“Our Russian literature (as a whole) has, among many unique features, one that extremely distinguishes it from Western European literature. This feature is the significant spread of so-called thick magazines,” noted bibliographer N.A. in 1912. Ulyanov in the preface to the “Index of Journal Literature” compiled by him. The fact that the thick magazine, a type of periodical brought to life by the unique conditions of Russia, plays a special role in Russian journalism was noted by everyone who wrote about the development of the press system in the country.
The general characteristics of a thick magazine are:
· a set of topics that are in the area of attention to the journal;
· volume (300-500 pages).
All three areas of interest are found in the magazine issue in a ratio determined by the uniqueness of the historical period and the state of the readership. It is possible for any of the three areas to come to the fore, with the consequence that the others are pushed into the background. A similar phenomenon is observed when studying the history of thick magazines in Russia.
In the XIX - early XX centuries. In the European press, journals were of a specialized nature and were divided according to branches of science. They were not counting on a wide circle of intelligent people, but on their specific reader. A type of such publication is a review, consisting of short articles. Each issue is a complete whole, without any continuing publications.
In Russia, with its vast territories, in the absence of good communications and a limited number of books, the magazine became a source of fiction, information about current events and reports on scientific achievements. “For 7-10 rubles,” writes N.A. Ulyanov, “the subscriber receives 12 thick books, in which the experienced editors present the reader with a wide variety of material to satisfy his curiosity. The magazine to some extent satisfies the urgent need, especially for the provinces, to keep track of the mental life of all mankind. He paid a subscription fee and was provided with articles from his magazine for the whole year.”
A major role in the magazine was played by serially published novels, extensive scientific and critical articles, which created in the reader an “anticipation effect” for the next issue, a possible annual subscription to it.
A full description of the thick magazine as a type of publication is contained in the article by D. E. Maksimov, published in 1930 in the collection “From the Past of Russian Journalism.” The author of the article not only showed the reasons for the appearance of the thick magazine in the system of Russian journalism, but also highlighted the main type-forming features of this publication. The contradiction between the needs of the intelligentsia and the lack of necessary books in the provinces “was resolved by creating the form of a thick magazine, which made it possible to combine in one book a kind of scientific encyclopedia, a literary and artistic collection and a political newspaper,” D. E. Maksimov accurately noted.
The thick magazine has been the dominant type of periodical in the system of Russian journalism for almost a century.
At the beginning of the 20th century. the oldest of the thick magazines was Vestnik Evropy. In 1915, during the First World War, the magazine celebrated its 50th anniversary.
Founded in 1802 by the outstanding historian, the largest Russian writer of the era of sentimentalism Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin and professor at Moscow State University, historian Mikhail Trofimovich Kachenovsky, the journal of historical and political sciences “Bulletin of Europe” was closed in the 1830s. In 1866, five professors at St. Petersburg State University were forced to resign due to disagreement with government policy in the field of education - Russian historian, publicist and editor M.M. Stasyulevich; Russian historian-lawyer K.D. Kavelin; Russian literary critic, ethnographer, academician of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences (1898), vice-president of the Academy of Sciences (1904) A.N. Pypin; Russian lawyer, outstanding lawyer, Polish publicist, critic and historian of Polish literature, public figure V.D. Spasovich; Professor B.I. Utin - a new magazine was published in St. Petersburg.
“We restored the name of the Karamzin magazine in 1866, when it was the 100th anniversary of Karamzin’s birth, thereby wanting to honor his memory,” Vestnik Evropy subsequently wrote.
“Bulletin of Europe” was published in St. Petersburg from March 1866 to March 1918, monthly, in 1866-1867. - 4 times a year, became the first classic thick publication in Russia. The first two years of "V. E." was a scientific historical journal. In addition to scientific articles and historical fiction, chronicles and bibliographies were published on its pages. In 1868, the content of the Bulletin was expanded to include departments for domestic and foreign policy.
Having the goal of introducing the reader to the life of Europe by reprinting extracts from 12 European newspapers, Vestnik Evropy very quickly acquired sections characteristic of subsequent thick magazines: fiction and criticism, political and scientific. A tribute to the times was also the appearance on the pages of the thick magazine of color drawings and reproductions, advertising and announcements. Announcements about new books and magazine subscriptions were traditionally placed on the covers of such publications. But in the 1910s, Vestnik Evropy began to publish other advertisements: sewing machines, lingerie, etc. This provided the magazine with financial resources, since the circulation was low and there was not enough money from subscriptions.
