Patriotic War 1812 gave birth to a new phenomenon in history - a mass partisan movement. During the war with Napoleon, Russian peasants began to unite in small detachments to defend their villages from foreign invaders. The brightest figure among the partisans of that time was Vasilisa Kozhina, a woman who became a legend in the war of 1812.
partisan
At the time of the invasion of French troops into Russia, Vasilisa Kozhina, according to historians, was about 35 years old. She was the wife of the headman of the Gorshkov farm in the Smolensk province. According to one version, she was inspired to participate in the peasant resistance by the fact that the French killed her husband, who refused to provide food and fodder for the Napoleonic troops. Another version says that Kozhina's husband was alive and led a partisan detachment himself, and his wife decided to follow her husband's example.
In any case, to fight the French, Kozhina organized her own detachment of women and teenagers. The partisans wielded what was available in the peasant economy: pitchforks, scythes, shovels and axes. The Kozhina detachment cooperated with the Russian troops, often handing over captured enemy soldiers to them.
Merit recognition
In November 1812, the Son of the Fatherland magazine wrote about Vasilisa Kozhina. The note was devoted to how Kozhina escorted prisoners to the location of the Russian army. One day, when the peasants brought in some captured Frenchmen, she gathered her detachment, mounted her horse, and ordered the prisoners to follow her. One of the captured officers, not wanting to obey "some peasant woman", began to resist. Kozhina immediately killed the officer with a scythe on the head. Kozhina shouted to the remaining prisoners that they should not dare to be impudent, because she had already cut off the heads of 27 “such mischievous people”. This episode, by the way, was immortalized in a lubok picture by the artist Alexei Venetsianov about the “old man Vasilisa”. In the first months after the war, such pictures were sold throughout the country as a memory of a national feat.

It is believed that for his role in liberation war the peasant woman was awarded a medal, as well as a cash prize personally from Tsar Alexander I. The State Historical Museum in Moscow has a portrait of Vasilisa Kozhina, painted by the artist Alexander Smirnov in 1813. A medal on the St. George ribbon is visible on Kozhina's chest.

And the name of the brave partisan is immortalized in the names of many streets. So, on the map of Moscow, not far from the Park Pobedy metro station, you can find Vasilisa Kozhina Street.
folk rumor
Vasilisa Kozhina died around 1840. Almost nothing is known about her life after the end of the war, but the fame of Kozhina's military exploits spread throughout the country, acquiring rumors and fictions. According to such folk legends, Kozhina once lured 18 Frenchmen into a hut by cunning, and then set it on fire. There are also stories about Vasilisa's mercy: according to one of them, a partisan once took pity on a captured Frenchman, fed him and even gave him warm clothes. Whether at least one of these stories is true, unfortunately, is not known - there is no documentary evidence.
It is not surprising that over time, many tales began to appear around the brave partisan - Vasilisa Kozhina turned into a collective image of the Russian peasantry who fought against the invaders. And folk heroes often become characters in legends. Modern Russian directors could not resist myth-making either. In 2013, the mini-series "Vasilisa" was released, later remade into a full-length film. The title character in it was played by Svetlana Khodchenkova. And although the fair-haired actress does not at all look like the woman depicted in the portrait by Smirnov, and the historical assumptions in the film sometimes look completely grotesque (for example, the fact that the simple peasant woman Kozhina speaks fluent French), nevertheless, such films say that that the memory of the brave partisan is alive even two centuries after her death.

Introduction

This paper examines both the partisan movement itself as a whole and the role of Ivan Semenovich Dorokhov in it, who commanded one of the many partisan detachments, created by order of the command and arising spontaneously.

The historiography of the Patriotic War of 1812, namely the role of the partisan movement in it, has almost two hundred years of history. Studies on this topic were written by both Russian and French researchers. During the first period after the end of the war, big number eyewitness accounts of recent events (Glinka S.N. Notes on 1812 by Sergei Glinka, the first warrior of the Moscow militia. - St. Petersburg, 1836.)

The historiography of the Patriotic War of 1812 is extensive according to I.P. Liprandi and N.F. Dubrovin, almost 1800 works were written by the end of the nineteenth century. In the first decade of the 20th century, in connection with the centenary of the war, which was widely celebrated in Russia, about 600 more works were published. Studies of the events of 1812 did not stop during the Soviet era. The Soviet scientist E. Tarle devoted most of his life to the study of war and the life of Napoleon (E.V.

At present, there are also many works devoted to the war of 1812, as an example (Troitsky N.A. 1812. The Great Year of Russia. - M .: Nauka. 1988., Troitsky N.A. Alexander I and Napoleon. - M .: graduate School. 1991, Troitsky N.A. Soviet historiography of the war of 1812 (Traditions. Stereotypes. Lessons). - M., 1992.

It is quite difficult to determine and analyze the role of the partisan movement in the Patriotic War of 1812, since initially no one tried to trace its role, and when the first attempts were made to investigate this topic, there were practically no living witnesses of past events. In the Soviet period of Russian history, when studying this aspect of the war, researchers were forced to pay more attention to the role of the people - the peasant masses in the victory over the Napoleonic army. Some works published before the 1917 revolution became inaccessible to Soviet historians.

This work consists of two sections: The first of which describes the development of the partisan movement, and the second presents the role of Ivan Semenovich Dorokhov in the partisan movement.

