ON THE REPRESENTATION OF THE CULTURAL CATEGORY OF SINFULNESS IN THE WORKS OF A. DE CUSTINE AND T. GAUTIER

Abstract

The cultural category of sinfulness is widely represented in the literature of the 19th century, in particular in the books of A. de Custine “Russia in 1839” and T. Gauthier “Journey to Russia”. The culturological study A. de Custine’s and T. Gautier’s works seems relevant, since the first underlies the background ideas of Europeans about the culture of Russia and it is the basis of permanent myths, and the second belongs to the pen of a famous French writer and arouses the interest of numerous modern scientists. In addition, the works written in the same era represent the presentation of the opposing views of the authors, which provides valuable material for analysis. It is also important to identify and study morphological units of cultural knowledge on a specific material, ensuring its preservation and translation. The aim of the work is to analyze the facts of objectification of the cultural category of sinfulness in the works of A. de Custine “Russia in 1839” and T. Gautier “Journey to Russia” (published in 1867). The main methods of research were the method of continuous sampling from the text of books of fragments and sayings correlated with the idea of sin and the cultural category of sinfulness itself, the method of observing the facts of objectification of cultural categories, the structural and functional method of unit analysis. The results of the work were the analysis of the selected units correlating with the concepts (understood as structural parts of the category) of sin and holiness. In the book of A. de Custine, in describing Russian culture, the concepts of such sins as pride, envy, sloth are objectified. In T. Gautier’s work is represented the concept of holiness in connection with the author’s image of “holy Russia”.