a printed periodical publication. Like a news-paper, a magazine is one of the principal media of mass information and propaganda, and it exerts an influence on public opinion, molding it in accordance with the interests of certain social classes, political parties, and organizations. At the same time, as K. Marx noted, the magazine has the advantage over the newspaper that “it makes it possible to examine events in a broader context and to dwell only on what is most important” (K. Marx and F. Engels, Soch., 2nd ed., vol. 7, p. 1). With the development of newspapers, radio, and television, and with the increase in the volume and complexity of information produced and consumed by modern society, the role of the magazine as a medium of selection, analysis, and evaluation of factual material has increased substantially.
The term zhurnal [“magazine,” “journal”] comes from the French word journal, meaning “diary” or “newspaper,” which figured in the names of a number of the first French-language magazines when magazines had not yet become totally separate entities from newspapers; today the word is seldom used outside the USSR, and only in certain countries. Some translations of zhurnal in different languages are “magazine” (English), revue (French), Zeitschrift (German), revista (Spanish), andspisanie (Bulgarian).
Magazines vary in periodicity. The weekly is a distinctive type of publication that is becoming preponderant in the conditions of rapid growth of mass communications media. (Weekly periodicity makes it possible to react to events more promptly than is possible with a monthly publication and at the same time to analyze and assess developments in current affairs more profoundly and thoroughly than with a daily newspaper.) There are also publications that come out once every ten days or every two weeks, monthlies, bimonthlies, quarterlies and semiannuals. Magazines also vary in content—they may specialize in sociopolitical subjects, fiction, industry and technology, a particular branch of science, popular science, scientific information and retrieval, bibliography, satirical humor, or sports; there are also magazines of mixed content. The readership of magazines also varies; some are intended for certain categories of people, like children’s and young people’s magazines.
The genres and forms of magazines depend on their content and their readership. For example, mass sociopolitical and fiction magazines use informational, journalistic, and literary genres—reviews and surveys on various themes, articles, essays, reports, poems, short stories, novellas, and novels (usually published in serial form). On a wider and wider scale in such magazines, material is being introduced that is of an entertaining and educational nature (chess problems, crossword puzzles, and various contests) or a practical nature (fashions; advice for housewives, fishermen, gardeners, and others). Magazines of this type also include illustrations and depictions (drawings, cartoons, photographic studies, photomontages, and reproductions of paintings). In scientific journals long articles are prevalent, and papers, annotations, summaries, and chronicles of scientific life are also published.
The choice of the size and format of a magazine is also determined by its content and readership. Mass-circulation magazines—sociopolitical and fiction magazines, popular science magazines, children’s and young people’s magazines, and women’s magazines—are large, as a rule (usually octavos), and use a bright, lively format. They include many black-and-white and color illustrations and new typefaces that are concise or gaudy in design and outline.
History. Journal des sgavans (\\aterJournal des savants],the first issue of which came out in France on Jan. 5, 1665, is considered the first magazine. It contained a review of books on literature, philosophy, and the natural sciences that had been published in various European countries. The same year a London journal of the same type appeared, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. Similar journals soon cropped up: in Italy, Giornale de’ Letterati (1668); in Germany, A eta Eruditorum (1682, in Latin) and Monatsgesprdche (1688, in German). However, in most countries magazines appeared in the 18th century: in Spain, Diario de los literatos de Espaha (1737); in the USA, American Magazine (1741); in Hungary, Magyar Museum (1788); and in Russia (see section on Russian journals). The first magazines were primarily reviews of different kinds of literature (scientific, fictional, political, and other), which were sprinkled with news pertaining mostly to the sphere of literature, science, and art. They were intended for a narrow group of readers.
Periodical magazines made big strides in the 19th century, especially in the second half, concurrently with the overall process of the development of capitalism and bourgeois culture. The methods and means of magazine propaganda and information underwent profound changes, magazine circulations grew rapidly, and subscription prices fell. By the late 19th and early 20th century the principal types of magazines had taken shape, and illustrated magazines of mixed content, designed for the broadest readership, underwent the greatest development.
As the social contradictions of capitalism deepened, as the political consciousness and organization of the proletariat grew, and as the ideas of scientific socialism spread, magazines expressing revolutionary proletarian viewpoints sprang up. They marked a qualitatively new stage in the workers’ movement. Among such magazines those of K. Marx and F. Engels were prominent: Deutsch-Franzosische Jahrbucher, one issue of which came out in two editions in Paris in February 1844, and the monthly Neue Rheinische Zeitung: Politisch-Okonomische Revue, which published six issues in 1850. In the second half of the 19th century, magazines appeared that were associated with the First and Second Internationals (many of them had a Marxist program): for example, The Commonwealth (1866–67) in Great Britain; Demokratisches Wochenblatt (1868–69), Der Volksstaat (1869–76), and Die Neue Zeit (1883–1923) in Germany; La Revue socialiste (1885–1914) in France; and Der Vorbote (1866–71) in Switzerland.
