Russkoye Slovo

Russkoye Slovo (Русское слово, Russian Word) was a Russian weekly magazine published in 1859-1866 by its owner, Count Grigory Kushelyov-Bezborodko.^[1]

History

The magazine’s first editors were Yakov Polonsky and Apollon Grigoryev, but soon both were dropped by Bezborodko in favour of A.Khmelnitsky. In mid-1860 Grigory Blagosvetov came in who invited Dmitry Pisarev to become the head of the literary criticism section, and the journal started to gain ground, albeit a politically risky one. In 1862, after Pisarev’s essay “Pity the Russian Thought”, Russkoye Slovo was banned for half a year.^[1]

Under Blagosvetov Russkoye Slovo became a mouthpiece for the most radical part of young Russian intelligentsia. While Sovremennik (with Nikolai Dobrolyubov and Nikolai Chernyshevsky as its ideological leaders) represented the deeper, analytical part of the same specter, here the superficial, nihilistic protest was the order of the day. Some attacks on liberal literature and arts published here were so outrageous they made even Sovremennik authors aghast.

Polemic essays by Pisarev, Varfolomei Zaytsev, Nikolai Shelgunov, Afanasy Shchapov represented the facade of Russkoye Slovo, but the literature section behind it was unimpressive: two stalwarts here were Nikolai Bazhin and Nikolai Blagoveshchensky, with occasional contributions by Marko Vovchok, Alexander Levitov, Alexander Sheller-Mikhaylov, Nikolai Pomyalovsky, F.M.Reshetnikov, K.M.Stanyukovich and Gleb Uspensky.

After the 1866 Karakozov's assassination attempt Russkoye Slovo (as well as Sovremennik) was closed by the special monarch's decree. ^[1][2]

References