Belgium (the Kingdom of Belgium) is a country in western Europe that is bordered by the North Sea and the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast and France to the south and west. The name comes from the Celtic Belgae tribe that long ago settled this territory. Today, Belgium is one of the leading and most well developed countries in the world. Moreover, Belgium is one of the centers of global and European politics – its capital city of Brussels has rightfully earned the reputation as the capital of Europe given its status as the host of important global and European institutions, as well as the largest concentration of diplomats of any country in the world.
It was Peter I who truly opened up Belgium to Russia. In 1717, during his second trip to western Europe, the Russian reformer tsar made an official visit to these lands. Unlike his first visit in 1698 when the young tsar was a leader known to nobody and who travelled incognito, in 1717, Peter was met in Belgium with great fanfare and at the highest level. Thanks to the victory in the Northern War, the Russian tsar had become recognized as the leader of a great power. Peter I had fought against the Turks in his war against the enemies of Christianity and, accordingly, had been an ally of the Habsburgs, under whose reign Belgium fell at the time. Peter also supported friendly and blood relations with Charles VI of the Habsburgs. It is not surprising that in the press at the time it was difficult to find negative words about Peter. All surviving documents offer only praise for the Russian tsar.
The presence of Peter I on Belgian soil has been memorialized by two monuments. The first – across from the Royal Court in Brussels – was created immediately after the visit of the Russian delegation. By the way, there is an interesting legend connected with these events: on April 16, the authorities in Brussels held a celebration for the tsar in the park, which was decorated in his honor. According to his contemporaries, “eating and drinking had been done generously.” At one point a member of the Russian delegation jumped on the "island" in the fountain of Mary Magdalene, and Peter himself jumped after him, although he landed in the water. In memory of these “exploits” the city authorities in Brussels set the plaque with the following text in Latin: “Peter Alekseevich, Tsar and Grand Prince of Moscow, sitting on the edge of the fountain, dignifying its water, carrying out the libation of wine, at three o'clock in the afternoon, April 16, 1717.”
The second monument to the Russian tsar was installed in the resort town of Spa in 1816 at the initiative of the great Russian princess Anna Pavlovna – daughter of Paul I and the younger sister of Emperor Alexander I – and her husband, Crown Prince William of Orange of the Netherlands, who later became King William II. On the pavilion above the ancient healing source, which in 1717 was named after Peter the Great, a bust of Peter I was created.
While the story of Peter I’s voyages to Belgium is well known to scholars of Russian-Belgian relations, another fact is not widely known, although it deserves no less attention. In 1717, Peter I took several belfries from the town of Malines (the French name of the Flemish city of Mechelen) outside of Brussels. The bells remain to this day in the Peter and Paul Fortress in St. Petersburg.
Over time, people in Russia learned more and more about Belgium. Diaries, travel notes and books by Russian travelers began to appear. In 1820, the historian and writer Pavel Sumarokov was the first to became acquainted with Brussels, the beauty and culture of which he wrote about enthusiastically in his notes “Progulka za granitsu” (“A Stroll Abroad): “If I were to choose to live outside my country, I would prefer Brussels.”
In the first quarter of the 19th century, visitors from the Russian Empire were attracted to the Belgian cities of Brussels, Ghent and Antwerp. Brussels was primarily associated with politics, whereas Antwerp, by contrast, was "the capital of Rubens" – a cultural center where conservative aristocrats, officials and professors from Russia admired the Flemish paintings and ancient churches.
Belgium was opened up to Russia once and for all in the late 1840s when the country was visited by N.I. Grech, a Russian journalist, writer, editor and publisher of the magazine "Syn otechestva" (“Son of the Fatherland”) and the newspaper “Severnaya Pchela” (“The Northern Bee”). In 1847, his "Paris Letters with notes on Denmark, Germany, Holland and Belgium” were published in St. Petersburg. At the same time, Gogol and Turgenev visited Belgium.
Normalization of relations between the two countries, which took place in the middle of the 19th century, coincided with a period of rapid economic development in Belgium, which quickly became one of the leading industrialized countries of Europe. Not surprisingly, the subsequent decades were marked by active deepening of bilateral ties, especially trade. Belgium became a major importer of Russian grain and raw materials. Regular shipping lines were opened, which connected St. Petersburg, Riga and Odessa to Antwerp. Each year more than 500 Russian vessels travelled these lines.
Accordingly, the size of the Russian diaspora in Belgium also grew. The Russians who came to Belgium between 1830 and 1861 can be divided into several groups. The smallest group was made up of those people who came for academic and scientific purposes. They were interested primarily in the country’s agriculture, the universities in Brussels and Ghent, libraries and Flemish paintings. The majority of Russians who came to Belgium were simply inquisitive travelers who were attracted by the history of the cities, architecture and sculpture, as well as the Belgian ports and the first railway in Europe.
Hooked on the ideas of political freedom, Russian liberals and revolutionaries also sought to get to Belgium. Indeed, Belgium was one of the centers of European political radicalism, imitating France in this respect. For example, P.V. Annenkov, a writer, philosopher, publisher and biographer of Pushkin, brought V.G. Belinsky to Brussels during his course of treatment for tuberculosis in Germany. The three met with Karl Marx during the visit. For several years, the revolutionary A.I. Herzen often traveled to Belgium illegally.
Later, at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, when Marxism was becoming more popular in Imperial Russia, Belgian labor unions and cooperatives became places of pilgrimage for Russia's democratic intellectuals. The political success of the Belgian Workers Party attracted Russian political refugees. Russian workers got to know the Belgian proletariat by working in factories in Li