Russia. The first Russian magazine was a supplement to the government newspaper Sankt-Peterburgskie vedomosti called Mesiachnye istoricheskie, genealogicheskie i geograficheskie primechaniia v Vedomostiakh (Monthly Historical, Genealogical, and Geographical Notes in Vedomosti’, 1728–42). Beginning in 1729 the name of Primechaniia was changed several times, and the magazine came out twice a week as a supplement to each issue of Vedomosti. Primechaniia was written as a popular science publication.
In the history of Russian journalism, 1702–59 represented a period of formation and development for the state press. For more than half a century the government managed the press both directly and through the Academy of Sciences. In these conditions even the academic publication Ezhemesiachnye sochineniia, k pol’ze i uveseleniiu sluzhashchie (Monthly Essays for Education and Entertainment; 1755–64), having become a serious popular science and literary magazine (publishing writers such as V. K. Trediakovskii, A. P. Sumarokov, and M. M. Kheraskov), did not touch on current sociopolitical themes.
After private individuals received permission in 1759 to publish magazines, sociopolitical themes occupied a solid position in the pages of Russian magazines, and from that time for more than a century magazines held greater importance than newspapers (which remained semiofficial until the early 19th century). Among the first private magazines was A. P. Sumarokov’s Trudoliubivaia pchela (1759), which marked the beginning of a new type of magazine—the satirical type. Seeking to redirect criticism of morals into moderate “smiling” satire, Empress Catherine II became the secret editor of the magazine Vsiakaia vsiachina (1769–70). New publications appeared to counterbalance it, among them L. I. Sichkarev’s Smes’ (1769) and F. A. Emin’s Adskaia pochta (1769). But the most important were N. I. Novikov’s magazines Truten (1769–70) and Zhivopisets (1772–73), in which for the first time in the history of Russian journalism the horrors of serfdom were shown and satire was used expertly to expose the parasitism of the gentry.
After the Peasant War of 1773–75, led by E. I. Pugachev, the reactionism of the serf-owning gentry increased. This un-avoidably affected the press: the trend toward a growth in the number of publications continued, but each one was short-lived.
The development of the capitalist system in the country gave birth to specialized periodicals. Economic, agronomic, and forestry magazines appeared, such as Trudy imp. Vol’nogo ekonomicheskogo obshchestva (from 1765 to 1915); also, Sankt-Peterburgskae ezhenedernoe sochinenie, kasaiushcheesia do razmnozheniia domostroitel’stva … (1778), Sel’skii zhitel’ … (1778–79), Ekonomicheskii rnagazin (1780–89), and Zhurnal o zemledelii dlia Vserossiiskoi imperii (1799). Magazines sprang up in the provinces, for example, in Yaroslavl, Uedinennyi poshekhonets (1786), and in Tobol’sk, Irtysh, prevrashchaiushchiisia v Ippokrenu (1789–91). A differentiation of publications according to their readership began; the first magazine for children came out, the Moscow weekly Detskoe chtenie dlia serdtsa i razuma (1785–89), as well as three fashion magazines. N. M. Karamzin’s Moskovskii zhurnal (1791–92) introduced for the first time a clear division of material by sections (rubrics).
The most significant occurrence in journalism in the last quarter of the 18th century was the appearance of publications that became the prototype for Russian sociopolitical magazines. Substantial space in them was allotted to social problems. The magazine’s leanings could be determined on the basis of what it offered as a positive solution to these problems. In the government camp were Sobesednik liubitelei rossiiskogo slova (1783–84), the Politicheskii zhurnal from Hamburg (translated from German), and several Masonic publications. The liberals, who sought to solve all problems through enlightenment and interpreted freedom without reference to social change, were represented by F. O. Tumanskii’s Zerkalo sveta (1786–87), I. G. Rakhmaninov’s Utrennie chasy (1788–89), and Karamzin’s Moskovskii zhurnal and his anthologies. Publicists crusading for social reorganization appeared in Beseduiushchii grazhdanin (1789); in I. A. Krylov’s satirical magazines Pochta dukhov (1789), ZriteV (1792), and Sankt-Peterburgskii Merkurii (1793); and in I. P. Pnin’s and A. F. Bestuzhev’s Sankt-Peterburgskii zhurnal (1798). Beseduiushchii grazhdanin published radical antiserfdom articles—”A Discourse on Who Is a Son of the Motherland” by A. N. Radishchev and “The Scholarly Citizen” (anonymous). Social affairs commentary in magazines developed into a special type of literary creativity in the second half of the 18th century, defining the struggle against serfdom as its principal social task.
