Rare historical documents and research works on the Battle of Borodino were featured in the Presidential Library

Shortly before the 205th anniversary of the Battle of Borodino, which is celebrated on August 26 (September 7), various documents and materials dedicated to one of the most significant battles of the Patriotic War of 1812 were featured in the Presidential Library.

Specialists of the centers of remote access to the Presidential Library resources took part in a webinar entitled “Not in vain Russia remembers the day of Borodino.”

There is an extensive collection dedicated to the events of 1812 on the Presidential Library website. The compilation includes the research, the official and archival documents, cartographic, visual and multimedia materials. Among the latter A glorious year of the people's campaign video tour, prepared by the Presidential Library on the occasion of the 200th anniversary of the victory in the war with Napoleon, merits mention. Public video lecturing of the Knowledge of Russia outreach project series “Napoleon and Alexander I” by associate professor of the Historical Faculty of the St. Petersburg State University, PhD in historical sciences Oleg Sokolov reviews the causes that pushed the two states to military conflict.

Among the rare documents in the collection there are the draft letter of Alexander I to Napoleon I about Russian policy towards France, which was composed in May 1812. The Russian emperor wrote: “My feelings, like my politics, have remained unchanged, and I have nothing else than to avoid war between us…” Further materials on the theme of relations between Emperor Alexander I and Napoleon can be found in the illustrated collection of 1912 The Patriotic War with its causes and consequences. The material, added with the portraits of the main participants in the battles, tells the story of Russia and France before the clash, about Russia's foreign policy before 1812, the Russian army and its military leaders before the war. A letter from Alexander I to Napoleon I in connection with the invasion of French troops into Russia is also available on library website. “If it is not in the intention of Your Majesty to shed the blood of our peoples <…> and if you agree to withdraw your troops from the Russian territory, I will assume that all that has happened has not taken place and the agreement between us will still be possible <…> It’s up to Your Majesty to save mankind from the scourge of a new war,” — Alexander attempts to stop Napoleon.

The Battle of Borodino is considered the general engagement of the military campaign of 1812. One of the detailed descriptions of the battle Lieutenant-General Baron Karl Toll compiled of the reports of corps commanders of the Russian army, official documents of the enemy, intercepted during a pursuit of the French army in 1812, and foreign descriptions published after the war. These evidences can be found in the book of 1839 A description of the Battle of Borodino, August 24 and 26, 1812.

The failure of further military operations and retreat from Moscow turned for the French into a real decampment that ended at the Berezina River. A book of 1833 entitled Critical situation of Napoleon during the French army’s crossing the Berezina River in 1812 is also available in the Presidential Library electronic stock. The author is an eyewitness — the officer who was in the Russian army during this event, the book is added with maps and notes. The other documentary evidence of the defeat of the French army is a draft letter of the commander of the 3rd Western Army P. V. Chichagov to the ruler of Serbia Karageorge about the successes of the Russian army and the defeat of the French troops at Berezina on the 10/22 of December 1812.

A special place in the collection belongs to visual sources. Apart from taken in the XIX-XXI centuries photographs of memorial places and monuments, there are also the digital copies of portraits of war heroes from the famous Military Gallery of 1812, courtesy of the State Hermitage.

Unique collection The Patriotic War of 1812 is part of the Presidential Library electronic holdings, currently numbering more than 550 thousand entries. Every resident of Russia has access to these documents: more than 380 remote reading rooms have already been opened across the territory of our country in all 85 constituent entities of the Russian Federation.