Comparative and Historical Approach to the Almanac Genesis as a Type of Publications

Abstract

In the article almanacs are interpreted as an international type of publications, presented in the all major European national traditions and developed predominantly on a European basis. Originating in the East, astrological almanacs-calendars spread throughout Europe in the Middle Ages. At the threshold of the Modern Age, almanacs significantly transformed. In Russia, since the end of the 18^th century, literary component of the once unified almanac-calendar has been dominating; in the United States, at the same time, the calendar content has been overshadowing (“Farmer’s Almanacs”). European tradition of the almanacs explicates the syntagmatics of the phenomenon, the Russian – semantics, the American – pragmatics. In the other words, in the United States, the calendar element of almanacs changed to the greatest extent. In contrast to this, in Russia, almanac content was culture-oriented and served as channel of a national literature. The calendar element in the Russian almanac tradition did not appear directly, but was mediated by the literary content formed under the influence of the romantic type of the culture (manifested in the seasonal confinement, composition, genres and thematic, tolerance for the ideological differences). As an international type of publications, almanacs reveal their full potential at the intersection of the different national traditions.