British Pro-Russian Journalism of the Era of the Crimean War (On the Example of the Brochure “The Cross Versus Crescent”, 1854).

Abstract

Since the end of the Napoleonic wars in Britain there have been many essays severely criticizing Russian foreign policy as both dictatorial and aggressive. However, besides Russophobe publicists, since the aggravation of Anglo-Russian relations in the early 1830s their opponents – ideologists of the Manchester school of free-traders – were also active in Great Britain. Some authors such as Richard Cobden, the famous fighter against the Corn Laws, openly spoke in Parliament and in the press. Some authors who were not so authoritative and popular preferred to remain anonymous. Before the outbreak of the Crimean War (1853–1856), the country was flooded with brochures of different political orientation, with declared authorship as well as anonymous. One of such pro-Russian brochures of unknown author “The Cross versus the Crescent, or Religious and political views on the Eastern Question”, more precisely, its translation into Russian, made on January 25 (Old Style), 1854, was found in the State Archive of the Russian Federation (GA RF) among the documents of the fund of the head of the general archive of the Ministry of the Imperial Court G.V. Esipov. It is of interest for analysis as an example of ideological disagreements in English society on the need or danger of breaking with Russia.