Professional interests of long-time publisher M.T. Kachenovsky was brought to the fore by scientific departments. “Bulletin of Europe”, under the new editorship, significantly expanded the range of topics of the magazine, began to pay more attention to social issues and tried, by expanding the chronicle department, to overcome the slowness and cumbersomeness for which critics reproached the magazines. But it was not possible to complete the begun transformations. This was prevented by the outbreak of the First World War and the revolution of 1917. At the beginning of 1918, the magazine was closed.
This is how not only the “regular Russian type magazine” appeared, as its contemporaries called it, but also its variety - the “encyclopedic thick magazine”. It received its most complete expression in the publication of the famous Russian bookseller and publisher Alexander Filippovich Smirdin, edited by Osip-Yulian Ivanovich Senkovsky, “Library for Reading”. When creating the “Library…”, the Parisian “Bibliotheque Universelle” (universal library) served as a reference point, but, as almost always happened in Russia, the European model underwent a significant transformation, turning into a magazine of the “ordinary Russian type”. “Moscow Telegraph”, “Telescope”, “Library for Reading” were encyclopedic magazines. They focused on educating their readers and introducing them to the achievements of scientific thought. “The encyclopedic magazine to a certain extent broke the class boundaries of journalism. It was a magazine about everything and for everyone, not only for a narrow circle of educated nobility, predominantly in the capital.”
The famous opposition magazines Sovremennik (1836) and Otechestvennye zapiski (1820) by N.A. were classic thick publications. Nekrasov and M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin. They were published in an era of political passions, which forced the editors to reduce the scientific part of the magazine to a minimum, focusing all the reader’s attention on the internal politics of the country. The field of fiction also sharply lost its importance. The type of magazine created by Sovremennik and Otechestvennye zapiski, D.E. Maksimov and B.I. Yesin was called journalistic. In such a magazine, a political newspaper comes to the fore, the materials of which are published in the journalistic departments that existed in all thick magazines: “Internal Review”, “Foreign Review”, “Provincial Review”, “From Public Life”, etc. A unique genre of review provided an opportunity to talk about the events that happened during the month, comment on them and express your attitude to what is happening. The magazine's reviews consisted of short articles covering the main events of the month. The topics of these articles were included in the subtitle. So, for example, in the 8th issue of “Bulletin of Europe” for 1909, “Internal Review” consisted of the following articles: “Unfulfilled expectations”, ““His Majesty’s Opposition” and the official press”, “Moderate reactionary program”, “ Suspension of the newspaper “Slovo”. Even literary criticism very often took the form of a review.
In the analytical reviews and chronicle sections of the thick magazine, its ideological program and direction took place. “Journalism, pursuing mainly social and educational goals,” writes D.E. Maksimov, naturally, highlighted reviews and articles, and treated fiction as an inevitable concession to the frivolous reader. Therefore, non-fiction departments (especially political review) were given a lot of space.” The Russian thick magazine, especially its journalistic variety, is characterized by a special attitude towards fiction. In a magazine, “the works of art placed in it are perceived by the reader, first of all, as the views of the magazine itself and only secondly as the individual opinions of authors possessing one or another worldview. The literary personality of a writer participating in an ideologically determined body helps to comprehend and supports not so much individual parts of the magazine (article, poem, etc.), but the entire magazine as a whole.”
The type of thick magazine actively dictated its requirements for the literary material included in the issue. Only works selected by the editor could be published on its pages. In turn, the magazine context or hidden criticism gave the work new shades, often not intended by the writer. “It is known that in traditional Russian journalism of the journalistic type,” D.E. continues his thought. Maksimov, - each organ, firmly put together in an ideological sense, to some extent depersonalizes the material placed in it, acquiring a special function in it compared to that which would be characteristic of this material outside the magazine. The material included in the magazine loses its individual shades and turns towards the reader with its summary, typological side, both ideologically and partly aesthetically.”
The relationship between different departments of a thick magazine - fiction, politics, scientific content of the issue - determines its character and allows it to be classified as an encyclopedic, journalistic or literary subtype.
The “ordinary Russian type” of the magazine, adapted to the unique conditions of Russia, which is familiar to the interested reader, often dictated its terms to the editors of the magazines. For example, the “Bulletin of Europe”, revived in 1866, was conceived according to the type of English three-monthly publications, but by the end of the second year of publication it was forced to become a monthly of the “ordinary Russian type”, since the reader was not satisfied with the publication of the magazine once every three months .
