Space and Its Borders in the "Description of the Selected Villages" (T’aengniji, 1751) by Li Chung-hwan
The “Description of the Selected Villages” written in exile by an official Li Chung-Hwan (1690-1756?) is the first Korean book on cultural geography. It tells about the eight Korean provinces: their history, geography, historical anecdotes, poetry that praises Korean nature, and information about trade and routes. The book was written in Hanmun, a Korean form of written Chinese language. Right now it is being translated to Russian by the author of the article. The study is focused on the concept of “space” and its manifestation in the narrative of the “Descriptions of Selected Villages” where the “real space,” defined by the geographical boundaries, is connected to the “unreal space” that serves as a key element needed for understanding and interpretation of the text. Our task is to correlate the “space” and the text; to reveal the boundaries of the “unreal space” in, according to Li Chung-Hwan, was the Korean state in the 18th century, and to explain the reasons for this perception. We discovered that the “unreal space” described by Li Chung-Hwan is recreated on the basis of a Sinocentric model of the world where the “cultural center - chaos” opposition was transferred to international relations between Korea and the surrounding countries, and was based on the lost values of the legendary Chinese culture. At the same time, it is clearly seen that Li Chung-Hwan tried to define the place for Korea in a new changing world through the formation of a new cultural space.