A multi-faceted personality of Mikhail Kutuzov is disclosed in an extensive collection of electronic documents of the Presidential Library

By the anniversary of the birth of the greatest Russian commander Mikhail Kutuzov, celebrated on September 16, 2016, the Presidential Library features on its website the electronic copies of rare materials, which are largely evaluate the outstanding personality of the commander in a new angle.

According to the authors of most publications, Kutuzov was able to become such a prominent figure falling beneath influence of another military leader - Suvorov. “The actual military service of Kutuzov began under the happiest circumstances, - says Victor Gervais in his released in 1912 book A glorious chief of 1812 Kutuzov, - he entered the Astrakhan Infantry Regiment, which at that time was under the command of the great Suvorov. Youngster Kutuzov, who was then 16 years old, has gotten to work so zealously and with such success started to command a squadron that attracted the attention of the Empress Catherine II.”

In the book of Gregory Pisarevsky of 1942 Mikhail Illarionovich Kutuzov, an electronic copy of which is in the library fund, a formation of the future field marshal under the legendary Suvorov is deeply and comprehensively analyzed. Observing his idol, Kutuzov realized what the soldiers’ love him for: after the exercises and maneuvers he was resting with the fellow soldiers near bivouac fire, ate out of the soldier’s kettle and whiled away the night in conversation with the soldiers about their sorrows and joys, was joking, piling on the sayings. In turn, Suvorov noticed a talented squadron commander and brought him to himself: “He told Kutuzov how he had to bear the burden of a soldier and then a non-commissioned officer, that the notorious Prussian military school, suitable for recruited from the Prussian army, can give anything but nothing to Russian, which strength is in the last Russian soldier, who only needs to get taught to that what a war requires, “a soldier after all loves learning, if it would be efficiently.”

All the rules of routine military drills, Pisarevsky writes further, “were inspiring only by a genius Suvorov’s rule, which really was a revolutionary in the art of war: “Any soldier understands his own maneuver.” This rule was proclaimed at a time when a linear system was dominating in Europe, when each soldier’s step was under a supervision of an officer: soldier’s sense was not trusted. Suvorov, on the contrary, had been developing an initiative in the Russian soldiers, encouraging their leading abilities. Kutuzov truly fathomed these new approaches in a war craft, having learned an offensive strategy, a tactics and new methods of education and training of troops, through which Suvorov has built the world's best army.”

Respect for the military contingent is the main trait of Kutuzov during the war of 1812. “You see that every three days I give a break to the soldiers. This is how we, the northern barbarians, save people resources!” - Field Marshal said to a captive French intendant.” And in that, according to the author, “besides the paternal care of a soldier, there is also a deep political meaning: after the victory Russia needed to break upon the saved their armies intact European countries - Austria, Prussia and England - armed with all its power, so as not to become a plaything in their hands.”

Raised under an authority of such a rare sage and seer, as Suvorov, Mikhail Illarionovich tried in relation to the French contingent to play the role of a peacemaker. In December 1812, when the Russian frosts have become the main enemy of invaders, Kutuzov found good arguments to try to persuade the French to stop military action: “…Napoleon did not think that two nations, both brave and powerful, in fact, have nothing to argue about, and they have not destroy, but mutually respect each other and develop the ties across all areas of an industry, a commerce, the arts and sciences, - can we read in an electronic copy of the Address of Commander-In-Chief of the Russian Army M. I. Kutuzov to the French soldiers with an appeal to refuse continuing of hostilities. - Return back home peacefully, bringing there a usurper with you… You will deserve an appreciation of the entire Europe, and your most remote descendants will honor the memory of you.”

Field Marshal regularly and in large quantities wrote to his wife, and his five daughters from the battleground. His letters were later published in the “Russkaya Starina” (Russian Antiquity) magazine, including 83 letters to his daughter Countess Elizaveta Mikhailovna Tizengauzen. The biographers of the great commander had no idea that in these full of warmth and rugged tenderness letters so loving his offspring commander had been revealing, in fact, the mere strategic military secrets of warfare. The electronic copy of the 1912-year’s edition of Kutuzov in his correspondence with his family by Gregory Georgiyevsky is told that he pointed to her daughter Anna the cities and the roads, which she has to stay away of: “It seems, - suggests the author, - with the same accession to command of Russian troops Kutuzov had already outlined for himself the surest way to defeat the enemy. Not Moscow considers it the main theater of the war. Apparently, Moscow's fate had already been decided in his mind, seasoned with vast knowledge and many years of combat experience, and warmed with a sense of genuine, passionate love for his country. The Kaluga Road - there was the theater of war, scheduled by Kutuzov not only before Moscow, but earlier than Borodino.” And further an important for the researchers fact is underlined: “That was him who had gained the victory, and the victory was so brilliant and only after he moved the scene of operations to the Kaluga Road. This circumstance - Kutuzov's plan - it is very important for the history of the Patriotic War of 1812, and investigated only owing to the letters of Kutuzov to his daughters.”

As a rich contradictory personality, endowed with an instinct of wisdom, Tolstoy characterizes commander in the novel “War and Peace” - an electronic copy of the 1942-year’s Field Marshal Kutuzov: excerpts from the novel “War and Peace” book of related to the commander excerpts from the immortal work of Tolstoy, a part of the “Our Great Ancestors” series, is presented in the Presidential Library. According to the writer, the Generalissimo acts not at the level of understanding, but at the level of some innate instinct. Kutuzov does not give a decisive battle to the French not because he does not want to, - the emperor wants it, and entire staff wants too, - but because the natural course of things, that he is unable to express in words, is against to it. The only right decision about a day and a place of the Battle of Borodino Kutuzov makes in Fili, one against all. His unconscious mind, nurtured by the native land, takes over an unemotional logic of conventional military strategy.

“Russia will never forget her well-deserving son and will always be proud of the glorious deeds of that “idol of the northern troops,” an expert guard of our homeland, a disarmer of all its enemies,” - that is how Gervais summed up the role of commander in his The glorious leader of 1812 Kutuzov essay.