Secluded Phekhonets

“Secluded Poshekhonets” is the first provincial magazine in Russia . It was published during 1786 in Yaroslavl Η. F. Uvarov, A. N. Khomutov and N. I. Kokovtsev, edited by V. D. Sankovsky . In 1787 he appeared under the title "Monthly Composition . " He came out with the participation and active support of the Yaroslavl Governor General A.P. Melgunov and ended in connection with his illness and death. Among the authors are teachers M.V. Rozin and I.F. Fortunatov, seminar V. Vasilievsky, Archbishop Arseny (Vereshchagin) , V. D. and N.V. Sankovskiy. Many articles were published anonymously. The circulation of the magazine hardly exceeded a hundred copies. Obviously, it was distributed free of charge or through a charity subscription among the Yaroslavl nobility, and possibly wider.

The magazine was an organ of the Masonic circle of A.P. Melgunov, whose ideological principles were reflected in the name of the magazine, which was considered as a means of spiritual influence and the education of the reading public. Its pages consistently set forth a certain socio-philosophical program of publishers. It is based on an enlightened monarchical ideal, combined with the Masonic concern for moral self-improvement, with the preaching of solitude and the practice of thinking on elevated topics. The second explanation of the name of the magazine connects it with the estate near Moscow Melgunov Sukhanov, where, according to legend, he retired with Sankovsky to work on the publication.

The praises of Catherine II as an enlightened empress are combined in the magazine with advice addressed to local landowners. They are advised to reasonably arrange their relations with the peasants. The opinion is also expressed that forced labor on the land of “captives or criminals” offends it and hinders the abundant fruit-bearing. The subject of criticism is the moral vices of the nobility: laziness, idleness, wastefulness, neglect of serfs. The merits are seen as education, love of books, rationality, as well as virtue, which is not an estate distinction, but the common heritage of all high souls.

Calls for the recognition of his public duty and active participation in life are replaced in the journal by melancholy reflections on the transience of the living, on the transience of human life, on the variability and inconstancy in a world that "desires to be deceived." The authors of the magazine offer to abandon the secular bustle and in peaceful solitude seek peace and harmony in communication with nature, away from cities, in concentrated work on the earth, in thought and in science. Befitting a person is “a life mixed with misadventures,” which teaches him “to know himself and find ways to recover in himself” - and at the same time, a person not understood by society is worthy to leave him in the desert and wilds, to those close people, who are capable of gratitude and love.

Man, according to the logic of the authors of the magazine, is called for self-education. This is the education of a spiritually developed, spiritually rich and generous personality in the process of persistent and intense experience and understanding of the problems of their own existence. The ideal person in the magazine description is a person caught up in historical trials who does not at all give up enlightenment optimism, but more and more often believes it with the logic of stoic duty “against all odds” - and emotionally emigrates from the treacherous society to the brotherhood of the Masonic lodge and to the bosom of all-conquering nature.

In The Solitary Poshekhontsa, Information on the Yaroslavl Governorate, historical and geographical essays on the cities and counties of the Yaroslavl Governorate were published. They were one of the stages in compiling a topographic description of the region. In the "Monthly Composition" of local lore materials was much less.

Now the journal exists in a few copies and is a bibliographic rarity. L.N. Trefolev at the end of the 19th century tried to reprint the magazine set.