«KHYPAR» NEWSPAPER (1906–1907): IDEOLOGICAL ORIENTATION

Abstract

The article examines the ideological orientation of the newspaper «Khypar» in 1906-1907. In the Soviet times, the issue of political orientation of the first Chuvash newspaper was the object of analysis by many researchers. The materials of the Soviet period are characterized mainly by opposite assessments of the ideology of the first Chuvash newspaper in 1906–1907. Most of them classified «Khypar» as a socialist periodical. Moreover, the ideologeme «socialist» was presented without a definite, particular meaning. In this connection, it was difficult for the reader to understand: what current (party) of the socialist orientation did the Chuvash newspaper belong to? In this article, the authors consider the question raised, relying on previously unused documents and new sources that appeared in the post-Soviet period, as well as newspaper materials. Summarizing, the authors conclude that in the first period the newspaper was mainly cultural and educational, and then until to its closure it was published by the Chuvash organization of the Party of Socialist Revolutionaries (SRs). Thus, in 1906–1907 in the first period the newspaper «Khypar» (editor and publisher N.V. Nikolsky, acting editor-publisher S.K. Kirillov) mainly performed cultural and educational functions, beginning with the newspaper issue № 34, it was headed by representatives of the Chuvash organization of the Party of Social Revolutionaries (S.I. Ignatiev, P.A. Alekseyev, V.I. Ivanov), and the periodical adhered to the socialist orientation.