Victor V. Alekseev

Associate Professor, PhD in History, Associate Professor of the Department of Source Studies

Lomonosov Moscow State University

(Moscow, Russia)

DOI: https://doi.org/10.22405/2712-8407-2021-4-47-56

Abstract. The purpose of the article is to consider the source potential of materials published in the journal "Britanskiy soyuznik" (British Ally) to study various aspects of the history of the World War II. The relevance of the research is due to the need to expand the source base of historical science. The weekly in question was an official body of the UK Ministry of Information. It was published in Russian and distributed on the territory of the Soviet Union from August 1942 to August 1950. The appearance of this mass media became possible after the conclusion of the Union treaty between the governments of Great Britain and the USSR in May 1942. The editors of the magazine saw their main task in strengthening allied relations in every possible way within the framework of the anti-Hitler coalition, for which they considered it necessary to inform Soviet readers about the most diverse aspects of the war effort, state, political, socio-political, economic, cultural, scientific and everyday life of England itself and the countries of the British Commonwealth. The author analyzed the contents of more than 170 issues of "Britanskiy soyuznik" (British Ally) for the period from 1942 to 1945. It is established that the materials published on its pages belong to various genres of journalism: information, chronicle correspondence, analytical article, review article, essay, fiction, statistical data, etc. The author concludes that most of the facts presented can be considered quite reliable. The facts presented in the journal allow us to reconstruct a multifaceted picture of the events of the Second World War. They give an idea of the military efforts of the allied countries to defeat Hitler's Germany, heroic achievements at the front and in the rear, the organization of production, agriculture and other aspects of the economy, state-political, social, cultural, scientific and everyday life. There is valuable information about the military-strategic cooperation of Great Britain and the USSR, humanitarian contacts of the British public and Soviet people. This opens up the possibility of carrying out research on a wide range of studied problems.
Keywords: Military history, the World War II, mass media, "Britanskiy soyuznik" (British Ally) journal.

Full text of the article (PDF)

For citation: Alekseev, VV 2021, ‘The Britanskiy soyuznik (British Ally) Magazine as a source on the history of the World War II’, Tula Scientific Bulletin. History. Linguistics, issue 4 (8), pp. 47–56. https://doi.org/10.22405/2712-8407-2021-4-47-56 (in Russ.)

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