Kommersant

{{#invoke:Lang|lang}} (Template:Langx, {{#invoke:IPA|main}}, The Businessman or Commerce Man, often shortened to Ъ) is a nationally distributed daily newspaper published in Russia mostly devoted to politics and business. The TNS Media and NRS Russia certified July 2013 circulation of the daily was 120,000–130,000.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

It is widely considered to be one of Russia's three main business dailies (together with Vedomosti and RBK Daily).<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

History

The original Kommersant newspaper was established in Moscow in 1909, but was shut down by the Bolsheviks following the October Revolution in 1917.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

In 1989, with the onset of press freedom in Russia, {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} was relaunched under the ownership of businessman and publicist Vladimir Yakovlev.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name=":0">Template:Cite journal</ref> The first issue was released in January 1990.<ref name=":1">Template:Cite journal</ref> It was modeled after Western business journalism.<ref name=":0" />

The newspaper's title is spelled in Russian with a terminal hard sign (ъ) – a letter that is silent at the end of a word in modern Russian, and was thus largely abolished by the post-revolution Russian spelling reform, in reference to the original Kommersant.<ref name=":1" /> This is played up in the {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} logo, which features a script hard sign at the end of somewhat more formal font. The newspaper also refers to itself or its redaction as "Ъ".

Founded as a weekly newspaper, it became popular among business and political elites.<ref name=":1" /> It then became a daily newspaper in 1992.<ref name=":1" /><ref name=":2" /> It was owned by the businessman Boris Berezovsky from 1999 until 2006, when he sold it to Badri Patarkatsishvili.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":2">Template:Cite journal</ref> In September 2006, it was sold to Alisher Usmanov.<ref name=":2" />

In January 2005, {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} published a protest at a court ruling ordering it to publish a denial of a story about a crisis at Alfa-Bank.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> In 2008, BBC News named {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} one of Russia's leading liberal business broadsheets.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

It has been argued that Kommersant strategically uses an ironic tone in its reporting, expressed in "creative neologisms, wordplay, metaphors, and legally imposed euphemisms," allowing it to maintain a degree of independence in periods of severe state censorship.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

External links

• BBC news reporting on Kommersant's protest
• Photo gallery celebrating Kommersant's 15th anniversary
• Story in the St. Petersburg Times about the sale of Kommersant (archived)
• "Kommersant" (1909–1917) digital archives in "Newspapers on the web and beyond", the digital resource of the National Library of Russia