A Journey Beyond the Three Seas
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A Journey Beyond the Three Seas (Russian: Хожение за три моря, Khozheniye za tri morya) is a Russian literary monument in the form of travel notes, made by a merchant from Tver Afanasiy Nikitin during his journey to India in 1466-1472.
A Journey Beyond the Three Seas was the first Russian literary work to depict a strictly commercial, non-religious trip. The author visited the Caucasus, Persia, India and the Crimea. However, most of the notes are dedicated to India, its political structure, trade, agriculture, customs and ceremonies. The work is full of lyrical digressions and autobiographic passages. Its last page is in Turkic and the broken Arabic language; these are, in fact, typical Muslim prayers, indicating that Nikitin probably converted to Islam while he was in India, although his lapse from Christianity bothered him as he mentions several times in the text.[1]
In 1475, the manuscript made its way to Moscow into the hands of a government official Vasili Mamyrev. Later on, it was incorporated into the annalistic code of 1489, the Sofia Second Chronicle and the Lvov Chronicle.
[edit] References
- ^ For a translation of Nikitin's account, see Richard H. Major, ed. "The Travels of Athanasius Nikitin," tr. Mikhail M. Wielhorsky. In India in the Fifteenth Century. Hakluyt Society, ser. 1. volume 22. (London: Hakluyt Society, 1857). For a historical and literary analysis of the text, see Gail Lenhoff and Janet Martin "The Commercial and Cultural Context of Afanasij Nikitin's Journey Beyond Three Seas." Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas 37, No. 3 (1989):321 - 344; See also Janet Martin, "Muscovite Travelling Merchants: The Trade with the Muslim East (Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries)." Central Asian Studies 4, No. 3 (1985):21 - 38.
