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Studying the issues related to Peter Artemyev’s biography, a writer and poet, representative of the Russian literary culture of the second half of the XVII century, is important for a deeper understanding of his work. A valuable source containing information about the writer’s life and literary activity is his essay «Notebooks». It was written by Artemyev during his stay in Novospassky monastery, where he was placed after promoting the Catholic Church teachings. The «Notebooks» are known today from extracts preserved in the structure of the polemical work by Euthymius Chudovsky «Writings out of Notebooks...». The article uses the list of this work contained in a manuscript of the Library of the Academy of Sciences, P.I.V.11 (34.3.13), as research materials. The task to study «Notebooks» surviving fragments was to search for additional facts and information concerning the personality of Peter Artemyev, his views and biography, which determined the features of his work. The article presents in brief the history of «Notebooks» text, as well as an attempt to determine its genre features: the essay is a complex text in terms of its composition. Obviously, it included travel and diary notes, elements of the biographical and memoir genres. «Notebooks» reflect the theme of the author’s spiritual search and confessional choice. Having changed his religion during his studies with the Jesuits, Artemyev openly expressed his new views and beliefs in his «Notebooks», despite the threat of church court proceedings. The writer’s fragmentary confessions testify to his attitude to the Old Believers, their punishment practice, which was characterized by cruelty, and he condemned it. A new reading of the surviving quotations from «Notebooks» allowed clarifying and expanding the range of information concerning a small, but important period of his life described by Peter Artemyev (an educational trip to Europe and return to Moscow). The obtained data supplement our knowledge about the biography of Peter Artemyev, circumstances of his conversion to Catholicism, and the writer’s value attitudes.