Diplomatic Ceremony Research Articles

„Wjeżdża, ale nie szablę niezgody przynosi” Poseł moskiewski – poemat dyplomatyczny Jana Żabczyca

The article is divided into three main parts. First, the author introduces the subject, genre and historical background of the poem. The main content of the poem is a legation from False Dmitry to Cracow sent in order to keep an alliance with the Commonwealth by wedding per procura of Dmitry and Maryna Mniszech. Similar works of literature from the seventeenth century are also presented. The second part focuses on the details of the poem, referred to as a diplomatic poem, in New Diplomatic History’s language, since the subject of diplomacy determines the structure, the nature of the characters and the main purpose of their actions: agreement and settlement, as opposed to victory over the enemy as the subject of heroic poems. The third part provides a detailed analysis of diplomatic ceremonies, gifts, habits and customs, e.g. speeches and table seating during the wedding. It also proposes an interpretation of the tzar and aristocrat’s wedding as an image of the alliance between Russia and the Commonwealth. It is concluded that Poseł moskiewski is a short but important poem in the history of Polish epics. As a representative of diplomatic literature, it is unique among early modern Polish epic poetry.

Diplomatic Ceremonial for the Reception of British Envoy’s Sister at the Court of Catherine II

Referring to relevant approaches of New Diplomatic History, this article looks into a ceremonial reception for the British envoy’s sister by a Russian court. Although the procedure for introducing diplomatic spouses to European monarchs in the eighteenth century has been studied in depth, the issue of resolving ceremonial disputes remains unanswered. The case of arrival of James Harris together with his wife and sister in Russia in 1777 invites us to re-examine women’s participation in diplomatic ceremonies at the Russian Imperial Court. Miss Harris, not being de juro an official member of the diplomatic corps (that is, neither wife nor daughter of a designated male), de facto was an agent of diplomatic action. She was presented to the Russian court, thought accepted rules did not allow unmarried women to attend court functions. This article draws on a set of archival unpublished diaries of Katherine Harris which are devoted to court presentations and rituals as well as miss Harris’s assessment of courtiers and Russian noble society. The article concludes that, contrary to popular opinion, diplomatic protocol at Catherinian court was flexible. So, despite the prohibition for unmarried women to enter the palace, the imperial court greeted Katherine Harris as an ambassadress. Meanwhile, Catherine II perceived some rituals as an indispensable prerequisite (for example, the kissing of the sovereign’s hands).

Art and Culture in the Diplomatic Ceremonial as the Basis of International Relations

Currently, there is an increased interest in ceremonial culture. A ceremonial is a kind of cultural message from one social group of people to another. The basic idea of behaviour, the inner meaning of secular ceremonial is laid down in church rituals, and external forms of behaviour can be borrowed from the traditions of everyday secular life. Diplomacy as one of the spheres of applied politics is a very complex and responsible type of human activity, which has always had a pronounced ritual character. The conclusion of contracts and alliances took place according to a certain scenario plan, according to which the ceremonial action developed. During the preparation and holding of the ceremony, the exchange of diplomatic letters and embassies continued, solemn meetings were arranged for the honored guests, feasts, theatrical performances, games, and festivities were given in their honor. the purpose of the article is to conduct a comprehensive study of the communicative functions of diplomatic ceremonial in international communication based on the analysis and generalisation of new facts with the involvement of archival materials and other sources introduced into scientific circulation for the first time. In this study, art is considered for the first time from the point of view of the communicative factor of a diplomatic ceremony. A ceremonial is an event in the life of society that has a symbolic meaning. The norms of ceremonial reflect not only ideology but also the social psychology of society, without an adequate interpretation of which it is impossible to correctly understand the behavior of statesmen in specific situations related to their official status.