Partisan movement in the Patriotic War of 1812

Even during the retreat to Moscow, the Russian army had the idea of ​​using partisan methods of warfare against the enemy's significantly extended communications. Kutuzov, who at that time avoided major battles with a still fairly strong enemy, while in the Tarutino camp, begins a "small war". In partisan actions against the French conquerors, the efforts of both military partisan detachments and popular formations were successfully combined. "Small war" inflicted irreparable damage to the enemy. Partisan detachments of I.S. Dorohova, A.N. Seslavina, D.V. Davydova, A.S. Figner did not give rest to the enemy day or night, neither on vacation, nor on a campaign.

AT brief analysis events of 1812, it would be completely unthinkable to try to give any complete picture of the internal situation in Russia in the year of the Napoleonic invasion. We will try here on a few few pages to find out in the very general view what impression the events made on the various classes of the Russian people. We must begin, of course, with the fundamental question of great historical importance: how did the overwhelming majority of the people, i.e., the serfs of that time—the landlord, state, appanage peasants— react to the invasion?

At first glance, it would seem that we are confronted with a strange phenomenon: the peasantry, which hates serfdom, protests against it with the murders of landlords and unrest, annually registered by statistics, which endangered the entire feudal system in general only 37 - 38 years before in the Pugachev uprising - this same peasantry meets Napoleon as a fierce enemy, sparing no effort, fights him, refuses to do what the peasants did in all of Europe conquered by Napoleon, except for Spain, i.e., refuses to enter into any trade deals with the enemy, burns bread, burns hay and oats, burns his own huts, if there is any hope of burning French foragers who have climbed there, actively helps the partisans, shows such a violent hatred for the invading army, which the French have never met anywhere, except for the same Spain. Meanwhile, back in 1805-1807, and even at the beginning of the invasion of 1812, rumors circulated among the Russian peasantry, in which the idea of ​​Napoleon was associated with dreams of liberation. It was said about the mythical letter that the French emperor allegedly sent to the tsar, saying that until the tsar liberates the peasants, until then there will be war and there will be no peace. What are the reasons that led to such a sharp turn, to such a decisive change in views?

After all that has been said above, there is no need to repeat that Napoleon invaded Russia as a conqueror, a predator, a merciless destroyer and did not even think about freeing the peasants from serfdom. For the Russian peasantry, the defense of Russia from the invading enemy was at the same time the defense of their lives, their families, their property.

The war begins. The French army occupies Lithuania, occupies Belarus. The Belarusian peasant rebels, hoping to free himself from the oppression of the pans. Belarus was in July and August 1812 directly engulfed in violent peasant unrest, which in places turned into open uprisings. The landowners in a panic flee to the cities - to Vilna to Duke Bassano, to Mogilev to Marshal Davout, to Minsk to the Napoleonic General Dombrovsky, to Vitebsk to the emperor himself. They ask for armed assistance against the peasants, they beg for punitive expeditions, since the newly established Polish and Lithuanian gendarmerie, which was newly established by Napoleon, is not strong enough, and the French command is fully prepared to pacify the peasants and restore all serfdom intact. Thus, the actions of Napoleon in Lithuania and Belarus, occupied by his troops, already showed that not only was he not going to help the peasants in their independent attempt to throw off the chains of slavery, but that he would support the feudal gentry with all his might and suppress every peasant with an iron hand. protest against the landowners. This was consistent with his policy: he considered the Polish and Lithuanian nobles the main political force in these places and not only did not want to scare them away, inspiring their peasants with the idea of ​​liberation, but also suppressed his military force huge unrest in Belarus.

“The nobles of these provinces of Belarus ... paid dearly for their desire to free themselves from Russian rule. Their peasants considered themselves free from the terrible and disastrous slavery, under the yoke of which they were due to the stinginess and debauchery of the nobles. They rebelled in almost all villages, broke the furniture in the houses of their masters, destroyed factories and all establishments, and found in the destruction of the dwellings of their petty tyrants as much barbaric pleasure as the latter used the arts to reduce them to poverty. The French guards, invoked by the nobles to protect themselves from their peasants, further increased the frenzy of the people, and the gendarmes either remained indifferent witnesses to the riots, or did not have the means to prevent them "Kharkevich V. 1812 in diaries..., vol. II, pp. 78--79. ( Notes by Benckendorff). - such, for example, is the testimony of A. Kh. Benckendorff (then a colonel in the Winzengerode detachment). There are many such indications.

Marshal Saint-Cyr, who went through the campaign of 1812, directly says in his memoirs that a movement of peasants had definitely begun in Lithuania: they drove the landlords out of their estates. "Napoleon, true to his new system, began to protect the landlords from their serfs, returned the landlords to their estates, from where they had been expelled, ”and gave them his soldiers to protect them from the serfs. The peasant movement, which in some places (in the western provinces) began to take on a very pronounced character, was mercilessly strangled by Napoleon himself both in Lithuania and Belarus.

The feeling of the homeland flared up among the people, especially after the death of Smolensk. Napoleon's army nowhere decisively, even in Egypt, even in Syria, did not behave so unbridled, did not kill and torture the population as brazenly and cruelly as it was in Russia. The French took revenge for the fires of villages, towns and cities, for the burning of Moscow, for the irreconcilable hostility on the part of the Russian people, which they felt from beginning to end during their entire stay in Russia. The ruin of the peasants by the passing army of the conqueror, countless marauders and simply robbing French deserters was so great that hatred of the enemy grew every day.

