Spatial myth in the Yakut urban text: specifics and functions

The relevance of the article is dictated by an attempt to form a methodology for the study of the Yakut urban text, which actualizes the authentic object of analysis – the mythological layer of the text of the town of Yakutsk. The scientific novelty of the article is determined by the attempt of a new understanding of the town as a semantic structure, which is manifested in the constancy of images, universals with cultural, historical, mental community and united in a single artistic system. The representation of the image of the town in a literary text as a segment within which the unique quality of the national world is most vividly revealed is currently one of the unexplored areas in Yakut science. The purpose of the article is to determine the specifics of the local myth in the Yakut urban text. The tasks undertaken include: identifying the mythological narrative about the sacred landscape of the town (about Saisary Lake, Chochur Muraan, Tuymaada valley, Southern and Northern Capes, Lena River), which constitute the primary level of the mythopoeic text; to create typological differences between urban myths (about the founding of the city, the arrival of the Cossacks in the Lena region), etiological myths (about the origin of which-or natural and cultural features and social objects), eschatological myths (about the future of the city), which form a substantial part of the sacred biography of the town of Yakutsk, which has a significant impact on the formation of urban and national identity. The object of the research is the specifics of the urban spatial myth, focusing on the components and meanings of Yakutsk’s mythology as a text. Employing interdisciplinary, comparative, and historical-cultural approaches have become an analytical tool in the article. The study of this problem in the literary aspect helps to identify the features of constructing a national picture of the world, the specifics of individual style, and the author’s position of the Yakut writer as a bearer of national consciousness. The material for the article is partly folklore, mythological, historical sources, as well as literary works by Yakut writers of the twentieth century

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