Gloss and poverty of the "Russian Sheffield": the "worker question" in the cycle of essays "Pavlovo Village" (Moskovskie Vedomosti, 1872)

The article investigates the cycle of essays "Pavlovo Village", published in 1872 in Moskovskie Vedomosti, the most influential conservative newspaper of the 1860s-1880s, published by the authoritative publicist Mikhail Katkov. The aim of the article is to analyze the essays, to determine the name of their author, to identify how the main ideas of the essays correlated with the proposed measures to improve the economic situation and working conditions of Pavlovsk artisan workers, with the program statements of Moskovskie Vedomosti on the "worker question". The urgency of the stated problem is due to the growing interest in modern science in the study of the conservative press of the 19th century, as well as to the need to attribute the journalistic speeches of Mos-kovskie Vedomosti, a significant part of which was published anonymously. The scientific novelty of the research consists in the introduction into the scientific use of new, previously unexplored material, in particular, a previously unpublished letter by Pavel Melnikov, stored in the Archive of the Research Department of Manuscripts of the Russian State Library, and the justification of the writer's authorship in Moskovskie Vedomosti. An assumption that the author of this publication was the writer and publicist Melnikov was made and substantiated. The long-term cooperation of Melnikov with Katkov, textual similarities between the essays and the writer's letter to the editor of Moskovskie Vedomosti and a number of other facts given in the article support this assumption. The essays published in Moskovskie Vedomosti contained a detailed description of the way of life and working conditions of Pavlovo artisans - residents of a large commercial village Pavlovo of Nizhny Novgorod Province, which was long engaged in artisan crafts manufacture of metal products. It is revealed that the essays, which became one of the first performances of the newspaper on the "worker question", proposed a new form of workers' associations for joint production in the conditions of the emerging capitalist relations in Russia, namely, organization of public workshops, creation of loan and broker partnerships, which, in the author's opinion, could not only improve the working conditions and increase the incomes of the workers-craftsmen, but also contribute to better initiative and entrepreneurial skills among them. It is concluded that the main provisions of the essays coincided with the policy statements of Moskovskie Vedomosti and reflected the position of the newspaper and its publisher on the "worker question", the essence of which was in the requirement to systematically and legally establish "contractual principles" in the relations between employers and workers.