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| Russkoye Slovo | |
|---|---|
| Name | Russkoye Slovo |
| Type | Weekly newspaper |
| Founded | 1859 |
| Ceased publication | 1866 |
| Language | Russian |
| Headquarters | Saint Petersburg |
Russkoye Slovo Russkoye Slovo was a Russian weekly newspaper published in Saint Petersburg from 1859 to 1866, associated with a circle of radical critics and publicists who engaged debates on serfdom, reform, and culture during the reign of Alexander II of Russia. Its contributors and editors intersected with figures from the Russian literary realism movement, the Narodnik intellectual milieu, and the broader public sphere shaped by the Great Reforms. The paper became prominent in discussions alongside other periodicals such as Sovremennik, Moskovskie Vedomosti, and Otechestvennye Zapiski.
Russkoye Slovo emerged in the late 1850s in Saint Petersburg amid the aftermath of the Crimean War and the implementation of the Emancipation reform of 1861, participating in polemics that involved journals like Sovremennik, Zarya, and Vestnik Evropy. Its founding years coincided with debates involving public intellectuals connected to Mikhail Bakunin, Nikolay Chernyshevsky, Alexander Herzen, and the literary circle around Ivan Turgenev and Nikolai Nekrasov. The newspaper's trajectory intersected with governmental organs such as the Ministry of Internal Affairs and censorship practices overseen by officials influenced by policies of Count Dmitry Tolstoy and predecessors from the Nicholas I of Russia era. Significant episodes included sustained exchanges with editors of Sovremennik and confrontations provoked by trials involving activists linked to Land and Liberty and early Narodnaya Volya sympathizers prior to the latter's formal organization. The paper ceased publication in 1866 after a sequence of legal actions and administrative pressures following the assassination attempt on Alexander II of Russia and the tightening of measures by conservative ministers.
The editorial board and stable contributors comprised critics, poets, and publicists who were also associated with the circles of Nikolay Chernyshevsky, Dmitry Pisarev, Nikolai Dobrolyubov, and novelists of the realist school such as Fyodor Dostoevsky and Ivan Goncharov in the sense of shared literary debates. Regular authors included activists and scholars who had connections to Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin, Vladimir Korolenko, and younger radicals influenced by Petr Lavrov and Alexander Herzen. The newspaper published essays, feuilletons, and literary criticism by contributors whose networks extended to publishers like Alexander Smirdin and printers operating in Saint Petersburg and Moscow. Its pages featured correspondents and critics who engaged contemporaries such as Leo Tolstoy, Afanasy Fet, Aleksey Khomyakov, and reviewers connected to salons patronized by families like the Demidov family and institutions such as the Imperial Academy of Arts.
Russkoye Slovo articulated positions aligned with radical reformist and democratic-republican tendencies debated in the 1860s, sharing interlocutory space with tendencies represented by Nikolay Chernyshevsky, Dmitry Pisarev, and the ideologues around Sovremennik. Its editorials criticized aspects of the post-Emancipation order as enforced by officials from the Ministry of Internal Affairs and commented on legislation emanating from the State Council and decrees influenced by figures such as Konstantin Pobedonostsev and Mikhail Katkov. The paper engaged in polemics over the role of intelligentsia represented by associations like the Russian Geographical Society and the Russian Historical Society, while also reacting to events involving revolutionary groups such as Land and Liberty.
Content combined political essays, social reportage, literary criticism, and serialized fiction from authors whose networks included Nikolai Leskov, Ivan Turgenev, Fyodor Dostoevsky, and critics associated with Sovremennik and Otechestvennye Zapiski. The newspaper published polemical articles on the effects of the Emancipation reform of 1861 and analyses of rural disturbances connected to uprisings noted in dispatches referencing regions like Poltava Governorate, Kursk Governorate, and Pskov Governorate. Its feuilletons and satire entered into the same literary ecosystem as pieces appearing in journals edited by Nikolai Nekrasov and commentators such as Vissarion Belinsky. The publication also reviewed theatrical productions at venues like the Alexandrinsky Theatre and discussed art circulating in institutions such as the Hermitage Museum and exhibitions connected to the Imperial Academy of Arts.
Contemporaries debated Russkoye Slovo alongside Sovremennik, Moskovskie Vedomosti, and Otechestvennye Zapiski with defenders invoking the rhetoric of critics like Nikolay Chernyshevsky and opponents citing conservatives aligned with Mikhail Katkov and Konstantin Pobedonostsev. Its influence was felt among student groups at the Saint Petersburg University and readers among members of the Narodnik current and later activists associated with Land and Liberty, contributing to the public climate that produced legal trials involving defendants tried in courts presided over by officials from the Ministry of Justice. Literary historians connect its style and polemics to developments in Russian realism traced through the oeuvres of Ivan Turgenev, Leo Tolstoy, and Fyodor Dostoevsky.
The paper experienced progressive censorship enforced by Tsarist agencies responding to events such as the attempted assassination of Alexander II of Russia and the subsequent conservative backlash led by ministers including Count Dmitry Tolstoy and advisors like Konstantin Pobedonostsev. Suppression involved confiscations, prosecutions of editors under statutes administered by the Governing Senate and policing by departments rooted in the Third Section of His Imperial Majesty's Chancellery. These measures paralleled actions taken against peers like Sovremennik and led to closure in the aftermath of heightened repression during the 1860s, with many contributors dispersing to other journals and emigration networks connected to Alexander Herzen and the expatriate press in London and Geneva.
Category:Defunct newspapers of the Russian Empire