A Forgotten Friendship

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Kees Boterbloem analyzes the early modern United Provinces (Dutch Republic)-Russian Empire relationship's political, military, economic, and cultural effects on world history.

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Institution: University of South Florida

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Kees Boterbloem analyzes the early modern United Provinces (Dutch Republic)-Russian Empire relationship’s political, military, economic, and cultural effects on world history.

Image courtesy of interviewee. January 26, 2024

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The speaker reflects on a long-term project involving the historical relationship between the Dutch Republic and the Russian Empire, initiated around 2008. The project began as a personal quest to address a long-standing intellectual curiosity about a Dutch embassy in Moscow during the 17th century. The speaker sought out an unfinished dissertation related to this topic and ended up receiving a significant amount of research material from the author's son.

Through this research, the speaker discovered the extensive influence of Dutch individuals in Russia during the 17th century, particularly in areas such as trade, military training, and cultural exchange. Dutch merchants, sailors, and mercenaries played crucial roles in developing military capabilities and modernizing aspects of Russian society, which paved the way for Russia's emergence as a great power.

Various examples illustrate this connection, including Dutch involvement in the Russian arms industry, the introduction of crucial military manuals, and the presence of Dutch physicians at the Russian court. The speaker criticizes the historical oversight of these contributions, labeling it "The Forgotten Friendship." Ultimately, the narrative emphasizes that no country develops in isolation and underscores the importance of cross-cultural interactions in historical progress, particularly in relation to Russia's evolution and modernization influenced by Dutch practices and ideas.

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In part, because it quite coincidentally, came to me

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as a project at the same time

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because, it forced me to, to answer a question,

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which had been bothering me for about a quarter century

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or so when I started the project.

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Um, so those are two reasons,

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completely unrelated in some ways.

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Um, but it started really with, yeah,

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it started actually around 2008 or so.

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I was working on some project, an other project,

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a previous book, regarding, Dutchman who had worked

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for the SAR in Russia in the 17th century.

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And, I realized

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that there was supposedly somewhere at Columbia University

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in New York, a dissertation which had been defended on

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something which was related to it, a discussion of a,

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an Dutch embassy, which had been in Moscow, in 1664

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and 1665.

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Um, I found the author, who

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was no longer work as an academic, was doing something else,

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and I wrote him an email and I said, would you mind,

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or, I see that you were preparing a dissertation,

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but I cannot find it.

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How is that? And he said, well, it's

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because I never finished it.

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Oh, I said, I see.

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Well, thank you for letting me know,

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because it means that I'm not missing out on

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something here you may have found.

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And that was it. But about a decade later

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or so, a message appeared on one of the h whatever,

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history websites, I can't remember if it was H Net

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or something in which the son

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of this particular person asked if anyone was interested in

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his father's notes

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and papers on this particular embassy of the 17th century,

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which his father was, had been trying to use,

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for a dissertation, but never finished

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or defended this dissertation

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because his father had become a member of the faculty.

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Um, whatever defense,

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union you have in the United States called a a,

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a a UP, I believe.

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Uh, and, I wrote back

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and I said, hi, actually, I am interested in this,

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and I wouldn't mind having a look at it,

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because I think it might be a starting point, for me to,

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to write something about.

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Uh, unbeknownst to me,

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and a friend of mine who was in Canada at the time,

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David Koppen offender Oh yeah.

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Who unfortunately, has died a few years ago,

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rather too young, wrote down a lo a note as well

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to the same person, Stuart Kand,

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and said, yes, you should have both

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of Bloom right about this, because he knows all about it

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because of his previous research.

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So I got this enormous box with information.

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It is all an old cue cards

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and certain kind of early versions

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of chapters being typed out on an old fashioned typewriter,

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as you did in the 1960s.

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And I went through it, and,

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and Stewart Kand was nice enough

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to even digitize a few things,

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but there was nothing there too much,

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which in the end I didn't know already.

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Uh, in part because,

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it was written from a very economic perspective, which

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Was usual in the postwar historiography.

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I think a lot people wrote from particular primacy

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of economics in discussing history.

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Uh, and in the end, I could,

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I could see in some ways perhaps why the dissertation had

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never been finished, because it wasn't very interesting,

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what he had found it.

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It just, it, the embassy itself is a, is a,

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is an annoying embassy in some ways.

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I've seen the actual Dutch transcript.

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There's a 500 page folio report about it in handwriting.

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I've read that. And it's, it's all the time

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quarreling about diplomatic protocol between, to both sides.

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And there's no much else going on.

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How do you address it, SAR Do you need all the 25 titles?

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And the Dutch, are the dutchess being addressed as sort

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of minions because they're republic and so on.

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And this is fun, but I mean, we know this already,

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that was sort of disdain towards republics,

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that Czar had an inferiority complex,

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still not being recognized as an emperor,

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basically in the West around this time.

