Oriental Travelogue by Pavel Sumarokov (“Leisure of Crimean judge or Second journey to Tavrida”)

Abstract

The article examines the memoir text by P. I. Sumarokov “Leisure of Crimean judge or Second journey to Tavrida” in the context of travel literature of the XVIII-XIX centuries. The work is done within the framework of the research project “Annotated sign “Russian travelogue of the XVIII - early XIX century” supported by the Russian State Scientific Fund. The novelty of the research lies in the fact that special attention is paid to the narrative strategies of the author. The determining factors in the choice of the latter are the direction of travel (“inner East” of the Russian Empire) and the specific vision of the author-narrator. The latter is linked with pairing the classic and sentimental tendencies. Separately, the author stops on the binary oppositions that determine the attitude of the traveller: “West - East” and “capital - province”. The first parts of these oppositions are invariably associated with sentimental and idyllic experiences of the narrator. The article reveals the specificity of the image of the narrator, conjugating two forms: the sentimental traveller and the responsible official and a citizen. Attention is also given to expression in the narrative of strategies of the traveller-narrator of colonising and being colonised types of consciousness. The author also focuses on the intertextual relations of the analyzed work. It is concluded about non-discreet narrative structure of “Leisure of Crimean judge”.