MOSCOW, March 26 (Itar-Tass) - The editorial office of the newspaper “Izvestia”, jointly with the publishing house, will arrange a festive reception here on Monday to mark the newspaper’s ninetieth anniversary.
The reception will be held at Moscow’s “President Hotel’ and will be rounded off by the presentation of “Izvestnost” awards of honour.
The newspaper’s editorial office instituted those awards in 2005 and since that time they are being awarded “to outstanding representatives of Russian culture, business, and politics.” The laureates include only those “whose names the newspaper is always glad to see on its pages and whose views are particularly important for the readership”.
This year the awards were adjudged to writer Alexander Solzhenitsin, musician Vladimir Spivakov, film director Nikita Mikhalkov, Director of the Moscow Art Theatre named after Chekhov Oleg Tabakov, Russian Museum Director Vladimir Gusev, Director of the Moscow State Museum of Fine Arts named after Pushkin Irina Antonova, leader of the “Time Machine” Company Andrei Makarevich, Russian Human Rights Ombudsman Vladimir Lukin, and Olympic Championess Alina Kabayeva. They were all invited to the Monday reception.
Due to several reasons, the “Izvestia” newspaper and the publishing house could not be merged into a single institution. The newspaper, as well as several other printed media, was closed when the 1991 August putsch broke out, and its staff instituted an independent edition on August 23 under the newspaper’s historical brand. The publishing house went over to a state owner.
All the following years the two structures existed separately and had different owners. The editorial office belongs, as of 2006, to the largest “Gazprom-Media” information holding, and the publishing house – to the Procurement Department of the President of the Russian Federation.
“Izvestia” Director-General Pyotr Godlevsky said that the newspaper and the publishing house were jointly marking this year’s jubilee, which began to be celebrated on March 13, and that this was extremely important for both sides.
“We have decided to resume our contacts and to establish normal working relations. This will definitely benefit both sides,” Godlevsky noted, adding that “it is yet premature to speak of any juridical merger of the newspaper and the publishing house, since this is a lengthy and very difficult process”.
The newspaper “Izvestia” was founded by the chief personalities of the 1917 February revolution in Russia and was immediately turned into the mouthpiece of the new authorities, based on the Petrograd Council of Workers and Soldiers Deputies.
The editorial office moved to Moscow when Lenin’s government was transferred there in March 1918. It became an official printed medium of the Soviets of Working Deputies, differing from the party and trade union publications by its respect and attention to international problems.
Members of the “Izvestia” staff of all generations take pride in the fact that they had displayed truly principled civilian journalistic spirit under the leadership of Editor-in-Chief Alexei Adzhubei during the five years of Khrushchov’s “thaw”. This period was marked by the emergence of such newspaper celebrities as Yegor Yakovlev, Melor Sturua, Vsevolod Ovchinnikov, Tatyana Tess, and many others.