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So this was nothing new, and

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otherwise it was a quarreling about minor economic issues,

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issues of trade that is, between whatever, you know,

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people having been bribed or asking for bribes

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and so on, the Russian side,

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officials, et cetera, et cetera.

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But, it did allow me to focus on,

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exploring this particular, relationship

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between the Dutch Republic and the, Russian Empire,

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or Moscow vi, as it quite often was called,

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still in those days.

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And I had already found,

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and again, I'm not original in that, that in fact,

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there are a lot of Dutch men, sometimes even Dutch women,

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you trip over, if you look at Russian

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history in the 17th century.

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Um, is that a great surprise?

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No, it is not, of course,

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because the Dutch Republic was a major player in the 17th

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century European world.

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I mean, they were everywhere.

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Dutch sailors, Dutch traders, Dutch merchants, and so on.

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Um, but I decided, well,

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someone should really write something more about it and

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therefore at the same time weigh this significance

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and establish when it began

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and when it began to fade as well.

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Because really there's very little nowadays in Russia,

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or let's say previously in the Soviet Union, which seems

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or looks Dutch or has anything to do with Dutch origins.

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I know, of course, it was a little bit, let's say,

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masked because there was at one point a Dutch slavish,

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Dutch, student of the Russian language

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who had actually count the 2000 Dutch derived words in

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Russian 2000, all basically going back to the 17th

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and early 18th centuries, by and large.

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But, which is kind of interesting about it,

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this is controversial because some se said, no, no,

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there's some of them are German,

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for example, rather than Dutch.

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And, you know, that's hard to establish sometimes,

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which is which if they're,

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usually if they're maritime terms,

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they tend to be Dutch more.

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Indeed, that's true. But I mean,

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otherwise it's, it's, it's a matter of debate still.

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Anyway, so that's how I got to the project.

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And, yeah, I decided once I started to dig deeper and,

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and, and add to what I already knew, that this was,

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important enough to, to look at, in terms of,

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you know, cross-cultural influence, et cetera, in terms

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of, how we came to be who we are today in our world,

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not so much, perhaps the,

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the Netherlands, but more Russia.

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It started out a long time ago,

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when I was a graduate student, I mean, I,

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I took degrees in Amsterdam, really,

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and I already worked with Eastern European specialists,

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but that was in the late stages of the Cold War.

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And we only look really at the Soviet

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Union as a result, right?

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But when I started my doctoral studies in Montreal at McGill

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University, I worked with someone called Valentine Boss,

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who was also a Soviet specialist,

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although, oddly enough, he also specialized on John Milton.

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Um, at the same time, I also worked with someone

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for a minor field, who is called Philip Longworth.

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And Longworth has written eight to 10 books,

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all on Russian or Eastern European history,

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very readable books, with interesting viewpoints,

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sometimes quite original.

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And he took me at McGill University two,

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the rare book section in which he showed me a book

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of which there were two copies in English,

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by a Dutch sailor, John Streis, John Streis,

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he's called an English books from the

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1680s published in London.

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And, this was a 400 page effort

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by a sailor about his particular adventures

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for over 25 years

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or so, in the middle of the 17th century, part

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of which had taken place in Russia from about 1668

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to 1671 or so.

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Um, that book, that particular book by Strauss,

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was apparently a bestseller.

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Uh, it was originally written Induction SE

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and published in 1676, but it had been published in German.

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It had been published in French

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and in fact, in the Russian, national Library in St.

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Petersburg, there are 23 different editions

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of it in different languages.

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It turned out that even the Russians had been interested

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already under Peter De Great,

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because Peter had two people at different times translate

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parts of it, in handwriting in his chancellors.

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And later on, under Stalin of all people,

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the book had finally fully been translated into Russian.

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Um, now that book was interesting.

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A lot of that book is made up plagiarized, whatever,

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but the actual writer, did have some

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of these adventures, even though he could not sign his

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marriage certificates with his name,

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but he could write a 400 page book five years later.

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Um, in other words, it was ghostwritten,

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but the stories he tells, he has been telling,

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he was telling to his ghost writer, panned out

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to some degree, certainly the ones in Russia,

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because in Russian archives, I found, the sailor

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and 14 of his mates crossed the Russian border in 1668,

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including, in their equipment was sail cloth,

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nails, all cameras, all kind of things to build ships.

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And they built a ship, as the book says, to the south

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of Moscow, which was haul down the river, that is the oca

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and, and the Mosque River, sorry, the Ulca River down

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to Ashan on the Caspian Sea in Nigeria.

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And he was part of it. And indeed, he had been actually

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escaping from Cozak Rebels had made his way to Iran

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where he had been captured and enslaved.

