Grand Duke Research Articles

Pavel Petrovich Shibanov as a Supplier of Books for the Libraries of the Imperial Family (Late 19th — Early 20th Century)

On the basis of letters from the collection No. 342 of the Manuscripts Department of the Russian State Library (RSL) the co-operation of the famous Russian antiquarian book dealer of the late 19th — early 20th century P.P. Shibanov with the members of the House of Romanov in the field of formation of their personal libraries is studied. The study was carried out with the aim of obtaining reliable information about the editions offered to complete the personal libraries of the Imperial House. On the basis of previously unexplored sources the assortment of P.P. Shibanov’s booksellers, presented for purchase to the members of the Imperial Family, is revealed. The letters from the Shibanov collection of the RSL were received by the bookseller from high-ranking officials of the courts of the grand dukes and grand duchesses, and in some cases directly from members of the dynasty. The material gives an idea of the spheres of intellectual predilections of the Romanovs, of their interest in rare and ancient editions, among which were books of the 17th—18th centuries. The prices for books indicated in the letters are of no small importance. Among the information about the booksellers’ assortment offered to the Romanovs we should mention the books that for one reason or another did not interest the members of the dynasty during the preliminary acquaintance and were returned to the bookseller.In the course of the research, the drafts of P.P. Shibanov’s letters to the Moscow Governor-General, Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich, were revealed, and the exchange of telegrams with the Pushkin enthusiast, Prince Oleg Konstantinovich of Imperial Blood, was analyzed.Most of the letters were received from the court offices of the Grand Dukes Nikolai Mikhailovich (a famous historian), Konstantin Konstantinovich and Pyotr Nikolayevich (through the court office of the latter the sending of books to his wife, Grand Duchess Militsa Nikolaevna, for familiarization was discussed).The letters we have identified cover mainly the late 1890s — early 1900s; the latest are a telegram from Prince Oleg Konstantinovich of Imperial Blood, received by P.P. Shibanov in 1913, and a letter from the court office of Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich in 1915.The studied letters reveal the book assortment offered by P.P. Shibanov to the members of the Imperial Family and the book preferences of the Romanovs, but do not indicate whether these books were purchased by them.

Vilniaus archyvuose ir bibliotekose saugomų Lietuvos didžiųjų kunigaikščių Aleksandro Jogailaičio ir Žygimanto Senojo rusėniškų dokumentų klasifikacija

The article deals with our research on the Ruthenian documents of Alexander Jagiellon and Sigismund the Old, the grand dukes of Lithuania, which cover the whole period of the reign of these rulers (1492–1544) and are kept in Vilnius. In the course of empirical research, we registered 142 such documents; the main data about them are represented in the annex to the article. Meanwhile, in the main part of the article we try to identify the scribes who were responsible for the preparation of the documents, to identify the documents that were written by the scribes who signed them, and to discuss the palaeographic features of all the documents.

Historical, Cultural and Architectural Review of The Travnik

Travnik is a town located on the Lasva river in the central part of Bosnia and Herzegovina, about 90 km west of Sarajevo. In the area of today’s Travnik, on the Lašva river, the prehistoric Illyrian people and then the ancient Romans panned gold here. Preserved material traces and historiographical sources about Travnik bear witness to the long historical continuity of people’s lives in this area. Artifacts over 7,000 years old were found in the river valleys of Bila and Lasva (locality Nebo, Han Bila and Crkvine, Turbe). The settlements belonged to the "Butmir cultural group" and as an archaeological subgroup of monuments. In the Bila valley, a somewhat older Neolithic settlement of the ’Kakan culture group’ was discovered, which was destroyed by river erosion, and in Alihodža traces of the Eneolithic settlement of the ’Vucedol culture’ were found’. In written sources, the parish of Lasva is mentioned for the first time (1244) in the list of bishop’s sermons, and then (1380) in the letter of the Bosnian king Stjepan Tvrtko I (1338-1391) to Hrvoj Vukcic Hrvatinic (1350-1416), in which he appoints him as grand duke and presents mu Bila, Trebeus and Lupnica in Lasva parish. There are several versions about the origin of the name Travnik. According to one of them, the city got its name from the spacious pastures and the word ’grass’, while according to the other version, the name originated from the medieval pre-Ottoman fortress where the clerk collected the ’herbal tax’. The town was first mentioned under the name Travnik (1463) in connection with the events related to the collapse of the Bosnian kingdom.

