page_title: Isaac Massa
section_title: Biography
hierarchical_section_title: Isaac Massa / Biography
caption_attribution_description: Isaac Massa, Caerte van't Noorderste Russen, Samojeden, ende Tingoesen Landt
context_page_description: Isaac Abrahamszoon Massa was a Dutch grain trader, traveller and diplomat, the envoy to Muscovy. He wrote memoirs related to the Time of Troubles and created some of the earliest maps of Eastern Europe and Siberia. Due to Massa's experience in and knowledge of Muscovy, he was valued by the Dutch States-General as a counterweight to growing English influence in Muscovy in the early seventeenth century. The Isaac Massa Foundation was established in his honor in Groningen. It aims to stimulate scientific and cultural contacts between the Russian Federation and the Netherlands.
context_section_description: Isaac Massa was born into a wealthy silk merchant's family; his father Abraham Massa had relocated the family from Liège to Haarlem before Isaac was born. His ancestors could have been French Huguenots who fled their homeland in the beginning of the Reformation. The family surname was also known as Massart, Massaert, suggesting French origins, which is where most Huguenots started. Under religious persecution, they generally relocated to Protestant countries, such as England and those of northern Europe.
  In 1601 Massa left Haarlem for Moscow to assist the family trade. Massa was witness to the second half of Boris Godunov's reign, during which a civil war broke out, now known as the Time of Troubles. He survived the capture of Moscow by False Dmitriy I and left Russia in 1609, before the fall of Tsar Vasily Shuysky.
  Massa compiled an account of the 1601–1609 events (Dutch: Een cort Verhael van Begin en Oorspronk deser tegenwoordighe Oorloogen en troeblen in Moscovia totten jare 1610), which he presented to Stadtholder Maurice. It was reproduced in print in the nineteenth century. In 1612–1613 Massa published two articles on Russian events and the geography of the Land of Samoyeds, accompanied by a map of Russia, which were published in an almanac edited by Hessel Gerritsz. His notes on his various travels have been published in conjunction with maps made by the explorer Henry Hudson.
  These articles were translated and reproduced anonymously in European languages, because the author's name was removed in early Dutch reissues. The most complete translations were published in Russian in 1937 (reissued in 1997) and in English in 1982. Massa's writing was based on an underlying religious concept of punishment for sins being indispensable. He believed that Godunov, False Dimitri, and the nation itself paid for their mortal sins. (Massa believed that Godunov killed Feodor I and the real Tsarevich Dimitri). Russian sources consider him the least biased of contemporary Western witnesses, and very well informed. (His contemporary, Jacob De la Gardie, characterized Massa as "extremely artful in learning other people's secrets").
  Massa is credited with five published maps of Russia and its provinces, the last ones compiled around 1633, and two maps of Moscow city, including the schematic account of the 1606 battle between Vasily Shuysky and Ivan Bolotnikov's armies. Retrieving original maps of the city could have been dangerous for Massa himself and fatal for his Russian sources. Massa's rendition of the Siberian coast represented an advance in geography; for decades it was the only map of this region. It was subsequently copied by Gerardus Mercator and Jodocus Hondius, Jan Janssonius and Willem Blaeu.
  In 1614 Massa returned to Moscow, this time accompanied by his brothers, as an envoy of States-General of the Netherlands to obtain an exclusive trade agreement similar to the recent Dutch-Ottoman treaty, and to investigate the trade routes into Persia. Not only had the Dutch been keen to purchase grains but also Persian silks. These had, equally so, been exported via Archangelsk. At the time Russian people showed great interest in artillery compounds such as lead and gunpowder.
  An average of thirty ships sailed each year to Archangelsk, a harbour near the White Sea – unfortunately during 1619 a fire broke out and destroyed the city completely, thereby ruining Massa's inventory. Additionally, upon his return Massa's ship encountered a heavy storm near Lapland.
  In April 1622 he married Beatrix van der Laen, the daughter of a Remonstrant burgomaster. When Hals had a child baptized, Massa was a witness. In 1623/24 Massa was called upon by the Dutch Parliament (Staten-Generaal) to become an agent for Moscovia. However, his appointment proved to be a controversial one and drew serious opposition. He then made successful efforts to gain the interest of Gustaf II Adolf of Sweden to pursue trading grains with Russia. While nourishing the relationships between Russia and Sweden, he was knighted by the Swedish King in 1625 for his arduous effor
caption: Map of the north of Russia, the land of the Samoyedic and Tunguz; with the Taz Estuary, Vaygach Island, Yamal and Gydan Peninsula
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