The journalistic activities of the literary critic and scholar Viktor Alexandrovich Goltsev were closely connected with the Russkaya Mysl magazine — he actively participated in its work since it was founded in 1880. In March 1885, Viktor Goltsev became the unofficial editor-in-chief of the Russkaya Mysl, and in April 1905, he headed the magazine officially.

He endeavored to turn the magazine into a broad platform for expressing a diverse variety of opinions. On its pages, Slavophiles spoke out alongside Westernizers, and Narodniks neighbored with liberals. As an editor, Goltsev was open-minded when it came to new ideological and literary-aesthetic ideas, even though they oftentimes felt alien to him. Sometimes he wrote materials for the main sections of the magazine, which reviewed domestic and foreign affairs and news of science, and published cycles of articles entitled “Notes on Life and Literature”, “From Literary Observations” and “Ahead of the Line”. Viktor Goltsev made it possible for works by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, Nikolay Semyonovich Leskov, Vsevolod Mikhailovich Garshin, Dmitry Narkisovich Mamin-Sibiryak and Alexander Ivanovich Ertel to appear on the magazine’s pages.

Alexander Ivanovich Ertel began cooperating with the Russkaya Mysl in 1885. For a decade, the magazine published his stories and novels, including “The Gardenins; Their Retainers, Their Friends, and Their Enemies” and “The Change”. In a letter to Boris Dmitriyevich Vostryakov from April 20, 1898, Ertel noted:

Ertel and Goltsev had a long-standing friendship, as evidenced by the dedicatory inscription on the book “The State Economy in 17th–Century France; A History Essay”. This is Goltsev’s early work, based on his master’s dissertation on financial law. It was the result of the aspiring scientist’s trip abroad, where he attended scientific lectures at the universities of Paris, Heidelberg, Vienna and Leipzig. The book consists of two parts: the first part contains the most important facts from the financial history of France in the 17th century, and the second part describes the economic management of the Muscovite state in the same 17th century.