Table Of ContentA CURIOUS AND NEW ACCOUNT
OF MUSCOVY IN THE YEAR 1689
FOY DE LA NEUVILLE
Edited and introduced by Lindsey Hughes
Translated from the French by J.A. Cutshall
Published by the School of Slavonic and East European Studies
University of London
Digitized by the Internet Archive
in 2019 with funding from
UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies (SSEES)
https://archive.org/details/SSEES0007
A CURIOUS AND NEW ACCOUNT
OF MUSCOVY
IN THE YEAR 1689
By FOY DE LA NEUVILLE
Edited and introduced by Lindsey Hughes
Translated from the French by J.A. Cut shall
School of Slavonic and East European Studies
University of London, 1994
A CURIOUS AND NEW ACCOUNT
OF MUSCOVY
IN THE YEAR 1689
A CURIOUS AND NEW ACCOUNT
OF MUSCOVY IN THE YEAR 1689
by Foy de la Neuville
Edited and introduced by Lindsey Hughes.
Translated from the French by J.A. Cutshall.
A Curious and New Account of Muscovy in the Year 1689
© School of Slavonic and East European Studies 1994
Occasional Papers No. 23
ISBN: 0 903425 34 3
Printed by Quom Litho, Loughborough, Leicestershire, LE11 1HH, UK.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Preface vii
Abbreviations and List of Illustrations x
Chronology of Events xi
Introduction xiii
CHAPTER 1:
To the King 1
CHAPTER 2:
An Account of my Journey 5
CHAPTER 3:
The State of Muscovy from 1682 until 1687 15
CHAPTER 4:
The Muscovite Expedition to the Crimea from 1687 to 1689 25
CHAPTER 5:
The Muscovite Campaign or Expedition to the Crimea in 1689 31
CHAPTER 6:
An Account of the Revolution 37
CHAPTER 7:
The Causes of the Revolution 47
CHAPTER 8:
The Present State of Muscovy 53
CHAPTER 9:
The Manners and Religion of the Muscovites 57
CHAPTER 10:
Conversations with Spafarius on the Journey to and
Trade with China 65
Extract from the Royal Licence 72
Select Bibliography 73
Index 75
v
Preface
The text below is an unabridged translation of Pierre Aubouin’s 1698
Paris edition of Relation curieuse et nouvelle de Moscovie. Significant
differences between this text and the Bibliotheque Nationale manuscript
Relation curieuse de mon voyage en Moscovie de V an 1689 and an
untitled manuscript from the Niedersachsische Landesbibliothek are
indicated in footnotes, but we have not attempted to make an exhaustive
comparison of the three texts. (An annotated edition of the French texts is
in preparation by A.S. Lavrov at the University of St Petersburg.) Where
Aubouin’s edition contains an obvious misreading (for example, in the
chapter on the first Crimean campaign the printer has skipped a line
which appears in both of the manuscripts), the manuscript wording is
substituted and the difference footnoted. A number of editorial insertions
(mostly names and dates) have been made for the sake of clarity. These
have been placed in square brackets.
As far as is possible, seventeenth-century French has been rendered into
modem English. This has entailed taking certain liberties. For example,
both the book and the manuscripts are only sparsely punctuated.
Sentences are often a whole paragraph long, and many begin with a
participle construction (eg ‘The council of war having finished and the
hetman having been placed under heavy guard ...’). For the sake of
readability, long sentences have been divided and as much variety
introduced into their structure as is consistent with preserving the
meaning. No attempt has been made to reproduce the different registers
of the three texts referred to (for example, the language of the Paris
manuscript is more archaic than that of the other two). However, a
number of rhetorical devices of the time, such as Neuville’s famous list
of epithets describing Muscovites, have been preserved. For a rendering
of the text into seventeenth-century English, readers are referred to the
British Library’s copy of Edward Castle’s edition of An Account of
Muscovy as it was in the year 1689 (London, 1699), which is, to the best
of our knowledge, the only one available in this country.
Names of places and people and the Russian terms with which the text is
dotted, have, where appropriate, been given their modem spellings. This
is necessary for reasons of clarity. For example, the term prikaz (Russian
for chancellery or office) variously appears in the manuscripts as
‘Precache’, ‘Prekache’ ‘Precaz’ and ‘Prekeiz’. With the exception of
some conventionally Anglicized personal names (Peter, Sophia), Russian
names and words have been transliterated using a modified Library of
Congress system (e.g. -yi and -ii at the end of names in the text are
replaced by -y, hence Dolgoruky, Iury). In most circumstances, the
vii
PREFACE
viii
published French text garbles Russian words and names to a remarkable
extent, while the manuscripts offer a phonetic or Polonized spelling.
Master of the Household Tolochanov becomes, in the Paris and Hanover
manuscripts, ‘Talachanaw’, but in the 1698 edition a barely recognisable
‘Talakorou’. The placename Chernaia Dolina (‘Black Valley’) is
‘Tehorna Doliva’ in the Paris manuscript, ‘Thorna-Doliva’ in the
Hanover version and ‘Thoma-d’Oliva’ in the 1698 edition. Names of
Polish origin and other foreign names have been restored as far as
possible to their original spelling. For example, Chancellor Oginski
(‘Ogwenski’ in the manuscripts) becomes ‘Oquenoki’ in the 1698 edition.
Those names which could not be traced have been footnoted accordingly.
Neuville uses a wide range of Western weights, measures and monetary
units in explaining their Russian equivalents to his readers. In the late
seventeenth century the French monetary system was based on the livre,
which was composed of twenty sous. The sou was divided into four
Hards, in turn composed of four deniers. The highest-value gold coin was
the louis d’or, worth either twenty-four or forty-eight livres. The highest-
value silver coin, the ecu, was worth either three or six livres. London
1699 does not translate livre (literally, a pound), but renders ecu as
‘crown’, and sou as penny. Later in the text, Neuville states that a rouble
was worth roughly five livres. The basic Russian unit of currency was the
kopeck, which was further subdivided into two dengas. 100 kopecks
equalled one rouble. (The fact that the modem kopeck has virtually
disappeared from circulation as a result of inflation in Russia in the early
1990s makes the translator's task all the harder.) In order to preserve a
sense of comparative values for readers who remember pre¬
decimalisation British coinage, we have preferred to translate ecu as
‘pound’, livre as ‘crown’ and sou as ‘shilling’, even though in modem
usage sou tends to denote a negligible sum. Neuville also refers to the
ducat, a gold coin used in the territory of the Holy Roman Empire and
worth about three roubles (or approximately fifteen livres).
Neuville uses both Russian and Western units of distance, often in a very
approximate manner. For example, at one point, he mentions a distance
of ‘ten versts, or two German leagues’. In another place he refers to ‘a
verst or Italian half-mile’. In the seventeenth century the Russian verst
(versta) was usually equal to 2.1336 kilometers, although from the
eighteenth century onwards it had a value of only 1.06 kilometers.
Probably the only reliable way for the reader to gain an idea of the
distances involved is to consult a map.
Thanks are due to Professor Isabel de Madariaga, who presented a
microfilm of the Paris MS, to Dr Anke Holzer of the Niedersachsische
Landesbibliothek, who supplied the Hanover text, to Roger Bartlett and
Radojka Miljevic, who read our text, and especially to Alexander Lavrov,
