RUSSIA: Sigismund von Herberstein, Rerum Moscoviticarum Commentarii, Vienna, 1549
by Elena Ermolaeva, Eugeneja Eliseeva, Appolinaria Martynenko
Siegmund (Sigismund) Freiherr von Herberstein, (or Baron Sigismund von Herberstein) (1486–1566) was a famous Austrian diplomat, writer, historian and member of the Holy Roman Empire. He is most known for his extensive writings on the geography, history and customs of Russia, which were the first source of knowledge about Russia for the Western audience.
Herberstein was born in August 23, 1486 in Vipava, in Western Slovenia, to Leonhard von Herberstein and Barbara von Lueg, members of a prominent German-speaking family, which had resided in HerbersteinCastle for nearly 200 years. Little is known of his early life apart from the fact that he learned some Slovene, the Slavic language spoken in the region. This knowledge played a significant role later in his life. In 1499-1502 he studied philosophy and law in the University of Vienna, University of Vienna, where he also belonged to the circle of the outstanding German humanist Konrad Celtis. In 1506 he entered the army as an officer and served in a number of campaigns. In 1508 he was knighted by the Maximilian I of Habsburg. In 1515 Herberstein began a long diplomatic career as a member of the Imperial council, or Parliament. Between 1515 and 1553, he carried out approximately 69 missions abroad, travelling throughout much of Europe, including Turkey.
He was twice sent to Russia as the Austrian ambassador, in 1517 to negotiate a truce between Russia and Lithuania and in 1526 to renew a treaty between the two, which had been signed in 1522. These visits provided him with the opportunity to study a hitherto largely unknown Russian society. Herberstein's knowledge of Slovene, acquired in his youth, allowed him to communicate freely with Russians, as Slovene and Russian languages are related. He probably wrote his first account on Russia between 1517 and 1527, but no copy of this account survives. In 1526 he was asked to produce a formal report of his experiences in Russia, but this report remained in the archives until he was able to revise and expand it, which he pprobably did in the 1530s. The result was his major work written in Latin and entitled Rerum Moscoviticarum Commentarii, firstly published in 1549 in Vienna. This work became the main source of knowledge on Russia in Western Europe. Sigismund Herberstein died in Vienna at the age of eighty, in full glory. His Commentarii were translated into many European languages and published many times all over the world. The Russian National Library in Saint-Petersburg holds one of the most rare Latin copies, that of the Basel edition of 1571.
- Etymologia nominis Russia
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20 / Russia unde nomen habeat, variae1extant2 opiniones. Sunt enim qui eam a quodam Russo, fratre seu nepote Lech3, principe Polonorum4, perinde ac si ipse Rhutenorum5 princeps fuisset, nomen accepisse6 volunt. Alii autem a quodam vetustissimo7 oppido, Russo dicto, non longe a Novuogardiamagna. Quidam vero a fusco8 eius gentis colore. Plerique nomine mutato a Roxolania Russiam cognominatam9 esse putant. Verum eorum qui hasce afferunt opiniones, tanquam vero haud consonas, Mosci refutant, afferentes Rosseiamantiquitus10 appellatam, quasi gentem dispersam11, seu disseminatam12: id quod nomen ipsum indicat. Rosseia etenim, Rhutenorum lingua, disseminatio13, seu dispersio13 interpretatur. Quod verum esse varii populi incolis etiamnum permixti et diversae provinciae Russiae passim intermixtae ac interiacentes aperte testantur. Notum est autem historias sacras legentibus disseminantionis vocabulo etiam Prophetas uti, cum de dispersione populorum loquuntur. Nec tamen desunt, qui Russorum nomen ex Graeca, atque adeo ex Chaldaica origine, non multum dissimili ratione trahant. Afluxu14nimirum15, quiGraecisest∙oàj[rus] / 1. varius, -a, -um: different; 2.extant:exstant;
3.Lech: the ancestor of the Poles;4. Polonii, -orum m.: the Poles;
5. Rutheni, -orum m.: the Russians;
6. accipio 3M accepi: to obtain (eam accepisse – ACI);7. vetustissimus: very old (gradus elativus);
8. fuscus, -a, -um:here means light-brown, there is a popular etymology for Russus as a consonant to Russian word rusyj – with light brown hair;
9.cognomino 1: to give the name;
10.antiqitus, adv.: ab antiquitate;
11. dispersus, -a, -um: scattered;
12. disseminatus, -a, -um: scattered;
13.disseminatio, -onis, f.=dispersio, -onis, f.:the scattering (populi vel exercitus);
14. fluxus, -us, m. (Ancient Greek, ∙oàj (∙Òoj)) – stream,spray. 15.nimirum– certe.
