Provincial Newspapers Research Articles

The Manchester Observer

The newly digitised Manchester Observer (1818–22) was England’s leading radical newspaper at the time of the Peterloo meeting of August 1819, in which it played a central role. For a time it enjoyed the highest circulation of any provincial newspaper, holding a position comparable to that of the Chartist Northern Star twenty years later and pioneering dual publication in Manchester and London. Its columns provide insights into Manchester’s notoriously secretive local government and policing and into the labour and radical movements of its turbulent times. Rich materials in the Home Office papers in the National Archives reveal much about the relationship between radicals in London and in the provinces, and show how local magistrates conspired with government to hound the radical press in the north as prosecutions in London ran into trouble. This article also sheds new light on the founding of the Manchester Guardian, which endured as the Observer’s successor more by avoiding its disasters than by following its example. Despite the imprisonment of four of its main editors and proprietors the Manchester Observer battled on for five years before sinking in calmer water for lack of news.

Estado y política en el interior argentino: oficialismo y oposición durante el peronismo histórico

El presente trabajo tiene por objetivos comprender e interpretar los cambios y continuidades en la dinámica relacional entre el oficialismo peronista a cargo del Gobierno municipal y los partidos de la oposición entre 1946 y 1955. Al mismo tiempo, la investigación pretende analizar el tipo de relaciones entabladas entre el Estado municipal y el provincial. Al respecto cabe apuntar que dos procesos —inaugurados casi simultáneamente con el surgimiento del peronismo— influyeron fuertemente sobre las características que asumieron sus relaciones con los partidos opositores. Por una parte, el creciente cercenamiento del régimen de autonomía municipal; y por la otra, la estrecha vinculación entre el peronismo y la esfera estatal. Para llevar a cabo estos objetivos se recurrió a una metodología cualitativa, basada en la lectura y análisis de diversas fuentes (diarios locales y provinciales, documentación oficial y escritos de dirigentes peronistas). La información recopilada no fue abordada en forma aislada sino debidamente enmarcada en los procesos desarrollados a nivel provincial y nacional. La articulación de los niveles macro y micro nos permite estudiar con mayor grado de detalle los procesos políticos examinadosy complementar y matizar los estudios sobre el peronismo enfocados desde perspectivas más generales.

Паратекстуальность ранней публицистики М. Горького (1895—1901)

On the material of the first introduced into scientific circulation articles published by M. Gorky in the Nizhny Novgorod press of 1895-1901, the analysis of the functions of pseudonyms as a significant component of the paratext is carried out. As a result of the work, it is established that the pseudonyms chosen and invented by the writer reflect the genre specificity of his feuilletons, essays, bibliographic notes, reviews and replicas, being a kind of marker of the author’s position. It is noted that this kind of paratext as a pseudonym gave the writer’s journalism an additional semantic and emotional impulse, formed the perception of the problems of his feuilletons, which was confirmed by the detailed analysis of the structure and function of the abbreviated form of the pseudonym “I. Khl.” By this example of this pseudonym which is an abbreviation of the nickname “Iegudiil Khlamida,” the authors show that this truncation of the name is due to issues of materials published by Gorky and their presentation. It is proved that pseudonym alludes to the facts, meaning of which is far beyond the interest of the provincial newspaper, and to the role of the author of articles covering not only local problems; for example, in the feuilletons devoted to “the Cretan question,” the author acts as a political observer of international events.