Strengthening Russia’s International Prestige during the Northern War: Russian Diplomatic Institutions and Instruments

During the Northern War (1700-1721), the Russian government had to make great efforts to strengthen the anti-Swedish coalition. Peter the Great developed a broad foreign network of state representatives: employees of the diplomatic corps (envoys, ministers, residents, agents, etc.), trade commissioners, and correspondents. Peter the Great himself, his Cabinet, and the foreign policy department (Posolsky Prikaz, Collegia Inostrannykh Del) controlled these agents of influence. Peter’s diplomats fought for symbolic capital by taking part in official negotiations and unofficial meetings, in diplomatic and court ceremonies, in gift-exchanging, and organizing various festivities. This capital then was converted into the international prestige of the ruler, his title, honor, glory, and position in the hierarchy of European rulers. Considerable attention was paid to promptly inform Western partners about events in Russia’s foreign and domestic policy. Russian information policy emphasized the news that can strengthen Russia’s international prestige: dynastic, diplomatic, and military successes, political reforms, and court celebrations. The article examines the practice of news dissemination through Russian diplomatic missions and foreign diplomatic representatives in Russia. The practice reduced the negative effect of the spread of unofficial information, fake news, and false rumors. The war continued in the pages of print media. To limit the dissemination of information damaging Russia’s prestige, Russian diplomats began to use the same instruments of influence (newspapers, magazines, and pamphlets), which European diplomats used at that time: various methods of pressure and bribery, propaganda, and censorship. The successes of Russian diplomacy have led to the strengthening of Russia’s international prestige and contributed to creating a positive image of the country abroad. The Russian government transferred the gained experience into domestic policy. Peter the Great also demanded fighting against “reprehensible” information about “the person of his majesty, or his troops, as well as his state.”

Diplomatic Ceremonial as the Basis of the Culture of International Relations

Currently, there is an increased interest in the ceremonial culture in general, and in etiquette as a component of the ceremonial, in particular. This phenomenon is largely explained by their special role in the processes of communication in society, as well as a new understanding of the processes of communication and behaviour themselves. A ceremonial is a kind of cultural message from one social group of people to another. The basic idea of behaviour, the inner meaning of secular ceremonial is laid down in church rituals, and external forms of behaviour can be borrowed from the traditions of everyday secular life. The relevance of the study is determined by insufficient knowledge of diplomatic ceremonies of The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and the fact that knowledge of the laws of their functioning expands the understanding of domestic politics and international relations of the era, the cultural component of the life of Soviet society. The socio-cultural aspect of the topic is also relevant in scientific terms. This research can contribute to the study of the history of the organisational culture of Soviet society. Taking into account the absence of a special study devoted to the problem in historiography, the purpose of the article is to conduct a comprehensive study of the communicative functions of diplomatic ceremonial in international communication based on the analysis and generalisation of new facts with the involvement of archival materials and other sources introduced into scientific circulation for the first time. In this study, art is considered for the first time from the point of view of the communicative factor of diplomatic ceremonial. For the first time, such a term as "diplomatic counterculture" is introduced into circulation.

Siberian Bukharans in Russian mission: gathering intelligence in Russia’s south-eastern borderlands, 17th-18th centuries

Siberian Bukharans were one of the most agile group of the native population of Western Siberia and the Urals in the 17th and 18th centuries. This paper analyzes information about the border activities of Bukharans, characterizes their participation in the implementation of Russian foreign policy. The author considers the phenomenon of intelligence and the intermediary and diplomatic role of the Bukharans through the study of various aspects of Russian policy on the southeastern borderlands. The result shows that Bukharans were involved in intelligence activities in several forms. The Russian authorities could interview Bukharans who came to trade; they could include Bukharans in Russian embassies; or they could send them into the steppe as independent agents. The geography of their missions in the 17th and 18th centuries included the Kuchum lands, the Kazakh khanates, the Oirat and Dzungar lands, as well as the Qing Empire. Bukharans participated in the negotiations as interpreters and they were sometimes allowed to participate in diplomatic ceremonies such as gift exchange. The intelligence activities of some Bukharans could go hand in hand with their trade operations. Recruiting Bukharans for intelligence gathering tsks allowed the Siberian and Orenburg authorities to conduct a more effective policy in the steppe borderlands, based on the knowledge of local realities. The Russian authorities used information provided by the Bukharans for purposes such as drawing up maps, informing the voivodes of the borderlands about military dangers, the movement of troops, and diplomatic negotiations.