The supremacy of private magazines in the Russian press was consolidated in the first quarter of the 19th century, despite government persecutions of the freethinking press. Prior censorship was enacted in 1804, and in 1818 a ban was placed on the printing of anything about serfdom. This led to the point where the center of the social struggle in magazines shifted from social affairs commentary to literary criticism and fiction. Sixty new magazines came out in the early 19th century. S. N. Glinka’s Russkii vestnik (1808–20), A. S. Shishkov’s Chtenie v Besede liubitelei russkogo slova (1811–16), and P. P. Svin’in’s Otechestvennye zapiski (1818–30) were overtly reactionary at this time; Vestnik Evropy under the editorship of Karamzin (1802–04) and the publications of the Karamzinists (such as P. I. Makarov’s Moskovskii Merkurii, 1803) were moderately liberal. The predecessors of Decembrist ideas were the magazines of the Free Society of Connoisseurs of Literature, Sciences, and the Arts, notably the outstanding Periodicheskoe izdanie Vol’nogo obshchestva (1804) and Zhurnal rossiiskoi slave snosti (1805). The social enthusiasm associated with the Patriotic War of 1812 gave rise to a brilliant array of journalists who expressed the ideas of Decembrism, such as A. A. Bestuzhev, K. F. Ryleev, V. K. Kiukhel’beker, and N. I. Turgenev. Of the greatest importance in the preparation of revolutionary action by noblemen were magazines directly or indirectly connected with the Decembrists: Syn otechestva (from 1812 until the suppression of the revolt; published by N.I. Grech), SarevnavateV prosveshcheniia i blagotvoreniia (1818–25), Nevskii zritel’ (1820–21), the anthological magazines Poliarnaia zvezda (1823–25), Mnemozina (1824–25), and Russkaia starina (1825). Decembrist magazines and magazines politically close to them printed works by A. S. Pushkin, A. S. Griboedov, P. A. Viazemskii, and A. A. Del’vig.
After the crushing of the 1825 Decembrist revolt, the government undertook a brutal struggle against progressive journalism. The censorship statutes of 1828 banned discussion of political questions in the press. Journalists were left with the field of scholarly literature. Literary criticism took on a special role—only in this genre was it possible to say the truth, and then only with the aid of “Aesopian language.” Beginning in 1825 the magazines of F. V. Bulgarin and N. I. Grech, Syn otechestva and Severnyi arkhiv (which merged in 1829 with Syn otechestva), and their newspaper Severnaia pchela (the only private newspaper that had the right to print political information) opposed all progressive thought. Pushkin undertook the struggle against them, publishing lampoons in 1831 in N. I. Nadezhdin’s Tele shop. The most significant magazine of this time was N. A. Polevoi’s Moskovskii telegraf ( 1825–34), an organ of bourgeois radicalism. In 1834, V. G. Belinskii came to journalism. For about 15 years he was the preeminent figure in Russian journalism: in 1833–36 he worked at Teleskop, in 1838–39 he was the editor ofMoskovskii nabliudatel’, in 1839–46 he was in charge of the literary criticism department at Otechestvennye zapiski, and in 1847 he headed the criticism department of Sovremennik (which was founded by A. S. Pushkin in 1836 and was turned over after his death to P. A. Pletnev and in 1847 to N. A. Nekrasov and I. I. Panaev). Progressive journalists propagandized revolutionary-democratic ideas in the struggle against reactionary magazines, liberal publications, and the organs of Populism and Slavophilism— Maiak (1840–45) and Moskvitianin (1841–56).
In 1848 a period known in the history of Russian journalism as “the seven dark years” began. A time of the most savage censorial terror set in, organized by a special committee, the so-called Buturlin committee for supervision of the press.
Connected with the new upsurge in the social movement after the Crimean War (1853–56), a clandestine uncensored press sprang up for the first time. A. I. Herzen, having founded the Free Russian Printing House in London, put out theanthologicaljournal Poliarnaia zvezda (1855–62,1869) and in 1857 a supplement to it, the newspaper Kolokol. V. I. Lenin called the general democratic uncensored press headed by Herzen’s Kolokol the forerunner of the workers’ press in Russia (Poln. sobr. soch., 5th ed., vol. 25, p. 93).