To the Editors

To the Editors Ben Eklof and Tatiana Saburova We are troubled by Victoria Frede’s rather flippant treatment of the lives, tribulations, and historic legacy of Nikolai Charushin, his long-time partner Anna Kuvshinskaia, and their populist revolutionary cohorts—a story which, in our telling, took us from 1851 and the time of the Great Reforms to the perestroika era.1 We propose that the bonds and beliefs these young revolutionaries formed in the 1870s remained steadfast until the end of their lives: a commitment to ethical rationalism, redistributive justice, and participatory democracy (all expressed in the populist vocabulary of that time). After release from exile, many in this cohort came to reject violence and advocate evolutionary change. Yet their goals remained transformative, and they continued to see themselves as revolutionaries until the end of their lives, working together in the Society of Former Political Prisoners and Exiles in the 1920s to defend their legacy against Bolshevik erasures from the historical record. Never in their abundant correspondence did we encounter any sign of regret about the choices they had made that had resulted in such hardship for them and their families. Instead, Frede offers an alternative narrative purportedly explaining the paradox of revolutionaries returning to the world of humdrum activities and taking up work in the various professions after release from incarceration. In her view, Charushin and his ilk had merely flirted with revolutionary populism in their adolescence, only to see the error of their ways, return to civil society, and discard their “erstwhile” convictions—living out the rest of their lives with no particular concern about what their beliefs might be. No close reading of the documents, however, supports such a narrative. One may ask whether they were truly revolutionaries—and we bring up that question at points in the book. It is another matter to overlook what they themselves believed. For example: key to our research in central and provincial archives—which she overlooks—was the attempt to explain why populist memoirs trailed off after their return to European Russia in the 1890s. We [End Page 433] recorded in detail Charushin’s work in Viatka as a zemstvo statistician, as well as a famine relief and fire insurance agent, his founding of a prominent provincial newspaper, engagement with local social networks, and role in the Peasant Union. Using personal correspondence, police records, papers of the provincial gubernatorial administration and newspapers, as well as a veritable mountain of seldom-touched zemstvo documentation, we painstakingly reconstructed how this cohort engaged fruitfully in legal activities, all the while clinging to their ties, memories, and commitments. The silence in their memoirs about this long period signified to us that for Charushin’s generation what was worthy of recording was their earlier lives underground and in exile, their devotion to the cause of revolution, and the sacrifices they (like the Decembrists, whom they memorialized) had made. They were not alone in their views of the significance of this early period. In Viatka, Charushin was venerated for his revolutionary credentials. In 1917 and after, he consistently called himself an “old revolutionary,” a status that was not often challenged at the time. He was jailed four times by the Bolsheviks between 1918 and 1921; when the revolutionary tribunal released him in 1919, it referred to his “irreproachable revolutionary credentials.” It was only later, with the onset of Stalinism, that members of the 70s generation found themselves called “senile,” had their credentials as revolutionaries challenged, and even ended up labeled as “enemies of the people.” In our view, Frede’s dismissive rendering of Charushin’s life story does an injustice to the truly tragic lives that he and most of his friends endured for their convictions. It distorts and belittles the lived experience and beliefs of a significant portion of the intelligentsia who shared such convictions, but whose presence in the history books has been overshadowed recently by an exclusive focus on terrorism as the purported core of populism. Finally, Frede noted that the English version is an “abridged translation” (629 n. 5) of the Russian language text that she selected to review. In fact, it is a substantially altered work for a different audience, with...

Intergovernmental Conflict and Censorship: Evidence From China’s Anti-Corruption Campaign

Media censorship is prevalent in autocratic regimes, but little is known about how and why censorship might vary within a country. I collect close to 40,000 articles from Chinese newspapers about officials caught during Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption campaign, which is campaign widely publicised in the central state media. Yet, despite greater reader interest, local newspapers underreport corruption scandals involving high-level officials from their own province compared to officials from other provinces. Underreporting is greater when a newspaper does not rely on advertising revenue and a corrupt official is well connected. When newspapers do report high-level corruption at home, they deemphasise these stories, by making them shorter and featuring official sounding headlines without references to corruption or the anti-corruption campaign. City-level newspapers report less about corruption in their own city relative to other cities in the same province, but are more likely to report high-level corruption within the provincial government than provincial newspapers. These results suggest that intergovernmental conflict within an autocracy can lead to diverging media censorship strategies by different levels of government.

