Departmental and Branch Periodicals in Public Life at the Beginning of Xix Century

The article examines the question of the public reaction to the appearance of newspapers and magazines focused on the “serious reading”, using the example of branch and departmental periodicals that appeared in Russia in the late 18th - early 19th centuries. Based on the analysis of readers’ and critics’ responses, as well as of circulation of several studied magazines and newspapers and of their future (disappearance or replacement by another periodical), it is concluded that some of these magazines and newspapers faced difficulties in finding “their own” readers. However, there was a demand for some other public administration periodicals in the Russian society at the beginning of the 19th century, which leaded to their commercial success. These periodicals have laid the foundations for the further development of branch and departmental periodical press in Russia, the wide development of this type of press being observed in the second half of the 19th century.