“Pro arduis negociis destinandum” – Papal Delegates and the Neapolitan Succession (1328–1352)

The Integration of Bohemian and Hungarian Aristocrats into the Spanish Habsburg System via Diplomatic Encounters, Cultural Exchange, and News Management (1608–1655)

Tibor Monostori
“Momentum” Holy Crown Research Team, Research Centre for the Humanities
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Hungarian Historical Review Volume 12 Issue 2  (2023):3–36 DOI 10.38145/2023.2.171

The composite state of the Spanish Habsburgs had a fading military, financial and diplomatic predominance in Central Europe in the first half of the seventeenth century. The Bohemian and Hungarian aristocracy was, to varying extents, integrated into the Spanish Habsburg system. This article presents three forms of integration and diplomatic relationship. First, it examines diplomatic and political encounters in the main governmental bodies and diets advising the emperor in decision-making, or more specifically, in the Imperial Privy Council in Vienna and during the diets of the kingdom of Hungary. Spanish Habsburg politicians and diplomats acted in many powerful ways to establish connections with Bohemian and Hungarian aristocrats so that they follow and adjust to their political agenda. Bohemian families (Slavata, Martiniz) had close relations and alliances with Spanish councilors in Vienna (who acted as ambassadors of the Spanish king), and several Hungarian aristocrats had interactions with them during the diets in order to secure the long-term interests of the dynasty in the Kingdom of Hungary. Second, the exchange, purchase, and influence of cultural goods and objects (e.g., books and gifts) and the ways in which these cultural goods were put to use, as well as the migration of people, show that the relationship went well beyond power politics and formal diplomatic relations. Personal and cultural influence and even early signs of acculturation can be clearly detected in several Bohemian and Hungarian families (e.g., the Forgách, Pázmány, and Zrínyi families), who ordered and read hundreds of books from Spanish Habsburg authors (including several books from Spanish Habsburg diplomats) and cities and exchanged diplomatic gifts with their Spanish counterparts. People, including influential figures (soldiers and nobles), also moved among Habsburg political centers, prompted by diplomatic or family relations between Spanish Habsburg politicians and Bohemian or Hungarian families. Third, information gathered in Vienna radiated to all Spanish Habsburg states in different layers of granularity, density, and confidentiality. Top Spanish diplomats could access and transmit classified documents and the texts of international contracts obtained from Central European aristocrats and events. They also sent thousands of reports to their superiors about general news in Bohemia and Hungary. At the same time, lower-ranking nobles often struggled to keep up with and understand international events and trends and failed to get information about the key results of wars and imperial diets, since they lacked access to the network and the seniority to exert adequate influence.

Keywords: Spanish Monarchy, early modern diplomacy, Habsburg Studies, Central European aristocracy, early modern Hungary, early modern Bohemia

Introduction

Scholars have made efforts to define the nature of the Spanish Habsburg Empire (as that of any other global empire) and its importance in Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Is it best understood, they have asked, as a form of imperialism, a network, or a system?1 The smaller, Central European branch of the dynasty has been treated as something resembling a satellite of Madrid or a little brother.2 The intensity of relations between the center and this periphery gradually grew (though in a very uneven fashion and with setbacks) throughout the sixteenth century, reaching its peak during the Thirty Years’ War, after which it gradually faded. There is growing evidence in recent Hungarian secondary literature that the kingdom of Hungary became a substantial element of the Spanish Habsburg system to a different extent in some areas: either in diplomacy, world trade, warfare, or European power politics in general or in more than one of these.3

Much has been written about the interactions between the two main branches of the Habsburg dynasty (the Spanish Monarchy and the Central European Habsburg Monarchy) in general and in the first half of the seventeenth century in particular.4 Relations between Madrid and the Kingdom of Bohemia and Hungary, respectively, have also been the subject of inquiry,5 including, specifically, case studies on diplomatic relations.6 However, historians have not yet compared the impact of the global empire on the two states. What were the main differences and similarities? This is important, since if we look at hard metrics and the quantity and quality of relations and interactions, we can draw meaningful conclusions concerning cultural and diplomatic history. More precisely, historical patterns and human and social strategies can be detected and analyzed, as can the role and significance that the Bohemian and Hungarian aristocracy played in the Spanish Habsburg courts in Europe.

In the discussion below, I present three points. I offer a detailed comparison (the first to my knowledge in the secondary literature) of the two kingdoms when it comes to their general and diplomatic relations with the Spanish Monarchy, both in a quantitative and a qualitative fashion. I then examine the unique and different ways in which Bohemian and Hungarian aristocrats were integrated into the Spanish Habsburg system in diplomacy. Finally, I identify similar or identical patterns in the behaviors of the ruling elites of both lands. I put particular focus on diplomatic encounters, cultural exchange, and news management. I offer several cases in the course of this investigative journey based on archival sources or printed material, devoting somewhat more attention to cases from Hungary.

I selected the chronological scope of the essay for several reasons. In 1608, Guillén de San Clemente, who had served as the Spanish ambassador at the imperial court since 1581, died, and his successors witnessed a gradually growing, then fading intensity in the intra-dynastic relations after a relatively less eventful stage during the reign of Emperor Rudolf II (1576–1612). The most important and influential ambassadors were Baltasar de Zúñiga y Fonseca (1608–17), Iñigo Vélez de Guevara, Count of Oñate (1617–24), Francisco de Moncada, Count of Osoña, Marquess of Aytona (1624–29), Sancho de Monroy y Zúniga, Marquess of Castañeda (1633–40), and Francisco de Moura Corterreal, Marquess of Castel Rodrigo and Count of Lumiares (1648–1656). At the same time, news about the conflicts and compromise between the Habsburg dynasty and the Hungarian estates started to spread across the lands of the Spanish Monarchy.

On the other hand, 1655 was the last year in which Spanish Habsburg diplomacy made an effort to have a real, tangible, and decisive influence on a kingdom-wide political and diplomatic event: the election and coronation of the new king of Hungary, Leopold I (1657–1705), and the new palatine of Hungary, Ferenc Wesselényi (1605–67), during the Hungarian diet organized in Pozsony/Pressburg/Bratislava.

The Case of Bohemia: Integration and the Early Stages of Acculturation

The multidimensional relationship of the Bohemian and Hungarian aristocracy and nobility with the Spanish Monarchy was defined first and foremost by their geopolitical situation and their material and human resources.

Bohemia was in a unique position. Its kings were prince-electors of the Holy Roman Empire. Their votes were essential to elect the King of the Romans, who became de facto Holy Roman Emperor. For the rulers of the Spanish Monarchy after the reign of Charles V (1519–56), keeping that title in the hands of the Central European branch was of the utmost importance. At the same time, the capital of the Bohemian lands hosted the imperial court between 1578 and 1618, before its move to Vienna. These facts had several consequences.

First, Bohemian magnates were eligible for the most prestigious imperial councilor roles on the Imperial Privy Council or the War Council. In those political positions, they interacted with Spanish Habsburg envoys in a business-as-usual fashion. Vilém Slavata of Chlum and Georg Adam Martinitz, for instance, were among the privy councilors (in 1637–52 and 1638–51, respectively),7 and Václav Eusebius František, prince of Lobkowicz, held the presidency of the Imperial War Council (1652–65). They established intense relations with the representatives of the Spanish Embassy in Vienna when it came to joint decision-making between the two Habsburg branches. In addition, the Spanish ambassadors were councilors of state themselves, too, in Spain, and they were regularly invited to the sessions of the Imperial Privy Council. The Bohemian magnates attended most sessions during their membership. In contrast, no Hungarian aristocrat was granted such a significant role until 1646, when Pál Pálffy (1592–1653), future palatine of Hungary (1649–53), became privy councilor. That said, neither he nor his Hungarian successors enjoyed actual and regular influence on this political body advising the emperor in imperial decision-making since they lived far from the imperial court.

Second, the presence of people of Spanish origin and, in general, the Spanish cultural milieu were much more tangible and quantifiable in Bohemia than in Hungary. When the Spanish Monarchy intervened in the Thirty Years’ War (1618–1648) and the anti-Habsburg alliance of Protestant princes (which included Bohemian magnates) was defeated in 1620 (the Battle of White Mountain), many of their confiscated lands in Bohemia were given de iure to nobles and military commanders from Spain or from the Spanish Netherlands. Baltasar de Marradas y Vic, for instance, received Hluboká and Vltavou. Charles Bonaventure de Longueval, Count of Buquoy, was given the lands of Nové Hrady, Rožmberk, and Vltavou. Martin de Höef Huerta was granted Velhartice. Guillermo Verdugo received Doupov. Nothing comparable happened in Hungary in these decades.8

Marriages also made the bonds between the Spanish and the Bohemian nobility closer. Members of the Pernstein, Dietrichstein, and Popel de Lobkowicz families married Spanish damas, and their descendants maintained strong relations with Spanish diplomats. In 1603, the High Chancellor of Bohemia, Zdenko Adalbert Popel de Lobkowitz (1568–1628),9 married Polisena, the daughter of Vratislav Pernstein (1530–82, High Chancellor of Bohemia from 1567 until his death) and María Manrique de Lara (1538–1608), a Spanish noblewoman. Zdenko Adalbert had a close friendship with Ambassador Zúñiga. His palace and that of the Pernstein family were social and political centers of the Spanish imperial party or faction10 in Bohemia, lasting well into the 1620s. Spanish ambassadors sometimes visited Hungarian aristocrats in Hungary. The marquess of Castañeda traveled to visit Palatine Miklós Esterházy (1583–1645) in person, for instance, in the 1630s. But these kinds of excursions were rare and individual cases.

Third, the methods with which information was gathered and shared between Bohemian aristocrats and Spanish diplomatic envoys were also more direct and thorough, with many connections to the Spanish Habsburg information centers worldwide. After Cardinal Francis of Dietrichstein (1570–1636), who was born in Madrid and served as imperial privy councilor, returned to Moravia in the Bohemian lands, he maintained his wide network with Spain and the Spanish Netherlands through agents across Europe.11 Other Bohemian-Spanish nobles held correspondence with members of the Spanish Habsburg courts. No similar case is known for Hungary, except for Martin Somogyi, whose role I discuss later.

Fourth, Bohemian aristocrats, with the indispensable support of Spanish envoys, applied for and were granted the honor of becoming members of the Spanish military and religious orders. Several members of the Kolowrat, Beřkovský de Šebířov, Pruskovský de Pruskov, and Popel de Lobkowitz families received the order of Santiago, including the aforementioned Georg Adam Martinitz and Joachim Slavata, the son of Vilém Slavata of Chlum. Ulrich Franz Libsteinský de Kolowrat received the order of Calatrava.12 No Hungarian nobleman received this honor.

Fifth and last, many aristocrats and their family members were “hispaniolized.” They learned and used the Spanish language,13 and they deliberately dressed in Spanish clothing.14 Also, many books were printed in Spanish in Bohemian cities.15 Bohemian noblewomen entered the households of the queen consorts of Spanish origin at the imperial court.16 In Hungary, these ties were much less present, if at all. With very few exceptions (like that of Cardinal Péter Pázmány, archbishop of Esztergom17) the aristocrats did not speak, write, read, or understand Spanish.

In summary, the Bohemian aristocracy was tightly integrated into the Spanish Habsburg political and sociocultural system. Several family members born in Bohemia were partially assimilated. This was a significant change compared to the reign of Ferdinand I (1526–1664) when one in 14 members of the court came from the Spanish Habsburg lands.18 That is, imperial courtiers of Spanish Habsburg origins disappeared (except, of course, for the court of the Habsburg Empresses born in Spain). Instead, some members of the Central European aristocracy represented the interests of the Catholic King.

The Case of Hungary 1: Ottoman Wars and International Trade

In recent decades, historians have tended to take for granted that, compared to the Bohemian (and Polish) aristocracy, Hungary’s relations with the Spanish monarchy were more sporadic and accidental.19 In reality, these relations were also strong and pointed to equally important and substantial connections and structures, even if they were expressed more indirectly, many times via the imperial court or in other fields of diplomatic activities.

The Kingdom of Hungary held a unique position from the perspective of Madrid. As an antemurale Christianitatis, it constituted a bastion against the Ottoman Empire. It possessed large Protestant lands and estates, which, together with the power politics of the Principality of Transylvania, led to delicate political negotiations between the dynasty and the Hungarian aristocracy throughout the seventeenth century. In addition, Hungary had plenty of material and human resources, including copper, slaves, horses, cattle, and light cavalry units (hussars). These facts also had several consequences.

First, Madrid needed to take the Hungarian front against the Ottomans into consideration when the court designed the yearly military strategy in the Netherlands or against the Ottoman Empire in the Mediterranean. If needed, they sent soldiers (thousands from the Spanish Netherlands during the Long Turkish War between 1591 and 1606).20 Dozens of military engineers (many of them chief engineers) came from Spanish Italy (Milan and Naples) to be employed by the Habsburg Monarchy to strengthen the defense system. As stated constantly in the diplomatic reports in the Austrian State Archives and in the Simancas General Archives in Spain, the political situation in the east was a recurring subject. In 1639, the Marquess of Castañeda sent his language secretary, Marcos Putz, to meet with Miklós Esterházy and get the latest updates on the Ottoman Empire and Transylvania. The palatine granted him a long audience.21

Second, Spain strategically needed material and human resources. The Spanish diplomatic corps was actively involved in speeding up and facilitating international and intra-dynastic trade. More than once, the ambassador Count of Oñate intervened in the exportation of Hungarian copper, a strategic resource for the military organization of the Spanish Monarchy. Copper was a vital material in the foundries of the Spanish Monarchy for the production of bronze cannons for the navy.22 It is clear from the data from multiple European archives that at least 30 percent of copper exports from Hungary went to the Spanish Monarchy in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In 1622, the Count of Oñate described in detail the possible commercial routes, the status of the negotiations between the imperial court and the German merchants, and the payment alternatives.23

Galley slaves were also in high demand, and the Spanish navy needed them in significant numbers. Throughout the first half of the seventeenth century, Spanish diplomats facilitated the transfer of slaves captured at the Ottoman-Hungarian border towards Italy24 with the help of Hungarian aristocrats, such as Pál Pálffy.25 On the other hand, Hungarian galley slaves (captured by Ottoman troops) also filled the Mediterranean. One of them, Ferenc Egri (Francisco Egri in the Spanish sources), managed to escape and spent decades in the Spanish military service in Naples. Once he had returned to Central Europe from Naples, Pálffy helped get him a yearly pension from the emperor. His papers and biography were read by several imperial privy councilors in Vienna.26

The latter magnate, who was described and praised by Castel Rodrigo after his election to the role of palatine in 1649 as “very biased” towards both Austrian and Spanish services,27 maintained excellent relations with multiple Spanish statesmen, such as Miguel de Salamanca, secretary of state in the Spanish Netherlands in 1647.28 One decade earlier, the Count of Oñate had paid Pálffy 50,000 forints for 3,000 oxen for military purposes at the request of Heinrich von Schlick, president of the Imperial War Council.29

In the 1630s, both Oñate and the Marquess of Castañeda held multiple talks in imperial circles (including with Miklós Esterházy) about the recruitment and regular payment of several thousand Croatian-Hungarian soldiers. The Spanish Embassy in Vienna paid for these troops and managed the end-to-end financial cash flow as well, including the negotiations with Spanish and Italian asentistas and bankers. It was Castañeda who in 1637 contracted Colonel Péter Forgách and his 1,100 hussars, who moved to the Spanish Netherlands and entered Spanish service. A Croatian-Hungarian unit (after many changes) remained there for the next few decades.30

Hungarian horses were bought in significant quantities on the horse markets of Vienna and Raab/Győr in Hungary by Spanish diplomats, both for symbolic purposes as a sign of strength and for military purposes. In 1616, 30 horses were transferred to Brussels, 24 of which were for Archduke Albert, governor of the Spanish Netherlands (1598–1621).31 In 1634, at least 14 were purchased for the Cardinal-Infante Ferdinand, brother of Philip IV.32

The Case of Hungary 2: News Management and Political Micromanagement

The strategic importance of the Ottoman wars and the exotic nature of the Ottoman Empire as subject filled the works of art and the regular news in Spain, Italy, and the Netherlands.33 In the diplomatic corps, special focus needed to be put on the translations, since the texts of international treaties and alliances and the intercepted enemy letters had to be translated too.

It is not a coincidence that the aforementioned Jacques Bruneau, who at the beginning of the 1620s served as Archduke Albert’s diplomatic envoy in Vienna, sent to Brussels a copy of two Central European treaties and detailed some of their linguistic aspects. Both the Peace of Nikolsburg, between the prince of Transylvania, Gábor Bethlen (1613–29), and Emperor Ferdinand II (1619–37), and the Treaty of Khotyn, between the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Ottoman Empire, were signed at the end of 1621.

Brussels and the ruling elite of the Spanish Netherlands had been eager to receive news from the eastern branch of the dynasty since the Twelve Years’ Truce between Spain and the Dutch United Provinces had expired in April 1621, and the parties resumed hostilities at full speed. The emperor’s willingness to assist the Spanish Netherlands depended heavily on whether he remained engaged in war with the prince of Transylvania. Bruneau, like others in the Spanish Habsburg diplomatic corps, started his career as a translator (secretario de lenguas)34 and then moved up the ladder and held many prestigious positions. Since the translation activities in Brussels were less structured and sophisticated than in Madrid, he wanted to make sure that the secretariat in Brussels did not spend time unnecessarily translating texts. He sent the first text in Spanish (translated from the original Latin by the Count of Oñate), but he kept the original version in Latin to avoid any misunderstandings. Bruneau sent the text of the second treaty in Italian a bit later since the councilor of the emperor who possessed it was absent:35

Envío los artículos de la paz en Hungría así los que tocan a los estados del reino en general, como al Betlen Gabor en particular. El señor conde de Oñate los ha hecho traducir en español, […] pienso convener tenerlos también en latín como originalmente se han concebido y concluido. Falta en ellos la entrada y remate, que el embajador mismo no los ha alcanzado de otra manera. [… ] Y también espero de tener los de la paz de Polonia con el Turco, y un consejero del emperador que los tiene está ausente algunos días ha.36

In the kingdom of Bohemia, the local elite corresponded frequently in German with the emperor and his councilors and oftentimes in Spanish with the actors of the Catholic monarchy. In contrast, in Hungary, aristocrats like Palatine Miklós Esterházy exchanged letters in Latin with the Spanish ambassadors in Vienna37 and with imperial politicians and councilors.38

Even further to the east, knowledge of Latin remained crucial in relations with the Ottoman Empire. It is not a coincidence that the most formal translation service in Vienna belonged to the Imperial War Council and was responsible for the relationship with Constantinople (Hofkriegsratsdolmetscher).39 Often, double translations were needed, as was the case with a letter, a copy of which is kept in Brussels, the former capital of the Spanish Netherlands, sent by a diplomatic envoy to the archdukes, signed by the Ottoman governor of Budin (Buda), Karakaş Mehmed Pasha, to Gábor Bethlen, prince of Transylvania in 1620. It was translated first from “Turkish” into Hungarian and then from Hungarian into Latin, word for word: “ex Turcico in Ungaricum, et ex Ungarico in Latinum, de verbo ad verbum translata.”40

In 1644, the Spanish ambassador reported to his king that the archbishop of Esztergom, György Lippay (1600–1666, who served as archbishop in 1642–66) had brought some intercepted letters to Vienna which shed light on the diplomatic activities of France in Constantinople. The French, he claimed, aimed to convince the Ottomans to give license to the prince of Transylvania to attack the lands of the emperor:

Estos días ha venido aquí el arzobispo de Estrigonia con algunos otros cavalleros úngaros sin el palatino [Miklós Esterházy] por su poca salud haciendo gran ruido de que Rákóczi armaba y se entendía con Torstenson comprobándose esto con cartas intercetas deste en que ofrecia facilitar la licencia del Turco para acometer los Estados del Emperador por medio de los ministros de Francia que están en aquella Corte.41

These letters were probably the ones that another Spanish diplomat used in an anti-French pamphlet in Münster during the Westphalian peace congress the same year.42

Hungarian diets and internal politics constituted a much more complex political environment than those of Bohemia (after 1620). Both the election and coronation of the new Hungarian king and the faction politics were closely monitored by the Spanish Embassy.43

Several archival sources from Spain, Hungary, and Vienna show that a light form of political and diplomatic micromanagement on behalf of the representatives of the Catholic king still existed in 1655.

Over the course of 1654 and 1655, the Marquess of Castel Rodrigo focused on the election of the new Hungarian king, Leopold I, and the election of the new palatine. Though the secondary literature does not yet offer a nuanced picture of the full scope of his activities in Pozsony, it is evident from the sources that he made an effort to intervene decisively in the outcomes of the diet. The variety of sources across Europe also shows the nature of such interventions and the ways in which the study of the primary sources can shed light on the motivations of the principal actors from a Spanish Habsburg perspective.

