Illiustrirovannaia Rossiia Digital Archive

Encyclopedia of the émigré life of ex-Russians in the first half of the 20th Century.

Illiustrirovannaia Rossiia (Иллюстрированная Россия, La Russie Illustrée, Illustrated Russia) was a weekly literary and illustrated journal, published in Paris from 1924-1939. The founding editor of the journal, Miron Mironov, was a prominent Russian émigré journalist who had started his career in Russia, honing his writing and editorial skills at prominent Russian publications in St. Petersburg and Kyiv before leaving the country.

The target demographic of the journal was the growing community of Russian émigrés in France and elsewhere who left Russia behind in the wake of the Bolshevik Revolution. Contributing to the popular success of the journal were both its production quality and the quality of its content, which were lavishly underwritten by a coterie of wealthy benefactors in exile. As such, Illiustrirovannaia Rossiia was an unrivaled source of literary and cultural tidbits as well as long-form writing and serialized novels.

Perhaps the greatest contributing factor to its success was the deliberately apolitical nature of the publication, unique among a growing list of Russian émigré publications of that time that were engaged in internecine ideological wars. The journal’s apoliticism had its limits, however, as communism and the Soviet authorities were periodically and mercilessly ridiculed on the pages of the publication, leaving no doubt as to its overall political orientation.

Over the years the journal would become one of the most important, if not the most important, Russian émigré periodicals attracting literary and journalistic talent from the far-flung Russian diaspora communities. Despite its brief lifespan of 15 years, the journal published 748 issues, leaving an indelible mark on the Russian literary and cultural scene and becoming an important part of the twentieth-century Russian émigré cultural landscape. Illiustrirovannaia Rossiia remains an invaluable and unique repository of textual and visual representation, providing researchers with indispensable insight into Russian cultural life in exile.

The Illiustrirovannaia Rossiia Digital Archive contains the complete set of the journal from the very first issue, comprising 748 issues and more than 21,000 pages. The archive features full page-level digitization, complete original graphics, and searchable text, and is cross-searchable with numerous other Infoteka digital resources.