On the question of the correlation of Caucasian and Siberian “texts” of Russian literature

The article is devoted to the study of the Caucasian “text” of Russian literature in comparison with the Siberian “text” in order to discover the fundamental differences between the Caucasus and Siberia as two mythopoetic incarnations of the “land of the dead”. The research of the “Caucasian” texts of such Russian writers as G.R. Derzhavin, A.A. Bestuzhev-Marlinsky, A.S. Pushkin, M.Yu. Lermontov, O.E. Mandelstam is based on the universal sign complex - the “world tree”, studied and described by V.N. Toporov. Our study proves that mountains within the framework of the Caucasian “text” are interpreted as a variant of the world tree. The architectonics of the world tree presupposes a vertical axis defining universal oppositions - the same “vertical” axiological architectonics is occured in the Caucasian “text”, and it distinguishes the Caucasian “text” from the Siberian one with its “horizontal” architectonics. Overcoming the Caucasian space by the hero can be understood as anabasis (ascent into the mountains) and as katabasis (descent into the gorge). The specificity of the middle term of opposition within the universal symbolic complex of the world tree allows us to consider the Caucasus as a transit space, similar to the locus of Purgatory. The hero’s stay in the Caucasus, therefore, can be understood as a state of temporary death (the Caucasus as a space of rebirth) or as an intermediate state preceding the final transpassing to another world (the space of redemption / aerial toll house).