Pravda (pronounced prahv-duh)
(1) Formerly an official newspaper of the Communist Party
of the USSR.
(2) A newspaper now run by the Communist Party of the Russian
Federation (the digital presence (Russian, English & Portuguese) maintained
by a nominally privately-controlled entity.
(3) In slang (in the West), a derisive term applied to
any form of news media thought to be biased or distributing fake news or
misinformation (often on the basis of them being a mouthpiece of the state or
the corporate interests of the owners).
Pre 1600: From the Russian правда (pravda) (literally “the truth”), from the Proto-Slavic правъ (pravŭ) (used variously to denote concepts
related to law, order, and correctness), the source also of other Slavic words
such as the Bulgarian, Czech and Slovak право (pravo) which was formed in Polish as prawo, all of which variously conveyed “law”, “justice”, “right” or
“righteousness”. Over time, the word
shifted in meaning, assuming the modern general sense of “truth” by the
mid-nineteenth century. Pravda is a noun; the noun plural is pravdas.
Pravda mini pencil-skirt with hammer & sickle.
Officially, Pravda was first
published in 1912 but it had actually existed in Moscow since 1903 although originally
it showed no overt political orientation, something which changed after the
abortive Russian Revolution of 1905 and editorial direction became contested
before a leftist faction gained control.
In the manner in which the control of institutions passed between the
factions in the years prior to the 1917 revolution, Pravda was for a while
edited by Comrade Leon Trotsky (1879-1940; founder of the Fourth International)
who moved the operation to Vienna to protect it from the attention of the Tsar’s
police before it was taken over by Comrade Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924; head of
government of Russia or Soviet Union 1917-1924). Lenin was a lawyer who understood how a
carefully designed corporate structure could take advantage of Russian law and
moved the paper to Saint Petersburg (known as Leningrad in the days of the USSR). His tactics substantially ensured ongoing
publication until the outbreak of World War I (1914-1918) when the government (like
many including some in the West) either suspended or changed any laws which
looked inconvenient and wartime regulations were used to censor the press to the
extent Pravda was closed and in a game of cat-and-mouse was forced to change
both its name and the premises from which it operated on a number of occasions
(officially eight but some editions never actually reached the printing stage
and it may have been as many as eleven).
Despite it all, between 1912-1991, Pravda survived to operate as the organ
of the Communist Party and after 1917 it was the voice of the state. Pravda always enjoyed wide circulation but under
an arrangement which must make modern editors and proprietors envious, there
was never much interest in stimulating sales, it being compulsory for all the
many parts of state institutions and the military to each day buy multiple
copies. Whenever additional funds were
needed, department heads were ordered to order more.
Special Edition of Izvestia published in honor of Comrade Stalin’s state funeral, Moscow, 9 March 1953. Both newspapers were integral to the manufacturing of Stalin's cult of personality.
The other Russian newspaper of note was Известия (Izvestia)
which translates for most purposes as “the news”. The Russian izvestiya means “bring news”, “tidings” or “herald” (in the
medieval sense of an official messenger announcing news) and was from the verb izveshchat (to inform; to notify). It was exclusively a creation of the party,
founded in 1917 initially as a vehicle for the distribution of statements by and
comment on behalf of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union. Unlike Pravda which to some extent still
operated as a conventional newspaper (though without any dissenting views), Izvestia
existed only to disseminate state propaganda.
Now controlled by the National Media Group, it survives to this day and
is described as a “national newspaper of Russia” although, given the present-day
influence the Kremlin, its original full-name Известия Советов народных
депутатов СССР (Izvestiya Sovetov
Narodnykh Deputatov SSSR) which translates as “Reports of Soviets of
Peoples' Deputies of the USSR” hints at the source of editorial direction. There are of course differences between the
press in Russia and in the West but there are also similarities, notably in the
cynicism of the readership, a favorite saying in Soviet times being there was
no pravda in the Izvestia and no investia in the Pravda. Another similarity with Western corporations
is that Pravda enjoys an eponymous street address, its headquarters being at 24
Pravda Street, Moscow, emulating Apple (1 Apple Park Way, Cupertino, California)
and Microsoft (One Microsoft Way, Redmond, Washington).
Pravda, 6 March 1953. On the day the death of Comrade Joseph Stalin (1878-1953; Soviet leader 1924-1953) was announced, the first indication to Muscovites the news might be ominous was that Pravda and Izvestia, rather than appearing shortly after midnight, didn’t show up in the kiosks until after nine. Pravda noted the event with an appropriately mournful black border around its front page which was devoted wholly to Stalin and included an editorial calling for “monolithic unity” and “vigilance”. Presumably, Mr Putin (b 1952; president or prime minister of Russia since 1999) still feels much the same.
Lindsay Lohan attending the Just Sing It App Launch at Pravda, New York City, December 2013.
For over seventy years, the two newspapers existed as documents, if not of news and truth in the conventional sense of the words, a uniquely accurate record of the official Soviet world-view and the way it wish to be represented. It was influential too in that many of its stock phrases and modes of expression were picked up by political scientists in the West and, given the paucity of information from other sources, analyzing Pravda and Izvestia became a staple of the diet of the Kremlinologists who inhabited university departments and later think tanks, parsing and deconstructing the text in search of the hidden meanings of what Winston Churchill (1975-1965; UK prime-minister 1940-1945 & 1951-1955) described as “a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma”.
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