A frontier discourse in the works of v. K. Arseniev

Abstract

The article in the methodological way reveals the term “frontier discourse” and demonstrates the opportunities of its application towards Vladimir Arseniev’s works. The scientific and literary texts of Vladimir K. Arseniev (1872–1930), a traveller, writer and researcher of the Far East, author of the bestseller “Dersu Usala”, have long been an important source for constructing the image of the Far East as a “remote” region of the Russian Empire and the USSR and as a peculiar frontier zone. Using the frontier methodology, the writer’s literary texts and unpublished archival data (field diaries, author`s pictures, photo, and documentary), the authors emphasize the key ideas of Arseniev’s works as well as analyze his activity in the sphere of literature and cinematography. In the writer’s works, the Far East appears as a region marked by a complex of ideas combining pictures of nature, ethnic diversity, colonists and a frontier zone. The foundations and context of frontier discourse in Arseniev’s biography are shown, the Arseniev’s basic topics in literary texts (“Forest”, “Mountains”, “Sea”, “Dersu Usala”, “Colonists”, “Frontier”) are defined. The outlined topics are considered to be structural factors, a base for reproduction of the frontier discourse about the Far East. © 2019 Institute of History and Archeology of the Ural Branch of RAS. All rights reserved.