In 1892 - the magazine “God’s World”, conceived as a publication “for youth and self-education.” In the second half of the 90s, it turned into a socio-political and literary publication of the same “ordinary Russian type.”
The magazine “Life”, created as a magazine for family reading, “Education”, originally called “Women’s Education”, and some others, which arose in the 90s of the 19th century, inevitably transformed into traditional thick publications.
Factors influencing the reorganization of the formation of new journals and their directions:
· reader requirements (the desire to see the magazine the way the audience is used to reading it);
· requirements for generalization in the coverage of articles and detailed comments.
Both of these factors are what the thick magazine was so well suited to.
Late XIX - early XX centuries. - development of newspapers. Magazines are gradually moving away from their leading position in the press system. The magazine “Modern Life” wrote in 1906 that thick magazines “are too slow and too cumbersome to be the main channels of ideological currents in acute periods of social life. True, their solidity and thoroughness in developing the problems of the time are much higher than the methods of the frivolous press. But when the center of gravity of interests is not in theoretical, but in practical creativity, while there is no voluntary or involuntary lull or reaction, this solidity does not help them much.”
The main criticism of a thick magazine is that it is slow and cumbersome. But there were other reasons for the decline in the prestige of publications of this type.
The growing literacy of the population and the changing political side of people's lives led to a significant increase in the readership, which was interested in a wider range of not only social, but also scientific and cultural problems. The thick magazine, for all its versatility, did not satisfy the growing demands of readers. Interest in scientific problems has increased significantly. Due to this, the magazines again became encyclopedic for a while. But significant differentiation of sciences, interest in natural sciences - mathematics, chemistry, medicine, etc. - brought to life a large number of specialized publications for trained readers and popular science publications for those interested. “Bulletin of Knowledge”, “Bulletin and Library for Self-Education”, “Knowledge for All”, “Around the World”, “Nature and People” in the 20th century. fully solved encyclopedic problems.
The emergence of new literary movements and schools, which caused great public outcry and intensified literary struggle, influenced the thick magazine. Those that appeared at the very end of the 19th century were more suitable for solving complex aesthetic issues. “manifesto magazines”, “World of Art”, “New Path”, “Scales”, etc. Works of art began to be published in almanacs published by numerous publishing houses. Collections from the publishing houses “Znanie”, “Rosehipnik”, “Northern Flowers”, “Scorpion” and many others provided the opportunity to show their work without the ideological orientation introduced by the direction of the magazine. However, this does not mean that thick magazines were left without good fiction after the revolution of 1905-1907. many Russian writers again returned to reputable publications read by the intelligentsia, and even tried to give them a predominantly literary character. Theater and art reviews are leaving the thick magazine: the development of theater and fine arts, the complication of aesthetic disputes, and in these areas contribute to the formation of special publications - theater, art, music, etc. .
Despite all the talk about the death of the thick magazine, it did not disappear, but once again proved the viability of the “ordinary Russian” publication in a qualitatively changed system of journalism. “Modern Life” turned out to be right: the thick magazine, which had gone into the shadows during the period of social upheaval, again took its place during the period of calm in the reaction, when the time came for an in-depth analysis of the experienced revolutionary storms: a magazine of this type once again proved that it was the one best suited for such work .
The classic type of thick magazine in the 20th century. “Bulletin of Europe”, “Russian Wealth”, “Russian Thought”, “God’s World”, “Modern World” and other publications remained faithful, but under the influence of social needs they were forced to change.
The magazine "New Literary Review" also has special content from issue to issue. Its structure, consisting of identifying problems in literary theory, historical and literary works (the history of literature in Russia, its connection with the West), articles, reviews, interviews, essays on the problems of Soviet and post-Soviet literary life, reveals “UFO” as “thick magazine". The variety of topics, discussions, journalism, in general, makes it possible to talk about the gradual withdrawal of the publishing house’s book series from the structure of its thick magazine of the same name.
The first festival of literary magazines was held in Yekaterinburg
Text: Ksenia Dubicheva/RG, Ekaterinburg
Photo from Facebook by Sergei Kostyrko. From left to right: Ekaterinburg writer, deputy of the Sverdlovsk Regional Duma Evgeny Kasimov, deputy editor-in-chief of the Ural magazine Sergei Belyakov, editor-in-chief of the October magazine Irina Barmetova, editor-in-chief of the Znamya magazine, independent Ekaterinburg publisher
In Yekaterinburg, at the “Fat Men in the Urals” festival, the heads of ten fat literary magazines in Russia met. The program of the representative meeting - to discuss the complexities of today's existence of "fat people" - was more than fulfilled, but the eternal question "what to do?" — and this time I didn’t receive a clear answer. The combined forces of the editors-in-chief never resolved the issue of the future fate of the “fat men.”
