"Thick" magazines - their present and past. Thick magazines in lean years Soviet thick magazines

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Konstantin Paramonov

In 1987, “Children of Arbat” by A. Rybakov and “White Clothes” by M. Dudintsev appeared. And away we go...

M. Shatrov, A. Bek, A. Nuykin, A. Solzhenitsyn, V. Grossman, V. Tendryakov, V. Korotich, V. Shalamov, Yu. Trifonov, V. Voinovich...

The names that merged into the incomprehensible hum of that time were replaced in the late eighties by new names - from another, unheard of and “non-Soviet”, as it seemed to me then, writing: Yuri Arabov, Dm. Al. Prigov, Alexander Eremenko, Timur Kibirov, Vitaly Kalpidi, Ivan Zhdanov, Evgeniy Popov, Vic. Erofeev, Nina Iskrenko, Viktor Toporov...

The circulation of thick magazines has grown to unprecedented levels.

For example, at the end of 1988, the circulation of "New World" increased to 1,595,000 copies, "New World" today is 15,260, "Znamya" - 11,050, "Friendship of Peoples" - 6,400, etc.

However, despite the predictions of many critics who predicted if not death for thick magazines, then a slow dying, magazines not only survived, but even became more numerous.

"New world"

Published since January 1925.

On the blue cover of the May notebook of the New World, familiar for many years, the reader, without looking inside, will be able to read the appeal to himself and find out that:

“In March of this year, Academician Sergei Pavlovich Zalygin, who headed Novy Mir for twelve years, left his post. Many memorable publications were a breakthrough from the policy of “glasnost” to genuine freedom of speech. The success of the magazine was brought by the publication of books previously banned in the USSR, such as "Doctor Zhivago" by Boris Pasternak, "The Pit" by Andrei Platonov, "The Gulag Archipelago" by Alexander Solzhenitsyn. The question may arise: will it happen that with the election of a new editor-in-chief, readers who renewed their subscription for the second half of 1998 will receive with the same cover of some other publication? These fears are in vain. "New World" will continue to follow its chosen direction, preserving the traditional structure and circle of authors."

All clear?

Without a doubt.

The issue opens with Viktor Astafiev's story "The Jolly Soldier".

About war. That's why it's not funny. Fun though. The further we move away from the events of half a century ago, the more we learn the truth about the real and unvarnished war.

Prose by Vladimir Tuchkov. "Death comes on the Internet. A description of nine unpunished crimes that were secretly committed in the homes of new Russian bankers." These stories, according to the author, were told to him by a bored private detective at a Crimean resort in August 1997.

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.

Poet Yuri Belichenko is a reserve colonel. Member of the Russian Writers' Union. A selection of three poems is called "Farewell Snow".

The next author of the column is the editor-in-chief of “Our Contemporary” Stanislav Kunyaev. Solo entitled “Treason. Cowardice. Deception”: “Today, summing up the results of perestroika, we understand that the leadership layer of the Soviet Union was unable to withstand the disaster, because it always consisted of two secretly warring camps - the Russian national and the pro-Western Russophobic.”

“From Our Mail” is the magazine’s favorite section. Several quotes from letters from readers under the general heading “You must believe in victory!”

"...Does 'their' television have a detrimental effect? ​​Unfortunately, yes."

“...I couldn’t watch or endure to the end A. Konchalovsky’s film “Ryaba Hen”. A vile parody of peasant life... Thank you very much for your work.”

"...But my wife and I threw the TV out of the house after 1993 - and our seven children, thank God, still read in their free time and do not stare at the screen."

"...The molesters are in a hurry, they are getting more and more impudent into the soul. Svanidze, Posner, Taratuta, Guzman... Their name is legion."

“...I am the editor of the large-circulation newspaper Ogneupor of a large refractory plant. I publish press reviews in almost every issue (very often based on materials from Our Contemporary) to make it clearer to readers where the country is going...”

"Friendship of Peoples".

The editor-in-chief of the magazine is Alexander Ebanoidze. Circulation - 6,400 copies. Founded in March 1939.

Olga Sedakova: “In Memory of the Poet” opens the May notebook “Friendship of Peoples”.

