Sourceological Aspects of the Study of Reading in Russia in the Second Half of the 18th – Early 19th Centuries

Reading is an important cultural practice. The relevance of its studying is connected not only with ideas about the intellectual life of society, but politics, economics, and the increasingly complex social structure and emancipation of the individual as well. In Western humanities, studies devoted to the historical aspects of reading practices have become very popular since the 1930s. Despite the fact that in Russia this topic appeared in the scientific field earlier – in the late 19th century, the history of reading in Russia has not been written so far, except for some works. The aim of the article is to introduce the sourceological potential of journal publications of the second half of the 18th – early 19th centuries. Literary writers, critics, book publishers recorded the reading practices of their contemporaries, commented on their reading circle and popular authors, gave their recommendations on what to read and how to react to what they read. The periodicals, along with literary criticism and the expansion of the readership during this period, testify to the emergence of literature as a social institution in Russia. The selected texts are divided into two periods. In the first period between the 1750s–1790s, in publications devoted to reading, authors criticized readers for their choice of novels and spoke from the position of educators. In the second period during the 1800s–1830s, the writing community, which was going through a stage of professionalization, asked questions: who reads them and for what purpose. A detailed analysis of the texts demonstrates the informational potential of periodicals for studying the history of reading in Russia.