Традиции сатирической журналистики 1860-х годов в фельетонном творчестве Ф. В. Волховского в «Сибирской газете» (1882–1888)

Abstract

The satirical magazines of the 1860s had a significant impact on the periodical press system. Given the cultural and economic disparities between Siberia and the center in the 1880s, Siberian publicists found themselves in conditions resembling those of the democratic press. This paper examines the satirical traditions of the key representatives of the democratic press, namely “Svistok” (1859–1863) and “Iskra” (1859–1873). The analysis focuses on the feuilleton works of F. V. Volkhovsky, the “tacit editor” of the first major private publication in Western Siberia, “Sibirskaya gazeta” (1881–1888). The publicist’s ideology was centered on combating the prereform order in Siberia before the reforms. The populist brought his theses on social and economic contradictions published in the “Svistok” and “Iskra” into a single ideological harmony within the framework of two concepts: regional and socialist. It was also crucial for Volkhovsky to address the persisting problem of publicity, the attitude to the printed word, and the understanding of its goals. He wrote feuilletons in the Aesopian manner due both to precensorship and directly to satirical objects similar to their predecessors. Additionally, Volkhovsky employed irony as a central technique to achieve a comedic effect, thereby eliminating the option of employing satirical methods. Furthermore, the publicist brought many of the methods of his literary predecessors to a new level.