Работа Н. Ф. Дубровина «Закавказье от 1803 до 1806 года» как начальный этап в создании «Истории войны и владычества русских на Кавказе»

What’s New in Russian Military History and Why You Should Care Josh Sanborn (bio) Bruce W. Menning, Bayonets Before Bullets: The Imperial Russian Army, 1861–1914. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1992 (cloth) and 2000 (paper). 334 pp. ISBN 0-253-21380-0 and 0-253-21380-0. $45.00 and $22.95. William C. Fuller Jr., Strategy and Power in Russia, 1600–1914. New York: Free Press, 1992. 557 pp. ISBN 0-684-86382-0. $25.00. Oleg Rudol′fovich Airapetov, Zabytaia kar′era “russkogo Mol′tke”: Nikolai Nikolaevich Obruchev (1830–1904). St. Petersburg: Izdatel′stvo “Aleteiia,” 1998. 301 pp. ISBN 5-89329-037-2. David Alan Rich, The Tsar’s Colonels: Professionalism, Strategy, and Subversion in Late Imperial Russia. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998. 293 pp. ISBN 0-674-91111-3. $49.95. When one thinks of neglected approaches to the study of the Russian past, military history rarely comes to mind. In mass market publications and on television, military historians are, to say the least, well represented. At Borders Bookstore and on the History Channel, the feats and defeats of Russian arms occupy a large share of the space devoted to Russian history. One would also be hard pressed to argue that military history has been ignored in scholarly treatments of the Russian past. Military explanations have been adduced (and in many cases have become orthodox) for many important "social" events in Russian history, such as the implementation of serfdom and its later abolition.1 Nevertheless, there is a sense among active military historians that the most recent work in military history, by junior and senior scholars alike, remains unread by most of the field. Many scholars, of course, feel underappreciated, but [End Page 615] there seems to be something a bit more substantial about the complaints of military historians that their subject is ignored by the rest of the profession. To take just one example, a series of excellent edited collections on late imperial Russian history appeared in the 1990s, yet virtually none included articles on military history. Russian military intellectuals, line officers, and soldiers were involved in the "quest for public identity," in the development of the professions, in activities that can only be called subversive of the autocratic political system, and in the engagement with "Russia's Orient." But military history is at the center of none of the articles in the major collections on those themes that have appeared over the past decade.2 At a time when new historical paradigms are being formed as a result of the "cultural turn" and the opening of the Russian archives, this lack of integration is damaging not only to the professional egos of military historians but to the quality of scholarship for years to come. The sense of exclusion is felt acutely by many of my colleagues in military history, even the successful ones. One scholar who began his career in military history advised me – too late to make any difference in my choice of dissertation topic, but early enough to prompt years of anxiety – that studying the army had two major drawbacks. First, your classes fill up with young men who want to show you sketches of warplanes, and second, no one reads your work. At that point, I had had no luck getting funding to do research for a dissertation that foregrounded the notion of "militarization." After dropping that word from the title of my project, I received the next four grants for which I applied.3 From that point forward, I was careful to make clear to anyone who asked that I was not writing a dissertation that could be called "military history," even though the focus of my manuscript was military conscription. This caution is widely shared. In 1994, the American Historical Association found itself in the awkward position of awarding its Birdsall prize in military history to a bright young historian named Leonard Smith, who admitted on the first page of his book on the French [End Page 616] Army mutinies of 1917 that he "fretted endlessly about being tagged a 'military historian'" as he wrote the text.4 Smith's fretting is understandable. He was probably correct to sense...

