Soviet Journalism Research Articles

ОНИМ «ГОРЬКИЙ» И РИТОРИКА ПЬЕСЫ «НА ДНЕ» В СОВРЕМЕННОЙ ПОЛИТИЧЕСКОЙ МЕТАФОРЕ

The article examines metaphors from M. Gorky’s play “The Lower Depths” in the printed and electronic media texts of the last decade. In the contemporaty political discourse they are represented in a wide range of structural and functional vatiations: exact quotation; truncated quotation; quotation with the replacement of one part or the introduction of an additional component into the construction; cognitive function, clarifying the nature of a particular social phenomenon or object; emotive-evaluative and modeling functions, clarifying the meaning of a certain social phenomenon or aiming at its discrediting; hypothetical and polemical functions, characterizing civilizational processes. The article reveals that the onym «Gorky» is less spread than Gorkian metaphors in the contemporary as well as in the entire post-Soviet media. In the early Soviet journalism the situation was the opposite. It is noted that in the 1920s Gorkian metaphors were negatively applied to the personality of the writer himself; the 1930s were characterized by the unprecedented frequency of the usage of the onym in order to glorify the writer, while his creative work was quite neglected. Meanwhile, elements of direct and implicit polemics with the author of «The Lower Depths» in contemporary media, and the «Gorky.media» Internet project reveal certain convergence of the onym with the metaphor. The article states that the attention to Gorky’s rhetoric in the media environment is mostly related to the peculiarities of the writer’s creative personality (artist and public figure in one person) as well as to his genre and style preferences (maxims, aphorisms, allegory, symbol, journalistic techniques).

Simon HUXTABLE, News from Moscow. Soviet Journalism and the Limits of Postwar Reform

Simon HUXTABLE, News from Moscow. Soviet Journalism and the Limits of Postwar Reform

Soviet Journalism of the “Thaw” Period: Experience of Modal Biography

Soviet Journalism of the “Thaw” Period: Experience of Modal Biography

Soviet Journalism of the 1960s–1980s and Russian Journalism of the 1990s: Historical Myths and Real Correspondents Practice

In the article, the author attempts to rethink some aspects of the work of Soviet journalists. The need for such an analysis is caused by the growing controversy in Russian society about the situation in the Russian media environment. Quite often, the participants of the discussion and opinion leaders turn to the images of the «free 90s» that have become entrenched in the mass consciousness as a golden time for journalism in Russia, comparing them with the «Soviet propaganda» that existed earlier and did not give an opportunity to objectively cover events and life in the country. The romanticization of one era and the demonization of another distort the images of journalism and journalists in historical memory. At the same time, one of the fundamental rules of journalism is an objective reflection of events: coverage of different points of view, demonstration of pros and cons. The Soviet school of journalism has left a rich legacy. Soviet journalists often became writers, perfectly mastering the art of words. The essay, a complex, interesting and almost forgotten genre today, occupied leading positions in newspapers in the USSR. The TASS news agency was not inferior in quality to the world's news agencies. Journalists had the opportunity to write about the painful, to raise acute questions, to polemize, despite the rather strict censorship carried out by Glavlit. Newspapers developed and increased circulation even in the absence of a market economy. This study debunks some of the myths about the work of Soviet journalists on the example of editors and employees of allied publications, as well as correspondents of TASS — the leading information actor in the media system of the Soviet Union.

News from Moscow: Soviet Journalism and the Limits of Postwar Reform. By Simon Huxtable. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022. xiii, 251 pp. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Photographs. $100.00, hard bound.

News from Moscow: Soviet Journalism and the Limits of Postwar Reform. By Simon Huxtable. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022. xiii, 251 pp. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Photographs. $100.00, hard bound.

Потеря Я-уникальности как элемент пропаганды в языке советской публицистики

The loss of SELF-uniqueness as a propaganda element in the language of Soviet journalism The article describes the process of planned influence on people’s psyche by means of verbal manipulation, propaganda tactics taken from advertising tradition, as well as its various forms aimed at controlling consumer awareness in the Soviet reality of the 1930s and 1940s. A comprehensive methodological approach was used in the study, combining various methods (inductive and deductive as well as descriptive and interpretative). The study has proved that the tendentious and trite model of suggestive advertising texts as a combination of propaganda goals and consumer information, rejectingany creativity and individuality, caused the destruction of social consciousness and dehumanization of a man enslaved by the Soviet totalitarian system. The paper shows political Russification activities aimed at the destruction of the Ukrainian nation, emphasizing the description of the linguistic genocide situation. It has been observed that Ukrainian intellectuals’ attitude towards the Ukrainian culture and language was not always responsible. Negative effects of the mechanisms creating a new social unit, indifferent to the cultural property and art of their own nation, as well as constituting a new mythology have been noticed. It has been found that some of the then Ukrainian activists saw an opportunity to counter the influence of the Soviet propaganda in the restitution of SELF-uniqueness, national awareness and return to national cultural traditions. The conducted analysis has also revealed the quasi-polemical nature the language of Soviet journalism, which designed a parallel reality.

