The Kuranty in Context: Dutch Lading Lists and Their Russian Translations. Part 1

Abstract

There is a great deal of recent scholarship exploring how foreign news reached early modern Russia and what its impact there was. Of particular importance is the study of the kuranty, the translations of Western newspapers and pamphlets. By examining closely what may seem to have been an unusual choice to translate from Dutch newspapers – the cargo lists of Dutch ships from the East Indies – this article suggests how it might be possible to contextualize the news translations more broadly than has been done to date. It is important to examine the significance of the news where it originally appeared, since its significance in the Russian context may be quite different. And it is also important not just to focus on the Russian government’s interest in the political news that informed its foreign policy. Over a period of decades, the importance given certain topics may have changed. The interests of the translators themselves – among them Andrei Vinius – may help to explain why they selected particular items for translation from the substantial quantity of foreign news which began to arrive in Moscow regularly upon the establishment of the foreign postal connection in 1665. The article is published in two parts, the first one here covering the background and the analysis of the evidence up through 1665. The second part, to appear in a subsequent number of the journal, will deal with the lading lists of 1667 and 1671 and the complex analysis of the context within which they may have been of particular interest in Moscow.