Recruitment sets in Russia followed one after another and were met by the people not only resignedly, but with an unheard-of and never-before-seen enthusiasm.

Of course, Napoleon was clearly fantasizing and exaggerating when he spoke of the "numerous villages" that asked him to free them, but, undoubtedly, there could not have been single attempts to such an appeal to him, until all the peasants were convinced that Napoleon was not even thinking about destroying them. landlord power and that he came as a conqueror and robber, and not at all as a liberator of the peasants.

The bitterness that was almost imperceptible until Napoleon went from Vitebsk to Smolensk, which began to manifest itself sharply after the death of Smolensk, which already attracted everyone's attention after Borodino, during the march of the "great army" from Borodino to Moscow - now, after the fire of the capital, it reached an extreme degree among the peasants. The peasants around Moscow not only did not enter into commercial relations with the French, despite all the solicitations and promises, but they brutally killed those foragers and marauders who fell into their hands alive. When the Cossacks led the captured French, the peasants rushed to the convoy, trying to recapture and personally destroy the prisoners. When foraging was accompanied by a large convoy, the peasants burned their stocks (whole villages burned out) and fled to the forests. Those caught desperately defended themselves and perished. The French did not take the peasants prisoner, and sometimes, just in case, even as soon as they approached the village, they began to fire at it in order to destroy the possibility of resistance.

The partisan movement, which began immediately after Borodin, achieved tremendous success only thanks to the most active, voluntary, zealous assistance from the Russian peasantry. But the insatiable anger towards the invaders, destroyers, murderers and rapists who came from nowhere, manifested itself most of all in the way they went to military service in 1812 and how the Russian peasants fought afterwards.

The irreconcilable hatred of thousands and thousands of peasants, which surrounded Napoleon's great army with a wall, the exploits of unknown heroes - the elder Vasilisa, Fyodor Onufriev, Gerasim Kurin - who, daily risking their lives, going into the forests, hiding in ravines, lay in wait for the French - this is what , which most characteristically expressed peasant sentiments since 1812 and which turned out to be disastrous for Napoleon's army.

It was the Russian peasant who destroyed Murat's magnificent, first in the world cavalry, before the victorious onslaught of which all European armies fled; and the Russian peasant destroyed it, starving its horses, burning hay and oats, for which Napoleon's foragers came, and sometimes burning the foragers themselves.

Representatives of national minorities and individual groups were not inferior to the indigenous Russian population in their desire to defend the common fatherland. Don Cossacks, Bashkirs, Tatars, Ural Cossacks, the peoples of the Caucasus fought, judging by all the reviews, remarkably staunchly and courageously. Hero Bagration adequately represented Georgia. The Kalmyks (who made up the Stavropol Kalmyk Regiment) became famous for their bravery in 1812: their "flying detachments" especially distinguished themselves in the second half of the war, when pursuing the retreating enemy. Platov fell in love with the Bashkirs so much that he formed a special detachment out of two hundred especially distinguished Bashkir riders, and on July 27, 1812, near Molev Bolot, this detachment made its first brilliant attack on the French.

About the Jews Denis Davydov speaks very persistently several times as about such an element of the population of the western provinces, on which it was quite possible to rely. The “Collection” of records and memoirs about the Patriotic War, published by the government already in 1813, repeats the same thing, and completely independently of Denis Davydov: “It must be confessed that the Jews do not deserve those reproaches with which they were once weighed down by almost the whole world ... because, in spite of all the tricks of the godless Napoleon, who declared himself a zealous defender of the Jews and the worship they performed, they remained loyal to their former (Russian) government and, in the most possible cases, did not even miss various means of proving by experience their hatred and contempt for the proud and inhuman oppressor peoples ... " Denis Davydov was very upset when one brave man from his detachment, introduced by him to George, did not get this order for a moment solely because of his Jewish religion.

The merchant class, the “middle class” that Napoleon hoped to find in Moscow, showed a spirit of complete intransigence towards the conqueror, although Rostopchin in Moscow was very suspicious of schismatic merchants and believed that they were waiting for something from Napoleon in their hearts. In any case, the merchants did not conduct any trade with the enemy (who very much sought this), did not enter into any transactions with him, and together with the entire population, which only had the material opportunity to do so, left the places occupied by the enemy, abandoning houses, shops, warehouses, storehouses to the mercy of fate. The Moscow merchants donated 10 million rubles for the defense, a huge sum for that time. There were significant donations of money from the merchants of other provinces as well.

The donations were very significant. But if part of the merchants lost a lot from the great ruin created by the invasion, then the other part gained a lot. Many merchant firms "went to live after the Frenchman." We're not talking about such luck-seeking lucky ones as Kremer and Baird (later a famous manufacturer), who got rich on the supply of guns, gunpowder and ammunition.

