The sixth meeting of research group

On 13 May 2020, on the seventh seminar of the research group “Languages for Describing the Other in Early Modern Europe: Social Contexts and Repertoires of Interpretation” Gleb Paromonov and Julia Zakrzhevskaya presented a research report about peculiarities of the image of Muscovites in the seventeenth century in the works of Peter Petreius and Johan Sparwenfeld, two Swedish authors of profound academic background.

The presenters highlighted intellectual and social-political contexts of the period in north-western Europe, and, in particular, in Russian-Swedish relations. Participants of the seminar discussed topoi integral for Swedish narratives about Muscovy. They also stressed the neccessity to establish primary sources of the information about the described territory and its population with which the authors could be familiar. The sources in the texts could have served either an educational function which enabled the audience to form a perception of the Other without visiting the country or a function of the authoritative testimony with which the authors tried to accommodate their empirical experience.