired its own chambers. Now there is a museum of the Old English Court.

Every day the inhabitants of the building received a completely royal allowance - a quarter of an ox, two geese, twelve chickens, four rams, one hare, beer, wine, fifty eggs, 62 loaves. The company's agent staff consisted of 20-30 people. Ivan the Terrible was extremely favorable towards the discoverers of Muscovy and many times confirmed the benefits granted to the British. Shareholders were given the opportunity to build rope factories, spinning factories, guest houses, warehouses, and achieved duty-free trade rights. True, in this case, the goods were first delivered to the royal court - the sovereign chose what he liked, and the rest of the products went to the market.

V.A. Ryabov "Panorama of Zaryadye at the end of the 17th century", view of the Old English Court

Participants in the Moscow Company even minted Russian coins from imported silver, tried to develop ore deposits in the Vologda region, and could rob ships in the White Sea that violated trade agreements. Russian customs officers did not open the bales of the company's imported goods.

The British sought to establish a trade monopoly; their competitors did not like such attempts - Dutch merchants sent Ivan the Terrible a letter in which they stated that the British sailors were just ordinary pirates.

The activities of the Moscow company were relatively beneficial to both parties - the British exported cheap raw materials from Russia, and the royal court received a new channel for purchasing luxury goods, equipment, and complex handicraft products. Every year 5-10 ships entered the mouth of the Dvina. In 1557, foreigners brought 9 barrels of tin and hundreds of bales of cloth and cloth to Rus'. A little later, the list of goods mentions sugar, prunes, raisins, pepper, and dishes. Russians did not remain aloof from cultural trends - clavichords came to the country from England. Paradoxically, sometimes gunpowder, expensive weapons, and saltpeter were brought to Russia. The countries of the Hanseatic League were dissatisfied, because the bloody Livonian War was fought for possession of the shores of the Baltic. The forest, hemp, blubber, leather, honey, hemp, and wax went back. The export structure was very similar to the Novgorod export of the 14th-15th centuries, only Russian furs were not particularly popular in Britain.

Map of Russia, Muscovy, Tartary by Anthony Jenkinson (1562)

It was not for nothing that Ivan the Terrible was so kind to foreigners - the tsar hoped to find a faithful ally in England. The Russian sovereign was in correspondence with Queen Elizabeth. Some believe that John tried to persuade the ruler of England to enter into marriage, but she rejected his claims. In the 1570-1580s, Ivan IV was no longer so attentive to the affairs of the Moscow Company. In one of the letters there is a passage full of caustic pride: “And for the time being, the Moscow state was not scarce without Aglinsky goods.”

At the turn of the 16th-17th centuries, Russian-British trade relations endured several more ups and downs, and Russia finally closed itself off from England only in the 1640s. In Britain, the legitimate monarch Charles I was executed, and the enraged Alexei Mikhailovich ordered to significantly limit the field of activity of the Moscow company.

Pavel Gnilorybov,
Moscow historian, coordinator of the Mospeshkom project

During the reign of Tsar Ivan IV Vasilyevich, in the middle of the 16th century, trade and diplomatic relations were established with England. At this time, the custom of presenting ambassadorial gifts became part of diplomatic etiquette. And if at first the embassy gifts included various valuable things, then from the 17th century European diplomats brought mainly precious silver dishes to Russia.

English silver has always differed from continental silver; its shape and decoration reflected national tastes and traditions. English tableware was not sold on the continent; it went into the treasuries of monarchs. The collection of the Armory contains unique examples of the work of English masters, which are preserved in single copies in the world. The Armory collection includes about 100 pieces of English silver from the 16th-17th centuries, created during the reign of the Tudors and early Stuarts. Not all English precious dishes arrived in Moscow as embassy gifts; many things were purchased. All items in our collection are made in London and we only stock silver from the capital. Many of the artifacts presented in Moscow have no analogues in the world, or similar objects have survived in single copies and are very rare.

Unfortunately, the ambassadorial gifts of the 16th century have hardly survived. The exhibition features mainly silver from the 17th century. It was brought to Russia for the first sovereigns of the Romanov dynasty.

Richard Chancellor in Moscow. Diplomatic relations with England

In the second half of the 16th century, both Russia and England were looking for new trade routes. The Spaniards and Portuguese had a monopoly on trade with the New World, who exported untold wealth from there. England could not compete with Spain in the Atlantic and Indian Ocean and was looking for northern sea trade routes. To search for the Northeast Sea Passage, the society of “merchant adventurers” equipped three ships.

