The Architecture of Kazan in Graphics of the Tatar Satirical Magazines “Yashen” and “Yalt-Yult”

One of the positive phenomena of mo­dern culture is its tendency to study and preserve urban space, which is especially important for historical cities. The appeal of researchers to the study of urban landscapes, made by artists of pre­vious eras and left for descendants to see the views of large and small ci­ties, contributes to the process of lost monuments reconstruction. The importance of studying images of cities through visual sources is determined by the fact that cities are territories connected with lives of people, who are involved in creation of their architectural monuments. Ci­ties are the habitat of people that reflects their daily life. The article, for the first time, explores the features of the Kazan urban art of the early 20th century reflected in graphic works of the Tatar satirical magazines “Yashen” (“Lightning”) and “Yalt-Yult” (“Sparkle”), published in the early 20th century. The drawings presented in “Yashen” and “Yalt-Yult” are illustrations to articles and feuilletons. Most of the drawings are made in the genre of cartoons, which is predetermined by the studied ma­gazines’ subject matter. Mainly, architectural objects depicted in the cartoons of “Yashen” and “Yalt-Yult” magazines do not have an independent meaning, they are only “present” in picture’s composition in order to show an event from the city’s life more clearly. Another group of the Tatar satirical magazines’ drawings represents the ima­ges of the architectural structures that illustrate texts of advertisements. In this group’s graphics, depiction of architectural monuments is characte­rized by careful elaboration of details due to the reconstruction of the architectural structure’s image through visual memory. Because of the fact that at the beginning of the 20th century, the main part of the Tatar population of Kazan lived on the territory of the Old and New Tatar Slobodas, the authors of articles, feuilletons and cartoons in the magazines mainly reflected the life of those parts of the city. The research is based on the study of fundamental works and publications of Russian scientists and the analysis of the body of sources: articles and dra­wings from the magazines “Yashen” and “Yalt-Yult”, archival materials.