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A “Russian Staple” In Lübeck’s Trading Strategy At The Early Modern Time

The article presents a program for the preservation and expansion of Hanseatic League privileges in Russia. Being in a difficult economic and political situation, Lübeck was interested not only in preserving the old markets, but also in expanding its trading activity. The shifting the centre of the international trade at the Baltic Sea (staple) in some of the Russian cities could simultaneously contribute to the preservation of the old Hanseatic trade system. The original text of a previously unknown letter of Lübeck to the citizens of Reval in 1571 from the Tallinn City Archives contains the first detailed mention of the “Russian Staple” in Ivangorod or Pskov and its characteristics: self-government, duty-free trade and guarantees of free transportation and export of goods from the Russian government. Pskov acted initially as the basis for the implementation of the program, because a trading post (Lübecker Hof) was established there. In the future, using the favor of the tsars Fedor Ioannovich and Boris Godunov to the Hansa, Lübeck tried by way of diplomacy to achieve the duty-free trade and to expand the network of its trading establishments in Russia. All the same, a small reflection of Russian affairs in the documents of the Hanseatic congresses (Hansetag) from the turn of the 16th and 17th centuries testifies to the fact that they were considered internal affairs of Lübeck. Therefore, it is possible to raise the question of an attempt to monopolize the Russian trade by Lübeck or to create its own hinterland in Russia.