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In this second volume of Patrick Gordon's Diary containing ‘curious tidings of himself, of his brothers in arms, and of Russia before the age of transformation'(to quote again the great historian S.M. Soloviev), our hero continues his account of service in Warsaw and elsewhere in Poland before moving to Moscow in 1661 with Paul Menzies and others. He tells of the difficulties with officialdom in his early years and his more successful military activities, often in the company of fellow Scots. He also gives a full description of a mission to London, including meetings with Charles II. Dmitry Fedosov continues his magnificent edition of a vital historical source and a most entertaining narrative.

Paul Dukes writes: The publication of the Diary of Patrick Gordon has by now fully established itself as an invaluable source for Russian, British and European history in the second half of the seventeenth century. Volume V, thoroughly edited like its predecessors by Dmitry Fedosov, comprises a wide range of activities on land and sea from 1690 to 1695, many of them involving the young tsar Peter. Having helped the future Peter the Great to consolidate his hold on the throne, Gordon grew closer to him in ‘large discourse', being ‘entertained & detained all night', and so on. On the practice battlefield, the Scottish general played a leading part realistic enough for himself to be shot in the thigh and his son-in-law to be mortally wounded. As Fedosov says, Gordon along with the tsar proceeded from the pastimes of Mars to those of Neptune in naval exercises on the White Sea. Moving south to actual combat, the Russian forces re-engaged the Crimean Khanate and Ottoman Empire in further episodes in the long struggle for the fortress of Azov. Volume V, the longest of the six, contains many letters to and from Gordon and a wide range of his observations on political developments throughout Europe.

Geoffrey Parker writes: ‘I started to study the military history of seventeenth-century Europe forty-five years ago, and yet I have never come across a source like the Diary written by Patrick Gordon, a Scottish Catholic who in 1651, at the age of sixteen, fled his native land to become a “soldier of fortune.”'Parker continues: ‘Dmitry Fedosov of the Russian Academy of Sciences is producing a scholarly edition of Gordon's entire surviving text in both the original and in Russian.... Fedosov includes an excellent apparatus criticus,identifying places, persons, and foreign terms; he provides a detailed index.'The high standard set in the earlier volumes is continued in the fourth. Considering the years 1684-1689, the diary describes all manner of military activities, in particular two campaigns against the Ottoman Turks culminating in the capture of their fortress at Azov. In addition, Gordon gives an evocative account of a visit to Britain, meetings with King James VII and II in London followed by a reunion with friends and family back home in Aberdeenshire. He also tells us of many contacts with the future Peter the Great before and during the young tsar's seizure of power from his half-sister the Regent Sophia.

The great Russian historian, S.М. Soloviev, regarded Patrick Gordon as “one of the most remarkable men” ever employed by the tsars, and was grateful to him for “recording his adventures and existence day by day, leaving to us curious tidings of himself, of his brothers in arms, and of Russia before the age of transformation” – and much else besides. Passages from the Diary were published in 1859. Now, 150 years on, the appearance of the first of six volumes marks the beginning of the publication of the complete work. In Volume I, Gordon writes of his early life near Ellon, Aberdeenshire, and of his military apprenticeship in the armies of Sweden and Poland, with colourful descriptions of people (including many fellow Scots), places and events.