“The once mighty sumo wrestlers, as the “fat men” were depicted on festival booklets, have long turned into dystrophics who only care about not dying in the Year of Literature. Such sarcasm is excessive, says Alexander Ebanoidze, editor-in-chief of the Friendship of Peoples magazine.
At the round table “Fat Magazines in Lean Years,” the heads of literary magazines noted a catastrophic drop in circulation. But to correct the situation, methods were proposed that seemed to be drawn from Gogol’s Manilov.
“If the St. Petersburg magazines were given the salary of at least one missing, second-team Zenit player, then, probably, these millions of euros would be enough to publish the magazine until the end of the century,” calculates Alexander Kazintsev, deputy editor-in-chief of Nashe Sovremennik. “They will tell me that football is a spectacle, and no one reads thick magazines.” So they don’t really watch football!
The curator of the “Magazine Hall” Sergei Kostyrko “on his fingers” explained how much the writers’ fees have fallen:
— In Soviet times, Literary Review paid 400 rubles per sheet (25 typewritten pages or 40 thousand characters with spaces. — Note ed.). If we convert the fee into the price of a loaf of bread, then now this amount is equivalent to 2.5 thousand dollars. No magazine can afford such wages. Therefore, now, in order to get high-quality texts, editors are looking for any motivation - except financial.
Sergei Chuprinin has been running Znamen since 1993, during which time the magazine's circulation has dropped 400 times. And the reason for this, the editor-in-chief believes, lies not in the quality of literature, not in the effectiveness of management, but in the fact that the reader has changed.
“The country prefers to write rather than read,” states Chuprinin. — Once upon a time there were ten thousand writers, members of the Union, throughout the entire Soviet Union. Currently, the texts of 685,712 poets have been published on the website Stikhi.ru. If each of them bought at least one book or magazine, what would be the circulation, fees and social prestige! And it doesn’t require any special sacrifices: the magazine costs the same as three cups of coffee or half a kilo of sausages.
In his opinion, readers are in no hurry to exchange sausages for literature due to migration from thick magazines to television or social networks:
— Short, succinct texts that are easy to read are published on networks instantly, and not after four months, as in Znamya. They can be commented on, deleted, edited - in a word, they can be disposed of. Here's the thing: the reader now becomes the steward of cultural space.
“A reader and writer can live without a magazine,” summed up literary critic Leonid Bykov, moderator of the round table. “But literature cannot survive without a magazine.”
It should be noted that the reader has not lost interest in “Great Literature.” The festival diagnosed a shortage, if not a famine, for literary events in Yekaterinburg. The packed halls where the festival events took place can only be called a “firefighter’s nightmare.” For example, at the creative evening of the poet Olga Sedakova, there were three times more spectators than the hall could accommodate (there was no scandal; intelligent poetry lovers stood resignedly in the stuffy hall for two hours, shoulder to shoulder). In the same way, fans of Veniamin Smekhov “kept watch” in the aisles of the auditorium, ready to endure inconvenience for the sake of Russian poetry. So from the public's point of view, the festival was certainly a success.
Professional meetings did not go so smoothly. The point, first of all, is the fundamentally different financial models of the activities of metropolitan and provincial magazines. The latter exist exclusively on a budgetary basis, at the expense of regional funding, the volume of which depends on the human factor, on the predilections of the regional authorities. For example, the maintenance of the Ural magazine costs the budget of the Sverdlovsk region eight million rubles annually. In addition, in two tranches this year and next, the journal will receive an additional 4.5 million to increase fees, provide libraries with journals, etc.
The basis for funding capital magazines are grants, which provide, so to speak, greater freedom of maneuver. Therefore, the proposal to seek firm state guarantees for publications did not find understanding among the capital’s “fat men”.
Next year they plan to hold the second festival of thick literary magazines in Yekaterinburg.
Literary and artistic magazines have always been a special part of Russian culture. At the moment, thick magazines remain practically the only publications that focus exclusively on the artistic and intellectual validity of the text.
We present to your attention a review of “thick” magazines that continue the best traditions of Russian literary and artistic periodicals.
