What is it about?
Chapter 2, Sipping Coffee with the Enemy: Otto von Essen in Moldavia, Wallachia, and Bulgaria (1829–1830). Gathering intelligence is a delicate task: it brings the agent or spy into close contact with local peoples. The agent is exposed to cultures and languages while forming friendships and alliances – and these in turn create emotional bonds. A captivating example of such a struggle is the narrative of Otto von Essen (1805–1860) from the Grand Duchy of Finland. He took part in the Russian-Ottoman War 1828–1829 and spent more than a year in Moldavia, Wallachia, and Bulgaria as an intelligence officer of the Russian army.
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Photo by David Marcu on Unsplash
Why is it important?
This chapter presents the human side of spying in an historical context in the Balkans. It calls attention to the pitfalls for a foreign agent, such as cultural shock and the intricate emotional and social processes accompanying intelligence-gathering. The chapter also discusses the importance of studying an agent’s multicultural and multilingual background, his cultural learning processes, construction of a new mindset, and strategies for coping with encountered discrepancies.
Perspectives
Getting to know Otto von Essen and following in his footsteps in the Balkans was a great adventure: discovering not only many locations, but also the cultural shock cycle he experienced provided for many new insights. Today we can only imagine the difficulties he went through, being not just a visitor, but an intelligence officer and a spy with a mission to gather information about people he had befriended and learned to care about.
Dr. Sabira Ståhlberg
Independent Scholar
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Old and New Insights on the History of Intelligence and Diplomacy in the Balkans, January 2022, Peter Lang, International Academic Publishers,
DOI: 10.3726/b18654.
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