Foreign military journalists in Manchuria in 1904-1905: features of daily activities

Abstract

The author examines some aspects of the daily activities of foreign war correspondents who accompanied the Manchurian army in the Russian-Japanese War of 1904-1905. The article is based on texts published by journalists, materials from foreign periodicals, documentation from military and foreign ministries. Attention is paid both to the everyday peculiarities of the professional conditions of accredited journalists in Manchuria, and to the characteristics of the social environment, which had a significant impact on the process of collecting information in the theater of military operations. The issues of interaction of foreign correspondents with representatives of the Russian army, the local Chinese population and other reporters are touched upon, which is closely related to their possession of relevant foreign language competencies. The dynamics of the number of foreign military personnel in the theater of war and its connection with the course of hostilities are analyzed. The use of the historical and comparative method made it possible to identify common and special features in the situation of foreign reporters and other guests of Manchuria. The differences revealed in the characteristics of daily activities between foreign war correspondents and representatives of the Russian press, as a rule, were associated with a language barrier for foreigners and greater distrust of them on the part of censorship authorities. In comparison with military attaches, correspondents noted the complete independence of the journalistic corps in solving everyday issues in Manchuria. In the course of the study, several stages were identified in the dynamics of the number of foreign reporters in the theater of war. The correlation of the pace of correspondents' accreditations with events at the front has been revealed and demonstrated. It has been established that the 1904 campaign, especially its summer and autumn events, received the most attention from foreign journalists. For the first time, a range of issues is outlined for the study of which the legacy of foreign war correspondents may have the greatest scientific and cognitive value.