«Заметка о русских», посланная генералом Костюшко Исполнительной директории Франции в 1799 году

Abstract

Introduction. The article publishes a historical source found in the State Archive of the Rostov region in the fund of Kh.I. Popov, the founder and first director of the Don Museum. Title of the document: “General Kosciusko’s description of the Russian army” (translated from the French from the Archive of P.I. Shchukin). The part of the discovered document is indeed a “Note on the Russians,” written by the national hero of Poland, Tadeusz Kosciusko (1746–1817), and addressed to the French Executive Directory in January 1799. Methods and materials. The document is a translation of a letter from the French Executive Directory to General Jourdan, Commander-in-Сhief of the Mainz Army, to which is attached a “Note on the Russians.” The document was drawn up on the eve of military operations between Russia and France on the territory of Italy, Switzerland, and the Netherlands. The Directory recommends General Jourdan pay attention to the “Note,” which really contains a lot of analytical material and characteristics of the various branches of the Russian army in the battles with which T. Kosciusko recently suffered a number of defeats. The purpose of this publication is to show what vision the French leadership and military command had about the Russian army at the beginning of 1799, what the source of these ideas was, and how these ideas corresponded to reality. T. Kosciusko’s combat path, his participation in the battles against the Russian army, and the information and impressions that he could acquire in these battles were analyzed. For this purpose, traditional historical methods were used: comparative-historical, problem-chronological, and anthropological, since a significant part of the “Note” is devoted to the characteristics of a special community – the Cossacks. It was this part of the “Note” that caused its discovery in the fund of the director of the Don Museum in the State Archive of the Rostov Region. Analysis. Creating the Don Museum in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Kh.I. Popov attracted not only employees but also everyone to collect materials about the Cossacks. The published document was sent to the Don Museum by an officer of the Don Cossack Regiment, located in Moscow, S.I. Olenev, who copied it from a translation of a letter from the Directory made by the famous collector P.I. Shchukin for his museum in Moscow. In fact, a copy of the translation was published, which caused some stylistic errors in the document. Results. The publisher concluded that some of the data provided by T. Kosciusko to the French Directory was outdated, but in general, the characteristics of the Russian army correspond to reality.