Educated immigrants in Ivan’s service were relatively few, so Russians had to be sent out. However, most Russians of the time lacked not only knowledge of a foreign language but also the required degree of sophistication and self-discipline; hence rules were laid down for them to follow. The instructions to an embassy to Poland, which was headed by a senior counsellor
‘You should drink moderately, and not to the point of drunkenness. Wherever you happen to drink you should watch yourself and drink carefully, lest your carelessness bring dishonour to Our name. Any misbehaviour on your part will dishonour both Us and yourselves, so watch yourselves in all things.’ Finally came rules regarding precedence within the embassy, and the enforcement of discipline: ‘Reprimand anyone who disobeys you, and hit him.’ 18
The repetition and the violence reflect a largely oral culture and a boorish society with a tendency to anarchy. Despite this, the routines put in place for managing Ivan’s foreign relations, with their meticulous paperwork, their care for precedent, and their tendency never to take anything for granted, were to help Russia keep abreast of the European diplomatic system, which by 1500 was still in the process of formation. 19
Cynics may define a diplomat as someone who goes abroad to lie for his country, but diplomats have usually been spies too, in the sense of being used to gather intelligence. The Russians were no exception. One embassy was instructed to gather political intelligence not only on Austria and Hungary but also on France and Brittany, to establish what the Habsburg emperor Maximilian’s intentions were towards Hungary. (Maximilian had asked Muscovy for help when Matthias Corvinus, king of Hungary, captured Vienna in 1485.) But Moscow also wanted to know what the Emperor’s present marital status was, and what suitable brides for the Grand Prince’s sons might be available at his court. A mission sent to Poland in 1493 was charged in particular with finding out about Conrad of Mazovia. Was he now subservient to King Casimir, with whom he had been in conflict? What dues and services did he owe Casimir? What were his relations with Prussia? What was his position in the princely pecking order? And how populous and powerful was the principality he ruled? The list went on. 20
How quickly Muscovy learned the language of diplomacy and how to seize advantage and avoid the pitfalls of the diplomatic game is illustrated by the handling of a seemingly flattering overture from the Holy Roman Emperor. In 1489 an emissary called Nicholas Poppel arrived with a letter of credence from the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick III. He proceeded to outline a proposal for a dynastic marriage between Ivan’s daughter and one of three candidates: Duke Albrecht of Padua, Count John of Saxony, and Sigismund, margrave of Baden. He also asked if Ivan would accept the title ‘king’ from the Emperor. The proposal might seem flattering, but the next day Poppel was told that Ivan would send his reply to the marriage proposal to the Emperor with his own emissary. As for the offer of a royal crown, Ivan affected outrage at the implication that he was not the Emperor’s equal: ‘By the grace of God we have always been sovereign in our territories, since the first of our ancestors.’ He did not hold his titles thanks to anyone else, nor had he purchased them: ‘We can be regarded as no one’s subject by any authority. We hold our title only from Christ. We reject rights deriving from others.’ 21
Clearly the Emperor was underinformed about the Grand Prince. Indeed, Poppel’s instructions had included a charge to find out whether Ivan was a vassal of the Polish king, and Ivan’s men had to explain to Poppel that, so far from being his vassal, Ivan was both richer and more powerful than Casimir. 22 The response to Frederick’s marriage proposal was delivered by an embassy headed by Iurii Trakhaniot. It explained that Russia’s rulers had long had relations of ‘love and alliance’ with the Roman emperors, ‘who had given Rome to the Pope and themselves ruled from Byzantium even until the time of my own father-in-law John Palaeologue’. It was therefore inappropriate for Ivan’s daughter to marry princes of such low rank as had been proposed, although a match with Frederick’s son, the recently widowered Archduke Maximilian, might be possible.
Although Muscovy’s department of foreign affairs, the Ambassadorial Office, was not formally established until the 1500s, the late 1400s saw the foundation, of Muscovy’s foreign service and intelligence-gathering system. It was to develop into an essential and most effective instrument in the building of Russian empires.