Constructing a Utopia about Soviet Childhood in La Littérature internationale

This article expands existing studies of the institutional history of the La Littérature internationale magazine, the press organ of the International Organisation of Revolutionary Writers. The author analyses the second French issue from 1934 in comparison with similar English and German issue. The issue’s structure and themes are not typical of the literary-critical Marxist magazine, as it brings together literary and journalistic texts on children. Collections of this kind appeared in the magazine in all languages except Russian. This article aims to determine the place of the issue with the “children’s” selection in terms of the journal’s general concept. For the first time, La Littérature internationale is studied through the prism of a complex diachronic and synchronous comparative analysis of versions in different languages. The texts of the second French issue from 1934 is studied in detail because it contains the most material on children compared to other versions with “children” compilations. The analysis of the French texts shows some key themes, metaphors, and images used in the representation of Soviet childhood. The issue of La Littérature internationale is placed in the context of Soviet journalism of the 1930s in adult (Pravda) and children’s (Pionerskaya Pravda) periodicals. The research demonstrates that the set of agitational essays and interviews, positioned in the magazine as socio-cultural material about real Soviet childhood, is close to fiction written in the socialist utopia genre due to its genre and narrative features. By publishing this compilation in La Littérature internationale, the editors made the French version another showcase of Soviet propaganda for the Western French-speaking reader, where the main export product was the image of Soviet childhood. This research provides empirical support and development of some concepts worked out in the framework of Soviet studies on strategies for forming images of the USSR abroad and narratives about Soviet childhood.

The Names of the Unknown Soldiers. Soviet War Literature and Journalism, or Verisimilitude and Truth: Two Case Studies

Vasilij Subbotin’s We Stormed the Reichstag is a typical specimen of the wave of non-fiction prose about World War II which sprang up in the wake of the 20th Congress. The search for the unjustly forgotten war hero, one of the major themes of this kind of literature, is represented here by the story of Pëtr Pjatnickij, a soldier who fell on the steps of the Reichstag entrance with a red flag in his hand and was then forgotten.
 If, hypothetically, this story was false, it would echo the (probably false) story of the 28 ‘panfilovcy’ who purportedly fell at Dubosekovo during the battle for Moscow. In that case, Subbotin’s text would embody a characteristically literary device: giving a name to an anonymous character, the anonymous figure, for example, carrying the flag in Vladimir Bogatkin’s well-known painting, as a way to give life and credibility to the image. The Dubosekovo story, as developed by journalist Aleksandr Krivickij, appears to employ the same mechanism for achieving credibility. In this case the operation was twofold: Krivickij gave his heroes first a number, and only later names. The second move was the most hazardous. A story that pretends to be true must be verifiable in real life; this is where Krivickij failed and where Subbotin may have succeeded.
 Stalinist culture fundamentally refused to separate fact from fiction. The non-fiction literature from the Thaw is exactly the opposite: an attempt at reinstating the separation.

Тріада «митець – влада – преса» у контексті соціальних комунікацій УРСР (1950–1980 рр.)

The purpose of the article is to define the role of creators and pressin formation of informational system in the Ukrainian Soviet Social Republic, to trace the dependence of creative personalities’ fates on their political positions, to show the meaning of creative personalities in formation the citizens’ consciousness. The research methods which enable reaching the set purpose and tasks are concrete-historical, sociological, systemic, comparative and factorial ones. Results and discussion. The article explores the problem of a creative person’s activity under the conditions of totalitarianism. It is proved, that creative people in the soviet epoch experienced a painful choice: either to glorify the party for gaining fame or to truly show life and be persecuted. The people who were free and disobedient and did not compromiseon principle were persecuted. The political repressions cultivated stressful states. The fear of the regime paralyzed human spirit, generated conformism, which transformed into serving. Conformists lived according to the will of the party performing its requirements and their fate depended on that.Some of the creative intelligence representatives did not publish some of their works keeping them up to the better times in order to follow their inner principles and at the same time not to get in trouble. In spite of the censorship there were attempts to tell the truth in the official press. Conclusions. The problem of a creative person’s activity under the conditions of totalitarianism is a complicated and multi-vector phenomenon. The journalism provided a severe struggle with the display of creativity freedom due to requirements of the communist party. Analyzing the moral aspect of a creative person in the period of totalitarianism, one should not reprove the creators of those times because of their party “idol worship”. What is more important is that under any circumstances real personalities did not lose their human nature and acted as the truth defenders on any occasion. Even under the conditions of the soviet regime for many people publicistic activity wascreativity, but not the way of earning. Key words: Marxism-Leninism, totalitarian system, soviet creative people, soviet journalism, independent information, freedom of creativity, public consciousness

