:Kommersant

The original Kommersant newspaper was established in Moscow in 1909, but was shut down by the Bolsheviks following the October Revolution in 1917.{{Cite web |date=2012-10-15 |title=Kommersant |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121015092748/http://www.presseurop.eu/it/content/source-profile/356311-kommersant |access-date= |website=Presseurop}}

In 1989, with the onset of press freedom in Russia, {{Lang|ru-latn|Kommersant}} was relaunched under the ownership of businessman and publicist Vladimir Yakovlev.{{cite web|url=http://www.presseurop.eu/en/content/source-profile/356511-kommersant|title=Kommersant; Presseurop (English)|work=Presseurop|year=2012|access-date=13 April 2012|archive-date=5 April 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140405003856/http://www.presseurop.eu/en/content/source-profile/356511-kommersant|url-status=dead}}{{Cite journal|date=2008-02-01|title=Media Map|url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03064220701882780|journal=Index on Censorship|volume=37|issue=1|pages=183–189|doi=10.1080/03064220701882780|issn=0306-4220|last1=Bessudnov |first1=Alexei |s2cid=220926309 |url-access=subscription}} The first issue was released in January 1990.{{Cite journal|last=Arrese|first=Ángel|date=2017-03-01|title=The role of economic journalism in political transitions|url=https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1464884915623172|journal=Journalism|language=en|volume=18|issue=3|pages=368–383|doi=10.1177/1464884915623172|s2cid=147918088 |issn=1464-8849|url-access=subscription}} It was modeled after Western business journalism.

The newspaper's title is spelled in Russian with a terminal hard sign (ъ) – a letter that is silent at the end of a word in modern Russian, and was thus largely abolished by the post-revolution Russian spelling reform, in reference to the original Kommersant. This is played up in the {{Lang|ru-latn|Kommersant}} logo, which features a script hard sign at the end of somewhat more formal font. The newspaper also refers to itself or its redaction as "Ъ".

Founded as a weekly newspaper, it became popular among business and political elites. It then became a daily newspaper in 1992. It was owned by the businessman Boris Berezovsky from 1999 until 2006, when he sold it to Badri Patarkatsishvili.{{Cite journal|last=Koikkalainen|first=Katja|date=2007-12-01|title=The local and the International in Russian business journalism: Structures and practices|url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09668130701655176|journal=Europe-Asia Studies|volume=59|issue=8|pages=1315–1329|doi=10.1080/09668130701655176|s2cid=153949932 |issn=0966-8136|url-access=subscription}} In September 2006, it was sold to Alisher Usmanov.

In January 2005, {{Lang|ru-latn|Kommersant}} published a protest at a court ruling ordering it to publish a denial of a story about a crisis at Alfa-Bank.{{cite news|title=Alfa-d Up|url=http://www.kommersant.com/p543041/r_524/Alfa-d_Up/|work=Kommersant|location=Moscow|date=31 January 2005|access-date=28 August 2009|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110606111951/http://www.kommersant.com/p543041/r_524/Alfa-d_Up/|archive-date=6 June 2011}} In 2008, BBC News named {{Lang|ru-latn|Kommersant}} one of Russia's leading liberal business broadsheets.{{cite news|date=16 May 2008|title=The press in Russia|publisher=BBC News|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4315129.stm|access-date=29 November 2014}}

It has been argued that Kommersant strategically uses an ironic tone in its reporting, expressed in "creative neologisms, wordplay, metaphors, and legally imposed euphemisms," allowing it to maintain a degree of independence in periods of severe state censorship.{{Cite journal |last=Tymbay |first=Alexey |date=2024-03-15 |title=Reading ‘between the lines’: How implicit language helps liberal media survive in authoritarian regimes. The Kommersant Telegram posts case study |url=https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/17504813241236907 |journal=Discourse & Communication |language=en |doi=10.1177/17504813241236907 |issn=1750-4813|url-access=subscription }}

{{Portal|Russia|Journalism}}

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• [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4222931.stm BBC news reporting on Kommersant's protest]
• [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_pictures/4031875.stm Photo gallery celebrating Kommersant's 15th anniversary]
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20140301122412/http://www.sptimes.ru/index.php?action_id=2&story_id=18717 Story in the St. Petersburg Times about the sale of Kommersant] (archived)
• [http://nlr.ru/res/inv/ukazat55/record_full.php?record_ID=120198 "Kommersant" (1909–1917) digital archives in "Newspapers on the web and beyond"], the digital resource of the National Library of Russia

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Category:Newspapers established in 1989

Category:Russian-language newspapers published in Russia

Category:Business newspapers

Category:Mass media in Moscow