Cultural communications of the diplomatic corps as a public institution

In the 18th – early 20th centuries, state ceremonial was an integral part of the system of government of European monarchies. They played a significant role in the legitimisation of power institutions (the coronation ceremony), in the administration of foreign and domestic political, ideological and cultural functions by the state. One of the first places in the hierarchy of state ceremonials is occupied by the diplomatic ceremony, in the process of preparation and in the conduct of which the leading role belongs to the representatives of the diplomatic corps. Their activities make it possible to solve these protocol and ceremonial issues more quickly. The diplomatic corps is the collective body of heads of diplomatic missions accredited to a particular government. The relevance of the study lies in exploring the role of art in diplomatic communications, which are one of the methods of building partnerships between states. The purpose of the study is to prove that culture is an important communicative factor in the system of diplomatic relations. There are no published studies on this problem in historiography. The source database includes two groups of materials: documentary publications and archival materials.

The Reception of John Sigismund Szapolyai in Hungarian and Ottoman Chronicles

This article reconstructs the diplomatic ceremonies that took place at the meeting of John Sigismund Szapolyai, elected king of Hungary and prince of Transylvania, and Suleiman the Magnificent during the Sultan’s last campaign in 1566, by using Ottoman and Hungarian chronicles of the period. The chronicles, which convey the observations of those who witnessed the Szigetvár campaign and the meeting held in Zimony, present an opportunity to explore in detail the diplomatic practices of both the Ottomans and the Hungarians and how such practices were perceived by the Hungarian participants. The article also considers the political status of Transylvania and the Ottoman imperial ideology and hegemonic position in the context of these practices.

Discourse construction of Inter-Korean summits in South Korean newspapers: A diachronic study

This article represents a diachronic corpus-assisted critical discourse analysis of South Korean news reports on inter-Korean summits in 2000, 2007, and 2018. By examining similarities and differences between conservative and liberal newspaper corpora, the study identifies discursive shifts that took place between the first and second summit in accordance with developments and changes in inter-Korean relations. The comparative analysis indicates that a cluster of discursive changes in media attention and source diversity facilitates the recontextualisation of the peace talks into multilateral international negotiations on the Korean peninsula. The contrastive study reveals that discursive contests between newspapers reproduce ideological conflicts despite increased media coverage of diplomatic ceremony.

Disputed State, Contested Hospitality: Dutch Ambassadors in Search of a New Overlord at the French Court of King Henry III, 1584-1585

In December 1584, the States-General of the Union of Utrecht dispatched a special embassy to Paris to offer King Henry III of France the titular rule of their estates. Henry was to replace Philip II of Spain, the legitimate overlord of the seventeen provinces, whom the States-General had deposed in July 1581 in direct violation of the sacred institution of the monarchy. Although largely overlooked by historians, the special embassy provides a fascinating insight into the intricate European ramifications of the Union of Utrecht’s search for overlordship prior to the foundation of the Dutch Republic in April 1588. This article focuses on the divided reception of the special embassy to France from the perspective of the Union of Utrecht, especially among the powerful nobility of Holland, many of whom shared anti-French sentiments, and from the vantage point of the English and Spanish ambassadors in Paris, who tried to either intervene or obstruct the Dutch-French negotiations in a bid to alter Europe’s balance of power to their advantage. By bringing together dispatches and the reported reactions of Dutch, English, and Spanish emissaries that have not been studied in detail before, and never alongside each other, this article argues that Henry III’s calculated and pragmatic use of diplomatic ceremony played a defining role in managing the fraught relations between France and the Union of Utrecht, Spain, England, and the other Catholic powers at the French court.

