Border Loci in Historical and Cultural Context: Geopoetics of Border (Based on Literature and Folklore of Russian-Chinese and Mexican-American Borderlands)

Abstract

The article deals with the phenomenon of border in changing historical reality of two distant territories, that is important today due to the increasing interest in “border studies” as a new interdisciplinary scientific field that combines history, geography, political science and philological research at the turn of 21st century. The study involves folklore and literary works, the plots of which are localized on the borders between Russia and China: the South-East of Siberia and the Far East (Transbaikalia), the USA and Mexico: the U. S. South-West (New Mexico, Texas, California). The purpose of the article is to identify typological convergence and differences in the artistic depiction of these boundary loci in the context of their historical development. The methodological basis of the research is made up of works devoted to the geocultural and geopoetic aspects of literary studies. The article uses cultural and historical, comparative and typological, structural and semiotic methods and axiological text analysis. It is confirmed that essential geopoetic principle of the Russian-Chinese and Mexican-American borderland texts is antithesis built on the opposition of “friend/foe”. It was revealed that folklore and literary texts demonstrate convergences in the geopoetic image of the border: boundless space considered basic element of imagery and a certain type of strong and active “border hero”. Differences in the depiction of the images result from the peculiarities of the historical process and, accordingly, the different value priorities. Prospects for the research can be associated with the expansion of the “border studies” field by means of history and philology integration.