The article deals with the largest publishing project of Adam Honory Kirkor (1819-1886), namely the Russia-wide 'Novoye Vremya' daily. In its early years (1868-1871), the newspaper, invariably associated with Russian nationalism, was one of the press organs that advocated Polish-Russian reconciliation after the January Uprising. In most cases, the numerous works about the principal publisher and editor of the daily pay little attention to the St. Petersburg period of his biography, and completely gloss over Kirkor's political legacy. This article aims to fill this gap; its authors place the origins and functioning of 'Novoye Vremya' in the context of the debate on the changes that the Russian Empire underwent during 'the Era of Great Reforms' (i.e. in 1860s and 1870s). The principal focal points of journalistic discourse of that time were the transformation of society and of its structure and the ascendancy and development of nationalism: the ideological allegiance of individual press titles was predicated on their approach to these two phenomena. 'Novoye Vremya' formed part of the trend that was known as 'the aristocratic party', which wished to safeguard the existing social hierarchy (not least by preserving the dominant position of the privileged) and opposed the policy of Russification of the western peripheries of the empire under the guise of egalitarianism. The article presents the diary's programmatic pieces, which are compared to those of the 'Vest'' newspaper, which was the propaganda outlet of the aristocratic party. It also discusses the arguments used by A.H. Kirkor's opponents, both conservatives and liberals. Finally, the views stated by the newspaper are verified against Kirkor's opinions that he formulated (openly or anonymously) after leaving St Petersburg. The source base of the article are the yearbooks of the newspapers 'Vest'', 'Novoye Vremya', 'Vestnik Zapadnoy Rossii' and 'Golos', as well as Kirkor's understudied papers held in the Jagiellonian Library in Krakow.