Border metaphorics: Representation of the Berlin Wall in literary discourse (based on the German and Russian languages)

The research aims to determine the linguocultural specifics of representing the border as an element of collective memory in the literary “discourse of the wall”, using the Russian and German languages as case studies. Memorial narratives about the Berlin Wall, concerning its territorial-architectural form, public perception, and ambiguous assessment of its role in history, form a relatively new artistic direction, the “literature of the border”. The research novelty lies in the interdisciplinary approach to examining the verbalization of commemorative practices from the perspective of both memory studies and linguoculturology, allowing for the determination of the contextual actualization of the metaphor “wall – border” in non-cognate languages. The study describes a metaphorical model “border – wall”, formed by semantic representatives such as theater, mystery, illusion of security, service, route, regression, toy, unnatural formation, predominantly carrying negative connotations in Russian and German linguocultures. The presented images do not correlate with the basic functions of a border (separating, filtering, regulating), but demonstrate the perception of the wall as an artificial construct, a manifestation of societal degradation.