Kesklinna lokaalses tekstis määratlemise probleemist (1920. aastate Narva venekeelse ajakirjanduse põhjal)

The article is the first in a series of three articles devoted to the problem of defining the city centre in the local text of Narva (the first half of the 20th century). It proposes an original approach to the reconstruction of inhabitants’ perceptions of the city centre expressed in newspaper publications of that time. The approach implies the sequential solution of the following tasks: localisation of the city centre, geometrization of the city centre, identification of the functionality of the city’s central places and establishment of the connection between the ‘geometry’ of the centre and its functional content. The approach presented in the article is implemented to reconstruct the perceptions of Russian-speaking Narva residents of the 1920s about the centre of Narva. The sources of the reconstruction were six Russian-language newspapers published in Narva in 1923–1929. The analysis of the newspaper texts of the 1920s allowed identification of the range of streets and squares called central in the newspapers (Vyshgorodskaia / Suur street, Kirochnaia / Rahu street, Virskaia / Viru street, Rytsarskaia / Rüütli street, Westervalskaia / Vestervalli street, Gornaia / Mäe street, Pavlovskaia / Tuleviku street, Pochtamtskaia / Posti street, Ratushnaia / Raekoja square and Petrovskaia / Peetri square), and outlining the boundaries of the city centre, which generally coincided with the Südalinn district. However, as the analysis of the language of different newspaper article genres has shown, in the 1920s the central places in the newspapers included some places that went beyond the boundaries of the Südalinn district and belonged to the neighbouring Petrovsky forestadt; in particular, Petrovskaia / Peetri square. A comparison of the functionality of three central places – Vyshgorodskaia street, Ratushnaia square, which belonged to the Südalinn district, and Petrovskaya square (as part of the Petrovsky forestadt) – allowed us to identify the reasons for the expansion of inhabitants’ perceptions of the centre and the inclusion of Petrovskaya square in the notion of the city centre in the 1920s. The second article of this series will be devoted to the functionality and image of Vyshgorodskaia street as the main street of Narva in the 1920s; the third article of the series will consider two competing central squares – Ratushnaia square and Petrovskaia square, their significance in the life of the townspeople and the reputation of the places.