Literary, Socio-Political, and Material Everyday Life of the Editorial Board of the Russkoye Bogatstvo Magazine, Its Authors, and Staff between 1896 and 1900

This article introduces into scholarly circulation documents kept in the funds of the Scientific Research Department of Manuscripts of the RSL and the Russian State Archive of Literature and Art relating to literary, socio-political, and material life of the Russkoye Bogatstvo magazine. Along with documentary evidence of literary activity, these documents serve to clarify human preferences, assessments, relationships, and reveal the internal mechanisms of the editorial life of the magazine. The chronological period which the archival materials date back to (1896–1900) is a landmark in the history of the magazine when it first became a legal print medium of the Narodniks and, second, recovered the cooperative principle of its publication. Finally, during the period in question, the relations between the members of the editorial board began to be regulated progressively. Also, to a greater extent than before, all financial flows that passed through the editorial board started to be regulated legally organising the work of the editorial board which allowed the magazine to continue to exist despite the many difficulties — censorious, political, repressive — it had to face on its long and difficult way to the reader. The materials presented in the article tell about some episodes of the fate of the famous magazine under the changing historical conditions and clarify facts of human, literary, and financial relations in the editorial board, while a brief real commentary restores the historical and literary context of the facts described in these documents. The subject of the published documents is specific circumstances including economic ones of the editorial office of Russkoye Bogatstvo, which until now have rarely been the subject of historical and literary publications and articles