Konstantin Apollonovich Bolshakov, author of “Yekaterinburg week”: features of creative manner of a non-professional writer in the context of newspaper literature

We investigate the main trends in Ural newspaper literature of the late 19th century. On the example of K. Bolshakov’s work, published in the first unofficial Ural’s newspaper “Yekaterinburg week”, within the framework of the historical and literary analysis, the attempts of a novice non-professional poet to integrate into the literary hierarchy of the national literary tradition, find literary “teachers” and “patrons” are considered. At the same time, the context of the Ural cultural nest, newspaper form of the existence of literary works exerted its influence on K. Bolshakov’s work. Comparison of publications in the newspaper and archival data (drafts, poems that were not intended for publication) allows us to say that the context of newspaper literature, the will of the editorial board had a direct impact on the writers of that time. We analyze, among other things, social composition of writers of the newspaper “Yekaterinburg week”, newspaper has united non-professional authors who, while developing generally significant social topics, sought to combine with the national tradition. Provincial newspaper literature sought to depict exotic plots, picked up literary innovations coming from the capitals. Against this background, K. Bolshakov’s work gave the impression of being quite traditional, but the choice of S. Nadson as a “literary teacher” for D. Mamin-Sibiryak’s student was quite unexpected. Social sketches, descriptions of professional life, philosophical reflections were intended by the author for publication, including in the newspaper. Poems “in case”, humorous poems remained in the drafts, although newspaper periodicals allowed publishing such texts, which testified to the deliberate selection of texts for publication by the author. K. Bolshakov became – along with Sivkov, Kholodkovsky, I. Popov, Galin, I. Belousov, Milyaev – one of the authors of the “Yekaterinburg week”, which addressed in the late 1880s – 1890s to the philosophical reflections of “night poetry”, nevertheless continuing the traditions of the civic poetry of N. Nekrasov (which is also noticeable in the choice of poetic meter). He did not manage to go beyond the limits of newspaper literature, and so much the better in his works the general tendencies of newspaper literature of that time can be traced.