“Beloved People”. Types of Provincial Intelligentsia in the Representation of D. N. Mamin-Sibiryak

Abstract

Mamin-Sibiryak belonged to several cultural and educational public organizations, was familiar with many representatives of the provincial intelligentsia, who became the prototypes for a cycle of his essays called “Beloved People” (1896). The essays are devoted to the Ural local historians, most often nonprofessional scientists, who collected bit by bit information about the history and culture of the Urals: P. M. Vologodsky, N. K. Chupin, V. N. Shishonko and some others. The characters of the essays are ambiguous. On the one hand, they are enthusiasts, selfless workers, driven by love for science and their native land, evoking the author’s ardent sympathy. On the other hand, the figures of the Ural chroniclers and archaeologists are given in an ironic light, their apartments filled with papers, archaeological finds, etc., bring to mind Plyushkin’s house from Gogol’s poem. Their bitter feeling of their uselessness to society, their loneliness is a running motif of the cycle, associated with Mamin’s “beloved” heroes. They are elected or chosen (“beloved” in the ancient meaning of the word) for a high mission — to be enlighteners of the province, to save its historical memory. But the “deaf swamp” of provincial life is drawing them in, they themselves feel their marginality and cultural gap not only along the line of “the capital and the province”, but also in relation to their Ural countrymen. Nevertheless, Mamin emphasizes the deep connection of his characters with their land and its people, the city “crowd”, which “chosen ones” they are. Therefore, the last essay of the cycle affirms the idea of the high mission of a “worldly person”, who knows all the needs of his native city, who cares about others more than about himself.