IDEAS OF EASTERN EUROPE IN THE MEMOIRS OF FRENCH MILITARY AND POLITICIANS OF THE NAPOLEONIC WARS

Abstract

The purpose of the work: to analyze the ideas about Eastern Europe in the memoirs of French military and politicians of the Napoleonic Wars, as well as to investigate their input to the formation of the concept of «Eastern Europe». Methodology: during the writing of the article, both general scientific (comparison, idealization, ascent from abstract to concrete, content analysis, scientific modeling) and special-historical (historical-genetic, comparative-historical, systemic-structural) research methods were used. Scientific novelty: it consists in the fact that works on the history of concepts and intellectual history, devoted to the thoughts and ideas of the French memoirists of the Napoleonic era about Eastern Europe, are rare. The author of the article proposes to increase scientific output in this direction. Conclusions: in the process of writing the work, the idea of Eastern Europe had been considered in the memoirs of French military and politicians of the Napoleonic Wars and their input had been highlighted to the formation of the concept of «Eastern Europe». French memoirists considered the partitions of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth a mistake that allowed Russia to gain a foothold in Eastern Europe, and they believed Napoleon's plans to restore Polish statehood as a way to create a balance in European politics. The French invasion of Russia was called as important for the whole of Europe, and the characterization of Russians as «savages» and «barbarians» became widespread, French memoirists had been considered creating a kind of «barrier» in the form of a revived Poland to protect against the Russians. Lithuania and Poland were perceived as the northeastern part of Europe, which separates European civilization from the huge Asian spaces and expansionist Russian Empire, whose continued westward expansion was seen as a threat to Europeans. Among the options for defining the cultural and civilization border between Europe and Asia, they proposed the former Russian capital Moscow or «Lithuanian-Russian» river Dnipro.