Based on a wide range of sources and archival materials the article analyzes the position of the Russian publisher and publicist I. A. Arsenyev on the Polish issue on the eve of the Polish Uprising of 1863–1864. Arsenyev, seconded to Warsaw in 1861 to compile correspondences, was a journalist of a new format. He not only objectively recorded the events that contributed to the escalation of the Russian-Polish conflict, but after analyzing them, outlined his vision of the problem in a special note, which aroused interest in the highest government circles.