Полемика академика В. П. Безобразова с горным инженером И. П. Котляревским на рубеже 1860-1870-х гг. об уральских казённых заводах и конструирование региональной идентичности

Abstract

Polemics of academician V.P. Bezobrazov with mining engineers at the turn of the 1860-1870s., caused by the different estimation of Ural state-owned factories, is considered in the article. They influenced the revalorization of the Ural industry and the construction of regional identity. In 1868-1869 V.P. Bezobrazov published a report on a trip to the Urals (article in the journal “Russian Bulletin” (“Russkii vestnik”), monograph “Ural Mining and the issue of selling state-owned mining plants” (“Ural'skoe gornoe hozjajstvo i vopros o prodazhe kazennyh gornyh zavodov”)). He criticized the management of Ural state-owned factories and suggested that the government sell them to private individuals. Mining engineers considered the academician a demagogue: he, instilling capitalist relations, denigrated the achievements of the mining industry, represented mining officials as negligent administrators, formed a complex of guilt in them. Mining engineers defended their position with the help of the public sphere, the media, and the impact on public opinion. The head of the Mining Department, V.K. Rashet, has publicly opposed the sale of the plants. Articles by V.I. Rozhkov and I.P. Kotlyarevsky appeared in the “Mountain Journal” (“Gornyi zhurnal”). After I.P. Kotlyarevsky published 6 articles in the Mountain Journal criticizing Bezobrazov's monograph. In 1870, they were published as a separate book “Notes on the Ural Mining Economy” (“Zametki ob ural'skom gornom hozjajstve”). V.P. Bezobrazov revised the ideas about the mining plant Urals from a capitalist position. Opponents considered the Ural industry the basis of regional identity and defended mining values.