'Owning the east': The image of the region as constructed in the works of vladimir k. Arseniev

Abstract

The article analyses the works of Vladimir K. Arseniev (1872-1930), a traveller and researcher of the Far East, with the aim of identifying the representational potential of the region's image as constructed by him. Archival data (field diaries, memories, and newspapers) and literary works of his were used as major sources in the analysis. Based on the methodology of social constructivism, scientific and artistic ways of assembling the image of the Far East are defined and analysed, and the role of each of these in Arseniev's works is shown. A particular emphasis is placed on the role of the researcher himself in the creation of a stereotypical picture of the region, and the techniques of his doing so are considered, among them scientific description, naming of territories, mapping, visualisation, and literary work. The article demonstrates that Arseniev's narratives would evoke in the reader's mind an image of the Far East with a strong emotional component to it and thus a multi-dimensional (nonlinear) idea of the region and its inhabitants would form. The variety of the techniques he used in the study of the Far East, on the one hand, helped avoid the use of excessively scientific language in the representation of the region, and on the other, was least subject to any political rhetoric. The authors conclude that thanks to the works of Arseniev, the image of the Far East was instilled into collective consciousness as a complex of ideas combining pictures of nature and wildlife, Russian colonists and seaside 'pathfinders'(and in this form was communicated to the international audience). This image assumes the character of a cultural construct, conditions the assessment of the region, and is distinctively tenacious. © 2018 Tomsk State University. All rights reserved.