Testing Citizenship, Regulating History: The Fatal Impact

Reviewed by: A Military History of Russia From Ivan the Terrible to the War in Chechnya Walter C. Uhler A Military History of Russia From Ivan the Terrible to the War in Chechnya. By David R. Stone. Westport, Conn. Praeger Security International, 2006. ISBN 0-275-98502-4. Maps. Index. Pp. xiv, 259. $49.95. David Stone, Professor of Russian History at Kansas State University, has written his latest book in order to accomplish two primary objectives: (1) To cover both Russian and Soviet military history in one volume for the first time, and (2) to provide an accessible military history of Russia for use by military historians. Underlying his second objective is Professor Stone's belief that the discipline of military history suffers from a tunnel vision in which "military history starts with the U.S. Civil War, and it stretches from the Mississippi River to central Europe" (p. ix). It's his opinion that a military history that excludes the rest of the world, especially Russia, "is inherently incomplete" (ibid.). His secondary objectives include: (1) a cursory examination of the battles, campaigns, and wars in Russia's history; and (2) the illumination of "the complex and reciprocal relationship between military and society in Russia" (ibid.). Although arranged chronologically, each chapter in Stone's book examines Russia's struggles to overcome social, economic, and technological backwardness, which were exacerbated by the militarization of Russian society, which, in turn, was necessitated by the requirement to defend vast amounts of open territory. According to Stone, "from its beginnings, Russia has been a society organized for war" (p. xii). Although there is little in Professor Stone's survey that is new to the student of Russian military history, it is grounded in sound scholarship. Moreover, by avoiding entangling details, Stone is able to achieve his objectives. His survey is well written and completely accessible to the educated layman. That's not to say, however, that the book is without its flaws. For example, [End Page 542] Stone employs the term "absolutism" to describe the rule of Peter the Great and Catherine the Great, but defines it in European terms: "Absolutist rulers sought to eliminate or disarm all domestic rivals for power, whether powerful regional elites or obstructionist representative institutions, in order to increase their capacity to wield power" (p. 30). Yet, Stone also refers to a "particular Russian brand of absolutism" devoted to "improving the efficiency and extractive capacity of the Russian state in order to boost its power" (p. 44). Moreover, he appears to be unaware of recent scholarship on Russian absolutism, which "emphasizes cooperation between the tsar and the ruling elite and between Russia's central government and the provinces" (Chester Dunning and Norman S. Smith, "Moving Beyond Absolutism: Was Early Modern Russia a 'Fiscal-Military' State?" Russian History/Histoire Russe 33 [Spring 2006]: 39). Stone also is quite mistaken when he alleges that President Reagan's "Star Wars" missile defense plan "terrified the Soviet leadership" (p. 237). Nevertheless, Stone concludes his splendid history by putting it to use. He compares previous fifteen-year spans of military revitalization—under Peter the Great, under Dmitrii Miliutin, and under Joseph Stalin—with Russia's martial renaissance since 1991. Thus, his conclusion: "Seen in historical perspective, the outlook is gloomy" (p. 246). Walter C. Uhler Russian-American International Studies Association Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Copyright © 2007 Society for Military History

Military History

The 1990s witnessed a modest yet remarkable flowering of scholarship in Rus- sian and Soviet military history. New ground was broken, many taboos were dis- carded, and the subject made more accessible. Still, progress came more by fits and starts than by leaps and bounds, as traditional and novel obstacles imposed limits both on the exercise of the historian's craft and on the field's quest for a place in the larger disciplinary and public sun. Despite vastly changed circum- stances, the pursuit of military history failed to divorce itself entirely from poli- tics in post-communist Russia, while nearly everywhere historians grappled not only with obstacles to sources and resources but also with fresh competition for diminishing attention. Two significant studies, William C. Fuller, Jr.'s Strategy and Power in Russia, 1600-1914 and Gabriel Gorodetsky's Grand Delusion: Stalin and the German Invasion of Russia, reflect anomalies inherent in the changed post-Cold War era. 1 Published respectively near the beginning and end of the decade, they form figu- rative bookends for the period, with each mirroring the progress and unfulfilled promise of the 1990s. Neither book was military history as traditionally con- ceived, yet each relied heavily on the field to afford significant insights into the larger Russian and Soviet past. Although both volumes justly garnered their share of scholarly and critical acclaim, both also embodied the frustrations inherent in the recent pursuit of Russian and Soviet military history. Neither author enjoyed unhampered access to archives, nor, because of various non-academic factors, ranging from fickleness of climate to ill-timed publication, did their books strike the intended resonant chord with a larger reading public. It was as if attention too long riveted on the Russian and Soviet military colossus had wearily turned elsewhere. Lacking assured archival access and consistent Cold War-style fixation on military issues from the media, even genuine breakthroughs remained muted. To paraphrase an American military historian writing about the vicissitudes of

