A reader of newspapers, magazines and books beyond the Urals: An essay on becoming

The article analyzes the socio-historical and cultural prerequisites for the formation of the reading public in Siberia: the migration of peasants and the rapid growth of cities in the second half of the 19th century, the rapid growth of the bourgeois class and its cultural demands; the opening of new educational institutions and libraries that introduced the broad masses to reading; the construction of the railway; the cultural influence of the exiled Decembrists and Polish insurgents in Siberian cities. The special role of Aleksey Suvorin, the largest publisher of inexpensive printed products, and Professor Osip Senkovskiy, the editor of the first Russian mass “thick” magazine Biblioteka dlya chteniya [Library for Reading]. All this together leads to the loss of the noble's monopoly on culture, when the bourgeoisie, having received an education provided by the state, puts forward the most talented and intelligent into the cultural and professional environment. The data of pre-revolutionary statistics and provincial commemorative books are used as the research material.

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