Prince of Auersperg Johann Weikhard (1615–1677) was one of the most influential politicians of Leopold I. Once a privy councilor and the grand steward of the emperor and also a holder of the Order of the Golden Fleece (the most prestigious Habsburg chivalric order, granted by the king of Spain), he fell from grace in 1669. That year, he wrote an essay against the Marquess of Castel Rodrigo, his archenemy.44 He listed several points against the Spanish ambassador, starting with his aggressive interventions in Hungarian politics. Castel Rodrigo wanted Ban of Croatia Miklós Zrínyi (1620–64) to be the palatine:

Als er arbitrium in Hungaricis rebus agiren wollen, und procuriert, dass Nicolaus Sarinius Palatinus in Ungarn werden solle, da doch schon damahls suspectus de infidelitate gewest ist,45 […] [and when he learned that Ferenc Wesselényi was elected palatine of Hungary, it caused him great pain:], sumo dolore illius.

While laying the groundwork for his presence at the Hungarian diet in Pozsony, Castel Rodrigo wrote letters to Hungarian magnates46 and spent significant amounts of money on buying weapons to strengthen his household on his journey to the diet.47 He also requested and received from the Spanish Council of State around 20 thousand escudos for his extraordinary costs,48 and he wrote multiple letters and treatises about Hungarian politics, e.g., about György Lippay.49 Castel Rodrigo often played the mediator role between the Hungarian magnates and the imperial ministers to decrease the number of political and confessional conflicts at a time when Madrid desperately needed a peaceful and stable Vienna during the last years of the Spanish-French War (1635–59).

In summary, in Hungary, for geopolitical reasons, the aristocrats were physically less integrated into the Spanish Habsburg circle of news and the Spanish cultural milieu, which meant that they had less access to political favors, patronage, and political sponsorship. In other areas, however, cooperation was equally important or sometimes more important from the perspective of Spanish Habsburg strategical goals, even if this cooperation was less interpersonal and relied less on physical presence. These goals included the assurance of accessible material and human resources, reliable political allies and diplomatic contacts in the ongoing fight against the Ottoman Empire, and reliable ties to figures with influence in the Hungarian diets.

Common Patterns: Representation, Legal Matters, and Book Culture

Alongside the substantial differences between the two kingdoms in terms of their relationship with the Spanish monarchy in diplomacy, however, many common patterns can also be seen. In these cases, the ruling elites of both states performed similar activities and were engaged in these endeavors in a similar fashion.

While Hungarian noblemen did not enjoy the benefits of most of the Spanish military orders, the most influential aristocrats received yearly pensions (Péter Pázmány and members of the Forgách family, for instance), and several of them were members of the most prestigious Habsburg order, the Order of the Golden Fleece. Miklós Esterházy (1628) and Pál Pálffy (1650), for instance, were granted this honor, as was Miklós Zrínyi (though after the timeframe of the present essay, in 1664). In comparison, between 1608 and 1655, six Bohemian noblemen received it: two members of the Lobkowicz and the Dietrichstein families, one member of the Martinitz family, and one of the Slavata family.

Coronations and rights to the Hungarian and Bohemian crowns constituted common subjects. The most outstanding case was that of the Oñate treaty (1617), signed by both branches of the dynasty. By signing this document, the Spanish king waived his right to inherit the kingdom of Hungary and Bohemia in a political situation when he could have argued that (due to the childless status of several Austrian heirs) it would be logical and even beneficial if the Spanish monarch were to take over these kingdoms. The feasibility of such a claim would nevertheless have been questionable, since it failed to consider, for example, the Kingdom of Hungary’s status as an elective monarchy.50 Also, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, several Spanish princes and princesses waived their rights formally, in writing, to the line of succession of Hungary. These events show and highlight the dynastic unity of the Habsburg family and testify to the fact that, theoretically, there was always a possibility for a reunion of all Habsburg territories under one dynastic ruler.

In several instances, the fate of Bohemian and Hungarian aristocrats and nobles intersected. Margarita de Cardona, the confidante of Empress and Queen Consort Maria (1528–1603), daughter of Charles V, forged a strong relationship with Martin Somogyi, a to-be gentilhombre in the court in Brussels.51 An orphan, Martin got into the household of the Dietrichstein family in Moravia, and he moved to Brussels as a page in the 1590s, where he started his career as the vice-captain of the bodyguard of the governors of the Spanish Netherlands (Archduke Albert and his wife, the Spanish infanta Isabel). Cardona (the wife of Adam von Dietrichstein and the mother of Franzis von Dietrichstein) even requested a Spanish knighthood for Somogyi, a request Archduke Albert repeated some years later, though without success. Instead, Somogyi continued to build his career in the Holy Roman Empire and the Netherlands. He undertook diplomatic missions and remained in close touch with Franz von Dietrichstein, and he became one of his principal informers from Brussels52 In 1620, he became a baron.53 By the 1630s, he had become a landlord (of Bothey in the province of Namur in the Spanish Netherlands and of Štáblovice in Opava/Troppau/Opawa in Moravia) and a tenant of a castle (Vichenet in Namur). Martin Somogyi made several contributions to cultural relations. In 1620, he sent a copy of the second part of Cervantes’ Don Quixote from Brussels to Franz von Dietrichstein.54 A few years later, Diego Muxet de Solís, a local writer in the Spanish Netherlands, dedicated his plays and poems to Dietrichstein at Somogyi’s suggestion.55

Instances of cooperation between Bohemian and Hungarian magnates occurred, naturally, among the Catholic prelates during the Catholic revival. As has been noted in the secondary literature in Hungarian, Philip IV and his ministers kept an eye on Péter Pázmány, archbishop of Esztergom, and later paid even more attention when Pázmány became cardinal. The literature has dealt extensively with the history of Pázmány’s most important diplomatic mission to Rome in 1632 (which has most recently been strongly linked to the Spanish Cardinal Borja’s famous protest the same year).56 New sources revealed that the aim of the Pázmány’s travels, which was to advance the establishment of a league between the Spanish king, the emperor, and the Catholic estates of the Holy Roman Empire, was a cornerstone in the foreign policy of the Count-Duke of Olivares. In 1629, Spanish Habsburg diplomacy conducted in Vienna by the Count of Castro, the Duke of Tursi, Jacques Bruneau, and the Marquis of Cadereyta had begun carefully to pave the way for the mission.57

Although no thorough comparison of Bohemian and Hungarian aristocratic libraries has been conducted yet, the first results show clearly that both groups of magnates wanted to equip themselves with knowledge of the best of Spanish Habsburg culture.

The libraries of Hungarian Catholic aristocrats were full of hispanica, mostly in Italian and Latin translations.58 In 1614, Cardinal Ferenc Forgách ordered and received 206 books from Frankfurt, 30 percent of which were by Spanish authors or writers from the Spanish Monarchy.59 In Pázmány’s private library, a similar proportion of books by Spanish authors can be found.60 The book catalogue of the Zrínyi family in 1662 included at least 91 items in the same category (out of 731).61

Studies of the Bohemian libraries have been more thorough.62 A logical next step in the research in both countries might be to attempt to grasp the influence that the wide variety of military, scientific, ecclesiastical, legal, historical, etc. treatises had on the readers and their political and private activities.

Although the interests of Bohemian and Hungarian aristocrats seemed to differ (e.g., the former group included more volumes for pure entertainment in their libraries), the most popular authors were present in the book collections of both territories: Pedro de Mejía, Luis de Granada, Antonio de Guevara, Pedro de Ribadeneyra, Diego de Saavedra Fajardo (a diplomat himself who spent several months in Vienna between 1634 and 1641), Juan Antonio de Vera y Figueroa (the count of La Roca, ambassador of Madrid in Venice between 1632 and 1642, and author of the famous 1620 treatise The Ambassador), and many others. One might reasonably assume that when Bohemian and Hungarian magnates discussed their lectures, actual political events, or their encounters with Spanish culture and persons, they could easily refer to a similar corpus of experiences and perceptions.

In conclusion, from the perspective of Hungary’s relevance to the Spanish Habsburg system, money and strategic geopolitical interests were the primary factors. Hungary was important for the Spanish Empire because of its material and human resources (copper, horses, slaves, and soldiers). As a consequence, a peace between the Ottoman Empire, the Principality of Transylvania, and the Central European branch of the dynasty helped Madrid focus on its fight against France and the Netherlands and strengthen the position of Catholicism. Since Hungary was not part of the Holy Roman Empire and the integration of Hungary’s aristocracy into the Habsburg central government organs and councils was far less advanced than in Bohemia, Spanish diplomacy made fewer efforts to build more meaningful and deep connections and interactions with them through, for instance, marriages, the migration of Hungarian noblemen to the Spanish Netherlands or Spain, or the granting of memberships in religious and military orders. Patronage, favors, and political sponsorship, as a consequence, played a smaller role. Spanish Habsburg diplomats in Prague and Vienna were well aware of the details of all these connections, and they made decisions, intervened, or facilitated solutions whenever necessary.

In contrast, Bohemia constituted a strategic land for Madrid for different reasons. As part of the Holy Roman Empire and as a territory that was historically more integrated into the Central European Habsburg lands, Bohemia needed to be more closely linked to the Spanish Habsburg system of diplomacy and favors. In addition, the Thirty Years’ War created a very specific opportunity for the Spanish Habsburg elite. The defeat of the Protestant nobility in Bohemia freed up a huge amount of land for the Catholic aristocracy, and the emperor distributed some of these lands to Spanish noblemen who were fighting and living in Central Europe. Cultural assimilation, family ties (including marriages), and joint political decision-making in the central government organs in Vienna made relations between Madrid, Spanish Habsburg diplomats, and the Bohemian elite much closer in these areas than Spanish Habsburg relations with the Hungarian aristocracy.

As Bohemia and Hungary were neighboring lands with shared interests and common goals, many similar patterns can be detected as well, however, first and foremost in matters of cultural assimilation (book culture and cooperation in the Catholic revival) and questions of dynastic inheritance (coronations and the rights to the Hungarian and Bohemian crowns).

Archival Sources

Archives Générales du Royaume, Brussels (AGRB)

Secrétairerie d’État et de Guerre

Secrétairerie d’Etat Allemand

Archivo General de Simancas, Simancas (AGS)

Archivo Histório Nacional, Madrid (AHN)

Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár Országos Levéltára [Hungarian National Archives State Archives], Budapest (MNL OL)

P 287 A Forgách család gácsi iratai

Moravský Zemský Archiv [Moravian Land Archives], Brno (MZA)

Rodinný Archiv Ditrichštejnů [Dietrichstein Family Archive]

Prímási Levéltár [Esztergom Primate Archives], Esztergom (PLE)

Archivum Ecclesiasticum Vetus

Österreichisches Staatsarchiv, Vienna (ÖStA)

Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv (HHStA)

Allgemeines Verwaltungsarchiv – Finanz- und Hofkammerarchiv

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“Secret Correspondence” in Habsburg–Ottoman Communication in the First Half of the Seventeenth Century

 

János Szabados
University of Szeged
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Hungarian Historical Review Volume 12 Issue 2  (2023):3–36 DOI 10.38145/2023.2.194

For the Habsburg Monarchy in the seventeenth century, it was very important to collect, send to Vienna, and evaluate up-to-date information on the Ottoman Empire. Following the Long Turkish War (1591/1593–1606), it was necessary in the 1620s to organize, alongside couriers and other channels of correspondence (e. g. the Venetian post), a cost-effective and sustainable system with which to transmit news and, in part, intelligence. In this essay, I present the historiography of the “institution” known as the “Secret Correspondence” and the history of the organization and reorganizations of the system. I also establish a typology of the people involved in the correspondence, namely 1) letter forwarders, 2) letter forwarders who also wrote secret reports, and

3) spies who wrote secret reports regardless of their location (in this case, the person was more important than the information). In the first half of the seventeenth century (1624 to 1658), the system of “Secret Correspondence” had to be reorganized several times (mostly due to lack of funds). In each case, the main challenge was to find and continuously employ the right people, so the role of the recruiter was also important. The political situation in the abovementioned period had an obvious impact on the functioning of the system, too. My research is based on documents from the Viennese archives (Österreichisches Staatsarchiv, Haus-, Hof-, und Staatsarchiv; Kriegsarchiv, Finanz- und Hofkammerarchiv), which have helped me to offer a more detailed and nuanced understanding of the “Secret Correspondence” than found in the existing secondary literature.

Keywords: Habsburg-Ottoman diplomacy, intelligence, flow of information, information channels, typology of the informants

Introduction

Interest among scholars in Habsburg–Ottoman diplomacy has increased in recent decades. The peaceful period of the first half of the seventeenth century (1606–1663) is of particularly strong interest.1 In this essay, I investigate a vital channel of communication between the Habsburg Monarchy and the Ottoman Empire, namely the institution known as the “Secret Correspondence” (Geheime Korrespondenz). The continuity of the correspondence between Vienna and Constantinople had a great impact on relations between the two empires. It was of primary importance for the Habsburgs mostly, as it helped them closely monitor the policies of the Ottoman Empire and have direct and prompt access to the relevant pieces of news and information with which to shape their European policy, especially during and after the Thirty Years’ War. In the discussion below, I look at the secondary literature on this “Secret Correspondence,” outline the history of its establishment in the first half of the seventeenth century (1623–1658), look at the historical and political context, and introduce the diplomats involved in its organization. Moreover, I examine the parallel information channels and establish a typology of those involved in the transmission of letters and intelligence. I also describe the roles of these actors in the network’s operation and offer some examples of how their activity as letter forwarders or spies impacted their careers. My intention is to offer a more nuanced understanding of how the Habsburg communications and intelligence system functioned in the Ottoman Empire and to demonstrate that the “Secret Correspondence” was primarily used as a form of infrastructure, which, of course, also made espionage more effective.

Historical and Political Context

The Battle of Mohács in 1526 determined the politics of the following decades, as the Habsburg Monarchy became a direct neighbor of the Ottoman Empire, which was expanding through the Kingdom of Hungary. The longer period of peace after 1568 provided an opportunity for secret diplomacy to develop,2 but the Long Turkish War at the end of the century (1591–1606) interrupted this process. The Peace of Zsitvatorok in 1606 provided a new possibility to resume peaceful diplomatic relations, especially during the Thirty Years’ War (1618–1648).3 Both empires were already entangled in conflicts in various theaters of war and were forced to maintain peace with each other, though this peace was fragile and had to be affirmed on several occasions (1615/1616, 1618, 1625, 1627, and 1642). After the Thirty Years’ War, the two empires did not start a new war with each other but rather extended the peace again in 1649.4 Each peace treaty was accompanied by a solemn grand embassy, but these embassies were not necessarily sent only on the occasion of a new affirmation of peace.5 The envoys (with the rank of ambassador or internuncius) also played a role in the organization and operation of the “Secret Correspondence,” but the actual operation was the responsibility of the “experts” in charge of the Aulic War Council (Hofkriegsrat) and the resident ambassadors in Constantinople. Nevertheless, for various reasons (for instance, the death of a member or changes in the underlying political situation), it became necessary to reorganize the system several times by the mid-seventeenth century (until 1658).

The Revolution of Communication in the Early Modern Period

The early modern period saw a revolution in communication that had less to do with the invention of printing and more with changes in infrastructure.6 The postal system developed rapidly, and this contributed to better and faster correspondence. In the Holy Roman Empire, the Thurn und Taxis family owned the post office as a fief. In the Hereditary Lands of the Habsburgs, the postal service belonged to the Paar family, although the institution of postmaster existed for a time in the Kingdom of Hungary as well.7 This system, with its very well-functioning infrastructure, enabled faster and easier communication, which also had a positive effect on European societies and cultures.8 Parallel to the official correspondence, there existed an unofficial form of communication, mostly conducted in ciphers (i.e., secret writings of various kinds) which was used to transmit important and non-public information.9 There is a very substantial literature on early modern intelligence.10 With regard to the Ottoman Empire, two works are worth highlighting. John-Paul Ghobrial has examined the complex flow of information in Constantinople, London, and Paris in the late seventeenth century,11 and Ioanna Iordanou has offered a thorough analysis of the extensive European and non-European (i.e. Ottoman Empire) intelligence network of Venice.12

In the discussion below, I examine another form of communication that was specifically established between Vienna, Constantinople, and most of the European areas of the Ottoman Empire, namely the so-called “Secret Correspondence.” Since a comprehensive reform of the postal system took place in the 1620s, it is reasonable to assume that the founding of the “Secret Correspondence” was also connected with this reform, though no sources have yet been found providing clear confirmation of this. One document makes clear the relevance of communication during the legation of envoy (internuncius) Johann Jakob Kurz von Senftenau (1623–1624), as Ferdinand II ordered the restoration of the post office in Altenburg/Mosonmagyaróvár, Raab/Győr, and Komorn/Komárom and Révkomárom/Komárno in the autumn of 1623.13 It must be added, however, that in the case of the Imperial Post and the Post of the Hereditary Lands of the Habsburgs, they were official and public structures. In contrast, the “Secret Correspondence” was in principle an unofficial channel of communication.

The Secondary Literature on and Terminology Concerning the “Secret Correspondence”

In contrast to what has been stated in the secondary literature, in my view, the network of “Secret Correspondence” primarily provided an infrastructure for more fluid communication between Vienna and Constantinople, and this infrastructure was always dynamically adapted to the circumstances. Some elements of the system have been addressed in the scholarship, but the mechanisms of its operation in the first half of the seventeenth century have not yet been explored in detail, and this has led to misunderstandings in the interpretation of certain sources. The system of “Secret Correspondence” was already known to scholars in the early twentieth century. Numismatist Carl von Peez drew attention to the work of correspondents in Buda, Belgrade, and Sofia who were active after 1665, but he did not systematically explore the function of the system in the second half of the seventeenth century.14 This applies to the earliest Hungarian scholars on the subject. Sándor Takáts and Gyula Erdélyi mentioned the actors in the system by name in their essays, and they emphasized that the appearance of foreign (i.e., non-Hungarian) participants crowded Hungarians out of the intelligence system.15 Peter Meienberger also devoted a few pages in his book to the “Secret Correspondence,” and he made important observations about the operation of the system and treated it separately from the intelligence service.16 The establishment of the system was first outlined by István Hiller, who based his conclusions on the mission of the aforementioned Johann Jakob Kurz von Senftenau. Hiller interpreted the “Secret Correspondence” as an intelligence system, but his findings prompted certain points that need further clarification, including, for instance, the function(s) of this system.17 Dóra Kerekes examined in more detail the correspondents of the second half of the seventeenth century, focusing on the role of the Orientalische Handelskompanie (Oriental Trade Company) in the “Secret Correspondence.”18 She also explored the activities of the interpreters (in her terminology, the “Secret Correspondents”) who resided in Constantinople during the Great Turkish War (1683–1699), from where they wrote and sent secret reports.19 On the basis of her research on the abovementioned period, Kerekes concluded that the “Secret Correspondence” could be regarded as an intelligence system in the modern sense.20 However, the system of “Secret Correspondence” seems to have been more complex than mere espionage and can be seen rather as an intelligence and messaging system. I will explore this in more detail below.

