Northern Bee

In addition to domestic and foreign news, literature, and criticism, the paper printed a mix of inspirational stories and philosophical essays, bibliographies, and fashion pieces.

By his own admission, Bulgarin worked with the chief of the Third Section, Count Alexander von Benckendorff, and used the knowledge gained by his position in writing reports for the police.

Northern Bee enjoyed a monopoly on political news and Bulgarin used its platform to express in various ways his disgust for constitutionalism and the parliamentary speakers in France and England, representing them as screamers and freethinkers in need of looking after by the police.

In the pages of Northern Bee, Bulgarin argued fiercely with the Literary Gazette, Pushkin, Anton Delvig, the Moscow Observer, The Telescope, Notes of the Fatherland, and Vissarion Belinsky.

After 1860, under Pavel Usov, the paper changed its course and printed work by democratic writers such as Vasily Sleptsov, Fyodor Reshetnikov, and Marco Vovchok, and reviews of Nikolay Nekrasov and Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin.