Brochure of the 18th century on the Journey of Peter the Great to Paris and its Author

Abstract

The article is devoted to an obscure Russian brochure of the 18th century, containing a chronicle of the journey of Peter the Great to Paris in 1717. Instead of the title page that anonymous edition had a description of a medal minted at the Royal Mint in the presence of the Tsar. The peculiar feature of chronicle narration of the visit is that the events of May, 1717 were described briefly with errors; however, June events were covered in more details. The author ascertained that the text of the brochure was almost completely borrowed from a book by J. Rousset de Missy “Notes on the Reign of Peter the Great” which was published in Holland in French language after Peter the Great death. The author of the book, in turn, borrowed the information from the Paris newspaper “Le Nouveau Mercure”. In several cases the Russian publisher supplemented the story on the journey with the material, quite similar to literary fiction. The author of the brochure was Andrey Andreevich Nartov (1737-1813), a well-known writer, statesman and public person in Catherine’s time. He was also the author of a collection of historical anecdotes under the title “Memorable Narrations and Speeches of Peter the Great”. Both works by Nartov were made as compilations from European sources, added by the author’s fiction.