| Popis: |
The work concentrates on the problem of an ontological and axiological presence of the images of a place in widely -understood texts in the system of collective symbolism connected in the present and in the past with a changing area of Macedonia. The analysis is interdisciplinary in character, dealing with among others complex geographical, historical, literary and ethnographic aspects and its methodology arranges the material diachronically, providing a description of geo -cultural, socio- -identifying or artistic phenomena. Their identity is defined in contexts of topology of a physical area (especially a humanistic geography), selected theories of symbol and image, mythographic studies, ideograms of folklore and literary topics. The understanding of the very problem is more topoanalytical and environmental than political or ideological. A theoretical basis for formulating the above -mentioned hypotheses is defined by an autonomous part of the work (Abstract localization) which could serve as a universal research model on other cases of constructing geo -cultural and geo -ethnic symbolism. It covers four segments of the key issue: 1) diversification of the notion of place from the perspective of natural history, and, particularly, a humanistic one; 2) order and occurrence of symbolic images in culture (according to their various conceptions and functions); 3) presence of the symbols of place in cultural products; 4) popularization of these symbols in literary texts. In the first two, a cross -sectional approach accentuating classical Western European and American theories dominates, in the remaining ones a broader Slavish comparative perspective, including a Russian one. Many of the works cited in the above -mentioned chapters are quoted functionally in subsequent chapters of the very thesis. In the second part (Concrete localization) the attention is paid to natural and anthropogenic conditions of the formation of geo -cultural symbolism in Macedonia in the past and present (an increase in meanings in selected places). A subchapter devoted to stimuli coming from a physical geo -sphere is to emphasise the experience of a territorial community deriving from the nature of natural conditions. The next subchapter, larger and constituting the most important part of the whole study, concerns the phenomena taking place in the atmosphere, showing within its scope long transformations of a symbolic ethnography in cultural awareness of Macedonians and external observers of the Balkan area. The material in this part is rich in arguments in favour of the existence of a compact imaginative complex based on numerous detailed data from the field of material and spiritual culture of various epochs. As a supplement appears here a vital exemplification (Three symbolic horizons), giving an image of an ethno -semantic production of values in three main places/towns of national memory, Salonica, Ochrid and Skopje. Descriptions of Macedonian maps of a “microcosm imagined” close with a presentation of ideological and formal uses of attributes and roles of a locative universe of symbols in Macedonian literature and, to a limited extent, in folklore (Topographies of words ― attributes, messages, mediations). It is an extended, initial skeleton of problems (selected examples mainly in footnotes) which requires a continuation in another work in the future. Despite difficulties in creating a fixed and systematic catalogue of references to the category of place (too many examples, fickleness of valuing and composition of the community of users, etc.) it is possible to define social (discursive and psychological) as well as esthetic functions of historically reinforced images. The scope of their appearance in Macedonian area is presented in this work by means of a division into geosophic symbols, existential genesis and the ones of a cultural area. In geo -sphere selected loci develop with time in centres of symbolic influence fulfilling various functions as localizations with the objects: integration of collective identity, valorization of national tradition, spacious orientation, visualization of colloquial experience and construction of emotive matrices of imagination. What is striking is a predominance of collective affective images over a natural geometric analysis of the environment, which is connected with the need to codify generative experiences and the presence of auto -therapeutic practices in establishing national heritage. Constellations of “vital points” (symbolic zones) appear from the intention to reach, live or visit them, not an abstract vision, and become intentional subjects of affect condensation with time. |
