The birth of scientific popularization in pre-revolutionary provincial journalism

The genesis of scientific popularization in the Russian provincial press of the 19th century is considered based on the material of the Gubernskiye Vedomosti newspaper in the united Orenburg Governorate with its center in Ufa and subsequently Ufa Governorate, as well as publications of the Belebeyevsky district. It is shown that before the opening of Ufa Teachers’ Institute (1909), it was the local press that was the most effective educator of the local population. The relevance of the work is due to the fact that it is difficult to accurately determine when scientific popularization emerged in the history of Russian journalism: the ways of its development in different provinces of the Russian Empire were very different, because in the vast empire local and metropolitan periodicals were in disparate historical and civil conditions. But exploring this issue, one can find general patterns: for the 19th century, the main and dominant type of provincial publication was the state-owned provincial newspapers Gubernskiye Vedomosti, all of which, regardless of location, went through approximately the same development path. Initially, educational publications in a provincial newspaper did not perform any social functions, filling the remaining empty spaces on the pages. The unofficial part of Gubernskiye Vedomosti published free texts of articles sent by mail from the capital or reprints from the journals of the Imperial Free Economic and Geographical Societies, including stories by metropolitan authors about their travels. This led to an expansion of the reader’s personal world and confirmed his knowledge that the world is vast not only on the globe in the classroom and in the school atlas of the world. Later, articles by Ufa authors and representatives of the local intelligentsia began to be published here. Finally, at the turn of the century, specialized newspapers and magazines appeared, in which journalism began to teach its readers new knowledge and technologies. The analysis of the material demonstrates how scientific popularization became a part of journalism in the Russian Empire and contributed daily to transforming its people from patient and hardworking to knowledgeable and able. The aviation designer Sikorsky emerges from the ranks of these people, Tsiolkovsky creates a scientific theory of rocket science, and the engineer Zvorykin creates a technology for television broadcasting. The author declares no conflicts of interests.

Keywords

Authors

References