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Russian Newspapers Published in the United States

Russian Newspapers from the United States at the Library of Congress (article)

A version of this paper was originally published in Gloria bibliospherae (Ariadne's Thread). Studia in honorem Acad. Prof. Alexandra Kumanova. A Festschrift for the 65 Golden Jubilee of the University of Library Studies and Information Technologies in Sofia. Sofiia: Izdatelstvo "Za bukvite-O pismenakh," 2016, pp. 489–504.)The article written by Angela Cannon, Reference Specialist for Russian and South Slavic, is a work of the U.S. Government and is not subject to copyright protection in the United States. It is reproduced here in its entirety.

Many people think that the Library of Congress (hereafter referred to as LC) has a copy of every book ever published. Obviously, this is not true, but to counter the expectation, whenever a search in the LC online catalog fails to yield results, an automatic disclaimer about not owning all the world's books appears. Nevertheless, many in the American Slavic studies community also believe that LC has a copy of every Russian publication produced in the United States. This too is not true. The belief persists because of the U.S. copyright law that requires the deposit in LC of two copies of each item published in the U.S. In this article I will discuss the character and development of the Russian-American newspaper collection at LC, its association with copyright registration and mandatory deposit, the pitfalls connected with such a policy, and highlight some of the more unique items in the collection. This paper is a first attempt at what will be a detailed collection evaluation of U.S. Russian-language publications in LC.1

Bibliographic Control of Russian Émigré Newspapers and Periodicals

One of the challenges inherent in diaspora studies is the lack of full bibliographic control over the publishing output of the communities living abroad. This is certainly true for Russian-language materials published in the U.S., both monographs and periodicals. The U.S. has no national bibliography to track all U.S. publications, and the diaspora publications usually were not traced in the national bibliographies of their various homelands. Often the standard bibliographies of Russian émigré materials are heavily weighted in favor of European publications. When Berlin, Prague, and Paris were the centers of Russian émigré life and culture, the publications from North America in the first half of the 20th century, were not as numerous and were harder for the European libraries and bibliographers to obtain. This can be seen in Postnikov's catalog of émigré publications in the Russkii Zagranichnyi Istoricheskii Arkhiv in Prague and the catalogs of Ossorguine-Bakounine and Volkoff of Russian émigré periodicals from Europe 1855–1940 and 1940–1979.2

Bibliographies created by scholars relying on North American libraries as their base understandably have greater American-produced content. This is also true of bibliographies that cover a more expansive time period, because far more Russian publications from the U.S. appeared in the latter half of the 20th century than in the earlier decades. Examples of such bibliographies are Urbanic's compilation of émigré works in the University of California, Berkeley Library, Liudmila Foster's landmark contribution indexing the contents of émigré anthologies, periodicals, and individual books , and Schatoff's four-volume work on émigré periodicals.3 Foster and Schatoff compiled their works in the Harvard and Columbia University Libraries, respectively.

The character of Russian-American publications before World War II also was somewhat different from the heavily intellectual output of the post-1917 émigrés living in Europe. U.S. Russian titles ranged from the educational, with readers and textbooks, to the religious, with devotional tracts and biblical studies. Original belles-lettres was not a vibrant genre in pre-World War II Russian-American publishing, but political tracts about monarchism, anti-communism, socialism and the worker's movement abounded, as did periodicals and newspapers with both anti-communist and pro-working class content running the gamut from progressive, socialist, and communist all the way to anarchist. Even Russian history was not a popular subject for publishing unless the work centered on some aspect of the Russian revolution. However, the situation changed after World War II as the U.S. emerged as a more desirable and more accessible location for Russian immigration. The U.S. relaxed its immigration policies to allow more refugees escaping communism and fascism resulting in thousands of Russians fleeing to the U.S. These new arrivals brought with them a different energy and focus which was reflected in the Russian-American publishing world. They founded new publishing houses, newspapers and journals incorporating belles-lettres and all aspects of intellectual inquiry including literature, history, politics, religion, economics, human rights, and sometimes quite virulent anti-Soviet works. Once the U.S. emerged as a major cultural center for the Russian emigration, Russian-American publications began to appear with more frequency and with more adequate coverage in bibliographies. Conversely, after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, many would-be Russian-American writers began to publish in Russia, rather than in the U.S. and many Russian-American publishing enterprises folded. Self-publishing on the Internet using services such as CreateSpace and Lulu has emerged as a major factor in post-Soviet Russian-American monographic publishing, but is not yet as significant for Russian-American periodicals.

To date no one has compiled one standard source for Russian publications from the United States, either monographs or periodicals. Thus the first step in my collection evaluation is to gather bibliographic data for as many publications as possible. I began my search with the LC online catalog which allows searching by state code and limiting by language code. (In a MARC record every publication should have a geographic code for the country of origin or, from the U.S., for state of origin). I examined thousands of records for both monographs and serials produced by the searches and entered them into a database. This captured many Russian-American titles held by LC, but not all due to incomplete bibliographic data for pre–1968 titles in the catalog. Usually the most important piece of information missing is the imprint, critical for identifying Russian publications produced in the U.S. In addition, I found many titles coded improperly for language and place of publication. LC staff members have corrected many of these records for monographs, but work continues on the records for periodicals.

After compiling the data from LC, I then turned to several printed Russian émigré bibliographies such as the above-mentioned titles by Schatoff and Postnikov. After Schatoff, the most valuable Russian émigré bibliography for periodicals is Svodnyi katalog periodicheskikh i prodolzhaiushchikhsia izdanii russkogo zarubezh'ia v bibliotekakh Moskvy (1917–1996 gg.), compiled by A.I. Bardeeva.4 Schatoff covers the years 1917–1968, while Bardeeva extends the coverage to 1996. Bardeeva also has a separate section for newspapers, while other bibliographies usually combine serials and newspapers. Although these bibliographies are extremely helpful, they are far from complete and often contradict one another. This is simply the nature of diaspora periodical bibliography, especially for newspapers. Periodicals moved from place to place, ceased and were resurrected, split into other titles and merged with others. Since the bibliographic control was not thorough at the time of publication, and many titles were short-lived and considered ephemeral, library collections and subsequent collection-based bibliographies are insufficient. Some bibliographies have even included publishers' announcements for works never printed, resulting in ghost citations.

