DOI: 10.7256/2454-0749.2019.3.29889

Abstract: The subject of the research is the semantic complex 'travel' in Mikhail Kuzmin's novels. The semantic complex of travel in Kuzmin's novels reflects the acmeism orientation at 'craving for world culture', however, it is more likely a trigger for the search of a creative code engraved in in the global literary process. Within the framework of the research, the semantic complex means, firstly, a genre structure and secondly, a combination of motives that play different roles in a literary work. Kuzmin's prose presents a semantic complex 'travel' both at the level of the genre structure of the novel and the level of motive organisation. To analyze the complex of motives and genre structures, the researcher used the complex approach which included intertextual analysis and biographical commentary. The analysis carried out b the author has allowed to discover and describe peculiarities of the genre and motive of travel in Kuzmin's prose. In his novel 'Wings' the image of travel is represented at the motivational level and relates to the idea of the personal growth of the hero. Travel is also a structure-forming genre in his novels' Deeds of Alexander the Great' and 'Wonderful Life of Joseph Balsamo, Cagliostro Earl'. The life path of these heroes can be conditionally divided into two parts, the 'upward' path towards glory and 'downward' path towards death. 

Keywords: the chronotope, the motive of the way, motivic complex, travel, traveloh, genre, the novel, story, Kuzmin, a myth