The Diplomatic Ceremonial at the Court of Catherine II

Referring to relevant approaches to the study of diplomatic culture and the semiotics of gestures, this article examines the significance of kissing the sovereign’s hands in diplomatic ceremonies in western Europe, and, more particularly, in Britain and Russia. Confusion and disagreement over the meaning of this gesture could become a major stumbling block in the evolution of Anglo-Russian relations at the very moment when there was a willingness to become closer owing to the expanding sphere of mutual political interests. With the arrival of the British ambassador Charles Cathcart and his wife in Russia in 1768, the ceremony of the first audience of the ambassador and (especially) the ambassadress with the sovereign was the subject of intense negotiations in the highest echelons of power. The discussion focused on the act of kissing the sovereign’s hands. A gesture that in Russia had long been considered a sign of the monarch’s mercy towards the ambassador of another Christian state might seem an acknowledgement of subordination or submission to the Scottish Lord Cathcart. The tradition had no parallel in the diplomatic ceremonies of other European courts. Why did the Russian government, which sought to match diplomatic ceremonies at the court with Western European protocols, not compromise when it came to this formality? How did the key persons of the story – Cathcart and Count Nikita Panin – evaluate the possible consequences of not carrying out the required ceremonial protocols? What concessions and violations were the two sides prepared for in these disputes over ceremony in the name of “high politics”? Referring to archival materials from the National Archives of the United Kingdom, the personal papers of the Cathcart family kept in the National Library of Scotland, and several published dispatches of British representatives in Russia, the author studies the reflections of Lord and Lady Cathcart on their introduction to Empress Catherine II. The analysis leads the author to conclude that Catherine II perceived the kissing of the sovereign’s hands as an indispensable prerequisite for starting any diplomatic mission and as a historically established gesture that demonstrated the grandeur of the crown. Negotiations over the act of hand-kissing in 1768 showed that this ceremonial detail was not a mere formality but could become the key factor in the success of an ambassador’s mission.

Andrew Marvell in Russia

This article examines interactions between diplomatic representation, state bureaucracy, and rhetoric in early modern diplomacy. It analyzes manuscripts in the hand of the poet Andrew Marvell, which he wrote as secretary to the Earl of Carlisle’s 1663–64 embassy to Moscow. The manuscripts show how a battle over diplomatic ceremony and honor unfolded into disputes over the forms and decorum used in a lively exchange of diplomatic letters and written complaints. These texts were edited, translated, and published for English and international audiences by another embassy secretary, Guy Miège. The article traces the afterlife of the embassy letters in print, arguing that Marvell and Miège became central agents in shaping how the embassy was perceived at home and further afield. The wider context of public diplomacy drew from the secretaries’ considerable skill in framing diplomatic letters for consumption by different audiences. Early modern ambassadors performed rituals of sovereignty, symbolizing status and rank, but the complex art of diplomatic image-making was also directed by lower-ranking embassy personnel. Examining the relationship between bureaucratic practices and the performative nature of diplomacy, this article shows how secretaries exerted significant influence on the reception of early modern diplomatic relations.

Royal Jewelry Exchange in Sixteenth Century Anglo-Scottish Politics

This paper explores how Mary, Queen of Scots and Elizabeth i utilized jewelry in political settings to construct meaning, represent themselves, and negotiate personal and political relationships. Studying the complexities of jewelry’s exchange and circulation between the courts of England and Scotland provides a more nuanced picture of early modern diplomacy and material culture. Jewelry provided a valuable resource from which rulers and diplomats regularly drew when framing their political discourse. Jewels used in diplomacy were as politically meaningful as the gestures and rituals of formal diplomatic audiences and domestic ceremonies. As an object of exchange with a variety of functions, jewelry was absorbent of meaning and memories. Thus, jewelry could forge bonds between those who exchanged it, and also bring about hostilities and complications.

