Foreigners in Muscovy

Between the late fifteenth and early eighteenth centuries, the State of Muscovy emerged from being a rather homogenous Russian-speaking and Orthodox medieval principality to becoming a multi-ethnic and multi-religious empire. Not only the conquest of the neighbouring Tatar Khanates and the colonisation of Siberia demanded the integration of non-Christian populations into the Russian state. The ethnic composition of the capital and other towns also changed due to Muscovite policies of recruiting soldiers, officers, and specialists from various European countries, as well as the accommodation of merchants and the resettlement of war prisoners and civilians from annexed territories. The presence of foreign immigrants was accompanied by controversy and conflicts, which demanded adaptations not only in the Muscovite legal, fiscal, and economic systems but also in the everyday life of both native citizens and immigrants.

This book combines two major research fields on international relations in the State of Muscovy: the migration, settlement, and integration of Western Europeans, and Russian and European perceptions of the respective "other".

Foreigners in Muscovy will appeal to researchers and students interested in the history and social makeup of Muscovy and in European–Russian relations during the early modern era.

Simon Dreher studied history in Marburg (Lahn) and completed his Master’s thesis in 2017 on European views on Russian Orthodoxy in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. He is a PhD candidate at the University of Münster. His dissertation project focuses on everyday interactions between Western immigrants and natives in seventeenth-century Muscovy. He has been a university assistant at the Department for East European History in Vienna from 2018 to 2022 and is now employed at the Institute for Comparative Urban History (IStG) in Münster. Recent and forthcoming publications include: "‘Gegen die vermalediden ketzer und aff gesneden Ruyssen und ungelovigen Tarteren’. Bedrohungskommunikation im Rahmen der Livländischen Ablasskampagnen (1503–1510)", Zeitschrift für Ostmitteleuropa-Forschung 70 (2021), No 1, 1–30; "Abgehängt? Die Ausländergemeinden in der Hafenstadt Archangel’sk unter dem Eindruck der Handelsrestriktionen von 1721–1762", in: Russländische Städte im 18. Jahrhundert: Imperiale Konzeptionen und lokale Dynamiken (Moderne Stadtgeschichte 2022, No 2), ed. by Boris Belge and Ulrich Hofmeister (forthcoming); "Servants in foreigners’ houses in mid-seventeenth century Muscovy: Local diff erences in legislation and practice", in: Aspects of Law and Religion in Russia in the Early Modern Age, 1550s –1721 (Law and Religion in the Early Modern Period/Recht und Religion in der Frühen Neuzeit), ed. by Endre Sashalmi (forthcoming in 2023)."

Wolfgang Mueller is Full Professor of Russian History at the University of Vienna and a corresponding member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. He was the founding deputy director of the Institute of Modern and Contemporary Historical Research of the Austrian Academy of Sciences; a visiting professor at the Universities of Rostock/Germany, Torun/Poland, Nice/France, and Bern/Switzerland; and a visiting fellow at the Russian Academy of Sciences and Stanford University. He was awarded the R. Plaschka Prize, the L. Kunschak Prize, and the Austrian State Prize of History. His fields of research are international history, Russian and Soviet foreign policy, and political thought. One of his current research projects focuses on Russian perceptions of Europeans. His publications include:"Russland und die Habsburgermonarchie 1853-1914: Von Krisen zum Untergang," in: Österreich - Russland: Stationen gemeinsamer Geschichte, ed. by Stefan Karner and Alexander Tschubarjan, Graz 2018, 63-89 (with Olga Pavlenko); "Internationale Geschichte: Eine junge Disziplin mit langer Tradition," in: In Europa zu Hause. Festschrift für Michael Gehler zum 60. Geburtstag, Hildesheim 2002, 151–161.