Keyword: «national image»

The author analyses the emergence and development of imagology in Russia as a branch of comparative literary studies investigating national images, specific features of reception of the other/alien in the system of culture. Special attention is paid to the research conducted in the Institute of World Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The leader of these studies was Prof. V. B. Zemskov, whose conception of imagology is considered in the paper, including the main goals of this discipline, its inventory, the notions of stereotype, image, and also the mechanisms and historical aspects of imagological reception and representation.

The author analyses the main works of the outstanding Russian scholar N. P. Mikhalskaya, devoted to the reception of Russia in English literature. Prof. Mikhalskaya applies historical method to British-Russian literary relations and defines the major periods in shaping and development of the hetero-image. The paper is focused on the structure of the image of Russia, its dependence on socio-cultural, political conditions, mechanisms of literary relations, etc.