IMAGOLOGY AND THE IMAGE OF RUSSIA

• Main Author: S. I. Shamparova
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MGIMO University Press 2019-08-01
• Series: Концепт: философия, религия, культура
• Subjects: imagology; travelogue; image; “foreign culture”; the principle of complementarity
• Online Access: https://concept.mgimo.ru/jour/article/view/289
• ISSN: 2541-8831; 2619-0540

Perceiving a different country or a different people, a person is most often faced with an image that has developed in his mind long before there was a real meeting. It is very rare that there is no information about the object of perception in the consciousness of the perceiver. As a rule, a person is already secretly waiting for confirmation of the impressions that have developed in his brain a priori on a variety of sources of information. For solving this problem, a special place is occupied by imagology, a science whose task is to study the image, its components and forming factors. Results: Soviet historian, ethnologist, culturologist L. N. Gumilev formulated the “principle of complementarity”, which serves as an indicator of the positive and negative attitude of the countries to each other . Imagology can certainly change to a process of complementarity. Man thinks in images. The more benevolent will be the image of “another” country, “another” people, the less space will be left for the manifestation of a sense of hostility and enmity. What sources provide information and arouse interest in foreigners? Undoubtedly, one of the most important means of image formation is literature. It is literature that has largely changed the attitude of the West to Russia. On the other hand, Russian classical literature has largely destroyed the negative stereotypes that developed in the minds of the inhabitants of Europe and America.