Presidential Library presents the portrait of the famous general Brusilov

Alexey Brusilov, famous Russian military leader, was born 165 years ago - on August 31 (19) 1853 - in Tiflis. The collection of the Presidential Library, built up in commemoration of World War I, gives a chance to discover his life, that was nothing to do with common routine, and even two volumes of My Memoirs written by Alexey Brusilov give totally contradictory opinion of this outstanding person.

Brusilov was born in Georgia into a family of a lieutenant-general, who became father for the first time at the age of 66. Siblings Boris and Leo, the latter became the first Chief of the Marine General Staff of Russia, were born in a little while. When the children were six, four and two years old respectively, their father died, and soon mother passed away, too. Aunt and uncle were in charge of the children.

At the age of 14, Brusilov entered the elite Page Corps in St. Petersburg. "I studied in a curious way", his memoirs, that we are going to cite frequently, read. – The disciplines that I liked, I mastered swiftly, others that were alien to me, I studied unwillingly and just revised every now and then to move to the next grade: my pride did not allow me to fail the school year. And when I did not pass the exam in the fifth grade and had to stay for the second year, I made up my mind to take one-year leave and set off to the Caucasus to my uncle and aunt. As I returned to the corps a year later, I skipped the sixth grade, passed the exam and was placed into the special class. It was far more interesting to attend special classes, which featured military sciences, and I took an interest in them".

In 1872, Alexey entered the service as a warrant officer of 15th Tver Regiment of Dragoons. He participated in the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878 and was awarded the Order of St. Stanislaus 3rd class and the Order of St. Stanislaus 2nd class for his courage.

When you read the memoirs of Brusilov, you see that nothing human was foreign to him. Describing his life, he mentioned "pretty good theatres and operettas", as well as "the brilliant society” which he came across in the places, where he served in the army.

It is noteworthy that Brusilov was not the Academy of the General Staff graduate, what was uncommon among the army leaders.

The next very long period of Brusilov's life is linked with the Officers’ Cavalry School in St. Petersburg. He was 30 when he enrolled for the school and served there until 1906 (during the last four years he held the post of the director) till the age of 53. Thus, this unusual general was not an "academician", and on top of it, spent most of his life engaged in horse training instead of "the real service".

"As I stayed in St. Petersburg I was involved in cavalry classes of the Officers' School, horse races, wide variety of competitions, and parforce hunting," his Memoirs read.

It is true, nevertheless, that he longed for something different: "But I was not completely absorbed in all these cavalry interests. I read military journals, a variety of books by military experts, both Russian and foreign, and my whole life was the preparation for a combat mission ... I shared this with my kith and kin a long time ago, and many of them remembered it. "

"A person who devoted his whole life to training junior officers in equestrian dressage, by definition, is incapable of commanding  the army units", highlights historian Sergey Zakharov in the film From Cavalryman to the Commander-in-Chief”, which is available on the portal of the Presidential Library.

The Austrian intelligence accounts at the beginning of World War I support this opinion: "Brusilov can hardly take command of anything but the corps".

That’s where they were wrong.

"He achieved everything due to self-education”, historian Anatoly Smolin adds.

It was just in 1906 that the "real" military service began. Grand Duke Nikolay Nikolayevich, who became the Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Army during World War I and knew Brusilov pretty well, played part in it.

Step by step, Brusilov held the posts of commander of cavalry divisions, army corps, served in the Warsaw and Kiev military districts. At the beginning of World War I he rose to the rank of cavalry general.

Brusilov might be not as famous as Suvorov or Kutuzov. However the expression “Brusilov Offensive” is a symbol of victory, even for those who are not good at history.

“It is not a common practice when an operation is named after the commander”, – the historian Sergey Bazanov notes in the documentary From Cavalryman to the Commander-in-Chief.  

The offensive took place on the South-Western Front, which since March 1916 had been commanded by Brusilov. According to the plan, the Western Front was to launch the major attack, the Northern Front was to assist it, and the South-Western Front was to defend. But Brusilov insisted that he would also attack. As a result, his troops managed to advance all along the front for the distance of 70-120 km. Austro-Hungarian troops were forced out of Bukovina and the south of Galicia. The enemy lost up to 1.5 million people killed, wounded and captured, while the losses of Russians were roughly 500 thousand people.

