Armenian Cochineal and the Red Color of Armenia in Russian Literature

Abstract

The article examines the genesis of the red color, which acts as a pattern of the «Armenian text of Russian literature» on the basis of Russian poetic texts (B. Pasternak, F. Sologub, O. Mandelstam, N. Konchalovskaya, P. Antokolsky, I. Snegova, P. Pyanykh, L. Shahverdyan) and prose (B. Kuzin, O. Mandelstam, Yu. Karabchievsky, M. Saryan, V. Grossman). The subject of the article is the connection of the insect code presented in the discourse with the color red. Analytics is based on biographical, quantitative methods, linguistic analysis of the text and is carried out on the basis of a historical and cultural approach. The recent works that reveal the patterns of the «Armenian text» do not mention the connection between cochineal and red color metaphors found in this article. The conclusions obtained enrich the cultural and philological concept contained in the framework of the «Armenian text» and expand the poetic context of the biological organism mentioned in the poems of Russian poets. The article presents an additional (to the already existing) perspective in the analysis of O. Mandelstam's poem «Inside the mountain, an idol is inactive...»: the image of the idol is embedded in an ekphrastic sculptural row with the mythological Golem.