"[I] exhorted and begged them persistently to leave the idolatrous way of life...". From the travel journal of the Alaskan missionary Hieromonk Nikita (Marchenko)

Identificator

EDN: ZOWYWT; УДК 94(73)+27-76-051

Authors

Pechatnov Valentin Vladimirovich, PhD in History, associate professor of the A. F. Shishkin Department of Philosophy, Moscow State Institute of International Relations (University) of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia. Russia, Moscow. ORCID: 0000-0001-9340-9363. E-mail: vpechatnov@yandex.ru

Journal

HERALD OF HUMANITARIAN EDUCATION, №2 (42), 2026

Section

NATIONAL HISTORY

Pages

27-38

Abstract

The material is a scholarly publication of the document "From the travel notes of the Kenai missionary Hieromonk Nikita. The year 1881", which is stored in the Alaskan Russian Church Archive of the Manuscript Division of the U.S. Library of Congress. These "Notes", in essence, represent a detailed travel journal that every missionary priest in Alaska had to send to the diocesan bishop. The part of the "notes" being published describes Hieromonk Nikita's first missionary journey, undertaken at a time when the Aleutian and Alaska diocese was headed by Bishop Nestor (Zass). It is a vivid, detailed description of the missionary journey, reflecting the missionary labors often from early morning till late at night, the way of life, religiosity and customs of the Kenai people, open confrontation with shamans with excursuses into their psychology and worldview, the difficult conditions of the journey, which included several nights in the open air in a subarctic climate. No wonder Hieromonk Nikita (a former military officer) called it "a soldier's military bivouac life". The document guides to a better understanding of the history of the Russian Ecclesiastical Mission in Alaska in 1880s, and also has ethnographic value, as it contains descriptions of customs, way of life and religiosity of the Alaskan autochthons. The publication has a detailed preface and a scholarly reference commentary.

Keywords

Russian Orthodox Mission in the USA Aleutian and Alaska diocese Nikita Marchenko Kenai shamanism.

Recieved

25.03.2026

Published

20.08.2026

References

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