“As the reader will immediately hear, the model of the verse for this piece was Akhmatov’s “The Way of the Whole Earth”; he will also hear Tsvetaev’s phrases. I wanted these two Russian Muses to participate in the poems dedicated to the memory of Brodsky...”

Oblivion poppy, / remembrance honey, / whoever leaves first, / let him take it with him

to where, like sisters, / meets the surf, / where the sky, where the island is, / where: Sleep, dear!

Maxim Gureev's prose "The Secret Spectator" tells the story of the hospital martyr Feofania. Interior - hospital, church, autumn.

A selection of poems by Dmitry Tonkonogov "Winter, spring and refraction of light."

Anatoly Pristavkin. "Drunken heart syndrome. Meetings on the wine road."

Giuseppe Ungaretti (1888-1970) - one of the founders of the Italian poetic school of Hermeticism. Publication of his early poems translated by Andrei Grafov.

From the diaries and workbooks of Yuri Trifonov, which he began keeping in 1934, when he was nine years old. Entry dated September 3, 1937: “The forest is being cut down, chips are flying...”

Rakhimdzhan Karimov, "Migrants".

Very educational material, called "Russian Duel". Written by Vladislav Petrov. This man did a wonderful job. His study examines in more or less detail the history of duels in Rus' since 941. We can find out, for example, that a duel in the form of a Western European duel came to Russia in the second half of the 17th century, when the German Settlement appeared in Moscow, whose residents came from almost all over Europe... By the way, one of the last duels took place in 1996 year on the Black River - in the very place where Pushkin and Dantes fought. And it was not some new Russians who fired at each other with Kalashnikovs, but quite intelligent people who were deciding the issue of honor - from antediluvian pistols...

Vladimir Pozner in his remark asks the question: “Are we not slaves?” He answers himself.

Miroslav Popovich from Kyiv called his material this way: “Mythology and reality of the Ukrainian Renaissance.” Everything is correct.

Natalya Ivanova, host of the “Annual Rings” column, continues her conversation about magazine and newspaper publications of the past decade.

On the pages of periodicals there has been a lengthy discussion of the personality of the St. Petersburg writer Alexander Melikhov, who gave the world “A Romance with Prostatitis” and himself.

In "Book Collapse" Vladimir Leonovich dissects the poetry of Alexander Mezhirov, Valery Lipnevich - Yan Goltsman and his work, Alexander Zorin - the chronicle novel by Vladimir Erokhin "The Desired Fatherland".

After the publication of her book about Chernobyl, Svetlana Alexievich invites readers to search for the eternal man.

Lev Anninsky's memoirs are dedicated to events half a century ago - about underground work at school, the creation of the Communist Youth Party (CPM) and the repressions that followed.

"Young guard"

Founded in 1922. Circulation 6,000 copies. Editor-in-Chief Alexander Krotov. Instead of "Workers of all countries, unite!" Now the title page is crowned with another classic saying: “Russia, Rus'! Save yourself, save yourself!” Nearby is a portrait of Dostoevsky. On the back of the title, in the lower right corner, is the new logo of the publication: “Russian magazine Young Guard”.

Let's move straight to the letters from readers, where they become writers and write about the essence of communism: "... this is not at all the embodiment of the desire for justice. This is one of the variants of the ancient Jewish idea of ​​\u200b\u200bEarthly Paradise (in their language - Gaolam gaba)."

In their language...

So this means that the communists invented their own language after all.

We learn more from another letter. Once again the damned imperialists are raising their heads. There is a lot of information about new types of weapons of mass destruction. For example, “non-lethal weapons” - blinding, deafening, intoxicating, withering, as well as flooding and earthquake-shaking.

Let's finish with the letters. Let us better answer the question that the poet Yuri Nikonychev asks us:

What are you thinking about, comrade, / Sometimes at night at the table? / The lights of nomadic conflagrations / Roar in the vastness of the world.

Let another poet, Evgeny Yushin, answer him:

The cart is under the snow, / The man is at the table. / - Shall we go? / - Let's go! / But the path is not familiar.

