‘Eastern’ Onomasticon of I. A. Bunin Prosaist: Hierarchy and Systematicity

Abstract

This article addresses the representation of the artistic image-topos of the East in the works of I. A. Bunin. The research aim is to identify, classify, and systematize the onyms of the writer’s ‘Eastern’ onomasticon. Prosaic texts related to oriental themes and those unrelated to the Eastern topic were analyzed in the study. The following methods were employed: philosophical-logical (analysis, generalization, synthesis), descriptive, taxonomic, quantitative, and contextual analysis. It was established that Bunin’s ‘Eastern’ onomasticon is a hierarchically organized structure containing various semantic groups of real and mythological names: anthroponyms / mythoanthroponyms, toponyms / mythotoponyms, hydronyms / mythohydronyms, biblionyms, etc. It is noted that the systematicity of the explicant onyms of Bunin’s East is ensured by extralinguistic and linguistic factors: authorial presupposition, reader’s background knowledge, intratextual and intertextual connections of onyms. The authors conclude that the multifaceted toponymic series, the synonymy of choronyms and theonyms, the intersecting astionymic and mythoanthroponymic series in poetry and prose, and the onyms-intertextems indicate the syncretism of the artistic image-topos of Bunin’s East, its representation by specific geocultural images of spaces such as Egypt, Turkey, Palestine, India, etc.