The case of the organization of public readings in the city of Bryansk. 1894-1899 years

After the abolition of serfdom and the beginning of capitalist modernization in Russia, the issue of increasing the literacy rate of the population became acute. The educated public - censored and non-censored intelligentsia - took an active part in solving this issue and participated in the development of various forms of extracurricular education. One of such educational activities was the organization of “public readings”, during which illiterate audiences were shown “luminous pictures” and literary works were read aloud. Scholars who have studied this sociocultural practice have come to the conclusion that folk readings were the precursor of cinema and modern mass media. This practice became a widespread form of public work because, firstly, it gained a certain popularity among the urban lower classes, secondly, it became one of the forms of organizing civil society in Russia, and thirdly, it was a tool for forming a public discourse in the country approved by the authorities. That is why the organization of public readings was strictly regulated by rules and was under the full control of the local administration. From all of the above, we can conclude that the topic of organizing folk readings in the Russian provinces is a really important scientific problem. Unfortunately, folk readings in the province, at the provincial level, have not been closely examined in Russian and foreign historiography. The proposed article is intended to partially fill this gap. It is devoted to the reconstruction of the conflict between the governor of Orel A. N. Trubnikov and a group of Bryansk intellectuals over the approval of a special public organization engaged in the conduct of public readings. The study of the conflict is based on the analysis of documents stored in the fund of the Oryol governor in the State Archive of the Oryol region (GASO). The research is based on the method of historicism and traditional (non-formalized) methods of text analysis. On the basis of general logical operations of analysis and synthesis, comparison, evaluation and comprehension, textual analysis of archival documents was carried out. This allowed the author to reconstruct step by step the history of the conflict between the governor of Orel and a group of founders of the Committee of People's Readings in Bryansk. The collision described in the article characterizes the personal style of management established in the Russian bureaucratic system, when the decision on this or that case was determined by the personal favor or disfavor of a high-ranking official.