WALKING THROUGH THE TEXT: THE REPRESENTATION OF MOBILITY IN LATE 19TH-CENTURY LATVIAN FICTION

This article builds on research prompted by studies of small literatures as well as the so-called spatial turn in cultural studies. Attention is focused on the representation of place in late 19th-century literature and its changing meanings in this period of radical social transformation. Through theoretical observations as well as case studies of Latvian literature that deal with two novellas by Rūdolfs Blaumanis and a novel by Andrievs Niedra, this investigation scrutinizes the transformations of the sense of place, the estrangement of a person from his or her environment linked to mobility as well as the manifestations of liminality, in particular those attributed to various contact zones. The aspects of bodily reception of place are also looked at as an important condition of individual existence in the world.