About the authors
Nataļja Šroma (Riga, Latvia), DSc in Philology, Associate Professor, Russian and Slavonic Department, Faculty of Humanities, University of Latvia.
ORCID ID: 0000-0002-9872-6285.
E-mail:
Anastasija Vedela (Riga, Latvia), DSc in Philology, Leading Expert, Faculty of Humanities, University of Latvia.
ORCID ID: 0000-0001-9408-0352.
E-mail:
Abstract
The material for the research of the dacha-related theme in the Russian and Latvian literature of Latvia consists of various publications in the Latvia’s periodicals of the 1920s–1930s — in the newspapers “Vechernee vremja” (Evening Time), “Segodnja” (Today), “Segodnja vecherom” (Today in the evening), in the magazines “Dlja vas” (For you), “Svari” (Libra), as well as of the materials of the archive of Riga’s Russian Drama Theatre. The researched texts, composed by Guslar/Soserzcatel (L. Korol-Purashevich), Leri (V. Klopotovskiy), Lentyay (P. Pilskiy), Kuri-Beri (A. Valdmanis) and others, are considered as a peculiar “dacha-related plot” with the following representatives: the chronotope characteristic of mythological plots — the cyclic time and the space of the cultural in-between (between nature and culture, urban and rural); specific eventfulness that rises to the mythological first events or to the events of history and literature; recurring plot-related situations and conflicts — the stories of success and failure. The following oppositions that form the cultural paradigm of the phenomenon of a dacha on the Riga coast have been specified: mythical — carnival, idyllic — ironic, female — male, adultrelated — child-related. The materials in the Latvian language, selected for the research, made it possible to challenge the concept of dacha as of uniquely Russian phenomenon.