• Russian Language and Literature
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• no.61
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• pp.33-59
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• 2018

This article aims to analyze the D. Fonvizin's travelogue, Letters from France (1777-1778). Through this end, we try to understand what the 18th century travelogue did for modern Russian literature. We analyze Fonvizin's travelogue by comparing with Radishchev's and Karamzin's, where necessary, which are also major travelogues in the late 18th century. We examine his text by focusing on the discursive function of travelogue among the three functions of the travelogue text as a methodology. We explore how Russians see foreign countries and how foreign people see Russian as well. Through this approach, we argue that the "literary" model of the travelogue in the 18th century Russia can not be fully understood without a discussion on social discourse, as Fonvizin's travelogue reveals a matter of modern Russian identity. Fonvizin was the one of the first who wrote modern Russian travelogue while modern Russian prose arose in the 1770s and laid the groundwork for the modern Russian novels. It is no coincidence that Russia's modern literature arose when 'travel wring' became popular in the 18th century Russia.

• Journal of International Area Studies (JIAS)
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.135-156
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• 2010

While there are a few ways of giving meanings to the term, "Altai" ranging from a language family to a national residing around the Altai Mountains in Russian Federation, and to the people speaking the language or the whole area where they live, there have been controversial debates whether it is a meaningful categorization. This paper argues that the basic cause lying beneath the controversies is the underdevelopment of the subject that identifies itself as a representative of the whole area where the Altaic language family is spoken. It might be true, as some Korean and Russian scholars insist, that what deserves to be called Altaic culture (or civilization) has provided a common culture and mutual interactions with the people. However, the Altaic people failed to constitute themselves as a meaningful modern group, that is a nation, and they did not fully develop national consciousness, As a result, although their way of life may be regarded as an origin of various cultures across North-East Asia, Altaic culture is not sufficient to give a momentum to claim for cultural initiative in the region. This comes at least partly from the reconfiguration of ethnic identity through a Soviet type of modernization and its geopolitical situation surrounded by super-powers such as China and Russia, as well as belated import of religions such as Buddhism and Christianity. From a wide perspective, the trouble about delimiting an area is not unique in Altai, but universally found in anywhere, as far as area studies are concerned. The delimitation of an area is not a natural outcome of physical environment but an artificial production of how cultural-political relationships have been distributed. Therefore, while the case of Alai has its own specificities, its implications that a national or regional boundary in area studies should not be taken for granted may be applied to other areas.