A further complication is that most bibliographies are selective, including only titles produced by the intellectual emigration beginning in 1917. I am interested in the entirety of Russian-American publishing from 1868 through the present day, and not just works by or for the émigré intelligentsia. Part of the American immigrant experience is learning to become an American by assimilation and mastering English, but equally important is the struggle to maintain knowledge of the mother language and cultural contacts with the homeland. A full record of the publishing output would show the interests and efforts of the economic and religious immigrants from all decades, and not just those of the political exiles from 1917–1991. To date I have identified only one book (Vishniakova) which includes a bibliography of Russian works published in the U.S. before 19175 and only some publications about American ethnic periodicals in which a few pre-1917 titles appear. By contrast, Russian-American monographic publishing from the Cold War era is better documented, but even for this era the periodicals have received less attention than monographs. However, with the advent of the Internet and online library catalogs, the interest in and necessity of compiling print bibliographies seems to have diminished, with pre–1917 and post–1991 Russian-American periodicals having meager coverage in print bibliographies, but with some gaps in the pre-World War II era as well.

Regarding bibliographies of Russian-American or other Russian émigré serials, LC is also somewhat guilty of omission. In the first seven decades of the 20th century LC was a major bibliographic center for Slavic studies in the U.S. and produced dozens of specialized bibliographies, guides, checklists, union lists, card catalogs, and articles on its Slavic collections, but somehow the Russian-American works did not warrant their own compilations. It is possible that the intensive pursuit of Soviet materials and emphasis on creating reference tools about publications from the Soviet Union during the Cold War era demanded all of the staff's time, and therefore ethnic American materials commanded much less attention. In order to identify Russian-American monographs and periodicals held by LC, one would have to use the large national compilations of American materials such as the Union List of Serials, American Newspapers, National Union Catalog, or the Cyrillic Union Catalog.6 All of these bibliographies were retrospectively compiled. Some internal lists or card files on periodicals were maintained for those working on site at LC, that is, until LC created its online catalog, which is quite flawed in respect to older diaspora materials because of the incomplete bibliographic records. One publication that started as an internal list was eventually distributed widely as a government publication – Newspapers Currently Received by the Library of Congress.7 This annual/biannual compilation by the Periodical Division began in 1937 and listed a separate section for what are called foreign domestic newspapers, i.e. ethnic U.S. newspapers published in foreign languages. Russian and other Slavic titles are included.

I am currently culling information from more specialized subject bibliographies such as one on Russian émigré military publications, as well as catalogs for specific publishing houses,8 but the most thorough, albeit most difficult source for my data on Russian-American publications is OCLC WorldCat, a large bibliographic database with records from thousands of libraries worldwide. WorldCat provides access to the collections of many libraries and extends dates of diaspora bibliographic coverage to the present day, but it also compounds the problem of contradictory and incomplete information. A source is only as helpful as the accuracy and completeness of its data combined with its ease of use. Many of the records in WorldCat are substandard, with only the bare bones of information, while different Romanization systems abound, but the most difficult aspect of using WorldCat is that there are often many records for the same title, as well as irrelevant records in the search results. A brief example is the search for the city of "Seattle" and the Romanized form of the Cyrillic "Seattl." Limiting the language to Russian and to serial records produces twenty-five hits. Of these twenty-five, only eight are actually published in Seattle (the others are for Russian or Soviet titles microfilmed in Seattle). Of those eight remaining records, two are duplicates of the same title, thus only seven of the records are truly relevant for my project. On such a small scale this is easy to resolve, but when you search for major Russian-American publishing centers such as San Francisco, Ann Arbor, and New York, the duplicate and non-relevant records are a significant problem. For example, for Russian periodicals listed in WorldCat, Ann Arbor as a place of publication has 1,023 records, New York has 3,067, and the Romanized form Niu-Iork has 171.9 Many of the titles are not true Russian-American periodicals, but rather are microfilmed editions of Soviet or pre-revolutionary Russian periodicals, requiring further refining of the search to exclude them.

Based on the data I have compiled since 2014 from the sources listed above, I can make some preliminary assessments of the Russian-American newspaper collection at LC. However, it would be beneficial to discuss first the development of LC and its Russian collection, and how LC manages ethnic American collecting in general.

The Origins of the LC Russian Collections and the Role of Mandatory Deposit

LC was founded in 1800 by an act of Congress to be the nation's legislative library, but after its first decade LC began to expand its scope beyond such confines and commenced building a universal collection, including works in foreign languages. This essentially started with the 1814 purchase of Thomas Jefferson's private library, for Jefferson had amassed works on many subjects and in many languages, including a few volumes in Russian. By and large, however, the only Russian materials in LC during the first half of the 19th century were English translations of Russian authors. The first influx of Russian materials to LC came in 1866 via transfer from the Smithsonian Institution, when it decided to divest itself of its general research library and focus more on becoming the nation's museum. The Smithsonian had been exchanging its publications with scholarly societies around the world, including a number of institutions in Russia and most of this material eventually was deposited in LC. Throughout the second half of the 19th century and early decades of the 20th century, the Smithsonian had also acted as the exchange agent for LC and other U.S. governmental and scholarly institutions. For LC this brought many Russian official publications to the collections such as laws, statistics and reports.

During the 19th century, purchases of Russian materials were very few and usually focused on reference books such as dictionaries or editions of notable authors.10 LC did not really begin its Russian collecting until 1906 when LC purchased one of the largest private Russian libraries from a Siberian bibliophile, Gennadii V. Iudin. The Iudin Collection had over 80,000 volumes containing all manner of monographs, long runs of thick journals, and many Russian newspapers.11 With this one purchase LC suddenly had the largest Russian collection in North America. In order to process the enormous collection, LC founded the Slavic Division, headed by Alexis Babine (1866–1930), who had negotiated the purchase for LC.12 After 1906 Russian collecting still was fairly restrained, for LC had just spent an enormous amount of money on Russian materials and did not intend to spend much more. After World War I LC hired more Slavic staff, expanded its exchanges and provided a small budget for Slavic materials, mostly Russian, but it was not until the beginning of World War II that LC truly began a deep and systematic Slavic acquisitions program. After involvement in two foreign wars and ascending to the ranks of a world power, the U.S. government encouraged and heavily subsidized the collecting of Slavic and East European materials, not only at LC, but also at other large research libraries. The field of Slavic studies in the U.S. was underdeveloped during the first half of the 20th century, but it grew tremendously during the Cold War era. In terms of LC's collections, these developments depended largely on reinvigorated exchange agreements with libraries in the Eastern bloc, as well as weighty budgets for purchases from antiquarian dealers and hiring staff to create Slavic bibliographic reference tools. But the focus of this article is the Russian-American collections, in particular newspapers. How did these materials come to LC and how did they fit into the development of the LC general newspaper collection, one of the largest in the world?

