European and Russian Diplomatic Reports on a Changing Russia. Diplomatic Languages and Concepts as Indicators and Factors of Change and Knowledge Accumulation (c. 1680-1730.)

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With respect to the radical changes in politics, economy, society and culture the reign of Peter I was often described as revolutionary. As a consequence those profound changes also left their marks with regard to language and lexis, as indicated e.g. by borrowing new expressions for technical terms, administrative and nautical ones. By means of using material from Peter’s era in particular research has already pointed out that a possible semantic shift concerning the exact meaning of a term was the result of that process of borrowing and using of those expressions in a new cultural environment.Since Peter diplomatic contacts with western European countries intensified, especially with courts in the German Realm. The mutual interest grew, alliances were formed and dynastic marriages were celebrated. Alongside with the growing number of contacts and topics to be negotiated, the reporting done by diplomats also increased. Although research noticed the rising number of contacts and intensification of relations, the way the diplomatic staff wrote about relevant issues (and how they mutually perceived them and their counterparts), the diplomatic reporting, has not yet been systematically analyzed. These are the two starting points for the current project: recently published sources and new source material concerning the relations between the courts in St. Petersburg, Vienna, Holstein-Gottorf, Mecklenburg-Schwerin, Brandenburg-Prussia and the electorate of Saxony, dating from a period of c. 1680-1730 (i. e. from the reign of Peter and his first successors), are to be analyzed systematically. By applying methods of the history of ideas and concepts (or “Begriffsgeschichte”) and approaches of historical semantics changes in the mutual perception and linguistic indicators of those processes at the Russian court also continuing in the times of Peter’s successors are to be identified.