THE IMAGE OF RUSSIA AS A CONSEPTUAL STRUCTURE IN IMAGOLOGY

THE IMAGE OF RUSSIA AS A CONSEPTUAL STRUCTURE IN IMAGOLOGY

Kira Dagaeva

Student, HSE University,

Russia, Moscow

ОБРАЗ РОССИИ КАК КОНЦЕПТУАЛЬНАЯ СТРУКТУРА ИМАГОЛОГИЧЕСКОГО ИССЛЕДОВАНИЯ

Дагаева Кира Игоревна

студент, НИУ Высшая школа Экономики,

РФ, г. Москва

АННОТАЦИЯ

В данной работе представлен междисциплинарный анализ особенностей формирования образа России за рубежом. Автор затрагивает социологические особенности формирования стереотипов и их связь с конструированием имиджа страны, выделяет ряд сопряженных имагологических аспектов. В рамках литературного, исторического и имагологического анализа рассматриваются работы С. Герберштейна, А. Олеария и Ф. Альгаротти, в которых впервые упоминается образ России.

ABSTRACT

This paper presents an interdisciplinary analysis of the peculiarities of the formation of the image of Russia abroad. The author touches upon the sociological features of the formation of stereotypes and their connection with the construction of the country's image, identifies a number of related imagological aspects. Within the framework of literary, historical and imagological analysis, the works of S. Herberstein, A. Olearius and F. Algarotti are considered, in which the image of Russia is first mentioned.

Ключевые слова: имагология; образ России; культурные паттерны; стереотипы; общественное мнение; символы.

Keywords: imagology; image of Russia; public opinion; thick description; symbols.

Communication between people is always the problem. It's the problem of finding the words to express what you want to say. And the problem of understanding the meaning given to words. It could be not only when we learn the foreign language, but especially when we speak the same language, our native language.

American anthropologist Clifford James Geertz suggests that «man is an animal suspended in webs of significance he himself has spun» [1, 5]. According to Geertz the culture is seen as those «webs» and «the analysis of it to be therefore not an experimental science in search of law but an interpretive one in search of meaning» [1, 5].

Therefore, the task of anthropology is the analysis, interpretation and the search for meaning, hided away in the actions, rituals, human work, rather than just capture and describe the facts. In this way linguistic anthropology is studying not only «the role of language in the social lives of individuals and communities» [2], but also the context of such communication. The culture is such a context, which describes the background of social reactions of an individual. Geertz called it as symbols, an «interworked systems of construable signs», a context of social events or processes, «something within which they can be intelligibly-that is, thickly-described» [1, 5]. To find, understand and describe such a context the researcher, the anthropologist, ethnographer or linguist, should make a kind of an «intellectual effort» [1, 6], which in turn, provides the researcher to create a «thick description» [1, 6]. The idea of «thick description» is to find and to understand and to represent «a multiplicity of complex conceptual structures, many of them superimposed upon or knotted into one another, which are at once strange, irregular, and inexplicit» [ 1, 10]. The main objective of an anthropologist is to find these conceptual structures, understand it and embed into the picture he observes. The idea of Max Weber, relayed by Geertz is based on the postulate that «events are not just there and happen, but they have a meaning and happen because of that meaning» [1, 131]. Thus, we can conclude that it is not the facts as such that matter, but the contexts surrounded such facts.

Trying to understand contexts brings us to another important topic – to the goal to bring out the way how the individuals think. According to Geertz this prosses is a kind of «the purposeful manipulation of objective materials» [ 1, 77]. In such case «cultural patterns» might be explained as «models», or a «sets of symbols». This «sets of symbols» make a strong «web» - the relations to one another «models». And this process allows individuals «to render them apprehensible a model of "reality"» [1, 94]. In this way we may make a parallel with the phenomena of stereotypes, described by W. Lippmann. Stereotypes help to speed up the process of receiving, processing and assimilating information and represent «public opinion». This form of social consciousness is resistant to change and does not depend on experience. According to W. Lippmann «We are told about the world before we see it. We imagine most things before we experience them» [3, 90]. In fact stereotypes help to the individuals (each of us) to perceive and understand, categorize, the reality around us. The process of using stereotypes is closely connected with the idea of context of Geertz. Lippmann notice that « For the most part we define first and then see. In the great blooming, buzzing confusion of the outer world we pick out what our culture has already defined for us, and we tend to perceive that which we have picked out in the form stereotyped for us by our culture» [3, 81]. The same idea we can find in the papers of Geertz, who described reflective thought as « con­sisting not of happenings in the head but of a matching of the states and processes of symbolic models against the states and processes of the wider world» [1, 78]. Stereotypes spread as an expression of public opinion, create the appearance of absolute truthfulness [4, 315]. The phenomenon of stereotypes is that individuals should not investigate the meaning of a new object, but he can just relate it to some class of already known things, assign a specific category. According to Lippmann this process lay in a following way: «In untrained observation we pick recognizable signs out of the environment. The signs stand for ideas, and these ideas we fill out with our stock of images. We do not so much see this man and that sunset; rather we notice that the thing is man or sunset, and then see chiefly what our mind is already full of on those subjects». In such a case the same time the results of such conceptualization, of understanding of the same facts of reality might be quite different.

