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7The journal Osvobozhdenie in close-up
In the history of Russian socio-political thought there are periodicals that symbolize an entire era. They are A. Herzen's and N. Ogarev's Kolokol [The Bell] and Polyarnaya zvezda [Polar Star], the revolutionary Iskra [the Spark], and others. The journal Osvobozhdenie [Liberation] is among those landmark publications. It was edited by P. Struve and issued twice a month, from June 1902 to October 1905, first in Stuttgart and then in Paris. The term "journal" is quite relative in this case because Osvobozhdenie was distributed in Russia illegally, which required maximum printing compactness (each issue consisted of 16 pages of a quarter of a sheet size), since "thick" journals were much more difficult to smuggle into the country. Therefore, in terms of infrastructure, Osvobozhdenie was not much different from illegal newspapers, such as the Socialist Democratic Iskra or the Socialist Revolutionary Revolutsionnaya Rossiya. Nevertheless, the contemporaries referred to the publication as the journal, which was essentially associated with the abundance of serious analytical articles characteristic of journal periodicals. In addition, Listki Osvobozhdeniya [Leaflets of Liberation] that contained up-to-date information about political events were printed in a newspaper format as a supplement to the periodical.
Osvobozhdenie played a significant role in consolidating the Russian liberal opposition. In fact, it was the basis on which the Kadet party grew up, since many of its leaders were regular contributors to the journal.1 However, it would be wrong to evaluate Osvobozhdenie only from the party point of view because the journal reflected a wide range of different opinions, mostly liberal and moderately socialist ones, and became a real memorial to the socio-political thought of that time. In terms of its influence on public opinion, even the contemporaries began to compare it with Herzen's Kolokol.
Osvobozhdenie is well known to historians. Certain aspects of the journal's
3
history have been studied in historiography more than once, but the issues of the
1 See K. Shatsillo, Russian liberalism on the eve of the 1905-1907 Revolution: Organization. Programs. Tactics [in Russian] (Moscow: Nauka, 1985).
V.V. Vodovozov, "Osvobozhdenie" [in Russian], in Brockhaus and Efron encyclopedic dictionary, vol. 2 (St Petersburg: F.A. Brokgauz i I.A. Efron, 1906), 353.
3
See K.F. Shatsillo, "New information on the pseudonyms in the journal Osvobozhdenie" [in Russian], in Archaeographic yearbook for 1977 (Moscow: Nauka, 1978), 111-14;
Historia Provinciae - the Journal of Regional History. 2022. Vol. 6, no. 1 326 ISSN 2587-8344 (online)
Egorov, A.N. The journal Osvobozhdenie in close-up
Communications
journal were difficult for researchers to access (especially for provincial researchers), which is quite natural for a periodical that was illegal at the time of its publication. But the problem was solved in 2021. Modest Kolerov's publishing house issued a three-volume reprint edition of all 79 issues of the journal and its supplement, Listki Osvobozhdeniya.4 The publication was edited by M. Kolerov and F. Gaida (a member of the editorial board of Historia Provinciae - the Journal of Regional History). They also prepared a voluminous introductory article, which considers in detail the role of the journal in socio-political history of Russia. M. Kolerov and F. Gaida stressed the importance of Osvobozhdenie as a historical source in three aspects. Firstly, the publication contains a huge amount of concrete factual material that recreates that turbulent era in detail. Secondly, the journal captured the inner world of the heterogeneous Russian social-liberal opposition. Thirdly, this source makes it possible to analyze in detail the information policy of Russian periodicals of the early 20th century because
openly, without censorship, and politically frankly, it covered those issues that were
described in the Aesopian language of the censored press under the conditions of
political unfreedom in Russia.5
Two collections of articles and materials were published (the first one, in Stuttgart and the second one, in Paris) under the same title Osvobozhdenie in 1903— 04 as a supplement to the journal. To avoid confusion with the titles, the contemporaries called them Knizhki Osvobozhdeniya [Books of Liberation]. They were edited by P. Struve and published in a reduced format of the traditional Russian thick journal (without fiction). Continuing the publication of Osvobozhdenie, M. Kolerov and F. Gaida reprinted these collections6 at the beginning of 2022. In the introductory article they noted that according to their contents, the collections fit into the famous triad of the "ideological collections" (Problemy idealizma [Problems of Idealism] (1902), Vekhi [Milestones] (1909), Iz glubiny [From the Depths] (1918)). Together they make a kind of encyclopedia of Russian life and reflect the ideological, philosophical, party, and political manifestos of that era.
V.Yu. Kanishchev, The role of the journal Osvobozhdenie in the formation of the Constitutional Democratic Party [in Russian] (PhD thesis, Moscow Region State University, 2006).
4 The journal Osvobozhdenie (1902-1905): Reprint edition edited by М.А. ^lerov and F.A. Gaida [in Russian], 3 vols. (Moscow: Modest Kolerov, 2021).
5 F.A. Gaida and M.A. Kolerov, "The journal Osvobozhdenie in the history of Russia" [in Russian], in The journal Osvobozhdenie (1902-1905): Reprint edition edited by М.А. ^lerov and F.A. Gaida, vol. 1 (Moscow: Modest Kolerov, 2021), 19.
6 The collections of Osvobozhdenie (Knizhki Osvobozhdeniya) (1903-1904) [in Russian], ed. M.A. Kolerov, introductory article by M.A. Kolerov and F.A. Gaida (Moscow: Modest Kolerov, 2022).
Historia Provinciae - the Journal of Regional History. 2022. Vol. 6, no. 1 ISSN 2587-8344 (online)
The reprint publication of Osvobozhdenie includes indexes of names and pseudonyms (due to the fact that the publication was illegal, most of its contributors used pseudonyms) compiled by N. Kutueva. She also prepared Knizhki Osvobozhdeniya for republication. Taking into account the great importance of these publications for historical science, M. Kolerov and F. Gaida posted them on the Internet in the public domain.
These publications are certain to inspire research into the political history of Russia of the early 20th century and history of socio-political thought and also to be of great help to the university lecturers who teach the corresponding courses. The journal Osvobozhdenie, Listki Osvobozhdeniya, and Knizhki Osvobozhdeniya can be useful both for seminars and for involving students into research activities. Let me express a wish that M. Kolerov and F. Gaida do not stop at what they have accomplished and continue to publish unique sources on the socio-political history of Russia.
Информация об авторе
Андрей Николаевич Егоров - доктор исторических наук, заведующий кафедрой истории и философии, заместитель главного редактора журнала «Historia provinciae -журнал региональной истории», https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1196-3748,
[email protected], Череповецкий государственный университет (162600 Россия, Вологодская обл., г. Череповец, пр-т Луначарского, д. 5)
Information about the author
Andrei N. Egorov - Doctor of Historical Sciences, Head of the Department of History and Philosophy of Cherepovets State university, Deputy editor-in-chief of the journal Historia Provinciae - the Journal of Regional History, https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1196-3748, [email protected], Cherepovets State University (5, Pr-t Lunacharskogo, Cherepovets, Russia, 162600)
7 Books of the REX information agency [in Russian], accessed December 12, 2021, https://i arex. ru/books/
Historia Provinciae - the Journal of Regional History. 2022. Vol. 6, no. 1
ISSN 2587-8344 (online)
