STEPPE KNOWLEDGE AS A HISTORICAL-CULTURAL AND AESTHETIC PHENOMENON

Abstract

The article deals with the formation and development of the Turkic steppe knowledge, reflection of its content, functions, cognitive and communicative nature in modern literature and art of Kazakhstan. This concept is comprehended in a wide civilizational historical and cultural range, with the involvement of data from philosophy, archeology, history, mythology, literature and other areas. Steppe knowledge is a significant episteme of nomadic society, steppe civilization as a whole. The novelty of the study lies in the cognitive and phenomenological consideration of the interdisciplinary issues of steppe knowledge, updated in the modern artistic discourse of Kazakhstan, the identification of its genre, style, and philosophical characteristics. The scientific significance of the work lies in the substantiation and argumentation of important areas of aesthetic and philosophical reconstruction of the components of the steppe knowledge in national literature and art, the term "steppe knowledge" in the general humanitarian interdisciplinary context.

The paradigmatics of the steppe knowledge clearly correlates with the cultural code of the nation, which reflects the specifics of its material, spiritual life space. The article defines and substantiates such distinctive features of this knowledge as unconditional belonging to the steppe area, gradual formation, long-term permanent development and wide distribution in all strata of society, variability, exceptional metaphorization and objectification in understanding the facts of history, philosophy, culture, current issues of nomadic society. Hence the ontological capacity of the steppe knowledge, the features of its widespread distribution and translation. The practical significance of this study is determined by the presentation of a promising original technique of hermeneutic reconstruction of the basic constructs of the Steppe gnosis, analysis of the narrative structure, heterotopias, semantics and style of the text.

The research methodology includes the methods of semiotic, cognitive, literary criticism, narrative, structural, axiological analysis, and the technique of hermeneutic reconstruction. The poetological features of the reflection in contemporary art of significant historical and cultural codes associated with cities and other topoi of the Great Steppe are being developed. The thesis is especially manifested in historical works (Zhusip Balasagun, Saki, The Death of Otrar, Kypshak aruy) and postmodernist texts (Kazakh erotic novel, Meerkat’s House, Gulder men kitaptar). The results of the study are the scientific substantiation of the conceptual integrity of the Steppe knowledge as a specific knowledge paradigm, the preservation of its historical, philosophical and aesthetic value in the modern artistic discourse of Kazakhstan.