You can get acquainted with these magazines on the subscription of the Central City Library named after A.P. Chekhov.
"FRIENDSHIP OF PEOPLES"- founded in 1939 to popularize the works of writers of the Union republics in translation into Russian. Since 1991 – private publication. Since 1995 Ch. The editor is Alexander Ebanoidze.
The magazine covers and supports a single cultural space created over many decades by the efforts of artists and cultural figures from all countries that make up the former Soviet Union.
The magazine publishes: new works of writers and poets from Russia, near and far abroad countries; topical essays that analyze the most pressing problems of our time - national, social, religious, cultural and moral; literature reviews and critical articles.
Nowadays, the pages of the magazine publish the works of famous authors: Roman Senchin, Mikhail Kaganovich, Vladimir Shpakov, Alexander Zorin, Alexander Melikhov, Evgeny Alekhin, Marina Moskvina, Alexander Ebanoidze, Leonid Yuzefovich and others.
"STAR"- the oldest monthly “thick” magazine in Russia. Since its founding in 1924, it has published more than 16,000 works by more than 10,000 authors, including Maxim Gorky, Anna Akhmatova, Alexei Tolstoy, Mikhail Zoshchenko, Osip Mandelstam, Nikolai Klyuev, Vladislav Khodasevich, Boris Pasternak, Yuri Tynyanov, Nikolai Zabolotsky and many other writers, scientists, publicists, critics. Of all the magazines ever published in the northern capital since its founding, not one has been published, like Zvezda, for more than 80 years in a row without interruption.
Here are some regular sections of the magazine: “POETRY AND PROSE”, “NEW TRANSLATIONS”, “OUR PUBLICATIONS”, “OPINIONS”, “ESSAYS AND CRITICISM”.
In each issue of the magazine, new names appear, unknown to readers, and new translations of the best foreign authors are published.
The editors regularly publish thematic issues entirely dedicated to one or another cultural figure, historical phenomenon or event. Once a year, a special thematic issue of “Stars” is published, entirely dedicated to a specific cultural phenomenon.
"BANNER"- literary, artistic and socio-political magazine of Russia founded in 1931. Among the authors of that period were the poets Akhmatova, Tvardovsky, Yevtushenko, Levitansky, and the prose writers Paustovsky, Tynyanov, Kazakevich, Trifonov. During perestroika, Znamya was one of the most popular literary magazines. Works by Fazil Iskander, Andrei Bitov, Tatyana Tolstoy, and Viktor Pelevin appeared on its pages.
The pages of the magazine publish the works of the most popular poets and writers of our days. The famous critic Andrei Nemzer singles out the following authors: Yuri Davydov, Yuri Buida, Andrei Dmitriev, Marina Vishnevetskaya, Evgeniy Popov, Mikhail Kuraev, Emma Gershtein, Georgy Vladimov, Vladimir Makanin.
Regular sections of the magazine: “Prose”, “Poetry”, “Archive”, “Cultural Policy”, “Image of Thought”, “Observer”, “Publicism”, “Criticism”, etc.
In 2003, the magazine opened a new section, “Not a day without a book,” in which it provides monthly reviews of new books - 30 or 31, depending on the number of days in the current month.
The modern magazine "Znamya" reflects the literary trends of our days. People of all different tastes in literature will find something to read for their souls and minds on the pages of the Znamya magazine.
"YOUNG GUARD"
– monthly literary, artistic and socio-political magazine. Founded in 1922. Until 1990, it was an organ of the Central Committee of the Komsomol, then independent.
It was to the magazine “Young Guard” that the young and at that time still almost unknown S. Yesenin, M. Sholokhov, L. Leonov, V. Shishkov, A. Fadeev, N. Ostrovsky once brought their works...
When A. Nikonov became the editor-in-chief of the magazine in the 60s, a patriotic group of authors began to form around the Young Guard. Then the “Letters from the Russian Museum” by V. Soloukhin, which caused a lot of controversy, was published. Then there were strong patriotic publications by L. Leonov, V. Chivilikhin, artist I. Glazunov, sculptor S. Konenkov, literary researchers M. Lobanov, V. Kozhinov.
M. Alekseev, Yu. Bondarev, V. Fedorov, I. Stadnyuk, P. Proskurin, V. Shukshin, N. Rubtsov, F. Chuev, E. Volodin, I. Lyapin, V. Tsybin brought their talented works to the magazine. V. Smirnov.