There were about 150,000 workers in what was then Russia (in 1814, 160,000). The workers were for the most part serfs and worked in the factories of their landlords or in the enterprises of merchants, to whom the landowners handed over the peasants for a certain period, while some of the workers were also civilian employees. Both of them were in most cases closely connected with the countryside, and when the thunderstorm of the twelfth year came, the workers of the places occupied by the enemy fled to the villages. There was also a lot of speculation on weapons. This speculation received a new impetus after the tsar's visit to Moscow. Before the tsar's arrival in Moscow and before his patriotic appeals and the announcement of militias, a saber in Moscow cost 6 rubles or less, and after appeals and the establishment of militias - 30 and 40 rubles; a Tula-made gun before the appeals of the tsar cost from 11 to 15 rubles, and after the appeals - 80 rubles; pistols have risen in price by five to six times. The merchants saw that it was impossible to repel the enemy with their bare hands, and shamelessly took advantage of this opportunity to enrich themselves, as the unfortunate Bestuzhev-Ryumin testifies, who did not have time to leave Moscow in due time, ended up in the Napoleonic "municipality", tried without significant results) to protect the life and safety of the remaining handful of Russians, and in the end, after the departure of the French, he was suspected of treason, was persecuted and reprimanded.

The graciously granted land in the Kozelsk district was given to me by the Kaluga State Chamber, which, it seems, has not been notified to this day.

This simple-hearted “meanwhile” with a direct transition from Napoleon, from whom Russia must be wrested, to the Kaluga State Chamber, from which the “granted” estate must be wrested, is very typical both for the class to which the author of the letter belonged, and for the moment. After all, he is clearly equally sincere in his desire to defeat Napoleon and in his efforts to break the resistance of the Kaluga State Chamber.

Despite the gradually increasing feeling of hatred for the enemy among the people, despite the absence of any noticeable opposition sentiments in the noble class of Russian society, the government was restless in 1812. The disastrous beginning of the war, the ridiculous Drissa camp of the German Ful, where the entire Russian army almost perished, the pursuit of the French army after Barclay and Bagration, the death of Smolensk - all this greatly agitated the minds of the nobility, and the merchants, and the peasantry (especially those affected invasion in neighboring provinces). Rumors that Bagration himself considers Barclay a traitor, that the German Wolzogen, the German Winzengerode and others are snooping around the army, gave a particularly sinister meaning to this endless retreat of Barclay and the generous return to the enemy of almost half Russian Empire. The surrender and death of Moscow brought irritation to a rather dangerous point.

Although the mood of the people was such that there was not the slightest need to raise hostility towards the enemy by artificial means, the government nevertheless tried, through the mediation of the synod, to mobilize the clergy for the work of patriotic preaching. The Napoleonic army took church utensils, used church buildings as apartments and often as stables. This provided the main content of the anti-French church sermon.

It must be said that the idea of ​​a guerrilla war was prompted primarily by the example of Spain. This was recognized by the leaders of the Russian partisan movement. Colonel Chuikevich, who wrote his "Discourses on the War of 1812" during this war itself (although the book was published already in March 1813), recalls and uses the Spaniards as a model: "The rapid successes of French weapons in Spain were due to the fact that the inhabitants these countries, seething with vengeance against the French, relied too much on their personal courage and the rightness of their cause. Hastily gathered militias opposed the French armies and were defeated by enemies who outnumbered them and experienced. These unfortunate lessons persuaded the courageous Spaniards to change the face of war. They generously decided to prefer a long-term, but true struggle in their favor. Avoiding general battles with the French forces, they divided their own into parts ... often interrupted communications with France, destroyed the enemy's food and tormented him with uninterrupted marches ... In vain, the French generals passed with a sword in their hands from one part of Spain to another, conquered cities and entire regions. The magnanimous people did not let go of their weapons, the government did not lose courage and remained firm in the intention once adopted: to liberate Spain from the French or to bury itself under the ruins. No, you will not fall, brave Spaniards!” The Russian people's war, as I have already had occasion to observe, was not at all like the Spanish one. It was conducted most of all by Russian peasants already in army and militia uniforms, but this did not make it less popular.

One of the manifestations of the people's war was the partisan movement.

That's how the organization of this case began. Five days before Borodino, Lieutenant Colonel Denis Davydov, who had served as an aide-de-camp with the prince for five years, appeared to Prince Bagration. He outlined his plan to him, which consisted in using Napoleon's colossally extended communication line - from the Neman to Gzhatsk and further Gzhatsk, in the event of further French movement - to launch constant attacks and surprise raids on this line, on warehouses, on couriers with papers, on carts with food. According to Davydov, small cavalry detachments make sudden raids, and, having done their job, the partisans hide from persecution until a new opportunity; they could, moreover, become strongholds and cells for the concentration and arming of the peasants. The case was before Borodin, and, according to Davydov, "the general opinion of that time" was that, having won, Napoleon would make peace and, together with the Russian army, would go to India. “If I must surely die, then I’d rather lie down here; in India, I will disappear with 100 thousand of my compatriots without a name and for a benefit alien to my fatherland, and here I will die under the banner of independence ... ”Davydov D.V. Works, vol. II. - St. Petersburg, 1893, p. 32. - so said Davydov to Prince Bagration. Bagration reported this plan to Kutuzov, but Kutuzov was very cautious and was not inclined to flights of heroic fantasy, however, he allowed Denis Davydov to be given 50 hussars and 80 Cossacks. Bagration was dissatisfied with this stinginess. “I don’t understand the fears of His Serene Highness,” he said, conveying to Davydov about the too modest results of his petition, “is it worth bargaining over several hundred people when it comes to the fact that, if successful, he can deprive the enemy of deliveries, so he needs, in case of failure he will lose only a handful of people. How can it be, the war is not for kissing ... I would give you 3 thousand from the very first time, because I don’t like to do things gropingly, but there’s nothing to talk about; the prince himself appointed the strength of the party; must be obeyed" Davydov D.V. Works, vol. II. - St. Petersburg, 1893, p. 32. Bagration said this five days before the mortal wound in battle, and after his death, Davydov even moreover could not hope to receive more people. But, anyway, he set off on his journey with his 130 hussars and Cossacks, bypassing the great army behind Napoleon's lines.

