Literaturnaia Gazeta

(Literary Gazette). (1) A Russian newspaper published in St. Petersburg in 1830–31. A. A. Del’vig was the first editor and publisher, O. M. Somov the second. A. S. Pushkin and P. A. Viazemskii were contributors. Literaturnaia gazeta published works by Russian (N. V. Gogol, E. A. Baratynskii, A. V. Kol’tsov, and V. K. Kiukhel’beker) and foreign (W. Scott, P. Mérimée, and V. Hugo) writers and critical and theoretical articles. It polemicized against Severnaia pchela and Moskovskii telegraf. Following the tradition of Decembrist journalism to some extent, it gained a reputation as an oppositional publication.

(2) A Russian newspaper published in St. Petersburg from 1840 to 1849, based on Literaturnye pribavleniia k “Russkomu invalidu” (1831–39). It was subtitled “Herald of Sciences, Arts, Literature, News, Theater, and Fashion.” The editors at different times were A. A. Kraevskii, F. A. Koni, and N. A. Polevoi. V. G. Belinskii and the authors of Otechestvennye zapiski worked for the newspaper, giving it a progressive orientation.

(Literary Gazette), the organ of the administration of the Writers’ Union of the USSR. It has been published since April 1929, with various frequencies. Originally it was the organ of the Federation of Associations of Soviet Writers (FOSP). After the First All-Union Congress of Writers (1934), it was the organ of the administration of the Writers’ Union of the USSR. From 1942 to 1944 it was published as Literatura i iskusstvo (Literature and Art, the organ of the administration of the Union of Soviet Writers of the USSR, the Committee on Matters of Art Under the Council of People’s Commissars of the USSR, and the Committee on Matters of Cinematography under the Council of People’s Commissars of the USSR). In 1947 it was made into a literary and sociopolitical journal (it came out twice weekly and, beginning in 1930, three times weekly); since 1967 it has been a weekly with significantly expanded volume (16 newspaper columns).

The pages of Literaturnaia gazeta carry literary criticism and publicistic material; excerpts from works of literature; articles on questions of communist construction, economics, sociology, morals, daily life, and scientific and technical progress; and materials for discussion and debate. A great deal of attention is devoted to international life and the struggle with bourgeois ideology. It received the Order of Lenin in 1971. Circulation, 1,550,000 (1973).