The media language as an object of journalism science: To the history of the formation of St Petersburg media linguistics scientific school

The article is devoted to the history of Soviet journalism science and the isolation of the mass media language research industry in it. The purpose of the study is to identify the national and cultural specificity of the Russian science of journalism and to popularize its achievements. Based on a comparative analysis of the European, American and Soviet models of the journalism science, it was proved that the important factors in the development of global science was the exchange of research practices both between scientists from different countries and between generations of researchers within the same state. The importance of the personal factor in determining the professional ideology of the science of journalism and its disciplinary structure was established. When addressing of the disciplinary affiliation of media linguistics as a theoretical and methodological basis for speech phenomena of mass communication studying, it was noted that the attribution of media language research to the subject field of journalism theory can be considered the specifics of the national model of science on journalism. Using the example of the history of the development of the Leningrad Scientific and Educational School of Journalism, it was shown that the reproduction of research personnel of narrow media linguistic specialization took place at Leningrad University with specialists with classical philological education. Unique practices of studying media texts in Department of Stylistics and Editing of the Faculty of Journalism of Leningrad State University have developed, as a result of the implementation of an experiment at the university to develop methods for teaching and studying the language of the specialty.

ВИРОБНИЧА ТЕМАТИКА ТА ШЛЯХИ ЇЇ ХУДОЖНЬОЇ РЕАЛІЗАЦІЇ В ЗБІРЦІ РЕПОРТАЖІВ В. ВЛАДКА «ДОНБАС – ЗОЛОТА КРАЇНА»

<p><strong><em>The purpose of the research</em></strong><em> is to identify the genre and style features of the reportage on production topic on the example of collection by V. Vladko «Donbass is a golden country».</em></p><p><strong><em>Research methodology.</em></strong><em> </em><em>In accordance with the purpose, the research process requires a comprehensive application of such methods as: inductive-deductive – to observe and describe the selected characteristics of the reportage on production topics; descriptive-analytical – gave the opportunity to analyze the textual means of realization of genre-forming features of the reportage on production topics with further comparison and generalization of the obtained results; bibliographic – in order to collect and process literature on the research topic. The method of observation was used to collect primary empirical materials. On the basis of the structural-functional method the analysis of reportage collection by V. Vladko «Donbass is a golden country» was carried out. The method of generalization allowed to summarize the theoretical provisions of the study and to form a comprehensive vision of ways of artistic realization of industrial themes in the collection of reportages by V. Vladko «Donbass is a golden country».</em></p><p><strong><em>Results. </em></strong><em>The author emphasizes that this genre variety was extremely popular in Soviet journalism in the late 1920’s and early 1930’s. In the periodicals of that time, materials appeared more and more often in which journalists paid special attention to describing the labor exploits of Soviet people during industrialization and collectivization campaigns, were interested in the work of factories, and collective farms, and portrayed people’s faith in a better future. Particular attention is paid to their ideological orientation, cultivating the theme of the working class and the industrialization of a new society. It has been found that the reporter aims to describe these processes exclusively as a positive phenomenon. The purpose of our study is to analyze the genre and style features of reporting on production topics. The vision and application of the division of reporting into genre varieties, the characteristics of their identification and typological features are relatively new in the theory and practice of social communication research, which determines the relevance of our study. The subject of the research is V. Vladko’s collection of reports «Donbass is a golden country».</em> <em>To achieve this goal was used a set of general and special research methods, including the principle of historicism, methods of analysis and synthesis, etc. After analyzing the collection of V. Vladko «Donbass is a golden country», we decided that the report on the production theme as a genre-thematic variety has the following specific features: optimistic and sublime tone of the story; emphasis on the advantages of the socialist way of development; party affiliation, ideology, pathos; the main characters of the reports are workers – «builders of a bright communist future»; naturalistic descriptiveness of production processes; creation of idyllic pictures of Soviet life; availability of protocol-declarative slogans, production vocabulary, a large amount of factual material (statistical data, historical information).</em></p><p><strong><em>Novelty.</em></strong><em> In view of previous research and analysis of empirical material, at the first time a reportage on production topics was singled out as a genre-thematic type of reporting.</em></p><p><strong><em>Practical </em></strong><strong><em>significance</em></strong><strong><em>.</em></strong><em> The results of the research can be used during development of educational materials on normative disciplines («Introduction to the specialty», «Genres of journalism», «History of Ukrainian journalism», «Theory and practice of journalistic creativity»), special courses and special seminars in higher education institutions for students majoring in «Journalism».</em></p><p><strong><em>Key words: </em></strong><em>report on production topics, labor, worker, Donbass, industry.</em><em></em></p>