The Reasons for Organizing the System and the Manner in which it was Implemented

During the second campaign (1623–1624) of Transylvanian prince Gábor Bethlen (1613–1629), which he launched against the Habsburgs in the Kingdom of Hungary five years after the outbreak of the Thirty Years’ War,21 Johan Jakob Kurz von Senftenau, Habsburg envoy to the Ottoman Porte, was commissioned with the establishment of a new system of communication. The aim was pragmatic: to replace the flow of information, which had been weakened by Bethlen’s attacks, with a financially more optimal system of mail transmission (which could be maintained between Belgrade and Constantinople for less than 500 talers a year) that would be less dependent on Venice.22 In accordance with his instructions, the diplomat recruited suitable people, primarily merchants in Buda, Belgrade, and Sofia. They were contracted to forward letters between Vienna and Constantinople twelve times a year for a certain sum. This solution was indeed more affordable since it cost 240 talers per occasion to send couriers.23 On his return journey from Constantinople, Kurz recruited people whom he thought qualified for the task and who were willing to undertake it. Thus, Hironimo/Girolammeo Grassi (240 talers)24 in Sofia, Matteo Sturani25 (240 thalers) in Belgrade, and Giovanni Pellegrini (160 talers) in Buda took on the task of forwarding the letters, and thus the costs in Belgrade and Sofia were kept below the prescribed 500 thalers.26 They were merchants from Ragusa (see table), and Grassi and Sturani had provided their services to the Habsburgs before.27 The operation of that newly established correspondence was presumably the responsibility of war councilor Count Michael Adolf Althan,28 secretary of the Aulic War Council and later also a war councilor Gerhard von Questenberg,29 and resident ambassador of Constantinople Sebastian Lustrier (1623–1629).30

Typology of Members of the “Secret Correspondence”

Before presenting the functioning of the system, I offer first an outline of the terms used to refer to participants in the system. My intention is to clarify the roles these actors played, at least to the extent possible on the basis of the sources. The meaning of the term “correspondent” as used in the sources seems problematic. It may have referred to someone who was both a “correspondent” or “spy” and a “letter forwarder.”31 Indeed, within the system, several functions can be clearly distinguished, even if some of terms sometimes seem ambiguous. Accordingly, for those who merely forwarded letters, I suggest the term letter forwarder. Those who primarily reported on important events should be called spies. The last category, and the most difficult to define, is those who forwarded letters and wrote spy reports. In their case, two subcategories can be distinguished, namely people who primarily spied and sometimes also forwarded letters and people who were contracted primarily to forward letters, but in some cases wrote secret reports as well. These people also received a salary from the Court Chamber, unlike, for example, Marino Tudisi, who was recruited as a private servant of Count Althan.32

Attempts at Reorganization between 1628 and 1658

The “Secret Correspondence” needed to be reorganized several times in the first half of the seventeenth century. Lustrier, the Habsburg resident ambassador at the Porte who was most interested in uninterrupted communication between the two powers, frequently used the new channel, but he also warned the court of the shortage of funds due to the war.33 By the end of the 1620s, after the negotiators of the two empires had successfully agreed to extend the peace in 1627 in Szőny, the system was in dire need of reorganization.34 The task of dispatching the ratification to Constantinople was entrusted to Baron Johann Ludwig von Kuefstein, a recent convert to Catholicism, who entered the Habsburg–Ottoman diplomacy as a homo novus.35 He was also instructed, however, to reorganize the “Secret Correspondence.”36 He was prepared for his journey by Michael Starzer (1610–1622), the former agent at the Porte, and Johann Rudolf Schmid (1629–1643), a former Ottoman captive and the next resident ambassador.37 However, due to the lack of a suitable “specialist,” only the aforementioned Marino Tudisi accompanied him as an expert.38 Presumably because of his earlier studies in Italy, Kuefstein preferred the Ragusan citizens as future letter forwarders, too. He enlisted the help of Tudisi on his way to the Sublime Porte. In Belgrade, he recruited Tomaso Orsini for Buda, Francesco Vlatchy/Vlatky for Belgrade, and Marco Cavalcanti for Sofia.39 During his stay in Constantinople, however, Kuefstein preferred sending letters through his courier, Wolf Leuthkauff, which obviously had an impact on the frequency of the correspondence.40 Orsini, for example, proved unreliable,41 thus Kuefstein had to use other channels and modify previous arrangements on the return journey. As a result, he first made an agreement in Sofia with a person called Stefano Vukovicz (Vuković).42 Nevertheless, in Belgrade the aforementioned Vlatchy/Vlatky then undertook to organize the entire correspondence between Constantinople and Komárom, and he himself proved ready to write secret reports. This is probably why he received the rather high sum of 700 thalers.43 In Komárom, Kuefstein entered into a contract with János Papp to transmit letters for 100 thalers a year.44 Thus, Kuefstein succeeded in his mission to reorganize the “Secret Correspondence.”

In the years that followed, the new resident ambassador Schmid was responsible for controlling the system, which he did together with the imperial interpreter in Vienna, Michel d’Asquier (1625–1664).45 Schmid also made use of the “Secret Correspondence,” but he sometimes bribed couriers en route to Buda and used the Transylvanian and Venetian postal services as well.46 Little is known about the identity of the letter forwarders from this period (see table). Since pieces of news from the Middle East were very important for the court because of the Thirty Years’ War, Schmid also recruited Francesco Crasso/Grassi, a doctor who had previously worked in Buda and was also of Ragusan origin.
Dr. Grassi was primarily an intelligence agent (spy), and not only for the Habsburgs, of course.47 Schmid also relied on the services of Andrea Scogardi (originally Johann Andersen Skovgaard), also a doctor, who, after his resettlement, kept the resident ambassador regularly informed about Moldavian and Transylvanian affairs.48 Johann Rudolf Puchheim, the grand ambassador assigned to the Porte in 1634, also tried to recruit new people, but there are no relevant data on the long-term impact of this.49 Because of financial problems, when they submitted a report to the emperor, Schmid and d’Asquier tried to get the impression that running the network was of primary importance.50 However, by the 1640s, the system was on the verge of collapse, since there were not enough resources to run it because of the costs of the Thirty Years’ War.

After Schmid’s return from Constantinople in 1643, the task of rebuilding was inherited by his successor, Alexander Greiffenklau (1643–1648). The court was preoccupied at the time with a series of attacks (1644, 1645)51 by the Prince of Transylvania, György Rákóczi I (1630–1648), against the Kingdom of Hungary. These attacks also impeded communication between Vienna and Constantinople. Moreover, the Ottoman war against Venice for the possession of Crete (1645–1669)52 virtually eliminated the possibility of using the Venetian post service, though that passage had been favored by Greiffenklau. Since the resident ambassador was unable to relaunch the “Secret Correspondence,” Hermann Czernin von Chudenitz, the grand ambassador assigned to the Porte in 1644, was charged with the task. However, it seems that this effort was not successful either. Both Czernin and Greiffenklau endeavored to get their letters to Vienna by all possible means, mainly through couriers, embassy secretaries, the Ottoman postal service, and sometimes even through Poland. The temporary disappearance of the “Secret Correspondence” was not necessarily their fault. Indeed, the political situation at the time had a strong impact on communication and determined the options available, namely that diplomats were forced to rely on trusted confidants.53

After the campaigns, the system was revived once again. Greiffenklau was commissioned with the reorganization for the second time. However, despite the efforts of imperial courier Johann Dietz, the reorganization did not succeed because of the war against the Venetians.54 After the resident’s involvement in a political assassination, the situation was further complicated, because it had some diplomatic consequences.55 As for the intelligence, Greiffenklau primarily relied on the Hungarian-born renegade, the grand dragoman of the Sublime Porte (1629–1657), Zülfikâr Ağa.56 The unexpected death of Greiffenklau in 1648 again offered Schmid new opportunities. In 1647, he had already suggested using the services of the German-born renegade interpreter, Hüseyin Çavuş, who went by the pseudonym Hans Caspar and who subsequently became an important spy in the intelligence network of the Habsburg–Ottoman frontier.57

In 1649, Schmid was sent to the Porte as a member of the Aulic War Council to negotiate to extend the peace.58 He introduced there the new resident ambassador, Simon Reniger,59 and he reorganized the “Secret Correspondence.” During Schmid’s diplomatic mission, he recruited competent agents in Buda, Belgrade, and Sofia who were suitable as actors who would forward letters (cf. table), and after some bargaining, he was able to agree on their remuneration.60 In his secret report, he emphasized the importance of regular payments in the future to keep the system running.61 At the same time, he tried to set up the forwarding of letters via Transylvania, which seemed to be the shortest route.62 Communication channels were thus re-established for a while.

In 1650, Johann Rudolf Schmid again (as a baron and grand ambassador) took the ratified document of the peace treaty to Constantinople.63 According to the references, during his embassy, he regularly used the “Secret Correspondence” network, and he tried to replace the lost links (e.g. in Sofia) and provide the actors in the system with adequate payment for the future, thus making Reniger’s work easier.64 In his secret report, he emphasized again that salaries were to be paid regularly to facilitate the rapid flow of information. His suggestions were no doubt inspired by his previous bad experiences.65

From that point on, communication between Vienna and Constantinople seemed relatively stable. The main channels were couriers, correspondence via Transylvania, Ottoman chiauses (çavuş), and the “Secret Correspondence.” Obviously, extraordinary events could cause disruptions. The death of imperial courier Johann Dietz during his mission in the autumn of 1651 led to a serious delay of several months, as all channels were simultaneously interrupted for various reasons.66 However, the increasing number of excursions on the frontier made it essential to get the letters to their destinations as quickly as possible, and usually at least one channel was used to get the information to the right destination. In the autumn of 1652, the death of the letter forwarder of Belgrade (Baggio, recruited by Schmid) caused a further slowdown, and the position in Belgrade remained precarious for the rest of the year.67 According to one of Reniger’s reports to Schmid, between December 1653 and 1654, he sent only one letter out of nine through the “Secret Correspondence” network. This mere fact offers an indication of the seriousness of the problems outlined.68 In 1653, the death of Hungarian palatine Pál Pálffy (1649–1653) caused a disruption on the Transylvanian route, but this was soon resolved diplomatically, although the election of Ferenc Wesselényi as palatine in 1655 caused further interference.69

The main source of information in Constantinople in the early 1650s was Dr. Scogardi, who regularly reported to Schmid,70 and in Buda, mainly during the time of Kara Murad Pasha (1650–1653),71 the German renegade Hans Caspar.72

In the mid-1650s, the “Secret Correspondence” and the whole communi­cation and intelligence network entered a difficult phase. The new pasha of Buda, Sari Kenan (1653–1655),73 took a dim view of the secret transmission of information and assaulted the judge of Óbuda, who was then acting as a letter forwarder. Even the other letter forwarder in Buda, Vuichich/Vuičić (see table), did not dare carry out his duties, and consequently a general atmosphere of fear prevailed in that period.74 Since the sending of letters via Transylvania also seemed uncertain at the time, communication between Reniger and the Viennese court took place via Poland for a few months.75 Finally, the imperial courier Natal de Paulo, also of Ragusan origin, managed to restore the system by filling in the missing links. Furthermore, Hans Caspar found himself in a difficult situation during the time of Sari Kenan, and this was reflected in the low number of reports written by him.76

A completely new situation was brought about by the campaign of Prince of Transylvania György Rákóczi II (1648–1660) against Poland in 1657.77 The channels of communication were entirely changed by the absence of Leopold I (who traveled to Prague and then to Frankfurt), the campaigns, and the move of the Sultan’s court to Adrianople.78 From the available correspondence it seems that the difficulties of “Secret Correspondence” were not fully overcome in 1656, as no suitable persons could be found in Buda or Belgrade. Only the mission of the courier Natal and secretary of the Aulic War Council Peter Franz Hoffmann was crowned with success, and after that, the secret channel of communication was again in operation in 1657.79 Reniger had to follow the Sultan’s court to Adrianople at the end of 1657, and this brought about a dramatic change in the conditions of the channels of communication, because someone else had to be left in Constantinople. However, this topic is beyond the scope of this paper.80 In terms of gathering or passing on intelligence, Hans Caspar was less active than he had been in the early 1650s, and the war had a strong impact on his circumstances and his work as a spy.81

Thus, although the operation of the “Secret Correspondence” was impeded by numerous financial and personal obstacles between 1624 and 1657, efforts were made to restore this important channel of information for Vienna as soon as logistical, financial, and infrastructural circumstances allowed.

Motivation(s), Opportunities, and Risks

If one looks at the members of the system based on the typology outlined above (see table), some conclusions can be drawn about the motivations and risks of being part of the “Secret Correspondence.” As early as the 1630s, the letter forwarders were aware of the importance of their activities and tried to take advantage of them, and they sometimes blackmailed the diplomats.82 Schmid seems initially to have been rather distrustful of the Ragusans, who at that time enjoyed the support of Count Althan, as the case of the so-called “interpreter trial” shows.83 Later, Schmid changed his mind on that matter.

As the letter forwarders were mainly merchants, their main task was to forward letters from both directions (i.e., between Vienna and Constantinople). In their case, therefore, the emphasis was on the task itself rather than the person who executed it. Therefore, letter-forwarding can be regarded as a more easily replaceable function than spying. Their activities were not without risk, however. The sources reveal that in some cases they put their lives at risk. This is also indicated by the fact that Johann Rudolf Puchheim wrote the name of one of the letter forwarders in cipher in his report.84 Greiffenklau in 164585 and, later, Schmid in his 1649 mission pointed out that, due to the Ottoman war against Venice, it seemed difficult to find people among the Ragusans for the task. They were generally on good terms with Venice but were Ottoman vassals as well.86 It was thus necessary to agree on the abovementioned punctual and regular payment.87 A similar example can be found during Schmid’s mission as ambassador when he authorized Baggio, the letter forwarder in Belgrade, to trade in Moravia on behalf of the emperor to ensure the smooth flow of correspondence.88 This means, therefore, that certain letter forwarders had enough bargaining power in matters affecting their own livelihoods, although Baggio could not benefit for long from the opportunity he had won. Nevertheless, even before his death, the Belgrade transporter complained about the lack of payment and obstructed the forwarding of letters.89 The death of the aforementioned courier Dietz illustrates how the loss of a single key person could paralyze the communication system since he was also the one who would have delivered the payment to the letter forwarders. In the mid-1650s, because of the risks, the Ragusan merchant colony in Belgrade forbade their members to participate in the “Secret Correspondence.” This offered Baggio’s successor (Giorgio Cortey) the possibility of bargaining again. In the end, they solved the problem by depositing the letters from Constantinople in a certain house, where Cortey could later pick them up.90 In 1655, the magistrate of Óbuda, who had also been involved in the forwarding of letters, was badly beaten and imprisoned. This was presumably done as a warning to the Ragusans in Buda. That is why the letter forwarder in Buda (Peter Vuichich/Vuičić) decided to move to Belgrade.91 Lazaro, the letter forwarder in Belgrade, was also arrested in 1656, for which he was later compensated by the Habsburg court, as was the magistrate of Óbuda.92

According to the available data (see table), almost all the Balkan letter forwarders were Ragusans, so in their case, there was no ethnic or religious diversity. It was certainly no coincidence that the imperial couriers who recruited Balkan letter forwarders in the 1650s (Natal and Michel de Paulo) were most probably also of Ragusan origin. They were presumably more able to contact the merchants. This also confirms that the Viennese court was aware of the importance of the “Secret Correspondence.”

However, the circumstances of the spies differed from those of the letter forwarders. In their case, not only was the function they played important. The identity of the person himself and his position (e.g., physician) also mattered. Dr. Grassi seemed to be useful for intelligence purposes in Buda (in the 1630s), Constantinople (in the late 1630s), and later the Middle East during the campaign of Murad IV against the Safavids.93 The other doctor, Andrea Scogardi, also reported from both Constantinople and Iaşi.94 In both cases, there is evidence that they provided intelligence not only for the Habsburgs but Ragusa and/or Venice also enlisted their services (Scogardi was also involved in political assassinations), which offers a clear indication of their significance.95 They were also primarily engaged in their profession, so as spies, they were news sources and were not involved in the forwarding of letters. They obviously put themselves at considerable risk by engaging in espionage activities, but as they were doctors, it was quite difficult to replace them, so they did not have to fear strong reprisals. As a group, the spies were more ethnically diverse. Grassi was Ragusan, while Scogardi had been born in Denmark. As for religion, the latter had protestant (Lutheran) roots, but he converted to Catholicism during his studies in Italy.96

The situation of people belonging to the third category was also different from that of ordinary letter forwarders. In their case, the identity of the person in question and his position again played a key role. Matteo Sturani, also of Ragusan origin, was recruited as a letter forwarder in Belgrade in 1624, and he wrote secret reports from Poland in the 1630s.97 After the death of Alexander Greiffenklau, he seemed a potential candidate for the post of resident ambassador, but because of his Ragusan origins and his age, he was eventually dismissed, and Simon Reniger was chosen instead.98 One of the reasons why Simon Reniger was considered more suitable for the post was that, unlike his predecessor, he had followed Schmid’s advice.99 Francesco Vlatchy/Vlatky also reported regularly, but later he proved more unreliable, since he did not receive his regular salary.100 Thus, despite his claims to the contrary, he does not seem to have taken on the risky task out of conviction, but rather for money.

Hans Caspar in Buda was not only useful for espionage, but he also forwarded letters on several occasions. For example, he sometimes copied and forwarded letters to Vienna sent by Reniger, which had been unsealed by the Pasha of Buda. Moreover, he regularly forwarded letters sent by Ottoman chiauses.101 Later, because of the events in Transylvania, Hans Caspar had to leave Buda and those lost access to the infrastructure that had previously enabled him to transmit the information he had acquired. This event proved to be a decisive factor in his later life.102 Nevertheless, Caspar was still seen as a potential spy, as evidenced by diplomatic reports, for example, when he tried to blackmail
Dr. Johann Friedrich Metzger, who had been sent to the camp of the Pasha of Buda (Gürcü Kenan), because the Pasha was ordered to move against György Rákóczi II.103 In this third and last group of the “Secret Correspondence,” therefore, both the functions of the individuals involved and the ethnic composition of the group seem to be mixed, but at the same time, the careers of these people can be traced.

Conclusions

Several important conclusions can be drawn from the present study. First, the Christian vassals facilitated the flow of information between the Habsburg Monarchy and the Ottoman Empire. Ragusa, through its merchants, played an important role in the communication and intelligence system built up by the Habsburgs in the first half of the seventeenth century, known as the “Secret Correspondence.” However, when they had the opportunity, the Habsburgs also used Transylvanian couriers to transmit letters. Second, the functions of acquisition and transmission of information are clearly distinct, so the term “Secret Correspondence” should be understood as referring to the infrastructure itself. Within this system, reports written by spies were also transmitted. Third, it follows that the role of the letter forwarders was merely to transmit information (hence the function itself), and the actual identity of the person who did this was almost immaterial, whereas in the case of the spies, the identity of the individuals in question was a key factor. Fourth, it is also clear from the cases presented that, although the intelligence officers were sometimes able to bargain, the spies and letter forwarder spies were better embedded in the system because of their position and therefore were less likely to rotate. Fifth, the organization of the system shows that the experience gained over the decades was accumulated and put to good use. This is illustrated by the fact that Johann Rudolf Schmid tried to offer Simon Reniger, his successor, the best conditions for the transmission of letters. Thus, Reniger, unlike his predecessor Greiffenklau, regarded Schmid as his master, who introduced him to the mysteries of Habsburg–Ottoman diplomacy. Sixth, personal skills were essential to the organization and operation of the system, as diplomats could use their Italian language skills to liaise with transporters and spies. Likewise, couriers responsible for recruiting new transporters had to rely on their personal talents and language skills to a great extent, too. In sum, talent, professionalism, and a personal network of contacts were key factors in facilitating Habsburg–Ottoman diplomacy in the first half of the seventeenth century.

Table 1. Letter forwarders and Spies in the Service of the Habsburgs between 1624 and 1658

Resident ambassadors in Constantinople	Letter forwarders, their citizenship, and religion)	Letter forwarder spies, the ircitizenship and religion	Spies, the ircitizenship and religion	Citizenship (total)	Religion (total)
Sebastian Lustrier (1623–1629)	Buda Giovanni Pellegrini (1624–1627?), Ragusan, Catholic Tomaso Orosini (Oct 1628–Jan 1629), Ragusan, Catholic	Buda –	Buda Hans Caspar(?), Ottoman Empire, Islam (orig. Catholic)	Ragusa: 2 Ottoman Empire: 1	Catholic: 2(3) Islam: 1
	Belgrade –	Belgrade Matteo Sturani (1624–1626?), Ragusan, Catholic	Belgrade –	Ragusa: 1	Catholic: 1
	Sofia –	Sofia Girolammeo Grassi (1624–?) Mario Cavalcanti (17. Oktober 1628–10. September 1629?), both Ragusan and Catholic	Sofia –	Ragusa: 2	Catholic: 2
Johann Rudolf Schmid (1629–1643)	Buda (from 1634), Ragusan, Catholic	Buda Lupo Lupino (appr. pseudonym), Ragusan, Catholic A noble Turk (appr. Hans Caspar), Ottoman Empire, Islam	Buda –	Ragusa: 2 Ottoman Empire: 1	Catholic: 1 Islam: 1
	Belgrade –	Belgrade Francesco Vlatchy/Vlatky (1628–1632?), Michael Medani (1633?) Both Ragusan and Catholic	Belgrade –	Ragusa: 2	Catholic: 2
	Sofia Stefano Vukovich (Vuković), Ragusan and Catholic	Sofia –	Sofia –	Ragusa: 1	Catholic: 1
	Iaşi –	Iaşi –	Iaşi Dr. Hans Andersen Skovgaard/Andrea Scogardi (1641–1643?), orig. Denmark and Lutheran, later Catholic	Denmark: 1	orig. Lutheran, converted to Catholic faith: 1
	Persia –	Persia –	Persia Dr. Francesco Crasso/Grassi (1637–1638), Ragusan, Catholic	Ragusa: 1	Catholic: 1
	Constantinople –	Constantinople –	Constantinople Dr. Francesco Crasso/Grassi (1640–1642), Ragusan, Catholic Zülfikâr Ağa (1629–1643), Ottoman Empire, Islam	Ragusa: 1 Ottoman Empire: 1	Catholic: 1 unknown
Alexander Greiffenklau (1643–1648)	Buda Peter Vuichich (Vuičić) (ab 1646?), Ragusan, Catholic	Buda –	Buda Hans Caspar, Ottoman Empire, Islam	Ragusa: 1 Ottoman Empire:1	Catholic: 1 Islam: 1
	Belgrade A person who sent some letters back for fear in 1645	Belgrade –	Belgrade –	Ragusa: 1	Catholic(?): 1
	Sofia –	Sofia –	Sofia –	–	–
	Constantinople	Constantinople	Constantinople Dr. Johann Hans Andersen Skovgaard/Giovanni Andrea Scogardi (1644–1645), orig. Denmark and Lutheran, later Catholic Zülfikâr Ağa (1643–1647), Ottoman Empire, Islam	Denmark: 1 Ottoman Empire: 1	orig. Lutheran, converted to Catholic faith: 1 Islam: 1
Simon Reniger (1649–1665) between 1649 and 1658	Buda Peter Vuichich (Vuičić) (1649–1655) Marco Vuichich (Vuičić) appr. brother of Peter (1655) Elias Luschick (Lušič) (1656?), all of them Ragusan and Catholic	Buda Hans Caspar, Judge of Óbuda (János Baán?), Ottoman Empire, unknown	Buda –	Ragusa: 3 Ottoman Empire: 1	Catholic(?): 3 –
	Belgrade Bagio di Simme/Drasili(?) (1649–1653) Giorgio Lamberto di Corti/Cortey/Cortrai (1653–1655) Lazaro Ginreta (1655–1657?), all of them Ragusan and Catholic	Belgrade –	Belgrade –	Ragusa: 3	Catholic: 3
	Sofia unknown	Sofia	Sofia	Ragusa(?): 1	Catholic(?): 1
	Constantinople	Constantinople	Constantinople Dr. Johann Andersen Skovgaard / Giovanni Andrea Scogardi (1653–1656), orig. Denmark and Lutheran, later Catholic Nikusios Panaiotes (Panajoti) (1649–1665), Ottoman Empire, Orthodox Zülfikâr Ağa (1649–1657), Ottoman Empire, Islam	Denmark: 1 Ottoman Empire: 2	orig. Lutheran, converted to Catholic faith: 1 Orthodox: 1 Islam: 1

Archival Sources

ELTE Egyetemi Könyvtár és Levéltár [ELTE University Library and Archives] (ELTE EKL)

G4 (Kuefstain, Acta et epistolae)

Tomus (Tom.) IV, V.

