Release:
2017, Vol. 3. №2About the authors:
Larisa S. Kislova, Cand. Sci. (Phylol.), Associate Professor, Department of Russian Literature, University of Tyumen; l.s.kislova@utmn.ruAbstract:
This article deals with the image of South America, which is represented as a fragment of the geopoetical model. The relevance of the study rests upon sacred nature of the South American space. Such energy centers, as Machu Picchu and Pachacamac, as well as other sacramental cities of indigenous peoples in South America attract researchers and artists in these sanctuary places. The object of the study involves the travelogues by Ilya Stogoff and Vitaly Shanin, who have visited several countries in South America (Peru, Argentina, Chile and Ecuador). The subject of study is the peculiarity of the South American space in the travel literature.
The aim of the study is to examine the phenomenon of travel, which is represented through the opposition “own vs. alien”. It requires solving the following objectives: to determine the travelogue position in modern Russian literature; and to define Latin America image in historical, ethnographic, and cultural contexts. The authors of the study conclude, that the Russian traveloguers’ interest in Latin America is a kind of an attempt to penetrate into a mentally alien reality, which will never become native to them. In I. Stogoff’s and V. Shanin’s travelogues there is a description of a place, where the traditional world laws do not work. From another hemisphere, in the South American carnival space, the writers tend to show not only certain geographical and cultural objects in their texts, but also to fix their unwonted internal state. The other hemisphere makes the travelers feel quite differently. The narrators try to comprehend the vital strategy of a human living in another world.
However, they do not perceive this space as their own and continue to represent it as alien. So, in the travelogues about Latin America, the opposition “own vs. alien” is the key. Thus, socio-cultural and mental interactions with another reality, assimilation of cultural codes, new geographical objects and perception of the other space peculiarity create a unique Latin American story in V. Shanin’s Internet bestseller “Around the World for $280” and I. Stogoff’s journalist’s entries “Apocalypse yesterday: Commentary on the book of Daniel”. The temptation of experiencing another space allows the narrators to explain how the phenomenon of Latin American civilization impacts someone’s world model through another cultural context.
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