The Many Bodies of the First Statute of Lithuania

The category of the body is the main object of this study. The paper hopes to further examine the “corporal” theme in the research of the history of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania while simultaneously aiming to outline the countours of the concept. Being a legal codex, The First Statute of Lithuania (1529) was chosen as a foundational text for this study since it pertains to various aspects of both public and private life. Albeit not exhausting all possible interpretations, three bodies were examined more closely: that of a nobleman, of the grand duke, and of the state (the Grand Duchy) – each more abstract than the former. First of these can be associated with terms of status and honour, the second functions as if by extensions of ducal officers and medias, while the third is characterized by the matters of indivisibility, inalienation and membership. Moreover, three different properties (or faculties) were attributed to the body: epistemological (via senses and body marking), agential (as a mean to excercise one’s will and freedoms), and individualizing (as in the problem of belonging).

Andrej and Matvej Frjazin: the First Italians in Moscow

The arrival of Italian architects and masters of art and other skills in the Grand Duchy of Moscow in the second half of the 15th century, and the businesses of the “Frjazins” in Moscow and other cities, make up a bright page in the history of Italian-Russian relations. However, it is not common knowledge that the first Italians came to Moscow a century earlier. Between 1363 and 1389, the Grand Duke Dmitrij Ivanovič gave a charter for hunting to a certain Andrej Frjazin. According to the charter, Andrej Frjazin’s predecessor was his uncle, Matvej Frjazin, who arrived in Moscow during the great reign of Dmitrij Ivanovič’s grandfather, Ivan Danilovič Kalita, between 1328/1331 and 1340. The businesses of the uncle and nephew in the Arctic North region were encouraged by the grand dukes of Moscow and carried out with their financial participation. Apparently, Matvej and Andrej Frjazin had trading relations with the Venetian trading post Tana, and they were likely not the only Italian merchants in Moscow in the 14th century. Among the citizens who defended Moscow from the attack of the Tatar troops in the summer of 1382, Russian chronicles mention a certain cloth merchant, Adam, who was most likely an Italian, and who could have had some trading relations with the Genoese colony of Kafa in the Crimea.

Institutions and development in a fragile limited access order of late-medieval Lithuania

Abstract Applying the framework of North et al. (2009, Violence and Social Orders: A Conceptual Framework for Interpreting Recorded Human History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), this paper analyses institutional and economic development in a new setting – the Grand Duchy of Lithuania between 1245 and 1386. Although remaining a fragile limited access order, Lithuania achieved positive institutional change. Its elite became more stable by restricting ruling privileges to the grand duke's family and integrating rival dukes through administrative positions and hereditary property rights. This arrangement encouraged land accumulation and productive activity over extraction, while the elite started providing better security to traders and craftsmen seeking to finance its war against the Teutonic Order. Synthesised material evidence reflects development at the extensive margin. However, health data shows no increase in average living standards, potentially due to population growth and inequality. Both sets of findings are consistent with the conceptual framework, as it expects fragile limited access orders to be underdeveloped from a static perspective, but improve following institutional development.

Трансформации социальной структуры и политических институтов традиционного черкесского общества через призму хабзэ в конце XVIII – начале XIX в.

The article is devoted to the analysis of transcripts of Circassian adats / khabze in terms of norms relating to class relations and political institutions (pshchyshkhue / grand duke / valii, hey / princely court, mekhkeme) of the late 18th - early 19th centuries. The norms of the period under review indicate a democratic transformation of the class structure of traditional Circassian society and the influence of Sharia on political institutions. Khabze, recorded in the 1840s and 1860s, demonstrate that the code of Adyghe khabze, despite the divergence of socio-political development in the east and west of the country, continued to develop as a single system of law.

КОНЦЕПТУАЛІЗАЦІЯ ОБРАЗУ ВОЛОДИМИРА СВЯТОГО В ПИСЕМНИХ ПАМ’ЯТКАХ КИЇВСЬКОЇ РУСІ (ад’єктивно-субстантивний аспект)

