Russian Prison Journalism of the Transition Period from the Collapse of the USSR to the 21-st century: its Flourishing and Decline

Since its inception in Tsarist Russia, prison journalism has been a point of interest for inmates and penitentiary personnel. During the 20th century, these publications served two purposes: the re-education and societal reintegration of prisoners. Despite this having been a mutually beneficial arrangement, the Russian penal system shut down internal newspaper production in 2013. This research investigates why this closure occurred, and what events in the post-Soviet period led up to it. This work explores the challenges facing prison journalism from the 1990’s onward. As source material, the author utilizes internal documents from the Russian penal system, along with corroborating interviews with former personnel. The result is an exploration and explanation of the flourishing of Russian prison journalism in the 1990s, and its decline and virtual ‘death’ in the 2000s.