The 'thunderer of Russia' who swayed opinion and court through the Russian Messenger and Moscow News
A weak state, incapable of either defending itself or governing itself, is not pitied, but despised and finished off.
Mikhail Katkov was the most influential conservative journalist of late imperial Russia, editing the literary journal Russky Vestnik (The Russian Messenger) and the daily newspaper Moskovskie Vedomosti (Moscow News). In the Russian Messenger, he published the major novels of Turgenev, Dostoevsky and Tolstoy (Fathers and Sons, Crime and Punishment, War and Peace, and Anna Karenina), making his journal the birthplace of the Russian novel's golden age. After the Polish uprising of 1863, he abandoned his earlier Anglophile liberalism and became a militant Russian nationalist, using his paper to shape public opinion and pressure the government from the right. Alongside Konstantin Pobedonostsev, he provided the ideological foundation for Alexander III's counter-reforms and wielded such influence that, as Pobedonostsev observed, ministries took no important action without his participation.
Activities and affiliations
- 1863–1887 Literature and arts
Career Timeline
- 1838Graduates from Moscow University in philosophy
- 1840–1841Studies at Berlin University; attends Schelling's lectures
- 1845–1850Assistant professor of philosophy, Moscow University
- 1851–1855First editor of Moskovskie Vedomosti
- 1856–1887Editor-publisher of Russky Vestnik (The Russian Messenger)
- 1863–1887Editor and leaseholder of Moskovskie Vedomosti
- 1868Co-founds the Lyceum in Memory of Tsarevich Nicholas
- 1882Appointed privy councillor (тайный советник) by Alexander III
From editor to political polemicist after 1863
After teaching philosophy at Moscow University, Katkov became editor of the daily Moskovskie Vedomosti in 1851 and also took charge of Russky Vestnik in 1856. Initially he supported Alexander II's liberal reforms and wrote in favor of transforming autocracy into a constitutional monarchy. The Polish uprising of 1863, however, became a turning point toward Russian nationalism. He published articles in the two periodicals backing reactionary domestic policies and Pan-Slavic foreign policy, and as a close adviser to Alexander III exerted influence on government policy. His career was an instance of a journalist outside the official power structure intervening in policy formation.
His political journalism was intertwined with his literary editing. Russky Vestnik serialized Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment (1866), The Idiot (1868), The Devils (1871–72), and The Brothers Karamazov (1879–80). His relationship with Tolstoy, however, ended in a break. Katkov refused to publish the final part of Anna Karenina, which mocked Russian volunteers traveling to Serbia to fight the Ottoman Empire. His editorial power to support and select literary works thus operated alongside his political commitments and helped shape the journal's literary record.