The last of the Mohicans: one of the brightest editors-in-chief of Izvestia has died

Under his leadership, the Supreme Soviet of the USSR declared the Emergency Committee illegal in 1991; already under Yeltsin, he headed the Press Committee and held many other important government posts; but he went down in history primarily as the editor-in-chief of Izvestia during the Perestroika era. Ivan Laptev, a man who stood at the origins of modern journalism, has died today at the age of 91. His colleagues at the publication recall how he changed one of the main newspapers in the country.

Worker and Champion

Ivan Laptev's biography was, on the one hand, quite typical of the USSR, on the other, full of incredible facts and details. He was born in a village in the remote Siberian countryside (Omsk region), grew up in a family without a father, he died in the war — a milkmaid mother raised five children alone. Vanya graduated from a vocational school, worked as a stoker, a crane operator, a mechanic, an excavator operator in a river port — in general, he started as an ordinary worker and rose from the very bottom. But he did not stop his education – he studied at the automobile Institute, then at the Academy of Social Sciences under the Central Committee of the CPSU.

While teaching at his institute and working as an instructor at CSKA (he was, by the way, the USSR champion in cycling), Laptev took up journalism at the same time. At first, he wrote to Sovetskaya Rossiya, then rose to deputy editor at Pravda. And in 1984, under Chernenko, he was appointed head of Izvestia.

— And so on April 22, I was summoned to the Old Square to see the Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU for ideology, Mikhail Zimyanin. With his usual tongue twister, he said, "There is an opinion to send you to Izvestia." This was a big surprise to me: I simply did not know either the Izvestia team or the specifics of this great newspaper. However, in four days, which, in my opinion, was not the case in the Central Committee of the CPSU either before or after, I was approved by the Secretariat of the Central Committee of the CPSU and the Politburo. On April 29, 1984, I was introduced to the editorial board of Izvestia and was left alone with a huge team – 515 people worked in the editorial office at that time, Ivan Laptev recalled.

Despite his party career, the new editor-in-chief immediately told the staff, as if anticipating the upcoming course towards glasnost: there are no forbidden topics! But you have to be absolutely sure about the facts. And yet – there is no need to dissemble and serve anyone's interests.

"I gave you the opportunity to write what you think!"

International journalist Vladimir Skosyrev, in an interview with Izvestia, recalls:

— Laptev came from Pravda. Everyone thought we were going to "call" about the party line. And he made it possible to write what you think!

—He gave freedom of speech that needed to be heard not only by the newspaper's readers, but also by the authorities," Anatoly Stepovoy, who worked at Izvestia during the same period, agrees with Skosyrev.

The new course was appreciated not only by the staff (by the way, many young authors came to the editorial office under Laptev, which is also his merit), but also by readers. By the end of the year, the number of subscribers increased by 700 thousand. And in 1985, another 3 million were added. This is how the newspaper practically regained its lost positions after the resignation of the legendary Khrushchev-era editor-in-chief Alexei Adjubey. But most importantly, it became one of the key media outlets of the perestroika era, immediately supporting the reforms carried out by Mikhail Gorbachev.

"Knowing well the true hopeless state of affairs in the country, he resolutely led Izvestia to support state perestroika and forever entered the history of Russian journalism as an intelligent, talented, courageous editor—in—chief who gained great respect and love in a difficult, contradictory, conflictual professional environment," emphasizes Vasily Zakharko, who worked in Izvestia began in 1972, and in 1997, after Laptev, he became the editor-in-chief.

It is not the most well—known fact, but Laptev was the actual author of Alexander Yakovlev's article "Principles of Perestroika, revolutionary Thinking and Actions", the reformers' response to Nina Andreeva's famous letter criticizing the actions of the authorities, published in Sovetskaya Rossiya. Together with Nikolai Bodnaruk, Laptev personally edited the draft of Gorbachev's ideologue, polishing the text on a typewriter, as he could not entrust this matter to a typist because of the high secrecy.

But despite the trust of the country's leadership, Laptev often had to defend his employees from attacks by those in power and defend the newspaper's rights. "No one gave us publicity and freedom of speech and was not going to give it to us. We fought them back from room to room," he said. Although sometimes it was necessary to act in a roundabout way.

