State credit of Russia in the 1st third of the 19th century and foreign money markets

The article delves into the problem of Russian public debt and the interaction of its financial administration with foreign creditors in the first third of the 19th century. Existing literature appears to lack a comprehensive overview of the negotiations between the Russian government and foreign banks for loans during this period, in contrast to the wealth of publications on government and railway securities in the later part of the 19th and early 20th centuries. The primary objective of the author is to present projects of external loans and the makeup of creditors in connection with the empire’s public credit policy during the period of instability resulting from wars and revolutions in the early 19th century. To accomplish this, the author references sources such as the Finance Committee journals in the Russian State Historical Archive and materials from the Collection on the History of Finance in Russia in the Manuscript Department of the Russian National Library. Of particular significance is the correlation between Russia’s foreign loans, facilitated by Ludwig Stieglitz (court banker since 1828), and the activities of his company, L. N. Stieglitz and Co., which held a prominent position in Russia owing to its trade volume. Information gleaned from sources regarding both successful and unsuccessful foreign loans to Russia suggests that during tumultuous periods in capital markets due to the wars of the early 19th century and revolution of 1830, the government received offers not only from top bankers but also from firms with weaker credit. The Russian financial administration, for its part, sought to maintain stable long-term ties with traditional markets, with the best of foreign financiers. The author also underscores the pivotal link between the mediation of Russian state credit and the foreign trade activities of Ludwig Stieglitz's firm. In 1831, Hamburg capitalists proposed utilizing the entire exported government copper, rather than the customs revenues of the Russian Baltic ports, as collateral for a loan, with the stipulation that the copper be handled by L. Stieglitz's trading house. Commencing at least in 1838, Stieglitz initiated the dispatch of substantial quantities of copper to his personal account and to a joint account with the Rothschild frѐres, Paris; the Rothschild frѐres evolved into world bankers and substantial metal traders (copper and nickel) and invested in the transport infrastructure of many countries, including Russia, by the mid-19th century. And despite the growth of London's financial importance since the beginning of the 19th century and the gradual decline of Amsterdam, attempts by British competitors to undermine the monopoly position of the bankers Hope and Co. in the issue of Russian loans in the early 1830s did not meet with success.