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And in the Dutch East India Go's books,

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I could find a record that he had been actually ransomed

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by the Dutchess India Company in is Fahan Iran.

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And all of that had happened.

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It led me to think more about

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the average people from the Netherlands who went to Russia,

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and I realized there was a whole bunch of them.

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We only knew some of the leading lights

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because they could read and write

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because they were rich and so on.

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It turned out un underneath there, there were all kinds

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of other people who had absolutely left no record.

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Uh, it seems, and there may still be records,

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but I still haven't found them

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of certain merchants and so on.

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And therefore, I began,

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and this was, let's say, I started this project

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after my first two books,

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which were on the Soviet Union in the early two thousands.

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And then I realized this was a treasure trove.

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There was all kind of stuff there.

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There were mercenaries, for example, who as officers went

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to, to, to fight for that sar.

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There was the first Russian secular book translated into

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Russian, which is not a religious book, which was printed,

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was actually a Dutch drill manual.

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And it was brought by Dutch mercenaries in 1647 when their

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own war with Spain ended.

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They got their independence at Westfall in 1648.

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And the Dutch, the Dutch officers were unemployed

240
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and went to Russia to train the Russian army, which went

241
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to war in 16 53, 4 or five years later against Poland.

242
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And for the first time was able to fight Poland to a draw

243
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and sign a piece piece, which gave Russia Eastern Ukraine.

244
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So there you go. So there was all this kind of stuff, which,

245
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which, which tied together.

246
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So there were more people. There was this,

247
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this strange translator at the SARS court venues whose

248
00:11:10.875 --> 00:11:12.355
father was a Dutch trader,

249
00:11:12.615 --> 00:11:15.555
and, you know, he could clearly read Dutch, this guy.

250
00:11:15.655 --> 00:11:19.035
And he's involved with a, with a mayor of Amsterdam

251
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who draws up the first lifelike map Siberia

252
00:11:22.855 --> 00:11:27.315
and writes a thousand page work in folio about Siberia,

253
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actually the first kind of account of Siberia we have,

254
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which is written from a sort of, you know,

255
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quasi modern perspective, et cetera.

256
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So that began to tie in.

257
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Dutch scholars were looking into that.

258
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Russian scholars were looking into that part.

259
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So I didn't have to do too much in that direction,

260
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but all these things, all the time came together.

261
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So from one thing to the next, I, I kept going

262
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with this, although meanwhile, I, I I, I started

263
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to embark at other projects, and then

264
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At some point this, you know, email appeared as well.

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And that got me back then to this book.

266
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Finally, I found it interesting,

267
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and I think there is more to be done there,

268
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although is a German scholar who looked into this is the

269
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role played by, Dutch medical doctors, actually,

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because there turned out

271
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to be quite a few personal physicians of the SAR working in,

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Moscow even before 1600 already.

273
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And then after 1600 as well, actually.

274
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Um, it is evident to some extent that,

275
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Peter De Great was great friends with a Dutch,

276
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yeah, surgeon.

277
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He was not really trained as, as a physician,

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but just as a surgeon.

279
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Uh, which in those days, of

280
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course, is a different sort of training.

281
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You had a sort of artisan training who was at Peter's court

282
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for quite a while as a sort of boon companion who, who,

283
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you know, celebrated the great parties at Peter

284
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and so on, who already was earlier with that group.

285
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Who, which had faced this, this Cozak rebellion

286
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around 1670 at Ashan and the Ian Sea

287
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and so on, that sort of person.

288
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There's quite a few of them.

289
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You can find actually people have to something to do

290
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with the apo, with the, the, the drugs in other words,

291
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and, and the kind of little kind

292
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of yard they they set up there.

293
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That's something which can

294
00:13:05.585 --> 00:13:07.405
and should probably be explored more.

295
00:13:07.405 --> 00:13:09.365
There's other things too I find interesting.

296
00:13:09.495 --> 00:13:10.725
There are a few Dutch people.

297
00:13:10.825 --> 00:13:14.085
One is involved with glass blowing in the 17th century.

298
00:13:14.305 --> 00:13:18.485
One is involved with, the, manufacturing of brick

299
00:13:18.705 --> 00:13:20.605
for brick houses, and then

300
00:13:20.605 --> 00:13:22.645
of course is the arms industry itself.

301
00:13:23.065 --> 00:13:24.485
Um, which the,

302
00:13:24.625 --> 00:13:29.045
the oldest Russian arms factory is at Ula South,

303
00:13:29.155 --> 00:13:30.245
west of Moscow.

304
00:13:30.475 --> 00:13:32.285
That was set up by a group of Dutch guys.

305
00:13:32.585 --> 00:13:33.765
Um, and they,

306
00:13:33.785 --> 00:13:35.485
and that that still is functioning actually.