Today, among the authors of the “Young Guard” are N. Kuzmin, V. Manuilov, M. Antonov, G. Shimanov, V. Stroganov, A. Tuleev, S. Shatirov, D. Ermakov, V. Desyatnikov and others.
Together with the Young Guard Foundation for Support of Creative Personalities, it holds the All-Russian Poetry Competition named after S. Yesenin.
Currently, the magazine continues to defend the classical, Orthodox-patriotic traditions of Russian literature.
"MOSCOW"- Russian literary magazine. Published monthly in Moscow since 1957. Since 1993 it has been subtitled “Journal of Russian Culture”.
Mikhail Bulgakov’s novel “The Master and Margarita” was first published in the “Moscow” magazine. Outstanding works of Russian literature were printed on the pages - “The Life of Arsenyev” by Ivan Bunin, “They Fought for the Motherland” by Mikhail Sholokhov, “Seventeen Moments of Spring” by Yulian Semenov.
"Moscow" is the prose of Leonid Borodin and Pyotr Krasnov, Alexey Varlamov and Alexander Segen, Alexander Gorokhov, Mikhail Popov and Vera Galaktionova. This is the poetry of Boris Romanov, Galina Shcherbova, Vladislav Artyomov and Viktor Bryukhovetsky, Alexander Khabarov and Vladimir Shemshuchenko, Marina Kotova and Ekaterina Polyanskaya. This is criticism and journalism by Kapitolina Koksheneva and Pavel Basinsky, Alexander Repnikov and Vladimir Dahl, Konstantin Krylov and Mikhail Remizov, Valery Solovy and Andrei Fursov, Veronica Vasilyeva and Nikolai Shadrin.
Magazine headings: “Prose”, “Publicism”, “Literary criticism”, “Culture”, “History: faces and faces”, “Russian destinies”, “Home Church”.
The magazine's policy is based on the magazine's fundamental non-involvement with any political forces and its Orthodox-state orientation.
"OUR CONTEMPORARY"
- magazine of Russian writers. Published in Moscow since 1956.
Main directions: modern prose and patriotic journalism. The most significant achievements of the magazine are associated with the so-called “village prose”. Since the beginning of the 70s, the magazine has published works by F. Abramov, V. Astafiev, V. Belov, S. Zalygin, V. Likhonosov, E. Nosov, V. Rasputin, V. Soloukhin, V. Shukshin.
Since the second half of the 80s, journalism has become the leading genre of the magazine.
“Our Contemporary” is a platform for the most prominent patriotic politicians.
A distinctive feature of the magazine “Our Contemporary” is its widest coverage of life in modern Russia. This is largely achieved through the active involvement of writers from the provinces.
The magazine regularly publishes new talented works created by contemporary Russian writers. On its pages, the problems of modern criticism and literary criticism are examined, the heritage of Russian philosophical thought is explored, and current problems of modern Russia are touched upon.
"NEW WORLD"- published since 1925. This is one of the oldest monthly thick literary and artistic magazines in modern Russia, publishing fiction, poetry, essays, socio-political, economic, socio-moral, historical journalism, memoirs, literary criticism, cultural studies, and philosophical materials.
Among the authors of the “New World” over the years were well-known writers, poets, literary critics, philosophers: Vasily Grossman, Viktor Nekrasov, Vladimir Dudintsev, Ilya Erenburg, Georgy Vladimov, Vladimir Lakshin, Vladimir Voinovich, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Chingiz Aitmatov, Vasil Bykov, Grigory Pomerants, Victor Astafiev, Sergei Zalygin, Irina Rodnyanskaya, Joseph Brodsky, Alexander Kushner, Tatyana Kasatkina, Vladimir Makanin, Lyudmila Petrushevskaya and many others.
In one of Novy Mir’s addresses to readers, wonderful words were said: “Masterpieces are not born every year, but Russian literature is alive, and we feel like an organic part of this living culture.”
"OCTOBER"- independent literary and artistic magazine. Published since May 1924. At the origins of its formation were A. Serafimovich, D. Furmanov, A. Fadeev.
Sergei Yesenin, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Mikhail Zoshchenko, Andrei Platonov, Arkady Gaidar, Alexander Tvardovsky, Konstantin Paustovsky, Mikhail Prishvin were published in the magazine.
From the very first issues, the magazine introduced readers to the work of foreign writers: I. Becher, L. Feuchtwanger, W. Bredel, R. Rolland, A. Barbusse, T. Dreiser, G. Mann.
