Le Caucase : un espace instable au cœur de la littérature romantique russe

Résumé En

In the 20-30 's of the XIXth century, the Caucasus abundantly nourished the Russian literature and artistic imagination. As a "New Parnassus" and a "warm Siberia" - that is as a source of poetic creation and a space of relegation for an entire generation of writers (Pushkin, Lermontov, Bestuzhev, Griboedov. . .), as a mental construction and a colonial space, as a paradigm of romantic modernity and a place of ancient legends, the Caucasus initiated a new reflection on civilization's values and Russia's historical future faced with Western and Eastern cultures. The Russian literary discourse on the Caucasus is clearly ambivalent ; the formation of this discourse allows to analyze the different functions devoted to "the other space" from both aesthetic and ideological points of view. How does Russian literature consider the colonized and "primitive" people ? What are the dominant images ? Representations of the "Russian East" are parts of complex identity strategies whose stakes are high and exceed a simple recognition of cultural differences.