Such was the very modest and so far quite inconspicuous beginning of the guerrilla war, which undoubtedly played its role in the history of 1812, and precisely in the second half of the war. Not only career officers became the organizers of partisan detachments. There were also such cases: on August 31, 1812, the Russian rearguard began to retreat in battle from Tsareva-Zaimishch, where the French were already entering. Under the soldier of the dragoon regiment Yermolai Chetvertakov, a horse was wounded, and the rider was taken prisoner. In Gzhatsk, Chetvertakov managed to escape from the convoy, and he appeared in the village of Basmany, which lay far south of the Smolensk high road along which the French army was moving. Here, Chetvertakov came up with a plan for the same partisan war that Davydov also had in those days: Chetvertakov wished to assemble a partisan detachment from the peasants. I will note an interesting feature: when, back in 1804, the peasant Chetvertakov was “shaved his forehead”, he fled from the regiment, was caught and punished with rods. But now he not only decided to fight the enemy with all his might, but also to encourage others to do so. The peasants of the village of Basmany treated him with distrust, and he found only one adherent. Together they went to another village. Along the way, they met two Frenchmen, killed them and changed into their clothes. Having then met (already in the village of Zadkovo) two French cavalrymen, they killed them too and took their horses. The village of Zadkovo provided 47 peasants to help Chetvertakov. Then a small detachment led by Chetvertakov first killed a party of French cuirassiers numbering 12 people, then partly killed, partly put to flight a French half-company numbering 59 people, selected the crews. These successes made a huge impression, and even now the village of Basmany gave Chetvertakov 253 volunteers. Chetvertakov, an illiterate man, turned out to be an excellent administrator, tactician and strategist of the guerrilla war. Disturbing the enemy with surprise attacks, cleverly and carefully tracking down small French parties and exterminating them with lightning attacks. Chetvertakov managed to defend the vast territory around Gzhatsk from looting robberies. Chetvertakov acted mercilessly, and the bitterness of the peasants was such that it would hardly have been possible to restrain them. They did not take prisoners, but the French also shot without trial, on the spot, those partisans who fell into their hands. In the village of Semionovka, the peasants of Chetvertakov's detachment burned 60 French marauders. As we have seen, the French did the same on occasion.

They started talking about Chetvertakov. At his first demand, about 4 thousand peasants once joined his small (300 people) permanent detachment, and Chetvertakov undertook no more and no less than an open attack on the French battalion with guns, and the battalion retreated. 4 thousand peasants after that went home, and Chetvertakov with his permanent detachment continued his work. Only when the danger had passed and the French left, Chetvertakov appeared in November 1812 in Mogilev in his regiment. General Kologrivov and General Emmanuel, after conducting an investigation, were convinced of the remarkable achievements of Chetvertakov, of the enormous benefits he brought. Wittgenstein asked Barclay to reward Chetvertakov. The award was ... "a sign of a military order" (not George) Russian antiquity, vol. VII, pp. 99--102. That is how the matter ended. For the serf, the path to real distinction was barred, whatever his exploits.

It must be said that the true historical place of the partisans has been disputed more than once. At first, in hot pursuit, from fresh memory, the cases of Denis Davydov, Figner, Seslavin, Dorokhov, Vadbolsky, Kudashev and others were spoken of with enthusiasm. The dashing and boldness of the valiant raids of small parties on large detachments captivated the imagination. Then there was some reaction. The generals and officers of the regular troops, the heroes of Borodin and Maloyaroslavets, were not very willing to put these remote riders on the same level as their comrades, who obeyed no one, who flew in from nowhere, who hid who knows where, who took away the carts, divided the booty, but were unable to withstand a real open battle. with regular units of the retreating French army. On the other hand, Ataman Platov and Cossack circles insisted that it was the Cossacks who made up main force partisan detachments and that the glory of the partisans is in essence the glory of one Cossack army. The French helped a lot to strengthen this point of view: they talked a lot about the terrible harm that the Cossacks brought them, and said almost nothing (or spoke with some disdain) about the partisans. Justice demands that it be admitted that the partisans brought a very great and undoubted benefit from mid-September to the Berezina, i.e., the end of November.

The partisans were excellent and often insanely brave scouts. Figner, the prototype of Tolstoy's Dolokhov, actually went to the French camp in a French uniform and did it several times. Seslavin really crept up to the French non-commissioned officer, put him on his saddle and brought him to the Russian headquarters. Davydov, with a party of 200-300 people, really caused panic and, putting to flight detachments five times as large, took away the convoy, beat off Russian prisoners, and sometimes captured guns. The peasants got along and communicated with the partisans and their commanders much more easily and simply than with the regular units of the army.

The exaggerations made by some partisans in describing their actions caused, among other things, a too harsh assessment from the future Decembrist Prince Sergei Volkonsky, who himself commanded a partisan detachment for some time in 1812: “Describing the partisan actions of my detachment, I will not fool the reader, as many partisans do, with stories of many unprecedented skirmishes and dangers; and at least with my conscientiousness, in comparison with the exaggerated stories of other partisans, I will gain confidence in my notes ” Volkonsky S. G. Notes. - St. Petersburg, 1902, p. 207. . Quite right, there were exaggerations; but the partisans also had indisputable feats of resourcefulness, fearlessness, selflessness, and the partisans firmly occupied their place of honor in the history of the Patriotic War, in the heroic epic of defending the homeland from a foreign conqueror.