Introduction. The proposed article reveals the main difficulties faced by researchers in studying the events of World War II in Ukraine. Namely, how objectively the factual basis of this period was formed. Therefore, the use of new documents allows to overcome the one-sidedness in the coverage of the complexity of hostilities in Ukraine. In this special place may be occupied by the use, still virtually unknown to researchers, the materials of the collections “Russian Archive. Great Patriotic War “, which contains many unique documents directly related to the planning and course of hostilities in Ukraine. Historical works and materials on the history of the Second World War in Ukraine, which were created in Soviet times, do not provide adequate coverage of hostilities, the military-political command of the Red Army and the main political board and many other key moments of this period. Party and state institutions were the monopoly customers for all literature on the history of the war. Documents about the war were distorted during the war. The myth of 10 Stalinist coups is convincing evidence. Many aspects of the documents of the Stake and the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces related to the planning and implementation of defense and offensive operations in Ukraine allow us to trace the main causes of Red Army failures in the campaigns of 1941-1942, as well as Of Ukraine. Their main goal was to demonstrate the crimes of the Nazis and the heroism of the Red Army. Instead, the illiterate, and sometimes just criminal, orders of the Soviet command at the beginning of the war were deliberately ignored. In addition, historians were quite transparently forbidden to touch on many important issues, ie research topics were strictly regulated by official censorship. This was primarily due to the fact that in this way the official circles hid from the public the full truth about the war. The use of any facts with a minus sign was prohibited. The work of historians was severely dependent on official interpretations of certain events, the role of researchers was often reduced to commenting and the ability to illustrate positive results, successes and victories. In addition, Ukrainian historiography was not independent, it developed and existed exclusively in the all-Union party-Soviet channel. It should be noted that this collection of documents was published in a very short time at the end of the perestroika in the conditions of a certain pluralism of the decrepit Soviet regime. But even at that time it was printed in a very small circulation. Analysis and study of virtually unknown sources, which were published in the post-Soviet period and are now classified as “secret”, gives a unique opportunity for modern scientists to objectively reproduce the events of World War II in Ukraine. Purpose. The aim of the article is a detailed study of the documents and materials of the collections of the series “Russian Archive. Red Series” and analysis of the information covered in them in order to obtain more objective facts directly related to the planning and course of hostilities in Ukraine. In order to carefully study the key aspects of large-scale and tragic events of World War II, which took place in Ukraine. In Soviet times, archival documents illustrated the official paradigm of interpretation of the events of World War II in Ukraine. Results. The result of the study is the opportunity to obtain a more complete and objective coverage of the events of World War II in Ukraine thanks to, still virtually unknown researchers, unique materials from the series “Russian Archive. Red Series”. Originality. The scientific novelty of the research results is that the formation and publication of the publication in the early 90’s, thanks to the energy and perseverance of O. Yakovlev is extremely important for researchers, and allows to more accurately recreate the extremely tragic period of World War II. This is especially important given that due to negative for democracy and pluralism views of the development of domestic political processes in the Russian Federation, access to them for researchers, as in the days of totalitarianism is closed again. Collections of a series of documents “Russian Archive. The Red Series” allows modern researchers to give an objective assessment of this period, to trace the true nature of hostilities, the efficiency of the reaction of the Soviet military and political leadership to the changes taking place on the fronts. Conclusion. Thus, the inclusion in the scientific circulation of new documents and materials contained in a series of collections makes it possible to significantly expand the source base for studying the events of World War II in Ukraine and to conduct an objective study of this period. Of particular value is information on important strategic operations, as well as highlighting difficulties and miscalculations in the operational management of troops during defense. It should be noted that the collection includes documents of Soviet governmental and military structures, including the USSR State Defense Committee, the Supreme Command, the People’s Commissariat of Defense, the General Staff, the Front Command and the Army.

