“This Notebook was Assigned to Record from What I Read...”: Fragments of A. Y. Yushina’s Reading Diary, 1875-1876

Abstract

Sources of personal origin traditionally serve as a basis for studying readers of the second half of the 19th century. However, among them are rare texts in which reading is the main content of the records. The publication of fragments from the reading diary of the Vologda resident A. Y. Yushina, which she kept in 1875-1876 while preparing to enter the Higher Women’s Courses, fills this gap. The diary fixed the difficult work for reviewing of fiction and journalistic works, as well as the doubts of a young reader from a provincial town in her own ability to ‘properly’ understand what she read. The main purpose of keeping the diary was self-education and educating herself along the lines of the ‘new type’ of people to whom most of the entries are dedicated. Since the diary was seized during the investigation of the case of the participants in the Kazan demonstration of 1876, it contains comments, written in Yushina’s own words, on the origin of the fragments identified by the prosecutor of the Moscow Court Chamber as evidence of the ‘political unreliability’ of its owner. Thus, we are dealing with a unique document that allows us to penetrate into the reading world of a representative of the generation of the 1870s. The fact that the reader later comprehended her own notes, even if forced by the investigator, adds value to it.