“Zeus’ cast in the Acropolis”: russian journalism over the M. N. Katkov’s grave

The 1887 post-mortem controversy on the significance of M. N. Katkov had a serious influence on the subsequent “Katkovology”. The post of peculiar sentries over the Katkov’s coffin was occupied by the “Moscow News” and “Svet” [“Light”]. They were supported by the regional newspapers of the Katkov direction such as “Warsaw Diary”, “Kievlyanin”, Kharkov “Yuzhnyy kray” [“Southern Territory”], and also Suvorin’s “New Time” that joined them. However, these publications did not idealize Katkov, finding certain “excesses” in his work. Their assessments differed in only a few accents from the assessments of the moderately liberal publications: “St. Petersburg News”, “Syn Otechestva” [“Son of the Fatherland”], and the “Week” of the Guidel. The liberal “Russian courier” tried to preserve the objectivity but soon it became involved in controversy with the “Katkovets”. “Russian News” ignored Katkov’s death being traditionally hostile towards him. A sharp criticism concerning the deceased was made by the “News” of O. K. Notovich. But the most unexpected for the uninitiated in the backstage contradictions of the reader was the response, which appeared on the pages of the conservative “Grazhdanin” [“Citizen”].