INTERPRETATION OF «CAUCASUS TOPOS» IN A. CHEKHOV’S PROSE AND LETTERS

A. Chekhov's writing became the fact of Russian literature in the period of the decline of interest about the Caucasus as a specific cultural phenomenon. For Romanticists both the Caucasus and human representing this topos had specific significance: however, at the end of the 19century' the picture was completely changed. The Caucasus in the culture of Romanticism is a particular spatial sphere with extreme nature which is in opposition to everything mundane. Human in this space is most often depicted as an 'exotic barbarian', a synonym of freedom, in A. Chekhov's prose and letters, the topos of the Caucasus and its inhabitants are interpreted as one's own, familiar cultural space. The exotic component is topical first of all for nature descriptions. Characters of Caucasian origin, sustaining some of their distinct features, are perceived as a part of the general Russian continuum, to a considerable degree losing their peculiar conceptual characteristics.