307
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And it allowed eventually, of course, the, the Russians

308
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to be self-sufficient in, their, their,

309
00:13:41.365 --> 00:13:43.485
their arms supply, which was a big problem

310
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because the Dutch for a long time were the main supplier.

311
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So this, this arms trade apart from the mercenary side,

312
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the arms trade is also very important, which is not,

313
00:13:52.645 --> 00:13:54.325
which is rather unknown.

314
00:13:54.525 --> 00:13:57.685
I mean, there's a moment in, I think it's 1660, the war

315
00:13:57.685 --> 00:13:59.285
with Poland and Russia is going on.

316
00:13:59.665 --> 00:14:03.725
And in the north, the White Sea port of Arch Angel Ssk,

317
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a shipload of 10,000 muskets arise.

318
00:14:07.015 --> 00:14:10.085
Dutch, Dutch made Dutch manufactured,

319
00:14:10.085 --> 00:14:13.045
and Dutch shipped as well, 10,000 muskets.

320
00:14:13.045 --> 00:14:15.365
That's about, enough for an entire army.

321
00:14:15.465 --> 00:14:17.125
And that was just one load coming in.

322
00:14:17.425 --> 00:14:20.445
So there's all this kind of, you know, let's say

323
00:14:21.005 --> 00:14:23.045
transfer of technology, you could argue,

324
00:14:23.375 --> 00:14:24.645
which is taking place.

325
00:14:24.745 --> 00:14:27.845
And then also this kind of crucial role as a sort of,

326
00:14:27.985 --> 00:14:31.285
you know, military almost, midwives

327
00:14:31.285 --> 00:14:32.765
or something like that, sometimes

328
00:14:32.825 --> 00:14:34.525
for the Russian, for the Russian side.

329
00:14:34.585 --> 00:14:37.525
Um, and again, some of the, the biggest Western friends

330
00:14:37.625 --> 00:14:40.125
of Peter, the great, are Patrick Gordon,

331
00:14:40.465 --> 00:14:42.285
who is Scottish, and Francois Laur,

332
00:14:42.305 --> 00:14:44.925
who is Geneva from Switzerland or Switzerland, didn't exist

333
00:14:45.105 --> 00:14:47.645
or did exist, but Geneva didn't belong to it yet, I think.

334
00:14:48.105 --> 00:14:50.725
Um, and they are both married with,

335
00:14:51.125 --> 00:14:52.605
Daughters of these, this, this large

336
00:14:52.605 --> 00:14:53.925
Dutch mercenary family.

337
00:14:54.665 --> 00:14:58.365
And again, there's this kind of influence there, which,

338
00:14:58.415 --> 00:15:00.605
which is important because it, it, you know,

339
00:15:00.605 --> 00:15:03.165
it explains why Peter degrade was able to set up an army,

340
00:15:03.165 --> 00:15:05.045
which is successful in the end and so on.

341
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And Gordon's diaries,

342
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Patrick Gordon's diaries are a key source

343
00:15:08.585 --> 00:15:09.725
for Peter de Great's rule.

344
00:15:10.145 --> 00:15:12.445
He kept a di a very meticulous diary,

345
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which unfortunately we don't have everything off anymore,

346
00:15:14.425 --> 00:15:17.365
but has been recently been republished actually in Scotland,

347
00:15:17.945 --> 00:15:19.965
in its, original version.

348
00:15:20.105 --> 00:15:22.445
And, everything we have, which has never been done

349
00:15:22.445 --> 00:15:24.485
before, in fact as well, which is really worth a while.

350
00:15:24.485 --> 00:15:26.085
Well done as well. That particular diary,

351
00:15:26.085 --> 00:15:27.165
there's no denying it.

352
00:15:27.165 --> 00:15:29.405
What is strange about it is, is how much,

353
00:15:29.465 --> 00:15:31.325
and that's why the book is called The Forgotten Friendship,

354
00:15:31.325 --> 00:15:34.525
because how much of it has been forgotten in some ways,

355
00:15:34.785 --> 00:15:38.805
and that I, you know, it, it's, that is hard to explain,

356
00:15:38.945 --> 00:15:42.725
in some ways except for the fact that, yeah,

357
00:15:42.725 --> 00:15:45.045
you can't really call the Netherlands for 200 years much

358
00:15:45.045 --> 00:15:47.165
of a main player on the world stage, right?

359
00:15:47.405 --> 00:15:49.925
I mean, it's hard to imagine that they once were,

360
00:15:49.925 --> 00:15:51.765
if you look at them nowadays, it seems,

361
00:15:52.085 --> 00:15:54.005
although again, as I point out at the very end of the book,

362
00:15:54.225 --> 00:15:56.885
the Dutch were an enormously important trading partner

363
00:15:57.145 --> 00:16:00.205
of the post-Soviet Russia until 2014,

364
00:16:00.305 --> 00:16:01.885
by the way, that has disappeared.

