For most of its run, the chief editor of Atmoda was journalist Elita Veidemane, and its editorial policy was independent from the PFL leadership.
[1][2] The newspaper was issued in the Latvian and Russian languages, with the English edition Awakening being published every month.
The newspaper was popular not only in Latvia, but among the population of the Soviet Union, and the Russian edition peaked at 80,000 in circulation.
[4] Atmoda, as a token of recognition of rights of Russians by PFL, was a ground of insinuations by competing more radical nationalist political parties, such as Latvian National Independence Movement, that PFL was ridden with Moscow KGB spies to control the national movement in Latvia.
This resulted in a court suit for the division of assets and the appearance of various splinter newspapers and magazines, notably Atmoda Atpūtā led by Veidemane which was published until 1996.