This monograph by Professor Elena B. Smilianskaia (NRU-HSE) and Erofei Iu. Moriakov (National Historical Archive of Belarus) is dedicated to the study of Charles Cathcart’s diplomatic mission to Russia (1768–1772). The study of diplomatic correspondence, memoranda, and diaries produced by Charles Cathcart and his wife, who accompanied him to St. Petersburg, provides us with front-row access to the diplomatic and ceremonial protocols at court, the daily life in an ambassador’s residences, and the unique challenges facing major players in international politics. Through these documents, we can also glimpse the mechanisms of political decision-making in the court of Catherine II. Turning to the methods of microhistory allows as to use “small” phenomena and the particularities of the British ambassador’s diplomatic mission to the court of Catherine II to reveal the larger world of international relations in eighteenth-century Europe, and beyond. The Cathcart family archive, preserved in the National Library of Scotland, contains a rich, but so far underused, trove of materials about the life of the diplomat in Russia. The materials held in this archive, and above all the unpublished diaries of Charles Cathcart’s wife, Lady Jean Cathcart, prompted this inquiry into Cathcart’s diplomatic mission and the diplomatic culture of this epoch. The National Archives and the Archive of Foreign Policy of the Russian Empire (AVPRI) contain additional materials relating to their professional and private affairs, including the perlustration of correspondence sent by post.

In Chapter 1, “The Diplomatic Service of Lord Charles Cathcart: Goals, Tools, and Capabilities of an Ambassador,” we examine how the British ambassador addressed the main purpose of his mission: the preparation of a treaty of alliance between Britain and Russia. His task was made more difficult by the outbreak of the Russian-Ottoman war (1768–1774) and the preparations for the first partition of Poland in 1772. Cathcart, like his predecessors and successors, did not achieve this goal. However, this does not mean that we should consider Cathcart another failure in a line of British diplomats. The chapter shows how Cathcart used his position in the Russian court to collect and pass information about the state of affairs in Russia back to London. He informed his government about Catherine II and the statesmen around her, including how he obtained the empress’s favor. Through his dispatches we see how through both etiquette and ceremonial protocols the two powers expressed their friendship and regard for one another. The period of Cathcart’s mission to Russia marks a rare period of amicable relations between the two countries. This chapter also shows that the British ambassador faced limitations in addressing the aims set out for him: his diplomatic staff had only two or three members, one of whom was employed in enciphering documents; occasional correspondence arrived by courier, but most dispatches were sent by post, which was perlustrated; and, the ambassador was compelled to use his servants for the purposes of his mission, to pass correspondence with occasional visitors to the Russian capital, and to devise innovative ways to deliver his reports to receive his instructions from London.

In the second chapter, “A Source of Support or a Burden? Ambassador Cathcart’s Family,” we set out to show the role of the family in diplomacy of the second half of the eighteenth century. Lady Jean Cathcart (née Hamilton) and six children accompanied the ambassador to Russia. In Petersburg, the seventh Cathcart child was born, and Catherine II agreed to be the child’s godmother. The ambassadress Jean Cathcart was a source of support for her husband, and she too had obligations to the mission. She kept the ambassadorial residence, attended court functions and ceremonies, appeared at the events in the Smolny Institute and the Cadet Corps, and kept a close relationship with Catherine II. Through diaries kept during this time, Lady Jean Cathcart shows us the life and obligations of an enlightened British aristocratic woman, including reflections on her reading, and ideas on education and childrearing. We show that in Russia the education of British aristocratic offspring did not cease; the Cathcart children had tutors, books, instruction in music, theater, and riding. The lives of the children of Charles and Jean Cathcart show that they inherited from their mother and father not only their aristocratic titles and wealth, but also their intelligence, warmth, and spiritual ideals.

In the third chapter, “The Residences of the Cathcarts in Petersburg: A Lifestyle in the ‘English Manner,’” we present material about the winter residence of the Cathcarts on Bol’shaia Morskaia Street and the summer residence on Kamennyi Ostrov. The chapter covers the running of the residences, their visitors, and the relationships of the Cathcarts with their servants. The chapter argues that the Cathcarts’ residences were an example of a British style and taste, contributing to the Anglophilia in Russia at this time.

The appendices present the first ever publication of Jean Cathcart’s “Memoranda of St. Petersburg” and Charles Cathcart’s “Notes on the Cultivation and the Beautification of Kamennyi Ostrov.” Jean Cathcart’s “Memoranda” covers the period from 1768 to 1770. It is evidence of an observant, enlightened aristocrat about life in the capital and in the imperial palaces of Catherine II. These candid notes were made without self-censorship, as they were never intended for publication. Cathcart’s “Note” was composed in 1769 for the Russian Empress Catherine II and Count Nikita Panin (it was preserved among the papers of the College of Foreign Affairs in AVPRI) to demonstrate the advantages of the English style of garden at the dawn of Russia’s infatuation with landscape parks and gardens.