Ludvig Fabritius

Ludvig (Lodewyck) Fabritius (born 14 September 1648, Brazil — d. 6 October 1729, Stockholm) was the Swedish ambassador to Safavid Iran during the reign of the kings Charles XI (r. 1660–1697) and Charles XII (r. 1697–1718). After an initial career in the Russian army, he would pursue a diplomatic career representing the Swedish crown. He led three missions to the Safavid court, in 1679-80, 1683–84, and 1697-1700. His efforts were mainly characterized by the aimed establishment of a new transit route between Sweden and Iran through Russia with Narva as its main hub, as well as several attempts to establish a fruitful alliance against the common enemy, namely the Ottoman Empire. Throughout his tenure as ambassador to the Safavid court, a formal invititation to the Safavid king on behalf of the Swedish king to join the Holy League was made as well, apart from several successful Safavid-Swedish economic and trade-related agreements.

Fabriutius was born as Lodewyck Fabritius in Brazil, of Dutch origin, and moved to the Tsardom of Russia in 1660/61 along with his grandfather, where he subsequently pursued a career in the Russian army, as an officer. Having participated in numerous military campaigns under the Russian banner, he was captured while fighting Stenka Razin and his Cossack forces. Having spent three months in captivity in Astrakhan, enslaved by Tatars, he regained his freedom and moved to the Safavid Empire alongside other Dutch refugees. Upon his arrival in Isfahan, the Safavid capital, he was offered a position in the Dutch East India Company, which he refused, and, in 1672, he moved back to the Russia. In 1677, he resigned from the Russian military service, and moved to Sweden.

Fabritius' diplomatic career commenced in the late 1670s, and his first mission to Iran was to facilitate the opening of a transit route between Iran and Europe through Russia. Already in 1667, the Russian Tsar had granted Iranian Armenians the right to maintain their trade network and efforts through this route. In 1673, a renewed, modified version of this privilege majorly contributed to the notable commercial traffic between the Russian cities of Moscow and Archangelsk. Sweden on the other hand subsequently made a plan to lead the Russian trasit trade to the Baltic route, with Narva functioning as the main hub. In 1678, then incumbent Swedish king Charles XI decided to send a new diplomatic mission to Safavid, and chose Fabritius as the leader of the mission. Given the fact that he seems to have paid for the mission from his own money, it seems that a certain arrangement had been made with the Armenian merchants of Safavid Iran or those in the Russian Tsardom.

Due to the "reticence of the Persian sources, scant references in western sources, and the absence of a regular correspondence on the part of Fabritius", it is difficult to ascertain much details regarding this event. According to the Encyclopedia Iranica, Fabritius may have arrived in the Safavid capital somewhere in 1680. He was given audience however only in the spring of the year after. Fabritius' credentials which he gave later that same year, in September, included the allowance of Iranian merchants to enter Swedish territory, as well as two years exemption from tolls, as well as a Swedish proposal and commitment to build ships in the Caspian Sea. Then incumbent Safavid king Suleiman I of Persia (r. 1666-1694) agreed with the Swedish proposal to divert the transit route via Narva and Russia. However, the Safavid statement added, that this would only be done on the condition that the Safavid-Armenian merchants and the other merchants in general "would be so inclined". In the official Safavid response which Fabritius returned with him to Sweden, the Safavid king did not refer to the concerns regarding trade, but seemingly only thanked the Swedish king and his counterpart for the mission.

The Armenian merchants of the Safavid domains were more cheerful regarding the fruits of the mission; in an addressed letter by a Safavid-Armenian to the Swedish King Charles XI, one of the Armenian merchants expressed his willingness to experiment and try out the Novgorod-Narva route. The mayor or magistrate (kalāntar) of the Armenian quarter of the Safavid capital, officially expressed his interest in the Swedish-Iranian ship building cooperation in the Caspian, and promised, on behalf of that, that he would "urge" the other Armenians to make use of this new route. Laslty, a delegation of silk merchants of the Armenian quarter of Julfa would accompany Fabritius on his return to Sweden, where they arrived in late 1682, and Charles XI immediately commissioned him to undertake a new mission.

The ambassador's second trip, which commenced in April 1683, is "relatively well documented". The Swedish mission arrived in the Safavid capital in March 1684, and were received by king Suleiman I some four months later, in late July. At the time, astrological advice given to the king, and perhaps, in combination for the Safavid court to await the results of the negotiations with the Dutch, with whom the Safavids were "embroiled" in an armed conflict at the moment, made Fabritius wait himself as well before eventually presenting his letters to the Safavid king in September. New commercial proposals were made, and, more importantly, a Swedish proposal for Safavid Iran to join the European-led anti-Ottoman alliance, known as the Holy League. The dialogue held during the private audience of Fabritius with the Safavid king, as well as the writings of Engelbert Kaempfer (the secretary to the mission) present different versions regarding the Swedish king Charles XI his readiness to sent troops to assist Safavid Iran in its struggle against its archrival and their common enemy, the Ottomans. The Safavid king on the other hand, declined the invitation to join the Holy League, based upon his "pacifist inclination" motivated by a factually realistic assessment of his army's strength as compared to the Ottomans at the time. In the subsequent three years, Fabritius was received eleven times by the Safavid monarch, and informed him that he would be content to oblige the Swedish king in all his wishes and proposals, save for the invititation and proposal "to resume hostilities with the Ottomans". This mission however, led to the opening of the Narva transit route, and, by the late 1680s, in due to the logistical facilities and preferential tolls offered, it had become a serious competitor to the Archangelsk route.

In the 1690s, the Armenian merchants had made efforts to open up a commercial transit route through the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and Kurland. This made the Swedish king send Fabritius on his third mission, "designed to publicize the advantages of the Narva connection". Information regarding this third and last mission, is little. The mission departed from Stockholm in May 1697, from Moscow on 28 September in the same year, and arrived on 8 November 1698 at the Safavid capital of Isfahan. His requests at the Safavid court included the mutual rights for Swedish merchants in the Safavid Empire as those of the latter received in the Swedish domains, lower toll fees, as well as a hostel for the Swedish merchants, "similar to the one that accomoated Armenians in Narva". Furthermore, Fabritius also requested then incumbent Safavid king Sultan Husayn (r. 1694-1722) to request from the Russian Tsar Ivan V (r. 1682-1696) for him to facilitate free transit rights from the Swedish merchants who travelled from and to Sweden. Furthermore, as Charles XI had died shortly before Fabritius' departure, the latter also presented the Safavid king with the succession of a new Swedish king to the throne, namely Charles XII. Lastly, he also formally requested the Safavid Iranians to send an embassy to Sweden, which would be done. In the spring of 1699 he departed back for Sweden, accompanied by Saru Khan Beg as the new Safavid ambassador to Sweden. The retinue arrived on 26 May 1700. Relations between Russia and Sweden drastically detoriated by that time, and this led to the outbreak of the Great Northern War a year later, in 1701. This latter event also, "effectively" ended the possibilities of a vital and viable trade link between Safavid Iran and Sweden through the Russian domains. Fabritius died on 6 October 1729, in Stockholm.