Protocol of credentials in European countries: general and special

Problem setting. The purpose of establishing diplomatic relations is to maintain constant relations between the countries at the highest diplomatic level. The main stages of establishing diplomatic relations are regulated by the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations of April 18, 1961. At the same time, this document in many respects refers to the national law of countries. The presentation of credentials is the final action, after which diplomatic relations are considered established, and the powers of state representatives take effect. However, international law does not specify the specific form and procedure for the presentation of credentials, as it is up to the States to decide. Therefore, each state has its own practice of the presentation of credentials, which depends on its form of government, national characteristics, historical past. Therefore, it is relevant today to compare the protocols of credentials in the practice of different countries to determine the positive and negative aspects. Target research. The aim of the work is to determine the main content of credentials in the process of establishing diplomatic relations, to study the practice of ceremonies of credentials on the example of Europe and Ukraine, to analyze existing problems in this area of international relations and solutions. Analysis of recent research and publication. This topic is the basis of research in many works of recognized authors. Examples are theoretical works Sagaidak O.P. «Diplomatic protocol and etiquette», Tkacha D.I. «Diplomatic protocol in the Republic of Hungary: general, special», Tymoshenko N.L. «Features of diplomatic, business protocol and etiquette of the Netherlands», and other Ukrainian scholars. Also well-known works of foreign authors are the works of Ikanovich S. and Picarsky J. «Diplomatic Protocol and Good Manners», John Wood and Jean Serre «Diplomatic Ceremony and Protocol», Bennett Carol «Business Etiquette and Protocol». Article’s main body. The establishment of diplomatic relations is aimed at the exchange of diplomatic missions between states. This process ends with the procedure of presenting credentials. Credentials are a document that officially certifies the status of a diplomatic representative of the accrediting state in the host state. This document is important in international law because it has a long history and represents the beginning of the official activities of the ambassador to the host country. Modern elements of the procedure of awarding credentials are common to many states. But each country today has its own characteristics of the ceremony of awarding credentials, which usually depends on its form of government. For example, monarchies (Netherlands, England) still have in their practice a lavish and pathetic conduct of diplomatic events. In contrast, іn today’s democracies (Hungary) the protocol of credentials is more modern and simplified due to the absence of outdated traditions and irrelevant measures. However, each country has both positive and negative aspects of the ceremony. Ukraine has little experience in diplomatic protocol since gaining independence in 1991. Today, national law effectively regulates the procedure for awarding credentials, but many provisions do not correspond to reality. Therefore, Ukraine must develop in this area of international relations on the basis of foreign experience. Conclusions and prospect of development. Thus, the presentation of credentials plays an important role in regulating diplomatic relations between countries. The basis for this ceremony is the characteristics of the state, which includes the political regime, form of government, historical past, modern development, features of the national mentality. In our opinion, the process of universalization of the diplomatic protocol is a variant of development of this field of international relations. The appropriate direction of such development may be the unification of norms relating to the ceremony of awarding credentials, as international law is being actively improved and updated, as exemplified by European integration. As modern Ukraine continues to actively establish diplomatic relations with other countries and exchange diplomatic missions, it is necessary to streamline legislation and develop it on the example of the positive experience of European countries.

“As Ambassadors of the Princes of the Embassy Rule, the Prince at that Time, does Hat?” The Question of “Diplomatic Difficulties” of the Russian Embassy I. A. Zhelyabuzhsky to Venice in 1662

The article is devoted to differences in the diplomatic ceremonies in the countries of Western Europe, particularly Venice, and the Russian state. The center of attention the incident with the Corno Ducale, occurred in the period of the Embassy of the I. A. Zhelyabuzhsky to Venice in 1662, the essence of which was that the Russian envoy insisted on the need to remove the headdress of the Doge during the audience when pronouncing the name of the Russian Tsar. The Russian Ambassador did not want to accept the assurances of the Venetian side that Corno Ducale was not removed by the Doge under any circumstances. In the end, I. A. Zhelyabuzhsky had to recognize the rules of the Venetian Protocol. The author of the article concludes that, despite similarities in the diplomatic etiquette of the countries of Western Europe and Russia in the 17th century, the differences between them has led to difficulties in the performance of the diplomatic missions of the Russian envoy in Western Europe.

