K otázce ruského západnictv 17. století (Grigorij Kotošichin)
The Problem of Russian Westernism in 17th Century (Grigorij Kotošichin)

Summary/Abstract: Soon after its discovery and the first Russian edition (1840) a treatise by a Moscovian civil servant Grigorij Kotošichin (around 1630-1667) called On Russia in the Period of Reign of Alexej Michajlovič had become a part of a more general discussion on the roots of Westernism in the Russian intellectual tradition before the period of Peter the Great. We find it crucial for the approach to the analysed text that the author describes the state of the Moscovian state and society without backing in the belief in a unique historical role of Russia in the world history and its exceptional place among other nations. The significance of Kotošichin in the history of Russian literature does not consist in his presumable Westernism, but in the secularization of perspective on the state of the Russian state and society – a God’s will as a mover of history recedes into the background. He finds the source of the insufficiencies of life of Moscovian society within itself – in the concretized rules according which it functions.

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