‘Siberian notes’ journal as a metatext: the system of ideological implications (1918-1919)

The article analyzes the changes in the ideological implications of the Siberian Notes journal that occurred in 1918-1919 (the journal ceased to exist in December 1919). At that time, the views of the key editorial staff members on the large-scale socio-political shifts taking place in Russia underwent significant evolution. After the outbreak of the Civil War and the dissolution of the Siberian Regional Duma, the modality of the texts changed noticeably. In fiction works, the authors of the journal continued to discuss the socio-political situation using the arsenal of nature metaphorics. However, in contrast to the period of 1916-1917, the present and the future were described pessimistically. The authors used the trope of spring as a sign of change, traditional for Siberian Notes, but this metaphor was devoid of those exclusively positive connotations that had dominated before. In addition, both fictional and non-fictional texts repeatedly introduced a combination of white and green as a color dominant. This was driven by the fact that the white-andgreen banner became the flag of the Siberian Republic, which existed from June to November 1918 and was controlled by the Provisional Siberian Government, with the publisher and editor of the journal Vl. M. Krutovsky being the Minister of Internal Affairs. Apparently, this was the way the journal’s staff manifested their ideological affiliation and commitment to the ideas of regionalism. This is most perfectly exemplified in the last issue of Siberian Notes for 1918, where the intensity of the use of the white and green reached its peak. The issue opened with the program poem The Anthem of Siberia, in the first verse of which the whitegreen colors of the regionalists’ banner were compared with the colors of two key components of the Siberian space - ‘the white-green sea of the taiga’ and ‘the white quiet expanse’.