Poetics of biographical essays in Tobol'skie gubernskie vedomosti (1850s-1860s)

The article deals with the poetics of biographical essays in Tobol'skie gubernskie vedomosti [Tobolsk Province Journal]. This essay type was a natural fit for the unofficial part of the journal and was considered perfect for illustrating the life of the locals by the editors, authors, and readers. The authors of biographical essays recreated the image of a Siberian worker in the 19th century. P.A. Slovtsov, having worked in Siberia for thirty-five years and having dedicated his life to a "proper exploration" of the region, was considered a historically significant person by the Siberian intellectuals. N.A. Abramov depicts him as a heroic patriot in his essay "Pyotr Andreevich Slovtsov" (1858). Slovtsov is depicted as a person "distinguished from the ordinary people by destiny". The artistic rule of validity adopted by Abramov, the consistent account of the facts as the dominant feature of essays, the functional purpose of the information stipulate scientific style of the narrative. Nevertheless, the documented data are put in a special context by the author, hence its artistic meaning. Poetic quotes from Slovtsov's works and his emotional assessments of his own artwork are included in the narrative about his research. The reader is involved in aesthetic living through Slovtsov's destiny, for whom researching the history of Siberia was the demand of his soul and whose most important creation of lifetime as well as its end was the Istoricheskoe obozrenie Sibiri [Historical Review of Siberia: "nothing connects me with the earth anymore, the book about Siberia is finished". Tobol'skie gubernskie vedomosti, not actually being an institution of literary criticism, took part in creating literary biographies of the famous fellow countrymen from the first years of existence. One can observe the succession of cultural traditions in the essays published in different years. The literary biographies are created by talented contemporaries: the grateful apprentice Abramov writes about his teacher Slovtsov; Sulotskiy's accomplishments in literature are noted in a memoir by an anonymous author, published in Tobol'skie gubernskie vedomosti. The motif of deliberate service to Siberia is present in the famous contemporaries' biographical narrative. This motif is one of the general features of biographical essay narrative as the provincial culture considers an enlightener and a devotee a perfect type of a historical personality worthy of the descendants' memory. Bringing forward a historian of Siberia rather than a practitioner matches the task of forming self-consciousness of the Siberian people.

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