History of the study of the Petersburg Myth in China in the classical period of literary studies

Li Jialin Postgraduate student; Faculty of Philology; Patrice Lumumba Peoples' Friendship University of Russia 117198, Russia, Moscow, Salaryevskaya str., 16k3, sq. 437 18729379981@163.com

Introduction

St. Petersburg arose and developed at a special time of Russia's social and cultural development, where many cultures of the West and east merged and reflected the contradictions and conflicts of Russia's historical development. The unique human and cultural character of St. Petersburg, which distinguishes it from other cities, attracts more than one generation of people from different countries to it. Like any other influential city in the world, St. Petersburg has not only its own "language", but also its own mythology. In Russian literature, St. Petersburg has always been the subject of close attention of writers. Since its birth, the theme of St. Petersburg has gone through the process of emergence, formation and development, and there have been many masters of St. Petersburg literature. Writers M.V. Lomonosov, A.P. Sumarokov, G.R. Derzhavin, A.S. Pushkin, N.V. Gogol, F.M. Dostoevsky, Leo Tolstoy, Andrei Bely, E.I. Zamyatin, B.A. Pilnyak, A.A. Akhmatova, O.E. Mandelstam and others wrote about him, whose works reflected St. Petersburg as a myth. Russia has also gradually developed a tradition of studying the St. Petersburg myth.

The Chinese school began studying this myth in the 80s of the XX century. As China's policy of reform and openness continues, the field of humanities and social sciences witnessed a huge wave of cultural turnaround around 2010. With the translation into Chinese of the works of Western, mainly European, literary theorists, the views and objects of literary criticism in Chinese science have undergone a noticeable change and turn. At this time, the study of the St. Petersburg myth in China also entered a completely new period and stage. This article is devoted to the classical period of the study of the St. Petersburg myth in China before the cultural shift.

The relevance of this study is to understand the completeness, research prospects, depth of research and research directions of modern Chinese studies of the St. Petersburg myth, which is of great importance for future research on this topic.

The practical significance of the topic is to help us deepen our understanding of the St. Petersburg myth from different points of view, clarify the basis and stage of Chinese research on the St. Petersburg myth, and better present the features of St. Petersburg myth research in China.

The theoretical basis of this study is based on a semiotic study of St. Petersburg myths conducted by semiotics V.N. Toporov and Yu. M. Lotman.V.N. Toporov and Yu.M. Lotman first proposed the cultural-semiotic concept of the "Petersburg text" in 1984 in the 18th volume of the Collected Works on Sign Systems. Since then, this topic has not only entered the field of view of Russian scientists, but has also become the object of research by Chinese scientists. In addition, V.N. Toporov's work on Russian religious culture and national spirit has become one of the most important sources for research by Chinese scientists.

The purpose of this topic is to summarize the research and study of the St. Petersburg myth in China from the 80s of the XX century to the beginning of the XXI century, to identify ways and directions of Chinese research on this topic, as well as to show the originality of the study of the St. Petersburg myth in China.

The research materials include published journal articles, master's and doctoral dissertations on the St. Petersburg myth and the St. Petersburg text in China, and research methods - textual analysis, historical and comparative studies that allow to identify and analyze St. Petersburg studies in China based on specific and general research.

Discussion and results

1. The St. Petersburg myth in Russia

In Russia, the concept of "Petersburg myth" is considered as a cultural term denoting the phenomenon through which the cultural identity of St. Petersburg is determined. In particular, the St. Petersburg myth is understood as a set of myths and legends related to the urban or cultural space of St. Petersburg or related literature, in which the image of St. Petersburg can be represented. ^[26]

In Russia, research aimed at studying the St. Petersburg myth began in the 1920s. The concept of the St. Petersburg myth is studied by scientists from different points of view, including literary studies, philosophy, historiography and folklore. The leadership in this area rightfully belongs to V.N. Toporov and Y. M. Lotman. The studies of the St. Petersburg myth conducted by Yu. M. Lotman and V.N. Toporov laid a solid theoretical foundation for the theme of the St. Petersburg myth. In 1984, in "Works on Sign Systems", co-authors V.N. Toporov and Yu.M. Lotman for the first time introduced readers to the "Petersburg text" as a concept of cultural semiotics. The introduction of the concept of "Petersburg text" united the cultural space of St. Petersburg into a huge symbolic system full of meanings, which not only connected the St. Petersburg myth with literature, semiotics, history and even philosophy, but also allowed us to search for unity and immutability and even the literary paradigm behind the works on St. Petersburg themes. V.N. Toporov deeply studied the St. Petersburg the text from the point of view of semiotics, identified a number of main features of the St. Petersburg text, compiled a specific classification of St. Petersburg texts, on the basis of which he deeply studied literary works on the St. Petersburg theme by such authors as Pushkin, Gogol, Bely, Blok, Akhmatova, Dostoevsky and others.

