The Literary Landscape of Western Siberia in N. A. Lukhmanova’s “Essays from the Life in Siberia”

About the authors:

Alyona I. Pershina, Postgraduate Student, Department of Russian and Foreign Literature, University of Tyumen;  pershina.alena@rambler.ru

Elena N. Ertner, Dr. Sci. (Philol.), Professor, Department of Russian and Foreign Literature, University of Tyumen; e.n.ertner@utmn.ru; ORCID: 0000-0003-1523-6561

Abstract:

The subject of this article is the literary landscape of Western Siberia, which was represented in “Essays from life in Siberia” (1895) by Nadezhda Aleksandrovna Lukhmanova.

The relevance of this research is determined by the increased importance of studying “local” texts of Russian culture, including the need for a more detailed study of the phenomenon of Siberia.

The mythopoetics of landscape in N. Lukhmanova’s “Essays” is considered in the context of prose of the turn of the 19^th-20^th centuries (G. Uspensky, K. Nosilov). The literary context of the study of “Siberian” texts for the first time includes the stories by S. I. Kartsevsky. The geographical imagery of Western Siberia is reconstructed in the texts under consideration from the point of view of philological analysis, which allows determining the features of representation of the Place in the creative thinking of a particular writer and identifying the individual author’s view of the depicted locus.

“Essays from life in Siberia” by N. Lukhmanova reflect different points of view on the landscape of the Siberian city. Geographical remoteness, climatic conditions, and the closed way of life of old believers form the image of a fortress city, “the country behind the Stone”. The reflected provincial way of life of the city is destroyed on the pages of “Essays” with the arrival of merchant children who were educated in the capital, the growth of industry, the laying of the railway.

Siberia in the minds of newcomers appears “a remote, lost place”, while in the perception of Siberians it is the “native land”, “Paradise”. N. Lukhmanova’s “Essays” reflect the “double mythologem” of Western Siberia: it is “alien”, closed space and at the same time “one’s own”, “reserved”, and “secret”.

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