Österreichisches Staatsarchiv (ÖStA)

Haus-, Hof-, und Staatsarchiv (HHStA)

Staatenabteilungen

Türkei I. Kt. 109, 110, 112, 113, 124, 126

Polen I. Kt. 57.

Kriegsarchiv (KA)

Protokolle des Wiener Hofkriegsrates (HKR Prot.) Bd. 304, 313.

Alte Feldakten (AFA) Kt.

Finanz- und Hofkammerarchiv (FHKA)

Hoffinanz Ungarn (HFU) Kt. 339.

Sammlungen und Selekte (SUS)

Alte Postakten (APA) Kt. 6.

Reichsakten (RA) Kt. 302 (Fasz. 185A)

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A Special Form of Diplomatic Encounter: Negotiations in Constantinople (1625–1626)

Zsuzsanna Hámori Nagy
Research Centre for the Humanities
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Hungarian Historical Review Volume 12 Issue 2  (2023):3–36 DOI 10.38145/2023.2.224

In this article, I present a case study of a special form of diplomatic encounter that took place as secret negotiations between the resident ambassadors of France, England, Holland, and Venice and the Transylvanian envoys in Constantinople in 1625–1626 about a prospective alliance between Prince Gábor Bethlen and the anti-Habsburg powers during the Danish phase of the Thirty Years’ War. My analysis of this special form of negotiation offers a comprehensive overview of the practices deriving from the most characteristic circumstances and setbacks of diplomatic activity in Constantinople, i.e., what solutions (if any) were found to resolve problems of precedence, information brokerage, poor economic conditions, and bribery and corruption. I address, furthermore, the private interests of the participating Transylvanian diplomats and consider the extent to which these interests corresponded to the interests of their sending polity and especially of Gábor Bethlen. My discussion sheds light on the ways in which, in general, everyday challenges and networks of relations in Constantinople influenced the diplomacy of small states in the Ottoman orbit, specifically Transylvania in this case, when entering into an alliance with major powers outside the bonds of their Ottoman tributary status.

Keywords: diplomacy, Constantinople, Gábor Bethlen, Principality of Transylvania, Ottoman Empire

An Ottoman Tributary State in the Thirty Years’ War

The princes of Transylvania participated1 in the Thirty Years’ War on four occasions, belonging to different anti-Habsburg coalitions. Three of these interventions came about under the reign of Prince Gábor Bethlen (1580–1629, ruled from 1613), who from the first moment engaged in the conflict on the side of the Winter King, Frederick of the Palatinate.2 In his first military campaign, he entered the territory of the Kingdom of Hungary in September 1619, and in November, he participated in the unsuccessful siege of Vienna. By January 1620, the estates of the Kingdoms of Hungary and Bohemia had entered into an alliance with those of Austria. Bethlen was elected king of Hungary in August 1620, but due to his allies’ defeat at the Battle of White Mountain in November of the same year, he started negotiations with Ferdinand II and concluded peace by January 1622, renouncing his royal title. His second intervention was of a much smaller scale: although he constantly negotiated with Frederick through emigrants from the Palatinate, it was not possible to join his army with those of Frederick’s generals after he reached as far as Moravia during his second military campaign of autumn 1623. Therefore, in May 1624, he concluded peace with Ferdinand II again.

His last effort to join an anti-Habsburg coalition was made in 1626, and this time the preparations seemed more fruitful than they had been three years earlier. An international coalition of Protestant powers to help the Winter King regain his throne and title was created in the form of the League of The Hague in December 1625 with the participation of England, Denmark, and Holland. The participants invited other interested states to join their coalition, such as the Principality of Transylvania and France. As for Transylvania, Prince Gábor Bethlen made a great step to become a member of the anti-Habsburg league by marrying Catherine, sister of the Elector of Brandenburg, in the spring of 1626.3 He started military maneuvers against Ferdinand II shortly afterward, in the summer of 1626, but joined the alliance officially only later, between November 1626 and February 1627 by the signature of the Treaty of Westminster and its ratification by Holland and Denmark.4 By this time, however, much to the disdain of his new allies, he had already concluded the peace of Pozsony/Bratislava with the emperor. As for France, despite the support it gave in the form of indirect warfare against the Habsburgs and the dynastic connection with England,5 both confessional and internal political tensions, which reached their climax with the Huguenot uprising starting in 1625, prevented its adherence to the League of The Hague.6

Direct contacts between Transylvania and interested parties such as England, France, Venice, Holland, Sweden, and Denmark were maintained during the 1620s through formal and informal channels with the help of public and secret envoys. However, the Principality of Transylvania as a small state in the Ottoman orbit was not able to build anything resembling the networks of permanent embassies throughout Europe that the main players in international diplomacy had started to build. The only exception was Constantinople where, following from Transylvania’s status as an Ottoman tributary, a resident envoy called a kapitiha was always present beside the occasional, more solemn embassies discussing current affairs or bringing the yearly tribute to the Porte.7 Constantinople had a special status in European and Transylvanian diplomacy as a center for information exchange,8 which in practice meant the permanent diplomatic presence of all major and minor powers. It is thus hardly surprising that, from the middle of the sixteenth century, negotiations at the Porte played a crucial role in maintaining contacts between the Western states and Transylvania.9 From the perspective of the historian, this means that, in contrast with the negotiations conducted sporadically through direct contacts, the practices and methods used during these negotiations and the personal interests of the individuals and polities involved can be more easily reconstructed and analyzed, since the negotiations themselves were continuous and some of the parties left behind a well-preserved corpus of diplomatic correspondence.

Negotiating in Constantinople: Challenges and Solutions

Constantinople was the primary scene to reach one of Gábor Bethlen’s main foreign political goals in the mid-1620s: the granting of permission by his Ottoman overlord to enter an alliance with anti-Habsburg European partners and engage in military actions within these frames. The resident ambassadors at the Porte were Philippe de Harlay, count of Césy10 of France, Sir Thomas Roe11 of England, Cornelis Haga12 of Holland, Zorzi Giustiniani13 of Venice, and László Balásházy14 of Transylvania. They worked together closely to this end in the summer of 1625. The participants worked diligently at the requests of their sovereigns, whose political interests happened to coincide with those of the prince of Transylvania for a short time. However, their collaboration was made difficult by problems of diplomatic precedence and questions of bribery and treason, and they ended with dubious results.

An investigation of the first factor (disputes over precedence and especially the competition between the French and English resident ambassadors) prompts reconsideration of the widely accepted view in the Hungarian secondary literature concerning the primary role of Thomas Roe in supporting Bethlen’s efforts at the Porte. As it is well known, in addition to the diplomatic ranks of different envoys, the order in which Western powers established diplomatic contacts with the Ottoman Empire also had an informal impact on encounters among diplomats in Constantinople.15 It was the task of the permanent French ambassador to guard his own declared precedence, which was constantly challenged by the others. Césy was accused by his successor at the post of resident ambassador, Henry de Gournay, Count of Marcheville, of having allowed the Venetian bailo to proceed at his right and having let the ambassador of Holland to represent Transylvanian, Moldavian, Wallachian, Swedish, and Polish interests.16 On the eve of the negotiations with the Transylvanian resident, Césy was outraged by the cooperation never seen before of the Venetian bailo and Thomas Roe in some ecclesiastical appointments, which caused further disappointment when Giustiniani was not willing to pay him a visit together with the newly arrived Venetian ambassador, Simone Contarini, in April 1625.17

Temporary enmities and conflicts of interest gave rise to short-lived coalitions among the diplomatic players in Constantinople, while political confrontation was sometimes overridden by confessional interests. One of the most typical dividing lines was of a denominational nature. Over the course of the 1620s and 1630s, the opposing parties formed by the French and Habsburg resident ambassadors against those of England and Holland were trying to outbid one another in their negotiations with the Ottoman authorities in order to remove or keep in position the Greek patriarch of Constantinople, who was known to have accepted Protestant doctrines.18 In contrast, the long-lasting conflict between French and Habsburg interests on the European political scene made the ambassadors of the rival powers enemies, a situation in which English support was not always provided to the French despite the dynastic ties formed in 1625. Thomas Roe was equally missing personally from the coalition of the French, Venetian, and Dutch ambassadors, who conspired against the Spanish agent arriving at the Porte in the summer of 1625, as well as from their conferences with the Transylvanian resident during the same period.19 Roe’s personal absence was not the consequence of the plague raging in Constantinople that summer but rather was part of a practice he followed to avoid Césy and thus answer the problem of rivalry. Césy also adopted this practice from the very beginning of Roe’s mission: although he ordered twelve torchbearers to accompany Roe when entering Constantinople, they both avoided public encounters and met only on private occasions.20

This throws into question Roe’s primary role in the negotiations of 1625, which he contended was “the main motive and actor of the present affair.”21 While Roe was constantly informed through the other residents’ letters and acted in Bethlen’s favor separately from the others, it is important to note that Césy was also frequently absent due to illness in the summer of 1625. For the most part, it was Haga, Giustiniani, and Balásházy, together with different interpreters (more on them later), who were present at the negotiations. Gábor Bethlen had already asked Ottoman permission to seek protection from the friends of the Porte and ally with them against the Habsburgs, but this first license was given only “by word of mouth.”22 The aim of the meetings of summer 1625 was to redact the text of a document granting this permission in line with the interests of the involved parties, who insisted that their sovereigns could not be explicitly named therein. Balásházy showed the others a draft that would have licensed Bethlen’s alliance with them, encouraged him to wage war on the emperor, and offered military aid for such an enterprise.23 The final draft was redacted by the bailo of Venice.24 Despite the joint efforts, all the resident ambassadors were left dissatisfied, as the document that was sent to the prince of Transylvania mentioned the kings of France and England, the Republic of Venice, and the Netherlands as friends of the Porte with whom the prince of Transylvania was allowed to unite, but it made no reference to him waging war on the emperor.25

The solution to this failure lay in the combination of two characteristics of Ottoman diplomacy. The first was the prevalent tendency for the Ottoman power to include something different in the documents it issued than had been previously agreed on. The second can simply be called the practice of bribery when it came to any political decision in Constantinople, which meant various sums of money and gifts26 for officeholders of every rank, from interpreters to scribes at the chancellery. In the particular case of Bethlen’s license, the meaning was not lost in translation, but the ambassadors’ refusal to pay the sums demanded by the Ottoman interpreter and head of scribes for the correct formulation of the text might have contributed to the problem. The direct approach of the chancellery would not necessarily have resulted in the right formulation of any document, however. For example, bribes paid to scribes resulted in only slight changes in the text of the ’ahdname sent from the Porte to Poland in October 1623.27 No less could have been expected in the much smaller case of redacting a letter of permission, even if the sums requested had been paid.

When discussing the details of the text of the license, the resident ambassadors could count on their interpreters and to some extent themselves. Césy was sometimes represented by an interpreter named Olivier.28 Balásházy, who spoke Latin (and probably Italian as well) translated some letters himself. Indeed, he considered it a dire mistake that Cornelis Haga “involved those beys” whose ignorance he blamed for the questionable outcome.29 He must have been referring to Grand Dragoman Zülfikâr Ağa,30 the Hungarian-born Ottoman interpreter employed by the Transylvanian embassy permanently during the first half of the seventeenth century, and Yusuf Ağa,31 who as chiaus served as an intermediary between Transylvania and the Porte. It was the kaymakam who ordered Zülfikâr to translate all documents brought by the Transylvanian envoy32 and thus it seems that the dragoman’s presence in Transylvanian affairs could not be ignored in this case, as he emerged as some kind of expert on the region at the Porte.33 Haga wrote to Roe upon first hearing Bethlen’s demand about the license that the three of them (himself, Giustiniani, and Césy) thought it appropriate to entrust Zülfikâr with the negotiations concerning the license and gave their word to pay him one hundred thalers each if the business was finished according to the expectations of the prince. Still, they did not find him trustworthy. Balásházy, however, convinced them that Bethlen had already rewarded him with a carriage and horses for his services.34 After the fiasco, by emphasizing Haga’s role in requesting Zülfikâr’s help, Balásházy, as a representative of the Transylvanian embassy, probably wanted to dilute the blame for the disastrous outcome, which he saw as a consequence of having involved the grand dragoman.

Further complications arose from the fact that Zülfikâr and Yusuf, with Olivier as a witness, promised the head of scribes (reisulkuttab), who was acquaintance of theirs, another four hundred thalers in August 1625 when visiting him at his house. Balásházy offered to pay this latter sum in the name of his master, with the ambassadors paying their share of the other four hundred.35 However, the Venetian and Dutch ambassadors informed Roe about their decision that they would only pay Zülfikâr once the business of the permission had been completed to their satisfaction. They explained their refusal with the contention that they had not been authorized by their sovereigns to make such payments.36 The resident ambassadors do not seem to have had much faith in Zülfikâr’s good intentions concerning the second four hundred thalers either, and they seem to have thought that he wanted it for himself. Sooner or later, however, and against their better judgment,37 they all paid their original share of one hundred each in exchange for what they called the services of Zülfikâr in general.38 The first one to pay was Roe, and Balásházy was clever enough to play on the sentiments of competition among the ambassadors when praising him as the one who “not only superseded but defeated the others.” Upon hearing of Roe’s contribution, the others also started to pay, first, some smaller portions to Zülfikâr, and some money was even offered to Yusuf to compensate for his journey to present the letter of license to the prince.39

As noted above, Haga, Giustiniani, and Césy originally insisted on waiting until the business had been successfully conducted in a manner that would meet the expectations of the prince of Transylvania before making any payments. Ultimately, the matter was indeed resolved and met the prince’s expectations. No matter how much the ambassadors complained that the finalized document lacked any encouragement to Bethlen to wage war on the emperor but mentioned their masters,40 Balásházy argued that Gábor Bethlen was pleased with the letter of license. All the more so, as he indicated that Bethlen had not made the request for permission “out of necessity but for his wellbeing,”41 which corresponded to his original request mentioning “security and caution.”42 It can also be said that the original draft was provided by Bethlen to Balásházy, and the Ottoman chancellery returned to this version from the one that the ambassadors presented.43 This suggests that the aim of Bethlen in the summer of 1625 was to be permitted by his Ottoman overlord to adhere to the League of The Hague in formation, without actually starting any military maneuvers yet, for which he first needed to have his conditions fulfilled by his future allies.

Without elaborating on the details of the preliminaries of such a treaty, it is clear that they were discussed primarily by envoys who were sent directly to the involved parties, of which the ambassadors at the Porte knew very little. In this respect, Constantinople was a scene of secondary importance, as none of the resident ambassadors at the Porte had received any authorization to conclude a treaty of alliance with the Transylvanian envoys. Although Bethlen informed his emissaries in Constantinople about the preliminaries and sent them copies of his main stipulations to be discussed with the representatives of the anti-Habsburg party, several factors hindered the development of such negotiations at the Porte. Apart from the great distances to be covered and the slow pace at which anything could be delivered using postal services (of which the ambassadors continuously complained), the presence of a traitor among the members of the Transylvanian delegation also caused many a problem during the crucial year of 1625.

The suspicion that there was a traitor in their midst arose first among the envoys in March 1625, when Césy, Roe, and Haga noticed the close contact between Balásházy and the imperial resident. Roe suspected that Balásházy was influenced in this not by any duplicity on Bethlen’s part, but rather because of his own status as a member of the Catholic fold. They also heard rumors according to which Balásházy had displeased his lord and would be replaced. To answer the challenge of possible information leakage, they decided to write separately to the prince and forwarded the copy of the sultan’s letter written to him by their own secret courier.44 At the beginning of 1626, Césy wrote about Balásházy’s treason as a fact and used it as a pretext to send his other interpreter, Tomaso Fornetti,45 to Transylvania with instructions he believed to be in accordance with the direction of French foreign politics. I discuss this in more detail later in the essay, but is worth quoting Césy’s complaint that he could not communicate with the ambassador of the prince without the resident being present; and when he was not there, the ambassador, who spoke neither Latin nor Italian, turned for help to the kaymakam’s domestic interpreters, which had even more disastrous consequences from the point of view of information leakage.46 Roe had a more balanced opinion and admitted that he had not managed, with his inquiries, to discover the identity of the traitor. Indeed, he stood by Balásházy, saying that he “hath suffered much affliction,” but nothing had been proven against him, and he might well have been wrongly accused.47

Balásházy’s perspective can be reconstructed with the help of his letters. In August 1625, the ambassadors confronted him with their finding that either he or the interpreter of the Transylvanian embassy was a traitor, as one of them had passed on all the secrets to the imperial party. In order to prove that he always spoke the truth, Balásházy offered to have Olivier translate all the documents that the prince had recently sent to the Porte and that had been read to the kaymakam, as well as the reply that was going to be sent in a few days. He also offered to investigate the possibility that perhaps a domestic servant or the interpreter was the traitor.48 It is worth considering who this interpreter (not to be confused with the Dragoman Zülfikâr) might have been. The sources reveal that he was a man by the name of István Futó (referred to as “Stephanus alumnus” by Balásházy), who had studied at Bethlen’s expense in Constantinople to become a Turkish scribe. Although there exists no information concerning when he entered into service, he might have taken up some tasks of interpretation during the pourparlers of the resident ambassadors. Habsburg diplomatic correspondence reveals that Futó was able to transfer information about Transylvanian affairs to the Habsburg embassy for years before 1626 when he finally left the Porte.49

It is hard to determine the extent to which Balásházy was involved in this affair, but his silence could be interpreted as telling. There is no sign of any further mention of the issue of treason or of any investigation in his letters for about half a year, which suggests that he did not really launch any inquisitions or if he did, he concealed the findings. By December 1625, it was too late. He had lost all credit in the eyes of the resident ambassadors except for Roe, whose trust he especially held dear. A letter written to Roe reveals that both of them considered Yusuf Ağa the source of rumors concerning Balásházy’s treason. When the resident confronted him with this in the presence of the Transylvanian ambassador Pál Keresztesi and the agent Bornemisza, Yusuf denied ever having said anything against him, but he said he had heard talk of István Futó having given Transylvanian letters to the Habsburg resident.50 After this letter was written to Roe, Balásházy disappeared almost entirely from the sources, but he remained for eight more months at the Porte, probably hiding in shame. It was only in June 1626 that the prince appointed Tamás Borsos as a new resident and dismissed Balásházy for “certain reasons.”51 For the last time, Roe stood by his colleague (or possibly friend) when he wrote a letter of testimony to Gábor Bethlen calling Balásházy the prince’s “true and faythfull servant,” whose abilities he found exceptional. Roe’s letter also reveals that the suspicions that fell on Balásházy “proceeded from an enemye” and that “Stephano” finally fled, for which Balásházy accused himself.52

Contrary to Roe’s testimony, Borsos, Balásházy’s successor at the post of resident, reported that Balásházy, who had been condemned by everyone, “was not His Highness’ orator but that of the German emperor.” Furthermore, against Balásházy’s objections, he was only willing to take over the building of the Transylvanian embassy with an inventory, as he claimed to have found at least two hundred thalers worth of damage caused by his predecessor.53 Balásházy was indeed imprisoned in the summer of 1627, and the amounts of money promised by him to several officers (including one hundred thalers for the head of scribes and a carriage to someone unknown) were ordered by the prince to be paid from his own holdings.54 Incidents of residents at the Porte going bankrupt were not uncommon. Césy was also accused by his successor, Marcheville, of causing damage to the building of the ambassadorial residence,55 and when Marcheville himself went into bankruptcy and fell into disgrace, Césy was still present in Constantinople and ready to continue his mission as resident ambassador, as he had not been able to leave the city between 1631 and 1634 because of his unpaid debts.56

Harsh financial conditions, accumulation of debts, and unpaid salaries in the middle of the monetary crisis of the era affected larger and smaller players alike,57 while definitely posing greater problems for such minor characters as Balásházy or even the Turkish scribe Futó. One cannot help but suspect this is what may have driven them to sell the property of the embassy or even some precious information. In a letter written by Futó in 1624, he desperately begged for money from his relative, the secretary of the prince, as he had none left. He was afraid of an approaching peril and said that if he did not get help soon, his soul would be corrupted.58 This suggests a connection between his financial crisis and his passing on diplomatic documents to the imperial resident, which started in late 1624 or early 1625. As for Balásházy, no indications of any such correlation have been found in the sources so far, but he also might have been involved in the scheme to some extent. He otherwise seems to have been a talented diplomat who spoke languages, could argue convincingly, and navigated comfortably among the authorities and officials at the Porte, but his last effort to defend himself from the charges he faced was unsuccessful. In the long run, however, this incident did not break his career as a diplomat entirely, as he represented Prince György Rákóczi I as a member of his delegation at the negotiations concerning the Treaty of Eperjes/Prešov with Ferdinand II in 1633.59

The Impact of Networks of Relations on Negotiating in Constantinople

The discussion so far has touched on several practices used in negotiations in Constantinople and the circumstances surrounding the negotiations. In the last section of this essay, I concentrate on how the resident ambassadors at the Porte reflected on the fact that the negotiations of a treaty of alliance with the prince of Transylvania were basically impossible in Constantinople. I also consider why, if they were aware of this fact, some of them still pursued these efforts without any authorization from home. As I will show, apart from practical reasons, this might have been due to interpersonal relationships similar to the apparent friendship between Roe and Balásházy. Césy’s friendship with the Transylvanian nobleman Ferenc Bornemisza, Bethlen’s agent at the Porte accompanying Transylvanian ambassadors to Constantinople three times in 1625–1626, can also be traced as a factor in the background.

