• English
  • Русский

Genre System of Russian XVIII Century Satirical Magazines

This is an open access article distributed under the terms of Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC-BY 4.0).

Satirical magazines are a unique form of the XVIII century literature. Standing outside the dominant in the XVIII century normative poetics, they share its didactic intent. They develop a specific genre system consisting of short literary forms. The research aims to create a structural model of this system. It involves multiple factors: the literary forms it includes are defined on several irredundant criteria. Its main genres are the editor’s essay, the reader’s letter, and parodies. The editor as the subject of an essay is a fictional character. Readers’ letters, whoever their real authors might be, coexist with editor’s essays in a common fictional space. Such genres as newspaper articles, recipes, dictionaries are objects of parody. A character sketch is the basic element of the system. Compressed or extended, it can appear as a description or a narrative. A character sketch as well as other genre modes may take the shape of essays, letters, parodies. Many short forms show a tendency towards cyclization. The magazine as a whole is a literary unity held together with the help of several mechanisms: the editor’s and readers’ personae, formal and thematic parallels between texts, sometimes a common constructive principle or even a single plot. The diversity of simultaneous structuring principles makes the genre system of the satirical magazines complex and flexible, so as to vary aesthetic impressions for the sake of a common didactic goal.

Bibliography
  1. Afanas’ev A. N. Russkie satiricheskie zhurnaly 1769–1774 godov. Epizod iz istorii russkoi literatury proshlogo veka [Russian satirical magazines of 1769–1774. An episode of Russian literary history of the previous century]. Moscow, Tip. E. Barfknekhta i komp., 1859. 282 p. (in Russian).
  2. Berkov P. N. Istoriia russkoi zhurnalistiki XVIII veka [History of Russian 18th –century journalism]. Moscow, Leningrad, Izd-vo AN SSSR, 1952. 572 p. (in Russian).
  3. Bulich N. N. Sumarokov i sovremennaia emu kritika [Sumarokov and the critics of his age]. Saint Petersburg, Tip. E. Pratsa, 1854. XIV, 290 p. (in Russian).
  4. Chto-nibud’ [Something]. 2nd ed. Saint Petersburg, Tip. Artiller. i inzh. kadetskogo korpusa, 1782. 208 p. (in Russian).
  5. DeMaria R., Jr. The Eighteenth-Century Periodical Essay. In: J. Richetti, ed. The Cambridge History of English Literature, 1660–1780. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2005, pp. 527–548. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CHOL9780521781442.022
  6. Emin F. A. Adskaia pochta, ili Perepiski khromonogogo besa s krivym [Mail from hell, or the correspondence of a lame devil with a one-eyed one]. Text preparation, introductory article and commentary by V. D. Rak. Saint Petersburg, Pushkinskii Dom, 2013. 480 p. (in Russian).
  7. Ertler K.-D. Moralische Wochenschriften. In: Europäische Geschichte Online (EGO), hg. vom LeibnizInstitut für Europäische Geschichte. Mainz, 2012. Available at: http://www.ieg-ego.eu/ertlerk-2012-de (accessed 23 April 2020).
  8. I to i se [This and that]. [Saint Petersburg, Tip. Morsk. kad. korpusa, 1769]. 448 p. (in Russian).
  9. Jensen K. Reforming Character: William Law and the English Theophrastan Tradition. Eighteenth Century Fiction, 2010, vol. 22, no. 3, pp. 443–476. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3138/ecf.22.3.443
  10. K.-D. Ertler, A. Lévrier, M. Fischer, éds. Regards sur les “spectateurs”. Frankfurt am Main, Peter Lang, 2012. 372 p. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3726/978-3653-02732-7
  11. Klein I. “Nemedlennoe iskorenenie vsekh porokov”: o moralisticheskikh zhurnalakh Ekateriny II i N. I. Novikova [“Immediate eradication of all vices”: on the moralistic magazines of Catherine II and N. I. Novikov]. In: XVIII vek [The 18th century]. Iss. 24. Saint Petersburg, Nauka Publ., 2006, pp. 153–165 (in Russian).
  12. Ni to ni se v proze i stikhakh [Neither this nor that in prose and in verse]. [Saint Petersburg, Tip. Akad. nauk, 1769]. 160 p. (in Russian).
  13. Osipov N. P. Chto-nibud’ ot bezdel’ia na dosuge [Something for idleness at leisure]. Saint Petersburg, [Tip. Gub. pravleniia], 1800. 416 p. (in Russian).
  14. Rau F. Zur Verbreitung und Nachahmung des “Tatler” und “Spectator”. Heidelberg, Winter, 1980. 449 S.
  15. Satiricheskii vestnik… [The satirical herald… In 9 parts]. Moscow, Univ. tip. u V. Okorokova, 1790–1792. 131 + 142 + 123 + 115 + 103 + 100 + 96 + 92 + 104 p. (in Russian).
  16. Semennikov V. P. Russkie satiricheskie zhurnaly 1769–1774 gg. Razyskaniia ob izdateliakh ikh i sotrudnikakh [Russian satirical magazines of 1769–1774: a study of their publishers and contributors]. Saint Petersburg, Tip. “Sirius”, 1914. 90 p. (in Russian).
  17. Smes’ [The medley]. [Saint Petersburg, Tip. Akad. nauk, 1769]. 320 p. (in Russian).
  18. Stennik Iu. V. Russkaia satira XVIII veka [Russian satire of the 18th century]. Leningrad, Nauka Publ., 1985. 360 p. (in Russian).
  19. T. Chevalier, ed. Encyclopedia of the Essay. London, Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, 1997. 1024 p. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203303689
  20. Truten’… na 1769 g. [The drone… for 1769]. Saint Petersburg, [Tip. Akad. nauk, 1769]. 284 p. (in Russian).
  21. Truten’… na 1770 g. [The drone… for 1770]. Saint Petersburg, [Tip. Akad. nauk, 1770]. 136 p. (in Russian).
  22. Vsiakaia vsiachina [All sorts]. [Saint Petersburg, Tip. Akad. nauk, 1769]. 408 p. (in Russian).
  23. Zhivopisets [The painter. In 2 parts]. Saint Petersburg, [Tip. Akad. nauk, 1772–1773]. 419 p. (in Russian).
Heading: 
Full Text (PDF):
(downloads: 91)