"The heroic struggle of the Korean people against foreign invaders": coverage of the war in Korea (1950–1953) in Orthodox journalism

Aim. To analyze the journalistic materials of the Moscow Patriarchate Journal dedicated to the Korean War (1950–1953).Methodology. The key research method was content analysis. The classification of journalistic materials from the Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate dedicated to the Korean War (1950–1953) was carried out; probable censorship restrictions faced by the editorial office when publishing materials about the war were identified; the influence of Soviet state propaganda during the war years on the published materials was analyzed.Results. It is concluded that the materials of the Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate were subjected to strict censorship, the purpose of which was to use it as a channel of state propaganda. This determined the features of the journalistic materials devoted to the Korean War: a huge number of Soviet state propaganda cliches; a mixture of the Soviet foreign policy agenda with the authors' theological point of view; encouraging the Soviet citizen to recall the horrors of the Great Patriotic War and comparing the American soldier with the German soldier; reflections on peace in Korea were closely linked to the end of the Cold War.Research implications. An analysis of the journalistic materials published in the Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate on the Korean War revealed that the key topic of concern for the editors and authors was not the description of military operations, but rather the causes of the war, the images of the opposing sides, the war crimes committed by the American forces, and reflections on the future of the world.