The foreign in Russian literature and journalism of the 19th century: perception of the polyethnoconfessional Volga region in the works of Russian writers

The article analyses the foreign in Russian literature and journalism of the 19th century, the reception of the polyethnoconfessional Volga region in the characteristic manifestations of ethnography. The representation of the non-Russian, the archetypes of the national consciousness, customs and rituals of the Volga peoples in the depiction of Russian writers is studied. The imagology of the Russian space, "psychological ethnography" (N. Nadezhdin) is fully manifested in nineteenth-century Russian literature which participates in the "assimilation" of the foreign soil of Russian reality. The specifics of the way of life, the ritual aspect of life, the religious mythological belief, the poetic creativity of the non-Russian peoples of the Volga region - the Chuvash, the Mordvins, the Votyaks (Udmurts), the Chere-mis (Mari), the Tatars, the Bashkirs, the Little Russians ("Zaporozhye people beyond the Volga"), the Germans, the Kalmyks - appears in the work of Russian writers in numerous notes, in literary and ethnographic articles, in the ideological and artistic system of works by V.V. Izmaylov, A.F. Voyeikov, M.I. Nevzorov, D.V. Davydova, F.N. Glinka, A.F. Raevsky, T.S. Belyaeva, P.M. Kudryashev, I.I. Zheleznov, I.V. Selivanov, N.Ya. Aristov, A.F. Leopoldov, A.S. Pushkin, A.I. Herzen, I.I. Lazhechnikov, S.T. Aksakov, I.S. Aksakov, V.I. Dahl, M.V. Avdeev, A.K. Tolstoy, P.I. Melnikov-Pechersky, A.A. Potekhin, A.N. Ostrovsky, S.V. Maksimov, A.F. Pisemsky, F.D. Nefedov, N.S. Leskov, M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin, G.I. Uspensky, K.K. Sluchevsky, N.D. Teleshov, L.N. Tolstoy, D.N. Mamin-Sibiryak, N.G. Garin-Mikhailovsky, V.G. Korolenko, V.I. Nemirovich-Danchenko, A.A. Korinfsky, A.P. Valuev and many others. The representation of the foreign in the Russian literary process of the nineteenth century appears in several directions: non-Russian as a religious mythological ethnography -rituals and customs, religious mythological beliefs; non-Russian in the typical characterol-ogy of time as social ethnography; non-Russian as a comprehension of the spiritual and moral experience and the value world of other nations. An alien picture of life is presented by Russian writers through archetypes of national consciousness, Russian and non-Russian folklore: legends, historical and toponymic legends, ritual songs show the ethno-cultural characteristics, spiritual and moral ideals of numerous peoples of the Volga region.

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