Johann-Geeorg Korb - Diary of an Austrian Secretary of Legation at the Court of Czar Peter the Great

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RUSSIA THROUGH EUROPEAN EYES

No. 8
General Editor : Dr. A. G. CROSS, University of East Anglia

DIARY OF AN AUSTRIAN SECRETARY OF LEGATION

DIARY
OF
AN AUSTRIAN SECRETARY OF LEGATION
AT THE
COURT OF CZAR PETER THE GREAT

BY

JOHANN-GEORG KORB

TRANSLATED BY AND EDITED BY
THE COUNT MAC DONNELL

TWO VOLUMES IN ONE

First published 1700

By Frank Cass Publishers

Published 2013 by Routledge

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

711 Third Avenue, New York, NY, 10017, USA

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

Latin edition 1700

English edition 1863

ISBN 13: 978-0-714-61538-7 (hbk)

DIARY
OF
AN AUSTRIAN SECRETARY OF LEGATION
AT THE
COURT OF CZAR PETER THE GREAT.

TRANSLATED FROM THE ORIGINAL LATIN

AND EDITED BY

THE COUNT MAC DONNELL
K. S. J. J., &c., &c., &c.

IN TWO VOLS.VOL. I.

LONDON:
BRADBURY & EVANS, II , BOUVERIE STREET

Translators Preface.

Of all the life of the Czar, his early years are those concerning which we have the least light. I am indebted to a learned person, of a celebrated German University, for those which I have had myself. He had the kindness to lend me a Latin relation of the Embassy which the Emperor Leopold sent into Muscovy in the person of M. de Guarient. The Secretary of that Embassy, on his return to Germany, published a book, which he had printed at his own expense, and which he dedicated to Count de Kaunitz, Vice-Chancellor of the Empire. That work has become very rare, and I cannot tell what a help it has been to me for the early years of Peter the Great, being full of Anecdotes which are not to be found anywhere else .

De toute la vie du Czar les premires annes font celles fur quoi on a le moins de lumires. Je fuis redevable un savant dune clbre Universit dAllemagne de celles qui jai eues moi-mme. Il a bien voulume communiquer une Relation Latine de lAmbassade que lEmpereur Lopold envoya en Moscovie dans la personne de Mr. de Guarient. Le fecrtaire de cette Ambassade tant de retour en Allemagne donna un livre au public quil sit imprimer ses dpens, et quil ddia au Comte de Kaunitz, Vice-Chancelier de lEmpire. Cet ouvrage eft devenu fort rare, et je ne faurois dire de quel secours il ma t pour les premieres annes de Pierre le Grand, tant rempli de quantit danecdotes quon ne trouvera point ailleurs.Vie de Pierre I. surnomm le Grand, Empereur de Russie, &c., ddie au Comte Brhl, premier ministre du Roi de Pologne. 4 vols. 121no. Amsterdam and Leipsic, a.d. 1742.

Thus in his preface speaks a biographer of Czar Peter L, writing within fifteen years after that sovereigns death, under the patronage of Count Brhl, Prime Minister of Augustus III., King of Poland, and Elector of Saxony: so valuable as a historical source, and such a literary rarity had the Diary, now for the first time translated, become within forty years after its publication.

To its importance and its extreme scarcity we have also among other witnesses a distinguished Russian savant of the present day, Friedrich von Adelung. After having been employed by the Russian Government to collect, in various libraries and archives throughout Europe, materials connected with the history of Russia, Von Adelung drew up a critical and literary review of all travellers in Russia, from the earliest period down to the year 1700, whose narratives are known, a work in two volumes octavo, published simultaneously in St. Petersburg and Leisfic in 1846, which won the great Demi-doss prize. After noticing the envoy, Ignaz Christoph Edler Herr von Guarient und Rall, whom he characterises as a distinguished Statesman (ein ausgezeichneter Staatsmann), and of whose official reports to the Imperial Government, during the period of this mission in Russia, Von Adelung appears to have obtained copies from the Archives in Vienna, he proceeds in the following terms to give an account of Korb and this Diary which he has left:

Johann-Georg Korb :

Kritisch-Litterrische Uebersicht der Reisenden in Russland bis 1700, deren Berichte bekannt find, von Friedrich von Adelung, Ehrenmitglied der Kaiserlichen Academie der Wissenschasten zu St. Petersburgh, der Universitten zu Moskau, Charkow, and Kasan, &c., &c., &c. (Eines grossen Demidowschen Preises gewrdigt.) St. Petersburgh and Leipsic, 1846. 2 vols. in 8vo.

Information about Korb may be found also in Beckmanns Lit. der Aeltern Reisen, T. II., p. 377 et seq.; and in Bergemanns Peter der Grosle als Mensch und Regent. Mittau, 18231830. 8vo. torn. i. 360.

DIARIUM itiners in Moscoviam perillustris ac magnisici Domini Ignatii Christophori nobilis Domini de Guarient et Rall Sacri Romani Imperii et Regni Hungar Equitis Sacr Csar Majestatis Consiliarii Aulico-Bellici, ab Augustissimo et Invictissimo Romanorum Imperatore Leopoldo I., ad Serenissimum ac Potentissimum Tzarum et Magnum Moscovi Ducem Petrum Alexowicium anno MDCXCVIII., Ablegati Extraordinarii descriptum a Joanne Georgio Korb, p.t., Secretario Ablegationis Cesare, Accessit redditus Sutzare Majestatis a provinciis europis ad proprios limites, periculos Rebellion1S Strelitziorum, et lat in eosdem sententi cum subsecuta sanguinea executione, necnon pricipuarum Moscovi rerum compendiosa et accurata descriptio. Cum privilegio Sacr Cesare Majestatis. Vienn Austri. Typis Leopoldi Voigt, Universitat. Typog.

Both the title-page and the authors dedication to Count von Kaunitz are undated ; but as the Imperial license to print bears date the 8 th of October, 1700, we may conclude that Korbs narrative appeared in that or, at latest, in the following year.

Wir besitzen von Korb ein hchst sthtzbares und berausr seltenes Werk, das den Titel fhrt; Diarium itineris , &c. (v. Adelung, Kritisch litter risthe-Uebersicht der Reisenden in Russland, &c., vol. ii.)

Doubts have been not unfrequently expressed whether Korb was the real compiler of the Diariurn, and conjectures made that the Envoy himself wrote it, and that Korbs mere name was prefixed to it. But there are many good reasons for concluding that Korb was really the compiler.

The scarceness of this work is commonly explained by the circumstance of Peter the Greats having had his displeasure at it expressed to the Court of Vienna, especially on account of the circumstantial information about the tragic execution of the Strelitz, and that that Court allowed the unfold copies to be destroyed.

So far Von Adelung with reference to the scarcity of the Diarium: in hunting up and destroying stray copies, of which the most persevering efforts must have been employed by the agents of Peter abroad, for only two copies are believed to exist at present in Germanyone in the Imperial Library in Vienna, and the other in the Public Library at Wolsenbttel, where it is esteemed such a curiosity as to be shown under glass. The British Museum possesses a copy. Four or five other copies are extant in public or private collections.

See Beckmanns Lit. d. Aeltern Reissen, tom. ii. 377 et seq. Also Schmeizeli Orat. de titulo Imperatoris quern Czaarus Russorum sibi dari prtendit, 57. Aretins Beitrge zur Geschichte der Literatur. 1804, Januar, 62. Meiners Vergleichung des ltern und neurn Russlands, &c., tom. i. 32. Eberts Bibliogr. Lexikon, torn. i. 947, u. a. m.

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