Artistic geography of "Middle Volga texts" by D. Osokin

Khromova Diana Alexandrovna Lecturer; Department of Verbal Arts; Lomonosov Moscow State University 115573, Russia, Moscow, Orekhovy ave., 19, sq. 12 idianaalexandrova@yandex.ru

Kutdyusova Adilya Ildusovna Postgraduate student; Department of the History of Modern Russian Literature and the Modern Literary Process; Lomonosov Moscow State University 115573, Russia, Moscow, Orekhovy ave., 19, sq. 12 adilya@mail.ru

Introduction

Referring to the category of artistic space as a metaphor that gives an idea of "one's physical nature" (Lotman), it is necessary to stipulate its conventionality, as well as the conventionality of any artistic world. Russian literary critics propose to consider the artistic space from the point of view of spatial topography, which implies the opposition of abstraction to concreteness, its horizontal or vertical orientation, spatial extent and localization (expansion-compression, openness-closure). The study of the abstractness and/or concreteness of the artistic space seems to us the most promising in the framework of the study of modern "local texts". Noting the shift in the focus of the study of literary texts from the center to the periphery, which gave rise to such concepts in literary criticism as "Petersburg text" [Toporov], "Ural text" [Abashev, 2000], "Nizhny Novgorod text" [Zakharova, 2007], "Volga text" [Khlybova, 1994], "Siberian text" [Tyupa, 2002], "Kazan text" [Zainullina, 2019], "Tashkent text" [Shafranskaya, 2010], etc., we associate this, first of all, with the search for new methods of studying literary texts, among which a complex method combining cultural-historical, mythopoetic and geopoetic is quite promising analysis. With this approach, the last of the mentioned types of analysis has an advantage over the analysis of a work as a local text in considering artistic geography as metaphysical parameters of the author's world.

            O. Freudenberg wrote about the close connection between the hero and space even before the concept of the "Petersburg text" (Toporov) appeared, as it legalized the appeal to local texts, who believed that the hero is only a function of space and is directly dependent on the mythologization of the latter. Following Toporov, who spoke about the presence of "a complex interaction of the spirit with the soulless element" ^{[1, p. 38]}, Lotman also showed in his research that geography acts as a kind of ethical knowledge: "moral concepts have a local characteristic, and local ones have a moral one" ^{[8, p. 298]}. Therefore, the conclusion that the author's poetics is based on the place of residence looks convincing. Space influences a person's identity and behavior ^[9.10]. For example, the modern psychogeographer, writer Ian Sinclair, constantly returns to the idea that his writing gift is that you need to tune in to a certain place, let it pass through you, become a verbal guide to his special sense of meaning.

Among Russian contemporary writers, Denis Osokin, a Kazan poet and writer whose work is closely connected with the Volga region, a region in Russia located in the Volga basin, can certainly be called such a "guide". It should be noted that the author himself avoids the concept of "Volga region", preferring the phrase "Middle Volga" to it, which can be explained by the writer's special attitude to the water space between the confluence of the Oka into the Volga and the mouth of the Kama. For Osokin, the region of the Middle Volga, which, however, he understands quite conditionally and does not always follow real geographical boundaries, represents a mythological continuum in which "... love / love / for a person <...> is so fatally associated / with love / love / space" ^{[11, p. 172]}.

The space of the Osokinsky Middle Volga region obeys the literary laws of the structure of a literary text: it has its own center and periphery. The existence of the Osokinsky hero, who is endowed with the opportunity to "walk in Middle Volga dreams" ^{[11, p.172]}, is built around the ancient city of Kazan, the capital of the Republic of Tatarstan. Osokin strongly emphasizes in his works, "assures with his Kazan" ^{[11, p.172]} that Kazan is not only and not so much his preferred urban space as his friend, beloved, because it is with her that the writer has the strongest and longest relationship.

The mythogeographic space of Kazan

Denis Osokin's attitude to his hometown is best illustrated by a phrase from the poem "Ledyanki", in which he declares without false modesty that Kazan is "the best in the world" ^{[11, p. 62]}. The same thought can be traced in the poem "Upper Uslon", where the reader is lured by a wonderful life in the Tatar capital: "if you stay in Kazan / you will live wonderfully / soon moving / beyond the line Kazan - / upper Uslon / will lose its meaning / will be a fuss (note: the punctuation here and further is preserved by the author) ^{[11, p. 36]}. Creating the morphology of an urban landscape in which there are "red buses / green mosques" ^{[11, p. 62]}, "pretty lilac" ^{[11, p. 166]}, "brown house / and brown entrance / tin of brown roofs" [p. 35], "an area where tiles are like scales of zilant" ^{[11, p. 171]}, "Kazan Kremlin" ^{[11, p. 171]}, etc., the writer builds a cultural and social map of the city, in which the walking routes of the lyrical hero are written out with the accuracy of a guidebook ("Ledyanka", "Dry River", "Lilac in boots", "Kuibyshev Zaton", "Upper Uslon plus France", "Shot Glasses and kebabs", etc.): "for some reason they choose Clara Zetkin street with tram No. 1 as the place of their constant walks in the capital - and the whole Admiralteyskaya sloboda lying on both sides of it – wooden–vague – with the sickle and hammer factory - with sculptures of pioneers <...>" ^{[11, p. 346]}. At the same time, the writer does not set himself the task of representing the city as a tourist destination, it is more important for him to show such a being of Kazan, in which the splendor of the local Arbat (Bauman Street) and ancient mansions coexist with dirty snack bars and untidy public restrooms. Therefore, Osokin's heroes lead Kazan guests through "pancake houses – through exhibition halls – through glass houses – through construction sites – through parks in which there was silence recently and now reconstruction is underway" ^{[11, p. 347]}

