Changing Societies & Personalities, 2021
Vol. 5, No. 4, pp. 686–689

https://doi.org/10.15826/csp.2021.5.4.157

Received 30 November 2021 © 2021 Sergei V. Sokolov 
Accepted 16 December 2021 sokolovsv@urfu.ru
Published online 30 December 2021 

BOOK REVIEW

Trade, Politics and Borderlands:  
Russia and Britain in the Age of Enterprise
Review of Matthew P. Romaniello (2019). Enterprising Empires:  
Russia and Britain in Eighteenth-Century Eurasia. Cambridge University Press

Sergei V. Sokolov
Ural Federal University, Yekaterinburg, Russia

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The research was supported by the Ministry of Science and Higher 
Education of the Russian Federation in the framework of the state task 
on the topic “Regional Identity of Russia: Comparative Historical and 
Philological Studies” FEUZ-2020-0056

In this well-written book, Matthew P. Romaniello presents a study of the 
commercial relationships between the British and Russian empires throughout 
the long eighteenth century. The book title is accurately chosen. The author 
describes not only British efforts to establish trade with Russia (or through 
Russia’s lands), but also surveys Russian commercial enterprises in both Asia 
and America, revealing the Russian government’s great desire to take advantages 
of its vast territory and the political situation in the borderlands. Both Russia and 
Britain were equally enterprising commercially—this is probably the main idea 
behind the whole book. With a caveat on the difference between the two in terms 
of naval power and financial resources, the author claims that “the traditional 
argument of Russia’s economic ‘backwardness’ can be challenged”, and the 
Russian “eighteenth-century commercial economy was undoubtedly robust and 
as successful as those of Europe’s leading countries” (Romaniello, 2019, p. 3).

The author points out that this observation is not new. His work is indeed 
based on a large historiographical tradition, which holds divergent opinions 
and investigates different aspects of Russian and British commercial relations 
within this period. On the one hand, the abundance of literature makes it difficult 
for any new study to present novelty and uniqueness, but, on the other, this 
historiographical situation provides an opportunity to use a great deal of facts 

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and figures collected in studies of Anglo-Russian trade and diplomacy. Romaniello 
has managed to find his own focus: the book is centered on significant actors, such 
as traders, entrepreneurs, and diplomats. It is based on different narrative and 
private sources—travel accounts, diplomatic correspondence, letters, and memoirs. 
With these documents, the author explains to us the aims and course of eighteenth-
century British trade in Russia, Asia, and America. Talking a lot about people, the 
book contains few figures: the author takes full advantage of previous studies  
(Kaplan, 1995) to assess the volume of finance and goods. This approach helps 
explore human dimension in international commerce. 

The other important “heroes” of the book are commercial companies. The 
research is concerned with commercial activity of all charted British companies 
involved in the trade with Russia including the Russia Company, the Levant Company, 
the Eastland Company, and the East India Company. The author studies their 
business, efforts, and rivalry, touching on a wide range of matters from commercial 
competition to parliamentary lobbying. It is especially valuable that the book covers 
the eighteenth-century history of the Russia Company. It has long been held that 
the heyday of this company occurred in previous centuries, with the eighteenth 
century being largely neglected. Romaniello reveals that the company was very 
active in several decades of the eighteenth century, namely in the 1730s and 40s, 
immediately after the signing of the Anglo-Russian commercial treaty (1734). From 
the Russian side, significant attention is paid to the Russian American Company, the 
first Russian established company to trade North American commodities. Although 
the scale of this company cannot be compared with its English counterparts, it was 
once a very significant enterprise for the Russian Empire and allows the author to 
some extent equate Russian business with its British counterpart, at least in terms 
of its organizational forms and goals. 

The list of archival sources is impressive (Romaniello, 2019, pp. 264 –265). 
The author uses documents from Britain, Russia, the United States, Spain, and 
Denmark. The British Librar y, the National Archives in Kew, the National Librar y 
of Scotland, the National Records of Scotland, the Russian State Archive of 
Ancient Acts, the Library of Congress, and the National Archives and Records 
Administration (USA) are the most significant depositories employed. There 
is a certain inclination towards English archival sources, as is also the case for 
the published primary sources. This has an impact on the visibility of Russian 
characters and positions, which I will discuss later. 

The book is arranged chronologically and encompasses around 150 years: 
from Muscovite trade regulations (codes) issued in the 1650–60s to the Napoleonic 
era, when Russia for a short time joined the so-called Continental System. The 
chronological arrangement does not mean that the author describes every set of 
events in Anglo-Russian relations. The five chapters are dedicated to different 
chronological periods. Within each period, the author focuses on significant points in 
imperial entrepreneurship that were crucial for Anglo-Russian commerce. 

The first chapter analyses the struggle of English merchants to regain 
commercial privileges in Russia in the second half of the seventeenth century. 

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688 Sergei V. Sokolov

The Torgovyi ustav (1653) and its renewal in 1667 marked the Russian transition 
to mercantilism. It put an end to the earlier policy of massive privileges for foreign 
merchants and companies. At the same time, England introduced a more organized 
approach to its merchant companies, putting its trade under governmental control 
through the Navigation Acts. The moderate success of British enterprises in Russia 
is investigated in chapter two. Britain achieved its long-sought goal to sell American 
tobacco in Russia (1698). British interests included the transition trade with China, 
with the English medic John Bell making his way to this country through Russia. But 
the most desirable destination was Iran. From the sixteenth century, when Antony 
Jenkinson travelled through Russia down the Volga River, the English deemed the 
Iranian trade highly profitable. The attempts to establish a steady route failed in the 
sixteenth century and during the reigns of the early Romanovs. At the beginning 
of the eighteenth century, the Russia Company doubled its efforts, but did not 
succeed until the 1730s. 