As a cultural critic and semiotic, Y. M. Lotman, in studying the St. Petersburg text, mainly focused on the study of the mechanisms of generating meaning in urban space. Y. M. Lotman analyzes and summarizes the "artificiality" and "theatricality" of the St. Petersburg space.

2. Theoretical foundations of the study of the St. Petersburg myth in China

The study of Russian literature from a spatio-temporal point of view was familiar to Chinese scientists long before the theories of Y. M. Lotman and V.N. Toporov entered the Chinese academic world. The seven-volume collection of M.M. Bakhtin's works, which contains the main results of the scientist's research, was published in China in 1998. The third volume contains works on the time form of the novel, and the chronotope, presenting M.M. Bakhtin's theory of the chronotope in detail and comprehensively to the Chinese world. Russian Russian version of Bakhtin's theoretical works gives Chinese scientists, even those who do not know Russian, fresh ideas and methods for studying Russian and world literature.

In the 1980s and 1990s in China in basically represented the theory Lotman, including "Modern aesthetics in the USSR" (Lin Jiao, 1986)(《苏联当代美学》（凌继尧，1986）), "Aesthetics and culture: memories of sixteen he first famous in the USSR" (Lin Jiao, 1990)(《美学和文化学 记苏联著名的16位美学家》（凌继尧，1990）) and "Introduction to theoretical semiotics"( Lee Juicy , 1999)(《理论符号学导论》（李幼蒸，1999）). Among a representative articles - "a Review of methods of contemporary Soviet literature" (From Juanma, 1986)(《当代苏联文艺学方法概观》(吴元迈, 1986）), "Structural literature and art, Yu. M. Lotman" (sun Cinyanja , 1989) (《洛特曼的结构文艺学》（孙静云, 1989）) and "the Tartu school is entering a period of reckoning" (Zhou Qichao, 1994)(《"塔尔图学派"进入总结时期》（周启超, 1994）). At the beginning of the XXI century, the theory of semiotics of literature by Y.M. Lotman aroused interest. In Zhang Jie and Kang Cheng's book "The Structural Semiotics of Literature and Art" (2004), the first monograph on the theory of semiotics of literature by Yu.M. Lotman in China, his theories focused on literary texts are systematically investigated and interpreted based on the historical study of research methods Y. M. Lotman. Since the second half of the first decade of the XXI century, the Chinese theoretical studies of Y. M. Lotman have gradually turned to the semiotics of culture. During this period, a large number of scientific papers in this area were published. These include "the Study of culture and space for its survival and development" (Kahn Cheng, 2006)(《文化及其生存与发展的空间 洛特曼文化符号学理论研究》（康澄, 2006）), "a Study of the theory of symbolic cultural domains" (Zheng Verdun, 2007)(《文化符号域理论研究》（郑文东, 2007）), "Introduction to cultural-symbolic poetics Yu. M. Lotman" (Zhang Haiyang, 2014) (《文化符号诗学引论 洛特曼文艺理论研究》（张海燕, 2014）), "Study aesthetic ideas Y. M. Lotman" (Li Wei, 2017) (《洛特曼美学思想研究》（李薇, 2017）), "Structural poetics Yu. M. Lotman" (Zhang Bin, 2019)( 《洛特曼的的学学学（（（（, 2019) and others. The monographs published during this period on the semiotics of culture by Y.M. Lotman were mainly devoted to the most important categories of cultural semiotics, such as text, the semiosphere and the generation of meaning.

The number of journal articles during this period exceeds 300, and in research preference is given to the main elements of the semiotics of culture by Y.M. Lotman, including the text, the semiosphere and the mechanisms of generating meaning. In contrast, there are not many articles directly related to the study of the St. Petersburg myth. In the article "Semantic Oppositions in St. Petersburg texts" (Russian), published in the journal "Learning the Russian Language" in 2009, author Liao Xuhui (缪秀慧), based on the research of Yu. M. Lotman and V.N. Toporov on St. Petersburg texts, interpreted the myths about St. Petersburg in three aspects myths about St. Petersburg, literary works about St. Petersburg, and the architectural appearance of the city. In 2014, a Chinese scientist Fu Xin Huang (傅星寰) published in CSSCI journal "Russian literature and art" article "First study "Moscow text" and "Petersburg text" of Russian literature" (《俄罗斯文学"莫斯科文本"与"彼得堡文本"初探》), in which he explained the origin and development of the term "Petersburg text", gave the interpretation and analysis of researches of Y. M. Lotman about it.

