Historical, Cultural and Ethno-psychological Connotations of the Image of the Homeland in Chinese Literature

Abstract

The relevance of the research is due to the interest of modern literary criticism in the study of conceptual images of national literatures formed by the basic universals of ethnic consciousness. The novelty lies in the appeal to the image of homeland in Chinese literature through the prism of the historical-etymological and historical-literary reconstruction of the concept that reflects the ethno-psychological foundations of Chinese consciousness. The problem of the study is comparing a number of lexemes, concepts, artistic images that have formed over the centuries the modern idea of the homeland in the Chinese picture of the world. The purpose of the work is to an­ alyze the evolution of the concept of “homeland” in the Chinese ethnic and national consciousness on the basis of dictionaries and works of Chinese literature from the Tang era to the 20th century. The methodology is based on the etymological, lexical and semantic reconstruction of the concept of “homeland” in the Chinese picture of the world, based on the historical and cultural context. The main research methods are comparative-historical and structural-semantic ones. As a result of the study, the author comes to the conclusion that the image of the homeland in the ethnic picture of the world of the Chinese was formed as the statehood and national identity of the peoples inhabiting China. In ancient China, the concept of homeland was associated with the place of birth of ancestors, native places, and the country of exodus of alien peoples. These connotations are most clearly found in the lyrics of the Tang era. By the beginning of the 20th century, with the rise of the national movement, the image of the Motherland, drawn from European culture, appeared in the Chinese ethnic consciousness. The Xinhai Revolution allowed the Chinese to discover the world and foreign lands. The image of the motherland-fatherland in this context appears as a correlate of the concept of a foreign land (Japan, England, America). The image of the Motherland, the Father land is used most actively in new Chinese literature during the period of anti-Japanese resistance. After the formation of the PRC and the formation of the national consciousness of a united China, which united many nationalities, among the connotative meanings of ideas about the homeland, the concept of the homeland as a home state is of primary importance. Keywords: the Chinese, ethnic consciousness, land of ancestors, Motherland, foreign land