POETICS OF THE FAR EASTERN LANDSCAPE IN N. PRZHEVALSKY’SBOOK “JOURNEY TO THE USSURI REGION”

Abstract

The article discusses the image of the nature of the Far East, created in the book by N. Przhevalsky “Journey to the Ussuri region” (1870). It is shown that the artistic experience of the writer and his “sense of nature” correlate with the traditions of Russian naturalistic essays literature, and with the scientific natural history concepts of his time (in particular, with the views of A. Humboldt and phenological descriptions). The image of nature created by the writer is built in the stylistic boundaries of the realistic landscape presented in the works of the Russian classical literature. The task of the study is to identify the mechanisms of aesthetization of documentary scientific material. It is shown that the structure of the narrative is determined by the ratio of the cognitive-analytical and estimated-emotional perception; methods of landscape descriptions that Przhevalsky uses are revealed: visualization, contrast, redundancy, coloristics; descriptions are built, mainly in the dynamics of the daily and seasonal changes. Przhevalsky's “Sense of Nature” includes ideas about the beauty, harmony, unknowability, and self-sufficiency of the natural world.