365
00:16:01.885 --> 00:16:04.645
But they did a lot for the innovation of the Russian economy

366
00:16:04.815 --> 00:16:07.725
after the fall of the Soviet Union, where they also pay,

367
00:16:07.835 --> 00:16:10.245
play an outsized role, which is one of the reasons

368
00:16:10.245 --> 00:16:12.845
that the Dutch seem to show up sometimes at G seven me,

369
00:16:12.845 --> 00:16:15.965
meetings as G eight or nine together with the Belgians,

370
00:16:15.965 --> 00:16:17.605
because the Belgians cannot be left out if

371
00:16:17.605 --> 00:16:18.725
the Dutch are invited, right?

372
00:16:18.785 --> 00:16:22.965
So, so in any event, but so,

373
00:16:22.965 --> 00:16:24.245
but it, it, it is hidden

374
00:16:24.345 --> 00:16:25.965
and in fact, even in the 17th century,

375
00:16:26.035 --> 00:16:27.325
it's a little bit hidden as well.

376
00:16:27.755 --> 00:16:30.685
It's not as evident as obvious that those two are actually,

377
00:16:30.705 --> 00:16:32.365
reinforcing each other

378
00:16:32.425 --> 00:16:35.405
or that the Dutch are modernizing Russia, which is

379
00:16:35.405 --> 00:16:38.085
of course is in some ways what is going on here

380
00:16:38.085 --> 00:16:39.245
and laying the groundwork

381
00:16:39.265 --> 00:16:40.965
or helping to lay the groundwork

382
00:16:40.985 --> 00:16:42.765
for Russia being a great power.

383
00:16:42.765 --> 00:16:43.805
And it should not be forgotten.

384
00:16:43.805 --> 00:16:47.685
Russia wasn't really a European great power yet before 1700,

385
00:16:47.745 --> 00:16:50.925
or certainly not seen as such, perhaps mistakenly so,

386
00:16:50.925 --> 00:16:53.845
but only on the piece of the great who dies in 1725,

387
00:16:53.915 --> 00:16:56.245
it's clear that it has joint, the Maine players,

388
00:16:56.245 --> 00:16:59.605
whereas the Dutch and Sweden and so on are disappearing

389
00:16:59.605 --> 00:17:00.965
and Poland disappears as well.

390
00:17:01.605 --> 00:17:04.445
I do hope they, they, understand better at the end of,

391
00:17:04.445 --> 00:17:07.845
of reading the book in how far, you know, these kind

392
00:17:07.845 --> 00:17:12.245
of cross-cultural, contacts are important in,

393
00:17:12.785 --> 00:17:15.485
you know, having societies make progress.

394
00:17:15.685 --> 00:17:18.765
I mean, I, I'm, I'm not even wanting sure if I should say

395
00:17:19.285 --> 00:17:20.645
progress for the positive,

396
00:17:20.985 --> 00:17:24.165
but certainly progress technologically speaking as well

397
00:17:24.165 --> 00:17:26.245
as in terms of mindset and so on.

398
00:17:26.265 --> 00:17:27.605
And ultimately that's

399
00:17:27.605 --> 00:17:29.485
what the Dutch certainly do for Russia.

400
00:17:29.635 --> 00:17:32.845
That is, had it not been for their presence

401
00:17:32.865 --> 00:17:35.285
and their activity, who knows what would've happened.

402
00:17:35.355 --> 00:17:36.965
Clearly they didn't do it on their own.

403
00:17:36.965 --> 00:17:38.965
Clearly the Russians had to respond to it

404
00:17:38.965 --> 00:17:41.765
and did respond to it, to the kind of, let's say,

405
00:17:41.765 --> 00:17:44.165
triggers the Dutch offer them for that matter, right?

406
00:17:44.265 --> 00:17:47.885
But, at the same time, I think that's a very, it,

407
00:17:47.885 --> 00:17:51.445
it's, it's a very important role as the sort of, you know,

408
00:17:51.725 --> 00:17:53.685
conduits which is being played here

409
00:17:53.785 --> 00:17:56.405
and Russia ever since, despite its,

410
00:17:56.505 --> 00:17:58.285
its grandstanding nowadays of,

411
00:17:58.285 --> 00:17:59.565
we all have to do it on our own.

412
00:17:59.625 --> 00:18:02.645
And that is a kind of common theme you hear Russians say in

413
00:18:02.645 --> 00:18:04.565
the nineties and the twenties and the 21st century.

414
00:18:04.785 --> 00:18:07.165
Russia often has benefited

415
00:18:07.165 --> 00:18:10.365
and has done best by actually, you know,

416
00:18:10.845 --> 00:18:13.165
learning from others and helping, and,

417
00:18:13.165 --> 00:18:15.325
and relying on others as every country

418
00:18:15.385 --> 00:18:17.005
and every society, I think does.