Creating A Critical Civic Consciousness

This paper examines two themes in local government reporting in the nineteenth century—municipal governance and social reform and the reporting of municipal elections, electioneering and scandals. These themes formed part of the discourse of political reporting during this period, along with the detailed recording of town council meetings. The study concentrates on a representative sample of the provincial press in England from the Leeds Mercury to the Norfolk Chronicle. The article deliberately avoids an over-emphasis on the metropolitan press in an attempt to gauge the spread and influence of local government reporting outside of London. It also focuses on municipal political affairs and not on other forms of local government such as Poor Law Guardians, Improvement Commissioners and School Boards for the sake of clarity and unambiguity. Some writers have presented the provincial press as functioning as positive promoters of civic institutions and as underpinning the ‘municipal status quo’ [Jackson, Andrew. ‘Civic Identity, Municipal Governance and Provincial Newspapers: The Lincoln of Bernard Gilbert, Poet, Critic and “Booster”, 1914.’ Urban History 42 (2015): 113–129]. This study challenges this view and offers an alternative perspective—the creation of a critical civic consciousness that directly addressed the reader as a member of a critical urban community.

Characteristics of Kharkiv theatre development in1840–1860’s (on the materials of State Archive of the Kharkiv Region)

Characteristics of Kharkiv theatre development in1840–1860’s (on the materials of State Archive of the Kharkiv Region)

Censorship and Suppression of the Irish Provincial Press, 1914–1921

Press censorship was introduced in both Britain and Ireland at the start of World War I. As a more radical form of nationalism rapidly gained popularity in Ireland following the 1916 Rising the censorship was extended beyond the duration of the war. The censorship was mainly deployed to restrict the reporting of the more militant pronouncements of Irish republicans. This article explores how the censorship impacted on provincial newspapers, which constituted the greater part of the Irish print media. It specifically examines the censorship framework and considers if it was applied in an impartial and even-handed manner. It also outlines the cases of those provincial newspapers that were either suppressed or were subjected to attacks by Crown forces that resulted in prolonged closure. Finally, this article provides a broad assessment of the effectiveness of press censorship in Ireland during this period.

Khuzestan dust phenomenon: a content analysis of most widely circulated newspapers.

Dust is an atmospheric phenomenon that causes adverse environmental effects. It is deemed to have harmful effects on health, economics, and climate. This study aimed to analyze the content published on the phenomenon of dust in the widely circulated newspapers in Iran. We investigated the content of all national and provincial newspapers that were published between July and August 2014. Data on the materials related to the dust phenomenon in the newspapers were categorized and coded. From a total of 510 newspaper issues, 143 articles were devoted to the dust phenomenon which 74.1% of them were published in provincial newspapers. Among the national newspapers, Hamshahri newspaper with 16 headlines and from the provincial newspapers; Karoon with 23 headlines published the highest number of articles on dust phenomenon. 45.5% of content on dust were printed on the first page of the newspapers. The most common approach to the type of content published in these newspapers was an interview. Moreover, we noticed that 28.7% of the content published in the newspapers was related to the health issue. The media plays an important role in the transmission of health information. Weaknesses in addressing the causes of dust occurrence and also in providing solutions for the dust control and prevention were noticeable in the content published in the newspaper. It seems necessary to take practical measures to disseminate relevant information to dust and also address the needs of the target audience community influenced by the dust phenomenon properly.

REF, TEF, and KEF; and the “Research-Informed” Teaching and Co-Production Traditions in Local History: Analysing Provincial Newspapers

ABSTRACTIn the present universities are facing the introduction of a revised Research Excellence Framework, the extension of the Teaching Excellence and Student Outcomes Framework to subject-level assessment, and the emergence of a Knowledge Exchange Framework. Against this background are particular interests in, or imperatives surrounding, the development of research-informed activity involving undergraduate students, and in university public engagement. The practice of local history has a long and proud tradition of internally and externally collaborative and enquiry-led co-production in higher education and more broadly, and is now a fitting reference point and a timely source of inspiration. This research discusses the development of, and relationships between, REF, TEF and KEF, the place of research-informed teaching, and the contemporary significance of local history. The study also reports on some of the results of a student-engagement activity involving the indexing, analysis and interpretation of a provincial newspaper, for Ilfracombe, in Devon. Such a choice of primary source is particularly apt, not least because its demanding material format invites group reading and collective scrutiny. In addition, provincial-press publications yield and test knowledge of what the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries brought to districts and communities; they also demand an appreciation of conceptual and critical understanding; and, in addition, support diverse and advanced methodological experimentation.

