Niva (magazine)
Encyclopedia
Niva (Grainfield) was the most popular magazine
of late-nineteenth-century Russia; it lasted from 1870 to 1918, and defined itself on its masthead as "an illustrated weekly journal of literature, politics and modern life."
Niva was the first of the "thin magazines," illustrated weeklies that "contrasted with the more serious and ideologically focused monthly 'thick journals' intended for the educated reader." It was founded by A. F. Marx, a German immigrant who saw that Russia "lacked moderately priced magazines of general interest. He intended Niva to be a politically neutral family magazine, but the periodical soon outgrew its original purpose and became an ambitious vehicle for the dissemination of good literature in the provinces. It was read by an audience that extended from primary schoolteachers, rural parish priests, and the urban middle class to the gentry." One of its most popular features was the bonus premiums offered as an inducement to subscribe; at first these consisted of large colored prints of art in traditional style by artists such as Konstantin Makovsky
. Later science and literature supplements were added, as well as a children's section; by the end of the century, the most important premium was the collected works of Russian classical authors: "By 1912 Niva subscribers had received much of the best in Russian literature, including the works of Gogol, Lermontov, Goncharov
, Dostoevsky, Turgenev, Leskov, Chekhov
, and others."
In his autobiography, Maxim Gorky
says that his employers in the early 1880s subscribed to Niva "for the cut-out patterns and the prize offers; but they never read it"; he himself, however, was enthralled by the volumes he pulled out from under their bed and read at night: "[T]he pictures and their captions... placed in my ken a world which widened every day, a world splendid like the cities of romance. They brought me views of lofty peaks and lovely beaches. Life unfolded its marvels; earth became more enchanting, studded with towns and laden with treasures."
Niva was very successful; starting with 9,000 readers in its first year, by the early twentieth century it had a circulation of over 200,000. Its editorial office was at 22 Malaya Morskaya Street. It was a large publication, almost the size of a tabloid newspaper; in 1900 a typical issue had 24 pages. Most of the text consisted of serialized fiction by respected writers; there were also short news and sports reports, ethnographic essays, and notes on science and technology, as well as information on all aspects of city life. Its editors included Viktor Klyushnikov (1870 to 1892, with interruptions), Dmitry Stakheev (1875—1877), Fedor Berg (1878—1887), Mikhail Volkonsky (1892—1894), Alexei Tikhonov-Lugovoi (1895—1897), Rostislav Sementkovsky (1897—1904), and Valerian Ivchenko-Svetlov (1910—1916).
Among its contributors over the years were A. K. Tolstoy
, Fyodor Tyutchev
, Leo Tolstoy
(his Resurrection
was first serialized in Niva), Nikolai Leskov
, Grigory Danilevsky
, Afanasy Fet
, Anton Chekhov
, Maxim Gorky
, Vladimir Solovyov
, Alexander Blok
, Sergei Yesenin
, Korney Chukovsky
, Ivan Bunin, Osip Mandelstam
, Anna Akhmatova
, Nikolay Gumilyov
, Valery Bryusov
, Dmitry Merezhkovsky
, Georgy Ivanov
, Konstantin Balmont
, Mikhail Kuzmin
, Fyodor Sologub
, Teffi
, Alexander Grin
, and Ilya Ehrenburg
, among many others.
After Marx's death in 1904, Niva was published by the A. F. Marx Publishing and Printing Company, which was bought by the literary entrepreneur Ivan Sytin in 1916. It continued to be popular after the October Revolution
, especially in the provinces (in the capitals it was the object of frequent jokes by the sophisticated), but was closed by the Bolsheviks in September 1918.
Magazine
Magazines, periodicals, glossies or serials are publications, generally published on a regular schedule, containing a variety of articles. They are generally financed by advertising, by a purchase price, by pre-paid magazine subscriptions, or all three...
of late-nineteenth-century Russia; it lasted from 1870 to 1918, and defined itself on its masthead as "an illustrated weekly journal of literature, politics and modern life."
Niva was the first of the "thin magazines," illustrated weeklies that "contrasted with the more serious and ideologically focused monthly 'thick journals' intended for the educated reader." It was founded by A. F. Marx, a German immigrant who saw that Russia "lacked moderately priced magazines of general interest. He intended Niva to be a politically neutral family magazine, but the periodical soon outgrew its original purpose and became an ambitious vehicle for the dissemination of good literature in the provinces. It was read by an audience that extended from primary schoolteachers, rural parish priests, and the urban middle class to the gentry." One of its most popular features was the bonus premiums offered as an inducement to subscribe; at first these consisted of large colored prints of art in traditional style by artists such as Konstantin Makovsky
Konstantin Makovsky
Konstantin Yegorovich Makovsky was an influential Russian painter, affiliated with the "Peredvizhniki ". Many of his historical paintings, such as The Russian Bride's Attire , showed an idealized view of Russian life of prior centuries...
