Mythologemes and mythologization in the museum and tourism practices

The article defines the role of mythologization in creating a museum and tourist image of attractions. Museum and tourism practices suggest a mythological representation of the past in the present. The author singled out two levels of mythological activity: mythologization in the creating the museum and tourist image and the use of mythology in the comprehension of museum and tourist experience. Myths in the tourism sphere are considered as a product of mythological thinking in the form of legendary texts in tourism and museum practices and as a principle of meaning formation. The mythologemes of the ways, insights, revelations are the examples of the using mythology in the comprehension of the museum and tourist experience. Authenticity is one of the leading mythological concepts of the tourism sphere. Binary opposition «veracity, authenticity - copy» is one of the important issues in the semantic field of the museum and tourism. The concept-mythologem «All the world's a stage» in museum and tourism practices is used as the basis of a «dramaturgic approach», when the objects of the show are «presented» in the «theatrical» format. The binary opposition «behind the scenes (backstage)» is based on a mystifying approach to the tourism presentation, delineating what is shown (the staged authenticity), and what is hiding from the tourist (behind the scenes, «the backstage»). Interpretation of mythological motifs, symbols and metaphors, their organic use in practice is an indispensable condition for positive dynamics in the museum and tourism sphere. Theoretical constructs based on mythologems-concepts, mythologization, contribute to figurative symbolic generalization of museum and tourist experience and makes it possible to correlate it with social reality as a whole.