Britanskii Soiuznik
CategoriesPropaganda magazine
FrequencyWeekly
Founded1942
First issue10 July 1942
Final issue1950
CompanyBritish Ministry of Information
LanguageRussian

Britanskii Soiuznik (Russian: British Ally) was a weekly British propaganda periodical which existed between 1942 and 1950.

History and profile

Britanskii Soiuznik was launched by the British Ministry of Information in 1942.[1][2] The first issue appeared on 10 July that year.[3] The magazine was established as a result of the Soviet–British Treaty signed in 1942.[4][5] Another publication entitled Britanskaia Khronika (Russian: The British Chronicle) was also started in the framework of this treaty.[5]

Its stated goal was to tell the Russians the daily life of British people to establish a friendly relationship between two nations.[3] George Reavey was the director of Britanskii Soiuznik which was published in Russian on a weekly basis.[6][7] The magazine contained articles about military and cultural events emphasizing the collaboration between the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union and featured writings of the British writers.[6] Children's literature by the British writers was also featured in the magazine.[6]

Britanskii Soiuznik gained popularity among Russians in addition to the US propaganda publication Amerika.[8] The popularity of Britanskii Soiuznik was not welcomed by the Soviet authorities from November 1946, and Viktor Abakumov, minister of state security, informed Joseph Stalin and Andrei Zhdanov about its increasing influence among the Soviet citizens.[9] Abakumov asked them to take steps to restrict its effects and sales.[9] Upon this the Soviet Department for Agitation and Propaganda fabricated a reader letter which contained negative statements about the magazine.[9] This fake letter was approved by Stalin and sent to the editor of Britanskii Soiuznik.[9] The criticisms against the magazine by the Soviet officials continued after this incident.[9]

Britanskii Soiuznik reached the circulation of 14,000 copies in 1946 and had readers mostly in Moscow and in a few other Soviet cities.[6] Its circulation was 50,000 copies in 1949.[2]

Britanskii Soiuznik folded in 1950 due to tense relations between the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union.[4][6]

References

  1. ^ John Jenks (2006). British Propaganda and News Media in the Cold War. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. p. 22. doi:10.1515/9780748626755. ISBN 9780748626755.
  2. ^ a b Leonid T. Trofimov (2004). The Soviet media at the onset of the Cold War, 1945–1950 (PhD thesis). University of Illinois Chicago. pp. 65, 163. ISBN 978-0-496-87103-2. ProQuest 305075709.
  3. ^ a b Pauline Fairclough (August 2016). "Brothers in musical arms: the wartime correspondence of Dmitrii Shostakovich and Henry Wood". Russian Journal of Communication. 8 (3): 85–86. doi:10.1080/19409419.2016.1213219. hdl:1983/373f474d-3a4b-4078-b82a-ee55df7d5a7f. S2CID 151854691.
  4. ^ a b Sarah Davies (2015). "The Soviet Union Encounters Anglia: Britain's Russian Magazine as a Medium for Cross-Border Communication". In Simo Mikkonen; Pia Koivunen (eds.). Beyond the divide: Entangled histories of Cold War Europe. New York; London: Berghahn Books. p. 218. ISBN 978-1-78238-866-1.
  5. ^ a b Vladimir O. Pechatnov (1998). "The Rise and Fall of Britansky Soyuznik: A Case Study in Soviet Response to British Propaganda of the Mid-1940s". The Historical Journal. 41 (1): 293–301. doi:10.1017/S0018246X97007577. JSTOR 2640154. S2CID 159914237.
  6. ^ a b c d e Elena Goodwin (2019). Translating England into Russian: The Politics of Children's Literature in the Soviet Union and Modern Russia. London: Bloomsbury Publishing. pp. 61–62. ISBN 978-1-350-13401-0.
  7. ^ Pamela Davidson (2009). "Pasternak's letters to C.M. Bowra (1945–1956)". In Lazar Fleishman (ed.). The Life of Boris Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago. Oakland, CA: Berkeley Slavic Specialties. p. 85. ISBN 9781572010802.
  8. ^ Alexey Tikhomirov (October 2015). "Book review". The Slavonic and East European Review. 93 (4): 779.
  9. ^ a b c d e Vladimir O. Pechatnov (2001). "Exercise in Frustration: Soviet Foreign Propaganda in the Early Cold War, 1945-47". Cold War History. 1 (2): 19. doi:10.1080/713999921. S2CID 153657729.
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