Culture Studies as the Key to Understanding and Interpreting Literary Texts in the Modern Didactic Practice

Abstract

The article discusses a function of Russian culture studies, which is in my opinion, the necessary condition for proper understanding and interpreting literary texts. As we „think about ourselves in the categories of our own culture” (A. Guriewicz), it is crucial for a student to have knowldege on cultural context, in which Russian literature has been growing and functioning over the centuries. Cultural competences should come from the knowledge of culture producing of Ortodox Church, history of Russia and her social and political life. The presented factors determined the development of definite cultural categories (torment and sacrifice, fate, space, East and West, law and others), which form, for Russian culture, a proper „coordinate system”, according to which participants form the Eastern cultural sphere perceive, understand and define their reality. Literature presents the most accurate picture of it, and reading such literature should contain awarness of the texts’ cultural otherness and ability to point, to understand and to interpret them according to „cultural DNA”. Such literature perciving enables so-called cultural theory turn, enriching literary studies with new languages, thanks to which literature can be read and interpret in various contexts.