Russland als Ziel kolonialer Eroberung

Heinrich von Staden's description and attack plan on Muscovy from 1579 draws on the model of the conquest of Mexico by Hernán Cortés: the archetypal narrative for colonial conquest in the 16th century. In his description of Muscovy, he stylizes his encounter with Tsar Ivan IV (the Terrible) after Cortés's meeting with the Aztec ruler Montezuma. Cornelia Soldat examines these texts about Russia, which are part of a large-scale plan by Count Georg Hans von Veldenz to fundamentally change the power dynamics in the Baltic region. At the center of this is the inscription of Russia into the narrative of colonialism.