WORD AND DEED “OF THE YOUNG GENERATION”: FROM THE HISTORY OF THE MAGAZINE “SOVREMENNIK”
N.N. Rodigina1, V.V. Khudyakov2
1Omsk State Pedagogical University, 4à, Partizanskaya str., Omsk, 644099, Russian Federation
2Tobolsk complex scientific station UB RAS, 15, Acad. Yu. Osipova Str., Tobolsk, 626152, Russian Federation
Keywords: Russian public thought, the second half of XIX - early XX century, history of journalism, generational discourse
Abstract
The article describes the generational discourse of “Sovremennik” magazine in the 1860s and the social polemics around the trial initiated in respect of publication of Yu.G. Zhukovsky’s article “The Question of the Young Generation” in 1866, which had evoked a great public response. The sources include the texts on generational issues published in “Sovremennik” magazine in 1855-1856; the newspaper publications about the trial against the employees of the magazine; the memoirs of trial participants; the memoirs of the Sixtiers about the impact of the magazine on their world outlook; unpublished clerical sources which cast light on the course of the trial. The magazine had been actively exploiting the generational rhetoric since the mid-1850s based on the idea of continuity of generations of fathers and sons, typical for a traditional society. Like the other “thick magazines” “Sovremennik” described the history of literature and public thought by constructing the models of literature generations. Yet in late 1850s - early 1860s it actualized the idea of lifelessness of the generations’ union and of growing contradictions between the “old” and the “new” in the reforming Russia. “Sovremennik” not just tried to become the “ruler of the minds” of the educated youth, it also tried to influence their social behavior, using the social mobilization resource based on the generational principle. The analysis of the magazine’s texts allowed to find the following genres of the direct action management: using the discourse of the pragmatic directive functions (instructions); creation of the image of the Other as an enemy; description of the future events in the form of the forecasts and scenarios, combined with different types of tips; using the rhetoric device - repetition. The impact of “Sovremennik”’s generational discourse was indicated by the lawsuit against Yu.G. Zhukovsky and the executive editor A.N. Pypin who were brought to the trial for “insulting the nobility”. Yet judging by the reports in periodicals, at the trial the parties discussed not so much the magazine’s views on the nobility, but mostly the image of the young generation created by the magazine.
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