Geopoetics and Cultural Memory in Rollan Seisenbayev’s Work “The Day the World Collapsed”

Abstract

The article focuses on R. Seisenbayev’s novella “The Day the World Collapsed”, in which the Chingistau landscape becomes a “wound-scape” that incessantly reproduces memories of the Semipalatinsk nuclear tests. Seisenbayev’s narrative operates as a textual seismograph: every tremor of the test site is transformed into a vibration of cultural memory. Purpose. The study seeks to reveal how the geopoetic configuration of Chingistau not only records trauma but also restages it within the reader’s consciousness. The author combines close hermeneutic reading with remote statistical analysis, digital mapping with verification of oral testimonies; this multiperspective approach shows how word, number, and coordinate merge into a single “pulse of meaning” Findings. The key image of the “wound-scape” – its quiver synchronised with the protagonists’ emotional dynamics – is identified; ritual is described as an “ecological-social suture” binding humans to damaged nature; a kinetic metaphor system is recorded that shifts the ecological catastrophe from the visual to the somatic register. Originality lies in introducing the notion of a “dynamic site of memory”, which extends Pierre Nora’s static model; practical relevance concerns the potential to create interactive “memory maps” for museums and educational platforms in the Semey region. Thus, the study builds a bridge between eco-criticism, digital humanities, and nuclear humanities. The analysis also shows that the geopoetics of Chingistau constructs a unique space of moral witnessing, where the natural relief becomes a carrier of ethical responsibility. In this way, Seysenbaev’s text becomes a mediator between generations, preserving the continuity of traumatic experience and urging reflection on the consequences of nuclear modernization. Overall, the study builds a bridge between ecocriticism, digital humanities, and nuclear humanities, outlining a new interdisciplinary trajectory for analyzing post-catastrophic territories.

Key words: geopoetics, cultural memory, Rollan Seisenbayev, spatial descriptions, geopoetic aesthetics, literary analysis, cultural heritage.