He knew how to boast on occasion, but much more moderately, and the "partisan poet" Denis Davydov. But the feeling of truth nevertheless took over from Denis Davydov, and his notes are, no matter what the enemies of the dashing rider may say about them in their time, a precious source for the history of 1812, which, of course, must be treated with serious criticism, but which should not be discarded under any circumstances. Describing a number of feats of arms and remote enterprises of partisan detachments that attacked the rear, on carts, on small detachments of the French army that had strayed away, he at the same time definitely says that the attack of partisans on large units, for example, on Napoleon’s guards, was absolutely beyond their power. . “I cannot be reproached for giving in to anyone in hostility to an encroacher on the independence and honor of my homeland ... My comrades remember, if not my weak successes, then at least my efforts, which tended to harm the enemy during the Patriotic and foreign wars; they also remember my astonishment, my admiration for the exploits of Napoleon, and the respect for his troops that I had in my soul in the heat of battle. A soldier, even with a weapon in my hands, did not cease to do justice to the first soldier of the centuries and the world, I was fascinated by courage, no matter what clothes it was dressed in, no matter where it manifested itself. Although Bagration's "bravo", bursting out in praise of the enemy in the very heat of the Battle of Borodino, echoed in my soul, it did not surprise her. Davydov D. V. Works, vol. III. - St. Petersburg, 1893, p. 77. Such was Davydov's mindset. He behaved like a knight in relation to captured enemies. This cannot be said about many other leaders of partisan detachments. Figner was especially inexorable (he died already in the war of 1813).

The help of the peasantry at the very beginning of the partisan movement was especially important for the partisans. The peasants of the Bronnitsky district of the Moscow province, the peasants of the village of Nikola-Pogorely near the city of Vyazma, the Bezhetsky, Dorogobuzh, Serpukhov peasants brought very significant benefits to the partisan detachments. They tracked down individual enemy parties and detachments, exterminated French foragers and marauders, and with full readiness delivered food to the partisan detachments for people and feed for horses. Without this help, the partisans would not have been able to achieve even half of the results that they actually achieved.

Then the retreat of the great army began, and it began with the senseless explosion of the Kremlin, which infuriated the anger of the people returning to Moscow, who found the whole city in ruins. This final act - the explosion of the Kremlin - was looked upon as a vicious mockery. The retreat was accompanied by a systematic, on the orders of Napoleon, the burning of cities and villages through which the French army was moving. The peasants, finding dead Russian prisoners on both sides of the road, immediately took an oath not to spare the enemies.

But the actions of the peasants were not limited only to helping the partisan detachments, catching and exterminating the marauders and stragglers, were not limited to fighting the foragers and destroying them, although, we note, this was the most terrible, annihilating blow that the Russian peasants inflicted on the great army, killing it hunger. Gerasim Kurin, a peasant in the village of Pavlova (near the city of Bogorodsk), formed a detachment of peasants, organized them, armed them with weapons taken from the killed French, and together with his assistant, the peasant Stulov, led his detachment against the French and, in a battle with French cavalrymen, put them to flight . Peasant women, embittered by the violence of the French against women who fell into their hands, acted energetically and showed particular cruelty towards the enemy. Rumors (quite reliable and confirmed) spoke of the violence of the French against women falling into their hands. The headman Vasilisa (Sychevsky district of the Smolensk province), who took the French prisoner, personally killed a lot of French soldiers with a pitchfork and a scythe, attacked, as they told about her, the stragglers of the convoys, was no exception. The participation of women in the people's war is noted by all sources. There were whole legends about the same Vasilisa or about the lace-maker Praskovya, who worked near Dukhovshchina, but it is difficult to single out the truth in them, to separate history from fantasy. Official historiography for a long time neglected the collection and clarification of facts in the field of the people's war, dwelling almost exclusively on the actions of the regular army and the leaders of the partisans (although very little and fluently was said about the partisans), and when contemporaries died out, it became even more difficult to collect completely reliable factual material. Of course, offensive actions (like the speeches of Kurin and Stulov or Chetvertakov) were not very frequent; most often, the actions of the peasants were limited to organizing surveillance of the enemy, defending their villages and entire volosts from attacks by the French and marauders, and exterminating the attackers. And this was infinitely more disastrous for the French army than any, even the most successful raids for the peasants, and not the fire of Moscow, not the frost, which almost did not exist until Smolensk itself, but the Russian peasants, who fiercely fought the enemy, dealt a terrible blow to the retreating great armies, surrounded her with a dense wall of implacable hatred and prepared for her final death.

