On publication of mourning messages in Krasnoye Znamya Tomsknewspaper (1940-1962)

The authors of this article present historical inquiry ofRussia necropolis and a work of collection and publication of funeral inscriptions which contain important evidence for genealogy andlocal history. It is shown that in the middle of the 20th century all historical cemeteries in Tomsk were destroyed; necropolis studiesused the mourning information from periodicals. Evidently Tomsk newspaper Кrasnoye Znamya (Red Banner) can be used as a sourceto inquire about those who were buried in the Southern cemetery, the only Tomsk cemetery during 1940-1962. These dates setchronological limits on the topic. The article represents 2517 mourning messages published in Кrasnoye Znamya during 1940-1962.The frequency of publications is given, their classification is made. All mourning messages are divided into four groups: funeralannouncements, obituaries, condolences and gratitude for helping with burial. The content of mourning messages of each group isdescribed, their informative value is identified. It appears that mourning messages contained such important knowledge of deceasedpeople as last name, first name, middle name, date of death; there is information of occupations, profession, position and place ofemployment, relationships. The birthday date was published rather rarely, as a rule, in the obituaries only. The primary purpose ofmourning messages was to inform all about the death and burial of a person; so those messages included an indication of address, dateand hour of burial. Unlike the pre-revolutionary period, when mourning messages included the information of Church where thefunerals took place, Кrasnoye Znamya has no references to the Church. There is information about the civil ceremonies organized ateducational and culture institutions, and so on. It's noted that there were detailed funeral announcements and obituaries dedicated to themost prominent citizens of Tomsk - administrative and economic heads, university professors, doctors, school teachers, honored artists.Obituaries of the prominent citizens of Tomsk were signed by their colleagues, but just after 1957 such signatures were replaced by theimpersonal cliche - a group of mates. Many obituaries of Кrasnoye Znamya looked like official references, the deceased were oftencalled ''sons of Lenin-Stalin Party''. Still, the newspaper published quite a few messages expressing hearty feelings of pain, loss andcompassion. We prove here that mourning messages have a high degree of reliability, although still there are inaccuracies in spelling ofsome names. So we believe that mourning messages published in Кrasnoye Znamya provide unique information to study the socioculturaldevelopment of Tomsk in the middle of the 20th century, see changes in burial rituals, protect cultural heritage.

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