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An Overlooked Anglo-Russian Tale of the Time of Troubles
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Dubitando: Studies in History and Culture in Honor of Donald Ostrowski. Brian J. Boeck, Russell E. Martin, and Daniel Rowland, eds. Bloomington, IN: Slavica Publishers, 2012, 369–82. An Overlooked Anglo-Russian Tale of the Time of Troubles Chester S. L. Dunning In 1654 a small book with a big title was published in London: A brief Histor-‐‑ ical Relation of the Empire of Russia, and of its Original Growth out of 24 Great Dukedomes, into One entire Empire, Since the yeer 1514. The author’s name was listed simply as “J.F.” Part of the book consists of a learned diatribe against corrupt officials and greedy lawyers who perverted justice and oppressed the English people; the rest of the book contains a lot of inaccurate information about Russian history.1 It is not surprising, therefore, that the author of A brief Historical Relation is unknown, that this obscure account has been republished only once (in 1916),2 or that it has very seldom been cited by scholars inter-‐‑ ested in early modern Russian history or the development of English views of Russia.3 That is unfortunate because the core text of A brief Historical Relation is a fascinating eyewitness account of the Time of Troubles written by a man who was born in Russia, lived in Moscow during the final years of the Trou-‐‑ bles, and spent decades as a translator for and a director of the Russia (or Muscovy) Company, the joint-‐‑stock company that monopolized Anglo-‐‑ Russian commerce. The purpose of this essay, dedicated to my friend and colleague Don Ostrowski, is to draw attention to this neglected Anglo-‐‑ 1 J.F., A brief Historical Relation of the Empire of Russia, and of its Original Growth out of 24 Great Dukedomes, into One entire Empire, Since the yeer 1514 (London: Printed by J.C. for William Lamar, 1654). 2 “Narrative of an Englishman who was with the Poles when Besieged in Moscow,” in The False Dmitri: A Russian Romance and Tragedy described by British Eye-‐‑witnesses, 1604– 1612, ed. Sonia E. Howe (London: Williams and Norgate, 1916), 184–220. Howe’s tran-‐‑ scription of the original text is fairly accurate but slightly abridged. 3 I have found five scholarly references to “J.F.” and A brief Historical Relation of the Empire of Russia. See comments by D. S. Mirsky in John Milton, A Brief History of Moscovia (London: Blackamore Press, 1929), 25–26; A. Meiendorf, “Anglichane XVI i XVII stoletii o russkikh i o Rossii,” in Sbornik statei posviashchennykh Petru Berngardo-‐‑ vichu Struve (Prague: Legiografie, 1925), 301; M. S. Anderson, “English Views of Russia in the 17th Century,” The Slavonic and East European Review 33, no. 80 (December 1954): 148 n. 72, 158 n. 144; M. P. Alekseev, Russko-‐‑angliiskie literaturnye sviazi (XVIII vek– pervaia polovina XIX veka) (Moscow: Nauka, 1982), 40; and Marshall Poe, Foreign Descriptions of Muscovy: An Analytic Bibliography of Primary and Secondary Sources (Columbus, OH: Slavica Publishers, 1995), 164, 214. 370 CHESTER DUNNING Russian tale of the Time of Troubles and to provide a biographical sketch of its remarkable author. Simple sleuthing reveals that “J.F.” are the initials of James Freese (also spelled Frese, Freize, and Freeze), who was born in Russia circa 1602. James’s father was an Englishman named John Freese, who may have been an em-‐‑ ployee of the Russia Company, and his mother was a Russian.4 James was orphaned as a young child and came under the protection of the Russia Com-‐‑ pany. During the last phase of the Time of Troubles he lived in Moscow. At the outset of the Polish occupation of the capital (1610–12), James was living at the residence of the Russia Company. In March 1611, during the siege of Moscow by Prince Dmitrii Pozharskii’s national liberation forces, the Russia Company’s residence was burnt to the ground. As a result, the English mer-‐‑ chants were allowed to relocate to a Kremlin palace basement.5 There young James Freese lived for a year and a half during which he witnessed incredible horror, cruelty, bloodshed, and starvation. In October 1612, famine finally forced the besieged Polish garrison to allow the remaining Russians to leave the Kremlin, including the powerful boyar Ivan Romanov and his teenage nephew Mikhail. Ten-‐‑year-‐‑old James Freese accompanied the future tsar and his uncle to the safety of the Moscow suburbs where James was treated kindly thanks to Prince Pozharskii.6 The Russians quickly turned James Freese...