Sigismund Von Herberstein Early Life Diplomatic Career

Herberstein was born in 1486 in Vipava ( German Wippach) in the region of Carniola, South Austria (now Slovenia) to Leonhard von Herberstein and Barbara von Lueg, members of the prominent German family which had already resided in Herberstein Castle for nearly 200 years. Little is known of his early life apart from the fact that he became familiar with the Slovene language spoken in the region. This knowledge became significant later in his life.

In 1499 he entered the University of Vienna to study philosophy and law. 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, Holy Roman EmperorMaximilian I of Habsburg ( March 22, 1459 January 12, 1519) was Holy Roman Emperor. Maximilian was born in Vienna as the son of the Emperor Frederick III and Eleanor of Portugal. He married ( 1477- 1482) the heiress of Burgundy, Mary, the only daughter of personally. In 1515Events June Invasion of Persia by Sultan Selim I of the Ottoman Empire. August 23 Battle of Chaldiran. Selim I crushes the Persian army of Shah Ismail I. September 5 Selim captures the Persian capital of Tabriz without encountering any resistance, but is he entered the Imperial council, or Parliament, and began a long and illustrious diplomatic career.

2 Diplomatic Career

Between 1515Events June Invasion of Persia by Sultan Selim I of the Ottoman Empire. August 23 Battle of Chaldiran. Selim I crushes the Persian army of Shah Ismail I. September 5 Selim captures the Persian capital of Tabriz without encountering any resistance, but is and 1553Events June 26 Christ's Hospital in London gets a Royal Charter July 6 Edward VI of England dies July 10 Lady Jane Grey is proclaimed Queen of England for the next nine days July 18 Lord Mayor of London proclaims Queen Mary as the rightful Queen Lady Jane, Herberstein carried out approximately 69 missions abroad, travelling throughout much of Europe, including TurkeyTurkey (officially the Republic of Turkey Turkish Turkiye is a country located in Southwest Asia with a small part in southeastern Europe. Until 1922 the country was the center of the Ottoman Empire. The Anatolian peninsula, between the Black Sea and the. He was feted by the ruling HabsburgsHabsburg (also spelled Hapsburg was one of the ruling houses of Europe: rulers of Austria (as dukes 1282 1453, archdukes 1453 1804, and emperors 1804 1918), kings of Bohemia 1526 1618 and 1621 1918, kings of Spain ( 1516 1700), and Holy Roman Emperors for and rewarded with titles and estates. He was twice sent to Russia as the Austrian ambassador, in 1517Events January 22 Battle of Ridanieh. The Turkish forces of Selim I defeat the main Mameluk army in Egypt under Touman Bey. February 3 Capture of Cairo by the Turks First contact of organized western merchants with China. August 15 Portuguese merchant Fer to attempt to arrange a truce between Russia and LithuaniaThe Republic of Lithuania ( Lithuanian Lietuva Polish Litwa, German Litauen, French Lituanie, Spanish Lituania, Estonian Lituania, Finnish Liettua) is a republic in Northeastern Europe. One of the three Baltic States along the Baltic Sea, it shares border, and in 1526 to renew a treaty between the two signed in 1522. These extended visits (nine months in his 1517 visit) provided him with the opportunity to study a hitherto largely unknown Russian society.

3 Writing on Russia

Herberstein's knowledge of Slovene, acquired in his youth, allowed him to communicate freely with Russians, as Slovene and Russian both belong to the Slavic languages. He used this ability to question a variety of people in Russia on a wide range of topics. This gave him an insight into Russia and Russians unavailable to the few previous visitors to Russia.

He probably wrote his first account of life in Russia between 1517 and 1527, but no copy of this survives. In 1526 he was asked to produce a formal report on his experiences in Russia, but this remained relatively unnoticed in the archives until he was able to find time to revise and expand it, which he possibly started in the 1530s.

The evidence suggests that Herberstein was an energetic and capable ethnographer. He investigated in depth both by questioning locals and by critically examining the scarce existing literature on Russia. The result was his major work, a book written in Latin titled Rerum Moscoviticarum Commentarii (literally Notes on Muscovite Affairs), published in 1549. This became the main early source of knowledge in Western Europe on Russia.

Although he contributed a great deal to European knowledge of Russia, he also contributed to a spelling confusion which did not emerge until the end of the 19th century and still causes disagreement: he recorded the spelling of tsar as czar. This cz spelling is against the usage of all Slavonic languages; although the spelling varies, Slavonic languages use the ts pronunciation, and usually that spelling in the Romanised form. English and French moved from the cz spelling to the ts spelling in the 19th century. Note that cz was as good a spelling as any at the time Herberstein recorded it.

4 External links and References

the primary source of material on Herberstein is Marshall Poe's publications at http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~mpoe/, particularly Herberstein and Origin of the European Image of Muscovite Government
Internet searches yield some other sites with fragmentary information, although a lot is derived from Poe's works, and most of the rest from Rerum Moscoviticarum Commentarii - but since this was the major work of the time in that field, this is not surprising.
for the derivation of tsar and Herberstein's contribution of czar, see the Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition, entry on tsar.

Herberstein, Sigismund von Herberstein, Sigismund von

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Home > Sigismund von Herberstein

1 Early Life

2 Diplomatic Career

3 Writing on Russia

4 External links and References

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