Лексична варіантність в українській пресі 1920–1940-х років і формування нової лексичної норми

The paper presents a comparative corpus-based research of the vocabulary in the Ukrainian newspapers of the interwar period and the first Post–World War II years. The research aims to show the ways in which a new lexical norm for journalism was formed in 1940s. The paper envisages this new norm with regard to the influence of the Western and the Eastern Ukrainian language standards and of the Russian influence as well. Three corpora of newspaper texts have been built that represent different variants of Standard Ukrainian: 1) the Soviet newspaper texts of 1919–1933 up to the end of the Ukrainization; 2) the Western Ukrainian pre-Soviet and ‟inter-Soviet” newspaper texts of 1937–1943; 3) the Western Ukrainian Soviet newspaper texts of 1939–1946. For each of these, frequency lists were built. Our conclusions are based on comparing these lists. We have built a table showing changes (including frequency changes) within 120 semantic fields of synonyms. Our research showed that the new lexical norm that was formed in the Soviet journalism of 1940s had an Eastern Ukrainian basis. The regional Western vocabulary attested in the pre-Soviet and ‟inter-Soviet” Western Ukrainian newspapers had almost no trace in the new lexical norm. Neither did the Western lexical units that remind the Russian ones (upadok ʽdecline’, oba ʽboth’ etc.), a fact showing that the growth of the Russian influence was implemented only with the support of the Eastern variant. Several changes are attested within the synonymous fields (more often they shrink) and changes in the frequency of different synonyms, more often favouring the cognates of Russian words, although some cases go against this tendency. The Ukrainian language as attested in the Soviet newspaper texts of the 1940s keeps the bulk of its lexical basis; the Russification trend is superficial and in many cases rather brief. As it is shown by comparing the vocabulary of these texts with the modern norm, many Russian borrowings of the 1930s and 1940s did not find their way into the standard language.

ЖАНРОТВОРЕНИЕ И ЖАНРООБРАЗОВАНИЕ

The article focuses on the topic of genre formation in Soviet journalism, and how genres have developed in the contemporary Russian mass media. The author is of the view that journalistic genres developed intuitively, rather than on the basis of a thorough investigation of the typology of mass media texts, and therefore bear all the hallmarks of a professional agreement. These practical, formally logical standards have no basis in scholarship, and as a result many publications dealing with questions of journalistic genres have no connection with the theory of journalism. They merely serve the «commonly accepted professional view» of the form that texts should take. This explains why there is continual discussion of the interaction, diffusion, mimicry and changes in the «identified genres» in a situation where there are no grounds for distinguishing between them, or fixed criteria for defining them. Introducing American forms of journalistic texts into the Russian genre system leads to an even greater entropy of established concepts. Concentrating on the study of the genre forms of journalistic texts in journalism education often hinders students in the acquisition of the habit of writing materials on specific thematic issues.

Overcoming the Genre System of the “Thick Journal” as a Socio-political Construction: Referring to One Publication by S. Averintsev

One of the first publications of religious and philosophical content in the Soviet press was a two-part article by S. S. Averintsev, dedicated to a comparative study of Byzantine, Old Russian, and Western spirituality, with the appendix of a new translation of psalms. The publication of special and methodically-verified arguments in the popular thick magazine was caused by the softening of church-state relations, but the significance of this publication exceeds its thematic side. In this publication, Averintsev undertook a revision of the system of genres and censorship strategies on which the industry of the Soviet thick journal and broader Soviet literature rested. Such a radical rollover of the usual framework for the production of the text was supported by the originality of the translation and by most of the arguments of the article. Some of the reasoning was not directly aimed at individual statements, but at criticizing Soviet literary production. Such a radical project allowed Averintsev to justify his own socio-political program, despite the fact that he did not work in the social sciences. However, a hidden intention against both Soviet journalism and Russian idealistic thought, and the liberal program of Georgy Fedotov in particular, which was blamed as ideologically dependent on the forms of old journalism, allowed Averintsev to develop a series of productive ideas about the political boundaries that could become the basis of the post-Soviet discussion about the mission and liability of the political class.