Regular sections of the magazine: “Prose and Poetry”, “Publicism and Essays”, “New Names”, “Literary Criticism”, “Literary Part”, etc.
The magazine is always open to talented literature, to literary experimentation and willingly provides its pages to young promising authors, returning to the reader names that are significant for history and national culture. The magazine reflects the difficult history of our Fatherland.
Currently, "October" is one of the leading Russian thick literary magazines and has a liberal orientation.
"ROMAN-NEWSPAPER"- the most popular fiction magazine founded in July 1927.
The best works of Russian writers and the latest in modern literature are published here. The traditional style of the magazine - high literary taste combined with satisfying the comprehensive needs of readers - has remained unchanged for more than 80 years. All significant works of Russian literature have been and are being published in this magazine. "Roman-Gazeta" is the only literary and art magazine that has 24 issues a year.
...they are still alive today
“Thick” magazines are literary monthlies in which new literature was published in separate volumes before publication.In the USSR, “thick” magazines included “New World”, “October”, “Znamya”, “Neva”, “Moscow”, “Our Contemporary”, “Friendship of Peoples”, “Foreign Literature”, “Siberian Lights”, “ Ural”, “Zvezda”, “Don”, “Volga” to some extent “Youth”, although it was thinner than the others. These magazines were published in A1 format. There were also small-format “thick” magazines “Aurora”, “Young Guard”, “Smena”.
"Thick" magazines should not be confused with others. There were quite a few of them in the Soviet Union: “Worker Woman”, “Peasant Woman”, “Crocodile”, “Ogonyok”, “Soviet Union”. They came out in different ways: once a month or weekly.
There were magazines based on interests and for different ages: “Around the World”, “Young Technician”, “Young Naturalist”, “Bonfire”, “Pioneer”, “Science and Religion”, “Science and Life”, “Technology for Youth”, “ Knowledge is power”, “Chemistry and life”, “Health”, “Sports games”, “Behind the wheel”, “Journalist”.
- "Banner"
- "Moscow"
- "October"
- "Foreign literature"
- "Youth"
IN "October" The story “The Sad Detective” by V. Astafiev and the novel “Heavy Sand” by A. Rybakov were published. Works by A. Adamovich, B. Akhmadulina, G. Baklanov, B. Vasiliev, A. Voznesensky, F. Iskander, Y. Moritz, Y. Nagibin, V. Mayakovsky, A. Platonov, S. Yesenin, Y. Olesha, appeared. M. Zoshchenko, M. Prishvin, A. Gaidar, K. Paustovsky. L. Feuchtwanger, W. Bredel, R. Rolland, A. Barbusse, T. Dreiser, M. Andersen-Nexø, G. Mann.
IN "Banner" The Fall of Paris by I. Ehrenburg, Zoya by M. Aliger, The Son by P. Antokolsky, The Young Guard by A. Fadeev, In the Trenches of Stalingrad by V. Nekrasov, military prose by Grossman and Kazakevich were published. In the poetic works of B. Pasternak, A. Akhmatova, A. Voznesensky. In the first years of perestroika, Znamya returned to the reader the forgotten and prohibited works of M. Bulgakov, E. Zamyatin, A. Platonov, and published “Memoirs” by A. Sakharov.
IN "Neve" published according to Wikipedia information by D. Granin, the Strugatsky brothers, L. Gumilev, L. Chukovskaya, V. Konetsky, V. Kaverin, V. Dudintsev, V. Bykov.
“Neva” introduced readers to “The Great Terror” by Robert Conquest and Arthur Koestler’s novel “Blinding Darkness.”
IN "Youth" V. Aksenov, D. Rubina, A. Aleksin, A. Gladilin, V. Rozov, A. Yashin, N. Tikhonov, A. Voznesensky, B. Okudzhava, B. Akhmadulina were published.
A. Kuznetsov published his novel “Babi Yar”.
Modern circulations of "Thick" magazines
“Thick” magazines were very difficult to get in the Soviet Union. Subscribe to them was carried out only through pull (although the circulation of Yunost exceeded three million pieces), if they arrived at the Soyuzpechat kiosks, they arrived in minimal quantities. In libraries there were only reading rooms. Nowadays in Russia, read - I don’t want to, you can subscribe to anyone, but all of them have scanty circulations: “New World” has 7,200 copies, “October” and “Znamya” have less than 5,000, and “Friendship of Peoples” has 3,000.