American newspapers have been part of the LC collections since the very beginning, because members of Congress wanted to read the latest news. Paid subscriptions were the main method of acquisition.13 In 1870 Congress passed a more stringent copyright law with a provision that two copies of each U.S. publication be deposited in LC. As a result U.S. publications began flowing into LC in numbers never before seen. The law did not mention periodicals or newspapers, but regardless, some serial publishers began to deposit publications. The first LC policy on American newspapers was formulated soon after, in 1874. It stated that LC would subscribe to a minimum of two newspapers from every state, representing different political views. For Russian-American works, however, nothing was received on mandatory copyright deposit until 1893, when the publisher of an English grammar for Russian-Jewish immigrants submitted his work.14 At this early stage, the lack of deposited material was not based on ignorance of, or non-compliance with the law. Rather, it reflected the undeveloped state of Russian publishing in the U.S. in the 19th century. Wherever Russians settled in the diaspora, they initiated publishing in their language. Both monographic and periodical publishing in Russian began in the U.S. in 1868. After the purchase of Alaska from Russia in 1867, the focus of the Russian Orthodox Church in America moved from Alaska to San Francisco where an orthodox priest, Agapius Honcharenko (1832–1916), opened his publishing house. His first newspaper was Alaska Herald (see discussion below) and his first book was Russko-angliiskie razgovory.15 However, Honcharenko's efforts did not galvanize the small Russian immigrant community to publish. Large numbers of Russians immigrated to the U.S. from the 1880s to the 1910s, but it was not until the 1890s that Russian language publishing in the U.S. really began to flourish. Initially, the Russian-American periodical press was more robust than the monographic press, because many ordinary Russian immigrants were not highly educated readers. If they did buy books, they preferred to purchase ones published in Russia, but regardless of educational level, most immigrants needed the current information offered in newspapers and periodicals.16 In addition, the highly educated Russian-Jewish radical immigrants from the same period of immigration saw newspapers and periodicals as better venues for promulgating their views and winning converts to their causes,17 and thus they produced many periodicals, including newspapers, for their fellow immigrants.

In 1901 LC produced a list of all its U.S. newspaper holdings and no Russian-American titles were listed.18 This is not surprising based on the state of the Russian-American press, but also because LC had not paid much attention to foreign newspapers at all until 1901, when it began an extensive acquisitions project for such materials. In 1909 the copyright law was amended to include periodicals and newspapers, thus LC could demand newspapers if the publishers did not deposit their issues. With the new laws, regulations, and policies in place, the LC newspaper collection began to grow substantially in the first half of the 20th century. LC, however, did not actively seek out Russian-American newspapers and most Russian-American publishers did not initially provide the gratis subscriptions which were so important to the development of the English-language American newspaper collection. In fact, most of the Russian-American titles in LC from the 1910–1920s came via a special acquisition in 1927 of a Russian newspaper collection, not through typical means.

The condition of the Russian-American collection in LC in 1928 was so poor that one of LC's staff, the Russian Mikhail Z. Vinokurov (1894–1983), published a pamphlet in Philadelphia to explain to the Russian émigré community the benefits of copyright registration and to encourage them to deposit their works in LC for posterity.19 He lamented the poor state of bibliographic control over émigré publications and tried to persuade all Russian-American writers to send him information about themselves and their works for inclusion in a bibliography he intended to compile. In this pamphlet Vinokurov suggested that Russians were too poor to afford the $2 fee associated with registration. Besides financial motives, I think the lack of compliance with copyright law in the 1920s also involved ignorance of the law and an element of suspicion towards the U.S government, because of the red scares and associated deportations of Russian communists taking place in the 1920s, and the émigrés' unpleasant experiences with the tsarist and Bolshevik governments. Drawing the government's attention to oneself and one's publications was probably considered foolish. One scholar has suggested that another reason for the meager state of documentation on Russian-American publications and communities is that the post–1917 émigrés "never lost hope that they would return to their homeland. As a result, they made no particular effort to preserve the history of their presence in America."20

As we can see, mandatory copyright deposit and gratis deposits from the publishers were not the major methods of building the LC Russian-American monograph or periodical collection in the first six to seven decades of Russian-American publishing. Only with the advent of World War II did publishers' deposits, mandatory or gratis, become an important factor in the development of the Russian-American newspaper collection. In 1937 LC recorded current receipts of only three Russian-American newspapers, but that would change dramatically over the ensuing several years. Beginning with the 1941 volume of Newspapers Currently Received, statistics are provided for the source of newspapers received.21 Copyright was the source of only nine U.S. newspapers that year, paid subscriptions were the source of thirty-nine titles, whereas gifts from the publisher were the source of 815 titles. Seventeen Russian-language foreign domestic titles were listed in this edition, a more than fivefold increase since 1937.22 By registering their works, U.S. publishers received protection from piracy and surely it was good publicity to have one's works in the national library. It seems quite likely that, of the seventeen Russian-language foreign domestic newspapers received by LC in 1941, most of them probably were the result of gifts from the publisher rather than subscriptions or copyright demands.

Library storage space was and continues to be an important issue in the development of the newspaper collection. "Because they were relatively easily acquired, more stringent limitations had to be placed on keeping U.S. titles. . . From the beginning, the Librarian and staff recognized that the institution could not house more than a sampling of American newspapers and that the collection must be guided by general research requirements."23 As more and more titles were received, they were bound or simply tied into bundles to await binding. Some newspapers were acquired with the intention of discarding them after their currency abated. This temporary acquisition seems to have been the case with some Slavic foreign domestics. During World War II, LC increased its receipts of Slavic-American newspapers to provide more information on the various ethnic groups in the country, but not all of the newspapers are still in the collection. Some were bound, some were microfilmed, and others were donated to a large research library in the Midwest, today known as the Center for Research Libraries.24 Newspapers Currently Received gives an indication of which titles might have been intentionally acquired on a temporary basis, as there is information about titles to be bound. Only three Russian-American newspapers in the 1941 volume indicate binding for permanent retention in the collection. Binding of newspapers, of course, is not a good retention method due to the acidic paper and the storage space required, so duplication treatments became very important. The microfilming process was developed in the 1930s and LC was an early adopter, founding its Photoduplication Service in 1938. Soon after, microfilming and acquiring newspapers on microfilm instead of in print became a major priority for LC. At its height in 1968 the number of bound volumes of newspapers had grown to almost 165,000 volumes after which the number began to decline due to microfilming. Today there are only about 38,000 bound newspaper volumes, but that is offset by the countless thousands of newspapers in other formats such as microfilm, digital, and loose paper issues. Microfilming of foreign domestic newspapers began in 1945 and continues to this day, as does the revision of the policies governing the acquisition of newspapers, with managers urging greater and greater selectivity.

