Between January and December 1789, around 200 subscribers from St. Petersburg received issues of the Beseduyushchy Grazhdanin (The Talking Citizen) magazine. The key figures on its editorial board were the publisher Mikhail Antonovsky (1759–1816) and the poets Semyon Bobrov and Sergey Tuchkov. One of the magazine’s authors, advisors, and thought leaders was Alexander Radishchev who was working on his novel “Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow” during the same period.

The magazine advocated the education of the masses “in the spirit of piety, kindness, and hard work” and respect for the law. Due to the moralizing character of its articles, the magazine received the unflattering nickname “Rambling Bourgeois” from its opponent Ivan Krylov.

Officially, Beseduyushchy Grazhdanin ceased to exist because of difficulties with book publishers, the departure of the editorial board members “to their offices”, and Antonovsky’s “private business”. However, there was also another reason.

The December issue contained a harsh article “A Conversation on What is a Son of the Fatherland”. It began with the statement that people born in the Fatherland but living “under the yoke of slavery” were “unworthy of the title”, although it was not their fault. Further, the author condemned many vices and reflected upon the serfdom system which made it impossible to educate an ethical person and a patriot who would support the “strength and glory” of the fatherland.

The fact that the article was written by Alexander Radishchev became known only in 1906 when Russky Vestnik published “Notes of Sergey Tuchkov”. Tuchkov reported that the editorial board did not hope for the publication of an essay written “with such liberty of spirit”, but Radishchev personally brought the article to the censor and obtained permission for it to be published. Still, it was after that incident that the magazine was discontinued.

Alexander Radishchev considered his article not anti-governmental but rather moralistic. He also wrote that the upbringing of uneducated people, unable to perceive the spiritual culture, leads to the death of any society and state.

The exhibition houses a copy of the edition which contains Alexander Radishchev’s article on moral and spiritual education of a person required for becoming a true citizen.