LAUSR

Abstract This article describes a handwritten newspaper, Tsentro-Gidra (Central Hydra), published in June 1918 by inmates in Taganskaya prison. The newspaper reflected the tastes and interests of Moscow lawyers, who had been arrested at a Constitutional Democrats party meeting, and of military officers who belonged to the underground organisation “Union for the Defence of the Motherland and Freedom”, which aimed to overthrow the Bolshevik regime. The newspaper’s apparent founder, editor-in-chief and main author, A. Vilenkin, united both groups, being both a lawyer and a military officer. The content of the newspaper shows that the Anti-Bolshevik union was formed from people with opposite political views. The poems published in the paper could be called manifestos of this association. The paper reflects how the mood of this group of prisoners, and likely that of the greater part of society which they represented, was changing. The article provides information about the authors and all others mentioned in the paper, all but one of whom were prisoners in Taganskaya in June 1918. The style of Tsentro-Gidra reveals how they viewed the historic moment as well as their own position. Realia depicted in the newspaper show how ideas and prison life were changing at the time.