Abstract
Books and periodicals are often treated separately in sociological studies of reading because they attract different audiences structured in different ways and hence perform different social functions. This general point has interesting applications in the study of Soviet print culture. The first section of this chapter provides a historical overview of Soviet periodicals and establishes an analytical framework for the study of Soviet newspapers, magazines and journals. The rest of the chapter is concerned with particular forms of Soviet periodical publication as they evolved in the perestroika period. This is not intended to be a comprehensive account of the Russian periodical press as it developed between 1986 and 1992 — such an account would fill the book on its own. My aim is rather to analyze the most important changes in the relationship between periodicals and their readerships by combining general surveys of the main forms of periodical publication with more focused case-studies.
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Notes and References
Perhaps the clearest examples of genres that perform this function are fairy tales and children’s literature: these are orientated not towards short-term social knowledge but rather towards moral norms and values which need to be deeply internalized.
In Soviet times it was, of course, quite common (especially in the glas-nost period) for readers to chase after a particular issue of a particular journal because they wanted to gain access to a novel published in it. But this simply shows that Soviet tolstye zhurnaly of the late 1980s were losing their primary function and turning into something resembling almanacs.
See P. Kenez, The Birth of the Propaganda State: Soviet Methods of Mass Mobilization, 1917–1929, Cambridge, 1985.
See J. Brooks, ‘The Press and Its Message: Images of America in the 1920s and 1930s’, in S. Fitzpatrick et al. (eds), Russia in the Era of NEP: Explorations in Soviet Society and Culture, Bloomington, Ind. and Indianapolis, 1991.
J. Brooks, ‘Public and Private Values in the Soviet Press, 1921–1928’, Slavic Review, vol. 48, no. 1, 1989, p. 19.
See J. Brooks, ‘Competing Modes of Popular Discourse: Individualism and Class Consciousness in the Russian Print Media 1880–1928’, in Marc Ferro et al. (eds), Culture et Révolution, Paris, 1989.
Just how and when these foundations were laid is, of course, one of the big questions facing scholarship on the early Soviet period. Caryl Emerson provides a thoughtful statement of the problem in ‘New Words, New Epochs, Old Thoughts’, Russian Review, vol. 55, no. 3, 1996.
S. Fitzpatrick, ‘Newspapers and Journals’, in S. Fitzpatrick and L. Viola (eds), A Researcher’s Guide to Sources on Soviet Social History in the 1930s, London and New York, 1990.
For this reason the profession of journalism had a much lower status in the Soviet Union than it did (and still does) in the West. Working conditions were poor, prospects limited, and the qualifications of matriculants to journalism schools declined steadily. In fact, it is open to debate whether Soviet journalism should be considered a ‘profession’ at all. For more detail, see T. Remington, ‘Politics and Professionalism in Soviet Journalism’, Slavic Review, vol. 44, no. 3, 1985. The ‘professional’ credentials of journalism are examined in Morris Janowitz, ‘The Journalistic Profession and the Mass Media’, in J. Ben-David and T. Nichols Clark (eds), Culture and its Creators: Essays in honor of Edward Shils, Chicago, 1975.
‘Zhurnalist i chitatel”, Sovetskaia pechat’, no. 6, 1956, p. 1.
For more on the Soviet press as a means of mass information and propa-ganda, see B. McNair, Glasnost, Perestroika and the Soviet Media, London, 1991; and J. Murray, The Russian Press From Brezhnev to Yeltsin, Aldershot, 1994, esp. ch. 1.
See A. Verkhovskaia, Pis’mo v redaktsiiu i chitatel’, Moscow, 1972.
The seriousness of this discussion was lightened somewhat by the social satire found in the highly successful humour section (on the back page): see A. Vishevsky, Soviet Literary Culture in the 1970s: The Politics of Irony, Gainesville, Fla, 1993, esp. pp. 67–70.
