Periodical Press Research Articles

The politics of persuasion: foreign powers and the first Italian newspapers

This article studies the involvement and the relationships between diplomats and the periodical press in Italian cities during the seventeenth century. Newspapers first appeared on the Italian peninsula in the early 1640s: 1639 in Genoa, 1640 in Milan and Florence, 1642 in Bologna and 1645 in Turin. A novelty on the Italian information market, foreign diplomats turned their attention towards influencing newspaper coverage immediately. News editors would often exchange news with ambassadors, but maintaining such relationships was a delicate balancing act for all the actors involved. On the one hand, the news editors own governments certainly not always welcomed too overtly friendly relationships with representatives of foreign powers. On the other hand, not maintaining relationships with these foreign representatives could be detrimental to their own news business as competitors might easily obtain better quality news. This article studies this difficult balance of power and argues that it is crucial to appreciate these dynamics to understand how diplomats address audiences. It seeks to demonstrate these men went much further than spreading printed material to promote their patrons or employers; physical threats and attacks could be equally part of an agent’s tools to influence newspaper publishers to retract or not publish a certain piece of news.

Emergence of Economic and Cultural Ties between USSR and Sweden (1924–1937)

This article explores the distinctive features of the economic and cultural interactions between the USSR and Sweden from 1924 to 1937. The research is grounded in a comprehensive array of sources, including official documents, publications from the periodical press, and personal accounts. The methodological framework is informed by the imagology of international relations, which focuses on the study of mental geography, transnational imagery, perception stereotypes, and myths, as well as the comparison of the "Self" and the "Other" to understand the role of "Others" in shaping national self-conceptions. The author investigates how shifts in Swedish perceptions of Soviet Russia influenced the development of bilateral relations and assesses the contributions of A.M. Kollontai, the Soviet ambassador to Sweden since 1930, to Soviet-Swedish interactions. The article illustrates how Swedish political figures, pursuing their own interests, viewed elements of Soviet society as potential models for reforming their own countries, shaped by their internal agendas of political and socio-economic change.

Censorship of Agitprop in the Upper Volga press in the 1920s

Importance. The censorship of periodicals in the Upper Volga region during the New Economic Policy years is considered. The research of Soviet propaganda remains relevant in the context of studying the history of the USSR, political communication and mass media. Even in modern Russia, there is a request for the development of a cultural level using the mass media, in the implementation of which the experience of a century ago can help. The purpose of the research is to examine the mechanism for implementing the censorship policy of the Soviet state in the Upper Volga region using the example of the work of agitprop.Materials and Methods. Methods of system analysis, principles of historicism and scientific objectivity are used. The archival materials stored in the Russian State Archive of Socio-Political History are used.Results and Discussion. The country needed urgent and fairly profound cultural changes, and this had to be done not only by methods of combating illiteracy, but also by propaganda, including in the periodical press. Newspapers are a cheap and easy way to disseminate information, but in an illiterate country it is not very easy to use. The party’s propaganda department had to deal with this phenomenon.Conclusion. Conclusions about the significant intervention of the Agitprop department in regional periodicals in order to form an ideologically correct understanding of the world and the political situation in the country are formulated.

Творческий юбилей Галимджана Ибрагимова (на примере архивных источников)

