ENCRRC > REFERENCE MATERIALS: Dictionary

DICTIONARY

• Almanacs
  A fashionable form of publication in Russia in the late 1820s and early 1830s, but with the increasing popularity of prose the verse- laden annual almanacs gradually ceded their place to monthly journals. Major almanac titles included Poliarnaia zvezda (Polar Star), published 1823-1825, and Northern Flowers (Severnye tsvety), published 1825-1831.
  
  
• Archive youths
  "A group of young litterateurs [who] enjoyed a prestigious sinecure in the Moscow archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs" (Todd, Fiction & Society, 27).
  
  
• Biblioteka dlia chteniia (Library for Reading)
  First major so-called thick journal initiated in St. Petersburg in 1834 by its editor Senkovskii and publisher A. F. Smirdin. Quickly acquired 5,000 to 7,000 subscribers. Directed primarily, according to Belinskii, at provincial audiences.
  
  
• Commercialization of literature
  A major topic of discussion in Russia in the 1830s, commercialization and the decline of patronage was also a phenomenon recently encounteed in Western countries. Contributors to the debate in Russia included V. G. Belinskii, N. V. Gogol and S. P. Shevyrev.
  
  
• English Club (Moscow)
  One of several social clubs that varied in status. Moscow in the early 1840s had at least four--also including the Noblemen's, Commercial and German clubs. They regularly held dinners and dances, and subscribed to various books and periodicals.
  
  
• Glavnoe inzhenernoe uchilishche (Main Engineering School):
  Established in November 1819 by Alexander I on the basis of the Engineering School (founded in 1810); consisted of two parts: "ofitserskoe" and "konduktorskoe". Became the Nicholaevan Engineering Academy and School in 1855.
  [Maksimovskii, M.:Istoricheskii ocherk razvitiia Glavnogo inzhenerskogo uchilishcha (Spb., 1869), i].
  
  
• Historical novels
  Appearing in droves in Russia in the late 1820s and early 1830s, major titles included Iurii Miloslavskii (1829) and Roslavlev (1831) by Mikhail Zagoskin, and Poslednii Novik (1831-1833), Ledianoi dom (1835), and Basurman (1838) by Ivan Lazhechnikov.
  
  
• Intensive versus extensive reading
  An opposition presented by the German scholar Rolf Engelsing as a reading revolution--according to which Europeans prior to 1750 read few items intensively, and later read extensively (many items, but not attentively).
  
  
• Journal des Debats
  
  
• Konduktor:
  Student in the Main Engineering School; officer's assistant in schools for naval engineers
  [Slovar' russkogo iazyka (xx, xx), IX, 1796].
  
  
• Makar'ev Fair
  Famous Russian fair held annually since the early seventeenth century on the banks of the Volga in the vicinity of the Makar'ev Monastery. As the result of a fire at the old site, the fair was moved in 1817 to Nizhnii Novgorod (likewise on the river but closer to Moscow).
  
  
• Moskovskie vedomosti (Moscow News)
  
  
• Moskovskii nabliudatel' (Moscow Observer)
  Slavophile journal published from 1835-1839. Edited by M. P. Pogodin; contributors included S. P. Shevyrev, A. S. Khomiakov and I.V. Kireevskii.
  
  
• La Nouvelle Heloise
  Bestselling epistolary novel by Jean-Jacques Rousseau clearly influenced by Samuel Richardson. Published in 1761. Its heroes were Julie and Saint Preux.
  
  
• Novosel'e (Housewarming)
  
  
• Otechestvennye zapiski (Fatherland Notes)
  
  
• Reading Aloud. A widespread social practice throughout Europe. Russian sources are also replete with references to the practice. Listeners were often heavily female, indicating an uncharted audience.
  
  
• Revue des Deux Mondes
  Founded in 1829. One of the two journals in which Balzac usually published.
  
  
• Sovremennik (The Contemporary)
  
  
• Vestnik Evropy (Herald of Europe)
  
  
  

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