V.N. Toporov's mythopoetics was hardly discussed or studied in Chinese science until 2010. In a 2009 article by Liao Xuhui (缪秀慧)"Semantic oppositions in St. Petersburg texts" (《小小"彼得堡文文本"中的文) was presented by V.N. Toporov's idea of the St. Petersburg myth. Article by Liao Xuhui (缪秀慧)"Semantic Oppositions in St. Petersburg Texts" (Russian Studies No. 2, 2009), mentioned above, was the first time when the term "St. Petersburg Text" was mentioned in Chinese science. The article "From "text" to the "model of the world of mythopoetic" - an overview of semiotic thought V. N. Toporov about fiction" (《从"文本空间"到"神话诗歌世界模式"--托波罗夫艺术文本符号学思想评介》) ( Zhao Aiguo, Jiang Hong) (赵爱国、姜宏), published in "Russian literature and art" (《俄罗斯文艺》)in 2012, which systematically presents the basic ideas of V. N. Toporov of the semiotics of literary texts, including "the way", and "poetic space" and "mythopoetic chronotope". The article also explains V.N. Toporova's movement from the "text space" to the "space of contemplation" and forms a "model of the world of mythopoetic poetry" as the fundamental goal of a literary text. The article highly appreciates and recognizes the research conducted by V.N. Toporov in the field of mythopoetics, it is argued that the mythopoetic model of the world proposed by Toporov follows the linguistic turn achieved in philosophical research at the beginning of the twentieth century, i.e. the turn from the object of language to the subject of language - to the person speaking.

In general, until about 2010, the study of the theoretical foundations of the St. Petersburg myth in China did not receive much development, the systematic theoretical system was not fully studied. The relevant theoretical works have not been translated into Chinese.

3. The process of the initial stage of studying the St. Petersburg myth in China

This process unfolded over two to three decades from the end of the 20th century to the beginning of the 21st century. Being a product of a certain cultural period, the myth represents a valuable the spiritual and cultural treasure of the nation, as it is deeply rooted in its cultural history. Therefore, the St. Petersburg myth not only contains a rich historical content, but also reflects the humanistic and spiritual overtones of St. Petersburg. Russian Russian scholars first began to study the connection between Russian literature and the spirit of Orthodox Christianity, Russian traditional culture and Russian folklore before truly exploring the St. Petersburg myth.

The most complete monographs include "Russian literature and religion" (Ren Suansuan, 1995)( 《俄罗斯文学与宗教》（任光宣，1995）), "Dostoevsky and the spirit of Russian culture" (Ho UNIBO, 1997)( 《陀思妥耶夫斯基与俄罗斯文化精神》（何云波，1997，长沙）), "Wandering souls Dostoevsky and Russian traditional literature" (Zhao Guilan, 2002)( 《漂泊的灵魂--陀思妥耶夫斯基与俄罗斯传统文学》（赵桂莲，2002）), "the Poetics of Dostoevsky in the context of religious culture" (van Jihun, 2003)(Russian Literature) and "The Fullness of Non-Existence - Religious Consciousness in Russian Literature" (Jin Yang, 2003)( 《充盈的虚无——俄罗斯文学中的宗教意识》（金亚娜，2003）). These monographs analyze the concepts of traditional Orthodox culture from the point of view of the Russian national character, cultural psychology and natural geographical factors, explore the relationship between folk religion and literature, interpret the religious and cultural factors inherent in the works, and the religious and cultural spirit behind the works.

Among them, it is worth mentioning He Yunbo in the monograph "Dostoevsky and the Spirit of Russian Culture" (1997) ( 《陀思妥耶夫斯基与俄罗文文文（（（云云， 1997) explores the city line, the urban landscape and urban perspective, the richness of Dostoevsky's works from the point of view of the symbolism of the geographical location of St. Petersburg, analyzes the urban landscape. Despite the fact that the term "Petersburg Myth" has not yet become the subject of special research, according to the study of Dostoevsky's novels dedicated to St. Petersburg, the St. Petersburg myth has already been touched upon in Chinese science to one extent or another.