This book brings to light Russia's undeservedly-obscure military past, rectifying the tendency of American and Western military historians to neglect the Russian side of things. Russia, as both a Western and non-Western society, challenges our thinking about Western military superiority. Russia has always struggled with backwardness in comparison with more developed powers, at some times more successfully than others. The imperatives of survival in a competitive international environment have, moreover, produced in Russian society a high degree of militarization. While including operational and tactical detail that appeals to military history enthusiasts, this book simultaneously integrates military history into the broader themes of Russian history and draws comparisons to developments in Europe. The book also challenges old assumptions about the Russian military. Russian military history cannot be summed up simply in a single stock phrase, whether perennial incompetence or success only through stolid, stoic defense; it also shows numerous examples of striking offensive successes. Stone traces Russia's fascinating military history, and its long struggle to master Western military technology without Western social and political institutions. It covers the military dimensions of the emergence of Muscovy, the disastrous reign of Ivan the Terrible, and the subsequent creation of the new Romanov dynasty. It deals with Russia's emergence as a great power under Peter the Great and culminating in the defeat of Napoleon. After that triumph, the book argues, Russia's social and economic stagnation undermined its enormous military power and brought catastrophic defeat in the Crimean War. The book then covers imperial Russia's long struggle to reform its military machine, with mixed results in the Russo-Japanese War and World War I. The Russian Revolution created a new Soviet Russia, but this book shows the continuity across that divide. The Soviet Union's interwar innovations and its harrowing experience in World War II owed much to imperial Russian precedents. A superpower after the war, the Soviet Union's military might was purchased at the expense of continuing economic backwardness. Paradoxically, the very militarization intended to provide security instead destroyed the Soviet Union, leaving a new Russia behind the West economically. Just as there was a great deal of continuity after 1917, this book demonstrates how the new Russian military has inherited many of its current problems from its Soviet predecessor. The price that Russia has paid for its continued existence as a great power, therefore, is the overwhelming militarization of its society and economy, a situation it continues to struggle with.

史政組織為近代軍事參謀組織下之重要一環，各國藉由史政組織研究歷次戰爭，總結戰史經驗，減少或避免再度發生之前錯誤，做為日後作戰之鑑戒。德國是最早設置近代軍事參謀組織之國家，19世紀初期德國開始重視研究戰史，19世紀中後期，世界列強如美、日、俄、法等國之軍事參謀組織開始成立相關單位編纂戰史。 中國自古以來雖有史官負責紀錄正史，但並無專門記錄有關軍事史之組織，有關軍事之記載則分散於浩瀚史書群或個人著作中，直到清末設置近代軍事參謀組織「軍咨府」，中國開始有專門負責編纂戰史之單位。國民政府成立後，設立軍事委員會，該會下設參謀團（或名參謀部、參謀廳），其職掌有負編纂戰史之責，民國17年改為參謀本部，該部總務廳負責編纂戰史，同時也設置「戰史編纂組」，27年改編為軍令部，第一廳負責蒐編戰史，第二廳負責蒐編敵軍戰史，同時亦設置戰史編纂委員會負責蒐編中日戰史。 戰後，軍事委員會改組國防部，成立國防部史料局負責蒐編戰史之責，施行一陣後更名為史政局，民國38年因為國共內戰配合戰鬥內閣縮編人員，史政局縮編為史政處。史政處員額較之前少，但史政處時期處於「反共抗俄、反攻大陸」剛開始的階段，需要編輯大量與「共匪」、登陸與反登陸、對國民政府有正面宣傳等類的軍事史書，因編制人員不足及蔣中正先生等軍事高層逐漸重視史政的教育、借鑑等功能之因，希望藉由史政，強化軍方及一般民眾精神上的戰力，因此在民國46年7月，史政處再度擴編為史政局，史政局時期，繼續推行史政處時期業務，人員亦有增減，相較於史政處仍是較多；同時因為史政推行已久，累積之檔案極多，因此建立「國軍檔案室」，作為永久保存國軍檔案之單位。後來因應國軍需求實施精簡案，民國62年5月1日，史政局與編譯局合併為史政編譯局。 本文主要研究時間為民國35年國防部史料局成立62年5月1日國防部史政局與編譯局合併為止，亦會稍加敘述戰前國軍史政組織與部分列強史政組織。本文研究可分為三部分，首先國軍各時期史政組織名稱說法不一，本文試圖釐清戰前國軍史政組織之名稱、職掌、編制等。第二，試圖釐清戰後史政組織演變經由擴編、縮編與再擴編之原因，並描述戰後國軍史政組織之組織規模、人員編制、行政制度、訓練制度等制度；第三，試圖重建戰前、戰後國軍史政組織編纂史書之過程、方法。

The notion of crisis has evolved from a sudden, acute event to a broader disruption of stable historical narratives and the future. This article explores how the crisis surrounding the Russian invasion of Ukraine challenged the inevitability of Poland's membership in the West and threatened to catapult it back into a history of war and Russian domination. However, for Polish volunteers aiding Ukrainian refugees and the military, the crisis was also a temporality in which their actions took on outsize importance. By working on seemingly mundane tasks of provisioning and transport, they attempted to shape history and, in doing so, redefined the concept of humanitarianism in times of crisis. This article highlights how crisis can serve as a potential for collective action, blurring the distinction between individual and collective agency and redefining how people respond to crises.

