Transforming the image of Yakutia in Russian lyric poetry

Abstract

The topic of the reception of Russian classics is often considered in the context of the formation of Yakut literature to determine the influence of Russian literature on the genesis of the Yakut written tradition. In the study of the genesis of Yakut literature, the focus is usually on the influence of Russian literature. Therefore, there is already sufficient experience in determining the degree of reliance of literature with a recent system of writing on the Russian literary tradition. Nevertheless, the question of the influence of the Yakut theme on the formation of the creative consciousness of Russian writers is also difficult. Upon close examination, the reception of a foreign culture appears to be sufficiently differentiated: the influence of the Yakut culture was predominantly indirect. The Yakut theme in Russian literature has a receptive character since there was no concept of the Yakut context at all in the socio-cultural situation of the 19th century. Writers begin to form the "Yakut text" in Russian literature based on the perception of the listener and the reader. Thus, the comprehension of the Yakut culture follows the path of recoding the texts of an "alien" tradition into the language of "one's own" literary tradition. The article deals with the transformation of the image of Yakutia in the works of Russian poets of the 19^th–20^th centuries. The trend is considered from the perspective of expanding the aspects of the figurative representation of Yakutia and the nature of perception of Russian poetry to the Yakut national topos and is divided into several stages.