21 January. Grand Prince Vladimir, the president of the Academy and brother of Alexander II, in a letter to the Minister of Domestic Affairs Count D.A. Tolstoi demands that 'drastic measures be taken to prevent the press in its critical views on art and artists from ridiculing the Academy in the most improper, extremely impertinent terms and from deliberately disseminating various lies about her activities'. As a result, the journalists who published such criticisms received 'extremely strict warnings' and editors were warned that further attacks on the Academy 'will inevitably be followed by punitive measures against their publications'.