On the bag is the inscription "Welfare Fund." Caption: “Through the efforts of Windthorst , the Welfs’ plans for peace with Prussia have not been clarified, so that the funds are in question for now go to the wrong throats”
The reptilian press is the contemptuous name of a corrupt press that creeps at the customer and holds his opinions, while at the same time claiming independence. It was widely used at the end of the 19th century in the liberal press of Germany (where it appeared), France and Russia [1] .
Expression History
The expression was born of the long and complicated history of the , which began in 1867 and was finally resolved only by 1933.
The Kingdom of Hanover in 1866 in the Austro-Prussian War took the side of the Austrian Empire . As a result, it was occupied by Prussia and declared its province . The following year, the government of Prussia concluded a treaty with the deposed Hanover King George V , according to which he officially renounced his royal rights, for which he was to receive from the treasury of Prussia 16 million union thalers as compensation to the royal family for lost property. Since George V belonged to a branch of the Welfare dynasty, the money allocated for payment under the contract later received the name “Welfish Fund” ( German: Welfenfonds ).
George V first went to the newly created Austria-Hungary , and then to France , without publishing any manifesto on the abdication of the right to the throne. Moreover, it soon became known that George V was forming in France, with the knowledge of Napoleon III, a legion of emigrants from Hanover (“Welsh Legion”), with whom he plans to regain the throne in the event of a war between France and the North German Union . In this situation, Otto von Bismarck , at that time the Minister-Chairman of the Government of Prussia, at the request of the Landtag, imposed a sequestration (ban on use) on the Welfare Fund.
The situation has not changed even after the victory in the war with France in 1871. At the same time, over the years, the Welfare Fund has become an unaccountable resource of 48 million gold marks with considerable annual interest in the hands of Bismarck himself. This caused periodic inquiries in the Landtag, to which Bismarck invariably replied that part of the funds was used only "to monitor and prevent intrigues from King George and his agents." In another speech, Bismarck said: “I think that we deserve your gratitude, chasing the evil reptiles ( German: Reptilien ) to their holes to see what they are doing” [1] .
The situation did not change after the death of George V in 1878. His son Ernst August II of Hanover confirmed his claim to the independent throne of his father and did not accept any monetary compensation for the rejection of them. However, the death of George V again drew attention to the use of the fund itself. The results of journalistic investigations showed that in fact the funds of the Welfare Fund were widely used by Bismarck to bribe the press, which was supposed to induce public opinion in favor of the policies pursued by the Iron Chancellor [1] .
The left then recalled to the chancellor his words about reptiles, which they began to call suspects in Bismarck-paid publications and campaigns in the press. At the same time, in the cartoons “reptiles” were rethought in the form of crocodiles or snakes , and the term itself began to mean any official seal bribed by the government. From the German press, expression quickly came to France , and then to Russia . In the vocabulary of Russian Social Democracy, the “reptilian press” and simply “reptiles” were all newspapers and magazines that crawled before the government, as well as the journalists themselves working there [1] .
After the October Revolution, the expression soon went out of use, however, it remained in the reprinted pre-revolutionary works, primarily Lenin . For example, in the work “What are the“ friends of the people ”and how do they fight against the Social Democrats?” He writes about “the entire liberal press that does not belong to feudal organs or reptiles”. To preserve the comprehensibility of texts for Soviet readers, the “reptilian press” continued to be included in popular collections of popular words and phrases [2] .
In Western European publications, primarily German-language, the term “reptilian press” ( German: Reptilienpresse ) continued to be used in the second half of the 20th century [3] .
Notes
- ↑ 1 2 3 4 Winged words / Comp. N. S. Ashukin , M. G. Ashukina. - 3rd ed. - M .: Khudlit , 1966. - S. 579-580.
- ↑ the same collection, introduction "From the compilers"
- ↑ Dobroszycki L. Die legale polnische Presse im Generalgouvernement, 1939-1945. - München: Institut für Zeitgeschichte, 1977. - S. 4-5, 163.
Literature
- Reptilien-Fütterung (German) // Berliner Wespen. - 1878. - 5 Junis. (Warn about numerous errors in text recognition)
- Richter E. Die geheimen Ausgaben und der Welfenfonds . - Zeven, 1891.