Documents of the fund of the Police Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (1899) about the British journalist G. Dobson (1854–1938)

Abstract

The article examines and analyzes sources that disclose one of the secrets of obtaining information by an English journalist. The sources are: “The case of a barrister Frantz Olshevsky and others”, which was started as a result of receiving and distributing official documents that were not to publicize. The file containing the documents is kept in the State Archives of the Russian Federation, in the fund of the Department of Police of the Ministry for Internal Affairs. The other is the memoirs of one of the first regular correspondent of the British newspaper The Times in Saint Petersburg at the end of the 19th – the beginning of the 20th century, kept in the personal archive of John Ford, the United Kingdom.
The analysis of the documents reveals the connections between the members of the secret community existed at the territory of the Russian Empire at the end of the 19th century. The purpose of the community was to obtain illegally such official documents as the Reports to the Tzar and the journal of the Committee of Minister from the Office of the Committee of Ministers. Their aim was to publish these documents abroad; in particular, the role of participants in this process is determined and the motives for the commission of malfeasance are identified. A secret relationship of the British journalist with one of the representatives of this community is revealed and its role in the life of this representative is shown.