Notes on Russia

"If you speak of Russia altogether I think one has to start somewhere, and you can’t start at the age of Enlightenment. So, the author is called Sigismund von Herberstein, and he was an Austrian ambassador to Venice. Quite enlightened for his times – it’s the Renaissance – he’s a free spirit, and he ends up being Hapsburg ambassador to Moscow, which is a rarity already. He travels through Poland or whatever was the geography of the time, and he comes to Moscow. At the time it’s not even called Russia – it’s called Muscovy – and Herberstein spends years and years there and writes this book. Also, he has agents travelling all over Russia and all the way up to Siberia, and he tells you all the history and geographics of the country. I think the book is brilliant. First of all, it gives you complete, colourful, Western insight on living in Moscow. And he gives you, very probably, the best picture of 16th-century Russia. I’m sure he sent reports home like any ambassador but his notes became this book, which became an instantaneous bestseller, because Russia was very little known in those days. Actually, if you talk of the 16th century, most of the books were ‘how to do’, you know: how to tend your garden, look after the cow or whatever; there was great curiosity about the world. So he published it in 1549 in Vienna and it was one of the first historico-geographical bestsellers in Europe, with reprints in every language possible: Latin, German, Italian. And it’s wonderful. On top of it he is quite neutral and friendly – he doesn’t take sides, it’s not like a diplomatic book. And in order to understand the Russian national character, I think it’s a key book. Because when you read it you have an impression that the days of Basil the Dark One were just how Russia is now. I can give you an example: he has a neighbouring friend, a Russian nobleman, who is an enlightened man by Russian standards of that time. The neighbour even travelled once to Lithuania, so he’s full of wonderful ideas and ‘democratic’, as you would call it now. And he dies, this neighbour. And he had three or four hundred people working as his household staff. They were all serfs, they were enslaved – these are the real peak days of enslavement in Russia. And this neighbour lets his slaves go in his will, says that they are all free people, and that it’s his gift, and they get money too. And then Herberstein says: you know, the most amazing thing happened. They celebrated, and drank for one week non-stop, 24 hours a day, and then they all collectively went and voluntarily sold themselves to someone else. They sold themselves one week later, got more money and got drunk. And he says: that, I cannot understand. Because Herberstein is a free spirit – he’s very friendly towards Russia but he can’t understand how people prefer to be slaves. Anyway, if you have to start somewhere, this is a fantastic book. It’s not hard to read and it’s highly entertaining. You get the flavour of it: the ambience of Muscovite, pre-modern Russia. Which is the root of whatever comes out later."