Images of A.F. Kerensky and the Political Struggle in 1917 (based on the newspapers of A.A. Suvorin)

The article examines the cultural forms of legitimation / delegitimation of authority of the Provisional Government. Particular attention is paid to the personal authority of Alexander
Kerensky, including rhetorical (persuasive) devices and visual images which underlay the tactics of praising or condemning him. As the main source, the article uses the newspapers of A.A. Suvorin, namely Malen'kaya gazeta [Little newspaper], Narodnaya gazeta [People’s newspaper], Rus' [Rus], Novaya Rus' [New Rus]. These newspapers are compared with resolutions, letters and diaries, and with publications in other periodicals. The study clarifies some aspects of political isolation of the Provisional Government in the fall of 1917. By this time, the propaganda attack on Kerensky was conducted not only by the Bolsheviks and other left-wing groups but also by the right-wing and conservative publications. The propaganda of the left- and right-wing opponents was significantly different but they had a point of contact: both of them created the image of the “traitor” who was unworthy to remain in power.

Abraham, R. Alexander Kerensky: The First Love of the Revolution. London: Sidgwick & Jackson, 1987.
Chugaev, D.A., ed. Revolyutsionnoe dvizhenie v Rossii v mae−iyune 1917 g. Iyul'skaya demonstratsiya [The revolutionary movement in Russia in May–June 1917. The July demonstration]. Moscow: Izdatel'stvo Akademii nauk SSSR, 1959. (In Russian)
Fedyuk, V.P. Kerenskii [Kerensky]. Moscow: Molodaya gvardiya, 2009. (In Russian)
Grigor'yants, T.S. et al., comps. Periodicheskaya pechat' v Rossii v 1917 godu: Bibliograficheskii ukazatel' [Periodical Press in Russia in 1917: Bibliographic Index]. Pt. 2, N – Ya.
Leningrad: Gosudarstvennaya publichnaya biblioteka im. M.E. Saltykova-Shchedrina, 1987. (In Russian)
Hasegawa, Ts. Crime and Punishment in the Russian Revolution: Mob Justice and Police in Petrograd. Cambridge, Mass.; London: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2017.
Ioffe, G.Z. Semnadtsatyi god: Lenin, Kerenskii, Kornilov [Seventeenth year: Lenin, Kerensky, Kornilov]. Moscow: Nauka, 1995. (In Russian)
Kolonitskii, B.I. ‘Tovarishch Kerenskii’: Antimonarkhicheskaya revolyutsiya i formirovanie kul'ta ‘vozhdya naroda’ (mart–iyun' 1917 goda) [‘Comrade Kerensky’: The anti-monarchist revolution and the formation of the cult of the ‘leader of the people’ (March–June 1917)]. Moscow: Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, 2017. (In Russian)
Kolonitskii, B.I. ‘Tragicheskaya erotika’: Obrazy imperatorskoi sem'i v gody Pervoi mirovoi voiny [‘Tragic Erotica’: Images of the imperial family during the First World War]. Moscow:
Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, 2010. (In Russian)
Kolonitskii, B.I. “‘Malen'kaya gazeta’ i ‘malen'kie lyudi’ Petrograda v epokhu revolyutsii: periodicheskie izdaniya A.A. Suvorina v 1917 godu” [Malen'kaya gazeta and ‘little men’ of Petrograd in the age of revolution: periodicals of A.A. Suvorin in 1917]. In Lichnost', obshchestvo i vlast' v istorii Rossii: Sbornik nauchnykh statei, posvyashchennyi 70-letiyu doktora istoricheskikh nauk, professora V.I. Shishkina [Personality, society and power in the history of Russia: Collection of scientific articles dedicated to the 70th anniversary of Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor V.I. Shishkin], edited by V.M. Rynkov, A.I. Savin, 191–207. Novosibirsk: Institut istorii SO RAN, 2018). (In Russian)
Kolonitskii, B.I. “Aleksandr Fedorovich Kerenskii kak ‘zhertva evreev’ i ‘evrei’” [Alexander Fedorovich Kerensky as a ‘victim of Jews’ and a ‘Jew’]. In Jews and Slavs, edited by
W. Moskovich. Vol. 17, The Russian Word in the Land of Israel, the Jewish Word in Russia, 241–53. Jerusalem: The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 2006. (In Russian)
Kolonitskii, B.I. “Britanskie missii i A.F. Kerenskii (mart–oktyabr' 1917 goda)” [British missions and A.F. Kerensky (March–October 1917)]. In Rossiya v XIX–XX vv.: Sbornik statei k
70-letiyu R.Sh. Ganelina [Russia in the 19th – 20th centuries: Collection of articles devoted to the 70th anniversary of R.Sh. Ganelin], edited by A.A. Fursenko, 67–76. St Petersburg: Dmitrii Bulanin, 1998. (In Russian)
Nikolaev, A.B., comp. A.F. Kerenskii: pro et contra: lichnost' i deyatel'nost' A.F. Kerenskogo v otsenke sovremennikov: antologiya [A.F. Kerensky: pro et contra: personality and activities of A.F. Kerensky in the assessment of his contemporaries: an anthology]. St Petersburg: Russkaya khristianskaya gumanitarnaya akademiya, 2016. (In Russian)
Saul, N.E. Sailors in Revolt: The Russian Baltic Fleet in 1917. Lawrence: Regents Press of Kansas, 1978.
Smith, S.S. Russia in Revolution: An Empire in Crisis, 1890 to 1928. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017.
Sobolev, G.L., comp. Aleksandr Kerenskii: lyubov' i nenavist' revolyutsii: Dnevniki, stat’i, ocherki i vospominaniya sovremennikov [Alexander Kerensky: love and hate of the revolution: dia ries, articles, essays and memoirs of contemporaries]. Cheboksary: Chuvashskii universitet, 1993. (In Russian)
Solomakha, E.Yu. “Ermitazh i Zimnii dvorets v 1917 g.” [Hermitage and the Winter Palace in 1917]. In Ermitazh. Ot Fevralya k Oktyabryu. 1917. Arkhivnye dokumenty [Hermitage. From February to October. 1917. Archival documents], compiled by E.Yu. Solomakha, 9–62. St Peterburg: Izdatel'stvo Gosudarstvennogo Ermitazha, 2017. (In Russian)
Startsev, V.I. Krakh kerenshchiny [Collapse of the Kerensky regime]. Leningrad: Nauka, 1982. (In Russian)
Steinberg, M. Petersburg Fin de Siècle. New Haven; London: Yale University Press, 2011.
Tyutyukin, S.V. Aleksandr Kerenskii: Stranitsy politicheskoi biografii [Alexander Kerensky: Pages of a political biography]. Moscow: ROSSPEN, 2012. (In Russian)
Znamenskii, O.N., ed. Piterskie rabochie i Velikii Oktyabr' [St Petersburg workers and the Great October]. Leningrad: Nauka, 1987. (In Russian)