“The European Plot” in the Russian Literary Tradition at the End of the 17th Centur

Abstract

~ ~ ~ The paper analyses the notes of Boris Petrovich Sheremetev, general field marshal, the diplomat of Peter I era, about his travel to Europe. These notes are a monument of the Russian fiction at the turn of the 17th-18th centuries. The composition allows answering the following questions about the process of a fictionalization of documentary books in Russia in a transition period of developing Russian literature; what new subjects, plots, motives define literary process; how the position of those who made a book monument changed. The author pays special attention to the description of the literary methods used by B.P. Sheremetev. They helped to create a new image of Europe in Russian fiction at the end of the 17th century and presented Russian people a bright and interesting world. The paper is aimed at experts in the field of Medieval studies, the historians of literature who are engaged in studying the problem of forming and developing the genre system in a transition period of Russian literature (the second half of the 17th - the beginning of the 18th century).