— Ivan Dmitrievich walked on a razor's edge in the confrontation between Ligachev and Gorbachev. After one of my articles about the pressure of district committees on collective farmers, he invited them to the office and gave them two sheets of paper. On the first one, I wrote a letter of resignation, and on the second, I applied for a job," recalls Igor Abakumov, a former Izvestia special correspondent and now the host of the Rural Hour program. — We issued an order, sent it to dear Egor Kuzmich, who took out the brain of the main one. And Ivan Dmitrievich told me to go to Europe to study farming and disappear from the pages of the newspaper for a month. He brought three strips of material and a photo showcase "How I was a farmer in Holland." Ivan Dmitrievich said, "I've never fired a special correspondent with such pleasure."

Under Ivan Dmitrievich, Izvestia turned out to be the flagship of many initiatives. Together with the American colleagues, the first color newspaper "We" was launched. Under his leadership, a draft financial weekly was developed in partnership with the Financial Times (although this was implemented only in 1992). Laptev launched the first advertising service in the publication, having received special permission from the country's leadership.: so the Soviet press began to learn how to earn money on their own. And by the end of Laptev's rule, the newspaper was no longer subsidized, but profitable, transferring a considerable part of the income to the state budget.

People and the State

However, the journalist himself was more proud not of his commercial and organizational successes, but of the role that Izvestia, under his leadership, played in the destinies of ordinary people.

"We can recall our struggle for the honest name of the legendary submariner A.I. Marinesko (the selfless journalistic work of Edwin Polyanovsky). Irina Kruglyanskaya's article "The Road" about the fate of the initiative chairman of one of the collective farms lay on the tables of tens of thousands of managers who were exhausted under the yoke of petty planning. The performance of the Surgutsky Case helped not only to free an innocently convicted man, but also to force the USSR Prosecutor General's Office to give him a salary for the entire time he spent in prison. And all these publications went against the strictest censorship," Laptev shared decades after his resignation.

And this resignation did not happen at all because he was considered insufficiently appropriate for the post - on the contrary, Laptev went on to be promoted, heading the Council of the Union in the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. And during his leadership came the most dramatic events.

— During the Emergency Committee, he did not resign from his post, did not hide like some of his colleagues, but remained necessary and useful for many deputies who were confused in that situation, — Anatoly Stepovoy emphasizes.

The actions of the putschists were declared illegal by the Council under Laptev. And one can only guess what might have happened if the deputies had not made this decision.

Already in new Russia, Laptev returned to the newspaper again, already as the general director of the Izvestia business association. And from 1995 to 1999 he headed the Press Committee of the Russian Federation.

"Surprisingly not a nomenclatural person"

Despite such a public career, people who knew Laptev remember him very warmly.

— Surprisingly not a nomenclatural person. The kindest. A professional of the highest standard of the bygone Soviet era," Mikhail Kozhokin, the editor—in-chief of Izvestia in 1998-2003, responded to the sad news. Another editor-in—chief of the 2000s, Vladimir Mamontov, who also worked under Laptev before, recalls his humanity.

— He was a very good journalist. For the time when he was working, he had revolutionary ideas. Previously, it was assumed that the editor-in-chief was necessarily some kind of official, but he was not like that. It was important to Ivan Laptev that notes were taken on time, well and efficiently, and whether an employee was sitting at his workplace from 8 to 12, he did not care," he said.

The departure of Ivan Dmitrievich is perceived as the death of a loved one, a dear person of a beautiful soul and high honor, said Boris Pilyatkin, the oldest employee of Izvestia.

— The last of the Mohicans, to whom the newspaper owes the fact that in the most difficult times it carried the flag of honest journalism high, remained the best newspaper in the country, – the international journalist shared.

And, of course, all Izvestia's interlocutors unanimously note Laptev's contribution to Russian journalism.

"He was a very iconic editor—in—chief," said Pavel Gusev, editor-in-chief of MK. — The fact that people are talking about him and remembering him today is a sign of what he did for Soviet and Russian journalism. He was one of the people I studied.

Vladimir Solovyov, Chairman of the Russian Union of Journalists, expressed his condolences over the death of Ivan Laptev.

Izvestia will additionally inform about the date and place of farewell to Ivan Dmitrievich Laptev.