Życie na pograniczu w zwierciadle opowiadań Aleksandra Kuprina
LIFE IN THE BORDERLANDS IN ALEKSANDR KUPRIN’S STORIES

Summary/Abstract: Having the opportunity to get acquainted with environmental and ethnographic realities ofthe western and southern borderlands of the Russian Empire, Aleksandr Kuprin presents, in hisnumerous stories, the uniqueness of these regions where different influences, i.e., Ukrainian, Jewishand Russian overlapped. He focuses on the artefacts of local material and spiritual cultures as wellas the mentality, morality, topography, fauna and flora of the region. The writer repeatedly showsthe negative results of culture clashes inevitable in these provinces. One of them can be the ease withwhich different antagonisms are created in the overcrowded, multiethnic and multireligious towns(Anti-Semitism) or the existence of various kinds of disproportions, i.e., socio-economical ones. Withtime Kuprin emphasizes the virtues of ethnic and cultural diversities of the community inhabiting theborderlands. The coexistence of disparate traditions and value systems favours mutual enrichmentand that is why the writer thoroughly analyzes several aspects of cultural diffusion such as religious,linguistic, culinary, moral and urban ones.

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