Events of the Russo-Japanese War on the pages of Professor A. D. Belyaev diary

Abstract

This publication is devoted to the selected diary entries of Professor of the Moscow Theological Academy Alexander Dmitrievich Belyaev (1849–1919), which are kept in the Manuscripts Department of the Russian State Library. This is an unique source of personal origin, which Prof. A.D. Belyaev kept on a daily basis practically all the time he was in the theological school and the Holy Trinity-St. Sergius Lavra, for almost forty years — from 1872 to 1919. The information given by Prof. Belyaev in his diary entries can be classified by its origin into two groups: his personal observations on the church inner life he made as a professor at the Theological Academy, his notes on newspapers from news reports. Being a man of monarchist views, Alexander Dmitrievich deeply experienced the failures and defeats of the country associated with the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905. On the pages of his diary, he tries to describe the events he experienced in detail, sometimes rewriting data from military reports with mathematical precision. However, Professor Belyaev did not simply state these or those events, but tried to find the reason for successes and failures, or makes a forecast of how it will affect the future fate of the Fatherland. It is necessary to notice that many analytical conclusions of Alexander Dmitrievich from the experienced events would later come true.