Joann Georg Korb. Diarium itineris in Moscoviam. Viennæ Austriæ: typis Leopoldi Voigt, 1700? Summerfield E225

Joann Georg Korb. Diarium itineris in Moscoviam. Viennæ Austriæ: typis Leopoldi Voigt, 1700? Summerfield E225

Crime and Punishment ... Austria's attitude towards pre-Peterburgian but nevertheless Petrine Russia can be seen in this diary of the journey to Moscow of the Count of Guarient and his secretary to the mission, Johann Georg Korb. While Peter was on a tour of Europe near the end of the 1690s, the streltsy, or musketeers, revolted. This reactionary majority, judged to be anti-West, was subsequently tried and executed at Peter's order. Korb was an eyewitness to the bloodletting, and his account of the revenge so angered Peter that the latter complained to the court of Vienna and had all unsold copies of the Diarium destroyed. This copy once belonging to Prince Liechtenstein is one that escaped and survived. Korb had made other insulting observations: noting the huge gap between Russia's rich resources and the bad production record of its impoverished peasant farmers, he said, "The land is fertile enough, if it were not left in uncultivated sterility by the laziness of the people." For Peter, this had to have been the last straw: Russia WOULD have a window onto the West. Sankt Pieter Burkh was about to be founded.

Summerfield E225