Abstract: The subject of the study is the decrypted telegrams of Swedish diplomatic missions sent to the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Swedish Kingdom K. Wallenberg, intercepted by the special services of the General Staff of the Russian Army at the end of 1915-1916. Sweden, while remaining a formally neutral power, nevertheless not only closely followed the events on the fronts of the First World War, but also conducted active trade and provided transit services to both Germany and Russia, deriving huge economic benefits from this situation. The documents of this period mainly cover the events in the Balkans, where the allied forces of the Entente tried to deploy the so-called Salonika (Macedonian) front to help the Serbian army and to divert enemy forces from other fronts. Based on the methods of historicism and systematic research, the reports of diplomats who informed their leadership about the events around Thessaloniki, about the situation and actions of the allied forces and the troops of the Central Powers, about the further intentions of the opposing forces, about the fate of Serbia and Montenegro, express assessments and opinions on specific issues and the prospects for the development of the war. Since there were supporters of both the Entente and the Austro-German bloc in the Swedish elite, the following conclusions can be drawn from the documents under consideration. They allow us to assess the range of issues of the most interest to Swedish diplomats and the Swedish government, as well as the degree of their awareness, the quality of information sources and the level of understanding of the content of the events taking place. These documents are very important for clarifying Sweden's position during the First World War. Since there were supporters of both the Entente and the Austro-German bloc in the Swedish elite, it can be understood from the documents under consideration that during this period it became increasingly obvious to Swedish diplomats that despite all the difficulties, including in the Balkans, the preponderance of the Entente countries was more likely. Most of the analyzed archival materials are being introduced into scientific circulation for the first time.

Abstract: The author examines the reports of Russian consular services located in different countries, which served as important sources of various commercial and political information for periodicals issued by the Ministry of Finance of Imperial Russia at the beginning of the twentieth century. The subject of the study is the information policy of one of the leading government departments, which was one of the first to deploy a wide correspondent network around the world in order to obtain information about the most important events in the world economy and politics, analyze them and bring them to the main consumer – the domestic business class, who was extremely interested in promptly obtaining this information. The scientific novelty of the publication lies in the fact that the reports of the Russian consuls, revealed during the analysis of archival documents containing correspondence between the Trade Department of the Ministry of Finance and the Editorial Office of the time-based publications of this ministry, have not yet been reflected in the scientific literature. Meanwhile, market, industrial, stock exchange, banking, socio-political information, which regularly appeared in the "Bulletin of Finance, Industry and Trade" and the daily "Trade and Industrial Newspaper", played an important role for the orientation of business circles not only in the processes on world markets, but also for the political development of the domestic bourgeoisie, understanding its role in the socio-economic and political life of Russia during the period under review. And the correspondent network of these publications, the use of technological innovations became the basis for the creation of first a Trade and Telegraph Agency under the Ministry of Finance, and then a government agency.The St. Petersburg Telegraph Agency, which initiated the formation of the state information policy.