SPACIAL DUALISM IN N. DUROVA’S “THE CAVALRY MAIDEN” MEMOIR PROSE: THE OPPOSITION “OPEN – CLOSED SPACE” AS A MARKER “MALE – FEMALE” 

Ivygina Alyona Aleksandrovna, Candidate of philological sciences, associate professor, sub-department of Russian language and contrastive linguistics, Yelabuga Institute, Kazan Federal University (89 Kazanskaya street, Yelabuga, Russia), linguistika@mail.ru
Danilova Juliya Jurevna, Candidate of philological sciences, associate professor, sub-department of Russian language and contrastive linguistics, Yelabuga Institute, Kazan Federal University (89 Kazanskaya street, Yelabuga, Russia), danilovaespu@mail.ru

 81’23

 10.21685/2072-3024-2017-1-10

Background. The present work is carried out within the framework of anthropocentrism and lingvoculturology. The authors of the article attempt to comprehend and describe the phenomenon of linguistic consciousness and the personality of Nadezhda Andreevna Durova (the first Russian woman-officer, who participated in the military campaign of 1812 against Napoleon) through psycholinguistic analysis of the spatial picture of the world embodied in the novel “The Cavalry Maiden”.  The authors reveal the problems caused by the objective reality resulting in the spatial duality of the cavalry maiden’s worldview, the real historical personality, in whom masculine and feminine principles were embodied in the contradictory unity. The relevance of this article is determined by its local history component: study of creative heritage of the people whose names are linked with the history of the thousand- year-old town of Yelabuga, including N. A. Durova. The authors attempt to identify and describe the gender component of the author’s personality in her perception of “open” (as a “male” marker) and “closed” (as a “female” marker) spaces.
Materials and methods. Primarily the material for this study was the author’s “The Cavalry Maiden” memoir (full edition), as well as historical and cultural sources: a reprinted edition of her autobiography (a reprinted handwritten version, the original of which is kept in the archives of N. A. Durova’s Museum in Yelabuga, the Republic of Tatarstan), and different versions of the author’s biography. In order to achieve the aim of the study the researchers used general scientific (analysis, synthesis, description) and philological (contextological, conceptual, comparative, retrospective) research methods.
Results. The authors of the paper have identified and analyzed the factors that provoked the gender shift in the outlook of the “author-heroine” of the memoir, which consequently formed a non-standard and non-stereotypical way of thinking from the standpoint of normative cultural, behavioral, and gender regulations set by social institutions in Russia of the XIX century.
Conclusions. The authors’ attempt to comprehend one of the aspects of the cavalry maiden’s personality from the aspect of her perception of space has allowed to make a significant conclusion. The division of space into “open” and “closed” in N. Durova’s picture of the world is primarily due to stereotypical gender roles of men and women set in the Russian society of the nineteenth century and due to Durova’s sharply negative attitude to the female gender under the influence of her mother’s personality, her speech manifestations and relation to her daughter. Open space is associated with the author’s freedom and strong will, which could only be present in the life of a man of war. Closed space, being a woman’s space full of household and family troubles, is associated with imprisonment.

gender, self-identity, dualism, open space, closed space, N. A. Durova, “The Cavalry Maiden”, memoir prose.

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