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>today in Russia dividing papers into left-wing ones and right-wing ones is a wrong idea

Yea, calling Kommers (or Nezaviska) a leftie paper would be too, er, daring :)

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avla.livejournal.com

P.S.
Sorry, my English is not perfect yet, but I hope this will help.

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cle-fable.livejournal.com

Yes it does thanks.

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barbarisotschka.livejournal.com

I suggest reading "Sovetskaia Rossiia". I read some SR articles for my thesis and I have the impression that this is a very conservative paper (and a tabloid, of course).
And regarding the left-wing papers: Xodorkovskii financed "Moskovskie novosti" (a russian-wide paper, despite the name). I think it'd be interesting to see how they covered the Yukos-affaire.

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>I read some SR articles for my thesis and I have the impression that this is a very conservative paper

A very strange impression, should I say: it is a Commie paper.

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barbarisotschka.livejournal.com

why strange? I think this depends on how you define "conservative". It's of course not the same as in, say, Germany.

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Well, call it conservative Commie, if you like it :) Commies are left, liberals are right, aren't they? Therefore Savraska is a left paper, I'd say hardcore left, while Kommers is a respectively right one (right center, I'd say.)

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barbarisotschka.livejournal.com

well I think that in Russia we have more than two opposed camps. I don't think it's helpful to use only "left" and "right" here. The situation is more complex.
I think there are at least three diffrent groups:
1) liberal-progressive, anti-government (e.g. Novaja Gazeta)
2) communist (communist-orthodox!), conservative (if progressive means liberal, west-oriented) (Sovetskaia Rossiia) -- they might be anti-government, cause they're for Zyuganov, but you still can't lump them together with anti-government oriented papers like Novaya Gazeta!
3) pro-government (Rossiiskaja Gazeta, maybe AiF)

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Exactly, we cannot apply the traditional left-right map here because the traditionally left (Commies) in Russia are the "bad past," the traditionally right (liberals) are "worse past," while current govt-mule mainstream (EdRo) is Heck only knows where -- right-left center upside down. Still, we shall not forget that Commies, traditionally, count as left, and liberals as right.

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Actually, in Western parlance, liberals are commonly seen as lefties, IIRC. Just look, for example, at American political division, where Democrats, the leftier party, is considered liberal, while Republicans, the right-wing one, is conservative.

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Sure, if you have no Commies and/or Socialists in the parliament, then liberals form the leftier wing. Thing is, there is no conservative right in Russia -- I mean, in the Duma; right nationalists / monarchists / Christian fundamentalists are not represented in the parliament. At least, not yet.

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And maybe for good, as most of them are undeniable wackos whose place is in an asylum, not in the parliament. ;) But I might be too strict here.

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I can only agree with that -- being an Orthodox Christian myself, I nevertheless cannot imagine (and certainly would not like) seeing the merry beards of the Othodox Khorugv Carriers in the Duma :)

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Well, there's enough accusations of caesaropapism already to have just that too. ;)

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alek-morse.livejournal.com

///Xodorkovskii financed "Moskovskie novosti" ///

Before 2004, of course. Later "Moskovskie novosti" degenerated very much.

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Ugh... Left-wing for me associates with communists >_<
And communists aren't liberals. CPRF would probably criticize YuKOS affair not for lawlessness, but for something like "thieves steal from each other and the people don't get anything of rightfully theirs, anyway".

I would exclude "Nezavisimaya Gazeta", but add "Vedomosti" to your first list of more liberal newspapers.

Komsomol'skaya pravda and Izvestiya are not bad examples of what you look for. Mayhaps, "Argumenty i fakty" would suffice, either.

"Kommersant" leaves an impression of a nice media for me. I do not read it, but from what I gather, Kommersant allows for different points of view, especially when an article is an exclusive piece of information. For instance, people like Cherkesov (with an article about chekists' hook) or Shwartzman(sp?) (with an interview on velvety reprivatization) are not exactly liberal ideas' promoters. But that fits perfectly into an image of "informational media". Which provides all available critisisms and points of view. Which in turn will turn you anti-governmental in a blink of an eye.

I feel that you'd be satisfied with propaganda sources with different propaganda vectors. But I don't think that there are numerous clear examples of those. Most newspapers define themselves as independent, any prejudice toward them being attributed to the observer. And the carriers of bias and vectors are people commenting with their personal beliefs in mind.

So, for instance an anti-liberal point of view should be found with Alexander Prokhanov, the chief editor of "Zavtra" (http://zavtra.ru/) newspaper, which's heavily propagandistic, I think.

