Voskhod (Russian: Восход, lit. "sunrise" or "dawn") was a monthly Russian-Jewish periodical published in the Russian Empire. It was published in St. Petersburg from 1881 to 1906 and was a product of the Haskalah (Jewish Enlightenment) movement.
Founding and Publication History
Voskhod was established by the publisher Adolph Landau, who transformed his annual literary-scientific publication Yevreyskaya Biblioteka ("Jewish Library") into a monthly journal. After its first year of publication, a weekly supplement titled Nedel'naya khronika Voskhoda ("Weekly Chronicle of Voskhod") was added in early 1882. The journal was edited, in practice, by figures including Shmuel Grusenberg, Simon Dubnow, and Yehudah Leib Gordon.
In April 1899, Landau sold Voskhod to a group of younger intellectuals, which included Leon Bramson, the historian Saul Ginsburg, Matthew (Matityahu) Posner, and Iulii (Julius) Brutskus, among others. In November 1899, both the weekly and monthly versions changed their names to Knizhki Voskhoda ("Voskhod Booklets"). In 1901, the editorial board co-opted Maksim Vinaver and Leopold Sev (who from 1903 was, for all practical purposes, its editor-in-chief). The monthly journal ceased publication in March 1906, and its weekly supplement followed at the end of June of that year.
Circulation and Influence
The circulation of Voskhod was approximately 950 copies in its first year and increased to 4,397 copies by 1895. The number of subscribers rose from about 1,000 in 1881 to approximately 2,800 four years later. By the beginning of the twentieth century, the number of subscribers had climbed to about 5,000, including more than 1,000 in St. Petersburg. From 1885 to 1899, Voskhod was the only Russian Jewish journal.
Content and Editorial Stance
Voskhod's goals were closely aligned with the credo of the Russian Jewish intelligentsia, which included: full emancipation for Russian Jewry; education of the Jewish population for productive work; denunciation of the state-run press's anti-Jewish bias; and the acquisition of support from liberal public opinion. Over time, the journal sought to foster feelings of national self-consciousness and to raise the cultural standards of the Jewish masses.
As a literary journal, Voskhod frequently published fiction, mostly in translation. It featured numerous articles on Jewish history, including contributions from historians Sergei Bershadskii and Simon Dubnow. The journal also covered topics such as religious education, emigration, and agricultural settlement (productivization).
During the 1881–1882 pogroms, Voskhod called on its readers to organize self-defense units, criticized the antisemitic authorities and press, and denounced the indifference of liberals to Jewish suffering. When major pogroms occurred between 1903 and 1906, the journal described the events in detail and again called for the establishment of effective self-defense mechanisms. After an 1887 ordinance established quotas for Jews in educational institutions, the journal supported Jewish private schools and the "reformed heder."
Legacy
Voskhod's demise left a void that many journals attempted to fill. One successor publication called itself Novyi Voskhod ("New Voskhod"; 1910–1915), and some of its editors had originally worked for Voskhod. The journal is recognized as the most important Russian-language Jewish periodical of its era, notable for its long publication run (1881–1906) and the nearly 300 issues that appeared.
