Island-museum: on specifics of literary representation of Kizhi Island

Museum motifs as characteristic features of the Kizhi topic in Russian literature are considered in the article. The status of the museum located on the Kizhi Island distinguishes the island from other islands both as a fictional (Utopia, the island of Buyan, the islands of the blessed) and real. Realities of the museum (the size of the museum, tour presentations, images of curators, and visitors etc.) have saturated multiple literary texts. The article describes the texts’ semantics and the role that museum realities play in the storyline development. A research has also revealed particular qualities of their literary representation. The research is based on the materials of Russian literature on Kizhi Island written in 1930-2000s.