Monografia (document PDF) - Asociatia Tinerilor Istorici din Moldova

Presă şi cenzură în Basarabia. Documente şi comentarii
specifics of imperial administration of province oriented exclusively to strictly execution of Sankt
Petersburg’s central administration acts. However, what do primary sources offer to researcher?
This category of documents of internal use – various reports, dispositions, informative notes,
petitions etc – contains precious information about provincial journalistic environment, about
historical conditions in which bessarabian press was forced to survive. They offer precise information
about name and surname of editors, their age and home address, typography that will
print the works. Information about newspaper’s and magazines publishing programs are also very
precious. All these data gathered together present an adequate documentary restitution. They
create a unique possibility of objective knowledge of Bessarabian facts related to history of press.
Epoch of debut. Beginnings of censorship projects. Beginnings of bessarabian press: imperial
context and local specifics. We can affirm there was no national press in Bessarabia in the XIXth
century, but we know there were several attempts to create a national press. The history of
bessarabian press in the XIXth century appears – in our interpretative opinion – tightly related to
relationship between politics and historical writing. Before we enounce some context, we have to
intervene shortly (because of limited space for this paper) with two important remarks.
First, we have to remark there was no special department for press issues in Tsarist Empire in
first six decades of XIXth century: as we know, it was created by Senate Ukaz of 6th of April 1865
that became operative at September, 1, 1865 – Main Department for Press issues (Glavnoe Uprvalenie
po Delam Pečati).
Secondly, a constant subject of tsarists policy in the area of press, for almost 130 years (from
1702) was the type of newspaper like „Vedomosti” , which was promoted as an official publication
of tsarists administration in gubernies, starting with fourth decade of XIXth century and that
dominated provincial press until the end of seventh decade.
Imperial context. Several ministries and departments were in charge of press issues: Ministry
of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Public Education, IIIrd Department of Police, etc.
Regarding a special policy in domain of press we can only remark that tsarists policy was to
maintain technical, medical and other specialty periodicals in public circuit in order to divert
public opinion from major social problems of society. Conservatory politics of russian autocracy
is perfectly reflected by the Imperial Ukaz of December, 9, 1830 that ordered the publication of
newspapers for gubernial centers named “Gubernskie Vedomosti.” The idea of this periodical was
of Minister of Internal Affairs D. Bludov who firmly promoted this governmental project. Astrachan,
Kazan, Kiev, Novgorod, Iaroslavl and Ukranian Slobodka were the first gubernies to implement
this type of publication. Bessarabia was not included in this project at the beginning and will
not be in the sphere of interests of imperial politics for next years, as we can see from documents
deposited in local archives.
Local specifics. In context of ministerial initiatives of local press organizing in gubernies, we have
to pay attention to some local manifestations. It is sure that the initiative to create a local periodical
edition in both “russian and moldavian languages” named „Curierul basarabean” appeared
before ministerial initiative. This notable initiative considered the first attempt to organize the
provincial press (ignored by tsarists’ authorities) was related to activities of commission of tutelage
for creation of project for organization of Public Gubernial Library in Chisinau.
Imperial context. Event happened two decades later, on July 17, 1854 caused by an external
factor, in t he context of Crimea War (1853-1856). Imperial administration from Bessarabia needed
permanently and tight exchange of information with Petersburg in context of war, and a newspaper
called Bessarabskie Oblastnye Vedomosti covered this information need. We emphasize
that the name of newspaper correspond to administrative status of province – that of “oblasti”
– and immediately after changing this status at December 5, 1873, the newspaper was renamed
into Bessarabskie Gubernskie Vedomosti.
Local specifics. The lack of perspectives is a constant feature of bessarabian press for the
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