The published and unpublished scientific and journalistic works on the history of the World War II by the Odessa historian S. I.-Ya. Borovoy are considered in the article. An attempt was made to objectively analyze the data of scientific works, their significance for studying the history of the World War II, to identify positive and negative sides in them in the context of the development of Soviet historical science, to understand their historiographic and methodological value, influence on modern historical science and the current perception of the events of the World War II. The result of the active participation of S. I.-Ya. Borovoy in the scientific and organizational work on the study of the history of the World War II was the publication of his works, which were defined as a task of national importance, as evidenced by the fact that the work of the scientist was carried out on the basis of a special government decision to create Commissions on the history of the Great Patriotic War at the union, republican, regional and district levels with the support of the relevant levels of the Communist Party, which determined their activities political and ideological orientation. His first articles were written on the basis of collected materials, documents, testimonies of eyewitnesses and participants in the events. The content of these articles was aimed at raising the mass consciousness of society, which contributed to the manifestation of the patriotic spirit in the course of a fierce confrontation, the willingness to endure everyday hardships in order to protect the country, to sacrifice personal interests in the name of preserving and strengthening statehood. Particular attention was paid to the heroic struggle of the Soviet people at the front, in the ranks of the partisan movement, and selfless labor in the rear. The decisive importance of the activities of the Communist Party as a leading, inspiring force was constantly emphasized, which led to the formation of the fundamental ideological orientation of the Soviet era. The vices of ideological content in the works of S. I.-Ya. Borovoy were caused by the political situation that took place in the life of Soviet society, in particular in the studies of historians.

The article deals with issues of everyday life of Adygs (Circassians) under conditions of a protracted military conflict during the Caucasian war in the first half of 19th century. Based on the recollections of eyewitnesses and direct participants in the events (Russian military officers and foreign observers), literary works of local authors and folklore sources, authors of the study explore a human factor in the history of the Caucasian War, in terms of emotions, dramatic experiences, fears, and transformation of ethnic consciousness. In this regard, histories of everyday life, gender history, and history of mentality appear to be the most productive research methods and approaches. Using related research tools allowed analyzing an inner perception of death of Adygs in the violent conflict. Adygs appear in the study not as a faceless side of the conflict, but as an active and personalized historical subject. The Caucasian war was not only a chain of political and war events, but was full of personal stories, tragedies of loss and sorrow, female experiences. The routine of death strengthened a respect for the dead, rebooting related symbolic content and ritual practices. At the same time, an erosion of the mental foundations of traditional culture occurs due to the fundamental changes in the conditions of prolonged war.

The article analyzes the editorial policy of the periodical scientific publications of Russia in 2008 and 2009 in the field of coverage of the history of the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945. To identify the dynamics in the development of leading scientific and popular scientific publications in the field of historical sciences (Voprosy Istorii, Military Historical Journal, New and Modern History, Rodina, Russian History), the indicators of their publication activity in 2019 and 2020 on military history, the history of the Great Patriotic and World War II are compared since 2008. The role of the All-Russian media contest “Patriot of Russia” is highlighted, including the features of its holding in the Year of Memory and Glory in the Russian Federation.

The purpose of the research — to analyze the historiography of the role of V.A. Antonov-Ovseenko in the preparation of Volume I of the History of the Civil War in the USSR. The article considers one of the urgent problems of the historiography of the Civil War in Russia, including the analysis of the role of V.A. Antonov-Ovseenko in the preparation of the publication of the «History of the Civil War in the USSR» in 1928-1936. The author identifies and compares the existing concepts regarding the military, political and diplomatic activities of V.A. Antonov-Ovseenko. Special attention is paid to the study of time and the reasons for V.A.'s criticism. Antonov-Ovseenko projects the publication of two volumes of the «History of the Civil War in the USSR», as well as his analysis of the events of the beginning of the active phase of hostilities in Ukraine. Results. The author concludes that scientific works devoted to the biography of V.A. Antonov-Ovseenko do not fully and comprehensively reveal all aspects of his participation in the preparation of volume I of the History of the Civil War in the USSR. Therefore, the study of this stage of his political activity needs further comprehensive development.