A history of the Russian formalism as a provincial newspaper / literary fact: (“The Hamburg score”, “The South-West”, “Fabula and plot” IN THE “Proze theory” by Viktor B. Shklovsky) Article II

A history of the Russian formalism as a provincial newspaper / literary fact: (“The Hamburg score”, “The South-West”, “Fabula and plot” IN THE “Proze theory” by Viktor B. Shklovsky) Article II

Picking up the pieces

Given that the Sunshine Coast and its hinterland have been, at least for a time, the haunt of several of several eminent Australian writers — the Palmers, Dark, Herbert, Astley, Wright, Cato, Williamson and Carey, to name a few — it seemed worth asking whether the principal, and for most of the twentieth century the only, newspaper servicing the region since 1903 — the Nambour Chronicle and the North Coast Advertiser — was part of a literary culture to which these writers felt they belonged and were contributing in the first half of the century. If not, why not? And if so, what kinds of contributions did it make to that culture? The tentative finding is that while the Chronicle did not make the kinds of direct, ‘homegrown’ contributions that some other metropolitan and provincial newspapers did, it maintained a literary presence and function by means of a regular diet of imported features, and by its particularly close and consistent relationship with the Nambour Town Library (and also, less consistently, with various School of Arts libraries in the district). The continuing connection between these two Nambour institutions — the Chronicle and the library — was personal and familial as well as civic in nature, and clearly suited the literary demands and expectations of a highly dispersed community that found its unity and identity by other means.

La olivicultura en San Rafael, Mendoza. Aproximaciones a las fluctuaciones del sector desde comienzos del siglo XXI

This article analyzes the processes and contexts of olive growing in San Rafael, Mendoza, from the year 2000 onwards, during the periods of boom, fall and stagnation caused by climate scourges and by structural and current processes related to international, national and local contexts. These processes and their consequences will make it possible to understand the latest transformations in the sector and the possible perspectives of this regional production process, and to improve the knowledge of its tensions and fluctuations. On the basis of the theoretical framework of the regional economies, we consider the fluctuations that the activity undergoes and that depends not only on the environmental features but also on institutional, economic, historical, cultural and social aspects with all the asymmetries involved in the development of each one of them. For this purpose, primary and secondary sources were used, such as legislation related to the activity, interviews with key referents, statistics, scientific articles and journals and local and provincial newspapers.

The “Franco-Russian Marseillaise”: International Exchange and the Making of Antiliberal Politics in Fin de Siècle France

The “Franco-Russian Marseillaise”: International Exchange and the Making of Antiliberal Politics in Fin de Siècle France

Peter Bell’s Founding Anecdote

In the Fenwick notes, Wordsworth claimed that the poem published as Peter Bell: A Tale in Verse (1819) had been ‘Founded upon an anecdote, which I read in a newspaper, of an ass being found hanging his head over a canal in a wretched posture. Upon examination a dead body was found in the water and proved to be the body of its master’.1 The anecdote first appeared in the weekly newspaper Aris’s Birmingham Gazette on Monday October 10 1796 in the newspaper’s regular section devoted to regional news from Birmingham and its surrounding area (although this section occasionally included stories taken from other provincial newspapers). It reads as follows: On Friday morning a man by the name of Kirby, was found drowned in the Worcester Canal, near this town. He is supposed to have been intoxicated, and to have missed his road. His ass was the means of discovering him; as the animal, though repeatedly driven from the bank of the canal, continually returned to the spot, until the body was seen and taken out of the water.2

¿Son posibles otras educaciones para indígenas dentro del sistema escolar tradicional? Análisis de un caso en el nordeste argentino

