Patriarch of Russian Diplomacy Yegor Yegorovich Staal (1822–1907)

Abstract

One of the oldest Russian diplomats, Yegor Yegorovich Staal, spent a significant part of his career as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the Queen of Great Britain and Ireland, the Empress of India. He made a significant contribution to the stabilization of Russian-English relations. It was a period of acute conflicts and crises in the international arena in the mid-80s – late 90s of the XIX century. No special studies on Staal have yet been published. The limited scope of the article does not allow us to present a complete picture of his activities in the diplomatic field. The author of the article saw her task in highlighting the main milestones of the diplomat's life and views, professional techniques and methods that he used during the negotiations on the Afghan border in 1884–1885 and as the head of the Russian delegation at the First Peace Conference in 1899 in the Hague. The source base of the study was the publication of diplomatic documents unpublished reports of Staal to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, materials of his personal archive preserved in the State Archive of the Russian Federation, as well as his letters deposited in the GA of the Russian Federation. The awards received by Staal in his native fatherland and those states where he represented the interests of Russia indicate a high appreciation of his fruitful works.