Today, LC receives Russian-American newspaper titles predominantly in print via copyright demands and only one paid subscription for Russkaia zhizn'. Although its sounds like a good system, the demand process often fails, for many publishers do not submit copies of their newspapers for deposit. Some of those submitted have been rejected by LC Slavic staff, because of the more restrictive policies. For years LC received the two most important Russian-American newspapers from New York and most others were deemed more appropriate for local collections, rather than LC. Another problem with the deposit/demand system is simply identifying which titles are published. Once a title is identified and a demand is forwarded, publishers tend to submit for a brief period of time and then stop, without any follow-up from LC. The process is very lengthy and cumbersome. Given that the copyright demands for ethnic American works are mostly unsuccessful or only partially successful, copyright is in my opinion an imperfect system for acquiring Russian-language foreign domestic newspapers. It is far more successful for Russian-American books and journals, albeit not without flaws. Copyright, however, does help bring titles to LC's attention, for when a publisher understands his obligation, he sends the first issues on deposit. The ISSN registration system inside LC also occasionally brings Russian-American titles to the attention of the Russian librarians, but neither system is even remotely comprehensive for foreign domestic newspapers. An additional problem with the foreign domestic collection is over-selectivity by librarians. Problems of storage space, preservation, and the overwhelming number of U.S. newspapers are the main reasons for the selectivity, but with the Russian-American newspapers there seems to have been an especially stringent adherence to the collection policies. There is ample evidence in the newspaper bibliographies and online systems that far more Russian-American titles were discarded or simply rejected for inclusion in the collection than were retained. A particularly egregious example is Russkaia zhizn' from San Francisco which is the longest-running Russian-language foreign domestic in U.S. history. A few early years were added as part of a larger Russian newspaper collection, and today LC is subscribing to it and retaining it, but for decades LC kept the title for only one year before discarding it. Clearly, it was considered to have little permanent research value, an evaluation that is completely at odds with today's thinking. LC has rejected so many Russian-American titles over the years that it is in danger of earning a reputation as being uninterested in such materials, a reputation that I am trying to change.

Russian-American Newspapers

From 1868 to the present day at least 143 Russian newspapers have been published in the U.S. The number is probably closer to 175, as my figure of 143 is based on incomplete data and research. I still have not investigated over 3,000 WorldCat records for Russian-language serials published in New York, the largest publishing center in the U.S., also for Russian materials. No other city rivals New York for Russian publications originating in North America. Of the 143 titles identified thus far, LC holds sixty-one titles, less than half of the total produced. See Table 1 below. Although that number seems quite healthy, the reality is that only one or a handful of issues are held for many of the titles. LC has very few complete runs of Russian-American newspapers. However LC does hold long runs of some of the most significant newspapers in terms of their longevity and cultural importance. Regarding dates of publication, LC has only seven titles that were published before 1917, sixteen from 1917–1923, thirteen from 1924–1945, nine from 1946–1991, and twenty-three from the post-Soviet era beginning in 1992. (The numbers do not add up to the sixty-one given in the following table because some titles were published across time periods). Some of the highlights of the collection are described below, including more discussion of LC collection policies regarding newspapers to clarify why the collection is smaller than expected.

Table 1. The number of Russian newspapers published in the United States vs. the number held by LC. The figures, compiled by the author, may be low for the total number of Russian newspapers published in the U.S., but the figures for LC's holdings are accurate.

State Number of Newspapers Published Number of Newspapers in LC State Number of Newspapers Published Number of Newspapers in LC
California 26 9 New Jersey 2 2
Connecticut 1 0 New York 61 31
DC 1 0 Ohio 3 2
Florida 1 0 Oklahoma 1 1
Illinois 18 5 Pennsylvania 12 4
Kansas 1 0 Texas 2 1
Maryland 3 2 Utah 1 0
Michigan 4 2 Washington 1 0
Minnesota 2 2 Unknown 3 0
      Total 143 61

Russian newspaper publishing in the US began in San Francisco in 1868 with Alaska Herald, a bilingual Russian and English title with Svoboda also in the masthead. See Figure 1. It was founded and published by Agapius Honcharenko, a Ukrainian Orthodox priest and political exile.25 Russian sections in the paper were intended for Russians living in Alaska who needed to keep up their Russian-language reading skills, as well as to acquaint them with their new country, for Alaska became part of the U.S. in 1867. The Russian sections included news about the conditions of Russians living in Alaska, translations of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, price lists for various fur pelts, Orthodox prayers, and advertisements, as well as other articles. LC holds 1868–1876 in four bound volumes. The first volume has a dedication on the flyleaf from the publisher to George S. Boutwell (1818–1905), the Secretary of the Treasury from 1869 to 1873. See Figure 2. Some of the volumes have mailing labels for Spencer F. Baird (1823–1887), the second Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. It is possible that all the volumes in LC collections started off in the collections of the Smithsonian and then were transferred to LC. Transfers from one government agency to LC were fairly common and in 1903 the process finally was regulated by Congress. Regardless, the Alaska Herald volumes are listed in the 1937 compilation of American Newspapers, 1821–1936 and thus were early acquisitions in the Russian-language foreign domestic newspaper collection.

 

Figure 1. Alaska Herald, the first Russian-language newspaper published in the U.S., dated March 1, 1868. Library of Congress Serial and Government Publications Division.
Figure 2. The dedication on the flyleaf of the 1868 volume of Alaska Herald, from the publisher Agapius Honcharenko to Secretary of the Treasury George S. Boutwell. Library of Congress Serial and Government Publications Division.

The 1890s saw the rise of Russian-American periodical publishing correspond to the rise in Russian immigration. Many of these new immigrants from Russia were members of the radical Jewish intelligentsia living in New York who evinced a strong influence on the labor movement and left-wing publishing in the U.S.26 The second Russian newspaper published in the U.S., the short-lived socialist weekly Znamia (1889–1892), represents the beginning of this kind of newspaper publishing. It was written "not for Russia but for foreign workers who read Russian, in order to develop in them ideas of socialism."27 LC does not hold this title, but LC does have the third Russian newspaper published in the U.S., and it too was part of the leftist movement.28 Published 1892–1893, the weekly Russkie novosti from New York was the oldest Russian-American newspaper in LC after Alaska Herald. See Figure 3. Its masthead for some issues claimed it was "the only Russian newspaper in the country," and in 1892 that was true. A mere thirty-seven numbers of Russkie novosti were issued with a circulation of 2,000.29 The editors of Russkie novosti were George Moses Price (1864–1942), a Jewish immigrant activist and sanitation specialist, and Jacob Gordin (1853–1909), a notable Russian-Jewish-American playwright. According to one scholar, it was forbidden to bring the paper into Russia.30 The leftist content must have condemned it in the eyes of the tsarist government. In 1893 LC was not paying much attention to its meager Russian collection, not even enough to bother to collect an American newspaper that was considered undesirable abroad. Regardless of how old the LC volume is, it was not acquired by LC until 1957, when a Mr. Herbert Coleman of Boston, Massachusetts, donated the bound volume for 1893.