The boundaries of the city in Osokin's works rarely coincide with the real borders of Kazan. The writer prefers to define them based on his own worldview – using a visual method, including in the city only the suburb from which "you can look at Kazan" ^{[11, p. 30]}, calling them "the environs of Kazan"; excluding places from where the city cannot be seen. Thus, the southern border runs in the right-bank Upper Uslon, and the northern border runs next to a Dry River, which "stitches the northern border of the city with a half-torn thread" ^{[11, p. 78]} and "beyond it <...> nothing exists anymore."

Rivers are an integral part of the urban landscape of Kazan: in addition to the Volga, on the left bank of which the city is located, and its tributary, the Kazanka River, Bulak, Knox, Kinderka, Poduvalie, Solonka and the Dry River flow in the city. It should be noted that water spaces, in principle, occupy an important place in Osokin's work (let's recall at least the posthumous life of a Stork in the Meryanskaya river in the story "Buntings"). The writer explains his liking for reservoirs as follows: "water pretty much relieves the tension of the earth – it removes and carries away – therefore it is much easier for us to live than for residents of areas devoid of large rivers" ^{[11, p. 83]}; water gives "the opportunity to move the whole world. water is life itself" ^{[11, p. 319]}.

It is noteworthy that the author's greatest love is actually enjoyed by small rivers; especially those that are in a vulnerable state: for example, they depend on the amount of precipitation in the summer, like the already mentioned Dry River: "and among all the local named and unnamed water, the dry river occupies a special place. of course, we will not say that it is more significant than, say, the Volga – but certainly the Volga is not more significant than a dry river. The dry river is always meant by every real resident of Kazan and the suburbs" ^{[11, p. 83]}. This small stream of water, covered with numerous urban myths about unknown animals and a guardian spirit, is one of the favorite places of the townspeople. In the tale of the same name "Dry River", the author characterizes other rivers of Tatarstan: "the tight elastic Volga – with the smells of undying five–hundred–year–old fish: the Kazan river - a sad love for which is acquired only through reading the Tatar folk epic: sviyaga with a floodplain of a thousand islands - where a pigeon grunts and herons conjure - cheeky poachers are cruelly gouged out: kama – coniferous our bride – Kama estuary with forty kilometers of width – with villages with onion beds unexpectedly going to the edge of the ocean – with the city of Laishevo on the priokeanskaya mountain" ^{[11, p. 83]}. In an interview, Osokin admitted that he gives the water space not only a cultural and social, but also a magical function ^[12]. So, when asked about the Sviyaga River, he replied: "I directly idolize Sviyaga and consider it almost our most magical river, the most fantastic, one of my most native rivers that brought me up..." ^[13].

The southern border of Kazan is defined by the framework of the Upper Uslon – a country village located on a hill on the right bank of the Kuibyshev reservoir. This area is repeatedly mentioned in Osokin's poetic and prose texts, and he even deduces its formula: "hills + wind / and no forests" ^{[11, p. 30]}. Here the characters spend time with their lovers and friends, indulging in memories of what once happened in Kazan. The exit "beyond the Kazan – upper Uslon line" ^{[11, p. 36]} is designated as meaningless, which is typical in the situation with the northern border. The texts refer to the western and eastern borders abstractly, without possible identification of a specific place. Interestingly, Osokin offers its own principle of defining the boundaries of the city to residents of other settlements: "residents of any city can think about where their dry river is located – their upper uslon" ^{[11, p. 38]}.

Despite the "found paradise" in Kazan, the heroes of Osokin's works are constantly on the move: they leave the city, travel around the republic and beyond. For example, they go to Chistopol, Laishevo or the Kuibyshev Zaton and often stay there for a long time. This circumstance only once again underlines Denis Osokin's love for his small homeland: "I will buy a skullcap and I will not take it off / I will pray at mosques / Tatarstan, I roar and love you / it is impossible not to fall in love with you" ^{[11, p. 171]}.

By creating texts that exist around Kazan, the writer not only complements the list of works labeled as the "Kazan text", but also fixes new semantic constants on the map of Russian literature.

Features of the "bespoke" space of the Middle Volga

The Volga region outside the Republic of Tatarstan is a more complex spatial mechanism: on the one hand, Osokin uses geographical objects as a way of additional national connotation, on the other hand, through one place or another he reveals the inner world of the hero, motivating his thoughts, feelings, and actions ^[13]. For example, the numerous settlements mentioned in the cycle "Heavenly Wives of Meadow Mari" serve rather as a backdrop against which the action unfolds. And only in total they give an idea of the geography of the settlement of the meadow Mari – the indigenous people of the Volga region, to whom the cycle is dedicated. The texts mention the capital of the Republic of Mari El – the city of Yoshkar-Ola, the villages of Paranga, Sernur, Mari Turek, Shushera, Novy Toryal, Kilemary, the villages of Shinsha, Usola, Mari Bilamor, Shurabash, the villages of Chingasola, Ivansola, Semisola, Uzharsola, Ludosola, Unur, Upper and Lower Vichmar, Gorki (probably, it means Krasnaya Gorka), Maly Kozhlayal (Pekeysola), Old Yuledur, Shoy-Shudumar, Portyanur, Kugunur Yoshkar Pamash, Lipsha, Kitnemuchash, Yasnur, Yulyal, Yaran-Muchash, Pesemer, now defunct Pingener and Nuzha, Pumar, Nur-Kugunur (probably meaning Small Kugunur), A Small Tuner. This is how Osokin draws a cultural and geographical map of the Mari people, deliberately referring to settlements located not only in the Republic of Mari El, but also beyond its borders, emphasizing the actual, and not the area of residence of the people established by administrative and territorial division, drawing attention to the fragility of the ethnosystem of the small peoples of Russia who found themselves outside the cultural policy of the region. Among the works with a similar method of using geographical objects, such poetic and prose texts as "Kukmor", "New Shoes", "Young Ladies of Poplar", "Tango Pelargonium", "Duck Throat", "Excellent Student", "Three plays for Rita and the Clown", etc. can also be noted. In the Ural cycle "Figures of the Komi People", dedicated to the related Finno-Ugric peoples – Komi-Zyryans and Komi-Permyaks, in which, in addition to toponyms (Pozhya, Kerch, Ust-Kulom, Yb, etc.), Osokin actively uses hydronyms (Vaksha, Kama, Vym, Tansy, Bolshaya Sonya, etc.), geographical objects act as recognizable markers of national culture, helping the author to recreate an original picture of the surrounding world of the Komi peoples.

Known for his continuous creative searches, Osokin, experimenting with form and content, wrote two (at least) texts with a different connotation of the artistic space, different from most works. In these works, geographical objects acquire narrative significance, materiality and ontological subnationality. This is the novel "Oatmeal", which brought the writer national fame, and the equally famous tale "Night Guard". In both works, the reader is invited to immerse himself in the history of the place, to look at it through a retrospective of the characters' memories. So, the Meryan Odyssey, the story "Buntings", provides us with the opportunity to make a simultaneous journey through the present and past of Nizhny Novgorod and Kostroma lands through the experience of the characters. Each place where the characters stay unlocks the memories of Stork Sergeev and/or Miron Alekseevich (for example, memories of a honeymoon in a place where a funeral ceremony is held over the body of Miron's wife). In addition, the imaginary geographical map of many cities and villages becomes available only through the prism of the memory of the heroes, who, for example, passing Yuryevets by the upper outskirts "did not see, but knew perfectly well that below the slopes there were rows of cozy houses, shops with Ivanovo and Kostroma tinctures" [c. 313]. In a similar way, the memories of Olesha, the main character of the fairy tale "Night Guard", are awakened. By the will of a second impulse, finding himself in his native village of Mascarodo, Olesha begins to remember life in his parents' house and the life of the Mari village. As in many works by Denis Osokin, the detailed, receding landscape of the village is passed through the prism of magical realism and author's nostalgia, giving rise to a mystical night adventure, experiencing which the hero manages to remember not only long-forgotten things, but even his native language (which HE forgets at dawn when magic loses its effect) ^[14,15].

Thus, the main function of the space of Osokin's "Christian" texts is to create a national environment within which the personal stories of his characters are represented.

Conclusions

Having analyzed the geographical space reflected in D. Osokin's texts, it can be concluded that it has attractive properties – uniqueness, semantic saturation, cognitive value.  The reflection of geographical space in works of art makes it possible to represent and interpret the socio-cultural processes of a place, to set ontological guidelines.

Osokin's Middle Volga region is a meta–space where the national is organically combined with the foreign, it is a space of memory and the acquisition of lost meanings.