Re: Need a new Russian newspaper (Kirsti Thomas) Stephen Clark 05 Jun 1998 20:31 UTC
---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Fri, 5 Jun 1998 12:29:22 -0700 From: Kirsti Thomas <kst@PAUL.SPU.EDU> Subject: Re: Need a new Russian newspaper Allen Williams wrote: > We are interested in purchasing a new 'Russian' newspaper [in the > Russian language] and need some suggestions. > > We currently subscribe to Pravda and Izvestiia, but have had some > complaints from faculty/patrons that these newspapers are high in > propaganda. However, no one has been able to suggest a better > alternative. Any titles that you would suggest? A few years ago (1995) when I had responsibilities as the Russian bibliographer at the University of Wyoming, I too had to deal with this issue. I was lucky enough to receive input from a Poli-Sci faculty member who had just returned from spending a year in Russia. What he told me was that Pravda and Isvestiia had become the newspapers of the reactionary conservatives. Basically, Pravda had gone from being a general newspaper to a political opinion newspaper (the rough equivalent of National Review (conservative Republican magazine) or New Republic (liberal Democratic magazine) in terms of being ideological rather than informational in scope). The newspaper he suggested, that he preferred above any of the others, was Segodnia. We did order that and used Harrasowitz as the vendor. Also, if you're interested in a satirical/social commentary type title, you might also want to consider adding Krokodil. There's also a mailing list for Slavic librarianship. (At least, I hope it's still around) I'm sure the listmembers would be happy to provide their opinions. Here's the subscription info I have: send a message to: LISTSERV@library.berkeley.edu with no subject line and the following in the body of the message: subscribe SLAVLIBS To send messages to the list address mail to: SLAVLIBS@library.berkeley.edu I also found this on an altavista search for SLAVLIBS: SLAVLIBS (Slavic Librarians list) Subscription limited to persons who actively work with Slavic materials; contact Lyonette Louis-Jacques, llou@midway.uchicago.edu, for subscription information If that doesn't help try getting in touch with the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies, or the Association of College and Research Libraries, Slavic and East European Section and ask their opinions. The email address I have for the former is from the 1994 member directory: ab.cde@forsythe.stanford.edu. The latter has a web page at: http://www.unl.edu/sees/sees.html Hope this helps. Kirsti S. Thomas Technical Services/Reference Librarian Seattle Pacific University Seattle, WA 98119 (206)281-2790 kst@paul.spu.edu