Philadelphia, Gruzino, Orenburg: on the Issue of Periodization of the Journal Activity of P. Svinyin

Abstract

The system of principles and techniques of publicistic creativity of P.P. Svinin was influenced by his life events. While still in the diplomatic service in America and Europe (1806–1814), he understood the prospects of the mission of a mediator in intercultural dialogue between them and Russia, and launched a career of cultural and educational journalist. Upon his to Russia he actively participated in intercultural dialogue between Russia and the West. Later Svinin engaged in equally productive but more originally found intracultural dialogue — between Russia and the Russian reader. Regions, events, people of Russia filled the pages of the journal Otechestvennye zapiski for a whole decade. Repeated attempts to find, according to local traditions an influential patron for himself and the magazine failed, and Svinin turned to the support and protection of the "collective patron", perceiving it as a part the national-sovereign consciousness of the government supervised layers of society. P. Svinin chose the techniques so precisely that the genre, themes and style of Otechestvennye zapiski between 1820 and 1830 remained intact. The travel essay, the travelogue, developed to perfection was widely used to increase magazine’ popularity. Although vivid but inaccurate details used into the text as a result of an error or deliberate deception of the reader did a disservice to the magazine. The research focuses primarily on three of his essays, characteristic of three periods of Svin-in's journalism: Observations of a Russian in America (1812) — a foreign period, A Trip to Gruzino (1818) — a search for a genre niche in Russian journalism and "Painting of Orenburg and its environs" (op. 1828) — a period of maturity. An analysis of their style revealed the essential unity of Svinin's journalistic style in all three periods.