See I. Fomicheva (gen. ed.), ‘Literatumaia gazeta’ i ee auditoriia, Moscow, 1978. A survey of the late 1960s found that it was precisely the sections on literature that readers found least satisfactory: see Problemy sotsiologii pechati, 1970, p. 125. The’ specialist’ articles cohabited with rubrics that implied an audience more massovaia intelligentsiia than literary elite: for the telling example of the section on kul’tura rechi, see D. Christians, Die Sprachrubrik der Literaturnaja Gazeta von 1964 bis 1978, Munich, 1983.
Lenin himself encouraged this kind of feedback; perhaps this is connected to the fact that his sister worked in the letters department of Pravda. Mikhail Nenashev relates that during his editorship at Sovetskaia Rossiia a sociological service was set up to monitor readers’ letters; 30 000 of these were received in 1978, rising to 200 000 in 1986 (see M. Nenashev, An Ideal Betrayed: Testimonies of a Prominent and Loyal Member of the Soviet Establishment, London, 1995, p. 54).
For a good account of one part of the Soviet’ system’ of journalism, see Raionnaia gazeta v sisteme zhurnalistiki, Moscow, 1977. This study concludes that more vigorous efforts must be made to stimulate active contact between the local newspaper and its readers. For a detailed description of the ‘attentive’ approach to readers’ letters required of Soviet journalists, see, for example, N. Bogdanov and V. Viazemskii, Spravochnik zhurnalista, Leningrad, 1965, pp. 266–81.
For more on this, see M. Mommsen, Hilf mir, mein Recht zu finden: Russische Bittschriften Von Iwan dem Schrecklichen bis Gorbatschow, Frankfurt am Main, 1987.
For more on obshchestvennye korrespondenty, see Raionnaia gazeta, pp. 202–17. This study found that over a third of articles on local life were written by neshtatnye avtory; the authors argued that greater prominence should be given to ‘ordinary readers’.
For an analysis of the rabseVkor movement as an attempt to bridge the communication gap between intelligentsia and narod, see Michael S. Gorham, ‘Tongue-tied Writers: The RabseVkor Movement and the Voice of the “New Intelligentsia” in Early Soviet Russia’, Russian Review, vol. 55, no. 3, 1996. One very interesting source on readers’ letters in the same period is the archive of Krest’ianskaia gazeta, which actively encouraged readers to write in with their memories of the Revolution and civil war as part of a general campaign in the mid-1920s to form and mobilize a collective past. For a sample of the letters to Krest’ianskaia gazeta, see Golos naroda: Pis’ma i otkliki riadovykh sovetskikh grazhdan o sobytiiakh 1918–1932 gg., Moscow, 1998. The rabseVkor movement experienced a renaissance in the climate of civic activism in the 1960s: these ‘worker’-journalists (who were often in reality intelligenty) would arrive in a particular organization without warning and carry out a spot-check (reid).
See A. I. Verkhovskaia, ‘Osobennosti redaktsionnoi pochty mestnykh izdanii’, Vestnik Moskovskogo universiteta, seriia 10, Zhurnalistika, no. 5, 1985.
See Massovaia informatsiia v sovetskom promyshlennom gorode, Moscow, 1980.
Note also the findings by sociologists in the Belorus’ SSR in the 1980s which showed that 12 per cent of the population of the republic had written to the press, television or radio: see EffektivnosV sredstv massovoi informatsii, Minsk, 1986, p. 73.
See A. I. Verkhovskaia, ‘Obshchestvennye sviazi zhurnalistiki v usloviiakh preobrazovaniia obshchestva’, Vestnik Moskovskogo universiteta, seriia 10, Zhurnalistika, no. 2, 1991. Similar conclusions may be drawn from J. Riordan and S. Bridger, Dear Comrade Editor, Bloomington, Ind., 1992.
L. Gudkov and B. Dubin, ‘Zhurnal’naia struktura i sotsial’nye protsessy’ (1988), in their Literatura kak sotsiaVnyi institut, Moscow, 1994, p. 297. Much of the subsequent information on Soviet magazines before glasnost is taken from this article, which was the first thorough piece of research on the subject.
