REPRESENTATION OF THE STORY OF THE MEZEN “ROBINSONS” ON THE PAGES OF CHILDREN’S PUBLICATIONS OF THE XIX CENTURY

Abstract

The article is devoted to the story of Mezen hunters, which was published in children’s magazines of the second half of the 19th century. The historiography of this topic is not too extensive. The research interest was focused on the event of the Mezen “microhistory” for children. The source of the article was published in the journals “Journal for reading students of military schools” (1846), “Snowdrop” (1859, 1862) and “Children’s reading” (1871). The article recreates the mechanism of representation of the plot from the history of the development of Svalbard in the XVIII century in the periodicals of the pre-revolutionary period. Comparative analysis of the texts led to conclusions about the techniques used by writers, adapting 18th century narrative to children. The authors conclude that, firstly, during this period, the story of the Mezens in Svalbard is represented in the form of a recounting of events from the German language; secondly, the central episode of the Robinsonade is restored using an arsenal of visual aids; Third, the plot is presented in the form of an artistic and journalistic essay with a foreword about the history of Arctic exploration and the previous unsuccessful wintering. The results of the work suggest the approbation of the hypothesis and the construction of a variant of the plot about Mezen “robinsons” as it exists in children’s magazines of the XIX century.

Keywords: development of Svalbard, Arctic, magazines for children, “Magazine for reading to pupils of military educational institutions”, “Snowdrop”, “Children’s reading”