This is a past event
Cultural Diffusion and Catholicism in Early Modern Russia
and Northern Europe
The ongoing publication by RIISS of the six volumes of the Diary of Patrick Gordon, located in the Russian Military Historical Archive in Moscow and edited by Dr. Dmitry Fedosov, has been widely welcomed throughout the academic community as the provision of a key source for Scottish, Russian and European history. The occasion of the launch of Volume IV on 29 November will be used for a discussion of two interconnected themes: Cultural Diffusion and Catholicism in Northern Europe. The starting points will be two papers that could not be presented at the launch of Volume III in March.
PROGRAMME
10-11.15Dr.Elena Alekseeva, Ekaterinburg.‘Patrick Gordon and the Westernisation of Russia.’ This paper looks at not only Westernisation but also Cultural Diffusion and Modernisation. Dr. Alekseeva will draw on her extensive research and publication in the field of Northern European innovations in Russia, making use of the research project ‘The Waves of Westernisation in Russia (XVII-beginning of the XX century’ supported by a Russian Foundation for Humanities Grant.There will be discussion of how to integrate work on Gordon and his Diary with such programmes as ‘Cultures of Knowledge: An Intellectual Geography of the Seventeenth-Century Republic of Letters’, a collaborative interdisciplinary research project based at the University of Oxford and aimed at the reconstruction and interpretation of the correspondence networks central to the revolutionary intellectual developments of the early modern period. See http://cofk.history.ox.ac,uk/ and http://emlo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/. We will also consider ‘The Scotland, Scandinavia and North European Database’ compiled by Steve Murdoch and Alexeia Grosjean at St. Andrews and ‘ The Lion and Double-Headed Eagle’, the prosopography by Dmitry Fedosov and Oleg Nozdrin still in progress. 11.15-11.45Refreshment Break11.45-13.00Dr Tom McInally, Aberdeen., ‘Patrick Gordon and the Jesuit College at Braunsberg’.This paper leads on from an account of Gordon’s education at the Jesuit College in Braunsberg (Braniewo) towards an analysis of the significance of his adherence to Roman Catholicism in later years. Dr McInally shows how Gordon found it necessary to be careful about the manner in which he wrote his Diary. We will also consider other sources, including the Catholic Library and Archive recently deposited in the Aberdeen University Archive. Professor Robert Frost will lead the discussion on Catholicism in Northern Europe.1300-1400 Lunch Break1400 Video presentation, Russian Scots, from Russian TV series Russkii Mir. Translation of Commentary by Dmitry Fedosov, followed by:
1500 The Launch of The Diary of Patrick Gordon, Volume IV
Geoffrey Parker writes: 'I started to study the military history of seventeenth-century Europe forty-five years ago, and yet I have never come across a source like the Diary written by Patrick Gordon, a Scottish Catholic who in 1651, at the age of sixteen, fled his native land to become a "soldier of fortune."' Parker continues: 'Dmitry Fedosov of the Russian Academy of Sciences is producing a scholarly edition of Gordon’s entire surviving text in both the original and in Russian.... Fedosov includes an excellent apparatus criticus, identifying places, persons, and foreign terms; he provides a detailed index.' The high standard set in the earlier volumes is continued in the fourth. Considering the years 1684-1689, the diary describes all manner of military activities, in particular two campaigns against the Ottoman Turks culminating in the capture of their fortress at Azov. In addition, Gordon gives an evocative account of a visit to Britain, meetings with King James VII and II in London followed by a reunion with friends and family back home in Aberdeenshire. He also tells us of many contacts with the future Peter the Great before and during the young tsar's seizure of power from his half-sister the Regent Sophia.
- Hosted by
- RIISS, University of Aberdeen
- Venue
- HMG1, Humanity Manse, 19 College Bounds