Geokriitikast Peipsi Järve Näitel
A geocritical approach to literature written about Lake Peipus

Summary/Abstract: The aim of the article is to analyse literature related to Lake Peipus from the perspective of geocriticism. First, the article gives an overview about geocriticism and a brief introduction to its origins, that is, the spatial turn of the 1980s. The second part of the article has its focus on Bertrand Westphal’s theory, especially the four elements of geocriticism: multifocalization, polysensoriality, stratigraphic vision and intertextuality. According to the principle of multifocalization, the geocritic is required to engage with many different points of view. Polysensoriality means that it is not only the visual landscape that is important but landscape as sensed with all senses. Stratigraphic vision means that topos is understood to comprise multiple layers of meaning. Intertextuality shows how a place is full of connections between different texts. All these elements are illustrated with examples from Peipus-literature. The third part of the article analyses the symbolic meanings that emerge from Peipus-literature. The symbolic meanings of Lake Peipus can be divided into three groups: Lake Peipus as an environment (a space/place), Lake Peipus as a border or a communication route (a non-place), and Lake Peipus as a sanctuary or someone’s destiny (a non-geographical entity). In the analysis I primarily focus on which meanings seem more important to local authors and which ones to those who have visited the lake only once or just a couple of times. In conclusion, Lake Peipus is still mainly the landscape of Juhan Liiv’s oeuvre.

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