The third chapter studies the Iranian affair. It begins with the signing of the 
Anglo-Russian commercial treaty of 1734, which was a great achievement of British 
diplomats. The treaty allowed British merchants to trade with Iran through Astrakhan. 
Soon after this, the British adventurer and naval captain John Elton made it down the 
Volga, reaching Astrakhan and then Iran. When his activities became suspicious to the 
Russian government, the Russia Company dispatched Jonas Hanway in an attempt 
to mitigate the situation. The account left by Hanway (a very detailed book, in fact) is 
one of the main sources for Romaniello. The failure of the British to secure a foothold 
in the Iranian silk trade (1746) and the later desperate attempts to rectify the situation 
are also matters of concern in the chapter. Additionally, the author follows Russian 
success in Siberia and Iran, looking closely at the treaties and institutions of Russian 
commercial agents and consuls on the Caspian Sea. The important conclusion of the 
third chapter is that Russia had the upper hand in trade relationships at the time, as 
the British navy was dependent on raw materials from Russia. 

Chapter four investigates the time of Catherine the Great. In this period, Britain 
did succeed in signing a new treaty with Russia (1766), but it did not give British 
merchants the same privileges as the previous agreement. Russia made advances 
in the Black Sea region by waging war against the Ottoman Empire: this contributed 
to deterioration in the Anglo-Russian relationship. The chapter describes how the 
new notion of Russia as a rival emerged. Russian success in the Far East and North 
American exploration added to these fears. In the fifth chapter, a broad picture of 
Russian enterprises is built up. The chapter focuses on the Pacific region where the 
Russian American Company emerged (1799), but the European theater and the Black 
Sea are not omitted. 

The close look at Russian borderland territories has an unexpected outcome: 
the book can be considered a history of commerce on the Russian frontier and in 
the empire’s remote regions. The actions of British agents and companies in these 
territories are thoroughly studied by Romaniello. Both the personal and institutional 
dimensions are examined. For example, the author provides a quite in-depth 
description of the interactions between the Russian administration in Astrakhan and 



Changing Societies & Personalities, 2021, Vol. 5, No. 4, pp. 686–689 689

British merchants, focusing on the encounters of John Elton and Jonas Hanway 
with the Astrakhan governor Vasilii Tatishchev. The latter was a big proponent of the 
merchants, although he was suspicious of British enterprise This part of the book 
also has a downside however: the author does not really take into account o the fact 
that some of Russia’s remote territories had a special status, with their administrators 
exercising considerable power over internal and external affairs (Lazarev, 2017). 
Taking the role of regional administrators and elites more fully into account would 
give a broader perspective on the reasons for the ups and downs in both British and 
Russian commercial enterprises. 

Another potential criticism is rooted in the weakness of the book’s Russian 
characters. While British voices are clearly audible, Russian actors remain nearly 
silent most of the time. This can be easily explained by the composition of the 
sources. The author tends to rely on English sources, which leads to more detailed 
description of British characters. In most cases, the author gives a very accurate 
image of the events, but there are some gaps. For instance, the denunciation of 
the Anglo-Russian treaty deserves a more thorough study from the Russian side. 
Romaniello, following English accounts, explains that Captain John Elton was the 
main culprit, with his activities on the Caspian Sea (he built several warships for the 
Iranian shah) resulting in Russian withdrawal from the treaty. However, as Russian 
sources show, the new government of Empress Elizabeth (1741–61) embarked on a 
policy of protectionism in favor of domestic merchants (Iukht, 1994), and therefore 
Elton’s malevolent activity was rather a pretext han the true reason for the abolition 
of the Anglo-Russian commercial treaty. 

This minor criticism does not undermine my overall positive opinion of the book. 
The study’s selectiveness gives it a much-needed focus, and a certain lack of the 
Russian viewpoint is compensated by a quite comprehensive English source base. 
This is the research of this issue that has long been needed: a personality-centered, 
very well-written, and academically in-depth book exploring the vast geography of 
Anglo-Russian commercial and diplomatic interactions in the Age of Enlightenment. 

References
Iukht, A. I. (1994). Torgovlya s vostochnymi stranami i vnutrennii rynok Rossii 

(20–60-e gody XVIII v.) [The Eastern Trade and Russia’s Internal Market in the  
1720-60s]. Institut Rossiiskoi istorii Rossiiskoi Akademii nauk. 

Kaplan, H. H. (1995). Russian overseas commerce with Great Britain during 
the reign of Catherine II. American Philosophical Society. 

Lazarev, Ia. A. (2017). Mesto ukrainskoi kazatskoi elity v sostave rossiiskogo 
dvorianstva v pervoi polovine 1760-kh gg. [The place of the Ukrainian cossack elite in 
the Russian nobility in the first half of the 1760s]. Voprosy Istorii, 3, 70–85.

Romaniello, M. P. (2019). Enterprising empires: Russia and Britain 
in eighteenth-century Eurasia. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.
org/10.1017/9781108628600

https://changing-sp.com/
https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108628600
https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108628600