Along with the ever-deepening study of the relationship between literature and religion, specific mythological images also attracted the attention of scientists.

At the end of the 20th century, Chinese scientists began to pay attention to the connection between Russian literature, especially classical literature, and mythology. The greatest attention was paid to the poetry of A.S. Pushkin. Scientists focused mainly on the connection with biblical or Greco-Roman mythology and related images of the Bronze Horseman, the Devil, etc. In the article "Symbols of the bronze Horseman" (《〈青铜骑士〉的象征和象征主义意蕴》) (the"Foreign literature", No. 1, 1999, Jin Yana)（《国外文学》，1999 年第1期 金亚娜）considered mythological characters and stories of the bronze Horseman in various aspects. In the article "The Lyrical Poetry of A.S. Pushkin and the Bible" ("Studies of Foreign Literature", No.2, 2000) (《外国文文学)Zhao Ning emphasizes the metaphorical rather than symbolic nature of the structural meaning and linguistic-rhetorical function of A.S. Pushkin's lyrical poetry in relation to its mythological sources. In another article by the same author, "A.S. Pushkin and the Greco-Roman Myths" ("Foreign Literature", No. 1, 2001), numerous mythological episodes in the works of A.S. Pushkin are pointed out and three main manifestations of Greco-Roman myths in lyrical the poet's poems: 1) direct artistic reproduction; 2) the mythological archetype is intertwined with the aesthetic object of reality or history; 3) the mythological archetype becomes a stable symbolic sign, which turns into a kind of self-conscious will or spirit permeating the work.

In the article "the Transmutation of the topic of the devil in Russian literature" (《恶魔主题在俄国文学中的嬗变》) (the"Journal of Henan University" (edition of social Sciences) (《河南大学学报（社会科学版）》) published in may 2001) written by Zhao Ning (赵宁) analyzes the relationship between the subject of the devil and biblical myths in Russian literature, and also changes the image of the devil in different periods and different writers.

Wu Qian(吴倩) in "the Myth of Peter in "the bronze horseman" by A. S. Pushkin"(《普希金的《青铜骑士》中的彼得神话》) (《the Literature of the Times" (first half)2009, No.2) explains various images with mythological overtones in the poem "The Bronze Horseman", including the myth of the city of St. Petersburg. At the same time, the text examines the mythological colors of the Bronze Horseman and his archetype of Peter the Great, and also explains the trend in the development of the myth of Peter the Great in the literature of the XX century. At the same time, in the article "the Symbolist mythological novel "Petersburg" (《象征主义神话小说"彼得堡"》) ("the Literature of the Times" (《时代文学》), 2009, No. 19) author interpretirovat mythological elements and symbolism of the mythological images in the work of Andrei Bely's "Petersburg".

By the beginning of the 21st century, literary works based on the theme of St. Petersburg as a whole began to attract the attention of Chinese scientists. Scientists began to note the uniqueness of literary works based on the theme of St. Petersburg, and the myths behind them. The focus of scientists' attention turned out to be the elements of the St. Petersburg myth in some classical works, especially the St. Petersburg theme and St. Petersburg elements in the poetry of A.S. Pushkin, which became the subject of special study. The term "Petersburg text" gradually entered scientific usage.

In the third chapter of the book "Interpretation of St. Petersburg" (Li Zizhong, "Interpretation of St. Petersburg" (《解读圣彼得堡》), Shandong publishing house Druzhba, 2000, p. 115) the author examines literary St. Petersburg, indicates that St. Petersburg, along with the Black Sea and the Caucasus, represent the three main spaces of the creative imagination of Russian romantics of the nineteenth century. Among them, St. Petersburg is the "north" of Russian literature, the camp of bureaucracy and the center of autocracy in the tsarist era, as well as the "home" of the "little man" and the "superfluous man".

Feng Chunping (冯春萍) in the article "To Petersburg" (《走进彼得堡》) ("Studies on Russia", 2001, No. 4), devoted to the cultural and literary status of St. Petersburg, notes that St. Petersburg is a city full of spirit, known as the "cultural capital", where outstanding scientists, literary critics, poets and artists of Russia of that time gathered. Their significant contribution not only enriched the treasury of Russian science, culture and art, but also preserved the vitality of the city's unique cultural and artistic atmosphere, nurturing several generations of Petersburgers.

