The Holy Roman Empire in the late 15th and 16th centuries travelled, described and imagined by the Muscovite ambassadors

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Mikhail Boytsov
• Subject Area: Medieval History
• Term: since 2025
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 556898201

In the late 15th and 16th centuries, the embassies of the Moscow Grand Dukes/Tsars maintained a lively and varied interaction with the various actors of the Holy Roman Empire. So far, however, no attempt has been made to examine the sources to find out how the envoys from Moscow found their way in the 'West' at that time and how they perceived the empire, its different parts and their partners there. The present proposal addresses this major research gap. This seems particularly serious against the background of the great variety of studies that have dealt intensively with the corresponding topic since the 19th century, namely how the Western (especially the imperial) envoys got to Russia, what experiences they had there and what image of this country they spread in their writings. The surviving instructions of the Muscovite ambassadors, their reports, as well as their translations of the speeches and writings of their "Western" partners into Russian are the fairly extensive sources that have so far been neglected in research. Without a good knowledge of the language and realia, as well as without constant comparison with the "Western" parallel documentation, these texts seem rather illiterate. In reality, they contain complex and rich information about how the space, culture, constitution and everyday life of the Holy Roman Empire were perceived, described and treated by the Muscovites. In order to correctly grasp this research subject, the following questions must be at first determined: 1) Under what external conditions did the Muscovites' embassy trips take place and what were their prerequisites (personnel composition, language and country knowledge, personal contacts, (un)favorable political constellations)? 2) What elements did the multi-layered (oral, written, symbolic) communication between Muscovites and the court of the Roman-German emperors and their other partners in the Holy Roman Empire consist of, how did it function, and under what conditions did it sometimes fail? 3) How were the newly acquired knowledge, experiences, and assessments formulated, passed on, and possibly instrumentalized by the ruling groups of the Moscow elite (including the ambassadors themselves)?

• DFG Programme: Research Grants