From Theatrical to Scientific Reviewing: The Case of Nikolay Blatov (1875–1942)

ABSTRACT This paper provides insight into the life of Nikolay Blatov, a Russian professor of accounting who was active in the early 20th century. However, this is not a biographical study in the usual sense. It attempts to apply contextual analysis to one of the aspects of Blatov's career, i.e., writing reviews for the educational literature. The paper shows that Blatov's individual style as a reviewer was determined by his cultural environment: his education and his passion for theater journalism in his young years. The study compares the figures of speech that Blatov employed in his theatrical reviews with those in his later scientific reviews. His rhetoric and style as a theater reviewer enriched his scientific reviewing. The paper also considers Blatov's contribution to developing the rules that governed the narrative of textbooks. He influenced their composition, references, style, and the boundaries within which a textbook's language would remain literary.