СИМВОЛІКА ОРДЕНУ ПІДВ'ЯЗКИ ЯК ЗАСІБ РЕПРЕЗЕНТАЦІЇ ВЛАДИ ДЖЕЙМСА VI & I СТЮАРТА (за зображальними джерелами National Portrait Gallery)

The electronic resource of the National Portrait Gallery has 199 images of James VI & I. We turn to the king’s lifetime portraits. Numerous James’s I images that contain the attributes of the knight’s ethos (lattice, horse, sword, honors of the Order of the Garter) make it possible to form the idea of the knight’s ideal transformation, to trace the influence of ethos on the royal etiquette and the diplomatic ceremony during the reign of James VI (1566-1620) & I (1603-1625). In addition to the popularization and maintenance of knight ideals, the Order of the Garter played an important role in shaping the notions of the "English nation". Reconstruction of the image on the basis of imaginative sources makes it possible to find out how the contemporaries perceived to the king. The morality and behavior of the king as the "father" of all the British (paterfamilias) was an exemplum, authority and set the frame for the whole society, because the royal court and the family were perceived as a model. Also the gender was important in the representing of the knight’s image. A conclusion is made about the sacredness of the symbolism of the Order as a means of dialogue between a person of a monarch and his subjects (people).

BRUSH TALK AS THE ‘LINGUA FRANCA’ OF DIPLOMACY IN JAPANESE–KOREAN ENCOUNTERS, c. 1600–1868

AbstractThe study of early modern diplomatic history has in recent decades expanded beyond a bureaucratic, state-centric focus to consider the processes and personal interactions by which international relations were maintained. Scholars have begun to consider, among other factors, the role of diplomatic gifts, diplomatic hospitality, and diplomatic culture. This article contributes to this discussion from an East Asian perspective by considering the role of ‘brush talk’ – written exchanges of classical, literary Chinese – during diplomatic missions from the Korean Chosŏn court to the Tokugawa Shogunate in Japan during the seventeenth through nineteenth centuries. Drawing upon official records, personal diaries, and illustrations, I argue that brush talk was not an official part of diplomatic ceremony and that brushed encounters with Korean officials even extended to people of the townsman classes. Brush talk was as much about ritual display, calligraphic art, and drawing upon a shared storehouse of civilized learning as it was about communicating factual content through language. These visual, performative aspects of brush talk in East Asian diplomacy take it beyond the realm of how alingua francais usually conceived, adding to the growing body of scholarship on how this concept applies to non-Western histories.

‘More Savage than White Bears’: The Diplomatic Etiquette of Revolutionary France

The revolutionary leaders in France challenged Europeans' assumption of a common diplomatic culture, of a universal diplomatic language, and most basically, an international diplomatic community. But rather than rejecting the old ways completely, they re-emphasised the importance of ritual and gesture, not just as assertions or reflections of ideology, but as tools in the reconstruction of their world and the diplomatic system. Diplomatic protocol and ceremony became a symbolic battleground on which the struggle between the old and the new order was enacted. This article, based largely on archival material including the private correspondence of many diplomats, notably James Harris, Baron Malmesbury, demonstrates how a new etiquette, both more republican and more militaristic, replaced the old one.

The Ambassador, the Spy, and the Deli: Self-Representation and Anti-Diplomacy in Nicolas de Nicolay’s Navigations