The article presents with archival materials in which the celebrations of the twentieth anniversary of the Tatar literature classic, publicist, public figure Galimjan Ibragimov, held in 1928, are documented. The funds of the State Archive of the Republic of Tatarstan (Kazan) and the Archive of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Moscow) have a protocol and a transcript from the celebrations dedicated to this anniversary. The protocol is printed in Tatar, the transcript is presented in Russian. Due to a serious lung disease, the writer was residing in Yalta for treatment at the time. The preparation and holding of events was organised at the highest level, the anniversary date was celebrated even outside the Tatar Republic. Although G. Ibragimov was not able to attend the event personally, the anniversary was held on a large scale and was broadcast on the radio. A concert was organised and a play based on the writer’s drama New People was staged. At the end of the event, a telegram with anniversary greetings to the hero of the day was read and later sent to Yalta. Later, G. Ibragimov sent a reply telegram with words of gratitude to the editorial offices of the newspapers “Kyzyl Tatarstan” and “Eshche”. Among those invited and speaking were prominent literary and public figures and orientalists (I. Rakhmatullin, G. Nigmati, G. Linstser), birthday greetings from various addressees from Russian cities and abroad were read out. The transcript is very voluminous. As can be seen from the content, prominent figures took part in the meeting, such as N. Tyuryakulov, I. Borozdin, A.N. Maksudov, B.Kh. Mansurov, A.M. Arsharuni. The speakers’ speeches trace the significant role of G. Ibragimov in the public life of the Tatar people, as a literary scholar, researcher and public figure. The article provides quotes from archival documents in the original language and facts concerning the writer’s creative anniversary from the periodical press of the first half of the 20th century.

Дамское отделение Нижегородского попечительного о тюрьмах комитета (конец 1911–1912 гг.): причины создания, функции, историческое значение

The article is devoted to the charitable activities of the «Ladies’ branch of the Nizhny Novgorod prison board», which in late 1911–1912 was headed by Ekaterina Aleksandrovna Khvostova, the wife of Nizhny Novgorod governor Alexei Nikolaevich Khvostov. During the entire existence of the Nizhny Novgorod prison committee (1846–1917) this was the first and only experience of the functioning of the Ladies’ department created under it. The novelty of this article lies in the formulation of the problem, the involvement of new historical sources. The chronological framework is determined by the time of operation of this charity. The main historical source was the Case of the Nizhny Novgorod provincial prison inspectorate “I” Office work. About the correspondence of the Nizhny Novgorod Ladies’ branch of the Society for the care of prisons in 1911. It is stored in the fund 386 Nizhny Novgorod prison inspectorate (1908–1918) of the Central archive of the Nizhny Novgorod region. Unpublished epistolary and clerical materials, reference materials, pre–revolutionary periodical press — the journal Prison bulletin were used. The author came to the conclusion that the main reason for the creation of the Ladies’ department of the Nizhny Novgorod prison committee was the fight against child crime, the need to open special educational and correctional institutions for detained children and juvenile delinquents, who were held mainly together with adult prisoners in prisons of the Russian empire at the beginning of the XX century. E. A. Khvostova was engaged in collecting charitable funds for the opening of a shelter located at the Second Nizhny Novgorod provincial prison, providing assistance to unhappy children. An important result of her work was the appearance of such a shelter with an elementary school, a children’s library, and craft workshops.

From Valuable Merchandise to Violent Rebels

From the moment the Dutch West Indian Company formally entered the slave trade in 1637, the Dutch periodical press consistently carried reports on slavery and the transatlantic slave trade. This article offers a long-term analysis of this coverage in the Dutch Republic, showing for the first time how the representation of slavery developed over the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It demonstrates, first, that through the periodical press, knowledge of slavery was more widely spread in the Dutch Republic in the seventeenth century than is often assumed. The consistent, if intermittent, newspaper coverage meant that – well before the debates on abolition emerged – Dutch readers would be familiar with stereotypes of enslaved Africans as valuable merchandise or violent rebels. Second, this article argues that, in the second half of the eighteenth century, the periodical press offered its readers an ambiguous and contradictory image of slavery, contributing, on the one hand, to a public discourse underpinning slavery by depicting enslaved Africans as violent rebels, while at the same time covering political debates on the abolition of slavery.