Note, for example, the memoirs of Konstantin Simonov, who describes how much attention Stalin gave to the literary journals in the late 1940s (when Simonov was editor of Novyi mir): see ‘Glazami cheloveka moego pokoleniia’, Znamia, no. 3, 1988, esp. pp. 53–66. Also highly revealing is Denis Babichenko’s collection of documents, ‘Literaturnyi front’: Istoriia politicheskoi tsenzury v SSSR. 1932–1946 gg., Moscow, 1994.
The best-known example is Novyi mir: see E. R. Frankel, Novy Mir: A Case Study in the Politics of Literature 1952–58, Cambridge, 1981; and D. R. Spechler, Permitted Dissent in the USSR. Novy mir and the Soviet Regime, New York, 1982; a good overview of the journals and their institutional context is provided by Geoffrey Hosking in ‘The Institutionalisation of Soviet Literature’, in G. A. Hosking and G. F. Cushing (eds), Perspectives on Literature and Society in Eastern and Western Europe, London, 1989.
For a more detailed account of these changes, see I. D. Fomicheva, Pechat’, televidenie i radio v zhizni sovetskogo cheloveka, Moscow, 1987, esp. pp. 75–95.
Note especially the Novosibirsk project run by Vladimir Shlapentokh in the late 1960s.
See E. Mickiewicz, Media and the Russian Public, New York, 1981, esp. pp. 58–67; and E. Mickiewicz, ‘Political Communication and the Soviet Mass Media’, in J. L. Nogee (ed.), Soviet Politics: Russia after Brezhnev, New York and London, 1985.
On the pioneering Krasnaia nov’, see R. Maguire, Red Virgin Soil: Soviet Literature in the 1920% Princeton, NJ, 1968.
This is the approach taken by Vail’ and Genis in their 60-e. Mir sovetskogo cheloveka, Ann Arbor, Mich., 1988.
On the cultural importance of this form of periodical in the late 1980s, see A. Marchenko, ‘Al’manakhi i vokrug’, Znamia, no. 2, 1990.
E. Starikova, ‘Kniga o dobre i zle, ili Smert’ Ivana Il’icha’, NM, no. 12, 1987, p. 216.
For more on this, see R. Marsh, ‘The Death of Soviet Literature: Can Russian Literature Survive?’, Europe-Asia Studies, vol. 45, no. 1, 1993, esp. pp. 130–2.
See L. Gudkov, ‘Konets zhurnal’nogo buma. Popytka diagnoza’, LG, no. 1, 1991.
Alla Latynina commented perceptively on the polemical blindness of some sections of the intelligentsia: see her articles ‘Kolokol’nyi zvon — ne molitva’, NM, no. 8, 1988; and ‘Vremia razbirat’ barrikady’, NM, no. 1, 1992.
On the intelligentsia’s discourse of crisis, see two articles by Katerina Clark: ‘Not for Sale. The Russian/Soviet Intelligentsia, Prostitution, and the Paradox of Internal Colonization’, Stanford Slavic Studies, vol. 7, 1993; and ‘Granitsy, perestanovki i perelitsovki: Russkaia intelligentsiia v “postpere-stroechnyi period”’, in N. Azhgikhina (ed.), Novaia volna: Russkaia kuVtura i subkuVtury na rubezhe 80–90-kh godov, Moscow, 1994.
Gudkov and Dubin estimate that there were over seventy articles on the intelligentsia just in the central press from Spring 1992 to Spring 1993: see their ‘Konets kharizmaticheskoi epokhi. Pechat’ i izmeneniia v sistemakh tsennostei obshchestva’ in Svobodnaia mysl’, no. 5, March 1993, p. 41.
See, for example, ‘Est’ li u Znameni budushchee?’, Znamia, no. 1, 1997.
See L. Gudkov and B. Dubin, ‘Parallel’nye literatury. Popytka sotsiologich-eskogo opisaniia’, Rodnik, no. 12, 1989.
