FRENCH REPORTS ON THE ARRIVAL IN ITALY OF THE COURIERS OF IVAN IV ISTOMA SHEVRIGIN AND YAKOV MOLVYANINOV IN 1581 AND 1582

The article is devoted to the French sources, containing information about two missions (embassies) of representatives of Tsar Ivan IV to Rome in 1581 and 1582. Until now they have not been collected, not translated into Russian and not studied. The present work solves these problems by systematizing the revealed documents, which are conventionally divided into three components. The first consists of diplomatic correspondence of 1581–1582, which mentions the circumstances of the arrival and mission of two Russian envoys, Istoma Shevrigin and Yakov Molvyaninov. The second is a printed “flyleaf” of 1581, published in Lyon by a follower of the Catholic League, Jean Patrasson, and apparently written by a clergyman. Finally, the 1611 French Mercure, the first official periodical moderate in matters of faith, also devoted special attention to the arrival in Rome of Russian representatives, thirty years after the event. A common theme of all the sources is the project for an anti-Ottoman league, in which an important place was given to the Russian state and its conversion “to obedience” to the Roman Catholic Church. It is concluded that the royal power, represented by Henry III, guided by his own interests, feared the implementation of such a scenario. A new great European war, a possible crusade to the East and difficulties in the Mediterranean trade could have hurt the state of France, exhausted by years of civil wars. For the representatives of the Catholic League, opposed to the king, by contrast, the possibility of the Russian state’s imminent conversion to the Catholic faith and its participation in the struggle against the Ottoman Empire represented a vivid triumph of the Catholic faith and the swift defeat of “heretics” and “infidels”. It is also stated that the original information about Chevrigin’s embassy, printed in the French Mercury in 1611, belongs to the Jesuit A. Possevino, but in the French interpretation it is given as an example of the possibility of inter-confessional accord.

history of sixteenth-century Russia, history of sixteenth-century France, Franco-Russian relations, Ivan IV, Henry III of Valois, Catholic League, Baltic question, Livonian War, religious wars