Memorable literary almanacs as a genre of the 80s of the 19th century

The article analyzes the significance of the commemorative literary grand ducal almanacs of the 1880s in modern humanitarian scientific knowledge. The literary almanac of the 1880s is considered as a special type of almanac, shedding light on the evolution of the genre and the literary tastes of the House of Romanov. The albums stored in the specialized departments of Russia`s largest libraries once belonged to the personal collections of “Their Imperial Majesty`s Own Libraries” in the Winter, Anichkov, Gatchina, Vladimir, Marble, Strelna and other imperial palaces. After the coup d`etat of 1917, they were merged with the collections of the RSL, the RNB, and the Pushkin House. Today, these books are of considerable interest in terms of their genre originality and role in the evolution of the almanac. Important evolution-related typological features that disrupt the established patterns are highlighted. This applies, first and foremost, to the correlation of the type of publication itself and the poetics of texts. The logic of the functioning of the calendar collection (calendar, “pocket book”, literary commemorative album) chronologically covers an extremely wide time range from the end of the Middle Ages to the beginning of the 20th century. The date sequence (the sequence of the annual circle) correlates with the filling principles. The timing of the analyzed texts can be traced to certain events. In this particular case, they are traced to the events in the life of the Imperial family. The calendar principle of publication structure sets an appropriate rhythm in the albums, where the pages, according to the epigraph (1885 ed.), are “filled with the memory of the heart.” In the aggregate of data, each extant instance is a complex compositional system of multilevel interpretation (“multilevel artifact”).