Peter Petreius

Peer Peersson of Erlesunda, also known as Per Erlesund and by his Latinized pen name Peter Petreius (Uppsala, 1570 – October 28, 1622, ) was a Swedish diplomat, envoy to Muscovy and author of the History of the Grand Duchy of Muscovy (1615) that attempted to present a complete history of Russia from the foundation of Kievan Rus to the end of the Time of Troubles.

Peer Peersson was born in the family of Uppsala Cathedral priest; his father, Per-Benedict Persson, later became the Bishop of Västerås and Linköping. Per Persson junior graduated from the King Johann School and joined the Magdeburg University. After a short period of dedicated studies Peersson slipped into a lifestyle of a rake, indulging in drinking and duels; in 1593 he was expelled from the university and ended up in jail for debts. He managed to return to Sweden and joined the office of Duke Charles, King Sigismund's uncle, who ascended to the throne in 1604 as Charles IX of Sweden.

In 1601 Peersson left Sweden for a four-year reconnaissance tour of Muscovy in the guise of a doctor. His dispatches to the court were reproduced by Jacques Auguste de Thou in his Historiarum sui temporis. Back in Sweden, Peersson compiled his dispatches into a Fair and true relation on recent Russian past from Ivan Grozny to the ascension of Vasily Shuysky. The book was based exclusively on Peersson's own experience and on the oral narratives by contemporary Russians (Vasily Shuysky, Maria Nagaya and the retinue of False Dmitriy I) and Western witnesses (Caspar Fiedler, Conrad Bussow). Peersson in real life tracked Bussow's activity with suspicion and recovered evidence of Bussow's treason that resulted in the defection of Swedish garrison in Narva (his allegations are contested by modern authors, e.g. Orchard). Persson obtained the manuscript of Bussow's The Disturbed State of the Russian Realm (the first, 1614, version) and reused it in his own later works. Historians of the first half of 19th century incorrectly considered Peersson the primary source for Bussow's book until Arist Kunik (1849) and Sergey Solovyov (1858) restored Bussow in his own rights.

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