Fashionable history: Writing the past in Modnyi Magazin

Abstract

The article examines representation of time and historical events in Modnyi Magazin (Fashionable Journal) — a highly popular women's magazine established in 1862, shortly after the abolition of serfdom in the Russian Empire. The materials under consideration here, besides memoirs and essays directly addressing historical topics, include texts of diverse genres, from the editor's perennial fashion column to pieces of polemical journalism dedicated to “the woman question”. Inspired by liberal reforms of the beginning of Alexander II's reign, the editorial team and the authors of Modnyi Magazin promoted the notion of women's rights, whose extension was described as a necessary stage of historical progress. At the same time, radical proponents of women's emancipation were treated in the journal with suspicion due to the supposed lack of femininity evident in their rejection of fashion and good taste. Apart from being a staple of womanliness, fashion played a key role in defning historical sensibilities of the era: it helped visualize a linear timeline along which various events and personalities could be located, while also contributing to valorization of change. The article shows how the authors of Modnyi Magazin used the past to negotiate the notion of proper femininity, simultaneously carving out a place for women in history. The woman called to inhabit this place was pictured as a reader: the magazine's audience was invited to identify with female historical characters shown poring over historical books and to appropriate their model emotional responses.