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The article reveals the phenomenon of frontier mentality and its syncretic features and marginal character. Being the birth of the border (frontier), this type of mentality is a complex construct, a specific ideological and psychological formation, the problems of which, on the one hand, are determined by social, geographical, historical and other factors, and on the other hand, are exposed to the external environment and embedded in various spheres of human existence. Among Russian emigrants who were carriers of the Russian logocentric culture, creativity becomes one of the main such spheres, especially literary one. Through the word, not only individual personality features of the authors were recorded, but also common tendencies of frontier mentality and the mentality of this historical period. The author, using the example of literary ethnography, makes an attempt to distinguish these features and the main trends in the mentality of Russian emigrants in China.

Keywords: frontier, Far East, religious syncretism, mentality, Russian émigré community, literary ethnography

DOI: 10.22250/2072-8662.2020.3.45-54

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About the author 

Evgeniya A. Kontaleva – senior teacher at the Department of Religious Studies and History of the Amur State University,
research fellow at the AmSU Laboratory of Archeology and Anthropology; 675027 21 Ignatievskoe shosse, Blagoveshchensk, Russia;
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.