THE FORMATION AND DEVELOPMENT OF ADVERTISING IN THE RUSSIAN PROVINCE IN THE LAST QUARTER OF THE 19TH CENTURY (ON THE MATERIALS OF THE “YEKATERINBURG WEEK” NEWSPAPER)

Abstract

The article deals with the formation and development of newspaper advertising in the Perm province in the last quarter of the 19th century. The advertisements placed in the first private newspaper of the region called “Yekaterinburgskaya Nedelya” (“Ekaterinburg Week”, 1879–1896) are analyzed. The main functions of advertising, its content, features and significance are shown. Newspaper advertising, which makes it possible to present the maximum amount of various information in the minimum number of text units, was a kind of “cut” of the daily life of a provincial society. Advertising products demonstrate the relations between material and spiritual needs, range of interests, leisure and work activities of the inhabitants of the Russian provinces. A significant place in the newspaper was given to private announcements that did not have a pronounced nature of advertising, but were such in essence. They were called upon to help the population of the province in solving a number of everyday problems. Newspaper advertising successfully fulfilled its main task – it stimulated the sale of goods, sales growth, thereby activating the development of market relations in the region. This testified to the natural process of commercialization of the press, including the provincial one. A certain imprint on the advertising products of the first private newspaper of the Perm province was imposed by the mining specificity of the region. Being a barometer of the social life of the region, “Ekaterinburg Week” reflected on its pages the changes that took place in the process of the formation of the advertising business in the Russian Empire in the last quarter of the 19th century.