«THE RUSSIAN CAMPAIGN OF 1812» IN FRENCH HISTORIOGRAPHY OF THE XIX CENTURY

Abstract

The Patriotic War of 1812 occupies a special place in the historical memory of Russia. Сoncurrently, in France, the events of this historical period also left an indelible imprint in the memory of the French society. Based on a historiographical review of the historical works written by French historians (Frédéric François Guillaume de Vaudoncourt, R.J. Durdan, E. Labaume, Gaspard Gourgaud, Philippe-Paul de Ségur, L. de Gouvion Saint-Cyr, G. Chambray, A. Jomini and J. Pelet-Clozeau) the author analyzes the development of French historiography devoted to the personality of Napoleon Bonaparte and the historical period of 1812 taken as a whole. It should be noted that Bonaparte’s invasion into the territory of the Russian Empire entered the Russian historiographical tradition as the «Patriotic War of 1812», while in France these events became known in history as the «Napoleon’s Russian Drive» or «Napoleon’s Russian Campaign». The author analyzes the influence of Bonaparte’s personality on the historical consciousness of the European and the Russian society of the XIX century, when the so-called «Napoleonic myth» was very popular, which idealized the personality of this person. Foreign historiography of the war of 1812 differs in that researchers considered the military campaign in Russia in the context of the Napoleonic era as a whole, as a result of which there were either separate studies on the war with Russia, or general works about the period of Bonaparte’s military campaigns.