The Ambassador, the Spy, and the Deli: Self-Representation and Anti-Diplomacy in Nicolas de Nicolay’s Navigations Antónia Szabari (bio) Voilà le fruit . . . des externes et lointains voyages de la terrestre et maritime pérégrination et revue du monde, à laquelle me semble être né et naturellement enclin tout bon et noble esprit de nature bien informé, par sa sublimité élevant son corps massif et le faisant mouvoir, et le transportant en divers lieux étranges et lointains par sa ravissante agilité, ainsi que le feu donne très soudain mouvement au pesant et immobile boulet d’artillerie. Nicolas de Nicolay Il [the war machine] serait plutôt comme la multiplicité pure et sans mesure, la meute, interruption de l’éphémère et puissance de la métamorphose. Il dénue le lien autant qu’il trahit le pacte. Il fait valoir une furor contre la mesure, une célérité contre la gravité, un secret contre le public, une puissance contre la souveraineté, une machine contre l’appareil. Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari [End Page 1002] Introduction Nicolas de Nicolay’s Les Quatre premiers livres des Navigations et Pérégrinations (first printed in 1567) is a curious hybrid that presents itself as both a travel book and costume book, while also providing a description of the second diplomatic mission to the Ottoman Empire (1551–1553) of Gabriel de Luels d’Aramon (d. ca. 1553). Thus far, analyses of the book have been largely focused on its representations of the other, especially on Nicolay’s overly pejorative depictions of the Ottomans.1 Critics have sought to explain these representations as the products of actual circumstances, the vicissitudes of realpolitik and historical events. Thus, the present-day editors of Nicolay’s book Marie-Christine Gomez-Géraud and Stéphane Yérasimos attribute them to the slowing of diplomatic relations and the coming to a halt of military cooperation between the French and the Ottomans after the 1559 peace treaty of Cateau-Cambrésis.2 Marcus Keller, who concentrates on the fifteen-year time lag between the mission and the publication of Nicolay’s book, attributes the vilification of the Ottomans to the effect of the French civil wars; he argues that for Nicolay the Ottoman Empire becomes an exotic screen onto which religious schism, moral decline, and the crisis of authority—all of which threatened France at the time of the book’s publication—can be projected, allowing Nicolay to promote the political model of a nation united by Catholic faith and common culture.3 While I appreciate these authors’ important historical contextualizations of the book, I argue that only by taking into account Nicolay’s own speaking position, as spy-turned-royal cartographer, can one explain some of the peculiarities of the text, namely the aggressive reduction of the Ottoman other to pejorative stereotypes and the seemingly contradictory tendency that aims to incorporate the non-French, non-Christian other. I show that the multiple narrative layers of the book are created by the author’s need to carve out a position from which to speak and, ultimately, to represent himself. The author’s self-representation within the narrative reveals itself best [End Page 1003] when compared to the authorial voice of the ambassador, Aramon, who is both a character in Nicolay’s narrative and the writer of diplomatic dispatches in his own right. I thus compare Nicolay’s narrative to Aramon’s letters addressed to the king. The role that Nicolay creates for himself in this narrative also explains some of the paradoxes of the book: If Nicolay praises the “familiarity” and “friendship” that the French cultivated with the Ottomans and does not spare his pen to relate some of the costly and lavish diplomatic ceremonies, then why does he describe these political “friends” of the French monarch in starkly hostile terms as infidels and barbarians? Also, given the pejorative view of the Ottomans, why do particular members of this group receive praise, especially the fierce frontier soldier (the deli) whom he encounters in Edirne? To answer these questions, we should regard Nicolay’s specific role in the diplomatic mission as well as the significance...

HISTORY OF THE TRANSLATIONS OF THE HOLY QURAN INTO RUSSIAN LANGUAGE BEFORE PETER THE GREAT: the first Translation OF SŪRA T AL-IKHLĀṢ (SŪRA T AL-TAWḤĪD) (1572)

The paper analyzes the data about the acquaintance of Russian people with the text of the Holy Quran in the 16th and 17th centuries. Muslims often used Quranic suras in diplomatic ceremonies of adjuration (i.e. oath rite). Translators and interpreters of the Muscovite Ambassadorial Office (Posolskiy Prikaz) were conversant enough with the Quranic terminology used in diplomatic documents and therefore were able to translate whole ayahs from Arabic into Russian. Thus, we can find the very first Russian translation of the sūrat al-Ikhlāṣ in the records of relations with the Ottoman Empire as early as in 1572.