The Role of the Northern Bee Newspaper in Creating a Media Image of the Commander of the Brig Mercury A.I. Kazarsky and the Feat of His Crew

The article studies the efforts of the editorial staff of the St. Petersburg newspaper "Severnaya Bee" to create a media image of the commander of the brig "Mercury" A.I. Kazarsky and popularization of the history of the battle of the brig with two Turkish line ships on May 14 (26), 1829. It was established that the newspaper regularly published reports from the theater of military operations of the Russian-Turkish war of 1828-1829. As a rule - in special "additions" to the main issues. It was the only private newspaper in Russia, which was allowed to publish such materials. The detailed story about the exploits of the "Mercury" crew was reprinted by "Severnaya Bee" from the report of the newspaper "Odessa Herald" as quickly as possible for that time - in three weeks. Later the newspaper (already on the basis of its own sources of information) published notes: about the awarding of the "Mercury" crew, about the sale of A.I. Kazarskys portrait, about the granting to the Emperor of a poem about the exploits of the Black Sea sailors. The final publication on the theme of the exploit of the brig was a large report about its arrival at the Sukhumi roadstead on the day of celebrating the anniversary of the coronation of Emperor Nicholas I. The theme of the feat was in the field of vision of the newspapers editorial staff for a year and a half. No other Russian publication at that time paid such close attention to this topic. It is concluded that the interest of "Northern Bee" to the feat of the crew of "Mercury" and to the personality of its commander is connected, among other things, with the fact that the main publisher of the newspaper F.V. Bulgarin perceived A.I. Kazarsky as a countryman (both were born in Belarus) and a member of the same social stratum with him - the so-called "Lithuanian gentry".