There is a difference between the opinions of the representatives of the two greatest powers involved, that is the resident ambassadors of England and France, about maintaining contacts with Bethlen through Constantinople. Roe, though having spent less time in Constantinople than Césy, warned the Transylvanian ambassador János Gáspár in May 1625 that a treaty should not be concluded at the Porte, as the sole ambassador of England or France could not take upon himself the diverse interests of so many contracting parties, while the grand signor himself might have wanted to be admitted to such a league.60 He also sensed that Bethlen “did only enterteyne us, and that his resolutions depended upon some other place.”61 Nevertheless, he was well aware of the significance of Bethlen’s prospective joining the anti-Habsburg coalition with respect to Frederick of the Palatinate and his wife, Elisabeth Stuart, so he related everything in connection with his moves and underlined the importance of winning him for the common cause. Both James I and Charles I were, however, unwilling to take up diplomatic relationships with the prince of Transylvania directly before the end of 1625, when the English party, partly at Roe’s urging, ultimately considered Constantinople quite a detour for correspondence with the prince.62

As for Césy, a change of attitude can be noticed when considering his negotiations with Transylvanian envoys about the preliminaries of a future treaty. When giving an audience to Gáspár in May 1625, he showed a reserve similar to Roe’s and suggested that these matters should directly be discussed with the French court through the envoy who had already visited the prince.63 The ambiguity of his instructions of October 1625, together with the delay caused by slow delivery by the post services and the information leakage to the Habsburg resident, however, pushed Césy to get in touch with Bethlen directly through his interpreter. In a letter of October 5 which Césy received in early 1626, Louis XIII wanted a confident person, i.e., Césy, to communicate his intentions regarding the preliminaries with the Transylvanian resident at the Porte. On October 30, he warned his ambassador to accept all propositions of a league from the other interested parties or from the Transylvanian resident but only to inform the sovereign and give an opinion about it.64 By the time this latter message reached Césy at the beginning of February 1626, he had already sent Fornetti to Transylvania with the king’s propositions, as he did not dare share them either with the resident Balásházy or the ambassador Keresztesi in December 1625, as the imperial party had already learned of some of the details.

As mentioned in his letter to Louis XIII, Césy’s other reason for sending his own courier to Transylvania was his close connection with his friend and confidant Ferenc Bornemisza who, according to his instructions given to Fornetti, was the only person the interpreter should open up to when arriving at the princely court. Césy told Fornetti to let Bornemisza and Bornemisza only translate his instructions and to deal with Bethlen secretly, solely in Bornemisza’s presence.65 Ferenc, the Francophile scion of the wealthy Bornemisza family of Kolozsvár/Cluj most probably stayed for some time in France after studying in Olmütz/Olomouc and Freiburg. He and his brother László were employed in diplomatic missions under the reign of Gábor Bethlen, and they both traveled to the Porte several times, László in the 1610s and Ferenc in the 1620s.66 Ferenc Bornemisza stayed by the side of János Gáspár in April–June 1625, when Bethlen’s demands concerning the letter of permission and the first version of the preliminaries were declared to the resident ambassadors.67 He is also mentioned together with Keresztesi in Balásházy’s letter to Roe about Yusuf’s allegations, which suggests that he was also present at the Porte in December 1625.68 He returned as Bethlen’s special emissary in May–June 1626 with the prince’s approval of the conditions sent by Césy through Fornetti.69

This last mission means that Bethlen granted what Césy had requested through Fornetti. Conforming to his demand, he delegated Bornemisza with credentials to the Porte to address the preliminaries of the treaty. The prince did so even though he had reservations about and expressed his distrust in Bornemisza to the ambassador of Brandenburg present at his court in April 1626.70 The reasons behind Bethlen’s distrust are yet unknown. He may have thought that Bornemisza was involved in the scandalous case of Futó and Balásházy, who were still at the Porte at the time. In any case, by assigning Bornemisza the task of negotiating in Constantinople, Bethlen was able to remove someone he did not trust from his court. All the more so, as the Porte was a scene of only secondary importance with regard to the preliminaries of an anti-Habsburg treaty, and the prince continued to discuss the details through agents sent directly to the powers involved. When the direct negotiations reached a dead end with France in the middle of 1626 (just before Bethlen entered into war against Ferdinand II), Bornemisza was withdrawn from Constantinople. This, together with the news that Bethlen had directly sent his courier to France without informing his emissary in Constantinople earlier,71 was as much of a surprise for Bornemisza as for Césy and Fornetti, and it must have contributed to the development of feelings of mutual dissatisfaction. The Bornemisza family’s hatred of Bethlen culminated in 1629 when they “no longer wanted the race of the prince.”72 Still, their real loss of influence came about under the reign of György Rákóczi I, as a result of which Ferenc moved from Transylvania to the Kingdom of Hungary in the second half of the 1630s.73 As for the relationship between the Bornemiszas and the dragoman family Fornetti, it survived until at least 1629, when Francesco Fornetti was involved in the correspondence and financial transactions between the Transylvanian brothers and the merchant Jean Scaich of Galata.74

After Fornetti’s fruitless mission in Transylvania in the spring of 1626, Césy also felt deceived and frustrated to see that the negotiations of a treaty of alliance were going on, but not through his mediation, and his role had been limited to that of an informant.75 The fact that he had been personally misled probably contributed to his loss of faith in Bethlen’s good will. When he learned of the instructions of the direct envoy sent by Bethlen to France, Césy considered some of the points lies. Furthermore, by judging the permission acquired in 1625 as adequate, he was willing to obtain Bethlen’s next license of summer 1626 to wage war on the emperor only half-heartedly, as he did not trust that Bethlen really wanted to attack Ferdinand II.76 This time it was indeed Thomas Roe who played the primary role in convincing Ottoman dignitaries to give Bethlen permission to enter into war and in appointing auxiliary troops for him.77 From the perspective of French diplomacy, it was right before the beginning of the military campaign of the prince of Transylvania that the court also questioned Bethlen’s sincerity, but Louis XIII insisted that Césy continue to keep in touch with him in the most polite way.78

Conclusions

As a comparison of the relevant diplomatic correspondence reveals, the negotiations over procurement from the Ottomans of permission for Gábor Bethlen to join the anti-Habsburg powers and the preliminary discussions of the details of a future treaty were marked by unique collaboration among otherwise unfriendly participants. This comparison also reveals, however, that this initially fruitful collaboration, which essentially resulted from a temporary overlap of the political interest of the participating powers, was limited by several down-to-earth factors, such as the sums demanded by the Ottoman interpreter and head of scribes and the information leakage to the Habsburg resident. European ambassadors in Constantinople relied mainly on information coming from the prince of Transylvania when intervening on his behalf at the Porte. This is probably why Gábor Bethlen was content with the resulting document of license, even though the resident ambassadors who had worked to obtain it were not, as their rulers were mentioned in the text redacted in the autumn of 1625. French diplomatic circles became definitively estranged from Transylvania by the summer of 1626 because of the recurring question of the permission given by the Ottomans, which, however, did not mean the end of collaboration with the English and Dutch resident ambassadors.

From the perspective of Transylvanian diplomacy, Constantinople was a scene of primary importance concerning issues related to its status as an Ottoman tributary state, which in this case was the question of obtaining the aforementioned permission. Although the resident ambassadors tried to help get such documents, they were mostly unaware of their real importance from the point of view of Bethlen as vassal of the sultan. As a scene of secondary importance, the Porte emerged merely as a place to exchange information on the preliminaries of a future treaty of alliance, but one that made it impossible to conclude anything due to the lack of detailed instructions and the information leakage to the imperial party. While negotiating his joining the anti-Habsburg coalition created in the form of the League of the Hague in December 1625, Gábor Bethlen paid attention and formally demanded the permission of his Ottoman overlord. His rhetoric during the Constantinople negotiations presented him as an influential player in international politics but also made it quite clear that his wellbeing depended upon the permission of his Ottoman suzerain. It was partly this ambiguity that can be blamed for the loss of trust among French diplomats in the Transylvanian prince’s goodwill and the termination of their negotiations. Finally, this was complemented by the fact that the personal initiatives of the resident ambassadors, which were in part responses to practical challenges and derived in part from their rivalry, their sense of self-importance, and their personal relationships, were doomed to fail, which might have also contributed to their loss of faith in Bethlen’s sincerity regarding his proposed aims.

Funded by the European Union (ERC, SMALLST, 101043451). Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Research Council Executive Agency. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.

Archival Sources

Archivele Naţionale ale Românei, Direcţia Judeţeana Cluj [National Archives of Romania, Department of Cluj/Kolozsvár]

Colecţia Sándor Mike

Archives diplomatiques, Paris (Ad)

Correspondance politique Turquie, 133CP3, Correspondance et

documents divers, 1620–1628.

Correspondance politique Turquie, 133CP4, Le Comte de Césy, le Comte de Marcheville, ambassadeurs, 1629–1637.

Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris (BnF)

Ms fr. 15584, Recueil de lettres, pour la plupart originales, et autres pièces, relatives à l’histoire de France, principalement sous les règnes de Charles IX, Henri III, Henri IV et Louis XIII (1477–1657). XLV Règnes de Louis XIII et de Louis XIV (1628–1657).

Ms. fr. 16150, Papiers de l’ambassade de Philippe de Harlay, comte de Césy, à Constantinople.

Ms. fr. 16156, Lettres du Roy, des secrétaires d’Estat et principaux ministres à Mr de Césy, 1619–1625.

The National Archives, London (TNA)

SP 97/11.

SP 97/12.

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The Instrumentalization of Courtly Privacy in the Context of the Wedding Celebrations of Emperor Leopold I in 1676

Claudia Curcuruto
Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz
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Hungarian Historical Review Volume 12 Issue 2  (2023):3–36 DOI 10.38145/2023.2.279

According to the wishes of Pope Innocent XI Odescalchi and his representative at the imperial court, Francesco Buonvisi (1675–1689), Leopold I married the candidate they favored: Eleonora Magdalena of Palatinate-Neuburg. The emperor’s third wedding and the subsequent wedding festivities were held in Passau on December 14, 1676 in an absolutely private manner and without the intervention of the secular diplomats or the apostolic nuncio. The private staging of the sposalizio contrasts not only with the norms of the traditions of the imperial court with regards to ceremony, but also with the public staging of the emperor’s two previous weddings. Against this background, this article considers the possible functions that can be attributed to the private in this context and how the preferential treatment of the house of “Pfalz-Neuburg” can be interpreted in relation to the ceremonial norms of the imperial court. In this regard, the nunciature’s correspondence and their manifold interconnections thus represent essential sources which shed light on the mechanisms of “privacy” in diplomacy, as well as the shifting importance and meanings of the ceremonial norms of the imperial court.

Keywords: Pope Innocent XI Odescalchi, Francesco Buonvisi, Eleonora Magdalena of Palatinate-Neuburg, Apostolic Nunciature of Vienna, imperial court, Leopold I, marriage in early modern period, privacy

Introduction

“[…] ammettendo la scusa che lo sposalizio habbia da esser totalmente priva­to.”1 On November 1, 1676, Francesco Buonvisi (1626–1700),2 the apostolic nuncio at the imperial court,3 wrote a letter to Pope Innocent XI Odescal­-

chi’s4 cardinal secretary of the state,5 Alderano Cybo (1613–1700),6 about the planned private wedding celebrations of Emperor Leopold I7 to Eleonora Magdalena of Palatinate-Neuburg8 in Passau in December 1676.9 Privacy became the subject of argumentative directives during this dynastic feast at the Viennese imperial court, and the participation of resident diplomats, including the papal nuncio, became a question of diplomatic-ceremonial action. Why was the wedding kept private? Why could the representatives of the crowns, princes, and republics not attend the celebrations? What did the actors understand by “privacy” in the context of wedding ceremonies in 1676, and how was the concept of “privacy” instrumentalized by the actors in this context? What strategies did Buonvisi, in particular, develop to counteract his “exclusion” from the wedding ceremony in Passau?

The matter of the emperor’s wedding (and his choice of bride)10 represented a political issue of the first rank. After the death of Claudia Felicitas of Tyrol (1653–1676),11 Leopold I’s second wife, on April 8, 1676, tough marriage negotiations took place between April and October 1676 for the speedy remarriage of the 36-year-old sovereign. His first two marriages had been childless, so marriage negotiations were initiated after the death of Claudia Felicitas to secure a successor and the property of the Casa d’Austria.12 In addition to the 21-year-old Eleonora Magdalena of Palatinate-Neuburg (whom Leopold I ultimately chose as his new bride), the Protestant princess Ulrike Eleonore of Denmark (1656–1693), daughter of the Danish king Frederick III and later wife of Charles XI (1655–1697) and from 1680 queen of Sweden, was one of the favorites.13 On October 4, 1676, the emperor decided in favor of Eleonora Magdalena of Palatinate-Neuburg.14 His decision was influenced in no small part by the insistence of the negotiators representing Rome,15 as Pope Innocent XI reminded Emperor Leopold in his congratulatory letter of December 1, 1676.16 On December 14, 1676, the wedding between Emperor Leopold I and the Neuburg princess was celebrated in Passau by the arch- and prince-bishop of Passau Sebastian von Pötting (1673–1689).17 In general, these central events in the early modern period were always a public act and were not considered private affairs or private celebrations of the Casa d’Austria. With the wedding in Passau in 1676, however, there was an extraordinary fusion of the public sphere and the private sphere on the part of the Austrian Habsburgs,18 as I show in the discussion below.

Courtly Privacy and Incognito as New Categories of Diplomatic-Ceremonial Practice in the Early Modern Period

This particular Passau event of 1676 marked a decisive turn in the Theatrum caeremoniale19 and initiated a trend for future celebrations at the Viennese imperial court, where the complex categories of private and incognito were to play an increasingly important role in ceremonial activities from 1676 onwards. Following Barbara Stollberg-Rilinger’s studies on “Ceremonial as Political Procedure,” I understand ceremonial action as a larger category of social acts that are precisely standardized in their external form, that depict a social order, and that are therefore always related to participants and/or spectators who perceive and understand these signs.20

According to this definition, ceremonial action is part of the public activity of ruler and court and is directed equally at both participants and spectators, who had to perceive and interpret a given act and communicate its message further, for instance as envoys. The court ceremonial21 as a system of norms binding on all participants is related to the ranks of the persons involved and made visible and recognizable for all participants.22 What happens when the public activities of the imperial dynasty are shifted to the private sphere? First, the imperial court instrumentalized the categories of “courtly privacy,” and second, the apostolic nuncio introduced the field of action of “incognito” in the events in Passau in 1676, both in order to avoid ceremonial-diplomatic conflicts between the resident envoys at the imperial court and the father of the bride, Philip William, count of Palatinate-Neuburg.23

The words “private” and “court” in the conceptual pair of “courtly privacy” represent a counter-pair of privacy and publicity,24 which, however, are not separable for the early modern period and especially for the court.25 It can thus be stated that the dialectical quality of the conceptual pair was not to be adhered to, but rather, as inseparable categories at court, a more or less limited public sphere to be defined stabilized from case to case or a performance of the private occurred in a public setting. The people involved thus organized a supposed privacy while at the same time maintaining publicity by excluding diplomats to avoid conflict at the wedding ceremony and the subsequent banquet through the instrumentalization of courtly privacy.

Thus, in this context, courtly privacy means the claim to be protected from unwanted diplomatic-ceremonial conflicts in decisions and actions in representations and enactments of the private in public space and the claim to be protected from the entry of others into spaces and areas. The representation of the private creates forms of expression that transform existing spaces in the public sphere. Processes of dissolving the boundaries of the public in private staging modify the traditional role model and require differentiated approaches to solutions, such as the use of the concept of incognito on the ceremonial level.26 It should be emphasized, however, that the situational character of the events in the diplomatic-political ceremonial was always preserved, in which the category “private” is not to be regarded as a stable continuum, but was subject to the fluctuations of the actors involved in this complex relational dynamic and was subject to practices at the Viennese court that were always open to being redefined.

The meaning of the term incognito, usually understood to mean “unknown” to a particular person or several persons until the mid-sixteenth century, changed as the term came instead to be understood as “unknown” to the people involved in a ceremonial practice. Following Volker Barth, incognito is a practice that indicates the temporary relinquishment of ceremonial duties, that is, a temporary change of identity. This change of identity, which is as temporary as it is specifically individual, is carried out publicly and, for example, helped “make interaction possible” at conflict-laden meetings of high-ranking personalities without the ceremonial aspects of the meeting being suspended. In this way, forms of incognito emerged that shaped the court culture of the early modern period.27

The introduction of courtly privacy and the practice of going incognito opened up (new) possibilities for action in diplomacy and new ways of taking part in ceremonies for the actors involved in these processes, and this had an impact on subsequent events at the imperial court (including, for example, the introduction of a “private chapel” for the empress dowager Eleonora of Gonzaga-Nevers28 and the [private] wedding celebrations that took place in 1678).29 However, by shifting the “public” to a “private” setting, the apostolic nuncio created a novel situation in which he now could take part incognito.

This is precisely where the great potential for conflict lies: the required absence from the wedding celebrations in Passau in 1676 because of the demand for privacy, and the disputes that were going on over ceremony and rank, in which the nuncio insisted on his claim also to the ecclesiastical functions as papal representative. This established an “invented tradition”30 in the ceremonial practices of the Viennese imperial court and was ultimately noticed at other courts in Europe. We are thus speaking, in this case, of a tradition that was formally established with great speed. Moreover, the notion of “invented tradition” encompasses a set of practices, usually based on openly or tacitly accepted rules, which have a ritual or symbolic character and aim to transmit certain values and norms of behavior through repetition, which automatically implies continuity with the past.31 The essence and function of traditions, even invented ones, is invariance.32 The invention of traditions, it is assumed here, is essentially a process of formalization and ritualization characterized by reference to the past, even if only through the imposition of repetition.33 Accordingly, the possibilities for action by the actors could become visible via the invented tradition, that is, via the instrumentalization of the private in a public event.