Image of Russkie novosti masthead from 1893
Figure 3. An issue in the LC collection of Russkie novosti dated January 8, 1893. Library of Congress Serial & Government Publications Division.

The most important Russian-American newspaper by all measures was Novoe russkoe slovo, published daily in New York from 1920–2010. See Figure 4. At one time it was considered the oldest continuously published Russian newspaper title in the U.S., but since its closure in 2010 Russkaia zhizn', a weekly from San Francisco (1921–present), now holds this distinction. Russkii golos (1917–2004?) was also a long-running title from New York, but it may have ceased in 2004. It is no surprise that the major Russian population and cultural centers on each coast could support newspapers in Russian for so many years, but part of their success was due to the population maintaining some degree of language proficiency in Russian. More short-lived titles ceased mostly for financial or political reasons, but assimilation and loss of language skills among later generations also had a significant downward effect on the circulation numbers and eventual cessation.

Figure 4. The final issue of Novoe russkoe slovo received by the Library of Congress, dated June 4, 2010, held by Mark Brown, now retired Library of Congress employee.

Novoe russkoe slovo was a pro-democratic daily that covered U.S. and Soviet news, as well as Russian cultural topics. Major Soviet and émigré authors such as Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Nina Berberova, and Joseph Brodskii, among many others, wrote for the newspaper or had their works reprinted on its pages. The newspaper itself considers its founding date to be 1910 when its preceding title Russkoe slovo first appeared. Although both titles were pro-democratic, the newspaper almost lost its character due to political differences among its staff, but in the end it continued under the new title.31 LC holds 1918–1920 of Russkoe slovo and an almost complete run of Novoe russkoe slovo from 1920–2010. All years for both titles are on microfilm so they are available to researchers across the U.S. via interlibrary loan. LC also participates in international interlibrary loan, so potentially they could be available to researchers worldwide. Russkoe slovo is considered to be the first Russian-American newspaper for mass, general circulation instead of one having a clear party or political affiliation. LC initially added this title to its collection via a large Russian newspaper acquisition in 1927, the source of which is unknown. However, at one point most of the issues in LC of Russkoe slovo had been in the possession of the Russian Embassy in Washington when it was representing the Russian Provisional Government. The issues still have mailing labels on them addressed to "Ambassador Bakhmeteff"32 or other embassy staff in Washington, DC. See Figure 5.

Image of Russkoe slovo masthead from 1918
Figure 5. An issue in the LC collection of Russkoe slovo with a mailing label for Prof. B.A. Bakhmeteff, Russian Ambassador, Washington, D.C., dated June 4, 1918. Library of Congress Serial & Government Publications Division.

Russkii golos was a pro-communist daily, later weekly, newspaper published in New York from 1907 to 1910 and later reestablished in February 1917 by Ivan Okuntsov (1874–1939), another political exile and the son of a Siberian Cossack.33 Okuntsov claimed that his newspaper represented the beginning of a continuous Russian-language press in the U.S.34 LC holds a long run of this newspaper from 1908–1910 and 1917–1994 on microfilm, with scattered print issues from 1997–2004, when it seems to have ceased publication. Russkii golos and Novoe russkoe slovo were clearly rivals in New York for advertising, but it is not clear because of their different political slants how much readership they shared. In 1919 the circulation of Russkii golos was 27,000, whereas Russkoe slovo was 35,175. In 1931 the circulation of both had fallen, but their numbers remained competitive – Russkii golos, 23,182 vs. Novoe russkoe slovo, 22,459.35 Russkaia zhizn', the weekly from San Francisco on the West Coast, had a circulation of only 3,500 in 1922.36 Although it too is an enduring newspaper, clearly it reached a different audience. Initially, Russkaia zhizn' also covered national and international news and encompassed both the San Francisco and Los Angeles readership, but today it is less focused on general news and politics and more on cultural and community news. LC's holdings of Russkaia zhizn' are far from complete, with several bound volumes from the 1920s and loose paper issues from 1998–2015. Some of the issues from the 1920s have mailing labels for the Slavic Section at the Library of Congress. This could mean that the title was received via subscription, mandatory deposit, or gift, but based on the statistics presented beginning in the 1941 volume of Newspapers Currently Received, it probably was received as a gift from the publisher. In recent years, rather than relying on mandatory deposit as a method of acquisition, LC has been paying for a subscription to Russkaia zhizn'. Unfortunately, it can be difficult to ascertain the source of a newspaper held by LC. The 1908–1910 issues of Russkii golos, however, have an interesting connection. Mailing labels on the issues show that they were sent to the LC Slavic Section to the attention of Alexis Babine, the first Slavic specialist at LC. The end of the early holdings, 1910, corresponds with when Babine left LC and returned to Russia. Without a Slavic specialist on staff, LC clearly saw no need to retain a subscription to a Russian-American newspaper. As for why Babine selected Russkii golos, a leftist newspaper from New York as the only Russian-American newspaper in LC's collection, the answer is quite simple. Although Babine was not a leftist himself, Russkii golos was the only Russian newspaper being published in New York at the time.37 Before it ceased in the summer of 1910, it had a circulation of 10,000.38 The more general, mass circulation newspaper Russkoe slovo began only in 1910, the year Babine returned to Russia and the year Russkii golos ceased. Perhaps if he had stayed at LC longer, he would have switched from Russkii golos to Russkoe slovo.

Discussion of circulation numbers is illuminating in view of LC's collection policy for ethnic American (foreign domestic) newspapers, which states that the titles should be of national, regional, or state-wide interest. LC has long relied on state libraries and local historical or fraternal associations in the U.S. to collect ethnic titles of more local significance, focusing its own collecting instead on titles from capital cities or major ethnic population centers, such as New York, Chicago or San Francisco, in particular regarding Russians. This extreme selectivity is a contributing factor to why the Russian-American newspaper collection is not as extensive as one might assume for the national library of the U.S. Although the policy is not inflexible and is better understood as a set of general guidelines, it governs materials received in all manners such as via mandatory deposit, purchase, or gift.

Although LC saw no need for a Russian-American newspaper in 1910, after 1917 the situation changed. Of the 62 titles that LC has, sixteen are from 1917–1923, a time not only of revolution in Russia, but of a growing worker's movement, social unrest, and "red scares" in the U.S. The Russian-American press had also grown substantially with almost 50 periodical titles published from 1868–1917.39 LC does not seem to have instituted copyright demands or received these sixteen titles gratis from the publishers. Rather, in a special acquisition in 1927 LC acquired a large collection of 298 newspapers published in Russia and in the diaspora from the revolutionary and civil war eras. LC called this collection "an extremely rare and valuable source of information for historians in the future."40 The following twenty-two titles and dates came in this special collection: Amerikanskie izvestiia (New York) 1924; Golos Rusi (New York) 1922; Khlieb i volia (New York) 1919; Narodnaia gazeta (New York) 1918–1919; Novaia Rossiia (Pittsburgh) 1917; Novoe russkoe slovo (New York) 1921–1926; Novyi mir (New York) 1917–1918; Pravoe delo (New York) 1922–1926; Probuzhdenie (New York) 1923; Put' naroda (Pittsburgh) 1927; Rassvet (New York) 1925–1926; Rodnaia rech' (New York) 1918; Russkaia zemlia (New York) 1915; Russkaia zhizn' (San Francisco) 1922–1925; Russkii emigrant (New York) 1915; Russkii golos (New York) 1918, 1924–1926; Russkie novosti (Pittsburgh) 1915; Russkii vestnik (Chicago) 1924–1926; Russkoe slovo (New York) 1918–1920; Svobodnaia Rossiia (Chicago) 1918, 1922–1923; Syn otechestva (New York) 1922; Utro (New York) 1922. Although there are no details about the acquisition, some of these titles originally came from the Russian Embassy in Washington, for there are mailing labels on them indicating that they had been sent there. Not all of these titles remain in the LC collection today. Some probably were discarded or transferred to the Center for Research Libraries in the 1950s, in spite of the heavy interest in Russian materials during the Cold War. Apparently, during this time many libraries in the Midwest donated their print newspaper collections to the Center for Research Libraries due to storage space restrictions.41

Selected current issues of Panorama
Figure 6. Selected current issues of Panorama from Los Angeles, awaiting microfilming.

Another long-running newspaper for which LC holds almost the entire run is the weekly Panorama from Los Angeles. Received initially and even today via mandatory deposit, it began in 1980 under the title Al'manakh Panorama and LC selected it for permanent retention almost immediately. See Figure 6. The title arrives regularly with two copies of each issue, a clue as to its source, for copyright regulations stipulate that two copies of every work published in the U.S. should be deposited in LC. Owned by Eugene Levin and part of the Panorama Media Group which also has Russian-American radio and television programming as part of its suite, its masthead claims it is "the nation's largest independent American-Russian weekly publication." It covers national and international news, as well as Russian culture and history and reaches Russian readership in Southern California, many other states in the U.S., and abroad. Levin states on the Panorama website that "the paper serves the dual function of making its readers into Americans while keeping them up on their own culture and interests. 'We try to help them as much as possible adjust to the American way of life.'"42 According to the 1984 edition of Newspapers Currently Received, LC decided to keep this title permanently, all the while continuing to receive Russkaia zhizn' from San Francisco and discarding it after one year. Perhaps it was the substantial page count of a typical Panorama issue that made it more desirable, or maybe the more national focus and distribution, or perhaps it was simply that the older decision regarding Russkaia zhizn' had never been reexamined until the late 1990s when LC stopped discarding the title. Regardless, Panorama is a rare foreign domestic mandatory deposit success and today is regularly microfilmed by LC for posterity.

With the exception of Novoe russkoe slovo, all of the Russian-American newspapers on microfilm at LC were filmed by LC using LC's bound volumes or loose paper issues. For Novoe russkoe slovo only the earliest years were filmed by LC. Much of the run was purchased on microfilm from the New York Public Library and later years have been arriving via copyright from Proquest, the company that produces and sells the microfilm version in the U.S. Regarding U.S. newspapers and copyright, LC has the right to request what is known as the "best copy" of materials deposited in the collection. For newspapers, the "best copy" is microfilm, if it exists and is being distributed. However, for many ethnic newspapers, the only copy produced is print, so that is the format received at LC. Novoe russkoe slovo is the only Russian-American newspaper that LC has received on microfilm via copyright's policy of "best copy." I assume this is because most Russian-American papers have such small circulation and too slight profit-margins to issue both formats on their own, and the major microfilm distributors probably need a certain guaranteed customer base to undertake an expensive endeavor such as microfilming and selling small circulation ethnic papers.

While many of the post-Soviet Russian-American newspapers are not as meaty or with such broad influence as Novoe russkoe slovo and Panorama, they still serve a purpose in their communities and, on a more philosophical level, they document the existence of ethnic communities throughout the U.S. Examples of such titles that LC probably would have rejected according to its collection policy statement, but which I have tried to add to the collections anyway include Russkii Khiuston and Detroit Express. These titles do not have national distribution, but I believe they are important additions to the collection, in particular, Detroit Express, because of Detroit's history of Slavic-American newspaper publishing. Clearly, there is still a Russian-speaking community of some size in these two cities, if they can sustain Russian newspapers. Other recent Russian-American newspapers fall more in the realm of advertising with light reading and free distribution. LC has retained only a sampling of some of these titles. A good example is the monthly newspaper Gazeta USA published in Taylorsville, Utah. A librarian in a public library in Salt Lake City sent me an issue of this title for examination, as the title was not kept in their library on a permanent basis. The title had quite a bit of advertising as well as a substantial number of articles reprinted from Moscow newspapers. Although interesting to note the existence of a Russian community in Utah, the title, with its focus on reprinted rather than original content, did not fit my criteria for retention. But newspapers change over the years and I will revisit my decision in a few years to see if there is more original content. In spite of my efforts, only scattered issues of most of these local titles have been received by LC.

Figure 7. Post-communist era Russian-language newspapers from the U.S. in the Library of Congress European Reading Room. Library of Congress European Reading Room.

Unfortunately, LC does not have a complete or even near complete collection of Russian-language foreign domestic newspapers. Some of the titles lacking are quite interesting and, should LC ever acquire them, will be quite valuable additions to the collection. For example, having the second Russian newspaper published in the U.S., the New York socialist weekly Znamia (1889–1892), would enable researchers to compare the two earliest Russian leftist newspapers in the U.S. Also highly desirable for the study of the labor movement in the U.S. would be the early 1917 issues of the New York daily Novyi mir (1911–1938). [in late 2016 LC acquired 18 reels of microfilm of Novyi mir from 1911–1938]. The title began as a socialist newspaper, but gradually was taken over by Bolsheviks. From January through March 1917 Leon Trotsky himself came to New York to work on the paper.43 It was not long before the connection to the communist party made the U.S. government so nervous that they shut down the newspaper in 1920. It was revived and continued publication until 1938, but LC has only the issues beginning in September 1917 through mid–1919, not the months when Trotsky was on staff, the year it was closed for sedition, or the earliest years when the focus was not so radical. Another desirable title is Kstati, a weekly from San Francisco. LC rejected the title in 1994, possibly because it did not have national distribution, possibly because the first issues were not substantial, or maybe because LC already had the two most important Russian-American newspapers arriving regularly, Novoe russkoe slovo and Russkii golos, and therefore saw no need for another Russian-language foreign domestic newspaper. The reasons for the decision not to acquire Kstati were not recorded, so I can only speculate. However, today the newspaper is quite substantial with many interesting cultural pieces, including in 2016 the obituary of Liudmila Foster, whose émigré bibliography was noted above. Since the paper is still in print, the situation can be reversed with a subscription or a copyright demand, but it is doubtful that back issues can be obtained.

