Heterotopic Encounters: Meeting the Stranger on Frontiers

Abstract

The Frontier of the Low Volga region has a special history that differs it from similar Frontier in Russia or for example in USA. The conquest of the Astrakhan Khanate by Muscovy changed geopolitical situation in the region but brought no changes to interethnic and gender relations. Constant migration of new ethnic groups to the region renovated the situation of interethnic and gender re lations. In the Region we can find different forms of interethnic gender relations that can be characterized as a prefrontier or active frontier ones. In the pre-frontier stage the interethnic marriage is approved and is looked at as a mechanism of communication. During the active frontier any interethnic gender relations are accepted as negative and an Alien woman becomes a target of violation and rape. Due to constant mix of ethnic actors in the Region we can observe here coexistence of different forms when in one case an interethnic marriages is accepted and in another is rejected. Index Terms - Frontier, Heterotopia, Cultural encounter, Stranger, the Other 1. Introduction Meeting with the Other is a natural process of the Modern World when the administrative and cultural boundaries and frames are not so rigid. It is possible to state that the existence of this political, technological and cultural construction (that we call modern world) is possible due to that meeting with the Other who frames our world and gave to it a special impulse that has its power till nowadays. The territories of this meeting are turned into a special phenomenon that combines different cultural characteristics belonging to all actors of the meeting. In the end of the 19 th century an American historian Frederick Turner formed a theory of American Frontier in which he demonstrated the significance of the territory of Wild West for the shaping the basic characteristics of American mentality, democracy, social institutes, etc. But describing the impact of the frontier on the history of USA Turner ignored a fact that the active participants of it were besides White Americans also Native Americans. For Turner the main characteristic of the Frontier was the movement of Civilization to the Wild West. The existence of free land in the West helped to low the social tension in the East due to constant westward migration of the active people in a search of best life. This idea was prevailing one for scientists of the Turner's historical for a long period of time in the 20 th Century. Scholars of the new theoretical trends (like Postcolonial theory, Cultural encounter studies, Subaltern studies) destroyed that monopoly of interpreting the frontier through prism of civilization/wilderness paradigm. They let native people to tell their story of frontier from other points of view. They also turned Frontier studies from He-story to Her-story underlining in their researches the role of women in the westward movement and the role of other minorities in that expansion to the Wild West (V. Deloria, P. Limerick and others). Their ideas were named as a New Western History. Besides that such authors of the Myth and Symbol school like H. Nash Smith (1) and R. Slotkin (2) began a different methodological approach to Frontier studies demonstrating the impact of the frontier on the American mentality that expressed itself through special frontier myths and symbols. At the same time all that different scholars haven't brought great changes to the methodology of the frontier studies. They only changed some accents and themes but not methodology especially if we speak about Turner's or New Western History school. The last one rejected the ideas of American exceptionalism and the opposition of civilization and savagery. But speaking about the Frontier we should keep in mind one of the main moments of the frontier phenomena - the intercultural dialogue between all actors of the process. But till nowadays almost nothing were made concerning the laws of this dialogue. In this article we will try to analyze some typical moments, common for the process of communication between different encounters of frontier dialogue. 2. Methodology of the Research