Black Sea coast (newspaper)

The newspaper was founded in 1902 by the employee of the Vladikavkaz railway Fedor Stepanovich Leontovich. He also acted as a publisher and editor of the newspaper. The first issue of the periodical was published on December 6, 1902 ^[1] .

In the initial period of its existence, the Black Sea Coast newspaper was characterized by a moderately liberal orientation. The censor of the newspaper was the Black Sea Governor E.N. Volkov . However, as democratic trends in Russian public life intensified, the liberal course of the Black Sea Coast newspaper became more pronounced. The dramatic denouement of the July (1905) strike of the Novorossiysk railroad workers, as a result of the dispersal of which 19 workers were killed, caused a storm of indignation among the townspeople. The newspaper "Black Sea coast" published a resolution adopted at an emergency meeting of the City Duma. This document contained “a protest against the brutal and frivolous use of armed force”, the expression “contempt for the Cossacks for their savage cruelty”, an accusation against the owners of the Vladikavkaz railway, forcing workers to resort to extreme methods of struggle for their economic rights ^[2] . In the subsequent period, despite the regime of enhanced protection introduced by the authorities in Novorossiysk, which provided for additional censorship restrictions, the Black Sea Coast newspaper maintained its liberal-democratic orientation and continued to publish politically relevant materials on its pages.

In December 1905, under the conditions of the prevailing diarchy, the newspaper’s editors unexpectedly faced a new kind of “revolutionary” censorship for it, established by the leaders of the Novorossiysk City Council of Workers' Deputies ^[3] . The desire of the newspaper editor F. S. Leontovich to be “above the fray”, expressed in the practice of publishing materials from both official and revolutionary authorities, led the Council to publicly call the liberal press agency “Black-Hundred” ^[4] , requiring the newspaper to submit newspaper materials “for review by the Executive Committee” ^[5] . In protest, Leontovich suspended the publication of the newspaper.

After the fall of the Novorossiysk Republic , martial law is introduced in the Black Sea province. The wave of repression initiated by the military administration has affected even liberal figures. The editor of the newspaper F. S. Leontovich was also short-term arrested. Subsequently, strict censorship restrictions and constant interference in the affairs of the press by the interim military governor, Major General V. A. Przhevalsky, forced Leontovich to stop publishing the newspaper “Black Sea Coast”. Its last issue was released on February 9 (22), 1906 ^[6] .

In August 1907, the publication of the Black Sea Coast newspaper was resumed. The new publisher of the newspaper A.F. Filippov took advantage of the cliche of the previous edition, which became the subject of a lawsuit by F.S. However, the lawsuit was rejected by the court. The new edition came out of the walls of the Ekaterinodar newspaper Kuban, founded in the second half of 1905 by A. F. and M. F. Filippov. In Novorossiysk, the updated and renamed Kuban acquired a moderately liberal hue. From 1907 to 1910 The chief editor of the newspaper was N. A. Ledkovsky, from 1910 to 1911. - A. F. Filippov ^[7] .

• Gorodetsky, V.M. Periodic of the Kuban-Black Sea Territory. 1863-1925. - Krasnodar, 1927.
• Gerasimenko A. B. Novorossiysk - from fortification to the provincial city / A. B. Gerasimenko, S. A. Saneev. - Krasnodar: Edvey, 1998.
• Persons of Novorossiysk: Large Illustrated Biographical Dictionary / Edited by S. G. Novikov. - Novorossiysk: LLC Publishing House Persona Press, 2017.