Samuel Collins (1619 – 26 October 1670;
[ ''Samuel Collins I'' in Russian bibliography, see disambiguation) was a British ]doctor
Doctor or The Doctor may refer to:
Personal titles
* Doctor (title), the holder of an accredited academic degree
* A medical practitioner, including:
** Physician
** Surgeon
** Dentist
** Veterinary physician
** Optometrist
*Other roles
** ...
and author
An author is the writer of a book, article, play, mostly written work. A broader definition of the word "author" states:
"''An author is "the person who originated or gave existence to anything" and whose authorship determines responsibility f ...
. Collins was a personal physician to Alexis I of Russia
Aleksey Mikhaylovich ( rus, Алексе́й Миха́йлович, p=ɐlʲɪkˈsʲej mʲɪˈxajləvʲɪtɕ; – ) was the Tsar of Russia from 1645 until his death in 1676. While finding success in foreign affairs, his reign saw several wars ...
in 1659–1666 and the author of '' The Present State of Russia'' printed in London
London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
in 1667.
Biography
Born to a vicar
A vicar (; Latin: '' vicarius'') is a representative, deputy or substitute; anyone acting "in the person of" or agent for a superior (compare "vicarious" in the sense of "at second hand"). Linguistically, ''vicar'' is cognate with the English pre ...
in Braintree, Samuel Collins entered Corpus Christi College, Cambridge in 1635, but for some reason took no degree at the university. Presumably, he pursued medical career in Padua
Padua ( ; it, Padova ; vec, Pàdova) is a city and ''comune'' in Veneto, northern Italy. Padua is on the river Bacchiglione, west of Venice. It is the capital of the province of Padua. It is also the economic and communications hub of the ...
where he graduated M.D; in 1659 his diploma was recognized by Oxford University
Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to th ...
. In 1659 or 1660 Collins was approached by John Hedben, one of several men in Russian employ assigned the task of recruiting skilled Europeans for service at the court of Tsar Aleksei Mikhailovich. Collins accepted the proposal and shortly moved to Moscow
Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 millio ...
. He remained in the capital for nine years as personal physician to Tsar Aleksei. Collins practiced such remedies as ''Deer
Deer or true deer are hoofed ruminant mammals forming the family Cervidae. The two main groups of deer are the Cervinae, including the muntjac, the elk (wapiti), the red deer, and the fallow deer; and the Capreolinae, including the re ...
horns, Moose
The moose (in North America) or elk (in Eurasia) (''Alces alces'') is a member of the New World deer subfamily and is the only species in the genus ''Alces''. It is the largest and heaviest extant species in the deer family. Most adult ma ...
hoofs and Hare hair'' ( la, Cor.cervi, ungul.Al., pil. Lepor), apparently with success. Collins resigned from Russian service 28 June 1666 with honours and a generous pay and immediately left for England. There he compiled his notes on life in Muscovy into ''The Present State of Russia, in a Letter to a Friend in London''. Collins declared that he deliberately had not used any written sources, pretending that no man of his intelligence and capabilities has ever traveled to Moscow. Modern analysis corroborated this claim.[
The first English edition of ''The Present State of Russia'' was released in 1667 and reissued in 1668, 1671 and 1698. Collins, according to a ]cenotaph
A cenotaph is an empty tomb or a monument erected in honour of a person or group of people whose remains are elsewhere. It can also be the initial tomb for a person who has since been reinterred elsewhere. Although the vast majority of cenot ...
in Braintree, died "taking a journey into France" on 26 October 1670 in Paris.[ The French edition was printed anonymously in 1679; the German translation in 1929. The first Russian edition, translated by Pyotr Kireyevsky from a French print, was published in 1828 (excerpts) and 1841 (complete text); in 1846 Kireyevsky published a translation of an English original. The book was regularly reprinted since.
