Between imagination and reality: A complementary approach to “Harbin note” through diaspoetics and cultural semiotics

Abstract

In the study of Russian émigré literature, an inherent Russian-centric perspective persists. Diaspoetics, with its meta-critical attributes, offers a means effectively to address this limitation. Central to its focus are the concepts of ‘imagination’ and ‘reality’ in diaspora identity. Across its developmental stages, diaspoetics alternately emphasizes objective identity definition and subjective identity construction, each approach presenting distinct strengths and weaknesses. However, from the perspective of Juri Lotman’s cultural semiotics, culture as a selfconscious individuality inherently unites subject and object. The tension between ‘imagination’ and ‘reality’ finds resolution in the literary creation of the metaphor “Harbin note”, which emerges from the unique diasporic space of Harbin. Consequently, within the interplay of the mythological geographies of “East” and “West”, the identity of the diaspora community simultaneously embodies opposition and achieves unity.