The fears of the government and its restless attitude towards the peasantry in 1812 have already been cited above. Russian government, appears from the following order. Standing near the city of Klin, Captain Naryshkin with a cavalry detachment. He, taking advantage of the ardent desire of the peasants to help the army against the enemy, distributes the extra weapons he has in the detachment to the peasants, and the peasants themselves arm themselves with French weapons, which they remove from the French killed by them - foragers and marauders. Armed in this way, the peasant small parties, rummaging around Moscow, mercilessly killed the French, who tried to go from Moscow to look around the neighborhood for hay and oats for horses. These peasant partisans thus brought enormous benefits. And suddenly Naryshkin receives an unexpected paper from above. Let us leave the word to him: “On the basis of false reports and low slander, I received an order to disarm the peasants and shoot those who would be caught in indignation. Surprised by the order, which did not so much respond to the generous ... behavior of the peasants, I answered that I could not disarm the hands that I armed myself, and which served to destroy the enemies of the fatherland, and call those rebels who sacrificed their lives to defend ... independence , wives and dwellings, and the name of the traitor belongs to those who, at such a sacred moment for Russia, dare to slander her most zealous and faithful defenders ”Kharkevich V. 1812 in diaries ..., vol. II, p. 112.

There are many such cases. There is a number of documentary evidence of the indisputable fact that the government interfered in every possible way with the peasant partisan movement and tried to disorganize it to the best of its ability. It was afraid to give the peasants weapons against the French, they were afraid that these weapons would later be turned against the landowners. Alexander was afraid, the “Novgorod landowner” Arakcheev was afraid, Balashov was afraid, and the super-patriot Rostopchin was afraid, who most of all intimidated the tsar with the ghost of Pugachev. Fortunately for Russia, the peasants in 1812 disobeyed these orders to disarm them and continued to fight the enemy until the invaders were finally expelled from Russia.

guerrilla war , peasant active struggle, Cossack raids - all this, with increasing malnutrition, with the daily death of horses, forced the French to throw cannons along the road, throw part of the luggage from carts, and most importantly, throw sick and wounded comrades to the fierce death that awaited them, if only they would not have been lucky enough to fall into the hands of the regular army. Exhausted by unprecedented suffering, half-starved, weakened, the troops marched along the completely ruined road, marking their path with the corpses of people and horses. Near Mozhaisk, the retreating army passed by a vast plain, crossed by a ravine and a river, with small hills, with the ruins and blackened logs of two villages. The whole plain was covered with many thousands of rotting, decomposed corpses and men and horses, mangled cannons, rusty weapons lying in disarray and unusable, because the good was carried away. The soldiers of the French army did not immediately recognize the terrible place. It was Borodino with its still unburied dead. A terrifying impression was now made by this field of the great battle. Those who went to painful suffering and death looked for the last time at their comrades who had already died. The emperor with the guard was in the forefront. Leaving Vereya on October 28, Napoleon was in Gzhatsk on the 30th, in Vyazma on November 1, in Semlevo on November 2, in Slavkov on the 3rd, in Dorogobuzh on the 5th, in village of Mikhailov and on the 8th entered Smolensk. The army followed him in parts from 8 to 15 November. Throughout this disastrous journey from Maloyaroslavets to Smolensk, all the hopes - both of Napoleon himself and his army - were connected with Smolensk, where food supplies were supposed and the possibility of a somewhat calm stop and rest for tortured, hungry people and horses. The field marshal moved south, along a parallel line, with a slowness that amazed the French. This "parallel pursuit", conceived and carried out by Kutuzov, most likely ruined the Napoleonic army. The French headquarters, of course, did not know this then. It seemed that in Smolensk there would be a good rest, the soldiers would be able to recover, to come to their senses from the terrible suffering they endured, but it turned out to be something else. In a dead, half-ruined, half-burnt city, the retreating army was waiting for a blow that finally broke the spirit of many of its units: there were almost no supplies in Smolensk. From that moment on, the retreat finally began to turn into a flight, and everything that was transferred from Maloyaroslavets to Smolensk had to turn pale in front of the abyss that opened up under the feet of the great army after Smolensk and which swallowed it almost entirely.

The unsuccessful start of the war and the retreat of the Russian army deep into its territory showed that the enemy could hardly be defeated by the forces of regular troops alone. This required the efforts of the whole people. In the overwhelming majority of areas occupied by the enemy, he perceived " Grand Army"not as his liberator from serfdom, but as an enslaver. The next invasion of "foreigners" was perceived by the overwhelming majority of the population as an invasion, which had the goal of eradicating the Orthodox faith and establishing godlessness.

Speaking about the partisan movement in the war of 1812, it should be clarified that the actual partisans were temporary detachments of regular military units and Cossacks, purposefully and in an organized manner created by the Russian command for operations in the rear and on enemy communications. And to describe the actions of the spontaneously created self-defense units of the villagers, the term "people's war" was introduced. That's why popular movement in the Patriotic War of 1812 is integral part the more general theme of "The People in the War of the Twelfth Year".

Some authors associate the beginning of the partisan movement in 1812 with the manifesto of July 6, 1812, as if allowing the peasants to take up arms and actively join the struggle. In reality, things were somewhat different.

Even before the start of the war, the lieutenant colonel drew up a note on the conduct of an active guerrilla war. In 1811, the work of the Prussian colonel Valentini "Small War" was published in Russian. However, in the Russian army they looked at the partisans with a significant degree of skepticism, seeing in the partisan movement "a pernicious system of divisive action of the army."

People's War

With the invasion of the Napoleonic hordes, the locals initially simply left the villages and went to forests and areas remote from hostilities. Later, retreating through the Smolensk lands, the commander of the Russian 1st Western Army called on his compatriots to take up arms against the invaders. His proclamation, which was obviously based on the work of the Prussian colonel Valentini, indicated how to act against the enemy and how to wage guerrilla warfare.