. Later science and literature supplements were added, as well as a children's section; by the end of the century, the most important premium was the collected works of Russian classical authors: "By 1912 Niva subscribers had received much of the best in Russian literature, including the works of Gogol, Lermontov, Goncharov
Ivan Goncharov
Ivan Alexandrovich Goncharov was a Russian novelist best known as the author of Oblomov .- Biography :Ivan Goncharov was born in Simbirsk ; his father was a wealthy grain merchant and respected official who was elected mayor of Simbirsk several times...
, Dostoevsky, Turgenev, Leskov, Chekhov
Anton Chekhov
Anton Pavlovich Chekhov was a Russian physician, dramatist and author who is considered to be among the greatest writers of short stories in history. His career as a dramatist produced four classics and his best short stories are held in high esteem by writers and critics...
, and others."
In his autobiography, Maxim Gorky
Maxim Gorky
Alexei Maximovich Peshkov , primarily known as Maxim Gorky , was a Russian and Soviet author, a founder of the Socialist Realism literary method and a political activist.-Early years:...
says that his employers in the early 1880s subscribed to Niva "for the cut-out patterns and the prize offers; but they never read it"; he himself, however, was enthralled by the volumes he pulled out from under their bed and read at night: "[T]he pictures and their captions... placed in my ken a world which widened every day, a world splendid like the cities of romance. They brought me views of lofty peaks and lovely beaches. Life unfolded its marvels; earth became more enchanting, studded with towns and laden with treasures."
Niva was very successful; starting with 9,000 readers in its first year, by the early twentieth century it had a circulation of over 200,000. Its editorial office was at 22 Malaya Morskaya Street. It was a large publication, almost the size of a tabloid newspaper; in 1900 a typical issue had 24 pages. Most of the text consisted of serialized fiction by respected writers; there were also short news and sports reports, ethnographic essays, and notes on science and technology, as well as information on all aspects of city life. Its editors included Viktor Klyushnikov (1870 to 1892, with interruptions), Dmitry Stakheev (1875—1877), Fedor Berg (1878—1887), Mikhail Volkonsky (1892—1894), Alexei Tikhonov-Lugovoi (1895—1897), Rostislav Sementkovsky (1897—1904), and Valerian Ivchenko-Svetlov (1910—1916).
Among its contributors over the years were A. K. Tolstoy
Aleksey Konstantinovich Tolstoy
Count Aleksey Konstantinovich Tolstoy, often referred to as A. K. Tolstoy , was a Russian poet, novelist and playwright, considered to be the most important nineteenth-century Russian historical dramatist...
, Fyodor Tyutchev
Fyodor Tyutchev
Fyodor Ivanovich Tyutchev is generally considered the last of three great Romantic poets of Russia, following Alexander Pushkin and Mikhail Lermontov.- Life :...
, Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy
Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy was a Russian writer who primarily wrote novels and short stories. Later in life, he also wrote plays and essays. His two most famous works, the novels War and Peace and Anna Karenina, are acknowledged as two of the greatest novels of all time and a pinnacle of realist...
(his Resurrection
Resurrection (novel)
Resurrection , first published in 1899, was the last novel written by Leo Tolstoy. The book is the last of his major long fiction works published in his lifetime . Tolstoy intended the novel as an exposition of injustice of man-made laws and the hypocrisy of institutionalized church...
was first serialized in Niva), Nikolai Leskov
Nikolai Leskov
Nikolai Semyonovich Leskov was a Russian journalist, novelist and short story writer, who also wrote under the pseudonym M. Stebnitsky. Praised for his unique writing style and innovative experiments in form, held in high esteem by Leo Tolstoy, Anton Chekhov and Maxim Gorky among others, Leskov is...
, Grigory Danilevsky
Grigory Danilevsky
-Life:Born into the family of an impoverished landowner, Petr Ivanovich Danilevsky, in the Izyumsky district of Sloboda Ukraine, Grigory was educated in the Moscow Dvoryansky institut from 1841 to 1846, then studied law at Saint Petersburg University...
, Afanasy Fet
Afanasy Fet
Afanasy Afanasyevich Fet , was a Russian poet regarded as one of the finest lyricists in Russian literature.-Origins:...
, Anton Chekhov
Anton Chekhov
Anton Pavlovich Chekhov was a Russian physician, dramatist and author who is considered to be among the greatest writers of short stories in history. His career as a dramatist produced four classics and his best short stories are held in high esteem by writers and critics...
, Maxim Gorky
Maxim Gorky
Alexei Maximovich Peshkov , primarily known as Maxim Gorky , was a Russian and Soviet author, a founder of the Socialist Realism literary method and a political activist.-Early years:...
, Vladimir Solovyov
Vladimir Solovyov (philosopher)
Vladimir Sergeyevich Solovyov was a Russian philosopher, poet, pamphleteer, literary critic, who played a significant role in the development of Russian philosophy and poetry at the end of the 19th century...
, Alexander Blok
Alexander Blok
Alexander Alexandrovich Blok was a Russian lyrical poet.-Life and career:Blok was born in Saint Petersburg, into a sophisticated and intellectual family. Some of his relatives were literary men, his father being a law professor in Warsaw, and his maternal grandfather the rector of Saint Petersburg...
