Idyll and its deconstruction in the image of German rural space (based on the travel notes Za Rubezhom by M.Ye. Saltykov-Shchedrin)

The paper discusess the image of a German rural space represented in the satiric travel notes “Za rubezhom” by M.Ye. Saltykov-Shchedrin. On the one hand, the author traces a connection between the motives marked as German in Shchedrin's travel notes with imagological descriptions of Germany and Germans in Russian literature from the late 18th to the early 20th century. Among the works analysed are Letters of a Russian Traveler by N.M. Karamzin, Journey through Saxony, Austria and Italy in 1800, 1801 and 1802 by F.P. Lubyanovskiy, A Year in Foreign Lands by M.P. Pogodin, The Gambler by F.M. Dostoevsky, Oblomov by I.A. Goncharov, humorous travelogues Russians Abroad by N.A. Leykin, Expedition of the Satirikontsy Yu-zhakin, Sanders, Mifasov and Krysakov to Western Europe by A.T. Averchenko. It is established that M.Ye. Shchedrin not only uses the existing images of Germanism, but also significantly transforms them in accordance with the social-critical plan of his travel notes. On the other hand, Shchedrin's work is studied in terms of idyllic narrative that traditionally influences the image of Germany. From this perspective, the textual epresentation of the country is ambivalent. On the one side, the writer constructs the image of a rural idyll using such “Arcadian” motifs as orderliness, “humanization” of the natural landscape, abundance of nature's gifts, prosperity, safety, social peace and patriarchy of the villagers in East Prussia (politeness, filial piety, and respect for authority). The image of the German village locus is contaminated with the image of the newly found paradise. This mythopoetic traditional imagery is complemented with motifs referring to the Modern Age: rational exploitation of natural resources and inviolability of private property. These characteristics are employed to oppose the German space to the Russian, which is marked by the motifs of discomfort, chaotic nature, entropy, threat to life. The contradiction is implemented in a number of spatial images forming opposed loci: a ‘bleached clean German house with a tiled roof - a blackened Russian log house (izba) with a thatched roof', ‘a macadamized road in a German village - a road with a muddy puddle in a Russian village'. The opposition ‘Germanness - Russianness” is also represented in the images of two national characters - the German boy wearing trousers and the Russian Boy wearing no trousers. However, Shchedrin deconstructs the self-created image to reveal a not-idyllic character of this formal German idyll while describing it as a space of the internal nonfreedom. The idyllic motifs transform in the locus to ‘degenerate' to the negative characteristics: order turns into boredom and regulation, sons reverence turns into servility, social harmony turns into exploitation of peasants by burghers. The traditional rural idyll camouflages the new Germany of Bismarck, a military empire that threatens its neighbours. Consequently, the image of Germany in Shchedrin's travel notes remains ambiguous to constantly bifurcate through combining points of view of various observers - both Germans and Russians. What is more, the social-historical principle becomes decisive and dominates national elements in the narrative.

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