Underhanded Competition in the Late Imperial Russian Newspaper Business

• In Event: Interdisciplinary History I: The Russian Empire

Abstract

This paper analyzes case studies of competition between cheap newspapers in the early twentieth century Russian Empire. It focuses on underhanded or anticompetitive strategies used by some newspapers to try and outcompete others, from spreading rumours, paying bribes, or deceiving readers to appealing to the courts to shut down rivals, as well as how the targets of these tactics responded. The paper speaks to the day-to-day functioning of the late Imperial Russian economy through a peculiar kind of industry, newspaper printing and sales, as well as state regulation of the print market in particular and economic competition in general.

Author

• Felix Cowan, U of Toronto (Canada)