The figure of Tsar Peter I of Russia (1672–1725), a reputed reformer of the early Russian state, has become a plastic signifier and conveys different kinds of historical symbolism. But it is widely agreed that the formidable pace of Petrine reforms caused a genuine struggle to construct such a language of the new Russian technocracy which could serve as an effective instrument for collective actions. The emerging Russian empire was rapidly changing its language of operation and eventually translated itself into a linguistic and governmental structure, many features of which were borrowed from German cultural patterns. This paper will focus on Peter's military shipbuilding, which started from his hands-on training as an apprentice to the VOC shipyard in Amsterdam, and will examine how individual efforts in technical translation eventually contributed to creating a model for an endeavour on an imperial scale. By navigating ships Peter learned how to navigate his new state, and my paper will trace this development on the level of individual cognitive tasks in translation, the level of translated normative practices which were established in the Russian Navy, and the state level which employed translation for building the legal framework of the state. By reconstructing the practices of this complex endeavour in translation between languages, technologies, and administrative models this paper seeks to clarify how the institutionalized procedures of translation helped reconfigure early modern Muscovy, with far-reaching implications for global history.

This essay explores the intimate relationship between translations and printing privileges in the early Dutch Republic (ca. 1581-1621). Printing privileges provided temporary monopoly rights to produce a variety of printed materials, including books, pamphlets, engravings, and maps; they are usually understood as relatively straightforward means used by printers to strengthen their economic market position. This essay argues, however, that printing privileges were equally part of the soft power machinery employed by the Dutch authorities to establish the Republic as an important state in its own right. Remarkable in this respect are the many privileges issued for translations. The essay contends that framing the system of printing privileges in political terms can help us better understand how, why, and when specific translations appeared on the market. Based on extensive and new source materials, I provide statistical data regarding the share of translations within the Dutch system of printing privileges. I then focus on four questions: Which translations were privileged? Why specifically these books, maps, and prints? Who was the intended audience? And what was the role and status of translators in the distribution of printing privileges? The answers to this set of questions will provide a better understanding of the patterns of normativity in how translations were brought to the market in early modern Europe and will clarify their impact on the building of the early Dutch Republic in the context of the early modern cultures of knowledge.

My paper will explore the translation of botanical knowledge on paper, in the context of colonial botany as it was performed by European actors in the New World ca. 1550-1700. I focus on the practices of draughtsmanship and printmaking in the works of a few early modern naturalists and image-makers such as Charles Plumier (1646-1704). The latter was a French cleric but also a trained botanist, later also appointed “King’s botanist” or botaniste du roi. Plumier was sent to the French Antilles on different occasions, and he described and depicted in drawings hundreds of local plants. Through this case study and some other examples, I examine early modern discourses on botanical image-making and analyze some of the drawing methodologies and visual strategies at play in the pictorial productions of early modern naturalists. These practices, as I will argue, involve mechanisms of translation, from an observational event into a graphic act, where translation is performed on two levels: first on the microscale of sketching what is visible in the observed plants, a practice which is akin to visual note-taking, and then on the macroscale of a published inventory or a lavishly produced album of botanical images. Translation from observation to graphics could be carried by the same person, who unusually sought to maintain the whole chain of image production under his/her control, to avoid any possible mistake in the transfer process. In some cases part of a series of efforts in state-sponsored publishing, the graphic act of stabilizing botanical knowledge in drawings and prints also pushes the functional boundaries of paper objects, which offered material means of claiming ownership over new natural and valuable resources by “harnessing” them graphically and textually.

For early modern European savants, metrology was a major conceptual and practical crossroads, where antiquarian inquiries into the patriarchs’ cubit and the Roman foot met with urgent contemporary matters of commercial and scientific exchange. Translating unfamiliar but newly relevant Chinese vocabularies of measure, number, and weight proved an irresistible challenge. The Leiden professor of mathematics and Arabic, Jacob Golius (1596–1667); the Bodleian Keeper, Thomas Hyde (1636–1703); and the Royal Society’s curator of experiments, Gresham Professor of Geometry, and city surveyor, Robert Hooke (1635–1703), were among the most influential scholars to try their hand at translating Chinese numerical and metrological expressions. While these efforts to establish a vocabulary fundamental to scientific translation exhibit a wide variety of investigatory methods and distinct networks of citation and collaboration, the working assumptions at issue suggest an emerging set of norms for ‘sinological’ knowledge transfer avant la lettre.