DOMESTIC JOURNALISM ABOUT RUSSIAN-BRITISH CONTRADICTIONS IN CENTRAL ASIA IN THE LATE XIX CENTURY

Abstract

The article deals with the assessment of the opposition between Russia and Great Britain in Central Asia given by a number of Russian periodicals of the late 19th century. The purpose of the article is to systematize and reconstruct the views of publicists on the policies of the two empires in the region strategically important for them. The domestic publicists’ interpretations of the main components of the Russian-British contradictions are analyzed. The arguments used by some publicists to justify the activities of the Russian government in opposition to the English policy in the region are given. The way various publications described the goals and methods of Russia and Britain’s advance into Central Asia is also clarified, as well as their interpretation of the two states’ foreign policy features. The authors conclude that the conservative authors focused on the geopolitical rivalry of the two empires, regarding the expansion of Russia’s sphere of influence as fully justified and logical. The liberals believed that the resolution of contradictions in the region between the two empires was possible in case of the spheres of their influence were delimited, the borders were established and the buffer zones were eliminated. The research makes it possible to find out the common traits and the particular ones in the way colonial expansion was perceived, as well as to correlate between the ideological attitudes of the periodicals and their understanding of the essence of the country’s national interests.