The intensification of Ukrainian-Danish relations in recent years and the search for new approaches to «integrating» Ukrainian history into the European context have made it more important to turn to Danish historical evidence. Since including Scandinavian written sources (especially Danish ones) in the coverage of historical topics and problems is a rare phenomenon in Ukrainian humanities, such studies are a particular attempt to fill in the gaps and revise the established approaches to analyzing and interpreting travel sources. It will also contribute to developing an alternative history of Central and Eastern Europe, which has long been in the shadow of Russian history and imperial narratives. As is widely known, the diplomatic mission to the court of Peter the Great in 1709-1711 was a direct response to the complex Danish-Russian relations during the Great Northern War. However, the travel diary co-authored by the royal envoy Just Juel and his secretary Rasmus Æreboe, reveals a broader scope of topics. This dissertation takes a unique approach, aiming to comprehensively analyze the Danish perceptions of three symbolic spaces: «Russian», «Ukrainian», and «Polish». This study's uniqueness lies in its meticulous application of three important principles in working with sources for their accurate interpretation. These principles involve considering the historical context, critically analyzing the source text, and searching for intertextual connections with other sources. The structure of this thesis is meticulously based on these three main factors for analyzing narrative sources: context, text, and intertext, which is reflected in the titles and content of the following three main chapters. This approach ensures a thorough and comprehensive understanding of the Danish travelogues and their historical context.
Particular attention is paid to the historical context of diplomatic relations between the Danish and Russian courts through the prism of Danish diplomatic missions from 1493 to 1709. For a better understanding of Just Juel's peculiarities and mission, the role of the «linguistic context» (e.g., ignorance of Russian, mediation of translators) is considered. The comparative analysis of other Danish travelogues (Jakob Ullfeldt and Peder von Haven) is also carried out to identify topoi in early modern Danish travel narratives and certain stereotypes in the imagination of the Danes, which were formed in the context of various interactions (personal, political, commercial, cultural). This dissertation has been written using both archival and published sources. The work with the handwritten original in the National Archives of Denmark once again confirmed the importance of familiarizing oneself with the source for its thorough external and internal criticism. The handwritten diary of the Danish diplomatic mission contains certain archeographical features that are not visible in the published version (e.g., marginalia, handwriting differences, etc.). The work with the Danish original also helped to notice the peculiarities of the phonetic transcription of Slavic names and place names by Danish travelers, the transliteration of Russian words, and to identify words and expressions written in other European languages (e.g., Latin, German, French, Cyrillic). The historiographical framework for the study was based on numerous scholarly publications related to the travel diary and the Danish diplomatic mission. Previously unknown Polish studies and French and English reviews of nineteenth-century editions of the Danish travelogue were found. Danish studies, which are unknown to Ukrainian researchers due to the language factor, were also analyzed. The text of the source was analyzed using quantitative and qualitative content analysis, as well as theoretical approaches to the socio-cultural history of travelogues and methods of their research. Thus, in the narrative of the Danish travelers, certain chronological «periods» were identified, and geographical «boundaries» were outlined, determined by the course of the mission itself and other circumstances.