With the exacerbation of class contradictions in Russia in the mid-19th century, the influence of the revolutionary-democratic press increased. Upon the arrival of N. G. Chernyshevskii and then N. A. Dobroliubov and M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin at Sovremennik in 1854, the magazine became the ruler of the minds of the democratic intelligentsia. It upheld the interests of the peasantry and affirmed materialistic principles of philosophy and aesthetics. N. G. Chernyshevskii wrote about the journalism of that period: “Aesthetic questions were … for the most part the only field of battle, but the influence on intellectual life in general was the object of struggle” (Poln. sobr. soch., vol. 3, 1947, p. 25). During the revolutionary situation of 1859–61, Sovremennik became the center of revolutionary propaganda along with Kolokol. Dobroliubov created at Sovremennik a satirical section, Svistok (1859–63), which castigated reactionaries, exposed the two-faced position of liberals, and ridiculed the supporters of “pure art.” In 1860, G. E. Blagosvetlov became the editor of the magazine Russkoe slovo, and this publication, on which D. I, Pisarev and N. V. Shelgunov collaborated, joined the camp of revolutionary democrats. This camp also included the satirical weekly of V. S. Kurochkin and N. A. Stepanov, Jskra (1859–73). The popularity of democratic magazines was borne out by their circulation figures: Sovremennik’s circulation approached 7,000, and Iskra’s 10,000. It was in the 1860’s that Russian magazines for the first time became organs of definite political orientations and changed from literary criticism magazines to social literary magazines. The importance of the social affairs commentary sections in them increased greatly, because on the wave of the revolutionary upsurge the right to write about politics was successfully wrested from tsarism. After Sovremennik and Russkoe slovo were closed down in 1866, the democratic current in journalism was continued by Otechestvennye zapiski, which beginning in 1868 was edited by N. A. Nekrasov, M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin, and G. Z. Eliseev (in 1878, N. K. Mikhailovskii became a coeditor), and Delo, which was under the editorship of G. E. Blagosvetlov (1866–84). In the last quarter of the 19th century, magazines with a Narodnik (Populist) orientation appeared in Russia— Russkoe bogatstvo (1876–1918) and Slovo (1878–81)—but the main publications of the Narodniks appeared abroad. With the ban of Otechestvennye zapiski in 1884, democratic writers were compelled to appear in liberal periodicals: for instance, M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin was published in M. M. Stasiulevich’s magazine Vestnik Evropy (1866–1918), and N. V. Shelgunov, G. I. Uspenskii, V. G. Korolenko, and A. P. Chekhov were published in the magazine Russkaia mysl (1880–1918).
The progressive Russian intelligentsia became accustomed to seeing in the “thick” magazines novelties in literature, journalists’ reflections about vital problems, advice on many specialized questions, and serious scholarly research. However, in the 1870’s the bourgeois press began to acquire an increasingly commercial orientation, abandoning socially significant problems and supplying the reader mainly with reading for entertainment. “Thin” illustrated magazines appeared, intended for family reading, including Niva (1870–1917), a cheap publication that by 1890 had already reached a circulation of 100,000, which was unprecedented in Russia; Rodina (1879–1917), Ogonek (1872–83), Vokrug sveta (1885–1917). In addition, the Russian bourgeoisie provided itself with serious specialized periodicals that were put at the service of capitalist enterprises; for example, Zhurnal dlia aktsionerov began to appear in 1857, Promyshlennosf in 1861, and Zhurnal Russkogo khimicheskogo obshchestva in 1869. The development of science gave birth in the late 19th century to new specialized magazines, such as Vestnik estestvoznaniia (1890), Khirurgicheskaia letopis’ (1891), and Meteorologicheskii vestnik (1891).
With the onset of the proletarian period of the liberation movement in Russia there arose a workers’ social democratic press that included magazines. At the initiative of Lenin and with the participation of the group Liberation of Labor, the first booklet of the Marxist nonperiodical collection Rabotnik came out in March 1896 in Geneva. It contained Lenin’s article “Friedrich Engels” and the leaflet “To the Men and Women Workers of the Thornton Factory.” Listok “Rabotnika” was also published, but in late 1898 its management was taken over by “economists,” who turned it into the magazine Rabochee delo (1899–1902). The social democratic press fought against liberal Populism and its publications, particularly the magazine Russkoe bogatstvo, which sought, as Lenin noted, “to paralyze the spread of Social Democratic Ideas in society” (Poln. sobr. soch., 5th ed., vol. 1, p. 205). At the turn of the 20th century, publications by “legal Marxists” appeared: Novoe slovo (1894–97), Nachalo (1899), and Zhizn’ (1897–1901). “Legal Marxists” also worked at the magazines Mir bozhii (1892–1906), Nauchnoe obozrenie (1894–1903), and some others, which allowed Marxism onto their pages, in Lenin’s words, “just because it is the mode” (ibid., vol. 46, p. 23). Lenin made use of a number of these magazines, writing articles in them against Populism and the distortion by the “legal Marxists” of revolutionary theory. The ideas of revolutionary Marxism were propagandized by the scholarly political magazine Zaria (1901–02), which was published in Stuttgart by the editors of the newspaper Iskra ; it carried articles by Lenin and G. V. Plekhanov.
During the Revolution of 1905–07 a legal Bolshevik magazine was published, Vestnik zhizni (1906–07), on which Lenin, M. S. Ol’minskii, V. V. Vorovskii, V. D. Bonch-Bruevich, A. V. Lunacharskii, and I. I. Skvortsov-Stepanov collaborated. The general revolutionary upsurge resulted in the appearance of a large number of vocational publications, such as Ternii truda (1906–07), Bulochnik (1906), and Golos tkacha (1906–07), as well as the satirical magazines Zhalo (1905), Zhupel (1905–06), and Pulemet (1905–06).
During the Revolution of 1905–07 and the reaction that followed, the liberal-bourgeois magazines Russkaia mysl’ and Vestnik Evropy sided with the counter-revolution. Disillusionment, pessimism, and fascination with mysticism and idealism, which enveloped a substantial segment of the Russian intelligentsia, all were reflected in such publications as Vesy (1904–09), Zolotoe runo (1906–09), and Apollon (1909–17). The decline in social significance in magazines during the period of reaction led to the wide dissemination of mass cheap-adventure and “family” publications, such as Sinii ihurnal (1910–18) and Ogonek (1908–18).
