Principal Features of the Imaginal-geographic Germany in the Russian Travelogues of the Late 18th – First Half of the 19th Centuries

Abstract

The paper deals with the spatial images of Germany represented in Russian travelogues of the late 18th – first half of the 19th centuries. The text corpus studied from a semiotic perspective consists of works by A. T. Bolotov, D. P. Gorikhvostov, D. I. Fonvizin, N. M. Karamzin, S. A. Korsakov, W. K. Küchelbecker, F. P. Lubyanovsky, I. P. Myatlev, M. P. Pogodin, A. Ya. Klimov, V. N. Zinovyev. A set of principal features representing the imaginal-geographic Germany is determined. The center of this set is the motif of orderliness actualizing in two images — a rationally organized space in the spirit of the Enlightenment and an idyll based on the Arcadian myth. The other spatial characteristics of the patched-up Germany are cleanness, accuracy, closeness, narrowness, miniatureness connected with the concept of order. The ambivalence of Russian travelers’ perceiving the German loci is emphasized. The idyllic Germany is not only admired but also ironically travestied in Russian literature. The rationally organized, civilized German landscape is both praised for its comfortableness and criticized in the frames of its extreme forms for dehumanization.