“Terkin in Siberia”: a cultural and geographical study of a complex literary journey (based on the material of A.T. Tvardovsky’s poem “Beyond the Distance”)

Abstract

In the article an attempt, based on the cultural and geographical approach, is made to critically comprehend the well-known poem by A.T. Tvardovsky “Beyond the Distance”. This approach considers the poem as a complex literary journey. According to S.Ya. Marshak, the author deliberately chose the form of a literary travel, which gave him a high degree of creative freedom. On the one hand, the hero makes a real trip along the Trans-Siberian railway — from Moscow to Vladivostok. On the other, the author’s thought makes a mental journey through the major — core — cultural regions of the country: Moscow — Volga — Ural — Siberia — Far East. The poet calls them “distances”. In this most important journey for Tvardovsky, he makes “long” poetic “stops”: separate chapters of the poem are dedicated to each region. This is the poet’s approach to literary travel: to think on the scale of a huge country. Therefore, each region is comprehended in the context of the Russian space, a spectrum of bright — national — geographical images was created for each region.

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