Truth in soviet journalism: imitation, manipulations, consequences

The article deals with four aspects of the problem of truth in journalism of the Soviet era and their consequences in post-Soviet times: the problem of understanding the essence of the phenomenon, finding the truth in concrete situations, truth-telling by mass media to society, perception of the truth by the audience and social reflection. The methods, forms and means of the influence of Soviet journalism on the society are analyzed. The general scientific methods (analysis, deduction, induction, generalization) and the strategy of the substantiated theory are used. The results of the research have scientific and practical significance, they reveal the causes of certain social and communicative consequences of the controlled interaction of the society with the media, transformation of moral and ethical values and concepts, and provide research material on the methodology and technology of mass communication impacts. The author concludes about the need to return society as a whole, and journalism in particular, to understanding, perception of the essential meanings of the truth, in particular its metaphysical nature, and the formation of truth-centered socially responsible position of the journalist.

Тhe specifics of creating an image of Вelarus in literary reports on the wandering subjects of the 1920 30's.

The article deals with the extraordinary spread of literary reporting on wandering subjects, which became a part of Ukrainian Soviet journalism during the period of national and cultural revival, named «rooting». The reports of Mykhailo Bykovets «On Red Belarus» and Arkadiy Lubchenko «The Blue-eyed Sister of Ukraine» are thoroughly analyzed. It was written after delegations of Ukrainian writers and journalists visited in the late 1920 Soviet Belarus. The object of characterization in the article was the authors' impressions of the reforms of Soviet power in the economic, political, social and cultural life of the republic. It is noted much about attention in the collections of reports focused on Ukrainian Belarusian cultural relations, establishing direct contacts between writers, the highest result of which was the publication of the almanac «New Belarus», which included works by 30 Belarusian writers in translations. Among them S. Pylypenko, P. Tychyny, V. Sosyury, I. Kulik, T. Masenko, A. Paniv and others. The main emphasis of the study is that the characteristic feature of the reports «On Red Belarus» by M. Bykovets and «The Blue-eyed Sister of Ukraine» by A. Lubchenko is an attraction to fragmentation. The text of the report «On Red Belarus» is divided into fifteen parts, but retains its integrity due to the presentation of information from 1 person. It is noted that the chronological type of composition chosen by the journalist allows not only to describe events, but also to share their own impressions and thoughts from what they saw. Traveling reports of the reporter often consist of fixing all the little things that reproduce the unique Belarusian color. It is emphasized that the language of the reports «On Red Belarus» by M. Bykovets and «Blue-eyed Sister of Ukraine» by A. Lubchenko is extremely simple, unformalized. It seems that journalists are talk to their readers and bring the necessary information to him. The authors try to make their reports as interesting as possible for the reader. That is why they introduce into the texts details that make them more interesting and on the other hand, distract readers from the monotonous and chronic description of the journey itself. The literary reports on the wandering theme of A. Lubchenko and M. Bykovets, despite the ninety years since their writing, are read with interest and are relevant today, because they are interesting, informative, fascinating, attract contemporary readers with fresh sensations, intriguing presentation of experiences and seen, and show a picture of the life of Soviet Belarus in the 1920 and 1930.

Еврейская тема в советской журналистике. Субъективные заметки о времени, авторах и их героях /

Еврейская тема в советской журналистике. Субъективные заметки о времени, авторах и их героях /

CONFORMISM AMONG NONCONFORMISTS: BEHAVIOR PATTERNS IN SOVIET JOURNALISM OF THE 1920s-1930s

CONFORMISM AMONG NONCONFORMISTS: BEHAVIOR PATTERNS IN SOVIET JOURNALISM OF THE 1920s-1930s

Журнал «Студенческий меридиан»: трансформация типа издания в советский период

Naumova J.A. (Southern Federal University, Rostov-on-Don, Russian Federation) The article is devoted to the transformation of the type of publication of one of the oldest national federal student magazines in the Soviet period. The problem of finding the editorship of “Studenchesky Meridian” of optimal typological model, the evolution of its topical complex in the difficult conditions of functioning of the Soviet journalism, forms and methods of interaction with the young audience are the main aspects covered in this material. Key words : student magazine, “Studenchesky Meridian”, youth press, Soviet journalism. DOI: 10.18522/1995-0640-2015-4-201-209

Советская журналистика 30-х – начала 50-х годов как искусство соцреализма. Положительный герой

Советская журналистика 30-х – начала 50-х годов как искусство соцреализма. Положительный герой