“Under the boot of allies” or an unsuccessful attempt by the British to exploit the Khibiny's mining resources

The article aims to fill the gap in the study of the Khibiny during the period of the Civil War and the intervention. There are no comprehensive publications about the impact of the events of that time on the history of the Khibiny area. In the interpretation of the historical situation, stereotypes of the perception of the territory as not being involved in the events of 1918-1920 prevail, and one of the author’s tasks is to overcome these stereotypes. The article addresses one of the aspects of the activities of foreign interventionists on the Murman coast during the Russian Civil War. The purpose of the paper is to identify the characteristics of the intervention in a specific territory adjacent to the Khibiny Mountains, based on the study of the main hypotheses and theories related to the plans for the colonial exploitation of coal mining resources during the existence of the Northern Oblast (district) in 1918-1920. These plans were developed by the interventionists represented by the British polar explorer Ernest Henry Shackleton. One of the main sources for the research is the correspondence between Shackleton and the authorities of the Northern Oblast, where they discuss the issues of using the resources of the Kola Peninsula from the economic and legal points of view. The main emphasis in the article is put on the information about the stay of the British interventionists in the Khibiny Massif area. The author used and summarized important information about the specifics of the clashes of the allied troops and the White Movement forces with the Soviet partisans near the Khibiny. A set of various sources is applied to study the theoretical and real plans of the British in relation to geological exploration. The author comes to the conclusion that the hypothesis about the British mining operations in the Khibiny Massif with the help of the most primitive adits remains unsubstantiated, but the sources prove the direct presence of the British in the Khibiny Mountains for the purpose of coal mining exploration. The relevance of the study is due to the controversial nature of the issues connected with the civil confrontation and the activities of the allied forces on the Murman coast during the investigated period.