THE IMAGE OF THE EAST IN THE EMBASSY DISCOURSE (INTRODUCTION TO THE TOPIC)

The article considers a layer of literature that has value as a primary source of information about the East, incl. about Persia, which is practically not studied. These are diplomatic documents, the texts of which have so far been considered precisely as documents from a historical point of view in the writings of historians. From the author's point of view, these documents can be considered in the context of the Eastern text of Russian literature. They represent a thematic unity, as they are based on general mythology and image of the East, general material descriptions. The author introduces the concept of embassy discourse to determine the literary function of such texts. The material of the study is the texts of participants in diplomatic missions, which represent a specific description of the East, motivated by the professional interests of the authors. The article analyzes a specific document of the embassy discourse – "Day notes on the journey of the Russian imperial embassy in Persia in 1816 and 1817, conducted by the adviser of this embassy A. E. Sokolov." It is established that special elements of narration were formed in A. E. Sokolov's "Day Notes" to convey the constants of the embassy text: natural descriptions, descriptions of social and cultural space, author's comments, ways of mastering foreign names and words