The financier Dmitry, having read Russian literature of the 19th century and obsessed with a passion for power and greed, like the negative prototype of the gentleman from Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, or even worse - Nekrasov, bought a plot of land one hundred and fifty kilometers from the capital and built there a luxurious house with outbuildings, a kennel, a barn, a stable and twenty-five hastily put together huts. He hired serfs from the surrounding collective farms. An agreement was concluded with them, printed on a laser printer. The entire way of life on his estate corresponded to the original of the middle of the last century, plus an annual remuneration to workers - two thousand dollars for each family member. Already on the second day of the new era, lordly chaos begins in the village. “His wild amusements largely followed the historical tradition, read from the great Russian literature, which had a detrimental effect on Dmitry’s unconventional psyche.” By “wild fun” we mean the flogging of offending peasants, the unlimited violence of the master and his wife over the courtyard girls, and the home theater with the only play “Woe from Wit”... But now, according to the canons, St. George’s Day is coming. The new Russian master organizes a folk festival: three buckets of vodka for the men, two buckets of port for the women, songs and dances. He calls out the men using the barn book and pays by capitation. The next morning it turns out that all the serfs have renewed their contracts for another year. And three years later, the serfs formed a “new self-awareness” and they began to treat the master Dmitry as their own father - strict, but fair...
After such a plot, Boris Ekimov’s documentary essay on a similar topic entitled “Near the Old Graves”, citing extracts from the minutes of the board of the collective farm “Victory of October” dated July 7, 1997, is perceived almost as a parody of reality: “... winter wheat has almost disappeared completely...", "there is no fuel...", "ask the district administration for a deferment of debt repayment"...
Let's skip the poems of Elmira Kotlyar and read two stories by Grigory Petrov. One about the swamp priest. Another, more fun, is about the unemployed Shishigin and his wife, who went to the circus...
Poems by Jan Goltsman.
In the “Far and Close” section, we continue to publish fragments from the diaries of the literary critic, publicist and culturologist Alexander Vasilyevich Dedkov (1934-1994). "Desalted Time" is a rather boring story about the life of a writer in Soviet times.
In the "Publications and Messages" section - the next chapters of Vitaly Shentalinsky's book "Slaves of Freedom". In particular, "Shards of the Silver Age" is devoted to a conscientious analysis of the relationship between the philosopher Berdyaev and the Soviet regime.
Let lovers of literary criticism enjoy the research of M. Butov and D. Buck, or at least get acquainted with their reflections on two modern examples of “supernarrative”, which are the “Alexandria Quartet” by the Englishman Lawrence Durrell and the camp saga of our compatriot Yevgeny Fedorov.
In my favorite for some time now section “Reviews and Reviews” the following were published:
review by Dmitry Bavilsky of Oleg Ermakov’s novel “Trans-Siberian Pastoral”;
Olga Ivanova's review of a good book of poetry "Sky in Subtitles" by poetess Yulia Skorodumova.
Vitaly Calpidi will soon read a review of his poetry collection "Eyelashes", written by his fellow countryman Vladimir Abashev. Will this console him? After all, Apollo Grigoriev’s prize ended up in the hands of his fellow worker...
The issue ends with a list of literary magazine award winners for 1997. And below, in a frame, - “From the chronicle of the “New World”: 70 years ago in # 5 for 1928, the publication of the second part of “The Life of Klim Samgin” by Maxim Gorky began.
"Our Contemporary"
On the cover of the magazine is its emblem, an image of the main symbol of civil insubordination - a monument to Minin and Pozharsky. Let me remind you that the editor-in-chief of the magazine is Stanislav Kunyaev. The circulation of the publication is 14,000 copies, which is a lot.
The May issue opens with poems by war veteran Viktor Kochetkov and continues with the second book of Mikhail Alekseev’s novel “My Stalingrad.” The author recently turned eighty years old.
Alexander Kuznetsov also wrote about the war. But about the recent war, the Chechen one, in which I participated. In the photo there is a man in a black robe.
We've been betrayed again, guys! / Again we abandoned our own. / Throwing the machine guns over our shoulders, / let’s change it for three!
The war is over. She was forgotten, / Like everyone else in my country. / Who became a general, who was killed, / Who drank away all the orders on an empty stomach. /
A selection of poems by Gleb Gorbovsky. The continuation of Ernst Safonov’s novel “Get Out of the Circle” begins with the phrase: “Avdonin returned home from the district executive committee at the eleventh hour, and although the time was late, his father-in-law appeared immediately after him with a large bag in his hands.” Ending in the next issue.
