The ''Kuranty'' (occasionally titled ''Vesti'', ''Vedomosti'', or ''Vestovye pisma'') was the first

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

n hand-written

newspaper A newspaper is a periodical publication containing written information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background. Newspapers can cover a wide variety of fields such as politics, business, sports a ...

, published in the 17th century in

Tsardom of Russia The Tsardom of Russia or Tsardom of Rus' also externally referenced as the Tsardom of Muscovy, was the centralized Russian state from the assumption of the title of Tsar by Ivan IV in 1547 until the foundation of the Russian Empire by Peter I i ...

. The earliest extant issue is dated 1621. The ''Kuranty'' was established by a ''

ukase In Imperial Russia, a ukase () or ukaz (russian: указ ) was a proclamation of the tsar, government, or a religious leader (patriarch) that had the force of law. "Edict" and "decree" are adequate translations using the terminology and concepts ...

'' of Emperor

Michael of Russia Michael I (Russian: Михаил Фёдорович Романов, ''Mikhaíl Fyódorovich Románov'') () became the first Russian tsar of the House of Romanov after the Zemskiy Sobor of 1613 elected him to rule the Tsardom of Russia. He w ...

was issued by the

Posolsky Prikaz A prikaz (russian: прика́з, ''prikaz''; , plural: ) was an administrative, judicial, territorial, or executive office functioning on behalf of palace, civil, military, or church authorities in Muscovy and in Russia from the 15th to the 18 ...

for selected government officials in order to inform them about foreign events.

Diak Diak (russian: дьяк, ) is a historical Russian bureaucratic occupation whose meaning varied over time and approximately corresponded to the notions of "chief clerk" or "chief of office department". A diak was a title of the chief of a structur ...

s who compiled the newspaper used such sources as German and Dutch newspapers — one of which apparently inspired the newspaper's name — as well as letters of Russians travelling abroad. As foreign newspapers were delivered to

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...

via

Riga Riga (; lv, Rīga , liv, Rīgõ) is the capital and largest city of Latvia and is home to 605,802 inhabitants which is a third of Latvia's population. The city lies on the Gulf of Riga at the mouth of the Daugava river where it meets the Ba ...

and Wilna, they were frequently outdated and contained stale news, which resulted in the Russian tsar sending letters and embassies to deceased foreign monarchs.

Peter the Great Peter I ( – ), most commonly known as Peter the Great,) or Pyotr Alekséyevich ( rus, Пётр Алексе́евич, p=ˈpʲɵtr ɐlʲɪˈksʲejɪvʲɪtɕ, , group=pron was a Russian monarch who ruled the Tsardom of Russia from t ...

replaced the ''Kuranty'' with the first printed newspaper in Russian, the '' Sankt-Peterburgskie Vedomosti''.

References

* Defunct newspapers published in Russia Russian-language newspapers {{Russia-newspaper-stub

Further reading

References