FIRST WORLD WAR THROUGH THE MIRROR OF KAZAN MEDIA OF 1914

Abstract

The article examines the nature and methods of coverage of the First World War in the two largest Russian socio-political newspapers of Kazan in 1914: the right-wing nationalist Kazan Telegraph and the liberal-democratic KamskoVolzhskaya Rech. The war required a complete reorganization of the structure and headings of both newspapers, intensifying the political differences between the two competing newspapers, adding additional topics around which there was a sharp controversy. If the interpretations of the war at the Kazan Telegraph in the first months were dominated by arguments on the theme of the Greatness of Russia, the uniqueness of the Russian people and the Russian Tsar, while the war is the moment when Russia must fulfill its Divine calling, then in the Kamsko-Volzhskaya Rech, often the word “catastrophe” sounded also cultural, civilizational, and we, the Russian people, must unite in the face of an impending catastrophe. Newspapers of that time are also a valuable source on the daily life of Kazan and the cities of the province during the First World War. Identification of the topics of newspapers in connection with the war, as well as the nature of the general interpretation of the war in both Kazan newspapers, allowed the author to reveal the features of the functioning of the Russian provincial press of this period.