The article is devoted to the study of the features of conceptualizing the image of Volodymyr Svyatoslavych (Volodymyr the Saint) in East Slavic written monuments of the 11th-13th centuries, to the reconstruction of the static socio-ethical portrait of the grand duke in the substantive-adjective aspect. It has been found that the socio-ethical portrait of the Volodymyr the Saint is built with the help of fifteen laudatory epithets (блаженыи, свѧтыи, страньнолюбьць, etc.), which implement the semantics of devotion to the Christian faith, righteousness, divine holiness, benevolence, respect, truthfulness, courage. A special role in creating an individualized image of Volodymyr belongs to the use of words that were almost never used in relation to a person (божьствьныи, прѣмоужьственыи, славьныи, трьблаженыи, чьстьныи). The assessment lexemes are attested in autonomous use and in the composition of the formulaic syntagms «честьныи и славьныи», «благовѣрныи и христолюбивыи», «милостивъ къ нищимъ и къ сиротамъ и къ вдовицамъ». The predominant majority of laudatory epithets used next to the name of the grand duke are hagiographic terms (блаженикъ, блаженыи, христолюбьць, благовѣрьныи, etc.). The semantics and the frequency of use of lexemes страньнолюбьць, прѣмоужьственыи, равьнохристолюбьць, равьнохристосолюбьць, блаженыи, трьблаженыи have been clarified. The lexemes блаженыи, трьблаженыи, страньнолюбьць have more specific meanings than it is indicated in the dictionaries; in the use of the epithet прѣмоужьственыи about Volodymyr, there is an influence of ancient Bulgarian Christian literature; the composite равьнохристолюбьць arose as a result of Hilarion’s word-making; the use of the epithet правьдивъ contains an allusion to a quote from Paremiynyk. Peculiarities of the use of the words блаженыи and трьблаженыи in the portrait of Volodymyr reveals the position of Iakov Mnih in the matter of canonization of the prince. The mention of Volodymyr in «Life of Alexander Nevsky» contains an allusion to the history of Saints Theodore and John and the history of the Apostle Paul. Chronology of the use of a hagiographic term свѧтыи next to the name of Volodymyr testifies in favor of scientific assumptions that he was recognized as a saint in the period between the second half of the 11th century and the middle of the 13th century. Semantics and specifics of the use of assessment adjectives and substantives in «The Tale of Bygone Years», «Memory and Praise to Prince Volodymer» by Iakov Mnih, «Sermon on Law and Grace» by the Kievan Metropolitan Hilarion, texts about Boris and Glib and other literary monuments 11th-13th century testify to the fact that in the aspect of the adjectival-substantive expression of the moral assessment of the Volodymyr his church praise is dominated. The absence of an idealized socio-ethical portrait of Volodymyr modeled with the help of laudatory epithets in «The Tale of Bygone Years» is caused by the dualistic nature of his personality as a pagan prince and a Christian prince. The use of laudatory epithets-designations, the simile of the Volodymyr to holy martyrs, biblical prophets, holy Caesars (above all to Constantine the Great), served as a factor in the conceptualization of his image in Eastern Slavic religious texts of the 11th-13th centuries and created the ground for for the liturgical honoring of the prince. The double name Volodymyr-Vasily semantically symbolized the combination of royal and church power, marked such key connections of Prince Volodymyr with his spiritual patron — Basil the Great, as actions in the field of Christianity, receiving the heavenly protection of Basil the Great, honoring the memory of Basil the Great in Korsun’ and Kyiv.

A Letter from John III of Sweden to King Charles IX of France: A New Source for the History of the Baltic Wars

The letter of King John III of Sweden to King Charles IX of France from October 13, 1568, covers several subjects of the history of Baltic wars in the second half of the sixteenth century. What is most noticeable among them is the reasons why John III’s brother King Eric XIV was overthrown in September 1568, the plot against John of Finland to hand over Catherine Jagiellon, his wife and sister of Sigismund II Augustus, the Polish king, and grand duke of Lithuania, to the Russian czar Ivan the Terrible, as well as the period when the Northern Seven Years’ War ended. After his accession to the throne, John III faced several problems, which he had to solve. Firstly, the second son of Gustav I of Sweden had to legitimise his ascension in the eyes of the European monarchs, then break the international isolation of the Swedish kingdom and protect himself from internal and external conspiracies. His main goal was to free the imprisoned Eric XIV. The solution to these problems depended directly on stabilising Sweden’s foreign policy position, achievable through reconciliation with a hostile coalition of Denmark, Lübeck, and Poland and building an alliance with the French royal court, which offered mediation to end the hostilities. In the text of the published letter, the Swedish king appeals to the feelings of the French monarch, trying to show the “baseness” and “wickedness” of his elder brother’s policy, but also assures him of sincere friendship, proving the long-standing allied nature of the Swedish-French relations. All this makes the letter of John III to Charles IX a valuable historical source, whose value is fully revealed in the context of Swedish-French, Russian-Swedish and Russian-French relations in the sixteenth century. Published for the first time, it comes from the collection of P. P. Dubrovsky (13, No. 9), Russian National Library (St Petersburg). The article publishes the text of the letter in Latin as well as a translation into Russian.

