Metatextual features of the collection Siberian Stories and its place in the formation of the literary process of the region in the second half of the 19th century
Authors:   Tomsk State University, Smolianinov Artem V. 
Published: May 2023

The article presents an approach to the study of Siberian collective literary collections as metatexts. The research material is the collection (almanac) Siberian Stories (1862) – the first Siberian book of this type. Its compiler and publisher is N. S. Shchukin (1838–1870), an Irkutsk writer, public figure, founder of the Siberian community in St. Petersburg, who had a great influence on N. M. Yadrintsev and G. N. Potanin, the main ideologists of oblastnichestvo [Siberian regionalism movement]. Their memories of N. S. Shchukin are involved in the study as supplementary material. The relevance and, at the same time, the novelty of the work (in the framework of studying the literature of Siberia) are due, firstly, to the lack of literary analysis of both the collection Siberian Stories and the works included in it (authored by I. V. Omulevsky and A. K. Ordynsky); secondly, the need to comprehend its place in the literary process of the region of the second half of the 19th century, associated with the activities of oblastniks [members of the Siberian regionalism movement], who actively developed the theory of identity of Siberian literature. The aim of the article is to identify the signs linking the texts of the collection Siberian Stories into an artistic whole and thereby forming a metatext. The author of the article assumes that there is an idea, a concept, or even an internal intention of the compiler, who, guided by any of the above, determines the selection and order of texts in the collection, and also takes into account the actual writers’ position, the content of the works and correlates them with the image of a real or potential reader (the target audience). The research methods were sociological and structuraldescriptive, as well as methods of narrative and motivic analysis to identify the frequency, common components of works in the collection. The rationale for the use of the metatext theory in one of its extended interpretations is the effective experience of its application for the study of literary ensembles. The analysis of the collection Siberian Stories shows that its metatextual features are read at several interrelated levels: ideological, conceptual, structural, which finds expression in narrative, compositional, motivic and figurative specifics. The fact that this publication is a metatext (metanarrative) about Siberia, created by Siberians and for Siberians, makes it possible to fit it into the culturalhistorical and, in particular, literary process of the region as a landmark phenomenon, the relevance of which was due to the requests of literary subjects. The significance of the collection is confirmed by the fact that it expresses the characteristic features of a new stage in the formation of Siberian literature in the 1860s: the ideology of oblastnichestvo, the image of a Siberian writer, the Siberian circle of problems, the Siberian reader as a target, genre heterogeneity, the feuilleton manner of narration.