Moskovskie vedomosti after M. N. Katkov’s death: Competition for the publisher’s position

Abstract

The editor of the newspaper Moskovskie vedomosti M. N. Katkov was one of the few conservative publicists who successfully straggled with the opposition press and had a great influence in many spheres. Being a convinced monarchist, Katkov took an independent position towards the government and often criticized of high-ranking officials. The highest bureaucracy had to put it up, because there was simply no other influential organ of the conservative monarchist press. Katkov’s death in 1887 made the government choose a new editor. This article analyzes some aspects of the competitive struggle for the post of the publisher of Moskovskie vedomosti, and motives of the officials who participated in the resolution of this issue. The most significant candidates for the post editor-publisher were two persons: S. A. Petrovsky, Katkov’s assistant, and N. P. Gilyarov-Platonov, the editor of Sovremennye izvestiia — the Moscow conservative newspaper for ordinary people. Petrovsky did not have significant journalism talents and did not claim for an independent political position, Gilyarov-Platonov was a talented journalist and original thinker who had monarchical convictions, but criticized the government measures and therefore was in the black books of the Censorship. As the head of the Censorship Department Ye. M. Feoktistov and the Minister of Internal Affairs, D. A. Tolstoy, Minister of Education, I. D. Delyanov, and Procurator of the Holy Synod, K. P. Pobedonostsev insisted, Moskovskye vedomosti was given to Petrovsky. The Petersburg bureaucracy tolerated Katkov due to the ideological support to the monarchy in the troubled times. But they were not ready to replace him with another talented but substantive man. Under Petrovsky’s leadership Moskovskye vedomosti quickly lost the political significance, gradually shifted the emphasis from socio-political problems to information and entertainment, and soon the newspaper became one of the numerous Moscow news media.