2018. Vol. 6, no. 1. Gulevich V.P., Hautala R.

2018. Vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 199-211

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.22378/2313-6197.2018-6-1.199-211

   A LITTLE-KNOWN SOURCE ON THE EMBASSY
OF SIGISMUND OF LUXEMBURG TO CAFFA IN 1412

V.P. Gulevich 1, R. Hautala 2, 3
1 Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine
Kiev, Ukraine
gulevych_v@ukr.net
2 Sh.Marjani Institute of History of Tatarstan Academy of Sciences
Kazan, Russian Federation
3 University of Oulu
Oulu, Finland
romanhautala@gmail.com

This article contains the text of a letter from the Hungarian and German king, Sigismund of Luxemburg, to the commune of Caffa, a Genoese colony in Crimea. In his struggle against Venice, the king hoped for the help of Genoa, which competed with the Republic of Venice in the Levantine trade. To undermine Venetian trade routes, Sigismund hoped to both establish contact with the Horde’s khan, Jalal ad-Din, with the mediation of Caffa’s administration, and to restore the transit trade of expensive Oriental goods from China to the Danube and further into Hungary and Germany. To this end, an official Hungarian embassy was sent to Caffa in 1412.
The letter rather meagerly reflects the opinion of the king regarding the distant Horde and its rulers. However, the circumstances of the embassy make it possible to understand the broader European context of Sigismund’s eastern policy, which in one way or another affected Genoa, the Ottoman Empire, and the Polish Kingdom. The published source is of considerable interest to researchers of the history of the Horde, the Crimea, and the Genoese colony of Caffa, taking into account the fact that Sigismund tried to implement his anti-Venetian plan in 1418 and possibly once again between 1419 and 1428, and given the scarcity of information on the Hungarian-Tatar relations in the early fifteenth century. Thus, this article contains the Latin text of the letter and its Russian translation as well as an introduction which highlights the context of events both in Hungary and the distant Venetian colony of Tana (Tatar: Azaq), located at the mouth of the Don.

Keywords: Hungarian and German king Sigismund of Luxemburg, Venice, Horde, Caffa, Tana

For citation: Gulevich V.P., Hautala R. A Little-known Source on the Embassy of Sigismund of Luxemburg to Caffa in 1412. Zolotoordynskoe obozrenie=Golden Horde Review. 2018. Vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 199–211. DOI: 10.22378/2313-6197.2018-6-1.199-211

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About the authors: Vladislav P. Gulevich – MA (History), Chief Adviser, Office for Relations with the Local Government and the Local Authorities to the Staff of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine (5, M. Grushevsky str., Kiev 01008, Ukraine). E-mail: gulevych_v@ukr.net

Roman Hautala – Ph.D. (History), Senior Research Fellow, Usmanov Center for Research on the Golden Horde and Tatar Khanates, Sh.Marjani Institute of History of Tatarstan Academy of Sciences (7, Baturin Str., Kazan 420111, Russian Federation); Docent, Historical branch at the Faculty of Humanities, University of Oulu, ORCID: http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3898-0107, ResearcherID: H-9114-2016 (1, Pentti Kaiteran Str., Historia, PL 1000, 90570, University of Oulu, Oulu, Finland). E-mail: romanhautala@gmail.com

Received  December 5, 2017   Accepted for publication  March 6, 2018
Published online  March 29, 2018