Textual Ambassadors and Ambassadorial Texts: Literary Representation and Diplomatic Practice in George Turberville’s and Thomas Randolph’s accounts of Russia (1568-9)

Juxtaposing the diplomatic correspondence of Thomas Randolph’s 1568–9 mission to Russia with George Turberville’s literary account of the embassy, this chapter combines an exploration of diplomatic practice as a transcultural process with a methodological reflection on the relationship between the textual representation of cultural encounter and its interpretation in the history of diplomacy. The historiography of diplomacy is enmeshed with the cultural discourses that are woven into its source materials. Based on a genre critique of texts that have informed the history of Russian diplomacy, such as travel accounts and diplomatic reports, this essay questions central assumptions about Russia’s image as Europe’s cultural other, offering wider conclusions about the notion of separate cultural spheres and their corresponding political ideologies in the evolution of diplomacy. Clearly, Russian diplomats viewed the world differently from English representatives. But a closer look at Anglo-Russian encounters in the second half of the sixteenth century raises doubts as to whether these worldviews separated them quite so distinctively in matters concerning their ceremonial self-representation. A close reading and comparison of Randolph’s and Turberville’s texts shows how difficult it is to translate pre-conceived notions about cultural difference into each culture’s distinctive symbols of sovereignty and statehood.