Background
Aleksey Alekseevich Gatsuk was born on December 2, 1832 in Odessa, Ukraine. He came from the Russian nobles of the Chernigov province.
Aleksey Alekseevich Gatsuk was born on December 2, 1832 in Odessa, Ukraine. He came from the Russian nobles of the Chernigov province.
After graduating from the 4th Moscow gymnasium, Aleksey Alekseevich entered the historical and philological faculty of the Moscow University in 1852. In 1857 he received the degree of the candidate.
In 1859 Aleksey Alekseevich was invited as an associate to the department of Russian literature of the Richelieu Lyceum in Odessa. Due to a clash with the district trustee in 1861, he resigned (dismissed in August 1862) and, having moved to Moscow in 1864, devoted himself to literary work.
The first publications in the press were Novosti malorossiiskoy literatury (1859) and Pismo k redaktoru. Aleksey Alekseevich collaborated with the magazines Rassvet, Sion (a volume Jews in Russian History and Poetry), in the newspaper Vestnik.
Vividly interested in history Aleksey Alekseevich, settled in Moscow in the 60s, was successfully engaged in archeology. Excavations carried out by him brought him fame. He was one of the organizers of the Moscow Archaeological Society (1864), I-VIII archaeological congresses.
Since 1866 Aleksey Alekseevich published Kryostny kalendar, a program of which was developed by him together with V.I. Dahl. For the first ten years was sold 100 thousand copies, in particular, due to weather forecasts for the whole year, which at first were often justified, but later was just a reason for ridicule.
Since 1875, Aleksey Alekseevich published the illustrated literary and political weekly A. Gatsuk's Newspaper, the success of which was facilitated by operational military reports on the events of the Russian-Turkish war of 1877-1878, a large number of biographical essays. Up to 1882 the newspaper followed a very moderate direction, but in 1883-1884 the newspaper received two warnings; its retail sale was prohibited. At the request of L.N. Tolstoy, who recommended Aleksey Alekseevich as his "good friend", N.N. Strakhov in 1886 lifted the ban, but in 1887 the newspaper was suspended for 8 months; Aleksey Alekseevich was forced to sell his printing house and in 1890 the newspaper itself.