“Родина” о Родине: Размышления собкора

SUMMARY:

Alexander Filiushkin utilizes his experience as a correspondent of the popular historical journal Rodina to explore the past and present of the publication. The article looks into the pre-revolutionary period of the journal’s existence (1879–1917) and stresses the apolitical, family-oriented, patriotic, and conservative nature of the publication, which targeted urban lower middle classes. In 1989, during perestroika, the authorities reestablished Rodina as one of the new instruments of the ideological control of the Communist Party, without claiming continuity with the pre-revolutionary publication. The journal set as its task the reconstruction of historical memory at the time of a profound crisis of history and memory. This orientation clashed with the growing wave of criticism of the Soviet world: on the pages of Rodina, a Communist Party journal, the USSR was termed “empire.” As the Soviet Union disintegrated and the journal became an organ of the Russian Supreme Soviet, it sought to publish materials on the reconciliation of a divided country. After the break-up of the USSR, Rodina became the most important popular publication with a historical focus. To respond to the growing discontent and find an integrating narrative, the editors attempted to focus thematic issues on Russian national identity, the problem of empire, and the problem of monarchy. The journal thus assumed the task of translating self-descriptive narratives of various layers of Russian society. In the following years, an attempt to turn Rodina into a more entertaining mass edition failed, and Rodina has remained a journal too intellectual for mass audiences and too popular for academic ones.