This website is part of The New York Public Library's Online Exhibition Archive. For current classes, programs, and exhibitions, please visit nypl.org.
Russia Engages the World, 1453-1825
1453 Through the Reign of Ivan the Terrible (1533-1584) The Time of Troubles to the First Romanovs (1598-1682) Peter the Great and His Legacy (1682-1762) The Age of Catherine the Great (1762-1801) The Reign of Emperor Alexander I (1801-1825)

                                     

Explore this Section:

  Russia Events
Russia Symbol Founding of the Ministries
Russia Symbol Treaties of Tilsit
Russia Symbol Battle of Borodino
Russia Symbol Founding of Fort Ross, 1812
Russia Symbol Arakcheev’s Military Colonies
Russia Symbol Decembrist Revolt
  World Events
World Symbol
 Publication of Discourse on the Origin of Inequality, 1755
World Symbol
 Russia Moves Against Persia, 1804
World Symbol
 England Secures Control of the Mediterranean and the Atlantic Ocean, 1805
Russia Symbol
 The Congress of Vienna, 1814–15


Russia's Globalization:
A Key

Events marked Russia Symbol are specific to Muscovy/Russia's internal development.
Those marked World Symbol are important world historical or cultural events.
Engagement Symbol indicates specific points of sociocultural or military engagement between Muscovy/Russia and foreign powers or individuals.




















 

 

   A Russian Diplomat’s View of the American Republic
  A Russian Diplomat’s View of the American Republic
   Photographic Services & Permissions
  Pavel Petrovich Svin’in (1788–1839)
Opyt zhivopisnago puteshestviia po Severnoi Amerike [An Illustrated Description of a Picturesque Journey Through North America]
St. Petersburg: F. Drekhsler, 1815
NYPL, Slavic and Baltic Division

Pavel Svin’in, a travel writer and watercolorist, served as secretary to the Russian consul in Philadelphia from 1811 to 1813. His “African Methodist Service” is typical of the exaggeration and theatricality of Svin’in’s writing and art, depicting American life as something exotic and wild.