Yang lei(杨雷) and Zhu Kuuma(朱翠梅) in his article "the Image of St. Petersburg in Pushkin's poetry"(《圣彼得堡在普希金诗歌中的形象》) (the"Russian literature and art"(2003, No. 6,) it is believed that St. Petersburg is the city of A.S. Pushkin, because A.S. Pushkin not only spent a third of his life here, but also shone a lot of works on the city. The poet's Petersburg became not just a city, but a representative of the national spirit and will. The architecture, landscape, and traditions of this city became a source of inspiration for the poet's work. In the poems about St. Petersburg, you can find all his emotions: joy, sadness, surprise, loss, love, hate. The city became a part of the poetic soul of A.S. Pushkin and became famous all over the world thanks to the poetry of the great poet.

In the article by Lu Qun (卢群) "Petersburg under F.M. Dostoevsky" (《陀思妥耶夫斯基笔下的的)("Russian Literature and Art", No.4, 2004) it is noted that Dostoevsky's Petersburg is a sick, chaotic kingdom, a city of humiliated and insulted people, a city that generates an underground human consciousness. He writes: "The gloomy and heavy Petersburg of F.M. Dostoevsky is a reflection of a sick society and a sick psychology. He shows his readers all the abnormal and absurd phenomena and broken hearts under the rule of darkness, but his thinking points to a higher spiritual sphere. F.M. Dostoevsky longs for social harmony and clarity based on humanism, the elimination of isolation and the restoration of ties with each other based on love, getting rid of basements and the transition to a normal life." ^{[10, p. 25]}

In the article "landscape in the mist: Petersburg as the experience of modernity"(《雾中风景：作为现代性体验的彼得堡》) ("the Study of Russian literature"(《俄罗斯文学研究》), No. 4, 2005) Zhang Xiaodong (张晓东) notes that the Russian "Petersburg literature" of the XIX - early XX century truly reproduces the contradictions and conflicts of the process of modernization of Russia. Although the author does not proceed from the perspective of mythological research, he explains the illusory mythological characteristics of St. Petersburg.

Yu Jie (余杰) compares Petersburg and Moscow in the article "Saint Petersburg is a city of memory"(《彼得堡，记忆之城》) ("Angeliska literature"(《安徽文学》), 2007, No. 7), claiming that Moscow and St. Petersburg - it doubles, Moscow is a city of reality, and St. Petersburg - a city of memory.

In 2009, article in the sun Chao(孙超) "Analysis of the St. Petersburg texts in the story by Tatyana Tolstaya "Okkervil River" "( 《试析托尔斯泰娅短篇小说《奥凯尔维利河》中的彼得堡文本》) published in the journal "Literary studies"(《文学研究》), discussed the main themes of "Okkervil River" and the value of the city of St. Petersburg in the text in accordance with the concept of "Petersburg text" VN. Toporov.

As can be seen, almost ten years have passed since the beginning of research on St. Petersburg literature in Chinese scientific circles to the moment when the St. Petersburg myth and the St. Petersburg text were officially identified as objects of study. Chinese scientists have spent ten years laying a solid theoretical foundation and providing rich textual material for the study of the St. Petersburg myth in China. The study of the St. Petersburg myth in the first decade of the beginning of the XXI century also laid the foundation for a later period after the cultural turn.

Conclusion

The St. Petersburg myth, as a concept in the field of literary and cultural studies, originated and received initial study in Russia. In China, interest in him manifested itself later, and his research went through several stages and developments. Acquaintance and interests of theoretical research of the Russian mythological school at the end of the twentieth century, during which the theoretical foundations of the St. Petersburg myth of the city formally became the object of study. During the same period, the relationship between Russian literature and the spirit of religion and folk mythology began to be studied. The second stage was the first decade of the beginning of the XXI century, when literature about St. Petersburg began to be considered as a whole. At this time, mythological symbols in the works of the St. Petersburg literary school began to be seriously analyzed and interpreted. During this period, terms such as "Petersburg Myth" and "Petersburg Text" officially appeared in Chinese science, which put an end to the initial stage of Chinese research on the St. Petersburg myth and officially marked the beginning of the study of the St. Petersburg myth in China. The conclusion of this study is to summarize the comprehensiveness, points of view and depth of research on the modern Chinese St. Petersburg myth from 1980 to 2010, demonstrating the unique features of Chinese studies. The study of the St. Petersburg myth in China has broad research prospects in terms of in-depth disclosure of mythological theories, interpretation of Russian literature and comparative studies with Chinese theories of mythology.