Swiss Robinson 1725
Swiss Robinson. 1725 is the title of an early travelogue mainly about today's Russia, from the first third of the 18th century.
In Robinson , Switzerland, pastor Beat Werdmüller from Zurich reproduces the “journeys” of Christoph Gassmann , born in September 1697, who got caught in the turmoil of the Northern War as a stonemason , after participating in the Battle of Poltava , captured near Bendery in 1711 and spent some years in southern Russia as a prisoner of war of the tsar together with a few dozen other western and northern Europeans - including with the Kalmyks .
Christoph Gassmann was released around 1721 and spent some time in Astrakhan , on the Persian campaign of Peter the Great, as well as in Kazan, Moscow and St. Petersburg before he was able to return to Switzerland in 1724.
Since the stonemason Christoph Gassmann was probably not able to write, his pastor Werdmüller acted as a "ghostwriter", but the Swiss Robinson is consistently told from Gassmann's point of view. What is unique about the travel report is that it is an early personal testimony from a person of “low rank”, such as an ordinary craftsman here.
The book was printed in 1725 by Lindinner Verlag in Zurich and has been preserved twice, one of which is in the Swiss National Library.
In 1966 an annotated edition was published by Hallwag Verlag in Bern, and a Russian translation in Paris in 1971.
expenditure
- Swiss Robinson. 1725. Curious news of Christoph Gassmann's / Stein-Metzen's travels from Albis = Rieden. Who was in the Saxon and Swedish war services / captured at Pultawa / to Moscow, Casan, Astrakhan / was brought under the Kalmucks and other Tartars. fehrners made a trip across the Caspian Sea and into Persia and finally came home in 1724 after 22 years of absence. [...] Compiled by Beat Werdmüller, Rev., Zurich 1725.
- Christoph Gassman's travels: 1702–1724 . Compiled by Beat Werdmüller, new ed. and explained by Michael Jeremijev. Bern 1966.
- Stranstvovanija Christofora Gassmana . Paris, Voenno-istoriceskaja biblioteka "Voennoj byli", No. 16, 1971.