Large Embassy

The Grande Embassy is the name of the diplomatic mission and educational carried out by Pierre Ier of Russia between March 1697 and September 1698, which carried out it in several countries of Europe. Its diplomatic goal is to tie alliances with various States d' Europe to carry out the war against the Turkey. Its educational goal is to know the lifestyle of the European populations and to learn various manual trades which interest it.

The Douma of the boyards is very surprised, the December 16th 1696, when Pierre teaches them creation from this Large Embassy and his intention to form part of it. Indeed, the last time that a Russian Head of State ventured out of foreign ground, it is in 1075, when the large-duke Iziaslav of Kiev, returned visit to Henri IV of the Holy roman Empire to Mainz.

The Large Embassy consists of three ambassadors, are Franz Lefort, Fédor Golovine and Voznitsine. Each ambassador is accompanied by twelve gentlemen and two pages. Among the personnel, are interpreters, riders, doctors, surgeons, priests, goldsmiths. One can observe also there 35 volunteers of which the original intention is to inform itself. Among them, is the Pierre tsar, registered under the name of Pierre Mikhaïlov, because its desire is to visit Europe more or less incognito.

The principal stages must be Amsterdam, Berlin, Vienna, Copenhagen, Venice and London. Pierre did not include France there because this country is combined too much with Turkey to consider an alliance there.

The Large Embassy leaves Moscow the March 20th 1697. During the absence of the tsar, the Council of three members, whose uncle of Pierre, must direct the country. A militia, ordered by Fédor Romodanovski, day before to maintain the order.

The first stage is Rīga, then Swedish possession, where the Large Embassy is received rather coldly. Then it moves towards Courlande, with Libau, where it is received by the duke Frederic-Casimir. With Mitau, Pierre discovers for the first time, the Baltic which fills with wonder it. It is in boat that it goes to Königsberg. It learns the trade there from artillerist while the ambassadors negotiate a anti-Turkish alliance with Frederic III of Brandebourg.

The August 7th 1697, Pierre and the Large Embassy arrive at Amsterdam, to Holland, the country of which he dreams since his childhood. It is made at once lead to Zaandam, where it moves in a hut which exists still today. It rents a boat and ventures at sea where it plays sailor. Returned in Amsterdam, he becomes apprentice carpenter in a shipyard and made there grant a certificate. He also returns visit to surgeons and with dentists because he impassions himself for the human anatomy. It is besides on the personnel of the Large Embassy that he exerts his new " talents" in dental medicine.

Pierre goes thereafter to $the Hague where it attends in observer a meeting of the General states. Then, leaving the Large Embassy to Amsterdam, it embarks for London with his more faithful companion, Alexandre Menchikov, and some servants. It places in 15 Buckingham Street where the king Guillaume III of Orange visits him. In England, its principal destinations are the Academy of Science, the university of Oxford, the castle of Windsor, the arsenal of Woolwich, the docks, a foundry of guns and the residence of Isaac Newton.

Pierre and Menchikov return to Amsterdam in April 1698. At once, it is the departure for Vienna. It meets there Léopold Ier of Austria, visit which it finds disappointing. In fact, from the political point of view, the Large Embassy will be a failure because no visited State seriously considers a war with short or long run against Turkey. All the interests move indeed then towards the succession of the throne of Spain which prepares.

Pierre is on the point of leaving for Venice when he learns that the Strélitz revolted in Russia. He runs then towards Moscow where the revolt will be repressed in blood. It arrives in its capital the September 5th 1698. Its voyage sixteen months will have enabled him to accumulate a load of knowledge, but the search for a military alliance will have been null.

Random links: