“Moscow Telegraph”, “Literary Gazette” and the Third Department

Covert Mechanism of Patronage and Punishment

Abstract

The article deals with the circumstances of censorship and closure of two arguing periodicals, A. A. Delvig's “Literary Gazette” and N. A. Polevoy's magazine “Moscow Telegraph” in a new light. The practice of patronage and punishment carried out in respect of these periodicals by the Third Department and their censorship history are presented in general as a prelude to the struggle of the “German” and “Russian parties”, which spread over the government circles in the 1830s. The covert competition between the Third Department, which advocated the interests of the “German party”, and the Ministry of National Education headed by S. S. Uvarov who put forward the slogan “Orthodoxy. Autocracy. Nationality”, is an example of this struggle. The Third Department and Uvarov's Ministry used in their interests periodicals and censorship bodies of both of them. Their rivalry is mostly explicit in the struggle unfolded between magazines and newspapers in the second half of the 1830s and in the 1840s. By the late 1920s and the early 1930s, the narrative of “Orthodoxy. Autocracy. Nationality” had not been yet formulated and Uvarov could not consolidate any periodicals, while the press supported by the “German party” was already active. The chief of the Third Department Benckendorff worked for its interest, managed to deprive Delvig of the rights to edit “Literary Gazette”, and brought to his side Polevoy (who previously counted on A. S. Shishkov's support). Benckendorff patronised “Moscow Telegraph”, supporting its anti-nobiliary and pro-western policy, and indulging its veiled propaganda of revolution. However, Uvarov managed to have the magazine closed in 1834.