From Siberia to China: Ways and Means of Localising Movement in an Unfamiliar Environment (Based on the State Report of Fyodor Baykov)

The article explores the description of the road from Tobolsk to China, presented in the report of 1657-58 by the Russian envoy Fyodor Baykov, whose task was to scout out a convenient and safe route to the neighbouring southeastern country. This medieval genre of business writing, which affirms the formation and development of Russian diplomacy, is called a state report (stateynyy spisok). The markers of the novelty of the environment and the initial familiarisation with its objects in the text of the article list are 1) direct indications of the unknown, inaccuracy of information: Irtysh <...> vver’kh poshel v rozsyp’ <...> a pro to podlinno nevedomo, iz kakikh mest poshel (B1: 120); 2) a reference to the need of obtaining information from third parties: A vedena de ta stena iz-za Sukcheya goroda za Kitayskoye tsar’stvo do morya. A skazyvali pro to bukhartsy, i kalmyki, i kitaytsy (B2: 111-112); 3) the lack of fluency of Russian culture representatives in foreign-language nominative means, which is expressed in their translation, interpretation (a kap vesom po pudu - B2: 74 rev.), regular formal variations (lama - laba, mugaly - mungaly), most commonly in proper nouns (Karbuha - Karbuhay), and so on. The analysis shows that the description of the road includes references to 1) route points (initial, final, and intermediate) with the designation of their characteristics and/or clarification of their location, or without them; 2) the distance between the control points of the route; 3) the very fact of movement, its method, direction, place of movement, and its conditions. The sources demonstrate the dependence between the nomination models and their lexical expression, and the type of the described object. For instance, when settlements are presented, the material of buildings (kirpichnyy, glinyanyy, derevyannyy), location (mezh gor v nizkom meste), river source and mouth locations, the nature of the water, the presence of fish, etc. are regularly described. When presenting new lands with the help of particularly structured linguistic means, Baykov uses an already familiar cultural code of the nomination. This is expressed, firstly, in a significant number of comparison constructions (A pashni u nikh po-russki - B1: 124; a dnipered nashimi vdvoe - B1: 123) and correspondence constructions (A lan ikh vesu 10 zolotnikov, a ruskogo vesu 9 zolotnikov -B2: 110); secondly, in specific cases of characterisations of the definition of space and its objects by negation - through signs of the absence of something: A itti vse step’pustaya, lesu i vody net i ulusov kalmytskikh net zhe (B1: 116); a gde gor net, v takikh mestekh i lesu net, krome tovolozhnika da karagal’nika, i vodoyu skudno (B2: 73 rev.).

Keywords

Authors

References