Home – Home – Jornals – Humanitarian sciences in Siberia 2015 number

The famous Soviet Far Eastern writer Vsevolod Nikanorovich Ivanov (1888-1971) began his literary career in 1918-1922 as the White Guard journalist and employee of the Russian Society of Typographic Arts in Omsk (1919), the author of journalistic and literary works published in emigrant press of China of the 1920s. There already exists a vast literature on his life and career. However, in particular, his activity in May 1921 - October 1922 in Primorye, which was then under the White Guard government control, is little known to the researchers studying the history of periodical press and literature. The article is intended to fill this information gap. Vs. N. Ivanov was an active participant of revolution on May 26, 1921, which brought Primorye under the «national and democratic» government headed by brothers S.D. and N.D. Merkulov. On the day of revolt Merkulovs appointed him as Commissioner for Information in the new government. Since that time the daily «Evening Newspaper» had been published as the government’s informal loud-hailer under Vs. Ivanov’s edition. In short time Vs. Ivanov created the Government Press Office, arranged a regular release and distribution of anti-Bolshevist literature. He also selected managerial personnel for anti-Communist propaganda (G.G. Nedler, Ya.L. Beloblotsky, P.P. Vasilyev, et al.). In November, 1921 Vs. Ivanov and his assistants undertook reorganization of propaganda department by analogy with the reform carried out in the «white» Omsk in May 1919, when the governmental Press-Bureau was replaced by a joint-stock enterprise of the Russian Society of Typographic Arts. In Vladivostok the Press-Bureau was also closed, and the Far Eastern Union of Russian Journalists was created. It had a large publishing department and was formally independent (but secretly financed by the Government). The publishing house started a large-scale activity, publishing two specialized editions for peasants and having at its disposal the newspapers “Slovo” and “Russky kray” in Vladivostok. The capture of Vladivostok by the National-Revolutionary Army of the Far Eastern Republic and «red» guerrillas put an end to this printed propaganda machine. Vs. I. Ivanov left the city on October 22, 1922, three days before the collapse of the «white» government.