In this discussion, I focus on how the Apostolic Nuncio Francesco Buonvisi operated in the spheres of public and private and how his ability to act was demonstrated in the ceremonial performance of the wedding celebrations in Passau in 1676. In his regular correspondence with the Secretariat of the State Buonvisi drew a detailed picture of the emperor’s marriage negotiations, and his daily reports to Rome prove an important source of information and knowledge34 in this context. The nunciature’s correspondence35 reveals that the private was also possible in the courtly public domain.36 As the example I offer shows, considerable political tensions between the courts of Europe could be mollified by limiting ceremonies performed in the public sphere and preferring instead the private sphere. Participation by the public meant pre-programmed conflicts of precedence37 as a result of the “incompatibility of divergent status hierarchies”38 and the claimed “plurality of ceremonial claims,” as can be demonstrated in the conflict between the Nuncio Buonvisi and the count of Palatinate-Neuburg. In this regard, there is an important area of research which, as noted by Elisabeth Garms-Cornides in her discussion of the role of apostolic nuncio in ceremonial events, “can by no means yet be considered to have been adequately dealt with in recent historiography.”39

Basic Constants of the Passau Wedding of Emperor Leopold I to Eleonora Magdalena of Palatinate-Neuburg in 1676: Context

The wedding celebrations for Emperor Leopold I and Eleonora Magdalena of Palatinate-Neuburg deviated significantly from the customary. First, the ceremony did not take place in Vienna but was held in Passau on December 14, 1676. Second, the usual per procuram wedding ceremony was dispensed with in advance. Third, the Advent season was not (and is not) traditionally a time for weddings. What motivated the Viennese court to make these changes remains an open question. That they wanted to avoid excessive splendor in view of the ongoing year of mourning was understandable, but why the diplomats residing at the Viennese imperial court and even the papal nuncio, Francesco Buonvisi, who had played a major role in the establishment of the alliance, were explicitly excluded was less so. These conspicuous features appear all the more strange against the background of the public staging of the Habsburg emperor’s two previous weddings.40 While Leopold’s first two brides had experienced all the pomp and splendor of publicly staged weddings, Eleonora Magdalena had to content herself with a poem of praise, Il Giudice di Paride,41 and a “private” staging of her wedding festivities.

Buonvisi did not attend the events as a private individual. As “servants of the pope,” the apostolic nuncios were representatives of the head of the Catholic Church and princes of the Papal States, far superior in rank to a simple duke or count. Furthermore, at the beginning of the reign of Emperor Leopold I, the ceremonial-liturgical role of the nuncio at the imperial court42 was laid down in detail. The nuncios seem already to have consolidated their ceremonial and liturgical positions at the court, so they were able to invoke deftly acquired ancient privileges. The privileges and functions of the papal minister included, for example, access to all gala days and events of festivals, as well as private chamber comedies. At the same time, the nuncio held supreme jurisdiction over court liturgies (baptisms, confirmation, the churching of the empress and weddings) and events at which the queen’s presence was guaranteed (solemn cappella, hereditary coronations, coronations and wedding banquets).43 Other prominent occasions on which the nuncio was at the center of liturgical events were the Maundy Thursday services in the Augustinian church, at which the imperial family and court publicly received communion from the hands of the nuncio, or processions of various kinds, especially processions held on the occasion of Corpus Christi,44 the laying of foundation stones, and the dedication of newly built churches. The numerous cappellae and the public services that the papal representative and the other diplomats had to attend were added to the many occasions on which the nuncio was liturgically active. Francesco Buonvisi was definitely of great importance in the court ceremonies of the Viennese imperial court, but in his daily life as nuncio, he had to grapple with disputes over rank with regard to the German imperial princes,45 and this caused the pope’s representative incessant discomfort precisely because of his special privileges in the liturgy.46 While Buonvisi had been prominently involved in the ceremonies surrounding the death and funeral of Empress Claudia, the ambassadors and thus also the nuncio were excluded from the wedding of the emperor to the Palatine princess in Passau. Clearly, the court preferred a private wedding ceremony,47 since one had to fear conflicts of precedence with the bride’s family. The wedding ceremony was performed by the bishop of Vienna and the archbishop of Gran/Esztergom respectively specifically to avoid ceremonial disputes at the table. The choice of venue was due to the ceremonial problems that arose between the diplomatic representatives of royal powers and the German princes. Instead, the diplomats were assured that they would not be expected to make the long journey. In an analogous way, the concept of courtly privacy was also applied to the two Habsburg weddings in 1678. Much as in the case of the emperor’s wedding to Eleonora of Palatinate-Neuburg (1676), which was held in Passau in a private manner, in 1678 the wedding of Eleonora Maria Josefa, the widowed queen of Poland and half-sister of the emperor to the duke of Lorraine and the wedding of Archduchess Maria Anna Josepha to the count of Palatinate-Neuburg, John William, were both held in Wiener Neustadt. Furthermore, both were considered private to avoid conflicts of precedence. Nevertheless, Buonvisi and his Venetian colleague paid a courtesy visit to the emperor’s sister Eleonora, the widow of the Polish king, incognito, but not to her husband, the duke of Lorraine; this happens analogously also in the case of Eleonora’s younger sister, Maria Anna. It can thus be stated that the Passau wedding can be regarded as a prime example of the introduction of courtly privacy and the concept of incognito, which also had its effects on subsequent weddings at the imperial court.48

After Emperor Leopold decided on October 4, 1676 to marry Princess Eleonora Magdalena Theresia,49 the daughter of Count Palatine Philip William,50 the following became quite clear: fertility and health were the most important considerations in a princely marriage, as well as the propagation of the Catholic faith (which was not guaranteed despite the announced conversion of the Danish princess) and the securing of the dynasty through offspring.51 In fact, the 23-year-old Catholic Neuburg princess had a head start over all her competitors because of her mother’s many children, which led to the conclusion, whether justified or not, that she too would prove fertile. After the choice was made, Rome congratulated the emperor on decision.52 The questions of the “provedimenti necessarii” were still unresolved, above all the date of the wedding festivities, which at that time were to be held before the first Advent, and the place for the wedding, which was thought to be around Linz.53 As of October 18, there was still no talk of possible conflicts or, better, disputes over precedence.54 After the election of the future empress, correspondence between Rome and Vienna between October 18 and December 14 revolved around the celebration of the wedding and the avoidance of precedence disputes with Count Philip William of Palatinate-Neuburg. In a total of twelve letters and 5 notifications (avvisi), matters between Rome and Vienna were clarified.55

The Incognito Project of the Papal Diplomat Buonvisi

After Buonvisi officially communicated the emperor’s official announcement regarding his future empress in his letter to the secretary of state on October 18, Buonvisi wrote a ciphered letter to Alderano Cybo on October 25, 1676. In this ciphered letter the apostolic nuncio presented a project revolving around the possible wedding festivities in Passau. He reflected on one point in particular: the session disputes at the table between the envoys and Count Philip William of Palatinate-Neuburg. Were the wedding to be held in Linz, the ambassadors of the princes would follow the imperial court and subsequently claim to be admitted to his table on the first day, as had been the case at the weddings of the last two empresses. This would create a conflict between the representatives and the father of the bride, as they would not agree on precedence at the table and elsewhere. Buonvisi therefore proposed the following solution to the Court Chancellor Johann Paul Hocher56 (which Buonvisi reported to Rome): Buonvisi thought of going to Linz at the beginning of December and then going “almost incognito” (portarsi quasi incognito) to Passau to visit the Madonna on her feast day. Subsequently, the sposalizio by Buonvisi should then take place privately (“per farvi privatemente lo sposalizio”). Under the excuse of an indisposition, Buonvisi then intended to leave immediately without taking part in the festivities after the blessing of the marriage in order to avoid disputes over the ceremony. For the secular envoys in general, the “lontananza del luogo, e dalla forma dell’andarvi, di dire a gl’Ambasciatori, che non lo seguitino”57 was considered a decorative, not valid argument (pretesto). Thus, the diplomats were not to be expected to make the arduous journey and the wedding was to take place in a “private form.” In this way, conflicts of precedence between the envoys and the count of Palatinate-Neuburg were to be circumvented.

Unlike his “colleghi secolari,” who somewhat regretted being prevented from attending the solemn occasion, the apostolic nuncio could not simply accept his absence: “ma io vi considero il pregiudizio della Nunziatura, se sotto qualsivoglia pretesto lo sposalizio si haverà da fare, o dal Vescovo di Passavia, o da altri.”58 Buonvisi considers exclusion from the celebration of the wedding or the wedding ceremony made private as damaging to the Apostolic Nunciature, especially if the wedding were to be performed under any pretext by the archbishop of Passau or by others. Buonvisi was concerned with safeguarding his prerogative (“il mio ius”) and his function of celebrating the sposalizio through the apostolic nuncio (“per conservare il possesso di fare lo sposalizio”). On the other hand, Buonvisi considered it very difficult to be present at the imperial table due to the disputes with the count. For this reason, Buonvisi proposed the following solution to Court Chancellor Hocher:

I did not want to disturb Your Majesty’s satisfaction, nor alter the enjoyment that you will have with your relatives, but that at the same time I would like to conserve my privilege, and that I could offer Your Majesty to take me incognito to the place of the wedding, I thought I could offer to take myself to the church at the time of the function, and leave immediately afterwards, but as I was alone without the others, it seemed to me that I could, without prejudice to our prerogatives, refrain from appearing at the other functions, especially as His Majesty wanted to hold them in an almost incognito form.59

Buonvisi proposed the idea of going incognito60 to the emperor at this point as the necessary solution. He thus believed that “aggiustamento” (agreement, rectification) could be reached by dissimulation rather than by approval (“dissimulando, che approvando”). Due to the positions Philip William of Palatinate-Neuburg and Charles V of Lorraine came to occupy within the hierarchy of rank and title in Europe, they were no longer willing to grant the apostolic nuncio the ceremonial precedence without objection from 1676 onwards. For Buonvisi, this ultimately meant coexistence, but without consent (“convivendo, e non consentendo”).61

Buonvisi therefore suggested that he might like to travel to Passau incognito and leave again after the marriage had been solemnized. Thus, according to Buonvisi, the nuncio’s ius for the sposalizio would be preserved, and the emperor would be able to celebrate his wedding at the imperial table with joy and satisfaction without fear of a conflict of precedence. 62 Hocher liked Buonvisi’s proposal and wanted to report it to the emperor.63 Buonvisi’s incognito project was invented as a ceremonial mode, according to Rohr, “to avoid many a precedence dispute’ (“zu Vermeidung mancherley Praecedenz-Streitigkeiten”).64 It was based on a separation of the person from his ceremonial function and created spaces for individual arrangements, which could be instrumentalized, especially by ruling monarchs, to avoid possible political complications specific to the situation. Once again, the act of going incognito opened a way out. In the incognito mode, it was possible to escape the invariable order of a ceremony, which ultimately created an architectural scenery of movable and immovable backdrops.

Once Buonvisi had been informed on October 25 about the location of the celebration,65 he revised his submitted proposal on the same day. Since it was still unclear whether Buonvisi would celebrate the sposalizio and whether the envoys would attend the wedding, Buonvisi wanted to go to the court chancellor the next day, i.e. October 26, 1676, and find out more about “che cosa hanno risoluta in questa materia” and whether “se spediranno il corriero per domandare la dispensa.”66 It is interesting that the avviso announces the form of the wedding in such an impressive way: “[…] e si crede che sarà in forma molto privata.” Previously, the same avviso alluded already to the private nature of the ceremony in a simpler form: “[…] et ivi farà privatamente le nozze.”67 There is thus an increase in the emphasis on privacy in the celebration in Passau from “privatamente” to “molto private” due to the presence of new information.

On October 27, Buonvisi sent a letter by express post to Rome requesting a quick reply to the letters he had already sent (which he presented again as duplicates)68 and asking for instructions on the funzione dello sposalizio. Since, as Buonvisi informed Cybo, Hocher had not yet been able to give him an answer as to who should hold it, he concluded “che habbino gran difficultà a consentire alla mia proposizione.” Buonvisi therefore submitted a modified proposal to Cybo, which he communicated to him in his letter of October 27:

and perhaps it will be better for me to remain in Vienna with all the others, because it would be better not to go to Passau if not incognito, since some people might interpret that I have actually yielded to the pretended precedence; with all this I thought it best to do that reason for not yielding at all to my jurisdiction, since it is true that they will at least tell me that they are not prejudiced by this act.69

Buonvisi thus considered it better to remain in Vienna with the other envoys during the wedding celebration. If the apostolic nuncio were to go to Passau, this could only be done if he traveled incognito. It might be interpreted by “some” (alcuni) that Buonvisi had indeed yielded to his “alleged” precedence (alle pretese precedenze). Buonvisi did not give up “affatto” his ius, and so he asked for instructions.

While Buonvisi was still waiting for a reply to his letters of October 25 and 27, he reported new events to Rome on November 1.70 Between October 27 and November 1, Hocher came to Buonvisi to inform him of the emperor’s decision: “Sua Maestà gradiva molto la mia moderazione, ma che haverebbe havuto più proprio sarebbe il ritrovarsi a Lintz, al ritorno di Sua Maestà.”71 Emperor Leopold I’s order was unmistakable: Buonvisi should not celebrate the wedding and neither should he undertake the journey to Passau, not even incognito. The emperor considered it “more appropriate” for Buonvisi to wait in Linz for his return.

How did Buonvisi deal with this problem? In a case of conflict or precedence disputes, one could either not appear at all or go to Passau incognito. The emperor, however, had expressed his explicit objection to the latter. The idea of traveling incognito was ultimately discarded in order to prevent a possible prejudicial effect and to avoid, as it were, a ritualization of the conflicts through the practice of traveling incognito. If one did not want it to come to that, the only way was an explicit (public/private) protest against the “invented tradition” adopted in connection with the privately held wedding ceremony, or one demanded a reversal in written form. As a rule, Buonvisi had his reservation of rights explicitly specified and affirmed in the declaration in question in order to prevent any precedent-setting effect. 72

Buonvisi did not insist further on his incognito project, mainly because he had not yet received any instructions from Rome. Instead, he demanded from the court chancellor or Emperor Leopold “che si preservasse la prerogativa della Nunziatura, con qualche dichiarazione in scritto, che esprimesse toccare questa funzione al Nunzio, ma essersi intermessa senza pregiudicare, solo perché Sua Maestà ha desiderato di far la funzione privatamente, e senza l’intervento dei publici rappresentanti.”73

Buonvisi therefore demanded that his liturgical privileges as apostolic nuncio be set down in writing, which he wanted to see safeguarded.74 Only in this case should his legal claim be suspended, because the emperor wanted to hold the function privately and without interference from public representatives. For Buonvisi, the documentation of this specific case and the affirmation in writing of his ius praecedentiae were decisive. Without this, the nunciature remained prejudiced. But due to the circumstances, the nuncio could not contradict the emperor without outraging him and without coming into conflict with the count of Palatinate-Neuburg. Buonvisi expressed his hope to the pope “that our Lord will approve of the reasons for having recalled the nunciature without then insisting on adhering to them, using the excuse that the wedding has to be totally private.”75 The question of the nuncio’s privileges was thus closely intertwined with the problems of precedence regarding German princes. Hocher then promised to convey the demand to the emperor and to present this declaration to him as righteous (“di rappresentarli per giusta questa dichiarazione”). The codification of Buonvisi’s ius gained a new dimension of public recognition and survived for a comparatively long time. If he tolerated an infringement on his right, he could eventually lose this privilege.76 As for Buonvisi’s request to be allowed to travel to Linz, the nuncio refused it. He considered this an escape from the dispute over precedence with the count of Palatinate-Neuburg (“mostrare di haver sfuggito la concorrenza”).

The Concept of “Private” in the Nunciature Correspondence

In the discussion below, I offer a detailed explanation of the meanings of the category of privacy. In Italian, the central term used by Buonvisi to designate the private is privato, in contrast to the category of the public (publico). In Italian, the adjective privato and the adverb privatamente are used primarily to characterize non-official, non-public places, persons, and acts. The reader comes across the term in correspondence mainly in adjectival form. In Buonvisi, one can observe two forms of use of the lexeme “privat.” Thus, we find the phrases such as “in forma privata/da esser totalmente privato” where the term is used as an adjective, or other sentences with “privatamente” as an adverb. In the difference between the public and the private, however, the imperial court valorized the concept of the private ceremonial sphere of action around the wedding ceremony. This instrumentalization of the private sphere was reported by the papal representative in partibus to the Cardinal Secretary of the State Alderano Cybo. He consistently alludes to the sphere of the “private” or the private form of the event. The concepts of rights form a frame of reference, and the associated field of words includes ius, prerogativa, privilegio, and giusto. Buonvisi attributes more influence to this frame of reference around his prerogatives than to any sense of regret over not being allowed to perform the liturgical celebration of the wedding in private. This makes it clear that an isolated consideration of the categories of public and private in the correspondence is not possible due to their discursive embedding. The private is bound to the public and vice versa, even if one or the other lexeme has not been explicitly nominated. This sheds light on the relationship between the public and private spheres of the wedding ceremony, which are always more or less clearly related to each other or reconciled and conceptually related.

On November 7, 1676, Pope Innocent XI and Alderano Cybo respectively replied to the Viennese nuncio via priority dispatch to his letters of 25 and 27 October 1676. The secretariat of the state gave Buonvisi the longed-for instructions concerning the ius of the nunciature and the function of the sposalizio:

Your Holiness, however, judges it right and proper that you should disengage yourself from the matter, as you yourself seem to have thought; since the wedding being celebrated privately, in a remote place, and far from the eyes of the ministers of the princes, it seems that no harm can be done to the dignity and prerogatives of the apostolic nuncio. [...] Nevertheless, for the greater caution of the future, Your Illustrious Lordship may leave a note in the registers of this Chancery of the reason why you have not been able to exercise this function this time, so that it may not be held up as an example in cases where [this function] may be exercised by the apostolic nuncio.77

Thus, Rome assured the papal representative residing in Vienna that with the wedding ceremony taking place privately in Passau there was no violation of the dignity (dignità) and prerogatives (prerogative) of the apostolic nuncio. As a matter of prudence, Buonvisi should describe the case in the registers of the chancery and explain why he was not in a position to exercise this funzione dello sposalizio in this specific case.78 Rome also assured the nuncio that the function of the sposalizio “without doubt” (indubitatamente) fell to the Viennese nuncio and to no one else.79 This concluded the case for Rome. In addition to the instructions, the extraordinary courier consignment contained the dispensation granted by Pope Innocent XI on account of consanguinity in the third degree, which was required by canon law for the marriage of Emperor Leopold to Eleonora,80 and at the same time the marriage license for the bishop of Passau.81 Leopold I had requested both on October 27, 1676.82 The dispensation and license reached Nuncio Buonvisi in Vienna on November 22, 1676, and one day later, on November 23, 1676, the emperor set off from Vienna to Passau.83

Avoidance as a Diplomatic Solution to Conflicts of Precedence

Francesco Buonvisi, reassured of the correctness of his actions by Rome, justified himself once more to make clear the aim of his whole undertaking:

my purpose was only to show that I was responsible for this function, and that I was anxious to serve His Majesty in any way, but in the extreme, I thought it better to avoid it, and I was only determined to procure a declaration that would preserve the reasons for the Nunciature, and perhaps I would have obtained it by now, if Hocher had not fallen ill; However, I will not fail to procure it on the return of Your Majesty, and if I do not obtain it, I will put in the Registers of the Chancery a separate report of the causes for which you omitted to go, so that the memory of it may remain, in order to protect us from the injuries in the future, as I am commanded by Your Eminence.84

“Avoidance” (lo sfuggire) and “excuse” (ammettendo la scusa) were two sides of the same coin in this process of avoiding disputes over precedence in ceremony. Buonvisi considered lo sfuggire more appropriate, while the imperial court advanced the scusa of not wanting the numerous envoys represented at the imperial court to make the long journey to Passau. It was obvious that the emperor’s third marriage was deliberately moved to Passau to spare the emperor unpleasant disputes over matters of ceremony. This in order to ensure that his new relatives would not suffer any insulting treatment at the hands of the diplomatic representatives at the imperial court during the ceremonial dinner where the newly wed emperor, his new wife and her parents (only counts) were supposed to sit at the same table as the diverse high ranking ambassadors,

…so that either the one or the other would have to leave the table, and the ambassadors (when they had moved from Vienna, and had not taken a seat at the table) would have been disgusted. In order to avoid such disconcert, it was arranged that the emperor let the ambassadors know that he was going to Passau to celebrate his wedding and that he did not wish the ambassadors to be inconvenienced, but to remain in Vienna, where he would shortly return with his bride. The ambassadors were indeed displeased with this request, but considering that it could not be otherwise, they concurred in His Majestys pleasure.85

The conflict therefore arose not only in the religious celebration of the wedding but also in the subsequent order of sitting at the table. In order to preserve the positions of the count and the envoys and to avoid conflicts, all the diplomats were, so to speak, disinvited. But in addition to that, in the register of graces in the archive of the Vienna Nunciature during Buonvisi’s term of office, there is no note of the substitution of the blessing of the marriage between Emperor Leopold I and Eleonora Magdalena of Palatinate-Neuburg with the archbishop and prince-bishop of Passau.86 This is probably because the wedding was celebrated “privately” in Passau and, as Cybo himself wrote to Buonvisi, the ius was not affected.87 The affirmation of the ius and prerogatives of the Apostolic Nunciature was a consequence in the avoidance of a precedent and the avoidance of a scandal in Europe over matters of ceremony and thus politics. The nuncio’s prerogatives had not changed since Ferdinand II’s accession to power.

