The Periodical Press of the Ministry of Public Education in the Russian Empire (1803–1917)

This paper explores the periodical press of the Ministry of Public Education in the Russian Empire in the period from 1803 to 1917. Insight is provided into the Ministry’s both official and narrowly specialized organs. The following journals of the Ministry of Public Education were examined: Periodicheskoe Sochinenie o Uspekhakh Narodnogo Prosveshcheniya, Zhurnal Departamenta Narodnogo Prosveshcheniya, Zapiski Izdavaemye ot Departamenta Narodnogo Prosveshcheniya, Zhurnal Ministerstva Narodnogo Prosveshcheniya, Izvestiya po Narodnomu Obrazovaniyu, and Professionalnoe Obrazovanie. Use was also made of some reference literature. Methodologically, the study relied on a set of general research methods. Of particular note is the use of the historical-chronological method (the journals were considered in chronological order). The use of the systems method helped examine the Ministry’s periodical press as a system, with characteristics considered such as period of publication, place of publication, number of issues published, and editorial personnel. Between 1803 and 1917, a total of six journals were published in the Russian Empire under the aegis of the Ministry of Public Education. The first three were published from 1803 to 1829, a period that can be regarded as the time of the making of the Ministry’s periodical press. This is when fundamental decisions were made regarding publication formats, content, and periodicity. In 1834, the Ministry launched the monthly Zhurnal Ministerstva Narodnogo Prosveshcheniya, which would be published up to 1917, and during the subsequent period only narrowly specialized publications were published, including the popular science journal Izvestiya po Narodnomu Obrazovaniyu and Professionalnoe Obrazovanie, a journal concerned with vocational education. In terms of editorial personnel, of particular note is the fact that the Ministry of Public Education never employed unknowns to manage its periodical press, with most of its editors being prominent researchers and specialists in the area of printing or censorship.