Russia полностью

Artemii Shchigolev was an example — a professional serviceman who began to serve at Livny in his youth, helping to guard the steppe frontier. He was transferred to Bronnitsy just outside Moscow for a time, but was wounded and taken prisoner at Orel during the Time of Troubles and spent over two years as a prisoner in Poland. On his return he was enlisted as a mounted musketeer and sent to Ufa in the far south-east. He spent the next twenty-five years there, at first relatively quietly, but then in the 1630s the Kalmyks burst into the Ufa region, launching themselves into a ruthless campaign of plundering and burning. Shchigolev was among those who faced them in battle. He killed two men, but was wounded by an arrow which passed right through his chest. In another battle he rode in the van of an attacking force alongside his two sons. One of them was killed in the action, and he himself received another arrow in the chest. For ‘his many services, the blood he had shed, his wounds and the blood shed by his sons’ he was eventually rewarded with a small gift of money and a modest service estate. ³²

The Kalmyks were new and unwelcome arrivals, not only to the Russians but also to other peoples between the Urals and the Caucasus. They had come from Tibet via Central Asia and, though Buddhists, were as ruthless as any of the steppe predators who had preceded them — and contemptuous of the Russians when they attempted to come to terms. Yet before long the Kalmyks were to become allies. This achievement was due in part to Moscow’s powers of diplomacy, and its deep understanding of the Kalmyks’ wants and psychology; in part to its ability, in the old imperial tradition, to divide and rule, playing them off against neighbouring Nogais, Kabardinians and Crimean Tatars; ³³ but chiefly to Russia’s success towards the end of the century in capturing the Turkish citadel of Azov. And so the Kalmyks were finally persuaded to co-operate. That said, Moscow’s diplomatic skills were as important as force in shoring up and extending Russia’s new position in Eurasia.

Effective diplomacy depends on accurate intelligence and knowledge of an opponents past as well as present condition, dealings and ambitions. Though Westerners often scorned Russians as barbarians, Moscow’s external-affairs department was already proving itself to be more effective than some of its Western counterparts. This may seem surprising, since Russian diplomacy is often, and rightly, characterized as hidebound and slow rather than brilliant. But unlike Poland’s diplomats, who were noble amateurs, Russia’s were humble professionals, trained by endlessly copying diplomatic correspondence and by listening silently, and watching closely, when their betters engaged in the often tedious formalities of governmental exchange. They recorded everything, and they maintained their records for future reference. ³⁴

This was the basis of Russia’s superior system of intelligence. But it was supplemented by the collection and transcription of news-sheets (Flugschriften), the forerunners of modern newspapers, which the Tsar ordered from his factors in western Europe. Summaries of their more important reports and digests of intelligence gathered from merchants and monks, diplomats and emigres kept the Tsar and his top officials up to date on foreign military and political news, and apprised them of any unusual events. Occasionally the Tsar would ask for a report on something abroad which had sparked his curiosity, and so the department came to be as well informed about the topography of Venice and the Florentine theatre as about the hopes and fears of the Habsburg Emperor, the policies of Denmark’s king, and the commercial pursuits of the English and the Dutch. And it was accurate intelligence about Polish politics that prompted the Tsar to send funds - through Benjamin Helmfeldt and the Marselis brothers, his agents in Germany - to support Prince Liubomirski’s rebellion of 1666, ³⁵ hoping it would help to soften the negotiating line of the Polish government at Andrusovo.