ДЖЕЙМС СТРЭНГ (1813–1856) И «МОРМОНСКОЕ КОРОЛЕВСТВО» НА ВЕЛИКИХ ОЗЕРАХ В СЕРЕДИНЕ XIX ВЕКА

The article examines the activities of James Jesse Strang (1813-1856), the self-proclaimed prophet of the «Latter-day Saints», the leader of one of the major movements in early Mormonism, and his followers – the Strangites. A unique religious and socio-political phenomenon: the proclamation of the monarchy in the United States remains practically unexplored in Russian historiography. This article helps fill the gap. The analysis of information about the religious movement of the Strangites, its origin, features, main ideas, major milestones of history contained in Mormon documents, materials of the American periodical press and other sources of the middle of the XIX-th century is carried out. After the death of the founder of the Mormon religion, Joseph Smith (1805-1844), Strang managed to unite the intra-church opposition around him for a short time. He was supported by almost all dissatisfied with the new leader of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Brigham Young (1801-1877) and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles (including many family members of the first Mormon prophet). They managed to create a separate religious organization. It is shown that Strang's ideal was not just a theocracy, but a theocratic monarchy, reminiscent of the theocratic rule of the ancient Jews during the Old Testament period. This radically distinguished his teaching from the ideas about the state structure of other Mormons, who were supporters of theodemocracy – an ideal government based on faith in God and built on the principles of republicanism. The separated Mormons sought to implement their utopian religious-political and social project in practice in the colonized region of the Great Lakes. But conflicts with local residents created great difficulties for the Strangites, acquiring an increasingly acute character in 1850–1856. The conflicts ended with the death of the prophet Strang, the expulsion of his followers from the island settlement, which led to the rapid disintegration of the community. The utopia of the Strangites turned out to be unrealized.

Законодательная регламентация вопросов противодействия новым формам девиантного поведения в сети «Интернет»

Introduction. The article deals with the problem of legislative counteraction to new forms of deviant behavior that have recently appeared in the information space of the Internet. Trash streams represent the greatest public danger among its currently existing varieties. With the application of general scientific and private scientific methods, as well as the method of systemic formal- legal analysis, an attempt was made to determine some general provisions concerning the possibility of bringing the organizers and participants of trash streams to criminal, as well as in some cases to administrative responsibility. From the position of the theory of criminal legal science, as well as the currently available law enforcement practice, a number of draft laws prepared by the public and legislators, which are currently being considered as legislative initiatives, have been analyzed. In particular, the draft law on introducing alterations and additions to criminal legislation, proposing to establish criminal liability for committing such acts on the Internet. The subject of the study is federal laws, regulations and documents governing social relations in the field of combating criminal manifestations of deviant behavior on the Internet. The material base of the study was formed by the works of domestic forensic scientists devoted to the problem under study, as well as periodical press materials, judicial and investigative practice. Methods. The methodological basis of the study was formed by the basic provisions of the dialectical method of cognition, general scientific and private scientific methods, such as comparative-legal, concrete-sociological, formal-logical, systemic and historical, which made it possible to state some general conclusions. Results. As a result of the research the relevance of the systemic formal-legal approach has been established, starting from the legislative fixation of the concepts related to the signs of trash streaming, an attempt has been made to formulate the general conditions of criminalization of this kind of phenomena, legislative initiatives and proposals aimed at combating trash streaming have been named and analyzed. In addition, the conclusion is drawn of the complexity of criminal legal qualification of trash streaming as an act enshrined in the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation in the form of a specific criminal law norm due to the formal absence of indicia of public danger and illegality, as well as the need for further work on draft laws, taking into account, among other things, the opinion of the scientific community.

ФОРМИРОВАНИЕ И ПРОФЕССИОНАЛЬНАЯ ДЕЯТЕЛЬНОСТЬ АДВОКАТУРЫ НА ДАЛЬНЕМ ВОСТОКЕ РОССИИ В ДОРЕВОЛЮЦИОННЫЙ ПЕРИОД

The article examines how the lawyer community was formed in the Russian Far East before 1917, traces the dynamics of the number of attorneys-at-law, their assistants and private attorneys, identifies the cities in which they lived and their educational background. Using archival materials and periodical press, the author focuses on the professional activity of attorneys, attempting to assess how successful they were in protecting the interests of their clients, as well as to what degree the latter were satisfied with the work of their attorneys.

