My PhD project highlights and analyses the origins of early modern diplomatic practices and their transformations in Venice, Muscovy, and in the whole surrounding region, including the Habsburg and Ottoman empires, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Sweden, and Ukrainian lands. My project disentangles ideas of early-modern international law, perceptions of ‘national’ identities, and diplomatic traditions from the contemporary diplomatic practices and diverse circles of people involved. It follows the trails of information exchange and knowledge production across the process of communication, instantiated in official or unofficial diplomatic settings. My project brings to the fore the roles of multiple diplomatic agents and mediators who existed within their particular intellectual and socio-political contexts, and whose activities ultimately constituted the essence of diplomatic relations.