On the path of truth and progress: the imperial Russian penny press, 1908-1918

Cowan, Felix

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/115548 Copy

Description

Title

On the path of truth and progress: the imperial Russian penny press, 1908-1918

Author(s)

Cowan, Felix

Issue Date

2022-04-15

Director of Research (if dissertation) or Advisor (if thesis)

Steinberg, Mark

Doctoral Committee Chair(s)

Steinberg, Mark

Committee Member(s)

• Koenker, Diane
• Avrutin, Eugene
• Randolph, John

Department of Study

History

Discipline

History

Degree Granting Institution

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Degree Name

Ph.D.

Degree Level

Dissertation

Keyword(s)

• Imperial Russia
• Russian Empire
• cultural history
• journalism history
• penny press

Abstract

This dissertation examines the profusion of small newspapers sold for a single kopeck across the Russian Empire in the early twentieth century. Taken together, kopeck newspapers formed a penny press similar to those that had emerged in other countries at other points in time. This was a cohesive media genre that included some of the empire’s most popular daily periodicals, reached every corner of the Russian-language public sphere, and represented a dramatic expansion of textual communication and civil society activity in the early twentieth-century Russian Empire. The penny press also reflected and promoted a “progressive” political culture by relentlessly advocating social and political reform to peacefully transform the Russian Empire into a more responsive democratic polity. This dissertation builds on a source base of 79 kopeck newspapers from 30 cities across the Russian Empire, as well as government records, memoirs, diaries, correspondence, and more. It is based on a close reading of the most successful and longest-lasting kopeck newspapers, with particular attention paid to the editorial narratives journalists constructed in constant dialogue with their large audience of poor readers in Russian cities and towns. Nine chapters explore the material reality of the penny press and the people who created and consumed it; the editorial narratives it circulated throughout the Russian Empire on issues of social reform, politics and empire, gender and women’s rights, and backwardness and modernization; and the reception kopeck newspapers received from their contemporaries. The wealth of evidence demonstrates that the penny press was a new phenomenon in late imperial Russia that both reflected and accelerated early twentieth-century changes in Russian political culture. Kopeck newspapers were civil society institutions that drew readers into engagement with the public sphere, local communities, and imperial politics. Their unique combination of accessibility, sensationalism, and progressivism made them a novel addition to Russia’s communications landscape in the early twentieth century, and the dialogic relationship they established with their lower-class public makes them a prominent window into the discourse circulating among Russia’s urban poor. They were consistent voices for moderate reform and peaceful change in the Russian Empire, arguing that the state had a responsibility to advance the interests of the marginalized and democratize power in all areas of life. Kopeck journalists were often cynical and critical of Russia’s sclerotic structures, but they remained optimistic about the prospects for change to move the empire in a moral, democratic, and equitable direction. Given that these stances emerged in dialogue with readers, the penny press indicates strong support for democratic socialism in late imperial Russia, revealing the underlying foundations of Russia’s revolutionary era. Emphasizing dialogue, engagement with readers, and political narratives, this dissertation demonstrates the penny press’s crucial role in late imperial Russia’s shifting political culture. Accessible kopeck newspapers meant more people could enter the political arena than ever before. Poor readers and journalists used this opportunity to fight for their beliefs and values, making the penny press an unprecedented means of studying the contours of late imperial politics. The penny press shows that, despite notions of lower-class disengagement from politics, the fractured and polarized state of late imperial society, and the appeal of violent or revolutionary change, in fact there was widespread support for ideas of peaceful reform, gradual progress, and multifaceted democratization in lower-class discourse across the empire. Equally important, the penny press shows the limits of progressives’ willingness to reform, especially their enduring belief in gender inequality and support for the imperial nature of the Russian state. Exploring politics through the penny press, this dissertation reveals the sophisticated, thoughtful, and critical ways that poor people across the Russian Empire expressed themselves as self-assured social actors when given the chance to step into the public arena.

Graduation Semester

2022-05

Type of Resource

Thesis

Copyright and License Information

Copyright 2022 Felix Cowan

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