El presente artículo analiza las características que asume un proceso de demanda de autonomía por parte de organizaciones Qom, Wichí y Moqoit que actualmente se desenvuelve en la provincia del Chaco, en el noreste de Argentina. Los indígenas aspiran al manejo de las escuelas del sistema estatal a las que asisten los miembros de esos pueblos, para tener la libertad de construir una educación con sus propias manos.El trabajo comienza con una presentación sucinta del escenario étnico-político en el que tiene lugar el proceso. Es una introducción necesaria para ubicar el presente en perspectiva histórica y regional. Posteriormente, se desarrollan aspectos del caso en estudio que consideramos relevantes. Se narra la historia de deliberaciones que culminó en la sanción de una normativa que regula la autonomía buscada, se exponen y analizan las demandas en las voces de indígenas participantes y los sentidos fijados en la legislación. Se ponen de manifiesto las divergencias, las oposiciones, los logros y los límites. Se problematiza acerca de un campo conflictivo en el cual Estado y pueblos indígenas no aparecen como bloques homogéneos confrontados entre sí, sino que expresan desacuerdos internos. Se reflexiona acerca de los desafíos, las posibilidades y los condicionantes de la autonomía gestada desde abajo que demanda ser reconocida por el Estado y desarrollarse dentro de la escolarización oficial. Normativas provinciales, proyectos de ley, entrevistas a funcionarios ministeriales[1] y a docentes indígenas involucrados en el proceso[2], diarios locales, registros de campo[3], sumado a investigaciones anteriores, son el material principal del que se dispuso para este trabajo.[1] Se entrevistó al Ministro de Educación, Cultura, Ciencia y Tecnología y a la Subsecretaria de Interculturalidad y Plurilingüismo, quienes ocupaban esos cargos durante el período en estudio. Serán referenciados respectivamente como M y S.[2] Se realizaron entrevistas a dos docentes qom con roles protagónicos en los procesos de redacción, debate y sanción de las dos leyes de educación que se citan, uno de ellos integra la organización de Docentes Autoconvocados y otro la Asociación Civil Napalpí. Serán referenciados respectivamente como DA y AN. [3] Registro del debate entre referentes indígenas, dirigentes de sindicatos docentes y legisladores de la Comisión de Educación de la Cámara de Diputados de la provincia del Chaco, agosto 2013.

The Good Capitalist: Conflicting Visions of Russia’s Industrial Future in the Pre-Reform Period

<p>В статье рассматриваются дискуссии о промышленном будущем России среди дворян, купцов и чиновников Владимирской губернии до реформы 1861 г. В дискуссиях сформировались два различных взгляда на будущее России. Первый представлял Россию урбанистической, индустриализованной, фабричной страной, с хлопкообрабатывающей промышленностью в роли гаранта экономической независимости. Второй вариант предполагал, что Россия останется сельской страной, но развитие науки и совершенствование сельского хозяйства преобразят льнопереработку и помогут деревенским общинам выжить и после индустриализации. И дворяне, и купцы полагали, что могут быть «мудрыми отцами» для народа будущей индустриализованной России. Анализ статистических материалов, опубликованных в губернских ведомостях, показал, что они могут служить новым источником информации о том, как еще до отмены крепостного права в России воспринимали индустриализацию и социальные перемены.<em></em></p>

The Logic of Ideological Campaigns Under Authoritarianism: Evidence from China

Authoritarian regimes usually have the most democratic-sounding names and concede spaces in the constitution to articles on human rights. Though scholars have offered important insights on the motivations of authoritarian leaders to promote liberal norms, most empirical analyses are limited to cross-national analysis and other actors in domestic politics, especially local elites, receive less notice. The paper attempts to fill the gap and examines the Core Socialist Values Campaign started by Xi Jinping since October 2012, in which democracy, justice, freedom, equality and rule of law, generally viewed as principles of liberal democracies, were officially pronounced as the essential components of the “Core Socialist Values.” The paper reveals that the responsiveness of local elites to the Campaign is contingent on multiple economic and political incentives based on a data set of provincial newspapers from 2010 to 2015. Local elites who govern more economically advanced and modernized regions, or have tighter linkage with the central leadership are more responsive to the Campaign.