The goal of this expedition was not Russia at all, but India and China, “Dreamland,” as the Celestial Empire was then called in England. In addition to samples of the goods that England could offer, the envoys were provided with letters from King Edward IV. These documents were written in such a clever style that they could be handed over to any sovereign who was reached by English merchants. Two ships were lost in the Barents Sea, but the third ship, called “Bonaventure” (“Good Enterprise”), under the command of Richard Chancellor, ended up at the mouth of the Northern Dvina in 1553 and ended up with the Pomors. TO English team a guard was immediately assigned, and the local governor reported what had happened to Moscow. By order of Tsar Ivan the Terrible, the British were brought to the capital.

At this time, Russia is also looking for new trade routes. Trade with the west passes through hostile Poland and Lithuania, which soon united to form the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Therefore, trade contacts with England turned out to be extremely important for the Russian throne. This is facilitated by the personality of the clerk of the Ambassadorial Prikaz, Ivan Viskovaty, a convinced Westerner. Ivan the Terrible received Richard Chancellor, sarcastically noting that the royal letters “were drawn up by someone unknown.”

Ivan Vasilievich receives Richard Chancellor

But the samples of goods that the British brought - tin, weapons, cloth - made up for this shortcoming. Trade with England opened up enormous prospects for the Russian state. The young Russian Tsar very soon became the first Anglophile on the Russian throne. He brought English merchants closer to the court in every possible way and even granted them the right to duty-free trade.

Another evidence of the sovereign’s favor towards the British was that they were provided with a separate courtyard, which is still preserved on Varvarka. They had relative freedom in Moscow, unlike other foreign embassies. Russia is hospitable and hospitable; it did not trust foreigners. In the 16th century, any unauthorized attempts by subjects of the Russian Tsar to make contact with representatives of foreign powers were nipped in the bud. If the guards noticed that local residents were talking with “infidels,” then the Muscovites were immediately grabbed and dragged to the Ambassadorial Prikaz for inquiry and trial. And to make it easier to keep an eye on foreigners, they were housed under guard in the Ambassador’s courtyard. The British were not subject to such strictness; they lived in their own courtyard and could meet with Russian merchants.

Old English Courtyard on Varvarka

These relations were facilitated by the clerk of the Ambassadorial Prikaz, Ivan Viskovaty. If the English kings saw Russia primarily as a trading partner, then Ivan the Terrible wanted to find a military and political ally in England. However, all his attempts to establish a political and even matrimonial union were unsuccessful.

Trade between Russia and England in the 16th century

Trade relations between England and Russia were also very important. To trade with the Muscovites, a privileged Moscow trading company was organized in England in 1555. Russian merchants also received the right to duty-free trade with England. Russia sold ship timber, hemp, tar, and blubber. Thanks to Russian raw materials, England becomes the “mistress of the seas.” At the end of the 16th century, after the defeat of the “Invincible Armada,” Francis Drake wrote a letter to Fyodor Ioannovich with gratitude for equipping the English fleet. The British soon come to the conclusion that it is more profitable to transport semi-finished products than raw materials. At the mouth of the Northern Dvina they organize mast and rope manufactories, which contributes to the industrial development of the Russian North. For many decades, the equipment of all English ships was Russian. (And the northern sea trade route was called by the British “the way of God given by the ocean to the sea”). The Northern Sea Route was very important for both countries - they received a trade connection independent from hostile European states.

English goods were also in great demand. Russia needed metals, especially gold and silver. England did not sell its gold and silver; there was little of it anyway. Precious metals were purchased in continental Europe, for example, German silver thalers, called efimki in our country. To this day, such coins are occasionally found in treasures. Thalers or, in Russian, efimkas were melted down and Russian goldsmiths used this silver as raw material. Gold coins with the image of a ship also arrived in Russia. We called them “shipmen.” These coins ended up in the royal and boyar treasuries.

In 1556, Chancellor arrived in Moscow for the second time and brought a letter from Queen Mary Tudor (Edward had already died) confirming benefits for Russian merchants. He sailed back to England with four ships, richly laden with various goods. The Russian envoy, Vologda resident Osip Nepeya, also left with Chancellor. But a storm came, scattered the ships and only one of them reached London. The rest sank off the Scottish coast, Chancellor himself died, but the Russian envoy was saved.