B. Dubin. ‘Zhurnal’naia kul’tura postsovetskoi epokhi’, NLO, no. 4, 1993.
See A. Chernyshev, ‘La Reflexion mythologique en Union Soviétique 1985–1991: La Perestroika comme “Travail sur le mythe”’, Revue des Etudes slaves, vol. 65, 1993.
M. Iampol’skii, ‘Vina — pokaian’e — donos’, Stanford Slavic Studies, vol. 7, 1993.
Note also Aleksandr Genis’s remark, ‘Are we not confusing the death of our culture with the Day of Judgment?’ in ‘Vzgliad iz tupika’, Og, no. 52, 1990. Similar is S. Dovlatov, ‘Literatura v opasnosti — eto normal’no’, LG, no. 33, 1990.
L. Gudkov and B. Dubin. ‘Bez napriazheniia... Zametki o kul’ture perekhodnogo perioda’, NM, no. 2, 1993.
L. Gudkov and B. Dubin. ‘Ideologiia besstrukturnosti (Intelligentsiia i konets sovetskoi epokhi)’, Znamia, no. 11, 1994.
A further meaningful comparison can be made with the post-Stalin Thaw: the years 1955–6 saw the establishment of Iunost’, Molodaia gvardiia and Neva.
See L. Gudkov and B. Dubin, ‘Zhurnal’naia struktura i sotsial’nye protsessy’, in their Literatura kak sotsial’nyi institut, Moscow, 1994.
This definition is adapted from A. Suetnov’s in Samizdat, vol. 1, Moscow, 1992, p. 6.
For a good description and interpretation of these developments, see ‘Regime and Opposition in the Pre-political Period’, ch. 2, in M. Urban with V. Igrunov and S. Mitrokhin, The Rebirth of Politics in Russia, Cambridge, 1997.
Quoted in M. Meerson-Aksenov, B. Shragin (eds), The Political, Social and Religious Thought of Russian’ samizdat’ — An Anthology, Belmont, Mass., 1977, pp. 37–8.
In 1989 the bibliographer Aleksandr Suetnov was able to list 1500 periodicals belonging to the ‘informal press’: see A. Suetnov,’ samizdat. Novyi istochnik bibliografirovaniia’, Sovetskaia bibliografiia, no. 2, 1989. Note also Elena Zhemkova’s detailed catalogue of the Bremen-based samizdat collection: Novaia periodika i samizdat na territorii sovetskogo soiuza 1987–1991, Bremen, 1992.
Suetnov, Samizdat, p. 10.
On Siberia, see M. Bogdanova, Samizdat i politicheskie organizatsii Sibiri i DaVnego Vostoka, Moscow, 1991.
This is a translation of zhurnaly in Russian: it really means both magazines and journals.
All statistics taken from the booklet Pechat’ Rossiiskoi Federatsii for 1991 and 1992.
Here it is worth mentioning in particular the small literary journals and almanacs whose number increased greatly in 1991–2: see for example the rubric ‘Novye zhurnaly’ in Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, where reviews of the new journals have appeared from 1993.
A collection of articles from this period came out in English: V. Korotich and C. Porter (eds), The Best of Ogonyok, London, 1990. Korotich was also widely interviewed at this time: for example, in The Journal of International Affairs, vol. 42, no. 2, 1989, pp. 357–62. John Garrard gives a slightly later account of Ogonek’s vigorous social involvement in ‘The Challenge of Glasnost: Ogonek’s Handling of Russian Antisemitism’, Nationalities Papers, vol. 19, no. 2, 1991, pp. 228–50.
Feliks Medvedev, Tsena prozreniia, Moscow, 1990, p. 4.
B. Dubin, ‘Zhurnal’naia kul’tura postsovetskoi epokhi’, p. 305.
George Vachnadze goes so far as to say that magazines such as Ogonek ‘in any normal society would simply not be able to exist... Ogonyok is a lightweight black-and-white magazine... Exposes of the excesses of Stalin’s days have won it millions of readers. Eventually they started criticizing the whole of the pre-Gorbachev era. But the general details of such events are well-known, and all these discoveries and goings-on belong to the past. Given the lack of normal school textbooks in the country, Ogonyok makes ideal reading for students (and teachers) of history, sociology and literature’; see his Secrets of Journalism in Russia: Mass Media Under Gorbachev and Yeltsin, New York, 1992, p. 114.
