Seeds of exchange: collecting for Russia's apothecary and botanical gardens in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries
type: CreativeWork
description: This dissertation follows the collection and cultivation of plants in the Russian Empire for medicinal and botanical purposes from the beginning of the seventeenth to the end of the eighteenth centuries. It focuses on the itineraries of collection and the spaces of cultivation established by herbalists, doctors, and naturalists in the employ of the Apothecary (Medical) Chancellery and the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences. In doing so it investigates how methods of botanical collection, including specific itineraries, influenced the creation spaces of botanical cultivation, including gardens, collections of correspondence and regional Floras. This juxtaposition and analysis of the mutual influence between routes and gardens ultimately attempts to explore how mobility and space intersected with the production of natural knowledge in the early modern Russian context. The first chapter of this dissertation, “Travniki and the Chancellery,” details the seventeenth-century network of itinerant herbalists [travniki] who collected plants, flowers, roots and seeds seasonally for the Apothecary Chancellery’s pharmacies and gardens. The travels of the Chancellery’s travniki are contrasted with the trade in materia medica, which included medicinal plants as well as chemical medicines, found in the herb stalls [zeleinye riady] of Moscow’s trading quarters. The specter of witchcraft and the role of Chancellery doctors in witchcraft trials concludes the chapter and is used to underscore the perceived threat and power of plants as they were transported from the countryside into the city. The second chapter, “Via the Volga,” then follows the Apothecary Chancellery into the eighteenth century, spanning its reorganization as the Medical Chancellery and detailing the first botanical and medical expeditions of Chancellery doctors down the Don and Volga Rivers. Chancellery expeditions clearly had a strong southern orientation throughout the century in no small part due to the Chanceller…
abstract: This dissertation follows the collection and cultivation of plants in the Russian Empire for medicinal and botanical purposes from the beginning of the seventeenth to the end of the eighteenth centuries. It focuses on the itineraries of collection and the spaces of cultivation established by herbalists, doctors, and naturalists in the employ of the Apothecary (Medical) Chancellery and the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences. In doing so it investigates how methods of botanical collection, including specific itineraries, influenced the creation spaces of botanical cultivation, including gardens, collections of correspondence and regional Floras. This juxtaposition and analysis of the mutual influence between routes and gardens ultimately attempts to explore how mobility and space intersected with the production of natural knowledge in the early modern Russian context. The first chapter of this dissertation, “Travniki and the Chancellery,” details the seventeenth-century network of itinerant herbalists [travniki] who collected plants, flowers, roots and seeds seasonally for the Apothecary Chancellery’s pharmacies and gardens. The travels of the Chancellery’s travniki are contrasted with the trade in materia medica, which included medicinal plants as well as chemical medicines, found in the herb stalls [zeleinye riady] of Moscow’s trading quarters. The specter of witchcraft and the role of Chancellery doctors in witchcraft trials concludes the chapter and is used to underscore the perceived threat and power of plants as they were transported from the countryside into the city. The second chapter, “Via the Volga,” then follows the Apothecary Chancellery into the eighteenth century, spanning its reorganization as the Medical Chancellery and detailing the first botanical and medical expeditions of Chancellery doctors down the Don and Volga Rivers. Chancellery expeditions clearly had a strong southern orientation throughout the century in no small part due to the Chanceller…
author: Koroloff, Rachel
language: en
keywords: Russian Empire, Botanical gardens, Medical gardens, Scientific travel, Botany, Medicine
date published: 2015-01-21T19:58:49Z
date modified: 2026-07-22T22:26:07Z
provider: University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

PropertyValue
property ID: Handle
value: http://hdl.handle.net/2142/73042