The image of the city in the narratives of artists (based on the material of the Chelyabinsk text)

The article is devoted to the specifics of the image of Chelyabinsk in the narratives of artists. The stereotypical idea of the city, formed in the mass consciousness, is rethought in the works of Chelyabinsk artists and writers, each of which creates its own vision and ways of representing urban space. Methods of interviewing and questioning made it possible to expand ideas about narratives by referring to the text interview, to correlate the specifics of the image of the city in the work of artists and in personal associations. Two types of tasks related to mental mapping techniques (K. Lynch) were used to conduct interviews and questionnaires. This methodology is focused on creating a subjective creative space of the city, on identifying the specifics of the perception of artists of individual city loci or the image of Chelyabinsk as a whole. The first type of tasks was associated with the ability to build a unique author's march around the city, focusing on free movement in space, the choice of any «points of attraction» significant for the creative person. The second type of tasks involved choosing the direction of movement and places to stop in the territory limited by the defined framework, which is the tourist center of the city. Based on the compilation of mental maps, the article analyzes the features of the embodiment of the image of Chelyabinsk in the narratives of the artist N. Bulaeva, as well as the Chelyabinsk poets I. Argutina and Y. Grants, who are representatives of different generations of Chelyabinsk poetry. The work of Natalia Bulaeva is focused on the narrative of the fairy tale, on the special acceptance of the city as a magical, creative, protective resident. Irina Argutina perceives the city as a personal space, comprehended through the prism of subjective experience, childhood memories, family history. In the works of Janis Grants, the city is represented in a specific spatial locus, limited to a separate area of the city. The image of the city in the writer's work is created with the help of sound and visual landmarks, it is filled with a sense of loneliness, homelessness of the lyrical hero seeking refuge in the city. Creative concepts of seeing the image of the city make it possible to correct the stereotypical perception of harsh, industrial Chelyabinsk, to form the idea of the city as a space of creativity.