The author of the article analyzes the influence of the elements of cultural symbolics related to the greatest Persian-Tajik epos «Shahname» over a formation of the cultural identity of the peoples inhabiting the broad space of the East.
The author lays an emphasis upon the fact that in spite of considerable alterations in the interpretation of symbols and even their recomprehension, a variety of associations rising in connection with the consequences of both actions and characters of protagonists in reference to the understanding of the influence of the place of inhabitance (mountain and vallay) on the character and fate of people; notions of good and evil, in a varying degree these peoples identify themselves with cultural and historic context of Firdawsi`s depiction.
Events and people in the interpretation of Firdawsi symbolize love for Motherland, its nature, complicated intertwining forces of both good and evil, causing either sympathy or antipathy; they make identify themselves with those positive patterns which are elaborated on the grounds of millennium experience.
Just in it the author sees «Shahname» uniqueness, its force in the formation of outlook and identity not only of Iranian peoples, but its preserving influence upon much broader cultural space of the Orient either.
national epos, outlook, cultural space, territory, interpretation, identity
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