However, in My Memories Brusilov complains that "this operation did not give strategic results ... The Western front failed to attack, while the motto of the Northern Front was known from the Japanese war times  “patience, patience and patience”.

"I did my best," he goes on. "If the military genius like Julius Caesar or Napoleon had been there instead of me, then he might have accomplished something grandiose, but I didn’t have such claims".

During the February Revolution the general supported the Provisional Government. And from May to July 1917 Brusilov served as the commander-in-chief.

He left the army, settled in Moscow and during the battles in November 1917 was seriously wounded by fragments of a shell and spent six months in hospital. In August 1918 Brusilov was arrested by the Cheka (Soviet secret police), but was released for lack of evidence of his relations with the anti-Soviet movement.

In 1920 Brusilov began his service in the Red Army: he took part in the Military and Historical Commission, headed the cavalry pre-conscription training. In 1924 he resigned and passed away in Moscow in 1926.

But it is Brusilov's short period of life after the Revolution that arouses major controversy. The fact is that the first volume of his memoirs, published in the 1920s, spotlights pre-revolutionary events and does not openly criticize the new government. This implies that the general might have not accepted the Bolsheviks with his heart, but at lease he resigned himself with them.

"Unfortunately, death prevented Brusilov from compiling the second volume of his "Memoirs", which would be interesting ... as the evidence of significant shifts in consciousness caused by the events of the October Revolution," a Soviet editor points out in the Brusilov’s book edition of 1929.

But after his death, the second volume came out, and it is veiled in mystery!

The film Alexey Brusilov. The Mystery of Memoirs available in the Presidential Library collection, presents different historical opinions. For some historians, Brusilov seems to be an elderly man who was frightened by the red power and had to accept it,  but others are sure that he "was the anti-Soviet who disguised himself amazingly". The second volume - openly anti-Soviet – was “unearthed” by the White émigrés abroad in 1932. It was brought by Brusilov's widow. It was just in 1945 that the USSR learned about it and that is why Brusilov's name was erased from all Soviet textbooks and books in general until the 1960s, when he was "rehabilitated", and the second volume was judged a fake.

There is another version related to the riddle of memoirs. According to it, the second part of the memoirs was written by the wife of Alexey Alekseevich - Nadezhda Vladimirovna Zhelikhovskaya. This version is proved by the use of refined literary language, and rare mention of military operations. Besides, Nadezhda Vladimirovna moved abroad after her husband's death.

Anyway, Brusilov had never left Russia. Later, "Brusilov's heritage" was referred to in times of hardship. Thus, his tactics proved to be helpful for Allied forces during the famous Overlord operation in Normandy in 1944, World War II.

As the Great Patriotic War broke out, the Soviet Union started mass publication of books about Brusilov. The Presidential Library keeps the book entitled Brusilov Offensive by Sh. M. Levin, which came out on July 29, 1941.

Brusilov Offensive by F. Ye. Kuznetsov, published in 1944, highlights that in disagreement with the opinion of other military leaders, the commander insisted on giving him a chance to take action on the front.

The biographical sketch entitled Brusilov by V. V. Mavrodin ( 1942) also reads that "Brusilov was a consistent and zealous supporter of active military operations”. Nevertheless in terms of the daily army leadership, he is called Suvorov's successor.  Brusilov could not stand when commanders forgot about the needs of ordinary soldiers, and punished them if he noticed such misdeeds. The army loved Brusilov.

It is worth remembering the general's nephew, lieutenant-general of the fleet Georgy Lvovich Brusilov, who in 1912 led an expedition that aimed to explore the Northern Sea Route under the Russian flag. But the ship was stuck in the ice, and there are no accounts of the fate of the brave seaman after 1914. However, this expedition inspired writer Veniamin Kaverin to write his famous novel The Two Captains. The pre-revolutionary book The Polar Expedition of lieutenant G. L. Brusilov on board Svyataya Anna (Saint Anna) is available for study on the portal of the Presidential Library.