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Russia and the West, The Life of a Seventeenth-Century Westernizer, Prince Vasily Vasilʹevich Golitsyn
129 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1984
About the author
Lindsey Hughes
15 books8 followersProfessor of History at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies (part of University College London) from 1997.
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July 8, 2016I knew Lindsey Hughes very slightly as a student and write now in regret at her early death. A mathematician peaks early, but a good historian takes many long years to mature which makes her loss not only a personal one to those who held her dear but also a professional one.
Once upon a time I was drifting towards wanting to study under her supervision, but as I was then already a burnt out hulk I simply completed an average dissertation - which required me to read about the laxative properties of Rhubarb beneath the beautiful blue dome of the Old British Library - instead before drifting further off, listing heavily to one side.
All the same in the run up and during that period I read Hughes book on Sophia and this one about Golitsyn who, extremely crudely speaking (but not as crudely as though who claimed the two were lovers), served as her prime minister.
Golitsyn, try as hard as might, could never be as interesting as Sophia, who ruled Russia as regent for her younger brothers at the end of the seventeenth century - a time when elite Russian women lived very secluded lives. Which is why possibly he rather than her was the subject of this slight monograph. Golitsyn lead two unsuccessful expeditions against the Crimean Tatars. They were ambitious undertakings which required the Russians to haul all their supplies across the steppe overland from the river Don while the Tatars set fire to the grass, a tactic which would successfully hold off the Russians until the reign of Catherine the Great nigh on a hundred years later. The young Peter the Great, showing a lamentable lack of keenness to uphold the ground breaking rule of his elder half-sister, took advantage of the government's loss of face after the failure of the expedition to overthrow her instead. Which is what happens in extreme cases of sibling rivalry.
Once upon a time I was drifting towards wanting to study under her supervision, but as I was then already a burnt out hulk I simply completed an average dissertation - which required me to read about the laxative properties of Rhubarb beneath the beautiful blue dome of the Old British Library - instead before drifting further off, listing heavily to one side.
All the same in the run up and during that period I read Hughes book on Sophia and this one about Golitsyn who, extremely crudely speaking (but not as crudely as though who claimed the two were lovers), served as her prime minister.
Golitsyn, try as hard as might, could never be as interesting as Sophia, who ruled Russia as regent for her younger brothers at the end of the seventeenth century - a time when elite Russian women lived very secluded lives. Which is why possibly he rather than her was the subject of this slight monograph. Golitsyn lead two unsuccessful expeditions against the Crimean Tatars. They were ambitious undertakings which required the Russians to haul all their supplies across the steppe overland from the river Don while the Tatars set fire to the grass, a tactic which would successfully hold off the Russians until the reign of Catherine the Great nigh on a hundred years later. The young Peter the Great, showing a lamentable lack of keenness to uphold the ground breaking rule of his elder half-sister, took advantage of the government's loss of face after the failure of the expedition to overthrow her instead. Which is what happens in extreme cases of sibling rivalry.
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