Podróż w poszukiwaniu tożsamości – geografia i mit we Wschodzie Andrzeja Stasiuka

Abstract

The article is devoted to a discussion of the geographical and mythical dimension of journey in Andrzej Stasiuk’s „Wschód” [„The East”], including the identity context. To this end, the author conducts a functional analysis of the geographical proper names, the use of the lexemes geography and tectonics as well as the use (including mythopoeic use) of the concepts of the map as well as that of the boundary and boundlessness, taking into account strategies dynamizing the presentation of the geographical space. Moreover, the author describes the mythizations dominating in the descriptions of particular geographical areas (East Poland, Russia, Mongolia and China). In the later part of the article, the author presents the way in which the narrator reconstructs his identity, focusing on those aspects which are connected with the geographical or travelling context of the narrative. In the course of analysis, the author enumerates the following characteristics of the narrator motivated by geography and its mythicization: alienation, the status of the inhabitant of the borderland or the East, the traveller and the writer.