The article has found that education in the Russian Federation is one of the powerful tools of propaganda, along with religion and the media sphere, aimed at educating citizens of the Russian Federation, forming a sense of patriotism, love for the motherland, respect for their people, loyalty to their country, pride of their motherland, heroism of their ancestors, respect for state symbols.However, when V. Putin came to power, history was gradually turned into a component of propaganda both inside the country and in information wars against other countries. This became especially noticeable after taking a course to implement the idea of reviving a new empire in the post-Soviet space (the so-called concept of “Russkiy mir” (“Russian world”).Material about wars is present in textbooks and reference manuals. Actually, it has informative and developmental potential, and is also widely used in the military-and-patriotic education of children and for propaganda purposes. The purpose of the article is to highlight and characterize the peculiarities of the methodology of studying the history of wars in schools of the Russian Federation at the current stage.The content of textbooks in History of the Russian Federation as the main source of ideologically biased information and consistently considering the territories of the modern Ukrainian state and a number of other post-Soviet countries as actually historical Russian lands was characterized. With the help of textbooks in History and educational-and-methodological literature, history teachers actively implement the necessary narratives that justify the aggressive foreign policy of the Russian Federation and educate “ideologically correct” young people who must continue the aggressive course of development of their country.Forms and methods of influencing pupils at the traditional and non-standard lessons, using active and interactive methods, were determined. The possibilities of lessons-disputes, the use of pedagogical technologies (modular, project, game, etc.) were shown.It has been found that three foundations on which Russia has built its education are implemented today: love for the “big motherland”, President V. Putin, and gratitude to the grandfathers who brought victory in the Second World War. Keywords: historical education; history of Russia; history of the Great Patriotic War; textbook; history teacher; military-and-patriotic education; narratives; methods; techniques and means of teaching history.

Although a vast and often excellent literature exists on Napoleonic Wars, there remain important gaps and misconceptions in our understanding both of wars themselves and of context in which they were fought. Probably most significant of these gaps and misconceptions concern Russia's role in international relations (including, of course, wars) of Napoleonic era, which is very imperfectly understood both in Russia and in the (1) Some reasons for misunderstanding are specific to Russian or Western historians: in other respects, however, Russian and Western scholarship on era shares similar weaknesses. In this article I look first at Western and then at Russian writing on Russia's role in Napoleon's downfall. I seek to explain why Russia's part in collapse of Napoleon's empire has been misunderstood and underestimated both in Russia and West. I also point to ways in which this has distorted a realistic and balanced understanding of defeat of Napoleon both in Russia and abroad. Given manner in which wars of this era were mobilized by nationalist mythmakers, it is perhaps not surprising that enormous Russian contribution to destruction of Napoleon's empire should have been played down by British, French, and German historians. A more interesting problem is why Russian historians have also contributed to this underestimation of their own country's efforts. This article points finger, above all, at Russian obsession with military operations in 1812, which existed before 1917 Revolution but grew even stronger in Soviet era. The reverse side of this obsession was that Russian historians largely ignored events of 1813-14. Not merely did this do no justice to immense military-operational and logistical efforts of Russian state and army in those years, it also seriously distorted understanding even of Russian strategy in 1812. Inevitably, it also allowed British, French, and German historians free rein to interpret Napoleon's overthrow in manner best suited to serve their own national myths and historiographical traditions. The fundamental purpose of this article is therefore twofold. As regards Western historiography, its aim is to bring Russia back into center of picture, where it belongs. Meanwhile, article seeks to alert Russian historians to importance of 1813-14 as a time not just when tsarist state and army overcame enormous challenges with exceptional skill, but also when Russia made an immense contribution to European peace and stability, to which Russian empire's own security was inseparably linked. In West, very few academics have ever written on Russian military or even diplomatic history in Napoleonic era. (2) one important reason for this is lack of access to Russian military and diplomatic archives until 1990s. (3) Although much memoir material and many volumes of official military (4) and diplomatic (5) documents were published in both tsarist and Soviet eras, there remain key aspects of Russia's role in Napoleonic Wars which can be understood only through extensive research in Russian military archives. Above all, this is true if one attempts to move away from traditional narrow focus of Russian historiography on military operations in 1812. For example, it would be difficult to write convincingly on crucial issues such as mobilization of Russian rear, logistics, formation of reserve forces, or even military operations in 1813-14 without using Russian archival sources. At least as important, however, is fact that military history, and above all history of military operations, has been very unfashionable in Western universities in recent decades. Diplomatic history is only slightly less marginalized. (6) In addition, post-1945 Western scholarship on (3) Access to archives is again becoming a problem, with key archival buildings closing and their holdings awaiting relocation. …