HOMELAND AS A CULTURAL CODE: THE EVOLUTION OF THE IMAGE IN RUSSIAN POETRY OF THE XIX–XXI CENTURIES

Abstract

Over two centuries, the theme of the homeland in Russian poetry has undergone a remarkable transformation. In the 19th century, it was presented primarily through a romantic lens: delight, idealisation, and patriotic feeling. By our time, the picture has become dramatically more complex. Today’s authors write about the homeland differently — their works contain both love and bitterness, memory of the tragic pages of the past, and an attempt to embrace the country's inner diversity. The conversation about one's native land becomes deeply personal, almost confessional. The paper shows how the succession of historical eras, social upheavals and new aesthetic demands gradually reshaped the poetic optics. Stable images (river, village, monument) and motifs — from bright pastoral to aching anxiety — are identified. Through the prism of collective memory, these elements form a durable semantic framework of Russian lyric poetry. An analysis of contemporary texts reveals an interesting trend: the image of the homeland increasingly becomes an arena of confrontation between tradition and innovation, the personal and the universal. Poetry, it turns out, not only preserves memory but constantly reworks it, not allowing our ideas about ourselves to become ossified. This perspective opens up new facets in what would seem to be long-studied material.