Ia dobren’kim byt’ ne mogu’, Og, no. 31, 1986.
See A. Arkhangel’skii, ‘Mezhdu svobodoi i ravenstvom’, NM, no. 2, 1991, pp. 225–41.
Cathy Porter declares that ‘it is this haphazardness which makes Ogonyok so exciting, as though pieces were simply pouring in, unable to wait for the “right” time to be printed’ (The Best of Ogonyok, p. 3). Irina Murav’eva, writing about the Ogonek of 1988, chose rather to point out its bittiness, inconsistency and unwillingness to take ideas to their logical conclusions (‘Chad obnovlennogo Ogon’ka’, Kontinent, vol. 59, 1989, pp. 415–30).
Korotich gave details on his letter-publishing policy in an interview with John Murray in September 1988: ‘we have two aims: first of all we make a point of publishing purely controversial, problematic letters; secondly, we print letters from Stalinists, from people whom we consider dangerous’. He also confessed that ‘At the moment we rely on letters we receive to tell us who our public is... we get a lot of mail’ (John Murray, The Russian Press from Brezhnev to Yeltsin, Aldershot, 1994, pp. 176–7).
See I. Commeau Rufin (ed.), Lettres des Profondeurs de l’U.R.S.S. Le Courrier de Lecteurs dVgoniok (1987–89), Paris, 1989.
See ‘Pis’ma na kontrole’, Og, no. 32, 1986.
The number of letters received annually rose steadily from 15 372 in 1986 to 153 894 in 1989. Subscriptions shot up from 561 415 in 1987 to 4 454 573 at the start of 1990 (restrictions on subscription had been removed in 1989). (All statistics taken from Ogonek, no. 1, 1990, p. 4.)
Vitalii Korotich quoted in Murray, The Russian Press, p. 176.
Viktor Perel’man, giving (by emigre standards) a sympathetic account of the new Ogonek, drew attention to the conflict he saw about to emerge in Soviet society (see ‘Esse o govoriashchei Rossii’, Vremia i my, vol. 99, 1987, pp. 152–62). Even the insider Feliks Medvedev had to admit (in 1990) that ‘perestroika has not only consolidated society but also in some way broken it up and created divisions’ (Tsena prozreniia, p. 17).
See Arkhangel’skii, ‘Mezhdu svobodoi i ravenstvom’, p. 228.
See, for example; N. Il’ina, ‘Zdravstvui, plemia mladoe, neznakomoe...’ (no. 2, 1988); S. Rassadin, ‘... Vse razresheno?’ (no. 13, 1988) and ‘Vse podelit’?’ (no. 20, 1988); B. Sarnov, ‘Kakogo rosta byl Maiakovskii’ (no. 19, 1988) and ‘O “molchal’nikakh” i “pervykh uchenikakh”’ (no. 16, 1989).
See the articles ‘Chem pakhnet tormoznaia zhidkost’?’ (no. 11, 1988) and ‘Perekhod cherez boloto’ (no. 25, 1988). It should be noted that Ivanova sensed the imminent crisis of shestidesiatnichestvo earlier than most; she threw her weight behind the radical cause in Ogonek while the polemics were at their most intense, and then, in the 1990s, withdrew to the tolstye zhurnaly (she is currently an editor of Znamia).
Examples include: ‘Verit’ samim sebe’ (no. 45, 1986), ‘Peredai dal’she’ (no. 7, 1987), ‘Nuzhnee vsego — garantii’ (no. 21, 1987), ‘Otkrovennost’ za otkrovennost” (no. 46, 1987); and ‘Na ch’ei storone uspekh’ (no. 8, 1988).