Future Research

Future Research

My interest in Russian-American publishing began years ago when I was a reference librarian at the Slavic Reference Service at the University of Illinois. Researchers frequently came to us with questions about émigré publications and we never understood why LC did not have the Russian-American periodicals we sought. After working at LC for almost twelve years, I understand the complexities and collection policies, but it is now my responsibility to rectify what is to me an unsatisfactory situation. The collection has far too many gaps to meet the high expectations regarding LC and U.S. publications. Although the Russian-American newspapers constitute only a fraction of the over 1,600 Russian newspapers in LC, they are in my opinion one of the most important elements in the collection. Documenting the existence and activities of an ethnic American community is of paramount importance and special efforts must be made to preserve the materials LC has, fill existing gaps, prevent future gaps, and make our collections more accessible to potential users.

I have already taken some steps to fill gaps in the collection. For years I have been submitting claims for Russian-American monographs, journals, and newspapers to the Copyright Acquisitions Division in the U.S. Copyright Office. The requests are fairly complicated as the process is regulated by law, but some of them have been successful. I also successfully presented to LC management an appeal for instituting an approval plan for Russian-American monographs to capture some very low print-run items identified by the vendor and the works of some publishing houses that do not regularly deposit their materials. At present, LC is purchasing mostly non-fiction such as memoirs and Jewish-themed works, as well as some fiction. Future plans include completing a full collection evaluation based on archival research to be published at a later date, since publication may require that I visit other U.S. research libraries with strong Russian émigré collections and archives such as Columbia University, the New York Public Library, and the Hoover Institution. After instituting a new web page statistics program, the European Division discovered that ethnic-American topics consistently have received the most visits from users. As a result, I plan to compile a bibliography and holdings list of all Russian-American serials in LC. Information on the Russian-language foreign domestic newspapers is already available on the website as part of LC's Russian newspaper bibliography.44 Finally, I intend to contact more publishers and émigré organizations to try to solicit donations for LC, for there is no better place in the U.S. than the national library to preserve the ethnic heritage of the American people.

