The Wanderer (Strannik, Стра́нник) is a poem by Apollon Maykov, first published in the No.1, January 1867 issue of The Russian Messenger.
In his commentaries to the first, magazine version of the poem, Maykov explained: Beguny (The Runaways) or The Wanderers, or the Sopelsky Agreement (Sopelkovskoye soglasiye), after the Sopelki village where they were based, are all the names for a priestless sect, representing one of the raskol's extreme factions.
The wanderer has to leave behind everything that he’s ever owned, sever all of his social and family ties so as to start living "as a Christ's man".
[1]In the same commentaries the author mentioned several of the sources he used: The Historical Sketches of Russian Priesthood by Pavel Melnikov (part 1, Moscow, 1864), Stories from the History of the Old Believers by S.Maksimov (Saint-Petersburg, 1861), Songs Collected by P.V.
Working upon the language, he studied Avvakum's literary legacy and some old Russian Bible-based texts.