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Riech': a Portrait of a Russian Newspaper

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

Extract

The Kadet daily Riech’ (1906-18) was a product of the revolution of 1905, which brought Russian political parties into the open. Launched in St. Petersburg in February, 1906, the paper shared the stage with a multitude of opposition organs. Unlike most of these, however, it lived on, and could pride itself on, what was in Russia an unusually long career of frank liberalism. In 1906 alone some three hundred newspapers and journals either were quashed by the censor or died for lack of financial support. Riech’ survived, thanks to its relatively moderate tone, its stable economic organization, and the fact that it was not dependent on political reporting alone. The paper was at its best, not when it stressed politics, as in 1906-7 and 1917, but in the less agitated prewar years, when its cultural columns were second to none.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 1963

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References

1 (St. Petersburg), Feb. 23, 1916.

2 (Berlin, 1937), p. 256. In the first year circulation reached forty thousand, but this fell rapidly after the dissolution of the Second Duma. Gessen's memoirs are the most valuable source for the paper's internal history. They also establish (p. 267) his authorship of Riech’ articles, which he signed variously as .

3 Circulation figures from (Moscow, 1931), pp. 128 and 135.

4 (New York, 1955), II, 13.

5 (St. Petersburg), Apr. 1, 1906.

6 To some extent the function for Reforma was taken over by the St. Petersburg daily Sovremennoe slovo (1907-18), where M. I. Ganfman was one of the editors. Sovremennoe slovo was never as close to the Kadets, however, as Reforma had been.

7 (St. Petersburg), Dec. 18, 1907, pp. 2157 ff.

8 op. cit., p. 361.

9 , Apr. 17, 1914.

10 op. cit., p. 2141.

11 , 1907, pp. 1356-57.

12 , op. cit., p. 276.

13 (Petrograd, 1920), p. 85.

14 (New York, 1952), p. 405.

15 op. cit., I, 345.

16 (Paris, 1929), p. 196.

17 op. cit., II, 51.

18 , p. 223.

19 Ibid., p. 275.

20 They are reprinted in his (St. Petersburg, 1908). The memoirs of Kokovtsov and the collected works of Lenin indicate careful study of Riech'; on occasion Lenin reproduced an entire Miliukov editorial.

21 , pp. 224, 239, and 245.

22 op. cit

23 , Oct. 6 and 14, 1913.

24 Ibid., July 26, 1913.

25 Ibid., Mar. 30 and May 31, 1912.

26 For a case in Ufa see editorial, Nov. 18, 1911.

27 His articles on foreign policy and disarmament are collected in his (St. Petersburg, 1911).

28 Details of the incident are in reccem., , pp. 325 ff. Riech’ might also have had the aid of cabinet members Alexander Krivoshein and Peter Bark, who, according to Gessen, often telephoned to support the paper's stand during the last prewar days.

29 Decree of Dec. II, 1917, reprinted in Meisel, J. and Kozera, E., Materials for the Study of the Soviet System (Ann Arbor, 1953), p. 31.Google Scholar

30 The last months of the paper's life are described in , X (1923), 13-14, 22-23.

31 editorial, Nov. 3, 1913.

32 Ibid., Nov. 25, 1913.

33 , Nov. 19, 1911, p p.301-15.

34 Ibid., Oct. 15, 1913, p p. 71 ff.

35 A review of Riech’ censorship difficulties is in , (St. Petersburg, 1912), p. 200.

36 , June 21, 1915.

37 On the Progressive Bloc see Riha, T, “Miliukov and the Progressive Bloc in 1915, “ Journal of Modern History, XXXII (1960), 1624.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

38 (Berlin), XVIII (1926), 75 ff.

39 (Moscow, 1924), p. 214.

40 loc. cit.

41 May 22, 1916.

42 , Sept. 4, 1913, enumerates all areas of the empire subject to any but normal jurisdiction.

43 The Tambov circular is reprinted in , Feb. 14, 1910, and that of Kursk in ibid., July 20, 1912.

44 Ibid., Apr. 25, 1912.

45 , p. 297.

46 V. N. Kokovtsov, Out of My Past: The Memoirs of Count Kokovtsov (Stanford, 1935), and (3 vols.; Moscow, 1960).

47 , Apr. 4, 1912.

48 Ibid., Apr. 12, 1912.

49 , p. 273.

50 (Leningrad, 1926), p. 8.

51 , Aug. 16, 1912.

52 op. cit., p. 126.

53 Nov. 26, 1916.

54 op. cit., pp. 444-45.

55 He described some of them in his (St. Petersburg, 1908).

56 In recent years articles by him appeared in (New York).

57 , Apr. 19, 1914; , pp. 285-86.

58 , Dec. 10, 1911.

59 Ibid., Sept. 12, 1912.

60 (New York, 1952), p. 227.

61 Sept. 28, 1913, and subsequent issues contain the polemic.

62 Ibid., Dec. 18, 1916.

63 , p. 281; , I. 51-53.

64 For example, (St. Petersburg), 1913-14.

65 , p. 277.

66 Nov. 3, 1913.

67 ibid., Oct. 6, 1910.

68 Ibid., July 19, 1916.

69 Ibid., Oct. 8, 1911.

70 Ibid., Sept. 2, 1914.

71 (5 vols.; St. Petersburg, 1912-16).

72 , XVII (4th ed.; Moscow, 1948), 446.

73 , p. 266.