Tomsk amateur journals in the process of students' cultural identification

The article is devoted to the problem of amateur school journals in the periphery of the Russian Empire in 1917-1918. The journal Rodnaya Sibir' [Native Siberia], which was published in Tomsk and was not previously known to researchers, was studied. Two issues of the journal have been found by now; one of them in the collections of the Tomsk State University Research Library, the other in the collection of the Tomsk Museum of Local Lore. The composition of the journal, main themes and genre structure were identified. It was shown that a substantial portion of papers was devoted to the Siberian topic; headlines, which may be conventional, were identified. The list of members of the editorial board was reconstructed, as well as the approximate number of authors; the institutions where the authors studied were specified. Pseudonyms the authors of the journal used were identified. Specializations of authors were established (poets, writers, bibliographers). It was shown that representatives of the native population of Siberia were among the authors of the journal. Techniques of the journal replication were studied (lithography, hectograph, handwritten replication). It was proved that the members of the editorial board knowingly and intentionally sought to expand the journal audience; the way of this expansion was shown (selection of the ways of journal replication, gaining financial independence, creation of a circle for the study of literature about Siberia). The journal Rodnaya Sibir' was established and published by young men and women with an active life stance who did not limit themselves by the frames of school routine. The literary glorification of Siberia, the focus of ethnography and history plots from Siberia's past and present, informational (rather than topical and dramatic as it was in oblastniks' journals) way of publications about local socio-political events can be viewed as a defense reaction to the politicization of the society, an attempt to shelter from the contemporary non-stable state of civil confrontation and as a way to find one's own self in the "peaceful" texts of the past and lost trouble-free time. The consistent journal structure, genre and thematic variety of the journal sections suggests that the editorial board thought Rodnaya Sibir' to be a long-term project. For the young and active men and women the journal Rodnaya Sibir' was an experience of creative expression, of editorial and publishing activities, of social cohesion and communication of wide range of students, an experience of finding and expanding the circle of associates, experience in community service for the benefit of the Siberian region.

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