Changing Manners of Displaying Loyalties through Ideological Campaigns in Post-Deng China

Ideological campaigns in post-Deng China have a strategic function of discerning loyalties of local leaders. Previous empirical studies have found that Jiang Zemin’s followers are more likely to echo Jiang’s ideological campaigns. Through a content analysis of provincial newspapers between 2005 and 2012, this study suggests that the manner of displaying loyalties has completely changed. By employing a panel-corrected standard errors (PCSE) estimation, this study finds that protégés of both Hu Jintao and Jiang Zemin are less likely to echo their patron’s ideological campaigns, suggesting the shifting function of ideological campaigns from monitoring identified followers’ loyalties to recruiting new followers. This article argues that this is a result of changing elite politics and—more importantly—the different strategic use of ideological campaigns.

Dickens Donates a Piece of Pickwick

Dickens Donates a Piece of Pickwick William F. Long (bio) Fewer than fifty of perhaps about one thousand five hundred slips of paper that constituted the manuscript of The Pickwick Papers are known to survive. The locations of most of these remnants are well known, but relatively durable and generally accessible sources of facsimiles are available for less than a half.1 And quite why these particular slips came to be saved in the first place is, in some cases, not very clear.2 Among the preserved pieces are five consecutive slips from chapter 39 of the novel. They became part of the collection of the Rosenbach Museum and Library in Philadelphia in 1954, when it was established as a testamentary gift by the eminent rare book seller and collector Dr A. S. W. Rosenbach and his brother.3 This essay records a previously uncollected message from Dickens in which he donated these five slips in 1840 to a charitable cause, and so contributed to their survival. It additionally contains facsimiles of the slips and collates information about the current locations of all the known surviving slips, and about sources, where they exist, of their facsimiles. The acquisition at an auction at Sotheby’s in London on 17 December 1928 of five pages of Pickwick by an agent of Dr. Rosenbach was widely noted in [End Page 23] the British and international press. Because the story had local interest, a provincial newspaper, the Yorkshire Post, provided some detail: It was a great surprise […] when Dr. Rosenbach paid £7,500 for a mere fragment of the “Pickwick” manuscript – five small quarto pages containing the description of Arabella Allen’s midnight meeting in the garden with Mr. Pickwick and Mr. Winkle. This was easily a record for any piece of Dickens manuscript. […] It was the property of Mr. G. C. Whiteley, Old Felixstowe, Suffolk, and was formerly owned by his grandfather, John Marvel Whiteley, of Halifax, to whom this precious scrap of manuscript was presented by Dickens himself.4 An editorial in the Dickensian added that the elder Whiteley had been a reporter on the Yorkshire newspaper the Bradford Observer (Anon. Dickensian 1929). Thereafter, no further reference to an interaction between Dickens and a “John Marvel Whiteley” has been made in any biographical account of the novelist, nor is it mentioned in his collected correspondence. Inspection of another, earlier Yorkshire newspaper, however, reveals the background to Whiteley’s interaction with Dickens. On 30 July 1870 the Leeds Mercury carried the following story: A PORTION OF THE MANUSCRIPT OF “PICKWICK” AT BRADFORD. – A gentleman who has been connected with the Bradford press for the last quarter of a century has in his possession five slips of the original manuscript of “Pickwick,” in excellent preservation. The MS. was sent, along with an autograph note from Mr. Dickens, which establishes its authenticity, for the purpose of being shown at an exhibition at Halifax in the year 1840. The note is dated “May 10th, 1840,” is addressed from “1, Devonshire-terrace, York-gate, Regent’s Park,” and Mr. Dickens writes, “I have never given away any old published MS., considering that it will have a greater interest one of these days for my own family than it can ever possess for others; but your request in behalf of the Halifax Institution set me looking over a box of fragments, and from its contents I have selected the enclosed original and only draught of a portion of a chapter of Pickwick, to which the Association is heartily welcome.” The signature is written in the bold hand, with the flourishes underneath, for which the [End Page 24] deceased author was celebrated. The MS. is a portion of the 39th chapter of Pickwick, where “Mr. Samuel Weller, being entrusted with a mission of love, proceeds to execute it; with what success will hereafter appear.” The MS. begins with the paragraph, “The coach was punctual,” and ends at the point where Mr. Pickwick, having mounted Weller’s back, looks over the wall, and discovers Arabella, the object of Mr. Winkle’s love, in the garden. It is the intention of the owner of these interesting relics to have them framed...