Ecolinguistic components of the Arctic literary image in Vasily Matonin’s travelogue Kochevoy dnevnik

Abstract

This article explores key ecolinguistic components forming the literary image of the modern Arctic in V. N. Matonin’s travelogue Kochevoy dnevnik (“Nomadic Diary”). Nowadays, a significant part of the scientific literary works covers the Arctic image of the past, from the very beginning of the circumpolar region development to its active transformation during the 20th c. The modern study of the Arctic image is not the same as the study of the modern image of the Arctic presented in this article. All above determines the relevance of the work. The research material includes the Arctic travelogue Kochevoy dnevnik by Vasily Nikolaevich Matonin. This book describes the author’s journey through three regions belonging to the Arctic zone of the Russian Federation in 2012–2013. The contextual analysis applied in the article aims to systematically identify and describe several contexts of the phenomena studied. This study uses the ecolinguistic approach connecting some individual components of the space representation into a complex ecosystem. The use of ecolinguistic frameworks to examine the formation of the modern Arctic literary image determines the scientific novelty of this article. This work covers the structural and functional features of travelogue as a literary genre (such as composition, author’s quasi-socialization in a new reality, relaying of the subjective space image, author’s self-reflection, manifesting importance of language as an essential element forming a connection between man, society and nature); defines the concept of the “Arctic literary image” as a combination of physical, symbolic and mathematical space of different multilingual multicultural circumpolar territories; and analyses some linguistic, social, demographic, ethnocultural, interactive, mental, political, economic and environmental aspects that construct the circumpolar literary image in V. N. Matonin’s travelogue.