Book culture and the problem of the reader in Tomsk at the turn of the 20th century

The most important task of the modern study of book culture is a review of all its components (book publishing, writing, library science, book selling, reading and perception) as a single interconnected system in the context of a variety of cultural and social factors. This article raises the problem of the formation of reader practices in Tomsk at the turn of the 20th century, when preconditions for the emergence of a broader reading audience were being formed in the city that then became the largest center of book culture of Siberia. The all-Russian trend connected with the awareness of the need for literacy and reading, characteristic for different segments of the population, had regional features. In Tomsk, the features were the expansion of the middle layer of the reader consisting of students that made up 60 to 85 % of the total number of readers, and the predominance of private initiative in the promotion of reading among the masses. Different forms of educational activities (evening schools, folk readings, opening of public libraries, appearance of city periodicals) contributed to the formation of stable interest in reading and greater involvement of common urban population in it. Reader practices of this period are the most important factor of the regional literary process: they influenced the formation of local authors and significantly changed the nature of the interaction between the book and the society.

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