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Professor Robert Frost writes: the sixth and final volume of The Diary of General Patrick Gordon of Auchleuchries is in some ways the most significant of all. It covers the vital period in which Peter the Great launched his challenge to the traditional Russian system and set Russia on the path to great power status. Gordon played a central role in two of the great dramas of these years: the successful siege and defence of Azov, which firmly established Russian power on the Caspian Sea, and the crushing of the Revolt of the Streltsy, the most dangerous early challenge to Peter’s reforms. Gordon’s diary gives unparalleled insight into these dramatic events and adds much to our knowledge of one of the most significant and charismatic rulers in Russian history. Gordon tells the story with characteristic detachment and a wealthof detail. As a diarist he ranks with Samuel Pepys, and the publication of Volume VI marks the completion of a project for which Dmitry Fedosov and Paul Dukes deserve to be congratulated. After three centuries, the original text of a hugely important historical work, and what can also be seen to be a significant literary achievement, is fully available for the first time.
Book DetailsPaul Dukes writes: The publication of the Diary of Patrick Gordon has by now fully established itself as an invaluable source for Russian, British and European history in the second half of the seventeenth century. Volume V, thoroughly edited like its predecessors by Dmitry Fedosov, comprises a wide range of activities on land and sea from 1690 to 1695, many of them involving the young tsar Peter. Having helped the future Peter the Great to consolidate his hold on the throne, Gordon grew closer to him in ‘large discourse’, being ‘entertained & detained all night’, and so on. On the practice battlefield, the Scottish general played a leading part realistic enough for himself to be shot in the thigh and his son-in-law to be mortally wounded. As Fedosov says, Gordon along with the tsar proceeded from the pastimes of Mars to those of Neptune in naval exercises on the White Sea. Moving south to actual combat, the Russian forces re-engaged the Crimean Khanate and Ottoman Empire in further episodes in the long struggle for the fortress of Azov. Volume V, the longest of the six, contains many letters to and from Gordon and a wide range of his observations on political developments throughout Europe.
Book DetailsGeoffrey Parker writes: ‘I started to study the military history of seventeenth-century Europe forty-five years ago, and yet I have never come across a source like the Diary written by Patrick Gordon, a Scottish Catholic who in 1651, at the age of sixteen, fled his native land to become a "soldier of fortune."’ Parker continues: ‘Dmitry Fedosov of the Russian Academy of Sciences is producing a scholarly edition of Gordon’s entire surviving text in both the original and in Russian.... Fedosov includes an excellent apparatus criticus,identifying places, persons, and foreign terms; he provides a detailed index.’ The high standard set in the earlier volumes is continued in the fourth. Considering the years 1684-1689, the diary describes all manner of military activities, in particular two campaigns against the Ottoman Turks culminating in the capture of their fortress at Azov. In addition, Gordon gives an evocative account of a visit to Britain, meetings with King James VII and II in London followed by a reunion with friends and family back home in Aberdeenshire. He also tells us of many contacts with the future Peter the Great before and during the young tsar’s seizure of power from his half-sister the Regent Sophia.
Book DetailsPaul Bushkovitch writes: The Diary of General Patrick Gordon, now in the original language, is the most important source for Russian and European history of the seventeenth century to be published in decades. The present superbly edited volume contains an absolutely unique eyewitness account of the main action in the first of Russia’s many wars with the Ottoman Empire. Gordon’s record of events and his observations are not limited to military matters, and provide material for the political, social, and cultural history of Russia as well as that of the Ukrainian Cossacks.
Book DetailsPaul Dukes writes: In this second volume of Patrick Gordon’s Diary containing ‘curious tidings of himself, of his brothers in arms, and of Russia before the age of transformation’ (to quote again the great historian S.M. Soloviev), our hero continues his account of service in Warsaw and elsewhere in Poland before moving to Moscow in 1661 with Paul Menzies and others. He tells of the difficulties with officialdom in his early years and his more successful military activities, often in the company of fellow Scots. He also gives a full description of a mission to London, including meetings with Charles II. Dmitry Fedosov continues his magnificent edition of a vital historical source and a most entertaining narrative.
Book DetailsThe great Russian historian, S.M. Soloviev, regarded Patrick Gordon as “one of the most remarkable men” ever employed by the tsars, and was grateful to him for “recording his adventures and existence day by day, leaving to us curious tidings of himself, of his brothers in arms, and of Russia before the age of transformation” – and much else besides. Passages from the Diary were published in 1859. Now, 150 years on, the appearance of the first of six volumes marks the beginning of the publication of the complete work.
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