The Siberian plot in M.M. Prishvin's fate and literary works

For the first time in the context of the spatial turn of the modern humanitarian knowledge, the author studies the dynamics, meanings, motifs, biographical and artistic versions of the Siberian plot (the plot of discovery, conquest and development of Siberia) in M.M. Prishvin’s fate and literary works. The Siberian plot almost coincides in time (1889-1954) with the writer’s life and is structured by the logic of his Siberian travels. The author reconstructs the routes and meanings of Prishvin’s three trips to Siberia (1889-1892, 1909, 1931) coinciding in space with the Russian pioneers’s paths of the 16th -19th century. For Prishvin, this Siberian plot becomes a way of self-identification (revealing his true self among strangers and strangeness in his true self). There he tests the revolutionary and religious ideas of Russian culture and comprehends Russia. J. Kennan’s and E. Renan’s books played an important role in this process. The author proves that the Siberian plot became the test and trial for Prishvin’s most important ideas and literary motifs: the Russian dream of “trying one’s luck” in new places (“gathering of the Russian lands”); the people’s way into the unknown and the monarchical path of the Russian history (the labor sweat and “blood” of state violence); the co-creation of man and nature (industrial development and pristine Siberian nature), etc. Prishvin’s Siberian plot is related to the key themes, motifs and ideas of the Siberian text of the Russian culture (Siberia and / as Asia, America, colony, exile, space, freedom / will, etc.). Its dominant image is Siberia as Russia and the Russian path into the unknown.