Article

Name: Travel plot in the story “Birds, or Catechesis of a Man” by Andrei Bitov: mythopoetics of the Curonian Spit

Authors: Ekaterina D. Bukhanova

Tomsk State University, Tomsk, Russian Federation; Siberian State Medical University, Tomsk, Russian Federation

In the section Study of literature

Abstract:

This paper is part of a four-part series exploring the poetics of travel narratives by Andrei Bitov, specifically his travel story “Birds, or Catechesis of a Man” (1970, 1975). The analysis delves into the natural-philosophical, cosmogonic, antiutopian, and mortal semantic aspects of the geopoetic image of the Curonian Spit. The symbolic code of the Spit as “the bottom of the air ocean” or “the border of two environments” and the zoosophy of space, primarily the originality of avifauna, are considered the key mythologemes of the topos. An evident parallel is revealed between the organic landscape of the Spit and the lyrical and essayistic relief found within the text of the story. The symbolic possibilities of separate locations on the Spit, including the “dancing forest,” biostation, dunes, and East and West coasts, are examined. Their juxtaposition reveals a “landscape of consciousness” for the lyrical hero-traveler. The heterogeneity and distinctive morphology of the Spit, a slender sandbar separating two bodies of water, have been interpreted as a metaphorical representation of human life. The writer views it as a symbol of existence in a state of tension “on the border of two environments,” belonging simultaneously to both realms: earth and sky, flesh and spirit, logos and eros, good and evil, life and death, being and non-being. The conception of Bitov is compared with the aesthetic systems of A. Platonov and I. Brodsky, as well as the philosophical ideas of N. Fedorov.

Keywords: A. G. Bitov, “Birds, or the Catechesis of a Man”, travel plot, mythopoetics, geopoetics, Curonian Spit

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