]
Critical assessment
The book contains 26 chapters, arranged without a particular plan. As a doctor, Collins paid particular attention to local climate, nature and food habits. His account of Russian life outside of Moscow is, however, grossly incorrect: for example, he described contemporary Ukrainians
Ukrainians ( uk, Українці, Ukraintsi, ) are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Ukraine. They are the seventh-largest nation in Europe. The native language of the Ukrainians is Ukrainian. The majority of Ukrainians are Eastern Ort ...
as "Circassians
The Circassians (also referred to as Cherkess or Adyghe; Adyghe and Kabardian: Адыгэхэр, romanized: ''Adıgəxər'') are an indigenous Northwest Caucasian ethnic group and nation native to the historical country-region of Circassia ...
sic, a people of Tartarian race". On the other hand, he rebutted the legendary Vegetable Lamb cryptid that found its place in Peter Petreius book.
Like contemporary Western authors, Collins indiscriminately filled the book with unreliable anecdotes. Some of these stories can be traced to common European tales; others, based on a game of Russian words, give away his knowledge of vernacular spoken Russian.[ Collins, apart from retelling anecdotes, provided unique information not available in other Western sources:
* about the minister ]Afanasy Ordin-Nashchokin
Afanasy Lavrentievich Ordin-Nashchokin (russian: Афанасий Лаврентьевич Ордин-Нащокин) (1605–1680) was a Russian statesman of the 17th century. He was the first junior noble to attain the ''boyar'' title and high ...
* about commercial rivalry between the Dutch and English traders in Muscovy (by the 1660s the Dutch were clearly winning)
* and about the tsar himself.
19th century Russian critics catalogued Collins under the russophobe variety of Western reporters, along with Giles Fletcher, the Elder
Giles Fletcher, the Elder (c. 1548 – 1611) was an English poet and diplomat, member of the English Parliament.
Giles Fletcher was the son of Richard Fletcher, vicar of Bishop's Stortford.
Fletcher was born in Watford, Hertfordshire. He s ...
and Peter Petreius. His unforgiving account of muscovite ethics, morality and religion is fully in line with these and other Western reports; modern analysis regards this aspect of his book as generally correct from the Protestant
Protestantism is a branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century against what its followers perceived to b ...
viewpoint of that period.[Shokarev, p. 414] His own morality is evident from the passages related to crimes and punishment:
* Collins approved execution of money forgers by pouring molten tin
Tin is a chemical element with the symbol Sn (from la, stannum) and atomic number 50. Tin is a silvery-coloured metal.
Tin is soft enough to be cut with little force and a bar of tin can be bent by hand with little effort. When bent, t ...
in their mouths, citing a Latin phrase with a meaning of "a fair law cures the crime with its own weapons"
* Likewise, Collins approved execution of wives who killed their husbands through ''burying them alive'', because "a wife who could not even love her husband truly deserved death".
Disambiguation
Life of Samuel Collins I overlapped with the lives of two other physicians also named Samuel Collins:[C. H. & Thomson Cooper, p. 42]
* Samuel Collins (physician, born 1618) (1618–1710), M.D. (Cambridge), a personal physician to Charles II of England and author of '' A System of Anatomy''
* Samuel Collins (physician, born 1617) (1617–1685), M.D. (Oxford), scholar and registrar at Oxford University
Father of Samuel Collins I, the vicar of Braintree, was also named Samuel. Ambiguous events in this biography were interpreted as in C. H. & Thomson Cooper 1860 article.[The same approach is taken by modern Russian scholars, e.g. Shokarev]
References
* Collins, Samuel (1671). ''The Present State of Russia: In a Letter to a Friend at London''.
* Lee, Leslie; Stephen, Sidney (1887). ''Dictionary of National Biography''. Macmillan.
* C. H. & Thompson Cooper (July–December 1860).
Notes and Queries
' Second Series, vol. 10. London: Bell & Dadly.
* Shokarev, S., editor (1997). Utverzdenie dinastii (''Утверждение династии''). Moscow: Rita-Print.
Notes
External links
from "The Present State of Russia."
Full text
of "The Present State of Russia," edited by Marshall Poe
Marshall Tillbrook Poe (born December 29, 1961) is an American historian, writer, editor and founder of the New Books Network, an online collection of podcast interviews with a wide range of non-fiction authors. He has taught Russian, European, E ...
.
Scan
of the 1671 edition of "The Present State of Russia"
{{DEFAULTSORT:Collins, Samuel
1619 births
Alumni of Corpus Christi College, Oxford
17th-century English medical doctors
Writers about Russia
1660s in Russia
1670 deaths
People from Braintree, Essex