Identitāšu semiotiskās reprezentācijas Gunara Janovska un Viestura Kairiša atveidotajā Latgales mazpilsētā
Semiotic Representations of Identities in the Small Town of Latgale Portrayed by Gunars Janovskis and Viesturs Kairišs

Summary/Abstract: Every sign conveys meanings associated with an identity. Such meanings can be formed by figurative transference (metaphor) and a simple connection of phenomena (metonymy). Both recognized word art and symptomatic texts, which are binding only in terms of the selection and content of signs, can be useful for determining the landscape of identities. Such symptomatic texts include Gunars Janovskis’s novel Town by the River (“Pilsēta pie upes”, 1989) and Viesturs Kairišs’s feature film of the same name (2020). In both the novel and its film adaptation, a provincial town by a watercourse is an important backdrop for events. The study aims to find and characterize peripheral identity signs in the city by the river depicted by Janovskis and Kairišs, using Yuri Lotman’s approach to urban semiotics. The most important feature of the identity of the periphery in both the novel and the film is the flexible reaction to the new since the direction of the plot in both texts is determined by the fourfold change of power. In the text of Janovskis and Kairišs, the outskirts are represented in signs that contain impermanence: decentred topography, location by a river with a strong current, symbolism of various powers based on the latest inventions (communications, transport, etc.), and the lack of any creativity. A city by a river is constantly emerging and transforming, therefore it has a history, but it is only a history of adaptation. The signs of the city depicted by Janovskis and Kairišs mostly fulfill the function of historical reference; they are synecdoches (the part represents the whole), which do not pretend to generalize but only allow us to operate with a sufficient amount of facts. The peripheral man grasps only the individual; he lives only within the boundaries of experience. The city by the river is an allegory of this one-sided place of life.

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