The Bolshevik press during the years of reaction was sup-pressed almost everywhere. The publication of magazines became possible only with a new revolutionary upsurge. In December 1910 a legal philosophical and socioeconomic magazine called Mysl’, whose actual editor was Lenin, began to come out in Moscow. The Bolshevik orientation of the magazine MysV (which was closed down in 1911) was continued by the magazine Prosveshchenie (1911–14, 1917). In addition to theoretical magazines, the Bolshevik Party organized the publication of mass workers’ magazines, such as Voprosy strakhovaniia (1913–14 and 1915–18) andRabotnitsa (1914-).
In 1913 (within the boundaries of the USSR, until Sept. 17, 1939) 1,331 magazine publications were registered in Russia, including 1,222 in Russian, 82 in languages of other peoples of the Russian Empire, and 27 in foreign languages.
In the atmosphere of World War I, the tsarist government closed down all legal Bolshevik magazines. Everywhere, a chauvinistic mania seized bourgeois publications, for example, Russkaia mysl’, Vestnik Evropy, and others—and the Menshevik magazine Sovremennyi mir (1906–18). They were opposed by M. Gorky’s magazine Letopis’ (1915–17), which took an antiwar position. After the February Revolution of 1917 the publication of Bolshevik magazines was resumed, and they helped rally the masses around the Bolshevik Party during the preparation and staging of the Great October Socialist Revolution.
The USSR. Soviet journalism continued the traditions of the revolutionary-democratic and Bolshevik press, setting as its task the political education and enlightenment of the broad masses of workers. Under the Decree on the Press (published Nov. 10, 1917) all press organs that opposed Soviet power were shut down. In May 1919 the first issue of the magazine Kommunisticheskii Internatsional appeared, as well as the first issue of Izvestiia TsK RKP(b) (now Partiinaia zhizn’), and in 1920 the magazine Vestnik agitatsii i propagandy (later called Kommunisticheskaia revoliutsiia) began publication. A number of fiction magazines appeared, among them Vestnik zhizni (1918–19), Tvorchestvo (1918–22), and Plamia (1918–20). In the first years of Soviet power, publications of Proletkul’t (Proletarian Cultural and Educational Organization) received wide distribution; three of them were Proletarskaia kul’tura (1918–21), Corn (1918–23), and Griadushchee (1918–21).
The end of the Civil War (1918–20) and the transition to peaceful construction created conditions for the development of Soviet journalism. Theoretical and sociopolitical magazines began to appear: Pod znamenem marksizma (1922–44), Krasnaia pechat’ (1921–28), and Zhurnalist (1922–33). In 1924 the theoretical and political journal of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, Bol’shevik (since 1952, Kommunist), began publication. Thick fiction and sociopolitical magazines appeared: for example, Krasnaia nov’ (1921–42), Sibirskie ogni (1922- ), Molodaia gvardiia (1922–41 and 1956- ), Zvezda and Oktiabr’ (both 1924- ), Novyi mir (1925- ), and the magazine of criticism and bibliography Pechat’ i revoliutsiia (1921–30). Thin illustrated magazines also began publication: Ogonek (1923- ), Krasnaia niva (1923–31), and Prozhektor (1923–35). Satirical magazines such as Krokodil (1922- ) and Smekhach (1924–28) appeared, as well as magazines for children: Murzilka andPioner (both 1924- ).
During the New Economic Policy, a resolution of the Council of People’s Commissars (Dec. 12, 1921) authorized private publications, including magazines. The magazines Rossiia (1922–25; from 1926, Novaia Rossiia), Ekonomist (1922, published by the industrial-economic section of the Russian Technical Society), and Ekonomicheskoe vozrozhdenie (1922) began to appear. However, these magazines proved to be counterrevolutionary publications and they were closed down by the Soviet authorities.
The process of the formation of Soviet literature and the struggle between literary groupings were reflected in the fiction magazines of the 1920’s. Writers were grouped mainly around the magazines Na postu, Lef (both 1923–25), and Krasnaia nov’. A resolution of the RCP(B) Central Committee, dated June 18, 1925, On the Party’s Policy in the Sphere of Fictional Literature played a large role in the consolidation of fiction magazines. The magazine Na literaturnom postu (1926–32) took the place of the magazine Na postu. The RCP(B) Central Committee resolution On the Restructuring of Literary Organizations (Apr. 23, 1932) put an end to the fragmentation of literature and opened up wide prospects for Soviet journalism. The ACP(B) Central Committee resolution On Publishing Work (Aug. 15, 1931) paid special attention to the need for a clear-cut standardization of magazines and also to the creation of bibliographic departments at newspapers and magazines.