In the Circle of Power: Friends of King Vladislav IV Vasa

Any early modern ruler had to have devoted supporters. Most of them gathered around the king in order to obtain specific official and financial benefits, and sometimes they had similar political views to the monarch. However, this issue looked a bit different in relation to Vladislav IV Vasa, king of Poland and grand duke of Lithuania, who was considered by the nobility as a sympathetic and easy-going ruler (as opposed to his more secretive father, Sigismund III). Vladislav was a king who made friendships easily, and people close to him were very clearly at the centre of influence and thus political power. One of the main objectives of this article is to indicate when and how the magnates established private contacts with Vladislav as prince and how they developed once he became king. A separate issue discussed centres on categories related to the understanding of friendship as an element of privacy in the early modern period. Through an in-depth analysis of the letters and memoirs left by the elite of the Polish-Lithuanian state, case studies of private friendships emerge, including the King’s close relationships with Adam Kazanowski, Jan Stanislaw Sapieha, Gerard Denhoff, Aleksander Ludwik Radziwiłł, Krzysztof Radziwiłł and several others.

Sigismund Augustus’ Tapestries at the Residence of the Grand Duke of Lithuania and King of Poland in the Lower Castle Palace in Vilnius


 
 
 This article presents an analysis of the stages and specifics encountered during scholarly research on the chosen theme, stating that separate stages in the research were determined according to different aims, research methods, and approaches. The research was conducted under circumstances characterised by a lack of sources and the fragmented nature of the information, which meant that as the research went on for 150 years, scholars generally relied on a solitary known source: the panegyric by Stanisław Orzechowski written on the occasion of the wedding of Sigismund Augustus, Grand Duke of Lithuania and King of Poland, and Catherine Habsburg at Wawel Royal Castle in 1553, in which he described the tapestries used to decorate the palace for the event. As a subsequence of this, for the rest of the mentioned period, no reference was made in scientific publications to the connection between Sigismund Augustus’ tapestries and Vilnius or to the Vilnius Lower Castle, which had been the ruler’s most important residence for a long time. In this article, based on sources and the most recently discovered artefacts, evidence is provided that Sigismund Augustus began collecting tapestries whilst he was still only the grand duke of Lithuania and that his earliest commissions were made in Vilnius. This is irrefutably evident from a document dated 14 January 1547 in Sigismund Augustus’ accounts for the period of 1546–1548, recorded by the young ruler’s treasurer Jan Lutomirski at the Vilnius palace. There is no doubt that the ‘pictures’ – Creation of the World and The Story of Noah – mentioned among the expenses were the first sketches for the upcoming series of biblical textiles created by Michiel Coxcie. Nonetheless, the most important evidence is the heraldic tapestry acquired by the National Museum – Palace of the Grand Dukes of Lithuania in 2009. Woven before 1548, it features the combined coat of arms of Sigismund Augustus, the Grand Duke of Lithuania, with the great crown of the Lithuanian grand duke above it. The same combined coat of arms of Sigismund Augustus was minted on Lithuanian coins during his reign and was also used on the great seal of the state of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.
 In summary, it can be stated that Sigismund Augustus owned tapestry series in Vilnius from as early as 1543. This was where the famous series The Story of the First Fathers and The Story of Noah were commissioned. The Lithuanian court treasury accounts attest that between 1545 and 1561, tapestries were often displayed at the Vilnius palace, the main residence in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and were taken with the ruler when he travelled to his other residences in Trakai, Rūdninkai, Skierniewice, or Rawa.
 
 

MEDIATION OF LEGITIMACY IN EARLY CHINA: A STUDY OF THE NEGLECTED ZHOU SCRIPTURES AND THE GRAND DUKE TRADITIONS. By YegorGrebnev. Tang Center Series in Early China. New York: Columbia University Press, 2022. Pp. xvi + 350. Hardback, $65.00.