It is interesting to note that over 150 years of diplomatic relations with England, 20 diplomatic books were compiled, which serve as a rich source for researchers. Letters and documents related to one or another state - the object of Russian foreign policy - were collected in diplomatic books. The number of such books indicates the intensity of diplomatic relations. Contacts with England were exclusively trade, hence the small number of diplomatic books. For example, more than 100 diplomatic books were compiled with Poland in the 17th century.

The earliest item from England in the Armory collection is BOWL ON A FOOT.

Bowl on a foot. English diplomatic gifts

In the inventories of the Treasury Chamber, it was listed as a rassolnik - that is, a vessel for an exquisite snack - pickled fruits and berries.

It was made in London in 1558, the year of Elizabeth I’s accession to the throne. The purpose of this vessel is not secular, but religious. In England, this bowl served as a chalice. Similar cups are still placed in Anglican churches. The bowl is decorated with a lobed design. It was not included in the embassy gifts; how it ended up in our treasury remains a mystery.

Anthony Jenkinson's mission in Moscow. Diplomatic relations with England

In the autumn of 1556, Anthony Jenkinson arrived in Moscow as the official ambassador of Queen Mary Tudor. And a year later, in 1557, Jenkinson, on board his ship Primrose, returned Osip Grigorievich Nepeya to Russia, who became the first Russian to pay an official visit to the British Isles. Negotiations with Tsar Ivan IV in 1557 and 1561 were conducted on behalf of Elizabeth I. Jenkinson's diplomatic mission was to obtain letters of safe conduct and the right to unhindered travel along the Volga to the Caspian Sea and further to Persia. Many people sought such unhindered passage to Persia, but Jenkinson received it. He turned out to be the first European traveler to describe Central Asia and the coast of the Caspian Sea during his trip to Bukhara in 1558-1560. Jenkinson wrote detailed official reports and, as a result of his observations, the most detailed map of Russia, Central Asia and the Caspian Sea appeared at that time. It was published in London in 1562, the map was called “Description of Muscovy, Russia and Tartaria.” This plan shed light on areas almost inaccessible and unknown to Europeans in the middle of Eurasia.

Jerome Horsey in Moscow. Diplomatic relations with England

Another Englishman who visited Russia was Elizabeth I's envoy Jerome Horsey. The favor of Sovereign John IV towards the British went so far that he showed Horsey his royal treasury.

The painting by artist Alexander Litovchenko, written in the 19th century and depicting how Ivan the Terrible showed the treasury to Horsey, is historically unreliable.


It depicts objects that were never in the Armory or those that appeared there later. But the fact that the king showed Horsey the treasury is an indisputable fact.

English salt shaker. English Dilomatic Gifts

A tetrahedral salt shaker dates back to the very end of the 16th century. Actually, the British invented the ceremonial salt shaker as an obligatory attribute of ceremonial receptions. Salt shakers of this size were extremely common in England. They were made from various materials: onyx, rock crystal, lapis lazuli. The salt shakers were solemnly brought to the table covered with embroidered napkins and placed in front of the first person or especially honored guests. The status of a guest in 17th-century England was determined by the proximity of his place to the salt shaker. This salt shaker has four sides and sits on balls with bird legs - a clearly Dutch influence in this element.

The sides of the salt shaker are decorated with images of Mars, Venus, Mercury and Diana. The ancient Roman deities are dressed in masks of English theater actors of that time.

Deterioration of Russian-English relations. Diplomatic relations with England

Relations with England became cooler already during the reign of Ivan IV. The fact of the king's matchmaking with Elizabeth I is now in doubt, but the king proposed to the queen's niece, Mary Hastings. The wedding policy of the Russian Tsar caused bewilderment at the English court. And Ivan the Terrible was disappointed in the possibilities of trade with the British, he expected more from relations with England and deprived the Moscow Trading Company of the right to duty-free trade, treated British merchants very rudely, scolded ambassadors, believing that they were acting not on the instructions of Elizabeth, but on their own self-interest, and later sent a letter to the queen herself, where he did not mince words:

“We thought that you were the ruler of your land and wanted honor and benefit for your country. It’s just that people rule past you and not only people, but also trading men and about our sovereign heads, and about honors, and about lands, they are not looking for profit, but they are looking for their own trade profits. And you remain in your maiden rank as a vulgar girl.”

