This digital collection represents a subset of the paper holdings of early 20th-century Russian political and satirical journals held in the University of Wisconsin-Madison Libraries in the Department of Special Collections. These journals are, for the most part, representative of political and satirical journals published during the small window of relative press freedom which existed in Russia from the Imperial Decree (Ukaz) on the press issued on November 24th (Old Style), 1905 until new stricter press regulations were issued on March 18th (Old Style), 1906. A few of the items such as Krasnobai and Kolo-kol'chik are difficult to date precisely, and a few items such as Nakanune, Obryv and Proselok represent publications which come from the period following the new March 18th, 1906 regulations.

The collection of these journals held by the University of Wisconsin was undertaken over many years. Some were acquired in 1949 as part of the Russian Underground Collection, more were then acquired in Geneva by then Slavic Bibliographer Alexander Rolich in 1965, and further titles were acquired from an antiquarian book dealer in New York City in 1966. An overview of the collection was written by Rolich for publication in the 1967 U.W. Library newsletter.

In addition to the materials in this collection here at University of Wisconsin-Madison, researchers are also encouraged to visit a similar project (consisting of different journals), which exists at the University of Southern California.