Bondarchuk A. The «Ogonek» Magazine as a Source for Study of Dismantling of Soviet Totalitarianism

On the basis of the structural and problem-thematic analysis of the historical journalism of the «Ogonek» magazine in 1986-1991, the informative possibilities of the magazine’s materials for the study of dismantling of Soviet totalitarianism are studied. The author carried out an exhaustive analysis of the historiography of the topic and revealed that mainly Russian researchers performed the study of the «Ogonek» magazine, as a historical source, so far. They focused on the presentation styles, the structure and format of the weekly magazine, literary criticism and essays on the journal pages, protection of historical monuments and spiritual heritage, return of forbidden literature, and rehabilitation of creative intelligentsia. The problems of the «Ogonek» magazine, as a source for study of dismantling of soviet totalitarianism, have not been the subject of a special historical study so far. The direction of the «Ogonek» materials was studied on the eve of Perestroika, the time when the Soviet Union was on the verge of change and democratization. The author revealed that the magazine contained information on the leaders of labor and «shock» workers as well as ordinary publications about the labor of workers and collective farmers oversaturated by the Soviet propaganda. A willful creation of a negative image of the United States, as the biggest enemy of the Soviet Union, also took place. The changes in the editorial policy of the magazine, which occurred in the Perestroika period, are also investigated. The author claims that the prerequisites for cardinal changes in the publication were the abolition of censorship regime and total government control of the media, as well as the election of a new editor, V. Korotich. First, there is a change in the subject matter of the journal. Instead of the political information and essays on «shock workers», a novel kind of analytical articles on problems in various life spheres is published and the ideas of perestroika are actively perceived. The pages of the weekly magazine revealed historical truth, which was hushed up for decades, archival documents, previously forbidden manuscripts, interviews, talks with famous historians, political scientists, economists, writers.