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"Argumenty" and "Komsomolka" are tabloids. To look for political commentary in the papers devoted to sport, society gossip and boobies isn't very productive for me. ;)

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It may be awkward, not deserving to be called analytics, but it would be pro-governmental, don't you agree?
I had people citing "Argumenty i fakty" once, when we tried debating over some political issue.

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Not neccesarily. They just tend to be apolytical. "Argumenty" is actually somewhat more bent to political commentary, but their level is pretty low anywey.

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alek-morse.livejournal.com

Novaya Gazeta is most critical of all papers.

Kommersant is more bourqeois paper.

Strangely, but I don't see Vedomosti in your list. Vedomosti is a bourqeois paper too. The both has a good qualitied analysis of economics.

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altana.livejournal.com

If you need some pro-government views, may be it is worth looking in Parliamentskaya Gazeta (the official paper of the Federal Assembly). But unfortunately there is no open archive on their website. Rossiyskaya Gazeta is the official paper of the Russian Government, so you will find plenty of pro-government opinions there ;-)

As for quality papers, I believe you should also look in Kommersant-Vlast magazine (http://www.kommersant.ru/vlast.aspx) and Profil (http://www.profile.ru/).

I don't know whether you need academic periodicals as well. May be you'll find this useful: http://ecsocman.edu.ru/images/pubs/2006/08/08/0000283169/04-30-45-Gudkov.pdf

Good luck :)

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Well, it seems to me that you've got it completely wrong. ;) To call "Nezavisimaya Gazeta" and "Kommersant" a left-wing papers, it's a ti-i-iny bit off for me. In fact, these are thoroughly bourgeous, RIGHT-wing papers, associated with business and thus holding a very liberal, I'd even say radically liberal views. In fact, there is no traditionally left or traditionally right apers in Russia -- there are no less than THREE axes of division, or even four. First is pro-business-socialist, second is liberal-conservative (you can split it in two -- in political and economical parts) and third is pro-government and anti-government.

"Nezavisimaya Gazeta" is a business-oriented paper, ultraliberal and staunchly anti-government. "Novaya Gazeta" is similar, but more middle-class oriented, IIRC -- I don't read it much. "Kommersant" is pro-business, moderately liberal and politically mostly centrist, so neither of these papers are really left-wing in traditional sense. Those are "Sovetskaya Rossiya" -- a communist paper, militantly left-wing, anti-government, AND conservative, and "Trud" -- formerly a labor paper, and still keeping some of the early veneer, bun now mostly moved into a tabloid range, much like British "Daily Worker".

"Rossiyskaya Gazeta" is an official government paper, centrist on social and liberal-conservative issues (Russian Government is actually pretty liberal, they just want everyone to be liberal in THEIR way), and staunchly pro-government. Izvestiya is generally centrist at MOST issues and thus seen as boring by some and balanced by others. There were lots of shakeups recently, though, so it now generally gravitates to government camp. "Komsomolskaya Pravda" is a tabloid, pure and simple, in "The Sun" and "Bild" mould, so the question is moot for this one.

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Left-right wing stuff appeared strange to me, too, but multitran.ru says left-wing to mean liberal among other things. >_<
Our reference points must differ greatly.

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Well, you may know it already, but anyway, OP might be not, so I give my view on how things break up. In Russia "liberal" means quite a specific thing, and it is NOT the "liberal" in, say, American view. For most Russians "liberal" refers to the group that first called themselves so -- a bunch of generally young, highers class people, mostly economists, who espouse ultra-liberal views on the economy, in the monetaristic, Chicago-school way, while en masse not giving a damn about social costs of implementing their pet economic theories in practice -- which in general led to rampant corruption and terrible drop in quality of life for most population.

Another group often labelled as "liberals" in Russian is not an economical, but a political movement, and consists mostly of intellectuals who are oppesed to current government. Thet would be just fine and good, current government certainly aren't angels, but this bunch often seems to be opposed to ANY government as a matter of principle (while having absolutely nothing resembling a coherent program or platform), and some small, but extremely vocal group about them, who are dounright hating anything Russian, but somehow hoping to win the popular support.

Also, except being in fact rather radical, both groups often show a dogmatic streak about a couple miles wide, and their squabbles are legendary -- you can try to read ANY politics-oriented community in Russian LJ, you can rest assured that you find a flamewar going anytime, anywhere -- and they do it among themselves not less frerquent than with government supporters. Both groups tend to be really hated by general population as well. That doesn't strike me as a definition of "left-wing", or does it? ;)

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Well, the conclusion is still that multitran and original poster seem to make a mistake of calling liberal the left-wing.

OP claims to be from UK. Purely speculating, but perhaps it's a stand of liberal against conservators there? And conservators might've turned out to be even more to the right.
In Russia it's more of liberals against socialists, the latter being more to the left.

I don't know.

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