Comments :
1Russia– Herberstein uses the term Russia in two senses: as an Eastern Slav territory in the border of the Old Russian state, and as the Russian state of the late 15th – early 17th centuries.
6Russo dicto – Staraya Russa (=Old Russia) – city near LakeIlmen. It is one of the oldest Russian settlements, first appearing in records from 1167; Novuogardia magna – a Latin transliteration of the Russian name Novgorod (litterary Oppidum Novum; compare to: Neapolis, Neuchâtel, Nijmegen). It was first mentioned in 859 in the oldest national annals— the Russian Primary Chronicle.
7fuscus, -a, -um –light-brown, there is a popular etymology forRussus as a consonant to Russian word rusyj – with light brown hair.
8 Roxolania, Roxolanes – the ancient name of one of the Sarmatian tribes of Volga Region that lived in the Black Sea area till the invasion of Huns (IV c. AD).
11 Mosci – in Herberstein’s Commentarii this word is used passim for the designation of the Russian people; Rosseiam is consonant to the Russian word [rasseiannyj, rosseiannyj] which meansdispersed (dispersus, lat.).
20 Propheta (Ancient Greek, prof»thj from prÒfhmi) – sc. biblicalprophet (in auctoribus Ecclesiasticis).
22 Chaldaicus, -a, -um (from [khaldei] babylonian Kaldu and Χαλδα‹οι) – the name of people that lived in the swampy region situated in the mouth of Tigris and Euphrates on the North Western shore of the Persian Gulf.
Questions and Tasks:
1.Style of which Latin author does the fragment recall?
2.Which form is fuisset and why it is used here?
3.What variants of the words extant, ex Graeca, ex Chaldaica do you find more often in the Classical Latin texts?
4.Which Latin synonyms to the word prоpheta, -ae, m do you know?
5.How many popular etymologies of the word Russia does Herberstein give in this passage?
- Novuogardenses: domini et servi
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15 / Accidit praeterea, ut Annales eorum referunt, dum NovuogardensesCorsun Graeciae civitatem1 ad septem perpetuos annos gravi obsidione premerent, interim uxores eorum morae pertaesae2, tum etiam de salute ac3 adventu maritorum dubitantes, servis nuberent. Expugnata tandem civitate, quum4 victores mariti ex bello reversi, aereas portas superatae urbis ac magnam quandam campanam, quam ipsi in cathedrali eorum Ecclesia vidimus, secum attulissent: servique dominos, quorum uxores duxerant, vi repellere conarentur: domini indignitate rei commoti, depositis, cuiusdam consilio, armis, lora et fustes tanquam in mancipia arriperent: quibus servi territi, inque fugam conversi, loco quodam qui etiamnum Chloppigrod, hoc est Servorum castrum dicitur, se reciperent defenderentque. Verum victi meritis a dominis suppliciis affecti fuere. / 1.civitas, -atis, f. = urbs;
2. pertaesus, -a, -um: feeling disgust;
3.ac: atque;
4. quum = cum;
5. lorum, -i, n.:lash;11. fustis, -is, m.: stick;
12. convertere fugam: to put to flight;
Comments:
1Annales, -um, m. – records year by year of the events in a city, a region or a country; Herberstein had read the Russian Annales and translated some parts of them in his book.
2Novuogardia – Novum oppidum, today a city on the North-West of Russia (Veliky Novgorod); one of the cultural centres of Ancient Russia; Corsun – its ancient name was Chersonesos (Χερσόνησος); an ancient Greek colony founded around the 6th century BC by settlers from Heraclea Pontica in the southwestern part of Crimea, which was then known as Taurica. Its Byzantine Greek name is Χερσών; Old East Slavic one is Corsun.Today Sevastopol. The grand prince of the Ancient Russia, Vladimir the Great was christened in Corsun in the 10th c.
7aereas portas –one canstill see Aereas portasin Novgorod in Cathedralof Saint Sophia.
9cathedralus Ecclesia – main orthodox cathedral.
15Chloppigrod is a Latintransliteration of the Russian name of a small town-fortress built about the 10th c. by fugitive slaves; Choloppus vel chlopus means servus,grod – oppidum-castrum. In fact this story about the fugitive slaves is absent in Russian Annales, Herberstein took this story from Scythus Logos in Herodotus’ “Historia”, IV, 3-4 and contaminated it with popular Russian stories about the “Slaves war” in Novgorod. Herberstein could also use Marcus Junianus Justinus’ “Epitome of the Philippic History of Pompeius Trogus”, II, 5.
Questions and Tasks:
1.Read an ancient source of Herberstein (Herodotus. “Historia”, IV, 3-4) and compare it to this passage. What is common and different?
2.What does Chloppigrod mean?
3.Why did “domini Novuogardenses” take only lashes?
4.What variant for fuere do you find more frequently?