The Religious and Philosophical Category of Virtue in the Metatext of the Trudoliubivaya Pchela Journal (1759) Published by A. P. Sumarokov

Section: History of Journalism

The first private monthly journal Trudoliubivaya Pchela, published by A. P. Sumarokov in 1759, became a communicative platform for the authors of the publication and an opportunity to express their socio-political as well as religious and philosophical views. This article records and studies the cases of reference to the category of virtue in the monthly books of Sumarokov's journal. The narrative potential of this universal united different-genre publications into a special metatext. On the pages of Trudoliubivaya Pchela in 8 issues out of 12, 19 works directly linked to the authors of the journal's reception of virtue were published. Most of the authors became knights of the true Enlightenment – Masons. It is no coincidence that Sumarokov’s and his sympathizers' conceptions of virtue were influenced by the so-called Anderson Constitution – a Masonic constitution written by the British Freemason D. Anderson. Drawing on the journalistic experience of J. Addison and R. Steele, the editors of Trudoliubivaya Pchela appealed specifically to virtue as an inalienable active principle of everyone and the duty of a worthy citizen. On the ground of frequency of references to the concept of virtue, the article concludes that this universal moral category in the journal’s metatext became the key narrative potential that enabled Sumarokov to turn this monthly publication into a tool of communicative influence on its readers. Most of them sooner or later became "industrious bees" – masons.

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