Imagological Representation of the Balkan City in the Collection of Essays by Joseph Roth “Cities and People”

The article makes an imagological analysis of the section “Journey through the Balkans” from the book “Cities and people” written by famous Austrian writer Joseph Roth (1894–1939). The specifics of the formation of the urban imagological image as a socio-cultural space are described, the characteristic features of the author’s travelologists are outlined, including: subjective optics, symbolism, representation of cultural, social and political transformations, etc. The study used elements of the biographical method, because the author came from Brody (now Lviv region), which is the border town. He grew up in a multiethnic multilingual environment on the outskirts of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which partially influenced his understanding of the Balkan context and undisguised empathy for the inhabitants of this region. The article mentions J. Roth’s personal experience of participation in the First World War, as the writer resorts to retrospection in the last text of the analyzed chapter and uses his stay in Serbia as a way to close the gestalt and work through the triggers through reporting. Particular attention is paid to the analysis of social contrasts, architectural landscapes, the political structure of different Balkan countries, as well as a generalized description of the mentality and life of the population. It is determined that the author considers cities as a metaphor for identity, cultural crossroads and existential search. He applies an anthropocentric approach to the description of urban space, emphasizing details that reflect the spirit of the times and cultural specifics. The article emphasizes the uniqueness of J. Roth’s reports, which go beyond the traditional ideas about travelogues. The study is interdisciplinary and is based on the methods of imagology, cultural studies, literary hermeneutics and sociocultural analysis. The article contributes to the rethinking of the place of J. Roth’s travelologists in European literature, as well as the author’s contribution to the formation of cultural memory of the Balkans in the interwar period.