419
00:18:17.465 --> 00:18:19.325
So, I mean, those kind of things, I hope

420
00:18:19.325 --> 00:18:21.165
that it makes people think like that,

421
00:18:21.165 --> 00:18:23.725
that countries do not exist in isolation and history

422
00:18:23.725 --> 00:18:25.805
and do not develop in isolation, in history.

Rediscovering Unfinished Academic Histories

00:00:00 - In part, because it quite coincidentally, came to me as a project at the same time because, it forced me to, to answer a question, which had been bothering me for about a quarter century or so when I started the project. so those are two reasons, completely unrelated in some ways. but it started really with, yeah, it started actually around 2008 or so. I was working on some project, an other project, a previous book, regarding, Dutchman who had worked for the SAR in Russia in the 17th century.
00:00:34 - that there was supposedly somewhere at Columbia University in New York, a dissertation which had been defended on something which was related to it, a discussion of a, an Dutch embassy, which had been in Moscow, in 1664 and 1665. I found the author, who was no longer work as an academic, was doing something else, and I wrote him an email and I said, would you mind, or, I see that you were preparing a dissertation,
00:01:06 - How is that? And he said, well, it's because I never finished it. I said, I see. Well, thank you for letting me know, because it means that I'm not missing out on something here you may have found. And that was it. But about a decade later or so, a message appeared on one of the h whatever, history websites, I can't remember if it was H Net or something in which the son of this particular person asked if anyone was interested in his father's notes
00:01:39 - which his father was, had been trying to use, for a dissertation, but never finished or defended this dissertation because his father had become a member of the faculty. whatever defense, union you have in the United States called a a, a a UP, I believe. and, I wrote back and I said, hi, actually, I am interested in this, and I wouldn't mind having a look at it, because I think it might be a starting point, for me to,
00:02:11 - unbeknownst to me, and a friend of mine who was in Canada at the time, David Koppen offender yeah. Who unfortunately, has died a few years ago, rather too young, wrote down a lo a note as well to the same person, Stuart Kand, and said, yes, you should have both of Bloom right about this, because he knows all about it because of his previous research. So I got this enormous box with information. It is all an old cue cards and certain kind of early versions of chapters being typed out on an old fashioned typewriter,
00:02:43 - And I went through it, and, and Stewart Kand was nice enough to even digitize a few things, but there was nothing there too much, which in the end I didn't know already. in part because, it was written from a very economic perspective, which Was usual in the postwar historiography. I think a lot people wrote from particular primacy of economics in discussing history. and in the end, I could, I could see in some ways perhaps why the dissertation had

Dutch-Russian Diplomatic Relations in the 17th Century

00:03:14 - what he had found it. It just, it, the embassy itself is a, is a, is an annoying embassy in some ways. I've seen the actual Dutch transcript. There's a 500 page folio report about it in handwriting. I've read that. And it's, it's all the time quarreling about diplomatic protocol between, to both sides. And there's no much else going on. How do you address it, SAR Do you need all the 25 titles? And the Dutch, are the dutchess being addressed as sort of minions because they're republic and so on.
00:03:46 - that was sort of disdain towards republics, that Czar had an inferiority complex, still not being recognized as an emperor, basically in the West around this time. So this was nothing new, and otherwise it was a quarreling about minor economic issues, issues of trade that is, between whatever, you know, people having been bribed or asking for bribes and so on, the Russian side, officials, et cetera, et cetera. But, it did allow me to focus on, exploring this particular, relationship
00:04:19 - or Moscow vi, as it quite often was called, still in those days. And I had already found, and again, I'm not original in that, that in fact, there are a lot of Dutch men, sometimes even Dutch women, you trip over, if you look at Russian history in the 17th century. is that a great surprise? No, it is not, of course, because the Dutch Republic was a major player in the 17th century European world. I mean, they were everywhere. Dutch sailors, Dutch traders, Dutch merchants, and so on.
00:04:51 - someone should really write something more about it and therefore at the same time weigh this significance and establish when it began and when it began to fade as well. Because really there's very little nowadays in Russia, or let's say previously in the Soviet Union, which seems or looks Dutch or has anything to do with Dutch origins. I know, of course, it was a little bit, let's say,
00:05:23 - Dutch, student of the Russian language who had actually count the 2000 Dutch derived words in Russian 2000, all basically going back to the 17th and early 18th centuries, by and large. But, which is kind of interesting about it, this is controversial because some se said, no, no, there's some of them are German, for example, rather than Dutch. And, you know, that's hard to establish sometimes, which is which if they're, usually if they're maritime terms, they tend to be Dutch more.
00:05:52 - otherwise it's, it's, it's a matter of debate still. Anyway, so that's how I got to the project. And, yeah, I decided once I started to dig deeper and, and, and add to what I already knew, that this was, important enough to, to look at, in terms of, you know, cross-cultural influence, et cetera, in terms of, how we came to be who we are today in our world, not so much, perhaps the, the Netherlands, but more Russia.

