Metropolitan John (Maximovitch) about “His” and “Alien” in the Autobiographical Work “The Traveller” (1711)

Abstract

The article investigates the paper of Metropolitan John of Tobolsk (Maximovitch) “Putnik” (the original is called “There is a traveller from Chernigov to Siberia”). The textual analysis revealed several levels of author’s understanding of “his” and “alien”, based on the fixation of the cultural differences in the church and public life of the Ukrainian and other Orthodox eparchies in the Russian Empire. The author concludes that John (Maximovitch) developed the images of “his” and “alien” / “different” with a strong emphasis on such aspect as “culturally his” and “culturally different”.