Cross-Cultural Exchange in Early Modern Europe: Translations of West-European Newspapers into Russian (c. 1600-1725)

Time period:

1 July 2013 – 30 June 2017

Project leader:

Ingrid Maier

Project member:

Aleksandr Moldovan, Daniel Waugh, Stepan Shamin, Irina Kornilaeva

Funder:

Riksbankens Jubileumsfond

Type of award:

Project grant

Total funding:

5,500,000 SEK

The project aims at developing and reinforcing an already established cooperation between internationally leading and younger historians and philologists from Sweden, Russia and the USA. Focus will be on the handwritten Russian translations of European newspapers and political pamphlets that were made in Moscow during the 17th century to inform (orally) the Tsar and his advisers on politics and culture outside of Muscovy. This information transfer was, at the same time, a cultural transfer, although the information was directed only to the political elite. Relevant questions are, for instance, what the Russian elite knew about European culture and politics; how the translators were recruited and trained; how the first printed Russian newspaper emerged (from 1703). The results will be published in a monograph and a series of articles, mostly co-authored by a historian and a linguist. Another result will be a philological edition of the Russian translations from the first part of the 1670s in order to preserve these texts in a safe manner for the future. The edition will include the foreign originals (mostly from German and Dutch newspapers) that were used in Moscow, as far as they have survived. This edition can only be achieved through a major international project. The editorial work will continue after the end of the project period, when the younger participants will have acquired the necessary experience, contributing to a long-term reinforcement of pre-modern research.