Conclusions

The emperor’s wedding in Passau 1676 was only the beginning of further disputes over ceremony that sharpened the papal representative’s sensitivity to potential threats to his ceremonial position. Thus, privacy and participating incognito in events became important forms of instrumentalization and offered a way to avoid conflicts over precedence in ceremony at the early modern imperial court. On the one hand, the categories should not be understood as referring to retreat from the public eye. Ceremony, rather, was given a performative flexibility and adaptability. On the other hand, strict adherence to established tradition was observable at the imperial court. Leopold I was not free in his definition of ceremonial behavior. Rather, he had to orchestrate his acts on the basis of ceremonial practices in use at other European courts. These imperial responses showed that in matters of ceremony, the emperor always decided according to custom, demonstrating a conservative approach to ceremonial norms, especially towards the numerous envoys represented at the imperial court. This in turn suggests that incognito participation and privacy offered a way out of the dilemma and were seen as suitable means to avoid conflicts around ceremonial performances at the imperial court. However, if the ceremonial really “does what it depicts,”88 then incognito participation and privacy in the Theatrum ceremoniale constituted elements that were to be performed on stage, whereas the true reasons remained concealed behind the scenes.

Table 1. Rhythm of communication between Francesco Buonvisi and Alderano Cybo (October 17 to December 20, 1676)

Postal consignment	Confirmation of the letters	Alderano Cybo to Buonvisi	Francesco Buonvisi to Cybo	Confirmation of the letters	Postal consignment
Ordinario	No arrival of letters	17.10. (Sa), Rome Ciffer
			18.10. (Su), Vienna	3.10.	Ordinario
			18.10. (Su), Vienna
		(24.10.)
			25.10. (Su); Vienna	10.10.	Ordinario
			25.10. (Su); Vienna
			25.10. (Su); Vienna (Avviso)
			27.10. (Tu), Vienna		Staffetta, Extraordinary Shipping
		(31.10)
			1.11. (Su); Vienna	17.10.	Ordinario
			1.11. (Su); Vienna (Avviso)
Staffetta	18.10. 25.10. 27.10.	7.11. (Sa), Rome
			(8.11.)
		(9. 11.; 14.11.)
			15.11. (Su); Vienna	31.10.	Ordinario
			15.11. (Su); Vienna (Avviso)
		(21.11.)
			22.11. (Su); Vienna	7.11.	Ordinario
			22.11. (Su); Vienna (Avviso)
		(28.11.)
			(29.11.)
Ordinario	15.11.	5.12. (Sa), Rome
			(6.12.)
	22.11.	12.12. (Sa), Rome
			(13.12.)
		(19.12.)
			20.12. (Su); Vienna (Avviso)	5.12.	Ordinario
		(26.12.)
			(27.12.)
		(2.1.1677)
			(3.1.1677)
		(9.01.)

Archival Sources

Archivio Apostolico Vaticano (AAV)

Segreteria di Stato (Segr. Stato), Germania 36, 195, 196, 198, 208

Archivio della Nunziatura di Vienna (Arch. Nunz. Vienna) 29, 73, 500

Archivio di Stato di Lucca (ASL)

Archivio Buonvisi II/11; II/30

Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv Wien (HHStA)

Obersthofmeisteramt, Zeremonielprotokolle (OMeAZA-Protokoll) 3

Obersthofmeisteramt, Ältere Zeremonialakten (OMeA ÄZA) 10, 11

Urkundenreihen, Habsburg-Lothringische Familienurkunden (UR FUK) 1757

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Changes in the Diplomatic Measures of the Russian Empire in the Balkans after the Treaty of Kuchuk Kainardji (1774)

Katalin Schrek
University of Debrecen
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Hungarian Historical Review Volume 12 Issue 2  (2023):3–36 DOI 10.38145/2023.2.310

In the last third of the eighteenth century, the foreign policy of the Russian Empire was oriented towards the Ottoman Empire and, as part of it, towards the Balkans and the Black Sea region. The aspirations of Russian foreign policy under Catherine II were shaped not only by the weakening of the government in Constantinople and the acquisition of new territories, but also by the creation of Russian economic, cultural, and political presence in southeastern Europe. The creation of official diplomatic representations was one of the main tools used by Russia to establish its presence in the Balkans.

The establishment of permanent embassies and the creation of the necessary political and infrastructural background became a decisive segment in the development of European diplomacy from the Peace of Westphalia to the Napoleonic Wars. The steps taken by the government in St. Petersburg with the creation of permanent embassies in the leading European courts were in line with the abovementioned trend, but while this kind of “catching up” process gradually moved towards Central and Western Europe, Russia applied a completely different set of conditions to maintain diplomatic relations in the case of the Ottoman Empire. Ottoman diplomacy operated as a “one-sided diplomatic relation”: there were permanent Russian envoys at the Constantinople court, but no representatives were delegated by the Porte to St. Petersburg. Russia had to adapt to this special situation in the eighteenth century. This closed system was broken by the Treaty of Kuchuk Kainardji, which closed the Russo-Turkish War of 1768–1774 and included a clause according to which Russia had the right to establish consulates in the Ottoman Empire and thus in the Balkans, a key area.
The other key element of the Treaty of Kuchuk Kainardji was the right of the reigning Russian tsar to be the protector of Christians in the Ottoman Empire, which was also fixed in this agreement. The “authority” acquired at this time was not unprecedented, as the Porte had acceded to such requests in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries through capitulations with other states (such as France, Austria, or the Venetian Republic), thus establishing the “protégé” system. At the same time, the Russian government took the protection of Christians under the jurisdiction of the Porte to a new level and made it an integral part of its foreign policy. In my study, I examine how the Russian Empire applied the results of the Peace of Kuchuk Kainardji to diplomatic advocacy in the Balkans.

Keywords: Russian diplomacy, Ottoman Empire, eighteenth century, Balkan relations, Treaty of Kuchuk Kainardji, diplomatic service

In the history of Russian diplomacy, the eighteenth century brought several new elements which fundamentally determined the way in which the state operated in the field of foreign relations. European diplomatic trends served as a model for the development of Russia’s foreign missions and, perhaps more importantly, its institutional system. In this, as in so many other things, the reign of Peter the Great was the starting point, with the adoption of Western (i.e. European) customs, rules of sending and receiving ambassadors,1 protocols, and the abolition (or, more precisely, the transformation) of the prikaz system, which created a system of colleges within which foreign affairs functioned as a separate unit. Building up the institutional system, developing diplomatic practice in line with international trends, organizing the apparatus, and the coordination of all these segments was a difficult and complex process. As part of the latter, the Russian government also paid attention to building up its foreign representations. After the Peace of Westphalia (1648), it became a priority for the European states to maintain constant communication with one another, obtain information more efficiently and monitor the internal and external activities of other (usually rival) countries, which also served to keep one another mutually under control.2 The most effective way to do this was to establish permanent embassies, a process in which the Russian Empire was also involved, although at a somewhat slower pace. The measures adopted by the government in St. Petersburg to establish permanent embassies in the leading European courts were in line with the abovementioned policy. One of the first steps taken by Russia was to establish diplomatic connections with the courts of Central and Western Europe through its envoys delegated to London, Paris, and Vienna,3 though the geopolitical interests of the Russian Empire gradually shifted in the eighteenth century towards the eastern and southeastern regions of the continent.

The Balkan Peninsula, the Mediterranean, and the Black Sea region occupied a special place in Russian foreign political thinking, and several foreign policy concepts were formulated which made these territories (all of which were under the jurisdiction of the Ottoman Empire) a specific target of Russian expansion and influence gaining. These ambitions, motivated by economic and strategic considerations, placed the official relations with the Porte on a pedestal, together with the establishment and, if necessary, the strengthening of Russian ties with the Balkan peoples. But establishing a Russian diplomatic presence on the peninsula was far from easy. The process was slowed down (and heavily burdened) by a series of conflicts between St. Petersburg and Constantinople which flared up at times in the Russo-Turkish wars of the eighteenth century (1710–1711, 1736–1739, 1768–1774, and 1788–1792) and the peculiar and in many respects closed foreign political system that characterized the Ottoman Empire. St. Petersburg’s efforts to build official relations with the Balkan provinces and the strategies adopted and tools used in the pursuit of this aim must be analyzed and interpreted in this context. Russia delegated envoys to the Ottoman capital as early as the beginning of the eighteenth century, but the Ottomans had no official representatives in Russia until 1857.4

The question of Russian foreign policy and Russia’s great power status is a popular topic among Hungarian and international historians of Russian studies, and the process of Russia’s transformation into an empire has been studied from many perspectives in recent decades. Russian diplomacy, territorial expansion, and the aspiration to gain influence over specific regions (including the Balkans) are evident components of the works focusing on the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Almost without exception, every work (whether at the level of mention or deeper analysis) devotes attention to the Treaty of Kuchuk Kainardji, which is considered a starting point in the breakdown of parity between Russia and the Porte and also in the expansion of Russia’s regional influence (whether in the Balkans or the Caucasus). The treaty signed on July 21, 1774 between Russia and the Porte after the war of 1768–1774 was literally a triumph of Russian diplomacy. The negotiations were led by Pyotr Alexandrovich Rumyantsev, and it took almost two years from the armistice for Russia and the Porte to reach a final agreement.5 The historiographical overview of the subject is a difficult task due to its complexity, since the topic of the peace itself and Russia’s presence in the Balkans is mostly treated as one comprehensive thread, i.e. in the study of the history of the Eastern Question in general. In order to bypass this problem, I provide a narrow interpretation of the most significant literature directly related to the subject of this paper chronologically, thematically, and in terms of theoretical methodology.

One of the main directions of research concerning the Treaty of Kuchuk Kainardji is the traditional political history approach, which for decades has dominated the work of historians on the subject. Part of this is essentially the traditional historiographical approach, based on the thorough processing of archival sources, in which the representatives of Russian historiography have been at the forefront. The monograph by E. I. Druzhinina can be considered a basic work, as well as the works of diplomatic historians (including I. S. Dostyan, G. L. Arsh, V. N. Vinogradov, and V. V. Degoev) that focus on issues less partial than the former, dealing rather with the Eastern Question and the Balkans at the turn of the century and during the first half of the nineteenth century.6 Among the works with new perspectives on Russia’s international relations, in addition to N. S. Kinyapina’s Russia’s foreign policy in the first half of the 19th century,7 I would also like to highlight О. V. Orlik’s monographs, in which Orlik examines regional aspects of Russian foreign policy in the nineteenth century.8 Most of these works do not deal specifically with the subject or the period covered here, but they typically present the Treaty of Kuchuk Kainardji as an important of reference point.

In Hungary, research on the historical background of the Eastern Question in the eighteenth century has been carried out by Erzsébet Bodnár, who in her monograph and numerous studies addresses the earliest issues of the Eastern Question (in the eighteenth century and the first half of the nineteenth century). She has devoted particular attention to the study of the Treaty of Kuchuk Kainardji and the Turkish straits.9

One finds the same trend in the Western historiography, which tends to interpret the 1774 treaty and Russia’s Balkan expansion in a broader perspective, such as the context of great power rivalries (Anglo-Russian competition or the Crimean War for instance)10, rather than in terms of practical diplomacy or the tools of diplomacy. The main proponent of the geopolitical approach is John P. LeDonne, who has analyzed Russia’s role as an international political factor, including economic and military aspects.11 In some cases, the geopolitical perspective is combined with an economic approach, as in the publications of Vernon Puryear, and detailed diplomatic histories have also been published telling the story of an individual or a diplomatic mission.12

In addition, studies focusing on the impact of the Treaty of Kuchuk Kainardji have tended to focus on the ideological and political background of the Orthodoxy and the Russian protectorate and its manifestations in a particular area. These include Viktor Taki’s analysis of the Russian protectorate as a “soft power” and Endre Sashalmi’s discussion of the religious roots and political culture of Russian politics in the Balkans, highlighting the importance of the peace that brought the Russo-Turkish War of 1768–1774 to an end.13

As seen from the above, the historical literature on the Treaty of Kuchuk Kainarji and the subsequent period tends to focus on the territorial achievements and the rights acquired or the economic aspects, but no attention is paid to the specific changes that took place within practical diplomacy. At this point, it is important to make clear the main aspects and objectives of my inquiry. In any analysis and interpretation of large-scale political processes, it is important to map and present the less spectacular methods that are used on lower levels of diplomacy, such as the decade-long practice of establishing diplomatic representation and the instruments associated with it.

This, in my opinion, is the most important achievement of the Treaty of Kuchuk Kainardji: the gradual transformation of the tools and methods used in Russian diplomacy until its emergence at the level of practical diplomacy, which would create the preconditions for Russian diplomatic representation in the Balkan provinces under Ottoman rule (which previously had not been possible).

I therefore do not aim in this essay to reassess the diplomatic history or geopolitical background of the Treaty of Kuchuk Kainardji. My main objective is to define and interpret, in the context of the new foreign policy perspectives offered by the peace treaty, the new methods and instruments used by Russian foreign policy in the Balkans, such as the diplomatic representation, the establishment of consulates, and the use of the protégé system. Furthermore, I present the mechanisms that were directly applied in everyday diplomatic practice.

The Treaty of Kuchuk Kainardji14 was significant for a number of reasons, but from the perspective of the discussion here, it was important because it offered an opportunity to change the diplomatic toolbox, and in the end, the Russian court took advantage of this opportunity. From a diplomatic point of view, in addition to providing Russia with a number of political advantages, the peace was a milestone in establishing formal (official) relations with the Balkan provinces and in raising diplomatic ties with the Ottoman Porte to a new level. The peace treaty of Kuchuk Kainardji resulted in significant achievements for Russia in three fields: 1) territorial; 2) economic; 3) political-diplomatic-cultural. In terms of territorial gains, Russia extended its borders to the Bug/Dnieper River.15 It finally acquired the fortress of Azov and strengthened its position in the North Caucasus. However, the second and third areas represented the real change in diplomatic terms, which were, to some extent, related to each other. A constant and key issue in the Russian concept of foreign policy was the economic consideration of more active involvement in maritime trade and thus in trade all over Europe, which would put the Eastern European state in a genuinely competitive position economically. The economic provisions of the treaty, which were advantageous for Russia and essentially opened the way for unrestricted Russian commercial shipping on the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles, were closely linked to the establishment of consulates and the development of a network of Russian agents.

As noted above, the peace of 1774 opened up a rather closed Ottoman system from a diplomatic point of view, and this allowed Russia to make three important advances. The first of these advances was the establishment, in accordance with Article 5, of a permanent embassy in the Ottoman capital. Diplomatic relations with the Ottoman Empire were different from the traditional European model, and even in the eighteenth century, they were largely unilateral. This did not mean, of course, that the Porte did not maintain diplomatic relations with other states, but the difference can be grasped in the method according to which envoys were sent. The government of the Sultan received the representatives of other countries, as had been the case in previous periods, but the Porte did not delegate permanent envoys even to the main European courts. Hence, much of the mutual communication was conducted through the foreign envoys stationed in Constantinople.16 Representation in Constantinople had long been a priority for Russia, as is evidenced by the fact that, from Pyotr Tolstoi’s mission as resident ambassador in 1702 onwards, Russian representatives came to the Ottoman capital quite frequently, but they came as part of temporary missions and not as officials of permanent embassies with an uninterrupted presence. Sometimes there was a gap of several years before a new Russian envoy was sent, and their titles varied widely (resident, envoy, charge d’affaire).17 This was the period when Russian diplomacy and foreign affairs began to professionalize on the basis of European standards.18 Thus, the peace treaty confirmed something that had essentially been in existence for decades, and the significance of the relevant article lies rather in the fact that the provision precisely defines the rank of the Russian representative in Constantinople. In this respect, Russian diplomacy took a serious step forward, because from the Treaty of Kuchuk Kainardji onwards, the Russian government was represented at the Sublime Porte by an envoy who was “ranked second”:

the Imperial Court of Russia will always have with the Sublime Porte a Minister of the second order, that is to say an Envoy or a Minister Plenipotentiary, and the Sublime Porte will have for his character all the consideration and all the attentions that it has for the Ministers of the most distinguished Powers (…).19

It was an important condition that the Russian envoy would follow the Austrian imperial envoy in the diplomatic ranking.20 This was linked to the fact that, under the same treaty, the Sultan recognized the Russian tsar as a padishah,21 and the Russian envoy was therefore to be treated with the utmost respect.22 The treaty was also clear on diplomatic protocol, and it regulated what was to be done if the Russian diplomat and the imperial envoy did not hold the same rank. In this case, “ if this Minister of the Emperor has a different one, that is to say higher or lower, the minister or envoy of Russia will walk (…) after the ambassador of Holland, or, in his absence, after the ambassador of Venice.”23

1774 was a turning point, but not only for Russian diplomacy. On the Ottoman side, it was also a stimulus for change in diplomacy, although this change was somewhat delayed. It was precisely this Russo-Turkish confrontation, i.e. the constant geopolitical threat from the tsarist court, that gave the incentive for the idea that the diplomatic behavior of the Porte had to change, and Constantinople had to find lasting allies to counter Russia.24

At the same time, alongside the change in foreign political strategy, there were also tangible, almost modern elements of this shift: the establishment of the first permanent embassies (usually in exceptional cases and in the capitals of exceptionally friendly countries, for example London, Berlin, and Paris25) and the associated restructuring of the internal Ottoman administrative system.26

The second important advance for Russia in the field of diplomatic representation was found in provision 2), according to which the Russian envoy could represent Moldavia and Wallachia (Article 12, point 10) at the Porte, which in practice meant that after 1774, the Russian envoy in Constantinople could officially represent the affairs of the Danubian Principalities in the negotiations with the Ottoman government.27 This provision, in turn, created a kind of dependency between the Eastern Balkan provinces and Russia. Previously, the princes of Moldavia and Wallachia had had their own envoys in Constantinople, the so-called capu-kihayas, who were removed from their positions during the war. Pending the peace negotiations, Russia paid attention to this case and agreed with the Porte in the same passage of the Treaty of Kuchuk Kainardji to reinstate the representatives of the hospodars.28 This measure was provided for in point 9 of the same article of the treaty, which also indicates that the two issues (the representation of the affairs of the Danubian Principalities and the reinstatement of the provincial delegates) were treated by Russian diplomacy as an integrated whole. This custom continued, and the only change was the addition of Russian diplomatic representation in Constantinople.