W. B. Lerg, M. Ravenstein and S. Schiller-Lerg, Sowjetische Publizistik zwischen Öffnung und Umgestaltung. Die Medien im Zeichen von Glasnost und Perestroika, Munster, 1991, pp. 150–71.
The name echoes Nina Andreeva, author of the infamous ‘Ne mogu postu-pat’sia printsipami’, Sovetskaia Rossiia, 13 March 1988.
The harm done by the state monopoly on paper and printing is analyzed by Lev Gudkov in ‘Krepostnaia pechat”, Og, no. 19, 1990.
An editorial averred that ‘just like during the anti-alcohol campaign, when the people started drinking surrogates, it will now start reading surrogates. And the harm done will be greater’ (no. 33, 1990, p. 7).
See J. Murray, The Russian Press, p. 75.
See no. 36, 1990, p. 3.
See no. 37, 1990, p. 5.
‘Korotich govoria: Ogonek — ek?’, Stolitsa, no. 41–2, 1991, pp. 67–74.
A number of materials in Ogonek over 1992–3 were to discuss the intelli-gentsia’s loss of cultural hegemony. Note, in particular, L. Anninskii, ‘Bez nas, bez nas!’, no. 11, 1993; N. Azhgikhina, ‘Kul’tura v smutnoe vremia’, no. 29–30, 1992; and the same writer’s’ sumerki zhanra’, no. 19–20, 1993.
B. Dubin, ‘Dinamika pechati i transformatsiia obshchestva’, Voprosy liter-atury, no. 5, 1991, p. 93.
Murray, The Russian Press, p. 76.
Ibid.
Despite the state support it was receiving, Pravda faced ruin in 1992, but was rescued in truly remarkable fashion. In September 1992 the editor of the newspaper, Gennadii Seleznev (subsequently President of the State Duma and prominent member of the Russian Communist Party) sold Pravda to a family of Greek businessmen. The agreement he signed remained secret until July 1996, when the Greeks began to exercise their rights, as owners, to dictate editorial policy. The result was a messy conflict that went to arbitration in the Palace of Justice (see A. Politkovskaia, ‘Delo o Pravde obrastaet sensatsionnymi podrobnostiami’, Obshchaia gazeta, no. 37, 1996.)
For a good summary of developments across the journal press, see B. Dubin, ‘Zhurnal’naia kul’tura postsovetskoi epokhi’, NLO, no. 4, 1993.
One of Starkov’s particularly astute ideas was to bring out several monthly or bimonthly’ supplements’ with advice on practical questions such as family life, management of personal finances, taxes and etiquette.
See B. Dubin, ‘Dinamika pechati’.
The complexity of audiences has been noted by F. A. Biocca: ‘what is occurring is the breakdown of the referent for the word audience in communication research from both the humanities and the social sciences’ (quoted in D. McQuail, Audience Analysis, Thousand Oaks, Calif, and London, 1997, p. 2). For an account of the problematic relationship between cultural studies and audience analysis, see N. Stevenson, Understanding Media Cultures: Social Theory and Mass Communication, London, 1995, ch. 3. For more on the practical difficulties associated with readership research, see B. Allt, ‘Reading and “Readership” — Can the Correlation Be Improved?’, in H. Henry (ed.), Readership Research: Theory and Practice, London, 1982; and G. Consterdine, Readership Research and the Planning of Press Schedules, Aldershot, 1988.
Typical of this effort to mobilize the reading public was the public discussion of legislative change that was orchestrated in many Soviet newspapers: see Kampaniia po vsenarodnomu obsuzhdeniiu v pechati zakonoproektov: Opyt primeneniia kontent-analiza, Moscow, 1990.
I. Fomicheva, Pechat’, televidenie i radio v zhizni sovetskogo cheloveka, Moscow, 1987, p. 89.
For an instructive application of the concept of’ structure’ to the Soviet system, see Urban, The Rebirth of Politics in Russia, esp. ch. 1.
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Lovell, S. (2000). The Periodical Press: Background and Case-Studies. In: The Russian Reading Revolution. Studies in Russia and East Europe. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230596450_5
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