Kolokol (newspaper)

Kolokol (Russian: Колокол, lit. "bell") was the first Russian censorship-free weekly newspaper in Russian and French languages, published by Alexander Herzen and Nikolai Ogaryov in London (1857–1865) and Geneva (1865–1867). It had a circulation of up to 2500 copies. Despite being banned in Russia, it was well known and had a significant influence on the reformist and revolutionary movements of the 1860s.

Initially the publishers viewed Kolokol as a supplement ("прибавочные листы") to a literary and socio-political almanac Polyarnaya Zvezda (Polar Star), but it soon became the leader of the Russian censorship-free press. The newspapers Pod sud (To Trial; 1859–1862) and Obshcheye veche (General Veche; 1862–1864) were published as supplements to Kolokol.

At Kolokol's base was a theory of Russian peasant socialism, elaborated by Herzen. Its political platform included democratic demands for liberation of peasants with land, and abolition of censorship and corporal punishment. Besides the articles by Herzen and Ogaryov, Kolokol published a variety of material on people's living conditions, social struggle in Russia, and information about abuses and secret plans of the authorities. Nikolai Dobrolyubov, Nikolai Serno-Solovyovich, Mikhail Mikhailov, Nikolai Utin, Lev Mechnikov, Mikhail Elpidin and others were among the paper's correspondents and distributors. Writers and liberal figures such as Ivan Aksakov, Yuri Samarin, Alexander Koshelyov, Ivan Turgenev and others delivered material for Kolokol.

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