Academic Journey Through Eastern European History

00:06:23 - when I was a graduate student, I mean, I, I took degrees in Amsterdam, really, and I already worked with Eastern European specialists, but that was in the late stages of the Cold War. And we only look really at the Soviet Union as a result, right? But when I started my doctoral studies in Montreal at McGill University, I worked with someone called Valentine Boss, who was also a Soviet specialist, although, oddly enough, he also specialized on John Milton. at the same time, I also worked with someone for a minor field, who is called Philip Longworth.
00:06:59 - all on Russian or Eastern European history, very readable books, with interesting viewpoints, sometimes quite original. And he took me at McGill University two, the rare book section in which he showed me a book of which there were two copies in English, by a Dutch sailor, John Streis, John Streis, he's called an English books from the 1680s published in London. And, this was a 400 page effort
00:07:30 - for over 25 years or so, in the middle of the 17th century, part of which had taken place in Russia from about 1668 to 1671 or so. that book, that particular book by Strauss, was apparently a bestseller. it was originally written Induction SE and published in 1676, but it had been published in German. It had been published in French and in fact, in the Russian, national Library in St. Petersburg, there are 23 different editions
00:08:01 - It turned out that even the Russians had been interested already under Peter De Great, because Peter had two people at different times translate parts of it, in handwriting in his chancellors. And later on, under Stalin of all people, the book had finally fully been translated into Russian. now that book was interesting. A lot of that book is made up plagiarized, whatever, but the actual writer, did have some of these adventures, even though he could not sign his
00:08:32 - but he could write a 400 page book five years later. in other words, it was ghostwritten, but the stories he tells, he has been telling, he was telling to his ghost writer, panned out to some degree, certainly the ones in Russia, because in Russian archives, I found, the sailor and 14 of his mates crossed the Russian border in 1668, including, in their equipment was sail cloth,
00:09:04 - And they built a ship, as the book says, to the south of Moscow, which was haul down the river, that is the oca and, and the Mosque River, sorry, the Ulca River down to Ashan on the Caspian Sea in Nigeria. And he was part of it. And indeed, he had been actually escaping from Cozak Rebels had made his way to Iran where he had been captured and enslaved. And in the Dutch East India Go's books,

Dutch Influence on Russian History and Culture

00:09:35 - by the Dutchess India Company in is Fahan Iran. And all of that had happened. It led me to think more about the average people from the Netherlands who went to Russia, and I realized there was a whole bunch of them. We only knew some of the leading lights because they could read and write because they were rich and so on. It turned out un underneath there, there were all kinds of other people who had absolutely left no record. it seems, and there may still be records,
00:10:04 - of certain merchants and so on. And therefore, I began, and this was, let's say, I started this project after my first two books, which were on the Soviet Union in the early two thousands. And then I realized this was a treasure trove. There was all kind of stuff there. There were mercenaries, for example, who as officers went to, to, to fight for that sar. There was the first Russian secular book translated into Russian, which is not a religious book, which was printed, was actually a Dutch drill manual.
00:10:38 - own war with Spain ended. They got their independence at Westfall in 1648. And the Dutch, the Dutch officers were unemployed and went to Russia to train the Russian army, which went to war in 16 53, 4 or five years later against Poland. And for the first time was able to fight Poland to a draw and sign a piece piece, which gave Russia Eastern Ukraine. So there you go. So there was all this kind of stuff, which,
00:11:06 - So there were more people. There was this, this strange translator at the SARS court venues whose father was a Dutch trader, and, you know, he could clearly read Dutch, this guy. And he's involved with a, with a mayor of Amsterdam who draws up the first lifelike map Siberia and writes a thousand page work in folio about Siberia, actually the first kind of account of Siberia we have, which is written from a sort of, you know, quasi modern perspective, et cetera.
00:11:37 - Dutch scholars were looking into that. Russian scholars were looking into that part. So I didn't have to do too much in that direction, but all these things, all the time came together. So from one thing to the next, I, I kept going with this, although meanwhile, I, I I, I started to embark at other projects, and then At some point this, you know, email appeared as well. And that got me back then to this book. Finally, I found it interesting, and I think there is more to be done there, although is a German scholar who looked into this is the role played by, Dutch medical doctors, actually,
00:12:09 - to be quite a few personal physicians of the SAR working in, Moscow even before 1600 already. And then after 1600 as well, actually. it is evident to some extent that, Peter De Great was great friends with a Dutch, yeah, surgeon. He was not really trained as, as a physician, but just as a surgeon. which in those days, of course, is a different sort of training. You had a sort of artisan training who was at Peter's court for quite a while as a sort of boon companion who, who,

