Claude-Charles De Peyssonnel as a Researcher of the Crimean Past

Abstract

The article examines the views on the history, archaeology, and historical geography of the Crimean Peninsula of Claude-Charles de Peyssonnel, a famous French diplomat, traveller, and writer of the second half of the eighteenth century. The Russian and Ukrainian scholarships use the treatises by the former consul to research the Crimean Khanate, the peoples of the Northern Caucasus, and even the Zaporozhian Cossacks, while de Peyssonnel’s historical studies are left aside from the analysis. It has been stated that the Frenchman’s works present one of the first attempts in the Modern Pe- riod to investigate the antiquities of the Crimean Peninsula. De Peyssonnel showed his knowledge of ancient and mediaeval written sources, contemporary cartography and scholarship, as well as the knowledge he got during his diplomatic service at the court of the Crimean Khan. He was particularly interested in the ancient topography of the Crimean Peninsula. Despite his vast knowledge, erudition, and practical wit, the Frenchman’s reflections may not always be called “academic” in the modern sense, for the basic methods and principles of current historical and linguistic research were not yet discovered in his age. Nevertheless, the Frenchman mapped many cities, towns, and settlements, which names he learned from ancient and mediaeval writers. De Peysson- nel’s memoires influenced the next generation of travellers and “armchair” researchers, whose works appeared after the annexation of the Crimea by Russia in 1783, particular- ly influential encyclopaedic travelogues published by Matthew Guthrie, Ebenezer Hen- derson, and Frédéric Dubois de Montpereux in the first half of the nineteenth century.