N. D. Akhsharumov as So-Called Editor of «National Chronicle»: To Symbolic Capital of the Mass-Fiction Writer Name

Abstract

Purpose. The article analyzes the editorial and publishing strategies and tactics of the newspaper ‘Narodnaya Letopis’ (‘National Chronicle’) due to a social and literary reputation of Nikolay D. Akhsharumov. Akhsharumov was a mass-fiction writer, contemporary of Goncharov, Dostoevsky and Tolstoy. He was the author of authority conception of enslavement art (1858). The author of the stories (“Double” (1850), “Player” (1858)), novels (“Alien name” (1861) and “Strange case” (1864), he was so-called conservator (anti-radical and anti-nihilist) writer. Particular attention is paid to the circumstance that the reputation of this publication had a direct impact on the “social and literary prestige” (by P. Bourdieu). Results. General attention is paid to the entry of the ‘National Chronicle’ into the journal and newspaper environment of 1865. Program and content of the newspaper are investigated with a comparison of the individual program of Akhsharumov. The main problem, in any case, is the anonymity of the majority of the materials published in the “National Chronicle”. So, in fact, ‘Akhsharumov’ was a single name, who was formally responsible for the content of each article, was listed in each issue. Nevertheless, a brief episode of such a nominal editorial board did not affect the literary reputation of the writer - the article made an assumption as to the communicative nature of the periodical (G. Zykova, I. Silantev and other). The article is based on the testimonies of memoirists (E. Zhukovskaya, A. V. Nikitenko) and archival materials, the newspaper’s reflection in the public consciousness of the period under consideration is reconstructed. Conclusion. The examined case demonstrates specific character of the formation of symbolic capital of the mass-fiction writer, who participates in newspaper and magazine projects of his time. Apparently, it is possible to state the operation of the hierarchy principle: an article in a thick magazine, which in its time caused controversy and discussion, affects the literary reputation much more than the editorial and publication of a newspaper whose communicative nature presupposes an almost instantaneous change of ideological vectors and orientations. Moreover, the study of the “People’s Chronicle” is of interest not only in the history of journalism, but also in the sociology of literature, and also, in the light of the writer’s role behavior, the so-called ‘history of ideas’.