Memories of Odesa in the 30s of the 19th century: in focus between the "Vorontsov era" and one year

The modern understanding of the history of Southern Ukraine during the imperial period involves taking into account the "decolonization" discourse. Odesa deserves special attention as an administrative, economic and cultural center of the region. In order to achieve it is necessary to rethink the already existing and published historical sources – acts and narrative sources, as well as to search, find and study new materials. The “deciphering” of the diary of the famous Odesa historian Apollon Skalkovskyi for 1835 was recently completed. Тo determine the value of the information given in it, it is necessary to compare it with other sources of personal origin. Therefore, the purpose of this article is to compare a set of memoirs and autobiographies covering both 1835 and 1830s altogether. According to our calculations, almost a quarter of a hundred memoirs tell about the "Vorontsov period" (mid of 1820s – mid of 1840s). However, if we narrow the focus to the 1830s, then less than 15 works remain (S. Borynevych, M. Veselovskyi, P. Weinberg, O. Havrylenko, M. Dievskyi, P. Morozov, M. Murzakevych, A. Fadeev, O. Chyzhevych, Y. Shershenevych, M. Shcherbynin). Obviously, the picture changes significantly if we are talking about only one year 1835 in particular. The review of the above-mentioned narratives was carried out through the general characteristics of each of them according to the following parameters: author (attribution, scale of personality), genre (memoir, autobiography), specific weight of the "Odesa" fragment, duration of time the author was staying in the city, and in particular in 1835, chronological distance (from the events to the writing of the text), archeographic actualization (compiler, format) and focus (overall picture, details, etc.). Reviewing memoir literature on the history of Odesa in the 1830s we should note that memories actually dominate over autobiographies, although some of the former approach the latter in terms of their architectonics. Sources of personal origin have absolute value due to the very fact of their existence. However, in this context, they are not equal. The autobiography of M. Murzakevych claims a special place due to the authorship of the professor-historian and the large amount of the text. However, the year 1835 is represented poorly. The author concentrates on his travels and writing his works, leaving the city in the background. The narratives of S. Borynevych and P. Morozov could claim the place of primary source. But their texts are scattered in as many as five publications. The imperfection of Borynevych's narrative, which was not previously distinguished by his intellectual achievements or a high educational level, is the chronological distance from the time he wrote about and the small volume of the source. Morozov's narratives are either too general (about the holidays), or focused on one character (about M. Magnytskyi's life challenges not in Odesa), or have contradictory content of fragments (about M. Magnytskyi's time in Odesa during P. Blaramberg's lifetime). The narratives of A. Fadeev, O. Chyzhevych and M. Shcherbynin are also of high value. Their peculiarity is the presence of assessments of Odesa society in general. However, A. Fadeev spent not much time in the city, O. Chyzhevych physically began the story too late, and M. Shcherbynin paid a little attention to the 1830s in order to find any special information or emphasis on the year of 1835. The rest of the narratives can give only specific details about specific fragments of the decade and almost nothing about the focus on that single year. However, despite the listed “flaws”, the memoirs of the named authors are a unique source from the history of the specified time - the “golden middle” of “Vorontsov” Odesa, because they were written by local residents who spent years here and saw the city from the inside. With complexed consideration, they can provide both important information and excellent characteristics of the period. But it is also obvious that the picture will not be complete if the memoir literature is not compared with the travel notes of the city guests, diaries, epistolary, namely other sources of personal origin.

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