From the Taiping Rebellion to the Russo-Japanese War: Rumors and Shifts in Social Power in the Late Qing as Recorded in Russian Sources

Russian sources documenting rumors in the late Qing Dynasty reveal their significant functions during major historical events including the Taiping Rebellion, border crises, the Boxer Rebellion and Manchurian Plague, and the New Policies period culminating in the Russo-Japanese War. These rumors exhibited multifaceted roles across different stages:challenging the official information monopoly and exposing state-population divisions during the Taiping Rebellion; uncovering Russian colonial ambitions while reflecting the Qing government's strategic shift from passive response to active resource development for sovereignty defense in border crises; carrying nationalist sentiments that clashed with Western modernizing knowledge during the Boxer Rebellion and plague, highlighting conflicts between modern discipline and traditional society; and deeply interpreting power dynamics during late court transitions and the Russo-Japanese War, forming a mechanism of reverse panopticism, while the Qing government utilized the discourse of "strict neutrality" to assert sovereign claims. As external records, these Russian rumors illuminate the operational mechanisms of social power relations in the late Qing (encompassing information control, sovereignty contests, nationalist mobilization, modern discipline, and structural deconstruction) and their imbalance and evolution under internal and external pressures, offering a unique perspective from marginal discourse for understanding the period.