TASS: abbreviation decoding

2024 Author: Henry Conors | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-12 02:42

Let's consider whether the question is trivial: "How to decipher the abbreviation TASS?"

What is the abbreviation?

This term comes from the Italian abbreviatura and the Latin brevis, short. In ancient books and manuscripts, the abbreviated spellings of words or their groups were called so. Today, an abbreviation is any abbreviation of words or their combinations. Many of them are understandable and familiar to us, because they are actively used in the press and in the available literature. No one doubts the decoding of the abbreviation university (higher educational institution) or CPSU (Communist Party of the Soviet Union). There are abbreviations that are rare and only in specialized literature. Such abbreviations, together with their interpretation, are usually collected in one chapter of the publication (List of abbreviations) or explain their meaning when they are first used in the text of an article or book, for example, "coefficient of performance" (COP).

However, there are quite common abbreviations that can be correctly deciphered only when you know the history of their occurrence and development. TASS also belongs to this abbreviation.

Decryption initial

The appearance of the TASS abbreviation occurred in 1925, when, based on the RussianTelegraph Agency (ROSTA), the official information center of the Union Republic of the RSFSR, the Telegraph Agency of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (TASS) was created. He was given the exclusive right to disseminate information about events outside the Soviet Union.

The agency organizationally included news agencies of the Soviet Union republics: RATAU (Ukraine), KazTAG (Kazakhstan), BelTA (Belarus), UzTAG (Uzbekistan), Gruzinform (Georgia), ATEM (Moldova), Azerinform (Azerbaijan), ElTA (Lithuania), Latininform (Latvia), KirTAG (Kyrgyzstan), TajikTA (Tajikistan), Armenpress (Armenia), TurkmenInform (Turkmenistan), ETA (Estonia), and KarelfinTAG (in the period 1940-1956). However, they were engaged in the dissemination of information only within their territorial entities.

In the period from 1945 to 1991, there was no doubt that the citizens of our country would answer the question: “How is TASS decoded?” It was as simple as two times two makes four. Many citizens of both the Soviet Union and beyond its borders firmly stuck in the memory of the sonorous and memorable word TASS, the decoding of the abbreviation of which was clear and understandable to everyone - the telegraph agency of the Soviet Union. After all, the phrase “TASS is authorized to declare …” sounded so often on radio and television

This agency was one of the biggest information centers in the world. It consisted of 682 correspondent points within the country and more than 90 branches abroad, more than two thousand worked around the world.photojournalists and TASS journalists.

New name

In January 1992, in connection with the departure of the Soviet Union from the world political arena, the Russian News Telegraph Agency (ITAR-TASS) was formed on the basis of the TASS agency. This abbreviation included the former abbreviation. The Soviet Union no longer existed. How should the word TASS be understood now? The decryption now meant "Telegraph Agency of Sovereign Countries". The former abbreviation was left in the new name because this promoted brand was recognizable and authoritative all over the world, and was also directly associated with Russia. It doesn't matter if it was part of the Soviet Union or not.

In addition, the media center with a new name was actually the successor of the Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union, which was enshrined in the decree of the President of the Russian Federation Boris Yeltsin dated December 22, 1993 No. 2257.

But today, not everyone, even in Russia, will correctly answer the question: “What is ITAR-TASS? What does the abbreviation look like?”

Brief description of ITAR-TASS

Until recently, it was the largest Russian news agency, one of the elite of the world's media centers on a par with Reuters, Associated Press and Agence France-Presse. His services covered events in real time. The news feed from the agency was in Russian, English, Spanish, German, French and Arabic. Political, economic, social, cultural and sports aspects of life in Russia and the worldfeatured in about 200 of his periodical information products.

Since 1995, the ITAR-TASS agency has been publishing the Unified News and 34 more operational feeds reflecting comprehensive news in Russia and the world, in which up to 650 messages are transmitted daily. The total amount of transmitted information is equivalent to 300 newspaper pages per day.

The agency has the largest historical photo fund in Russia (more than a million photos and negatives), which is regularly updated with thousands of digital photos. It has at its disposal a unique information and reference fund, an electronic data bank, specialized databases of economic and other fields of information containing millions of documents.

The ITAR-TASS information network includes 42 regional centers and correspondent points in Russia. More than 500 correspondents work in 75 foreign offices of the agency alone.

This media center delivers information to several thousand collective subscribers in Russia and abroad, including more than a thousand media outlets, many institutions, libraries, scientific and educational organizations.

Return to the past

In March 2014, at a meeting of the organizing committee for the preparation for the 110th anniversary of the agency, it was announced that it was planning to return to the old name - TASS. The decoding, of course, must change, because the Soviet Union, as a state, has long ceased to exist. This initiative received unanimous support. It was noted that the decision wouldadopted after the approval of the name change by the founder of the agency - the government of the Russian Federation.

From the history of TASS

"But why the 110th anniversary?" - you ask. After all, the word TASS appeared in 1925. In fact, the agency began its history with the emergence in 1904 of the St. Petersburg Telegraph Agency (SPTA), renamed in 1914 into the Petrograd Telegraph Agency (PTA) and existed until 1918. It was on its basis that ROSTA, already mentioned in this article, was created.

TASS - deciphering the abbreviation today

In 2013, RIA Novosti was liquidated (on its basis, the Rossiya Segodnya agency, which broadcasts abroad, was formed). ITAR-TASS became the only state news agency in Russia. In September 2014, the transition of ITAR-TASS to the former brand, TASS, began. The decoding of the modern abbreviation in full form now looks like "Russian news agency TASS" / "Russian news agency TASS". The transition should be completed by the end of 2015.

The agency's updated logos are already being used in the design of information feeds, publications, websites, etc.

Reading this article will help you answer the questions: "How does TASS stand for?" and “Is this question trivial at present?”