And finally, the third significant advance for Russia was the newly acquired right to establish consulates in the Ottoman Empire (Article 11) and thus in the Balkan Peninsula, which was of particular importance to the government of St. Petersburg and which was an important milestone in the establishment of formal (official) diplomatic relations with the Balkan provinces. The provision reads as follows:

And as it is in every respect indispensable to establish consuls and vice-consuls in all places where the Russian Empire deems them necessary, they shall be regarded and respected in the same way as other consuls of friendly powers; these consuls and vice-consuls shall be allowed to retain dragomans by the name of Beratlı, that is to say, by granting them imperial patents, and by granting them the same privileges as other consuls in the service of England, France, and other nations.29

This led to the establishment of consulates not only in the Balkans but also in the Danubian Principalities (Bucharest and Iaşi) and later on the Greek mainland and islands (Athens, Patras, and Thessaloniki), in the Belgrade Pashalik (Belgrade), in Montenegro (Kotor), and in several cities in the Middle East.30 The development of the Russian consular system in the Ottoman Empire, which meant the creation of a continuous Russian diplomatic presence in the Balkans, was by no means a rapid process, but rather a systematic one, which took roughly 20 to 30 years for the Russian foreign service, which gradually building this system up along the lines of its original objectives, but always in accordance with the political situation. This reflected in the fact that the first Russian consul started his work in the Danubian Principalities, which was the most important Balkan region for Russia at the time, after the Porte had affirmed Russia’s right in this respect in an auxiliary treaty, in addition to the Treaty of Kuchuk Kainardji.31

The first Russian diplomat to arrive in this capacity was Sergei L. Lashkov, who served as consul in Bucharest between 1780 and 1782.32 Lashkov had previous diplomatic experience in Constantinople. He presumably learned the diplomatic service here and was chosen as the first Russian consul to the Danube Principalities on the basis of his experience in the Ottoman Empire.33 After 1774, the Dniester River became the newly acquired natural border, and the Russian Empire became the immediate neighbor of the Moldavian Principality. From a geopolitical point of view, this implied a strong Russian presence. The acquired territory was of great importance for Russia’s southwestern border defense, especially because of the frontier nature of the region.34 The term frontier needs to be explained, as the legal status of the Danubian Principalities was completely settled during the period under study, and they were not part of the territories the status of which (i.e. to what state did they belong) was the subject of dispute. On the other hand, frontier areas are generally understood to be territories that act as intermediate areas or transitional zones,35 which a neighboring state is unable to subordinate fully or integrate into its own territory.36 But this was not, essentially, the case with the Danubian Principalities, as they were parts of the Ottoman Empire (as tributary states with their own internal policies), and there was no dispute between the Porte and Russia on this point. At the same time, the region met two criteria that nevertheless gave the Eastern Balkan principalities a kind of frontier character for Russia. The first of these two criteria was the cultural overlap and the second was the fact that Moldavia and Wallachia were usually used as military staging areas in Russo-Turkish conflicts. Thus, in essence, Russia’s southern border zones or frontier zones included the Danubian Principalities37 as well, and this geopolitical role also enhanced the diplomatic importance of Moldavia and Wallachia.

The Russian consulate was very effective through its many connections, but soon other states also began to show interest in the region.38 In addition to Bucharest, a consulate was opened in Iaşi, followed by diplomatic missions to the Greek territories, with Russian consulates being established in Athens, Patras, Thessaloniki, Smyrna, and the Aegean islands.39 This also shows that, regarding the Balkans, the Greek region was given high priority, alongside the Danubian Principalities. In contrast to Russian-Greek relations, Russian-Bulgarian connections remained stagnant in the period after 1774.

The large Greek and Slavic populations that had settled in Russia after the Russo-Turkish war of 1768–1774 and the already existing Russo-Greek connections played a decisive role. One of the most important bridgeheads of the St. Petersburg government in this area was the consulate in Thessaloniki, founded in 1785, which had a special role as one of the paramount ports in the Eastern Mediterranean area, which also served as an information-distribution center. Local connections and transit traffic provided valuable economic and military information for the Russian consuls, who forwarded this information in their reports to the relevant department of the College of Foreign Affairs.40 In addition, the consulate helped the Russian government strengthen the ties to the Orthodox through cooperation with the Greek community, which also ensuring that Christians could make pilgrimages to Mount Athos.41 Among the examples of effective consular activity in the region is the career of Angelo Mustoxidi, who was based in Thessaloniki for several decades, but Sergei Bogdanov42 in the Ionian Islands and Ioannis N. Vlassopoulos, who became consul in Preveza in 1804, were also prominent figures of the Russian diplomatic presence.43 The functioning of the consulates, however, depended heavily on the political conditions in the region. In peacetime and in times of conflict, the role of the consulates was more appreciated, but there are also examples of the diplomatic presence being terminated due to tensions between the Sublime Porte and Russia or because of a war, for instance in 1821.44

Consuls in the Russian service were mostly of Greek descent, sometimes with Phanariot roots. The Phanariotes, who were an influential elite, assisted the Russian government throughout the Balkans, but the Danubian Principalities and Greece were the main areas of cooperation. The Phanariotes had a special position within the Ottoman Empire. This social group of Greek origin, which had extensive international connections and generally excellent language skills, was characterized by a kind of duality. While they were strongly linked to the Ottoman political and administrative system, in which they played leading roles (for example in the leadership of the principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia),45 they also developed deep ties with Russian political and cultural circles, thus predestinating the Orthodox-Russian orientation of the Greek elite, which the St. Petersburg cabinet sought to turn to its advantage.46 In addition, the Russian government also had ambitious plans to create an independent Greek state. The concept of Catherine the Great and Chancellor Bezborodko was based on the revival of the Byzantine Empire. This would have created a geopolitical entity in the eastern Mediterranean that would have been committed to Russia and could have provided new support for the Russian Empire. The draft also envisaged the partition of the Balkans, with Austria receiving parts of the western Balkans and Russia acquiring the eastern provinces of the peninsula.47

Another important means of cooperation with the Greeks was their involvement in Russian economic activity. In addition to the obvious diplomatic representation of Russia, the consular posts established in the Greek territories were given commercial tasks as well. They were given the task of exploring and observing local social, political, and, last but not least, economic conditions.48 The opening of the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles to Russian commercial shipping created new perspectives in the cooperation with the Greeks, who were experienced in Levantine trade and commerce. The use of the straits gave Russia a strategic advantage, as the Sublime Porte did not guarantee the freedom of navigation on the straits for all states. It was only a prerogative of the leading European powers (i.e. France and Great Britain). Through capitulations, countries with a permit of passage could allow merchants belonging to other nations to sail under their flags. This was the typical case in the Russian-Greek relationship, as the economic advantages that Russia had gained could be used in a spirit of mutual cooperation. It was a tool in the hands of Russian diplomacy that provided St. Petersburg a stable backdrop to shape the volume of trade in the Eastern Mediterranean. Russia considered the rights set out in article 11 of the Treaty of Kuchuk Kainardji as obvious, but as a result of negotiations with the Porte, it requested the confirmation of these rights in two conventions over the years. The first such document was the Treaty of Aynalıkavak in 1779, which guaranteed free passage on the Black Sea and through the straits.49 The other was a Russian-Turkish trade agreement in 1783, which guaranteed the unrestricted commercial use of the straits to the Russian Empire.50 These two documents solidified the conditions of Russian trade in the Mediterranean and the results of the peace treaty of 1774. On this basis, it was common practice from the 1780s onwards for Greek merchant ships to transport their cargo under the Russian flag on the routes linking the Black Sea and the Mediterranean.51 Information on local conditions and economic developments was not only relayed by the consuls, but also by the embassy in Constantinople, which had its own department on trade.52 The Russian trade network built up in the Mediterranean through the involvement of people of Balkan origin (mostly Greeks) could not have functioned without the consular network.53 This is where the importance of Russia’s right to establish consulates throughout the Ottoman Empire comes into play, and alongside the Balkans and the Black Sea area, which were immensely important because of their geopolitical proximity, the Middle East (Alexandria, Beirut, Aleppo) also had a prominent place in this process. In economic terms, this Mediterranean network extended as far as Marseilles.54 Russian diplomacy usually employed people who were fluent in the languages of the Mediterranean and well-versed in Ottoman social culture and the workings of Ottoman institutions.55 This also led to closer relations between St. Petersburg and the Greeks.

The development of cultural and political ties with the Serbs, which had a tradition dating back to the decades before the Treaty of Kuchuk Kainardji, was another key point in Russian-Balkan relations. Among the Balkan nations, the Serbs had the strongest connection to the Russians. This connection was based on common faith and their Slavic origins. In the 1790s, national resistance among the Serbs suggested to the Porte that there was a need to reform the internal relations of the Belgrade Pashalik. This growing attachment to notions of national independence among the Serbs led to the first Serbian uprising at the turn of the century as a result of the inaction (or rather inertia) of the Ottoman central government. In this context, the attitude of Russian foreign policy is of great interest, as they maintained their commitment to the Serb cause in principle and their solidarity with the movement, but they refrained from providing any specific political or military support.56 Russian foreign policy was strongly influenced by its involvement in the French Revolutionary Wars from 1798 (and the Napoleonic wars from 1800), and the method that was applied after 1774 changed in many respects. After the Treaty of Kuchuk Kainardji, Russian foreign policy towards the Balkans and the Ottoman Empire was divided into two main strands, each of which had different objectives.

The aim of the first was to maximize territorial gains while increasing political and economic influence. This phase lasted until 1774–1792, when the Treaty of Iaşi ended the Second Turkish War of Catherine II. From this point onwards, the original objective (rational but intensive expansion) was transformed, and the aim then was to consolidate the acquired positions and create stability there. Thus, after Iaşi, the Russian government concentrated on the pacification of the newly acquired territories and their incorporation into the empire. This Russian policy of consolidation was disrupted by the emergence of Girondean France in the eastern Mediterranean and the Balkans, which posed a direct threat to Ottoman integrity and Russian influence in the area. This became especially clear after the invasion of the Ionian Islands and the advance of French forces into Montenegro. Hence, the role of Serbia and Montenegro increased greatly.

Regarding Serbian-Russian relations, the government of St. Petersburg sought to preserve good relations and avoid the French orientation of the Belgrade Pashalik, while it was unable to provide any genuine diplomatic or military support to the provisional government led by Karadjordje (George Petrović), since, precisely because of the French threat in the Balkans, Russia had to maintain peace with the Porte. As a result, Russian-Serbian relations were unstable in the late 1790s and early 1800s, and no permanent diplomatic presence was established. In Serbia, this happened much later, although it is true that the Russian protectorate in the strict political sense was guaranteed for St. Petersburg by the Treaty of Adrianople (1829), and the consulate was opened in Belgrade in 1838. 57

However, there were Russian missions and delegations to Serbia,58 which temporarily fulfilled this role, and during the uprising, the Russian Foreign Ministry59 received delegations representing the Serbian provisional government. Thus, official contacts between the two sides did exist, but there was no permanent Russian presence on Serbian territory during the period under examination. This may have been due to the fact that, economically, the Serbian region was a peripheral area compared to the Danubian Principalities and the Greek islands, and the use of periodic missions that had been customary in the past was sufficient for political contacts.60 Furthermore, the lack of consular representation may also have been justified by the fact that, in the unstable European political climate, Russia did not want to make such a serious gesture to a Balkan province that had rebelled against the Porte, since it would be interference in the internal affairs of the Ottoman Empire and could lead to an open confrontation between the governments of St. Petersburg and Constantinople (and even Vienna, which considered this region its own “frontier”) at a time when Russia’s main priority was to hold its ground on the European front.

The situation was different in Montenegro, where Russian foreign policy had other scopes and priorities. Relations with the Western Balkans were not particularly at the forefront of Russia’s concerns anyway, and Austria also had a strong influence in the region. On the whole, however, the Western Balkans were not excluded from the process of building a consular system, as Russia established a consulate in Kotor in 1804. Relations between Russia and Montenegro were complicated before 1774. The Russo-Turkish war of 1768–1774 was also associated with the need for closer cooperation with Montenegro, which simultaneously created a curious situation between the current prince, Šćepan Mali, and the Russian government. The figure of Šćepan Mali was problematic for St. Petersburg, since he had managed to gain support in Montenegro by impersonating Peter III. Although the phenomenon of the “false tsar” was not uncommon in Russian history, it was a particularly sensitive moment for Catherine II, who had come to power through a palace revolution against her husband Peter III. At the same time, cooperation with Šćepan Mali could have provided a new ally in the war against the Porte, so the Russian government initiated negotiations headed by Prince Dolgorukiy in Cetinje.61 Although there were uncertainties about Russian-Montenegrin relations in this period, Russian diplomacy viewed Montenegro as a serious strategic partner in the Western Balkans, capable of counterbalancing the power of Venice and the Ottoman Empire.62

Even so, the Russian presence was more moderate here than in the Eastern Balkan provinces, although the St. Petersburg cabinet considered it important to establish its political and cultural influence in the region. Moreover, the attitude of the Principality of Montenegro towards the Russian Empire was basically positive (especially in the ecclesiastical sphere). There was always some form of contact between the two nations, and information on the situation in the Western Balkans was regularly received from Montenegro and used by Russian diplomacy.63 Russia usually represented itself in the Principality through temporary diplomatic and military missions.64 This was also true in the 1780s and 1800s, when the Adriatic coast underwent several changes as the region became the target of French foreign political ambitions. During the Russo-Turkish War of 1787–1792, Russia sent several envoys to the region to forge an anti-Turkish alliance between northern Albania and Montenegro to support the Austro-Russian alliance in the Balkans.65 The situation was quite complex, since the principality itself was part of the Ottoman Empire, and the smaller coastal part (and the Bay of Kotor) was under the jurisdiction of the Venetian Republic. However, the French Revolutionary Wars led to a change of authority. Venetian power was replaced by Austria in 1797, while Russia began to attach greater importance to the Western Balkans, which by the early nineteenth century was considered part of the Mediterranean sphere of influence of the Russian Empire.66 The Russian Foreign Ministry decided in this milieu to open a diplomatic mission in Kotor that year. However, there are some differences from previous consulate openings. The newest Balkan consulate, for example, was not opened in Ottoman territory. This was a distinctive situation because, as already noted, the Russian consuls adapted to the challenges of the Ottoman political and administrative system by involving and making use of the knowledge of the local people. The same principle would of course have been justified in the case of Montenegro, but the city chosen for the consulate (the strategic and commercial importance of which was undeniable) was in Austrian hands after 1797 (the collapse of the Venetian rule), so it was not enough for Russian diplomacy to adapt to the Ottoman system of relations in the case of Montenegro. Russia also had to communicate with the Austrian Empire about the establishment of a diplomatic representation. Besides the special situation of Montenegro, it also had a strong leader, Petar Njegoš, who was able to build up his power partly with the help of Russian subsidies67 and whose official approval was important for the opening of the Russian Consular Office. In May 1804, under the leadership of A. Mazurevsky, the diplomatic mission was finally opened.68

Another key element of the Treaty of Kuchuk Kainardji was the right of the Russian tsar to protect the Orthodox Christians living in the Ottoman Empire, which was also laid down in this agreement. The “authority” acquired at this time was not unprecedented, as the Porte had already conceded to such requests in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries through capitulations concluded with other states,69 thus allowing for the development of the so-called protégé system. At the same time, the Russian government took the protection of Christians under the jurisdiction of the Porte to a new level and made it an integral part of its foreign policy towards the Balkans.

During the eighteenth century, the protégé system became an integral part of the European diplomatic missions established in the Ottoman Empire. However, it is important to draw a distinction between the protection needs and rights that applied to individuals and communities. The representatives of the leading European states delegated to the Porte had diplomatic prerogatives granted by international law from the outset, which were supplemented over time in their dealings with the Porte by the privileges granted in the capitulations mentioned earlier.70 Residents with a diverse local network of contacts and a wide range of language skills were given a prominent role in the activities of the missions, helping diplomats, consuls, and other Foreign Service representatives in other statuses. The diplomats could give local residents a mandate which allowed the transfer of privileges that came with the diplomatic service. In general, the persons concerned were non-Muslim residents of the Ottoman Empire who were also engaged in trade and were granted these privileges71 in the form of a specific type of document, the so-called berat.72 It is important, however, to clarify the definition with regard to the protégé system. A distinction must be drawn between the terms protégé and protectorate, which are similar and, in a sense, related but not entirely overlapping. In essence, the protection or rather the exceptional circumstances outlined above (as protégé) emerged at the level of practical diplomacy as a key instrument with which to gain local influence. Therefore, it is not the same as the ideological role of protection at the level of great politics. However, these concepts were not separable, since the protégé was an early, individualized and extended form of the protectorate, which did not think in terms of communities but in terms of protecting individuals. Of course, from a diplomatic point of view, the question of who was worthy of receiving a berat and what that person had to accomplish in order to get one from a foreign country was very subjective, and the individualized protégé system created many opportunities for misuse. In addition to diplomatic immunity, the persons who held the berat (the “beratlı”) also enjoyed customs exemptions, which again opened the door to misuse and corruption.73 Most of the dragomans and agents employed by the consuls were engaged in commercial activities and bought the documents guaranteeing national tax exemption for large sums of money. These merchants carried out a significant part of the trade in the Mediterranean, and so the use of the protégé system was of particular importance for the great powers, including Russia, as it was the basis for the most important economic links of Russian diplomacy.74 However, the method was not only important with regard to maritime and inland trade with the Middle East and Anatolia, but also for the Eastern Balkan region, as the use of berats was also common in the Danubian Principalities, although we have no information on the extent to which Russia used the method there.75

Nevertheless, the claim of protection over individuals evolved into a right over collectives. Although Russia was not the only power to entertain this ambition, it was Russia that used the idea and “institution” of the protectorate most deliberately to shape its relations with the Ottoman Empire. A key rhetorical and political element of the rapprochement towards the nations in the Balkans was the emphasis on belonging together on the basis of denominational and cultural ties.76 Peter the Great had already taken upon himself the role of defender of the Orthodox Christians in the Balkans in the Russo-Turkish War (1710–1711), which was part of the Great Northern War (1700–1721). In April 1711, the tsar issued an appeal in which, based on the Orthodox religious community, he sought to establish cooperation with the nations in the Balkans, in this case the Danubian Principalities. But a similar methodology can also be observed in the same period in the case of the Western Balkan province of Montenegro, where a Russian delegation arrived in July 1711 in the hopes of organizing joint action against the Ottomans.77 The two appeals were successful, yet both ended in failure against the Ottoman army. Nevertheless, the use of this method was an important element in relations between the Balkan nations and Russia, as it essentially set a precedent in the methodology of building alliances with the Balkans. The call on (Balkan) Christians in the Ottoman Empire for a joint action became a motif used frequently in the subsequent Russo-Turkish wars.78 At the same time, in the conflicts between the two empires (Russia and the Porte), which were competing in a common geopolitical space, Russian diplomacy consistently sought to gain protectorate rights over the Christians. This was also the case during the Niš/Belgrade peace negotiations, which brought the Russo-Turkish War of 1736–1739 to a close and which were unsuccessful in this respect. The Russian government, which saw the end of the war as a failure, was unsatisfied with the results. The Porte had not given the tsar the authority he had aspired to establish, and the Habsburg Emperor was able to assume the role of protector of Christians (non-Orthodox Christians) in the Ottoman Empire.79 Similar rights were also enjoyed by other European states in the Ottoman Empire during the eighteenth century, but the other states were typically less likely to take advantage of this in practice.80 Russia finally gained this right in 1774 and, combined with the right to build Orthodox churches, it resulted in a well-constructed cultural diplomacy.

The pursuit of a protective role, territorial gains, and the extension of power/political influence against the Ottoman Empire in the Black Sea region (and the Balkan Peninsula, especially in the Eastern Balkans) became a permanent feature of Russian foreign policy. The Russo-Turkish war of 1768–1774, which in itself determined these Russian ambitions, also fit into this pattern. The emphasis on religious cooperation, solidarity, and protection was the foundation, in principle and in practice, of Russian foreign policy after 1774.

In conclusion, the Treaty of Kuchuk Kainardji was a real turning point in Russian foreign policy, providing the St. Petersburg government with several advantages in asserting its geopolitical interests in general. The treaty also introduced a new approach to diplomacy and, more importantly, to the practice of diplomacy, ushering in a new era in Russia’s relations with the Porte and the Balkan provinces. I have highlighted in this essay the new measures that the Treaty of Kuchuk Kainardji provided for Russia. The establishment and development of foreign missions (i.e. official representations in Constantinople) and the formation of cooperation with the Balkan territories (i.e. consulates in the Ottoman provinces) were the most important part of the expansion of the diplomatic toolbox. A change in diplomatic protocol occurred in 1774 in the case of the Russian envoy in Constantinople, and the possibility of establishing a Russian consulate system in the Ottoman lands became a reality. The diplomatic networks established in the Balkans (especially in the Eastern Balkan region) and the opening of consulates in the Danubian Principalities and Greece were examples of this. The results of the formal diplomatic missions were slow and gradual, but their main significance lay in the fact that Russia was able to raise its political and cultural relations with the Balkan nations to a new (now official instead of informal) level. In the long term, this made it possible for Russia to integrate itself into the Mediterranean political and economic structure.

The so-called protégé system also played a decisive role in the transformation of Russian diplomatic practice, the main purpose of which was to provide a network of contacts to support the work of the diplomatic missions and to create a kind of information background through the diplomatic privileges granted to members of the local population by the berats. This was followed by the right of the Russian tsar to protect Orthodox Christians in the Ottoman Empire. Although the protectorate acquired in 1774 did not gain significance until the nineteenth century, when nationalist movements began to flourish in the Balkans, its acquisition was of the utmost importance, as it fulfilled an aspiration that Russian diplomacy had had since the early eighteenth century and provided a kind of continuity between the ideals and goals of Russian foreign policy before and after 1774. Indeed, the hitherto fervently-sought right of patronage became an effective diplomatic instrument after the Treaty of Kuchuk Kainardji, the value and importance of which are reflected in the new European order after the Congress of Vienna (1815), in an international system in which the Russian Empire repositioned itself as the leading power not only in Eastern and Southeastern Europe but on the entire continent.

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