Religious Studies ReviewVolume 49, Issue 1 p. 104-104 Short Reviews of Recent Publications: East Asia MEDIATION OF LEGITIMACY IN EARLY CHINA: A STUDY OF THE NEGLECTED ZHOU SCRIPTURES AND THE GRAND DUKE TRADITIONS. By Yegor Grebnev. Tang Center Series in Early China. New York: Columbia University Press, 2022. Pp. xvi + 350. Hardback, $65.00. First published: 24 April 2023 https://doi.org/10.1111/rsr.16406Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL No abstract is available for this article. Volume49, Issue1Special Issue: Unique Approaches to Christianity in Africa and BeyondMarch 2023Pages 104-104 RelatedInformation

Johan Pyre: ein Kaufmann und sein Handelsbuch im spätmittelalterlichen Danzig. Darstellung und Edition

This two-part work publishes for the first time the account book of the Hanse merchant Johan Pyre, a native of Danzig (Gdańsk) who traded in diverse wares with peers spanning northern Europe from King’s Lynn to Novgorod between 1421 and 1455. Orłowska’s impressive and expertly presented edition is accompanied by a substantial 448-page analysis of Pyre’s account book that not only sheds new light on commercial activity in the late medieval Baltic and North Sea, but also offers fresh insights into the credit mechanisms, trading conventions and accounting methods that underpinned the international trading networks in which Pyre played an active part for over three decades. What makes Pyre’s book especially valuable is that he traded at a challenging time, both for the Hanse and for his home city, offering a window on how periods of warfare and diplomatic crisis could influence, disrupt or divert international commercial activity. During Pyre’s lifetime the Hanse fought sporadically with Denmark between 1426 and 1441, and long-running diplomatic and economic disputes with Russian rulers could worsen unpredictably, such as in the mid-1420s when the grand duke of Novgorod imprisoned 150 Hanse merchants. At the same time, Danzig, perhaps the most important city in Prussia, witnessed a gradual deterioration of the Teutonic Order’s rule throughout the region in the early and middle decades of the fifteenth century that eventually culminated in the outbreak of the Thirteen Years War in 1454. As Orłowska shows, however, these regional and international political and diplomatic shocks did not prevent Pyre trading in wax, salt, iron, furs and clothing, among many other wares, with partners across the North Sea and Baltic world. As she also emphasizes, the political and diplomatic tension between the city of Danzig and the leadership of the Teutonic Order was not necessarily reflected in Pyre’s everyday life. Pyre’s account book records how he engaged in business with a range of individual officers from the Order and was even allowed on occasion to trade in Baltic amber, a precious commodity over which the Teutonic Order claimed a monopoly, but one that their officers clearly allowed to lapse when dealing with trusted partners such as Pyre.

All the grand dukes’ men: an overview of the Persian information network of Medici Tuscany between 1600 and 1639

This article provides an overview of the Tuscan information network on Safavid Persia, paying particular attention to the first decades of the seventeenth century. Since Tuscany established diplomatic relations with Persia in an anti-Ottoman spirit, the issue of how the grand dukes were able to obtain information on Persia was also of primary importance. This was because important strategic and diplomatic decisions in the eastern Mediterranean could also depend on the situation in Persia, particularly the military one. Through the analysis of largely unpublished documentation, this article aims to clarify, at least in part, the functioning of the information network concerning Persia, as part of the Tuscan Eastern network, especially focusing on the issue of informers. This will also provide some insights into the evolution of the Persian (and Levantine) information network of Medici Tuscany and on (almost) all the grand dukes’ men involved in it.

Noble Matrimonial Policy at the Royal Court in Dresden during the Reign of King Augustus the Strong (1697–1733): Public Affairs, Private Interests

The aim of this article is to analyse the changes taking place in the marital policy of the nobility as followed by the court of Augustus II, king of Poland and grand duke of Lithuania. The election of a member of the Saxon Wettin family to the throne of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth radically changed the balance of power there. The representatives of new, but politically involved, circles started looking for career opportunities as state officials and the chance to join the royal court, both in Warsaw and in Dresden. The marital strategy of Polish magnates to ally with foreign families, notably those already associated with the court of Electoral Saxony in Dresden, was one of the methods of seeking advancement and influence. An analysis of the examples of careers developed at the royal court allows us to identify the mechanisms by which the King himself tried to build a loyal party in the Commonwealth using private, personal links to himself and to his family. The policy of intentional steering of marriage strategies, which has not been analysed so far, turned out to play a fundamental role in this goal. International marriages gave individuals and their families chances for preeminent advantages (as with transregional nobles all over Europe), but private links with the King were crucial for personal careers and were forged through marriage to members of his family, both legitimate and illegitimate.

