Abstract
Historical upheavals at the turn of the 17th century ("Time of Troubles") instigated the creation of many literary works in the milieu of Muscovite Russia. One of such treatises (Vremennik) was written by a tsarist official Ivan Timofeyev (died in March 1631).
The author of Vremennik (unlike his contemporaries) does not envisage the chronicled affairs as random acts or as a mere complex of historical facts, but as a result of the immediate interventions of the divine power. The Russian nation occupies an extraordinary position of the bearer of the true faith in the context of the universal Christian history.
The author''s search for causes of the recent events proceeds in token of the loss of traditional values, the lack of solidarity among the people of the orthodox tsardom and the victory of egoistic sectional interests threatening the very existence of the country.