Influence of Dutch in Russian Military History

00:12:42 - and so on, who already was earlier with that group. Who, which had faced this, this Cozak rebellion around 1670 at Ashan and the Ian Sea and so on, that sort of person. There's quite a few of them. You can find actually people have to something to do with the apo, with the, the, the drugs in other words, and, and the kind of little kind of yard they they set up there. That's something which can and should probably be explored more. There's other things too I find interesting. There are a few Dutch people.
00:13:14 - One is involved with, the, manufacturing of brick for brick houses, and then of course is the arms industry itself. which the, the oldest Russian arms factory is at Ula South, west of Moscow. That was set up by a group of Dutch guys. and they, and that that still is functioning actually. And it allowed eventually, of course, the, the Russians to be self-sufficient in, their, their,
00:13:43 - because the Dutch for a long time were the main supplier. So this, this arms trade apart from the mercenary side, the arms trade is also very important, which is not, which is rather unknown. I mean, there's a moment in, I think it's 1660, the war with Poland and Russia is going on. And in the north, the White Sea port of Arch Angel Ssk, a shipload of 10,000 muskets arise. Dutch, Dutch made Dutch manufactured, and Dutch shipped as well, 10,000 muskets.
00:14:15 - And that was just one load coming in. So there's all this kind of, you know, let's say transfer of technology, you could argue, which is taking place. And then also this kind of crucial role as a sort of, you know, military almost, midwives or something like that, sometimes for the Russian, for the Russian side. and again, some of the, the biggest Western friends of Peter, the great, are Patrick Gordon, who is Scottish, and Francois Laur, who is Geneva from Switzerland or Switzerland, didn't exist
00:14:48 - and they are both married with, Daughters of these, this, this large Dutch mercenary family. And again, there's this kind of influence there, which, which is important because it, it, you know, it explains why Peter degrade was able to set up an army, which is successful in the end and so on. And Gordon's diaries, Patrick Gordon's diaries are a key source for Peter de Great's rule. He kept a di a very meticulous diary, which unfortunately we don't have everything off anymore, but has been recently been republished actually in Scotland,
00:15:20 - And, everything we have, which has never been done before, in fact as well, which is really worth a while. Well done as well. That particular diary, there's no denying it. What is strange about it is, is how much, and that's why the book is called The Forgotten Friendship, because how much of it has been forgotten in some ways, and that I, you know, it, it's, that is hard to explain, in some ways except for the fact that, yeah, you can't really call the Netherlands for 200 years much of a main player on the world stage, right? I mean, it's hard to imagine that they once were,

The Dutch Influence on Russia's Economic Development

00:15:52 - although again, as I point out at the very end of the book, the Dutch were an enormously important trading partner of the post-Soviet Russia until 2014, by the way, that has disappeared. But they did a lot for the innovation of the Russian economy after the fall of the Soviet Union, where they also pay, play an outsized role, which is one of the reasons that the Dutch seem to show up sometimes at G seven me, meetings as G eight or nine together with the Belgians, because the Belgians cannot be left out if the Dutch are invited, right? So, so in any event, but so,
00:16:24 - and in fact, even in the 17th century, it's a little bit hidden as well. It's not as evident as obvious that those two are actually, reinforcing each other or that the Dutch are modernizing Russia, which is of course is in some ways what is going on here and laying the groundwork or helping to lay the groundwork for Russia being a great power. And it should not be forgotten. Russia wasn't really a European great power yet before 1700, or certainly not seen as such, perhaps mistakenly so, but only on the piece of the great who dies in 1725,
00:16:56 - whereas the Dutch and Sweden and so on are disappearing and Poland disappears as well. I do hope they, they, understand better at the end of, of reading the book in how far, you know, these kind of cross-cultural, contacts are important in, you know, having societies make progress. I mean, I, I'm, I'm not even wanting sure if I should say progress for the positive, but certainly progress technologically speaking as well
00:17:26 - And ultimately that's what the Dutch certainly do for Russia. That is, had it not been for their presence and their activity, who knows what would've happened. Clearly they didn't do it on their own. Clearly the Russians had to respond to it and did respond to it, to the kind of, let's say, triggers the Dutch offer them for that matter, right? But, at the same time, I think that's a very, it, it's, it's a very important role as the sort of, you know, conduits which is being played here and Russia ever since, despite its,
00:18:23 - we all have to do it on our own. And that is a kind of common theme you hear Russians say in the nineties and the twenties and the 21st century. Russia often has benefited and has done best by actually, you know, learning from others and helping, and, and relying on others as every country and every society, I think does. So, I mean, those kind of things, I hope that it makes people think like that, that countries do not exist in isolation and history and do not develop in isolation, in history.

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