The Peasant Reform of 1861 in the Russian and English Newspaper Press

The article is a comparative analysis of the perception of the Peasant Reform of 1861 in leading Russian (St. Petersburg Vedomosti, Moskovskie Vedomosti) and British (The Times, The Guardian, Daily Telegraph) newspapers. The Russian press, especially the official press, shaped the narrative of national unity, the sacredness of the act of liberation and loyalty to the monarch, highlighting in detail the practical difficulties of implementing the reform, but within the framework of its unconditional historical necessity. The British press went from cautious optimism (1857–1861) to deep skepticism and criticism (1865–1870), emphasizing the half-hearted nature of the reform, the continued economic dependence of the peasantry, authoritarian methods of its implementation, and predicting long-term systemic contradictions. The key difference was in perspective: The Russian publications focused on the current problems of implementation within the accepted paradigm, while the British assessed the reform through the prism of liberal capitalism and parliamentarism, focusing on its systemic consequences for politics, society and the military potential of the empire. The scientific novelty of the research lies in identifying the historical continuity of narrative models: a comparative analysis shows how the mechanisms of legitimization of reform in the official press of the 19th century and its criticism in the British media form the prototypes of modern strategies for covering socio-political transformations. This historical and media analysis provides a key to understanding the stable discursive framework in which Russia interprets its own reforms and the outside world interprets its policies, which is especially important in the context of the current information confrontation.

The Peasant Reform, comparative analysis, St. Petersburg Gazette, Moscow Gazette, The Times, The Guardian, Daily Telegraph, British press, Alexander II, public opinion