Notes

  1. The author would like to express her gratitude to Grant Harris, Harold Leich, and Taru Spiegel for their comments on the text. Address correspondence to Angela Cannon, MA, MLS, Reference Specialist for Russia and South Slavic, the Library of Congress, European Division, Washington, DC 20540–4830, USA. E-mail: [email protected]. The author welcomes comments on the text. Opinions stated in this article are those of the author and not of the Library of Congress. Back to text
  2. Sergei Porfir'evich Postnikov, Politika, ideologiia, byt i uchenye trudy Russkoi emigratsii: 1918–1945: bibliografiia. Iz katalogi biblioteki R.Z.I. arkhiva (New York: Norman Ross Publishing, 1993). Volumes 1–2; Tatiana Ossourgine-Bakounine, L'émigration russe en Europe: catalogue collectif des périodiques en langue russe 1855–1940 (Paris: Institut d'études slaves, 1976); Anne-Marie Volkoff, L'émigration russe en Europe: catalogue collectif des périodiques en langue russe 1940–1979 (Paris: Institut d'études slaves, 1981). Back to text
  3.  Allan Urbanic, comp., Russian émigré Literature: a Bibliography of Titles Held by the University of California, Berkeley Library (Oakland, CA: Berkeley Slavic Specialities, 1993); Liudmila A. Foster, Bibliografiia russkoi zarubezhnoi literatury 1918–1968 (Boston: G.K. Hall, 1970). Volumes 1–2.; Michael Schatoff, Half a Century of Russian Serials 1917–1968: Cumulative Index of Serials Published Outside of the USSR (New York: Russian Book Chamber Abroad, 1970). Volumes. 1–4. Back to text
  4.  A.I. Bardeeva, Svodnyi katalog periodicheskikh i prodolzhaiushchikhsia izdanii Russkogo zarubezh'ia v bibliotekakh Moskvy (1917–1996 gg.) (Moskva: ROSSPEN, 1999). A similar, but much briefer bibliography covers the libraries of St. Petersburg: E.E. Alekseeva, Svodnyi katalog russkikh zarubezhnykh periodicheskikh i prodolzhaiushchikhsia izdanii v bibliotekakh Sankt-Peterburga. 1917–1995 gg. : dopolneniia i novye postupleniia za 1996–1999 gg. (Sankt-Peterburg : Izd-vo Rossiiskoi natsional'noi biblioteki, 2001). Back to text
  5.  Examples include: N.V. Vishniakova, Istoriia russkoi knigi v SShA (konets XVIII v.–1917 g.) (Novosibirsk: Sibirskoe otdelenie RAN, 2004); Ivan K. Okuntsov, Russkaia emigratsiia v Severnoi i Iuzhnoi Amerike (Buenos Aires: Izd-vo "Seiatel'," 1967); Dirk Hoerder, ed., The Immigrant Labor Press in North America, 1840s–1970s: an Annotated Bibliography. Volume 2: Migrants from Eastern and Southeastern Europe (New York: Greenwood Press, 1987). Back to text
  6.  Only the first edition of each work is cited. Union List of Serials in Libraries of the United States and Canada (New York: H.W. Wilson Company, 1927); American Mewspapers, 1821–1936: a Union List of Files Available in the United States and Canada (New York: H.W. Wilson Co., 1937); The National Union Catalog, Pre–1956 Imprints (London, Mansell, 1968–1981); Library of Congress. Cyrillic Union Catalog (New York: Readex Microprint, 1963). Back to text
  7.  Newspapers currently received by the Library of Congress, (Washington, DC: Library of Congress, Periodical Division, 1937–1950, 1968–1993). Back to text
  8.  A.A. Gering, Russian émigré Military Publications: the Gering Bibliography (New York: Ross Pub., 2007). 2nd ed., rev.; Katalog knig: knigoizdatel'stva i knizhnago sklada Sv.-Troitskago monastyria = Catalog of books: Holy Trinity Monastery Bookstore, (Jordanville, NY: Holy Trinity Monastery Bookstore, 1989). Although the latter title claims it covers only books, it also includes periodicals. Back to text
  9. The WorldCat searches were performed on February 1, 2016. Back to text
  10. For more on the early years of the LC Russian collection, see Angela Cannon, "Origins of the Russian Collection at the Library of Congress (1800–1906)," Slavic and East European Information Resources 15, no. 1–2 (2014): 3–59. Also available online at https://www.loc.gov/rr/european/about/ruscolorig.html (accessed February 9, 2016). Back to text
  11. For more about the Yudin Collection, see https://www.loc.gov/rr/european/yudin/yudinintro.html Back to text
  12. For more information on Babine, see https://www.loc.gov/rr/european/babine/bhome.html (accessed on February 8, 2016) Back to text
  13. The best article on the history of the newspaper collection at LC is: S. Branson Marley, Jr., "Newspapers and the Library of Congress," The Quarterly Journal of the Library of Congress 32, no. 3 (1975): 207–237. Back to text
  14. Alexander Harkavy, Uchebnik angliiskago iazyka [Manual of the English Language], (N'iu-Iork: Tipografiia Krugera i Lifshitsa, 1893). Back to text
  15. Agapius Honcharenko, Russko-angliiskie razgovory. Russian and English Phrase Book, Specially Adapted for the Use of Traders, Travelers, and Teachers (San Francisco: A. Roman, 1868). Back to text
  16. S.A. Paichadze, "Russkie izdaniia v SShA (Vtoraia polovina XIX-nachalo XX vv.)," Kniga: Issledovaniia i materialy 73 (1996): 193–194. Back to text
  17. For a general overview of Russians in the U.S., see the article Paul Robert Magocsi, "Russians," Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups, (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1980): 885–894. Back to text
  18. Allan B. Slauson, comp., Check List of American Newspapers in the Library of Congress, (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1901). Back to text
  19. M.Z. Vinokurov, Eto nuzhno sdielat'!, (Filadelfiia: Izdanie gazeta "Pravda," organa Obshchestva Russkikh Bratstv, 1928). Back to text
  20. Anatol Shmelev, "Russian in the Repositories," Slavic and East European Information Resources 7, no.2/3 (2006): 5. Back to text
  21. Newspapers currently received by the Library of Congress, (Washington, DC: Library of Congress, Periodical Division, 1941). Back to text
  22. The list of seventeen titles is a good example of an early confusion regarding Russian émigrés in the U.S., that Rusyns or Ruthenians and their publications were often considered to be Russian. Some of the titles in this list are Rusyn. This is also common in the early Russian émigré periodical bibliographies. Back to text
  23. Marley, "Newspapers," 217–219. Back to text
  24. Marley, "Newspapers," 227. Back to text
  25. For more about Honcharenko and his political views, see Paichadze, "Russkie izdaniia." Back to text
  26. The best treatment of the Russian-American press in New York during this period is Robert A. Karlowich, We Fall and Rise: Russian-Language Newspapers in New York City, 1889–1914, (Metuchen, NJ: The Scarecrow Press, 1991). Back to text
  27. Helen Williams, "Russian-language Periodical Publishing by the Radical Emigration 1855–1900," Solanus n.s. 12 (1998):26. Williams quoted this from Karlowich in her article. Back to text
  28. One problem with declaring Russkie novosti to be the third newspaper is the unclear distinction between a newspaper and a newsletter or periodical of some other type. There was a Russian-American periodical published in between Znamia and Russkie novosti, i.e. Spravochnyi listok, but some claim it is more like a journal or monthly, so I did not count it as a newspaper. Back to text
  29. The circulation figure is from Vishniakova, Istoriia russkoi knigi, 240. Back to text
  30. Paichadze, "Russkie izdaniia," 194. Back to text
  31. Ol'ga Tsynkova, "Novoe russkoe slovo – fenomen dolgoletiia," Evrei v kul'ture Russkogo Zarubezh'ia. Tom 5. (Ierusalim: M. Parkhomovskii, 1996): 162–181. Another work with detailed information about the contents of Novoe russkoe slovo is Iu. A. Azarov, Dialog poverkh bar'erov: literaturnaia zhizn' russkogo zarubezh'ia: tsentry emigratsii, periodicheski izdaniia, vzaimosviazi (1918–1940), (Moskva: Sovpadenie, 2005). Back to text
  32. Boris Aleksandrovich Bakhmetev (1880–1951) served as Russia's ambassador to the U.S from 1917–1922. Back to text
  33. I have found the following book to be very helpful for information about editors, contributors and the basic character of Russian émigré newspapers: Literaturnaia entsiklopediia russkogo zarubezh'ia. 1918–1940. Periodika i literaturnye tsentry, (Moskva: ROSSPEN, 2000). Back to text
  34. Okuntsov, Russkaia emigratsiia, 329. Back to text
  35. The circulation figures for 1919 are found in Lord & Thomas' Pocket Directory of the American Press for 1920, (Chicago: Lord & Thomas, 1920); the circulation figures for 1931 were taken from Nelson Chesman & Co. Advertisers' Rate Book, (New York: Nelson Chesman & Co., 1932). Back to text
  36. The circulation figure is from Lord & Thomas' Pocket Directory of the American Press for 1923, (Chicago: Lord & Thomas, 1923). Back to text
  37. For a discussion of Babine's political views, see Donald J. Raleigh, ed., "Preface," in Alexis Babine, A Russian Civil War Diary: Alexis Babine in Saratov, 1917–1922, (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1988): vii–xxiv. Back to text
  38. The circulation figure is from The Dauchy Co.'s Newspaper Catalogue, (New York: The Dauchy Co., 1910). Back to text
  39. Paichadze, "Russkie izdaniia," 189. Back to text
  40. Library of Congress Archives, Slavic Section, Annual Report, 1927. Also available online at https://www.loc.gov/rr/european/about/ar1927.html (accessed February 9, 2016). The list of newspapers is an appendix at the end of the report. Back to text
  41. Thank you to Harold Leich for this insight into the situation in large research libraries in the U.S. Midwest. Back to text
  42. Press release – Carnegie Report. http://www.panoramamediagroup.com/pr3.htm [Link no longer works, June 20, 2017] Back to text
  43. Halyna Myroniuk, "The Russian Press," in The Ethnic Press in the United States: a Historical Analysis and Handbook. Sally Miller, ed., (New York: Greenwood Press, 1987): 326. Back to text
  44. Russian Newspapers at the Library of Congresshttps://guides.loc.gov/russian-newspapers (accessed February 8, 2016). Back to text