UDC

114+130.3(470.1/.2)

DOI

10.37482/2687-1505-V228

Authors

Aleksey A. Usov
N. Laverov Federal Center for Integrated Arctic Research of the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences; nab. Severnoy Dviny 23, Arkhangelsk, 163069, Russian Federation; ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0466-0124 e-mail: usov@fciarctic.ru

Abstract

This article presents the results of many years of research into the geocultural space of the Russian North, its figurative and symbolic framework. The conceptual and methodological foundations for studying the principles of constructing geocultural space as well as Russian and foreign theories of cultural landscape are considered. The paper presents the author’s theoretical nature–human–culture model, which elucidates the problem of overcoming the dialectical contradiction in understanding the Northern Russian space in terms of adaptation and spiritual transformation. The article reveals the ethnocultural meanings of the space (landscape) of the Russian North in the context of the nature–human–culture triad. The symbolic space is formed in the process of exploration and “appropriation” of the Northern territories, which is expressed in the acts of comprehension (of both the northern world and the place of the human in it) and expansion. The author concludes that the exploration of the Northern space is a critically intense process, where both poles of human life, spiritual and physical, are manifested to the fullest. Considering the dual nature of humans, the exploration of the Northern space takes place on two levels: material (physical) and spiritual. The result of such exploration is the cultural landscape, i.e. an element of the geocultural space in which a person acts both as a subject and as a measure of its potential development. In terms of practical significance, this paper solves the problem of actualization of the cultural landscapes of Northern Russia as a basic component of the country’s regional and national culture, as well as the problem of formation of sociocultural constants that determine the spatial coordinates of the socioeconomic development of the North. The scientific importance and relevance of this research lie in the need to reconstruct the geocultural and geohistorical images of the Russian North and Russian Arctic as a symbolic resource for the development of the Northern macroregion.

Keywords

Russian North, Russian Arctic, Pomorye, space construction, geocultural space, cultural landscape, triadology

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