Perception of the Holy Alliance's politics in the newspaper "Le Mémorial bordelais"

The subject of the study presented in the article is the reflection of the policy of the Holy Alliance in the publications of the French newspaper "Le Mémorial bordelais" during the period of 1816–1825. The object of the research consists of the issues of the newspaper "Le Mémorial bordelais" – a prominent political newspaper in the Gironde department during the specified period. It examines the influence of the newspaper's ideological attitudes on the coverage of the alliance's activities, the interaction of monarchic and liberal tendencies in the publications, and the peculiarities of the representation of key events of the era. Special attention is paid to the analysis of contradictions between the official rhetoric and the real policy of the Holy Alliance. In particular, the author considers the newspaper's coverage of the Greek uprising and analyzes how it aligns with the principles declared by the alliance. The study also highlights the pragmatism of the newspaper in question, characteristic of a publication aimed at a provincial reader. The research is based on the application of an imagological approach, which allows tracing the formation and transformation of the image of the Holy Alliance in the material of the French press. This work represents the first study of the imagology of the Holy Alliance based on the material of the French press. The article makes a local contribution to this discourse through the example of the conservative provincial newspaper "Le Mémorial bordelais." The conducted research has shown that the editorial board of the newspaper largely supported the ideas of the Holy Alliance throughout the specified period, despite its internal heterogeneity. An exception, which is given particular attention in the article, is the issue of the Greek uprising, where the editorial board found a contradiction between the alliance's policy and its fundamental principles. However, even in this case, the editorial board placed blame on the governments of the member countries of the alliance rather than on the monarchs leading them. The study demonstrated that the newspaper showed an ability to simultaneously support the official course of its country while maintaining a certain degree of independence in its assessments.