M.M. Prishvin's understanding of province in autobiographical novel “Kashcheev chain”

The article is devoted to specifics of representation and interpretation of the artistic image of province. Special interpretations are presented by the autobiographical hero of Mikhail Prishvin’s novel “Kashcheev Chain”. Cultural, spatial, and spiritual specifics of Russian (Chernozem and Siberian) and German provincial lands are provided. In M.M. Prishvin’s understanding, the image of province is interpreted as a phenomenon and a metaphor at the same time. Presented as a phenomenon it has its own “face”, its own history, its landscape, and its local flavor. The concept of province as a metaphor realizes itself through major components of the studied “provincial text”. These components have both positive and negative connotations. We came to a conclusion that in the novel “Kashcheev Chain” the concept of province is predominantly understood as a “native land”. The growing consciousness of the autobiographical hero evaluates the place not only from the stand point of his own comfort and well-being but as a topos of national identity.