In this case, language becomes a tool for constructing reality. With the help of language, a person determines the facts of reality surrounding him, categorizes them. And, thereby, constructs its own reality closely related to stereotypes and «sets of symbols». It is important to note that this process involves not only things that can be touched, but also abstract concepts. American sociologist and political scientist B. Anderson note this fact, referring to the question of the emergence of nationalism as a mechanism that unites individuals into one community called the state. According to Anderson, one the most important instruments of nationalism-construction are the census, map and museum, later the newspapers and TV reached this list. These instruments were used to «a special style of representation by the late colonial state of its possessions is clearly manifested» [5, 297]. Anderson notice that this «instruments» were «The «bases of this style was a totalizing classification markup, which could be applied with infinite flexibility to everything that came under the real or perceived control of the state» [5, 298]. As the result of this process «Everything was delimited, definite, and therefore, in principle, countable […] The private has always acted as a temporary representative of the series» [5, 298]. As the result, «the map was not a model of the reality that she intended to represent, but a model for creating this very reality» [5, 283]. Looking at this map people imagined someone different from them. And the greater the distance on the map, the more these differences should have been.

Before the scientific and technological revolution, the emergence of the Internet and global networks traders and travelers were the main source of knowledge about another state. Visiting Russia and sharing their impressions of their travels, they compared «their own» and «alien» (Russian), tried, first of all, to emphasize the advantages of their country and their development model [6, 68]. Differences in cultural attitudes, traditions (and especially differences in climate) contributed to the emergence of stereotypes about Russia, which subsequently took root and entered popular culture and the media.

To study intercultural relations in terms of mutual perceptions, how images of countries are formed in foreign culture, was appeared a new branch of science called imagology. At first it was the specialism in comparative literature. Within the framework of this direction, in 1940-1950s in French comparative studies, interest turns to the study of the images of countries and cultures in the way how it develops in the national literary consciousness [7]. P. Jourda was one of the first to study images in literature [8]. In 1951 M.F. Guyard proposed to focus on the problems of different images of foreign culture in the literature, and also substantiated the theoretical aspects of imagological problems [9]. This line of research became especially popular in the post-Soviet period, which was due to the increased interest in the phenomenon of the Cold War [10, 13].

The most common stereotypes about Russia are associated with its climate (very cold), territory (very large) and, as a logical conclusion, that it is a country of contrasts. But the historical roots of these stereotypes, as mentioned earlier, lie directly in the descriptions of Russia by the first travelers. One of the first such books was written by S. Herberstein and was published in Latin in 1549, it was «Notes about Muscovy» [11]. The author presents the data that he was able to obtain during his journey across the land of the "Muscovites". For example, referring to the inhabitants of the country, he puts forward the theory that the name of the country Russia was originally called «Arossia», and this name indicates the scattered and scattered nature of its people, because «rosssey» in Russian and means «scattering» or «scattering»» [11, 35]. Of great interest is the historical information about Russia and the description of various rituals (for example, the wedding ceremony of sovereigns). In this study, one could find descriptions of other characteristic features of Russia, which then formed the basis of stereotypes. For example, a description of sudden temperature changes. Describing his journey, Herberstein recalled: «We drove up to some river, then it was not frozen at all, but after midnight [from a strong cold] it was covered with such ice that more than ten sledges were moved along it, and even loaded ones» [11, 629]. He also mentions vagabonds who lead bears trained to dance [11, 289] and the «game of the sovereign» who makes poor people fight bears [11, 579].

The memoirs of A. Olearius also played a great interest in the formation of the image of Russia in other countries [12]. Describing his travels as an ambassador, he paid great attention to the traditions and customs of the Russian people. For example, he mentioned their love for drunkenness [12, 32], beautiful women, etc. The letters of the Italian writer F. Algarotti [13] are also interesting. He wrote: «no other people are as well adapted for waging war as the Russians», «the custom of throwing the boys straight from the steam bath, where they are kept for some time, into cold water, or even into the snow» [13, 69] etc. Each of these descriptions is of immense cultural significance.

In fact, each of these descriptions of travelers, each of their notes and letters are of great interest. Each such book served as a kind of brick in the wall for a building called the image of Russia. It should be borne in mind that the process of forming the image of Russia abroad continues to this day. Despite the fact that a number of stereotypes about Russia are firmly rooted and have an undeniable influence on the perception of individuals, every traveler is able to change the picture formed earlier. Each of them participates in the process of creating «contexts» for further communication. Thus, the study of vocabulary and constructions of the communicative topic «travel» is of great interest for research. This will prepare travelers for a meeting with Russia, create a positive «context» and, possibly, facilitate communication, both linguistically and culturally.

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