A Brill Calendar: May 8

Peter the Great and the Hortus Botanicus

Few foreign visitors to Holland caused such stir among natives as Tsar Peter I in 1697.

As may be expected, the first of his two visits – a second followed some twenty years later – created the greatest sensation. Understandably so: the fact-finding Russian expedition to Western outskirts is known in European history as ‘The Grand Embassy 1697 – 1698’ and in Dutch history as the ‘Grote Gezantschap’. The greatest Romanow ever to reign studied the technologically advanced European regions around the North Sea, surrounded by some 250 servants and dignitaries in all forms of attire, as swash-buckling and luxurious as exotic.

Although Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver traveled alone, the figure of Lemuel may have been inspired by this six-and-a-half foot giant, arriving from a seemingly different planet. Some three centuries after the presence in Holland of Russia’s principal reformer, there is hardly any Netherlander not aware of Peter’s short, incognito career as a carpenter and shipbuilder living in a tiny house along the river Zaan, the hub of the world’s first industrialized urban area. The modest building is still an attraction for tourists and school-outings. It is seldom that additional Tsarist interests are mentioned. The maritime glory of the Republic of the Seven (more or less) United Provinces usually takes precedence over other sources of national pride.

By the same token, it is moot to commemorate that The Grand Embassy didn’t fail to visit another top-attraction in Holland. On May 8 1698, the Tsar became duly impressed by the Academic Library, Hortus Botanicus and Anatomical Theatre of Leyden’s University. When Peter started with Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz planning for the first Academy in the city named in honour of his personal Patron Saint, his ‘Leyden experience’ can’t have been irrelevant; the Great Reaper prevented the Great Tsar celebrating its ‘Dies natalis’ in 1726.