Književni prostor i ruska semiotička škola
Literary Space and the Russian Semiotic School

Summary/Abstract: The paper presents an interpretation of literary space by the Russian semioticians Lotman and Toporov. Both of them rely on Lichatchev’s typology of styles and Bachtin’s concept of crhonotope, but Lotman is more interested in the linguistic and Toporov in the literary aspect of the concept. Lotman’s theory stems from the understanding of literature as a modeling system of reality. He has found out that the border-lines and orientation points for semantic oppositions are the basic organising elements of literary space. Toporov has introduced the concept of mythopoetic space, exploring archaic structures of thought and their manifestations in literature, above all where the semantic oppositions tend to be suppresed. The presentation of the basic theses of the Russian semioticians is completed by a tentative outline of their application in the analysis of literary space in relation to other narrative categories and in a brief and simplified interpretation of the evolution of space in Russian literature.

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