Representation of the “Women's Question” in Official Siberian Periodicals of the Second Half of the 19th - Early 20th Centuries

The aim of the article is to identify and characterize the public opinion on the “women's question” in Siberian official periodicals of the second half of the 19th and early 20th centuries. The term “women's question” represents a complex of issues, such as education, labor and professional life, individual freedom, family relations and political rights. The primary sources are the publications of Siberian state-run and eparchy periodicals that reflected the state's and the Russian Orthodox Church's official position on this question and at the same time formed the public opinion. In 1857, Gubernskie Vedomosti began to be issued almost simultaneously in four principal centers of Siberian provinces: Tobolsk, Tomsk, Krasnoyarsk, and Irkutsk. The official section included regulations, orders, directives of the central and local authorities as well as official announcements. The non-official section included articles on regional topics such as the economy and statistics of the region, ethnographic information, accounts and reports of scientific expeditions. Among other materials, some articles considering “women's question” aspects were published. A similar structure was used in Eparkhial'nye Vedomosti, the Russian Orthodox Church's official periodical issued since 1860. Eparkhial'nye Vedomosti started to be issued in Siberia at different times: in 1863 in Irkutsk (Irkutskie), in 1871 in Omsk (till 1898 they were called Akmolinskie), in 1880 in Tomsk (Tomskie), in 1882 in Tobolsk (Tobolskie), and finally in 1884 Eniseyskie. Not only the official periodicals presented the state's and society's position on female education (the key aspect of the “women's question”), but also the Russian Orthodox Church, no less important an institution in the public opinion. The article deals with collective judgments on the “women's question” communicated through newspaper texts. The main topics of the “question” are identified and characterized: 1) the state of the female education system, 2) the statement of the need for female education, and 3) episodes of the biographies of women who have already changed their social role. Having considered the depiction of the “women's question” in Siberian official periodicals, the author draws a conclusion that, from the point of view of both the state-run press and the Russian Orthodox Church's periodicals, the main aspect of that issue was the female education problem, which was the basis for women's integration into social life. The press formed the opinion on female education development as an important sociocultural phenomenon in the province and a significant fact of Siberian social life. The official state-run and eparchial press predetermined the changes in gender stereotypes in social consciousness.

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