“From the Volga to the Yenisei”: to the concept of the image-map

Abstract

The article develops the concept of the image-map. It arises as a result of applying a spatial approach to the study of literary texts from a cultural and geographical perspective.

An image-map is a conceptual geographical image (of a country, region, or city) created by an author and capable of being visualized on a map.

An image-map is formed by looking at the world from above, from a bird’seye view, a view imagined by a writer or poet. Therefore, words such as bird, ethereal being, flight, sky, clouds, and mountains are characteristic indicators of this vision of the world.

The concept of a map image includes three levels: conceptual, literary, and geographical.

The conceptual component is expressed in the author’s spatial idea — geopolitical, geocultural, geohistorical. It forms the author’s vision of the described space.

The geographical component of the map-image is aimed at the cartographic visualization of the literary text, which allows us to better understand the spatial scope of the author’s thought and the geographical images of places that he has invented.

Literary texts that contain toponyms or ethnonyms as markers of space reflect geographical reality. Such “geographical” texts of literary works can be considered as a geographical supertext of literature.

Literary texts that contain map-images are associated with spatial or cartographic imagination. The spatial scope of map images is limited not by the author’s gaze, but by the author’s thoughts and imagination. Therefore, map images in literature are usually geographical images of the world, images of countries and regions.

This article examines map images of Russia and the Caucasus based on specific literary texts.

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