The process of socialist reorganization and industrialization of the country and the collectivization of agriculture found wide coverage in various magazines. At the initiative of M. Gorky and with his participation, the following magazines were created: Nashi dostizheniia (1929–37), SSSR na stroike (1930- ; since 1950, Sovetskii Soiuz), Kolkhoznik (1934–39), Za rubezhom (1930–38), and Literaturnaia ucheba (1930–41). Defense themes predominated in the new magazine Znamia (1933- ; to replace the magazine LOKAF, which had been published since 1931). The ACP(B) Central Committee resolution On Literary Criticism and Bibliography (1940) was of great importance for the development of Soviet journalism and criticism; in accordance with the resolution, most magazines established permanent criticism and bibliography departments.
In the 1930’s a wide network of magazines sprang up in Union and autonomous republics. In 1937 approximately 400 party, sociopolitical, fiction, specialized, and other kinds of magazines were being published in the languages of the peoples of the USSR other than Russian.
With the onset of the Great Patriotic War (1941–45), the number of magazine publications dropped sharply (from 1,822 publications in 1940 to 350 in 1943). During the war, mass military magazines like Krasnoarmeets, Krasnoflotets, and Frontovaia illiustratsiia received wide distribution.
In the postwar years the Central Committee of the Communist Party adopted a number of decisions on questions of the press that defined the place and role of magazines in the ideological life of Soviet society and in party, state, and economic work. The positions of communist ideology in literature and journalism were affirmed by the ACP(B) Central Committee resolution On the Magazines Zvezda and Leningrad (Aug. 14, 1946).
In the mid-1950’s a number of new magazines appeared. In 1956 the magazine Agitator began publication, and in 1957, Politicheskoe samoobrazovanie, Voprosy istorii KPSS, Kommunist Vooruzhennykh Sil, Sovety deputatov trudiashchikhsia, Sovetskie profs oiuzy, and Sovetskaia pechat’ (since 1967, Zhurnalist} appeared. Magazines that resumed publication were Inostrannaia literatura (1955- ; a continuation of the magazine Internatsional’ naia literatura, which was published from 1933 to 1943), Molodaia gvardiia (1956- ), and Pod”em (1957- New fiction and sociopolitical magazines were also created, among them Neva (1955- ), Moskva (1957- ), Don (1957- ), and Ural (1958- ). Scientific and industrial magazines grew at an especially fast pace. Scientific and essay publications in various branches of science and technology took up a special place in the system of scientific and technical information.
The system of Soviet magazine publications includes periodical publications—magazines, agitators’ notebooks— and continuing publications (those that are published as material is accumulated)—transactions, scholarly notes, and bulletins. Comparative statistics show their growth (see Table 1).
In 1971 magazine publications were being published in 44 languages of the peoples of the USSR and 23 languages spoken in other countries. The distribution of magazine publications in terms of content in 1971 was as follows: political and
| Table 1. Magazine publication in the USSR |
|---|
| Type of publication | Year | Number of publications | Annual circulation |
|---|
| Magazines.................... | 1940 | 673 | 190,236,000 |
| | 1971 | 1,208 | 1,966,443,000 |
| Agitators’ notebooks.................... | 1940 | 8 | 7,537,000 |
| | 1971 | 59 | 27,881,000 |
| Transactions, scholarly.................... | 1940 | 591 | 2,196,000 |
| notes, etc.................... | 1971 | 2,295 | 48,889,000 |
| Bulletins.................... | 1940 | 488 | 27,143,000 |
| | 1971 | 2,405 | 529,055,000 |
| Total.................... | 1940 | 1,822 | 245,408,000 |
| | 1971 | 5,967 | 2,572,268,000 |
socioeconomic, 737 publications; natural science, 851; technical, 1,877; agricultural, 513; cultural, educational, and scientific, 208; press and bibliographic, 628; artistic, 142; and publications of mixed content, 118. Of the total number of publications, 41 are published for children, 41 for young people, and 39 for women. Publications with the highest circulations (as of 1971) were the mass sociopolitical magazines Politicheskoe samoobrazovanie (1.6 million), Agitator (about 1.2 million), Partiinaia zhizn’ (about 1 million), and Kommunist (about 850,000); the mass sociopolitical and fiction magazines Rabotnitsa (11.2 million), Krest’ianka (more than 6 million), Ogonek (2 million), and lunost’ (1.8 million); the satirical magazine Krokodil (5 million); the children’s magazines Murzilka (more than 5 million) and Veselye kartinki (5.6 million); and the popular science magazines Zdorov’e (about 10 million), Nauka i zhizn’ (3 million), and Vokrug sveta (more than 2.3 million).
Outside the USSR. Present-day foreign periodical magazines are characterized by a multitude and diversity of publications. In some countries (for example, the USA and France) magazines surpass daily newspapers in distribution.
