The article reconstructs cultural life in Kazan on the basis of materials from the Octobrist newspaper Obnovlenie (Renewal), published from January to June 1906. The newspaper is considered as a source on the history of culture, including the issues of religious life in a multiconfessional region, primary education for “non-Russians”, the choice of Tatar youth under Europeanisation, and the preservation of holidays of the Tatar people. The articles of Kazan publicists, V.P. Burenin's poems about M. Gorky's trip to America, previously unknown, are brought into a scientific turnover for the first time. The articles of professors N.F. Vysotsky and N.F. Katanov are unusually in tune with the key socio-cultural issues of our time, concerning the relationship between the institution of church and authority, and the influence of falsified history on the formation of a distorted picture of the world.
the newspaper “Obnovlenie”; Octobrists; Kazan University academic corporation; church court reform; education of “foreigners”; Europeanization of Tatar youth; holiday “jien”; M. Gorky in America.