Nash Sovremennik

Nash Sovremennik (Наш современник, Our Contemporary) is a Russian literary magazine, founded in 1956, as a continuation of the Yearly Almanac.^[1]

History

The predecessor of Nash Sovremennik was the Maxim Gorky-founded Almanac that was coming out in 1933-1937 and in 1949-1955, 1 to 4 times a year. The Almanac's title was chronologically changing, from Year XVI (1933) to Year XXXVIII (1956), the point of reference being 1917, the year of the Socialist Revolution.^[2]

In 1956 the Almanac changed its name to Nash Sovremennik and up until 1964 was published out as a quarterly. Initially it belonged to the Union of Writers of the USSR, since 1958 it came under the jurisdiction of the RSFSR Union of Writers. Nash Sovremennik‍ '​s first editors-in-chief were V.V.Poltoratsky (1956-1958, an editorial staff member up until 1973) and B.M.Zubavin (1958-1968); in those years its main purpose was considered to be looking for new talents in the Russian province.

In 1969 Nash Sovremennik‍ '​s editor became Sergey Vikulov who, working around the 'patriotism' general paradigm gathered a strong team of contributors: Fyodor Abramov, Viktor Astafyev, Valentin Rasputin, Vasily Belov, Yuri Bondarev, Sergey Zalygin, Yuri Kazakov, Viktor Likhonosov, Yevgeny Nosov, Vladimir Soloukhin, Valentin Sorokin, Vasily Shukshin were among those whose works appeared in it regularly in the 1970s and 1980s. Vikulov departed in 1989, giving way to Stanislav Kunyaev (who is still at the helm).

By this time Nash Sovremennik has found itself in the center of the bitter faction struggle in the Soviet literature and journalism, representing (alongside Moskva and Molodaya Gvardia magazines) the conservative, neo-Slavophile flank, opposing Western-style liberalism (associated in those years with Oktyabr and Znamya, Novy Mir balancing in the center). In 1990 it reached its highest point of popularity; its circulation was reported to be 480 thousand. In 1990s Nash Sovremennik became the organ of the newly formed Union of Writers of Russia, a bitter rival to the Union of Russian Writers. Among its consistent contributors were Vladimir Bogomolov, Sergey Kara-Murza, Vadim Kozhinov, Vladimir Krupin, Yuri Kuznetsov, Mikhail Lobanov, Alexander Prokhanov and later, in the 2000s, Zakhar Prilepin, Mikhail Popov, Irina Mamayeva, Yuri Kozlov amdon others. Still led by Kunyayev, the magazine remains true to its once declared 'patriotic' course, but its circulation has fallen dramatically (to 9 thousand in 2008).^[1]

References

External links

• The official site