Region: Russia

Influential newspaper of the right-wing opposition.

Founded in Moscow in 1990 by noted Soviet journalist Alexander Prokhanov, Den’ (День, The Day) was created to serve as the “spiritual opposition” to the pro-Western government of Yeltsin. Following the coup in 1993, the paper was shut down by the authorities but was reborn as Zavtra (Завтра, Tomorrow), with Prokhanov still in the lead as editor in chief. One of the most influential publications of the right-wing opposition, Zavtra is a radical-conservative daily newspaper, bringing together a mix of nationalism, monarchism, and nostalgia for the Soviet era.

Prokhanov has a very colorful personality, and his speeches and writings are poetic and full of metaphors. At a Slavic conference in the US he surprised many during his presentation by asserting that “state borders are not static, they are pulsating – back and forth.” Prokhanov is one of the few Russian citizens to receive an award from North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un, and he also received a medal “For the Liberation of Crimea and Sevastopol” in 2014 from Putin himself.

The newspaper is a reflection of Prokhanov himself, a self-proclaimed “counter-liberal,” well known as a radical pro-imperial, nationalist figure and a neo-Stalinist. Just as he supported the failed military coup in 1991, the war in Chechnya, and aggression against Georgia in 2008, Zavtra has likewise been an ardent supporter of these actions, as well as the Crimea annexation, the war in Donbas, and the current war in Ukraine.

The Zavtra Digital Archive contains all obtainable published issues from 1990 on, with an additional year’s worth of content available for purchase on an annual basis. The archive offers scholars the most comprehensive collection available for this title, and features full-text articles, with full page-level digitization and complete original graphics for later years. The archive has searchable text, and is cross-searchable with numerous other Infoteka digital resources.

Influential Soviet trade newspaper.

Founded in 1921 in Moscow, Trud (Труд, Labor) was an influential Soviet newspaper and the official organ of the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions. Among the earliest Soviet newspapers with a countrywide circulation, it attracted some of the most important journalists and writers in the USSR. Among its regular contributors were such notable poets as Vladimir Mayakovsky and Yevgeny Yevtushenko.

Although the newspaper was dedicated to covering issues concerning labor relations in the Soviet Union, economic analysis, the plight of workers in foreign countries, and the proliferation of official pronouncements, its more popular component attracted audiences from a broader pool of readers. At the height of the Gorbachev-era reforms the newspaper, like many others, would abandon its usual propagandistic bombast ensuring its growing popularity and catapulting its circulation to well over 20 million.

With the demise of the Soviet Union and the emergence of new publications in post-Soviet Russia that competed for readers from Trud’s targeted audiences, the popularity of the newspaper subsided, although it has retained some of its former reputation as a reliable source for news and popular culture reportage.

The Trud Digital Archive includes all obtainable issues published from 1921 on, with an additional year’s worth of content available for purchase on an annual basis. The archive features full page-level digitization, complete original graphics, and searchable text, and is cross-searchable with numerous other Infoteka digital resources.