The newspaper appeared as a result of a person's need for information. However, the prerequisites for the emergence of the newspaper business arose much earlier than the print editions themselves. This is the spread of literacy, the emergence of the printing press and the development of civilization in general.
The need to share news
Long before the advent of writing, people had a need to exchange news. Special people walked through the cities and villages, announcing around the birth, death and other life events. Later in ancient Rome, there were prototypes of handwritten newspapers - acta. With their help, the Romans received information about events in their country. There were also news sheets in China.
It is worth saying that by the end of the 15th century, book printing already existed. This was facilitated by the appearance of the printing press in Italy. In turn, newspapers were published, though handwritten. They remained that way until the end of the 16th century. Basically, their operation fell on Italy, in some places handwritten newspapers were available in Germany. There are even special people in charge of writing news, the so-called "news scribes".
As the story goes, the first printed newspaper appeared in Venice in the early 16th century. Prior to that, the country had weekly handwritten publications and special people "avizotori" who specialized in writing news items.
However, in the form in which modern readers are used to seeing the newspaper, the French presented it to the world. It happened on May 30, 1631. The print edition was called La Gazeta. It was released in the amount of thousands of copies. The copyright holder of La Gazeta was Renaudot.
However, the palm in the publication of the printed newspaper belongs to Germany. Back in 1609, the Strasbourg newspaper Relation: Aller Furnemmen appeared. Its publisher and printer was Johann Karolus. It should be said that the exact year of publication of this newspaper is unknown.
Russian "Vedomosti"
Russia, as always, lagged behind Europe, and on this issue too. The first Russian printed newspaper "Vedomosti" began to function in 1703, when Peter I came to the throne. The period of handwritten newspapers has not passed the country. In particular, the "Courants", created on the model of a Western European newspaper, enjoyed popularity among the literate population.
The first Russian printed newspaper was small - smaller than a notebook sheet. Unlike the French newspaper La Gazeta, which was published weekly, Vedomosti appeared less frequently than once every 23 days.
It is interesting that Tsar Peter himself was involved in the editing of the first issues. According to statistics, 39 issues of this print edition were published in 1703. Subsequently, the newspaper was renamed “St. Petersburg Vedomosti”.
