The cycle of feuilletons “Siberian Museum” of the “Conservator” (F. V. Volkhovsky) in the “Sibirskaya gazeta” (1884-1885)

Feuilleton occupied an important place in the system of genres of the pre-revolutionary press. The genre allowed the publishers to openly express their position, criticize the phenomena of social life, and point out the existing problems of society. Feuilletons were often signed with pseudonyms, and some authors transformed pseudonyms into full-fledged “literary masks” that proved to be an important part of the poetics of feuilletons and literary play. Feuilletons were incredibly influential in the provincial press due to its more difficult censorship position than the capital. The leading newspaper of Siberia in 1881-1888 was the Tomsk “Sibirskaya gazeta” that fully revealed the feuilleton talent of the exiled populist and poet F. V. Volkhovsky. The purpose of the study was to identify the content and structural features of the cycle of feuilletons “Siberian Museum” by F. V. Volkhovsky, signed by his pseudonym “Conservator.” The cycle was published in 1884-1885 and comprised 14 works. The “Siberian Museum” turned out to be one of the most conceptual feuilleton cycles by Volkhovsky. The idea of “collecting museum exhibits” became a kind of “frame” for designing the feuilleton content, expanding the author’s capabilities in implementing the installation of “satire on faces,” and it is here that one can see a direct parallel with the satire of N. I. Novikov. “Conservator” was the first “literary mask” of Volkhovsky, the closest to the author himself with his democratic position. However, this allowed Volkhovsky to expand the problem-thematic framework of feuilletons and to test new satire methods that were in demand among the reader of Siberian periodicals.

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