ANALYSIS OF DESCRIPTIONS OF THE SIGHTS OF VLADIMIR AS A WAY OF OBSERVING SOCIO-CULTURAL CHANGES (BASED ON GUIDEBOOKS AROUND VLADIMIR OF THE LATE XIX - EARLY XXI CENTURIES)

Abstract

The aim of the article is to study the local history material of guidebooks around Vladimir from the end of the 19th to the beginning of the 21st century using the methodology and conceptual apparatus of N. Luhmann, a recognized classic of modern sociology. As a methodological prerequisite for the study, the principle of A. Korzybski is taken that ‘a map is not a territory’, according to which any description of reality is only a certain focus of observation (an observer form), regulated by its own internal criteria. After analyzing the use of the word «guide» in the Russian language on the basis of the resource «National Corpus of the Russian Language», the change in the semantics of the term from the meaning of a spiritual teacher and guide (18th century) to the designation of a printed publication from the end of the 19th century is revealed. Studying the descriptions of material cultural monuments presented in the guidebooks, it seems possible to consider the dynamics of the change in semantic accents characteristic of a certain period: the image of the city as the first «grand-ducal capital» rich in Orthodox shrines (late 19th century), the focus of commercial and industrial life in the Rus’ (the period of the establishment of Soviet power in the post-revolutionary period), one of the oldest cities, « witness and participant » of the intense centuries-old struggle of the Russian people in the creation of their centralized state (post-war period), the country's unique cultural heritage («stone chronicle» of the glorious past), associated with civic awareness of the concept of «homeland» in the context of the Golden Ring route (1970-80s), one of the largest tourist centers popular in Russia and among foreign tourists, a city of Orthodox pilgrimage, etc. in the modern period.