SUMMARY:

This essay explores the particular type of nationalism expressed by the publisher Aleksei Suvorin and his newspaper, Novoe vremia, during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905 and the ways it led to conflicts with some of the empire’s highest-ranking officials. Suvorin and his newspaper depicted the war as both a linchpin of Russian national and international prestige and a project of national reinvigoration. Novoe vremia’s articles, Suvorin’s diary, and the files of the imperial censorship bureau show that these ultranationalist sentiments ultimately pitted the usually loyal newspaper against a tsarist government that could not deliver victory. The back and forth between the newspaper and foreign ministry in particular demonstrates the virulent international focus of the newspaper’s rhetoric about the war. Moreover, it shows the seriousness with which the regime took these ideas and Suvorin’s position as an arbiter of public opinion.