ПРОБЛЕМА «РЕЦИДИВА НЕГРАМОТНОСТИ» СРЕДИ ВЗРОСЛОГО НАСЕЛЕНИЯ ЕНИСЕЙСКОЙ ГУБЕРНИИ В 1920-е гг.

The article is devoted to the problem of «relapse into illiteracy» among the adultpopulation of the Yeniseysk Governorate in the 1920s. Using archival materialsand regional periodical press, the author analyzes the causes of this phenomenonand the ways to overcome it as they were seen by the representatives of localauthorities and the teaching community.

РАЗВИТИЕ ФИЗИЧЕСКОЙ КУЛЬТУРЫ И СПОРТА В КРАСНОЯРСКОМ КРАЕ ВО ВТОРОЙ ПОЛОВИНЕ 1930-Х ГГ.

The history of the development of physical culture and sports in the Krasnoyarsk Territory in the second half of the 1930s is considered. This period was associated with the formation of the Krasnoyarsk Territory. In this regard, a state governing body for the sphere of physical culture and sports was created in the region, as a result of which the work moved to a new level. Physical education groups and voluntary sports societies were created, a large number of sporting events, ski treks, holidays, parades, and competitions in various sports of military-applied significance were held. Much attention was paid to the preparation of badge members of the “Ready for Labor and Defense” (GTO) complex. Extensive statistical material on the results of this training is presented. By the end of the 1930s. Large-scale defense and physical training work was carried out in the region, aimed at strengthening the defense capability of the population. Physical education was an effective means of this preparation. The purpose of the study is to study the history of the development of physical culture and sports in the Krasnoyarsk Territory in the second half of the 1930s. The materials used in the study were mainly obtained from archival sources of a record-keeping nature and are represented by data from the State Archives of the Krasnoyarsk Territory, which are being introduced into scientific circulation for the first time. The study also used materials from the periodical press of the newspapers Krasnoyarsk Rabochy, Krasnoyarsk Komsomolets, Krasny Sport, etc. In conclusion, the authors conclude that after the formation of the Krasnoyarsk Territory, active work began on the creation of physical education groups, physical education clubs, and sports sections. Particular attention was paid to physical education work in rural areas. This work was very difficult and was constantly criticized by the regional authorities. The number of athletes and badge athletes of the GTO complex gradually increased, but the training plans were not systematically implemented. The share of funding for the physical culture and sports sector increased. Sports facilities were built and sports equipment was purchased. Work was carried out to train physical education personnel.

CANNING PRODUCTION OF “ZHELRYBAˮ IN 1923–1929

The article is devoted to a little-studied topic – the canning production of “Zhelrybaˮ (abbreviation of the Russian words “ZHELeznaya dorogaˮ, railway, and “rybaˮ, fish). The source base is the materials of the periodical press of 1923-1929 and unpublished materials of the central and local (Murmansk) archives. The article attempts to identify the economic and technical features associated with the production of canned food of “Zhelrybaˮ enterprise. Based on extensive archival material, the specifics of canned food production at the enterprise associated with the colonisation of Kola Peninsula, the range of products produced, as well as economic indicators of the effectiveness of the canning production of the enterprise, are studied. Data on possible options for a different geographical location of the enterprise’s production facilities are provided, with an economic justification of the pros and cons of certain localities. The author concludes that “Zhelrybaˮ was able to start industrial production of high-quality canned food from scratch and at the same time contribute to the economic development of those areas where its production was located.

