18th century Russian autobiographical stories as social practices: An attempt in classification building

Abstract

Reflection and systematization of the 18th century Russian autobiographical stories presents great difficulties: as well as Western European ones, they differ great by from each other in their content, as well as in the form, the size and style. The most common classification is their literary classification based their belonging to some or other genre (autobiography, diary, memoirs, letters, traveling notes). Another classification is based on the authors belonging to this or that social stratum. Both classifications provide little information. The first one doesn't take into account the enormous body of still poorly studied wrightings of little or no literary and aesthetic value. As for the second one, the social affiliation of the authors have no direct relationship with the shape of narratives they created (a noble or an official, for example, could create both diaries and autobiographies, travel notes, etc.). The possibility of the sys-tematization of the Russian personal testimonies of the 18th century based on their considering as communicative acts rooted in these or those situations of social reality is substantiated. The conclusion is drawn: as these communicative acts in most cases were of the same type and were recurring, one may consider the narratives generated by them as results of certain social the practicies - both new for 18th century Russia, and previous ones that gained further development during that century.