In socialist countries, magazines productively serve the cause of the construction of a new society and are an important means of political and cultural education of the working people. Theoretical organs play a leading role in the party press system of these countries: in Bulgaria, Novo vreme’, in Hungary, Tarsadalmi Szemle’, in the German Democratic Republic (GDR),Emto7; in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, To Quoc\\ in the Korean People’s Democratic Republic, Kulloja; in Cuba, Cuba Socialista; in the Mongolian People’s Republic, Namyn am’dral; in Poland, Nowe drogi; in Rumania, Lupta de dasa\\ in Czechoslovakia, Novd mysl\\in Yugoslavia, Socializam. The organ of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, Hung Chi, has acted since the mid-1960’s in the spirit of the Maoist policy line of the CCP leadership. This course is totally supported by the magazine of the Albanian Labor Party, Rruga e Panise.
Numerous magazines of various types are published in socialist countries: sociopolitical, fiction, women’s, young people’s and children’s, vocational, sports, and scientific-technical.
According to data from the end of the 1960’s, 647 magazines were being published in Bulgaria, 670 periodicals (excluding newspapers) in Hungary, 529 magazines in the GDR, 1,576 magazines in Poland, 509 periodicals (excluding newspapers) in Rumania, 1,220 magazine publications in Czechoslovakia, and 1,146 magazines in Yugoslavia. (The statistics of some countries do not separate magazines from the total number of periodical publications.)
In capitalist countries, magazines are in a position of close economic and political dependency on the biggest monopolies, which exert pressure on them chiefly through advertising, one of the principal sources of financing of the bourgeois press. Many magazines published in capitalist countries foist on readers a distorted picture of the socialist world and a primitive stereotype of bourgeois thinking.
Magazines have undergone the greatest development in the USA, where the following principal types of magazines are distinguished: weekly newsmagazines, in which propaganda is disseminated mainly through the medium of information; Sunday supplements to daily newspapers; illustrated magazines (as a rule, weekly or biweekly); monthly publications of the digest type, which tendentiously reprint material from other periodicals; magazines for women and for men; cheap entertainment magazines; popular science magazines; farmers’ magazines; sports magazines; and religious magazines.
The illustrated “general interest” magazines are predominant among magazine publications outside the USSR. They combine universal themes and the broadest readership target with an approach that is specific to a particular category of readers (women, children, sports fans, and so forth). These magazines take into account the specific interests and demands of the group at which they are aimed. Considerable space in such magazines is allotted to photographic reporting and documentation and to various subjects of an entertaining and applied character.
Among the mass-circulation illustrated magazines in the capitalist world, those with the highest circulations at the end of the 1960’s were Reader’s Digest (about 17.5 million), Parade (more than 8 million), Look (more than 7.7 million; in 1971 publication ceased), and Life (more than 7.3 million) in the USA; Weekend (more than 1.2 million) in Great Britain; and Paris-Match (1.4 million) in France. Among the political magazines, which, as a rule, are also illustrated, those that were notable for circulation or for their sociopolitical significance were Time (more than 3.7 million) and Newsweek (more than 2 million) in the USA; Der Stern (2 million) and Der Spiegel (more than 1 million) in the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG); U Express (more than 400,000) in France; and New Statesman (more than 89,000), Spectator (more than 31,000), and The Economist (about 100,000) in Great Britain. A graphic understanding of the scale of dissemination of magazines for women is given by the circulations of the leading magazines: Woman’s Day (more than 7.2 million), Ladies Home Journal (about 6.8 million), and Good Housekeeping (more than 5.6 million) in the USA; Woman (more than 2.7 million), Woman’s Own (more than 2 million), and Woman’s Weekly (more than 1.6 million) in Great Britain; Marie-Claire (more than 1 million) and Elle (750,000) in France; and Grand Hotel (more than 900,000) and Bolero (600,000) in Italy. Popular science magazines enjoy a wide readership: for example, Popular Science and National Geographic in the USA and Nature and New Scientist in Great Britain. Literary magazines, such as Nouvelle Revue Franc, aise, are popular in France. Sports magazines, such as Sports Illustrated, are read widely in the USA, and young people’s and satirical humor magazines are popular everywhere. Numerous magazines dealing with a special branch of science and providing scientific information are also published.
According to data available at the end of the 1960’s, the number of magazines published in the major capitalist coun-tries was as follows: in the USA, more than 9,400; in Great Britain, about 4,600; in France, more than 14,600 (this number includes all periodicals except general political newspapers); in the FRG, about 2,200; and in Japan, about 5,800.
The magazines of Communist and workers’ parties of capitalist countries propagandize the ideas of scientific socialism in difficult conditions. The party magazines play a leading role in the ideological-political direction of the communist movement and in the working out of the problems of the theory and tactics of the revolutionary struggle: Marxism Today in Great Britain; Rinascita in Italy; Cahiers du communisme in France; Wissen und Tat in the FRG; and Political Affairs in the USA. Important aspects of the practical activities of the proletarian vanguard at the present stage, as well as the most significant processes of current sociopolitical life, are covered by such publications of Communist parties as Democratie nouvelle and Nouvelle critique in France and The Labour Monthly in Great Britain. Mass public organizations associated with Communist and workers’ parties also publish their own magazines: for instance, Avant-garde and Vie ouvriere in France andLcivoro andLe Noi Donne in Italy.