The Construction of the Image of Italy in the 19th Century on the Example of Travelogues Published in the Slovak Period Press

The paper analyses how Italy is depicted in selected 19th-century Slovak travelogues. We chose this period because the travelogue genre was established in Slovak literature in the 19th century. Second, the travel reports to Italy that appeared in the Slovak context in the 17th century had a different nature since the Counter-Reformation and the condemnation of Protestants to the Spanish galleys in Naples conditioned the journeys. These accounts focused more on personal suffering than the peculiarities of the countries. 19th-century travel writings had a different character. Magazinestried to meet readers’ interests by publishing documentary and factual literature. We chose the travelogues of two important cultural figures who visited Italy during the same period and had the opportunity to perceive the same cultural, social, and other circumstances. The emphasis is on the travellers ́ interests, the construction of their image and how nature, climate, and other characteristic country features are reflected in their landscape image. In addition to a re-examination of the text-creation mechanisms and the different rendering methods of the same aspect, the description of natural, cultural and social realia, the paper reveals their relationship to the depicted country and how their interest was influenced by their theological education and involvement in the Church. The paper outlines the genre form widespread in 19th-century Slovak journalism considering the then atmosphere and cultural events. After studying subject-related period documents and scientific works, we used the interpretive method, which pointed outways of depicting the visited country and its specifics. This is reflected in how the issue is treated: from a generalising view of the period, the significance of the period press, and the place of the authors to an interpretation of their works. In the conclusion, we seek to generalise the existing parallels and differences in the modes of imagery.Keywords:19th century, Slovak period press, travel writing, Italy, Venice, religious symbolism

To the Issue of the Pedagogical Periodical Press of the St. Petersburg Educational District (1803–1917)

To the Issue of the Pedagogical Periodical Press of the St. Petersburg Educational District (1803–1917)

REFLECTION OF THE BEIRUT NEWSPAPER “AZDAK” ON THE ACTIVITIES OF THE ARMENIAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE DURING THE APRIL WAR

The centuries-old presence of Armenians in the Middle East and the active work of the Armenian periodical press also includes coverage of the activities of Armenian lobbying organizations operating in the Diaspora, including the Armenian National Committee. The April 2016 war was the first large-scale aggression organized by Azerbaijan against Nagorno-Karabakh since the ceasefire in 1994. During the hostilities and in the following days, the Armenian National Committee was active. organized protests and information campaigns, held meetings and discussions with a number of political and public figures, widely covering the events taking place in Nagorno-Karabakh and demanding a proper response from the international community. The 44-day war unleashed by Azerbaijan on September 27, 2020, and the depopulation of Nagorno-Karabakh in 2023 showed that the conflict resolution process and the efforts of Armenians in its direction need coverage and comprehensive analysis. It is important for the Armenian historiography to assess the activities of Armenian lobbying organizations operating in the Diaspora and to cover it on the pages of the Armenian press in the Middle East. Among them, the daily newspaper Azdak, published in Beirut during the April War, actively covers the activities of the Armenian National Committee, the situation in NagornoKarabakh and Armenia, which presents it from a pro-nationalist position. The novelty of this research is that until now Armenian historiography has not studied the reaction of the Armenian National Committee in Armenian periodicals published in the Armenian-dominated countries of the Middle East.

The analysis of the contribution of Lithuania SSR library, bibliography and information scientists to the main stream of union prafile periodical press publications

Research work has become more intensive in recent years in the field of bibliography, library, and information sciences. A greater number of research works analyzing different issues of these sciences are being published. The present paper addresses one structural aspect of the problem concerning the contribution of Lithuanian bibliography, library, and information scientists to the development of science in the USSR. The paper analyzes the contribution of articles by Lithuanian SSR authors published in the union's profile periodical press. Several research works, analyzing the contribution of countries, scientific groups, or scientists to the development of science, have been published in the Soviet Union and abroad. An index that helps address the tasks formulated in the article has been created using some of the statements provided in these works.

Immigration Crisis in Palestine (1933–1936) as Reflected in Periodical Press of United States

