F.-R. De Chateaubriand's Travel Notes From Paris to Jerusalem and From Jerusalem to Paris in the Golitsyn Book Collection in the Tomsk University Research Library

The article focuses on the Russian translation of Itineraire de Paris a Jerusalem el de Jerusalem a Paris, en allant par la Grece et revenant par l'Egypte, la Barbarie et l'Espagne by the French romanticist Francois Rene de Chateaubriand (1768-1848), held as part of the Golitsyn book collection in the Tomsk University Research Library. The book belonged to Prince S.M. Golitsyn (1774-1 859), a trustee of the Moscow School District, a member of the State Council, the vice president of the Special Commission for the Construction of the Christ the Savior Cathedral in Moscow. Chateaubriand's Itineraire de Paris a Jerusalem et de Jerusalem a Paris, en allant par la Grece et revenant par l'Egypte, la Barbarie et l'Espagne was first published in Paris in 1811 and translated into Russian as Putevye zapiski iz Parizha v Ierusalim i iz Ierusalima v Parizh [Travel Notes From Paris to Jerusalem and From Jerusalem to Paris] by P. I. Shalikov to be published in Moscow in three volumes in 1815-1816. The Golitsyn book collection holds the first two volumes of the first edition. Travel Notes From Paris to Jerusalem and From Jerusalem to Paris is perceived as an autobiographical travelogue where national world images (French, Italian, Greek, Turkish, Palestinian, Egyptian, and Spanish) are combined with the philosophy of way and the writer's life aesthetics. In this article, the author analyses two complementary images of Greece in French literature of the 1810s, as presented in the first volume of Chateaubriand's travelogue. While one image is ideal and imaginary, the other is real and everyday. The ideal image of Greece is based on the conscious balance between external and internal, material and spiritual principles, between nature, life and culture, between life and literature. The everyday image of Greece conveys the discrepancy between its legendary past and dramatic under the Ottoman Rule, accompanied with its symbolic “fading away” from the world history and, as a result, the lost sense of national identity. The most important feature of the journey is seen in the author's internal involvement in the most important mythological events of Ancient Greece through the synchronisation of the events described in the Iliad and Odyssey with the country's modern image. When describing Greece, Chateaubriand often refers to intermediary texts, quoting Homer, Virgil, Cicero, Plutarch, Tasso, Racine, his own novel Les Martyrs, and the Bible. The history is constructed through parallel descriptions of the Sacred, Ancient, and New History as well as resurrection of the past. Creating the historical image of Greece, the French writer touches on the Russo-Turkish war of 1768-1774. The Russian “presence” in the modern image of Greece becomes an integral part of Greek modern geopolitical landscape. Chateaubriand's perception of Greece emphasises the role of ruins, which are indicative of the time run, lost and preserved past, the multi-channel character of world history, and the alternative historical perspectives. In the end, the author analyses the original experts translated into Russian and published in Russian periodicals of that time.

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