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  • The Boer War in the Printed Press of the Great Britain, the USA, Russia and Germany as the Public View’s Reflection in Europe and America

The Boer War in the Printed Press of the Great Britain, the USA, Russia and Germany as the Public View’s Reflection in Europe and America

Student: Kudinov Oleg

Supervisor: Evgeniy Anisimov

Faculty: Saint-Petersburg School of Social Sciences

Educational Programme: History (Bachelor)

Year of Graduation: 2016

The paper is dedicated to the Boer war and how it was covered in the Russian, German, the UK and the USA press. There are two main questions in the research. First is the process of the construction of the images of the enemy, the other, and the friend. How were these images constructed, how were they projected on the people? Another big issue is why Russian Empire and other states were so interested in the conflict which took place in another hemisphere. Was the Boer war interesting for the Russian Empire only because Britain took part in it, or that interest was provoked by the questions of colonialism and nation-building? This research shows that there were 3 types of images in the Russian press which was also typical for Germany and the US. The first, and the most popular one, was strongly anti-British. The second image was neutral and pictured the Great Britain as a pragmatic state, which was looking for new resources to develop its economy. And the third image connects this work to the question of colonialism. A small number of newspapers tried to show that the Boers had slavery, that they were cruel to the slaves, that the Dutch type of colonialism, which had not changed much from the 16th century should be abandoned; and the Great Britain, which gave its slaves freedom in 1833 and tried to develop its colonies, should be closer to the modernizing Russian Empire, which now should decide, what to do with its colonies and peoples. But the Russian Empire sympathized to the conservative Boers, as Russia itself chose the conservative path of the development.

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