The image of Palestine during the years 1933 to 1936 was shaped in the periodical press of the United States under the influence of the “colonial discourse”. In the first half of the 1930s, the issue of Jewish immigrants became one of the central themes in the “Palestinian question”. The materials from the periodical press allow for an exploration of how perceptions regarding the causes of the crisis in the Middle East evolved within the informational discourse of the United States; how the representations of Arabs, Jews, and Great Britain underwent transformation. Publications from American newspapers provide insights into evaluations of British measures aimed at resolving the immigration crisis in Palestine during the 1930s. An analysis of U.S. newspapers reveals distinctive features in the construction of the images of the Jewish and Arab populations of Palestine. It identifies who was categorized as “the other”. The first half of the 1930s proved decisive for American public opinion in prioritizing positions within the context of the Middle Eastern conflict. The material presented in this article vividly illustrates the stages of evolving assessments of the situation in Palestine from 1933 to 1936. The study examines the manipulative techniques and strategies employed by American periodicals in the 1930s concerning Palestine, thereby providing a clearer understanding of how the issue of Jewish immigration was integrated into the broader narrative of Palestine within U.S. periodical literature.

Life criticism and De Quincey's ethical concern over the aestheticiability of murder

AbstractThe self‐reflexive tendency in De Quincey's seemingly Kantian aestheticization of murder allows some leeway in deciphering his underlying ethical concerns. As “On the knocking at the gate in Macbeth” shows, De Quincey engages in a special kind of life writing that can be termed “life criticism,” which is not naively referential but revelatory, translating the autobiographical records of memories, experiences, and emotions into mediatory possibilities for argumentative assessments of literary and aesthetic questions. James Wood's critiques function as a compelling touchstone of De Quincey's life criticism, exhibiting how self‐referential episodes, as both the starting and end points for literary criticism, can be incorporated into serious and illuminating theoretical interrogations. Through the new prism of De Quincey's habitual mode of life criticism, his aesthetics of murder can be interpreted as a meta‐reflection upon his literary experiences with Westmorland Gazette and Blackwood's Magazine. His awareness of the facile aestheticiability of murder in the periodical press has an obvious moral implication: it shows his self‐reflexive concern over the commercialized public taste that makes him torn between insisting upon classical highbrow culture and contributing sensational magazine reading matter.

Spirit of the Age

This essay turns a spotlight on Elizabeth Barret Barrett's unpublished 1822-26 notebook (now in Wellesley College Library). A seldom-cited archival text, the 231-page notebook opens a window on Romantic culture and writers in the years it spans. It also illumines the intellectual and artistic formation of the gifted juvenile author who would become England’s most internationally influential woman poet by 1850 under the name of Elizabeth Barrett Browning. The notebook includes drafts of original compositions, memoranda (for example, “Stray Thoughts,” “List of Books I wish to have”), and extracts or analyses documenting EBB’s self-education through wide-ranging reading across genres, fields, and national boundaries. The largest category of entries is made up of review-like commentaries, principally on recently published books, in which EBB hones a critical voice shaped by the periodical press of the period. Writers treated range from major literary figures like Lord Byron, Letitia Landon, Madame de Staël, and Mary Shelley, to others influential or emerging at the time (e.g., Robert Southey, James Hogg, Anna Jameson, James Fenimore Cooper), to authors of memoirs, biographies, histories, and works of political philosophy. Examination of the hybrid form as well as the mixed contents of the notebook indicates that it both participates in the commonplace book tradition and reflects Romantic transformations in that tradition exemplified by Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s notebooks. In the process, EBB’s 1822-26 notebook offers a perspective on the mid-1820s very different from William Hazlitt’s in The Spirit of the Age (1824-25); it also demonstrates the budding acumen as a literary critic later expressed in her contributions to Richard Hengist Horne’s A New Spirit of the Age (1844). Notably too, the notebook underscores the cosmopolitanism and engagement with contemporary subject matter that underpins her later artistic practice, especially in her representation of “this live, throbbing” modern age in Aurora Leigh (1856).

Григорий Семенович Куцый (1911–1977): учитель, директор школы, ученый

The article reveals the first successes in the pedagogical activity of the history teacher and director of the rural school G.S. Kutsego, who devoted many years to the development of historical science and education in the Far East. The materials of the state archives and the publications of the regional periodical press of the 1930s led to the conviction that success in professional and pedagogical activities allowed an enthusiastic researcher to become a major scientist in a short period of time and involve his colleagues and students in scientific work.