, Sergei Yesenin
Sergei Yesenin
Sergei Alexandrovich Yesenin was a Russian lyrical poet. He was one of the most popular and well-known Russian poets of the 20th century but committed suicide at the age of 30...
, Korney Chukovsky
Korney Chukovsky
Korney Ivanovich Chukovsky was one of the most popular children's poets in the Russian language. His poems, Doctor Aybolit , The Giant Roach , The Crocodile , and Wash'em'clean have been favourites with many generations of Russophone children...
, Ivan Bunin, Osip Mandelstam
Osip Mandelstam
Osip Emilyevich Mandelstam was a Russian poet and essayist who lived in Russia during and after its revolution and the rise of the Soviet Union. He was one of the foremost members of the Acmeist school of poets...
, Anna Akhmatova
Anna Akhmatova
Anna Andreyevna Gorenko , better known by the pen name Anna Akhmatova , was a Russian and Soviet modernist poet, one of the most acclaimed writers in the Russian canon.Harrington p11...
, Nikolay Gumilyov
Nikolay Gumilyov
Nikolay Stepanovich Gumilev was an influential Russian poet who founded the acmeism movement.-Early life and poems:Nikolai was born in the town of Kronstadt on Kotlin Island, into the family of Stepan Yakovlevich Gumilev , a naval physician, and Anna Ivanovna L'vova . His childhood nickname was...
, Valery Bryusov
Valery Bryusov
Valery Yakovlevich Bryusov was a Russian poet, prose writer, dramatist, translator, critic and historian. He was one of the principal members of the Russian Symbolist movement.-Biography:...
, Dmitry Merezhkovsky
Dmitry Merezhkovsky
Dmitry Sergeyevich Merezhkovsky, , 1865, St Petersburg – December 9, 1941, Paris) was a Russian novelist, poet, religious thinker, and literary critic. A seminal figure of the Silver Age of Russian Poetry, regarded as a co-founder of the Symbolist movement, Merezhkovsky – with his poet wife Zinaida...
, Georgy Ivanov
Georgy Ivanov
Georgii Vladimirovich Ivanov was a leading poet and essayist of the Russian emigration between the 1930s and 1950s.As a banker's son, Ivanov spent his young manhood in the elite circle of Russian golden youth. He started writing pretentious verses, imitative of Baudelaire and the French...
, Konstantin Balmont
Konstantin Balmont
Konstantin Dmitriyevich Balmont was a Russian symbolist poet, translator, one of the major figures of the Silver Age of Russian Poetry.-Biography:Konstantin Balmont was born in v...
, Mikhail Kuzmin
Mikhail Kuzmin
Mikhail Alekseevich Kuzmin was a Russian poet, musician and novelist, a prominent contributor to the Silver Age of Russian Poetry.Born into a noble family in Yaroslavl, Kuzmin grew up in St. Petersburg and studied music at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory under Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov...
, Fyodor Sologub
Fyodor Sologub
Fyodor Sologub was a Russian Symbolist poet, novelist, playwright and essayist. He was the first writer to introduce the morbid, pessimistic elements characteristic of European fin de siècle literature and philosophy into Russian prose.-Early life:...
, Teffi
Nadezhda Teffi
Nadezhda Teffi, known simply as Teffi, was a Russian humorist writer. Teffi is a pseudonym. Her real name was Nadezhda Aleksandrovna Lokhvitskaya after her marriage Nadezhda Alexandrovna Buchinskaya...
, Alexander Grin
Alexander Grin
Alexander Grin was a Russian writer, notable for his romantic novels and short stories, mostly set in an unnamed fantasy land with a European or Latin American flavor...
, and Ilya Ehrenburg
Ilya Ehrenburg
Ilya Grigoryevich Ehrenburg was a Soviet writer, journalist, translator, and cultural figure.Ehrenburg is among the most prolific and notable authors of the Soviet Union; he published around one hundred titles. He became known first and foremost as a novelist and a journalist - in particular, as a...
, among many others.
After Marx's death in 1904, Niva was published by the A. F. Marx Publishing and Printing Company, which was bought by the literary entrepreneur Ivan Sytin in 1916. It continued to be popular after the October Revolution
October Revolution
The October Revolution , also known as the Great October Socialist Revolution , Red October, the October Uprising or the Bolshevik Revolution, was a political revolution and a part of the Russian Revolution of 1917...
, especially in the provinces (in the capitals it was the object of frequent jokes by the sophisticated), but was closed by the Bolsheviks in September 1918.
Further reading
Zhabreva Anna Ernestovna. (2006) History of Russian Costume from ancient times to the end of the XVIII century in the magazine Niva (История русского костюма с древних времен до конца XVIII века на страницах журнала "Нива") at Runivers.ruSources
- Saint Petersburg Encyclopedia entry
- Jeffrey Brooks, When Russia Learned to Read: Literacy and Popular Literature, 1861-1917, Northwestern University Press, 2003 (ISBN 0810118971).