Review of the book by Bik-Bulatov A.Sh. Essays on the history of Kazan Journalism 1758–1918. Issue 2. Kazan: Makovsky Publishing House, 2021. 976 p.

The monograph by Airat Shamilevich Bik-Bulatov is devoted to the features and patterns of development of the periodical press of the Kazan province in the pre-revolutionary period. The text of the monograph consists of eight sections. The main sources of the research are newspapers and journals of the Kazan province - official, particular, specialized, national Tatar periodicals. The purpose of the study is to give the most complete overview of all the circumstances of the emergence and development of periodicals in the region, to show the activities of editors, journalists, and the relationship between the press and the provincial administration. The essay genre allows the author to freely move from one publication, plot or period to another, without close chronological dependence between them and intermediate conclusions, to conduct a narrative with a large number of private details and digressions. The author demonstrates a high level of detail in the significant events and figures of Kazan journalism, proving that the field of its activity was much wider than that of modern publications. It is surprising that there are no such important components for a scientific publication as an indication of the circulation of the monograph, DOI code, information about the scientific editor and reviewers. The huge volume of presented material did not allow the author to summarize the results of his research in such an important section for a scientific monograph as “Conclusion”. It is noteworthy that the scientific reference apparatus is limited only to a combined personal and newspaper index; footnotes or endnotes to literature and documentary sources are completely absent. Only sometimes they are presented in brackets, including a reference to Wikipedia, which is not entirely appropriate in a scientific text. In general, the text of the monograph is written in a living literary language in a certain author’s style, which reveals Airat Shamilevich as an active journalist and public figure. The author demonstrates a high level of immersion in the topic of his research, thoroughly provides all the details and the smallest details of significant events and figures of Kazan journalism, which is undoubtedly of interest to researchers of Russian pre-revolutionary journalism. The author declares no conflicts of interests.

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