Note that the expression “vulgar” in the 16th century meant “ordinary”, and not of royal dignity. But the correspondence between the two monarchs was preserved; at first they called each other “dear brother” and “beloved sister,” emphasizing not family ties, but their equal status. Despite the cooling of relations, Elizabeth twice confirmed England’s agreement to provide Ivan the Terrible with political asylum in the event of unrest or unforeseen circumstances.

During the time of Fyodor Ioannovich, state policy changed and difficult times came for the British. This was facilitated by the views of the head of the Ambassadorial Prikaz, clerk Shchelkalov, who did not like the British. But later the king resumed correspondence with Queen Elizabeth. Jerome Horsey came to Moscow for the second time and brought rich gifts not only to the Emperor, but also, as he himself wrote, to the “Lord Protector,” i.e. Boris Godunov. Unfortunately, the gifts from this embassy have not survived. Fyodor Ioannovich, in response, also sent rich gifts to Queen Elizabeth I - expensive fabrics, furs and fur coats. According to contemporaries, the queen personally inspected the gifts and even sweated while trying on Russian fur coats.

Since the time of Fyodor Ioannovich, the museum’s collection has preserved the earliest of the six suleyas stored in the Armory Chamber. Suleya is a special vessel used by pilgrims going to the Holy Land. Initially, sulei were made from leather and were used as water flasks. With the decline of the Crusades, they gradually became a ceremonial vessel for wine.

Suleya 1580. It is located on the right side of the display case of the Polish gifts, on the bottom shelf, to the LEFT of the tall Hanseatic foot.

The craftsmen of that time included various sea monsters in the pattern of minting silver objects - huge fish, swimming animals, sea creatures. The collection contains a dish from the turn of the 16th-17th centuries, decorated with such marine motifs. (No picture).

Anglomaniac Boris Godunov and diplomatic relations with England

The time of Boris Godunov was very happy for Russian-English relations. Following Ivan the Terrible, Boris Godunov is considered by some researchers to be an Anglomaniac king. For the British, the situation returned to the same: they again received all their former trade privileges and benefits. Mostly merchants came to Russia at that time, but they were also considered representatives of the English crown. This was well understood at the Russian court and they showed appropriate honors to the British, even receiving them in the Palace of Facets. Note that the Dutch were given such an honor only in the second half of the 17th century. The English ambassador at this time was Francis Cherry. The British appreciated Muscovy's attitude and did not lose face. They knew well the desires of Boris Godunov and tried to please the tsar’s tastes. The Emperor loved pearls and long strands of the finest pearls were delivered to him; they numbered up to 2000 grains. The Tsar received a golden cup with a cameo of Elizabeth as a gift. The cup has not survived, but according to the descriptions it is known that at the bottom of the cup “there was a stone, and on it was the image of the queen.”

Diplomatic relations with England. “Ours in England”

At the beginning of the 17th century, Grigory Ivanovich Mikulin was appointed ambassador to England. He had to inform the English crown about the accession of Boris Godunov. Mikulin was the first Russian ambassador from whom a European artist painted a portrait. The embassy was received very warmly, Mikulin was even invited to the queen’s gallery, which was an unprecedented honor. During the conversation, a funny incident occurred when Elizabeth ordered a chair for the Russian ambassador to be placed next to her throne. Grigory Ivanovich pushed the chair back and explained it this way: by seating the ambassador next to her, the queen was honoring him personally. He cannot agree to this, because this will diminish the honor of his Sovereign. Elizabeth laughed and was pleased with the answer of the Russian ambassador.

Another funny incident concerning Russian-English relations occurred at the beginning of the 17th century. In 1602, four boyar children were sent to England to study at state expense. Soon Tsar Boris Godunov died, there was turmoil in the country and these pensioners were completely forgotten. They remembered them only in 1613 and decided to return the “learned” sons of the boyars, since Russia desperately needed educated people. But that was not the case, they had no intention of returning to their homeland and went into hiding, finding a suitable job for themselves in England. Of the four “students,” only two were found, and both of them categorically refused to return to Moscow. For example, one of them had by that time become an Anglican priest. In Russia there was great indignation about this - why those who were sent to foreign lands at state expense did not want to return and serve the sovereign. In England, they were perplexed why they wanted to forcibly return them to their homeland.

In the 17th century, both Russian ambassadors in England and English ambassadors in Russia were faced with completely different tasks. About this in the article: .

Based on materials from the Kremlin lecture hall. Lecture “Diplomatic relations with England in the 16th-17th centuries.” Lecturer Uvarova Yu.N. The images used are freely available on the Internet.