Seeing is Believing: The Ducal House of Lorraine and Visual Displays in the Projection of Royal Status

This article examines the visual strategies employed in the early modern period by a dynasty ruling a smaller state, the Duchy of Lorraine, to survive in the face of expansion by larger neighbours (notably France). The central argument posits that in order to be treated as fully royal (and therefore with inherent rights to exist independently, as full members of the society of princes), princes like the dukes of Lorraine had to appear as royal in their visual representation. The article therefore looks at different examples of selfrepresentation produced by the dynasty over time, including genealogical treatises, coins, portraits, and printed material, in order to see how this was achieved and what symbols were used. What emerges is a sense that this strategy was more closely tied to dynasticism, not necessarily state-building, and while it can be said to have failed for the Duchy of Lorraine as a state, it proved successful, even beyond what had been imagined, for the dynasty itself. This idea repositions our conceptions of “sovereignty” in this period, to see it, at least in some cases, as a quality pertaining to dynasties rather than more rigidly to the states they governed. Their hereditary estates in Lorraine were lost in 1737 but the dynasty survived, as grand dukes of Tuscany, and was deemed worthy of transformation into a fully royal—even imperial—dynasty through marriage to the Habsburg heiress Maria Theresa and the election of Francis Stephen of Lorraine as Holy Roman Emperor in 1745.

Lithuanian grand-ducal demesne pledges (from the 1500s to mid-1520s): Geographical aspects

The pledging policy by the grand dukes of Lithuania in the sixteenth century has not been practically under research; historians have not given the geographical and cartographical aspects of this problem any attention. This article aims to research the geography of the pledges of the grand-ducal demesne from the 1500s to mid-1520s. This article discusses the concept of the demesne of Lithuanian sovereigns, its size and limits, and we analyse the geographical and statistical information about its composition. We have created a map of pledged estates and properties using the data collected and characterised the most important pledge deeds and pledgees.

Przywileje ogólnoziemskie wielkich książąt litewskich z lat 1522–1551. Rys dziejów powstania na tle tekstologii aktów

Grand dukes of Lithuania all-terrestrial charters from 1522 to 1551. The history of its formation through the textual criticism of the texts.
 The paper aims to investigate did were the direct sources and patterns used by the authors of 1522–1551 charters of grand dukes of Lithuania. The research is made possible by textual criticism approach, which questionnaire has, by the way, special solutions for this reason. This approach allows to indicate, did direct borrowings were, what was their genesis, and what shape did they get.

International Networking in Russian Music Theatre around 1800: Sheremetev, Yusupov and Grand Duke Pavel Petrovich

This article investigates the role played by aristocrats in the exchange of repertoire and musical personnel between Russia and Western Europe in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. It discusses the involvement of three significant figures in the political and cultural milieus of the Russian Empire: Count Nikolay Petrovich Sheremetev (1751–1809), Prince Nikolay Borisovich Yusupov (1750–1831) and the Grand Duke Pavel Petrovich Romanov (who ruled as Paul I from 1796 to 1801). The central focus is on Sheremetev, whose correspondence with Marie-François Hivart, a Parisian cellist he met during a grand tour, allows us to reconstruct a clear picture of how French opera was imported and adapted at his estate theatres in the Moscow area. Yusupov and the grand duke likewise established international musical contacts during their European tours of the 1770s and 80s, and exploited them in their private and public theatrical activities in Russia. Yusupov, who was particularly fond of Italian opera, may be regarded as Sheremetev's counterpart in St Petersburg, while Tsarevich Pavel Petrovich channelled the musical contacts he established in Italy to the Russian court and crown theatres.Together, these cases suggest some of the ways in which Russia was entangled in European musical life around 1800, revealing mechanisms of exchange in which grand tours, diplomatic contacts and the personal interests of patrons played a significant part.

Between Greeks and Latins: Pilies Street in Medieval Vilnius

Pilies Street is one of the oldest in the city of Vilnius, the capital of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. The street’s name is connected with its starting point, the territory of the castles of the grand dukes. In the early 15th century, Vilnius City Hall was erected at the south end of Pilies Street. Pilies Street is not only an inseparable part of the city’s earliest spatial structure, but is also directly connected with the Christian communities of Vilnius, when it was still a pagan city. During the earliest period of the city’s development Christian immigrants, both Orthodox and Catholic, gathered around Pilies Street. The paradox is that very little information is available about the emergence and formation of the central street of the city. The purpose of this paper is to examine more carefully the early history of what is perhaps the main street in Vilnius and the changes over the course of time. This becomes possible after combining archaeological material with the sparse information from written sources, and also after making use of data from the investigation of the historical natural environment.