Andrey Matveyev, Russian envoy to the Dutch Republic from 1699 to 1712
Contacts between the predecessor states of the Netherlands and Russia date back to trade expeditions around 1000 AD, with regular contact established by the reign of Ivan the Terrible (1547-1584), when Dutch merchants visted Arkhangelsk. In 1613, Stepan Ushakov[ru] and Semyon Zaborovsky[ru] were sent to the Netherlands to present the news of the accession of Tsar Mikhail Fyodorovich, and to request assistance in the Polish–Russian War. In 1646, Ilya Miloslavsky and Ivan Baybakov[ru] visited as envoys of Tsar Aleksei Mikhailovich.[4] Temporary missions were exchanged throughout the Tsarist period, and in 1696, Tsar Peter I sent his Grand Embassy to Western Europe, nominally led by Franz Lefort, Fyodor Golovin and Prokofy Voznitsyn[ru], and accompanied by Peter himself. The embassy reached the Netherlands by mid-August 1697, leaving in January 1698. Contacts were strengthened with the appointment of the first permanent representative to the Netherlands the following year, Andrey Matveyev serving as Russian envoy in The Hague from 1699 to 1712.[4][5] A consulate was opened in Amsterdam on 16 April 1707, and Matveyev was succeeded in 1712 by Boris Kurakin, a noted diplomat who was ambassador during the establishment of the Russian Empire in 1721.[4][6]
Imperial Russia
Representatives continued to be exchanged between the two countries under Peter's successors, during the turbulent eighteenth century, with the first significant rupture occurring during the French Revolutionary Wars. The Dutch Republic was invaded by troops of the French First Republic in 1795, establishing the Batavian Republic, allied with France. Russia entered the War of the Second Coalition against France and its allies in late 1798, and in 1799, participated in the unsuccessful Anglo-Russian invasion of Holland. Relations were broken off during the war, but resumed after the signing of the Treaty of Amiens in 1802.[4] Hostilities between what was now the First French Empire under Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte, and the Russian Empire, resumed in 1805 with the War of the Third Coalition. The relative independence of what from 1806 was the Kingdom of Holland meant that diplomatic relations were maintained, until the Kingdom was formally annexed to the French Empire in 1810, a period known as the Incorporation. Relations were again suspended until the defeat of France in the War of the Sixth Coalition in 1814, after which relations were restored with the newly independent but shortlived Sovereign Principality of the United Netherlands, and then its successor from 1815, the United Kingdom of the Netherlands. Envoys were thereafter exchanged between the two countries for the next hundred years, uninterrupted by the transition from the United Kingdom of the Netherlands to the Kingdom of the Netherlands, following the Belgian Revolution in 1830 and the ratification of Belgian independence in 1839.[4]
Soviet Union
Vladimir Lavrov in 1967, while serving as Soviet ambassador to the Netherlands
Exchange of ambassadors continued throughout the rest of the existence of the Soviet Union. With the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Netherlands recognised the Russian Federation as its successor state. Incumbent Soviet ambassador Aleksandre Chikvaidze remained in post representing Russia until 1992, and since then ambassadors have continued to be exchanged between the two countries.[8][9]
Representatives of Russia to the Netherlands (1699–present)
Tsardom of Russia to the Dutch Republic (1699–1721)
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