Let’s leaf through the novel “Unknown Russia”, looking at the end: “His car flew into oncoming traffic and exploded...”

The geopolitical problems described in Viktor Ilyukhin’s article make one’s eyes glaze over. Let Yuri Vorobievsky's story about the pagans, the Templars and Count Cagliostro lift the eyelids.

...they are still alive today

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, and 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 were 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 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.

IN USSR Such “thick” magazines include: Youth", "Don", "Star", "Ural", "Siberian Lights", "Foreign Literature", "Friendship of Peoples", "Our Contemporary", "Moscow", "Neva", "Znamya", "October" "New World". Also in the Soyuzpechat kiosks one could find small-format "thick" magazines such as: "Smena", "Young Guard", "Aurora"".

"Thick" magazines should probably not be confused with other publications. Simple magazines in USSR it was also enough:" Soviet Union","Ogonyok","Crocodile","Peasant Woman","Worker""They appeared on the shelves in different ways, either weekly or once a month.

IN USSR there were also a huge number interest magazines for different ages:" Journalist","Behind the wheel","Sports games","Health","Chemistry and life","Knowledge is power","Youth technology","Science and life","Science and religion","Pioneer,Bonfire ","Young naturalist","Young technician","Around the world".

Magazine "New World""edited by Tvardovsky himself in 1962 In the year he published the wonderful story “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich”, as well as three more stories by Solzhenitsyn - “An Incident at Krechetkovka Station”, “For the Good of the Cause”, “Matrenin’s Dvor”.

In the magazine "October""Rybakov's novel "Heavy Sand" and Astafiev's story "The Sad Detective" were published. The works of Mann, Andersen-Nexo, Dreiser, Barbusse, Rolland, Bredel, Feichtwanger, Paustovsky, Gaidar, Prishvin, Zoshchenko, Olesha, Yesenin, Platonov, Mayakovsky were published. , Nagibin, Moritz, Iskander, Voznesensky, Vasiliev, Baklanov, Akhmadulina, Adamovich.

In the magazine "Znamya""was published, which later became a classic, "The Fall of Paris" by Ehrenburg, "In the Trenches of Stalingrad" by Nekrasov, "Young Guard" by Fadeev, "Son" by Antokolsky. Also military prose by Kazakevich and Grossman. Poetic works by Voznesensky, Akhmatova and Pasternak.

In the first years of perestroika, the magazine "Znamya" began to publish previously banned works by Platonov, Bulgakov, Zamyatin. They began publishing Sakharov's work "Memoirs".

In the magazine "Neva""works by Bykov, Dudintsev, Kaverin, Konetsky, Chukovskaya, Gumilyov, Strugatsky, Granin were published.
It was in "Neva" that readers became acquainted with such works as "Blinding Darkness" by Arthur Koestler and Robert Conquest's novel "The Great Terror".

In the thick magazine "Moscow""The novel "The Master and Margarita" by Bulgakov was published (from December to January 1966-1967).
When perestroika began, this magazine published Karamzin’s work “The History of the Russian State,” which, remarkably, was not published during the years of Soviet power.

In the thick magazine "Youth""published works by Akhmadulina, Okudzhav, Voznesensky, Tikhonov, Yashin, Rozov, Gladilin, Aleksin, Rubin,

Aksenova.

In "Youth" Kuztsov's novel "Babi Yar" saw the light of day for the first time.

Circulation of thick magazines

The so-called "thick" magazines in USSR could only be purchased through great connections. Despite the fact that, for example, the circulation of a magazine such as “Yunost” exceeded 3 million pieces. At the Soyuzpechat kiosks, they were sold out almost instantly.
Even in libraries they could not be taken home, but were issued only in reading rooms.

Nowadays, such problems only cause a smile. You can subscribe to any “thieves” magazine without any problems. The circulation of modern “thick” magazines has fallen by orders of magnitude when compared with circulation in the USSR. For example, the magazine “New World” has a circulation 7200 pieces, and the magazines "Znamya" and "October" have about 5000 pieces. The once popular magazine "Friendship of Peoples" has a total of 3000 things.

Read more:

“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.