THE SILK ROAD AS A LITERARY-CULTURAL SPACE: ECOPOETIC APPROACHES TO RUSSIAN AND UZBEK HISTORICAL FICTION

The article examines the Silk Road not simply as a network of trade routes but as a literary-cultural space where environment, mobility and historical memory intersect. Focusing on the comparative possibilities of Russian and Uzbek historical fiction, it proposes a three-level method: identifying material landscape, interpreting its narrative functions and tracing ethical attitudes toward inhabiting a shared environment. The study distinguishes historically grounded routes from their fictional reconstruction and argues that desert, river, mountain and city form interconnected narrative environments rather than isolated scenic details.