Reader in the Space Traveler
The article is written on the basis of the report read at the conference
“The First Chumakov Readings” (April 27–28, 2018) and is devoted to the
analysis of the book by E. P. Kovalevsky “Wanderer by land and sea” in terms
of specific interaction of the author and the reader in the context of the work of
“travel literature” of the 19th century. The author pays special attention to the
way in which the reader is drawn into the story space of the travelogue Kovalevsky,
becoming, if not a participant, then a witness of the events described.
The image in the reader obviously has a dual character. The author often appeals
to the reader “knowledgeable”, who has the same experience as the traveler.
Along with such, close in spirit to the author, the reader in Kovalevsky’s book is
an inexperienced reader, for whom the text of the book should become a guide
and a guide in the unfamiliar space of Central Asia. Specificity travelogue Kovalevsky
in the context of the 19th century such works is that the travel route is
not, in this case, decisive. The plot of the Wanderer is formed not so much by
the detailed routes of the Asian expeditions of the author, as by the most vivid
events of travel, especially those that cut into the memory of the author. This, on
the one hand, promotes some fiction of the narrative, and, on the other hand,
brings Kovalevsky’s book closer to the genre of memoirs. In Kovalevsky’s narrative,
personal experience is intertwined with the stories of other eyewitnesses
or participants in the events described, and even with what, as noted above, he
drew from the notes and essays of Russian and European travelers who had visited
Central Asia before him. Organizing the narrative of Kovalevsky’s book
“random events” of Central Asian travel are in fact selected in a careful manner and carefully related to each other in the composition of the work. This is a deliberate
and thought-out strategy of the author. The combination of information,
knowledge, impressions obtained from different sources, backed up by the
author’s own experience is a characteristic feature of the narrative in The Wanderer.
Obviously, this allows Kovalevsky to demonstrate a voluminous and
large-scale vision of the described situations and events and contributes to some
clearly realized belletrization of the narrative. Orientalism in “The Wanderer”
has a different focus than usual. Kovalevsky is interested not only in the people
of Central Asia themselves and their customs and customs that are exotic for
European man, but rather the European / Russian himself in an unfamiliar world
that is often hostile to him.
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Reader in the Space Traveler // Критика и семиотика. 2018. № 2. Pp. 10–24. DOI: 10.25205/2307-1737-2018-2-10-24.