The Musical Culture of the Russian Province in the Mirror of Prerevolutionary Periodicals

Abstract

From the positions of systemic analysis, the author of the article determines the role of periodical press as an important source of research of the musical culture of the prerevolutionary Russian province. Against the background of the development of humanitarian knowledge, the studies of the musical provinces actualize the issue of the base of its scholarly field related to source studies. Particularly periodical press contains the basic information about the musical life of the prerevolutionary period of Russian history in all of its diversity. The periodical publications — from the capital cities and the periphery, the general and the specialized varieties — are specified on the basis of an elaborated classification. Emphasis is given to various printed material, different in its indication of genre, devoted to musical life in various cities of the Russian Empire — analytic sketches, survey correspondence, articles on music history, and informational-advertising production. The question is broached of the genre-related and stylistic transformation of musical journalism from descriptive overviews to articles of a problem-based culturological character. The participation of the activists of musical culture from a number of Russian cities in the formation of the areal tradition of musical criticism, the intensification of artistic connections between the provinces and the two Russian capital cities, the evolution of musical life in different cities (for example, in Odessa, Tiflis, Kharkov, etc.) — all of these are disclosed in the article. The musical periodical press of various provincial regions of Russia, represented by materials that are diverse in their genre and territorial affiliation, which has undergone a significant transformation of its content during the course of the entire 19th and the early 20th century, has made a significant contribution to the formation and the development of Russian music criticism and Russian musical culture in general.