Мax Frei’s text of Vilnius: the ways, means and results of urban space objectivization

Abstract

Studying the city as a text of culture on the material of literary works is usually associated with the identification of its “inner meaning”, “feeling” and / or the main “idea”. We proceed from understanding objectification as fixation of the author’s perception of urban space in a literary text which leads us to the question of the ways and linguistic means that allow turning the thoughtform into a holistic, visible, in some cases almost tangible image determining the possibility of transmitting the author’s vision of the city to the readership. “Tales of Old Vilnius” by Max Frei has been chosen as a source for the research because it can be regarded as one of the most interesting urban texts which have appeared in the 21st century, where the characteristics of the existing city are combined with the author’s fantasy, as a result of which there appears a literary version of urban space which differs greatly from its invariant. The methods of linguostylistic analysis (with elements of linguosemiotic analysis) have been chosen, which enable us to reveal not only verbal, but also visual ways and means of objectivization of the city in fiction. As the analysis has shown, the specifics of the Tales are stipulated by its composition and the combination of verbal and visual ways of author’s objectivisation: they are implemented with the help of linguistic means of different semiotics, however, they complement each other in the process of creating the image of the city, where the real and the imaginary are closely connected. As a result, it can be concluded that not only the urban supertext can be enriched by the creation of a new literary image of the city, but that the new fictional image as well has the potential to foster the real future development of urban space.

References

1. Abashev V.V. 2000. Perm’ kak tekst. Perm’ v russkoi kul’ture i literature XX veka [Perm as a text. Perm in Russian culture and literature of the twentieth century]. Perm’, izd-vo Permskogo un-ta. (In Russ.)

2. Antsiferov N.P. 1922. Dusha Peterburga [The Soul of St. Petersburg]. Petrograd, Brokgauz i Efron. (In Russ.)

3. Bart R. 2015. Tretii smysl [The Third Sense]. Moscow, Ad Marginem Press. (In Russ.)

4. Zadornova V.Ya. 1984. Vospriyatie i interpretatsiya khudozhestvennogo teksta [Perception and interpretation of a literary text]. Moscow, Vysshaya shkola. (In Russ.)

5. Kalutskov V.N. 2020. Kontseptualizatsiya geograficheskogo prostranstva: onomasticheskie aspekty [Conceptualization of geographical space: onomastic aspects]. Moscow State University Bulletin. Series 19. Linguistics and Intercultural Communication, no. 1, pp. 57–69. (In Russ.)

6. Kovtun E.N. 1999. Poetika neobychainogo: Khudozhestvennye miry fantastiki, volshebnoi skazki, utopii, pritchi i mifa [Poetics of the extraordinary: Artistic worlds of fiction, fairy tale, utopia, parable and myth]. Moscow, izd-vo MGU. (In Russ.)

7. Lavrinets P.M. 2014. Prisvoenie Vil’nyusa v russkoi literature [Appropriation of Vilnius in Russian literature]. Ural Historical Bulletin, no. 3 (44), pp. 63–69. (In Russ.)

8. Morozova M.M. 2020. Zarubezhnaya literaturnaya geografiya: osnovnye napravleniya issledovanii [Foreign literary geography: the main directions of research]. Moscow State University Bulletin. Series 19. Linguistics and Intercultural Communication, no. 2, pp. 150–156. (In Russ.)

9. Toporov V.N. 2009. Peterburgskii tekst [Petersburg text]. Moscow, Nauka. (In Russ.)