In many developing countries of Asia, Africa, and Latin America the growth of periodical magazines takes place under complicated conditions. The peoples’ striving for peace and progress runs into the antipopular activity of neocolonialism proimperialist elements. The heavy burden of the legacy of the recent colonial past (illiteracy, an acute shortage of national cadres, and other problems) also has an adverse effect. However, in countries that are seeking a solution to their problems on the paths of independence and non-capitalist development, the role of magazines as a tool of political and cultural enlightenment and education of the popular masses is on the increase. Marxist-Leninist ideas are propagandized by Party Life in India, Nueva Era in Argentina, Estudos Socials in Brazil, Los Principios in Chile, La Nueva Epoca in Mexico, Principios in Venezuela, Estudios in Uruguay, and African Communist in the Republic of South Africa. The following magazines take an anticolonialist stance: al-Tahrir, al-Musawwar, and/?wz al-Yusufin Egypt, Jeune Afrique in Tunisia, and Ethiopian Observer in Ethiopia.
Since 1958 the theoretical and informational magazine of Communist and workers’ parties, Problemy mira i sotsializma, which deals with questions of the history, theory, and practice of the international communist and workers’ movement, has been published in 24 languages. Magazines published by international organizations and associations, such as International Trade Union News, The UNESCO Courier, The Democratic Journalist, and Women of the Whole World, play a significant role in the struggle for peace and progress.
REFERENCES
Marx, K., and F. Engels. O pechati. Moscow, 1963.
Lenin, V. I. O pechati. Moscow, 1959.
V. I. Lenin, KPSS o pechati. Moscow, 1970.
O partiinoi i sovetskoi pechati: Sb. dokumentov. Moscow, 1954.
Sovetskaia pechat’ v dokumentakh. Moscow, 1961.
Pechat’s SSR za 50 let. Moscow, 1967.
Periodicheskaia pechat’ SSSR, 1917–1949: Bibliograficheskii ukazatel’. Moscow, 1959.
Letopis’ periodicheskikh izdanii SSSR, 1961–1965. Moscow, 1967.
Pechat’sSSR v 1971 godu. Moscow, 1972.
Bol’shevistskaia pechat’: Kratkie ocherki istorii (1894–1917). Moscow, 1962.
Ocherki istorii russkoi sovetskoi zhurnalistiki, 1917–1932. Moscow, 1966.
Ocherki istorii russkoi sovetskoi zhurnalistiki, 1933–45. Moscow, 1968.
Berezhnoi, A. F. Russkie predshestvenniki leninskoi pechati. [Leningrad] 1969.
Bogoliubov, K. M. Zhurnaly v SSSR. Moscow, 1960.
Maksimov, A. A. Sovetskaia zhurnalistika 20-kh godov: Kratkii ocherk zhurnal’noi periodiki. [Leningrad] 1964.
Lisovskii, N. M. Russkaia periodicheskaia pechat’ 1703–1900 gg. Petrograd, 1915. (Bibliography.)
Istoriia russkoi zhurnalistiki XVIII-XIX vekov, 2nd ed. Moscow, 1966.
Ocherki po istorii russkoi zhurnalistiki i kritiki, vols. 1–2. Leningrad, 1950–65.
Berkov, P. N. Istoriia russkoi zhurnalistiki XVIII veka. Moscow-Leningrad, 1952.
Fedchenko, P. M. Presa ta ii poperednyky. Kiev, 1969.
Pechat’ zarubezhnykh stran: Zapadnaia Evropa, Amerika, Avstraliia (handbook). Moscow, 1962.
Pechat’, radio i televidenie stran Afriki: Kratkii spravochnik. Moscow, 1965.
Spiru, B. Otraviteli. K istorii razvitiia sovremennoi burzhuaznoi zhurnalistiki. Moscow, 1962. (Translated from German.)
Herd, H. The March of Journalism. London [1952].
Livois, R. de. Histoire de la presse francaise, vols. 1–2, Lausanne [1965].
Sullerot, E. La presse féminine. Paris [1963].
Peterson, T. Magazines in the Twentieth Century. Urbana, III., 1964.
Wolseley, R. E. Understanding Magazines. Ames, Iowa [1966].V. S. SOKOLOV, O. P. SHARKOV, and D. A. BARABOKHIN
magazine - a periodic publication containing pictures and stories and articles of interest to those who purchase it or subscribe to it; "it takes several years before a magazine starts to break even or make money"
magazine - product consisting of a paperback periodic publication as a physical object; "tripped over a pile of magazines"
magazine - a business firm that publishes magazines; "he works for a magazine"
magazine - a light-tight supply chamber holding the film and supplying it for exposure as required
magazine - a storehouse (as a compartment on a warship) where weapons and ammunition are stored
magazine - a metal frame or container holding cartridges; can be inserted into an automatic gun