The Russian Diplomatic Mission in Istanbul during the Great Northern War (Composition, Number, and Financing)The Russian Diplomatic Mission in Istanbul During the Great Northern War (Composition, Number, and Financing)

This article examines the establishment and activities of the permanent Russian diplomatic mission at the Sublime Porte. During the Great Northern War, the Sublime Porte hosted Ambassador Pyotr Andreyevich Tolstoy (from 1702) and Resident Ivan Ivanovich Neplyuev (from 1721). However, Russian diplomats of various ranks were stationed in Istanbul almost continuously (except for a nearly five–year hiatus from 1714 to 1719). An analysis of the office records of the Ambassadorial Prikaz revealed the salaries and other payments to the head and staff of the diplomatic mission. It was established that, in preparing P. A. Tolstoy’s mission, the Ambassadorial Prikaz drew on the practice of permanent missions in Western Europe. The amount of “feed” allocated to Russian diplomats by the Sublime Porte has been clarified. It is shown that the salaries assigned by the Ambassadorial Prikaz to ambassadors, translators, and clerks in the Ottoman Empire differed only slightly from those paid to their colleagues residing in Western Europe. In Istanbul, a practice of mutually beneficial cooperation between Russian diplomats and Greek merchants developed, which allowed not only the delivery of reports to the Ambassadorial Prikaz but also the receipt of necessary sums in the currency circulating in the Ottoman Empire, without waiting for a courier from Moscow

Currency · Empire · Ottoman empire · Receipt · Sublime · Historical Influence and Diplomacy · Ottoman and Turkish Studies · Security, Politics, and Digital Transformation