It arose spontaneously and was a speech by small scattered detachments of local residents and soldiers lagging behind their units against the predatory actions of the rear units of the Napoleonic army. Trying to protect their property and food supplies, the population was forced to resort to self-defense. According to memoirs, “in every village the gates were locked; with them stood old and young with pitchforks, stakes, axes, and some of them with firearms.

The French foragers sent to the countryside for food faced not only passive resistance. In the region of Vitebsk, Orsha, Mogilev, detachments of peasants made frequent day and night raids on enemy carts, destroyed his foragers, and captured French soldiers.

Later, the Smolensk province was also plundered. Some researchers believe that it was from this moment that the war became domestic for the Russian people. Here the popular resistance also gained the widest scope. It began in Krasnensky, Porechsky districts, and then in Belsky, Sychevsky, Roslavl, Gzhatsky and Vyazemsky counties. At first, before the appeal of M.B. Barclay de Tolly, the peasants were afraid to arm themselves, fearing that they would then be held accountable. However, this process has since intensified.

Partisans in the Patriotic War of 1812
Unknown artist. 1st quarter of the 19th century

In the city of Bely and Belsky district, peasant detachments attacked parties of the French that made their way to them, destroyed them or took them prisoner. The leaders of the Sychevsk detachments, police officer Boguslavsky and retired major Yemelyanov, armed their villagers with guns taken from the French, established proper order and discipline. Sychevsk partisans attacked the enemy 15 times in two weeks (from August 18 to September 1). During this time, they destroyed 572 soldiers and captured 325 people.

Residents of the Roslavl district created several peasant detachments on horseback and on foot, arming the villagers with pikes, sabers and guns. They not only defended their county from the enemy, but also attacked marauders who made their way to the neighboring Yelnensky county. Many peasant detachments operated in the Yukhnovsky district. Organizing defense along the river. Ugra, they blocked the path of the enemy in Kaluga, provided significant assistance to the army partisan detachment D.V. Davydov.

In the Gzhatsk district, another detachment was also active, created from peasants, headed by an ordinary Kyiv Dragoon Regiment. The detachment of Chetvertakov began not only to protect the villages from marauders, but to attack the enemy, inflicting significant losses on him. As a result, in the entire space of 35 versts from the Gzhatskaya pier, the lands were not devastated, despite the fact that all the surrounding villages lay in ruins. For this feat, the inhabitants of those places "with sensitive gratitude" called Chetvertakov "the savior of that side."

Private Eremenko did the same. With the help of the landowner Michulovo, by the name of Krechetov, he also organized a peasant detachment, with which on October 30 he exterminated 47 people from the enemy.

The actions of the peasant detachments were especially intensified during the stay of the Russian army in Tarutino. At this time, they widely deployed the front of the struggle in the Smolensk, Moscow, Ryazan and Kaluga provinces.

Fight Mozhaisk peasants with French soldiers during and after the Battle of Borodino. Colorized engraving by an unknown author. 1830s

In the Zvenigorod district, peasant detachments destroyed and captured more than 2 thousand French soldiers. Here the detachments became famous, the leaders of which were the volost head Ivan Andreev and the centurion Pavel Ivanov. In the Volokolamsk district, such detachments were led by retired non-commissioned officer Novikov and private Nemchinov, volost head Mikhail Fedorov, peasants Akim Fedorov, Filipp Mikhailov, Kuzma Kuzmin and Gerasim Semenov. In the Bronnitsky district of the Moscow province, peasant detachments united up to 2 thousand people. History has preserved for us the names of the most distinguished peasants from the Bronnitsky district: Mikhail Andreev, Vasily Kirillov, Sidor Timofeev, Yakov Kondratiev, Vladimir Afanasyev.

Don't shut up! Let me come! Artist V.V. Vereshchagin. 1887-1895

The largest peasant detachment in the Moscow region was a detachment of Bogorodsk partisans. In one of the first publications in 1813 about the formation of this detachment, it was written that “the economic volosts of Vokhnovskaya, the head of the centurion Ivan Chushkin and the peasant, Amerevsky head Emelyan Vasilyev, gathered peasants under their jurisdiction, and also invited neighboring ones.”

The detachment numbered in its ranks about 6 thousand people, the leader of this detachment was the peasant Gerasim Kurin. His detachment and other smaller detachments not only reliably protected the entire Bogorodsk district from the penetration of French marauders, but also entered into an armed struggle with the enemy troops.

It should be noted that even women participated in sorties against the enemy. Subsequently, these episodes were overgrown with legends and in some cases did not even remotely resemble real events. A typical example is with, to which popular rumor and propaganda of that time attributed no less than leadership of a peasant detachment, which in reality was not.

French guards under escort of Grandmother Spiridonovna. A.G. Venetsianov. 1813

A gift for children in memory of the events of 1812. Caricature from the series I.I. Terebeneva

Peasant and partisan detachments fettered the actions of the Napoleonic troops, inflicted damage on the enemy's manpower, and destroyed military property. The Smolensk road, which remained the only protected postal route leading from Moscow to the west, was constantly subjected to their raids. They intercepted French correspondence, especially valuable delivered to the main apartment of the Russian army.

The actions of the peasants were highly appreciated by the Russian command. “Peasants,” he wrote, “from the villages adjacent to the theater of war inflict the greatest harm on the enemy ... They kill the enemy in large numbers, and deliver those taken prisoner to the army.”

Partisans in 1812. Artist B. Zworykin. 1911

According to various estimates, more than 15 thousand people were taken prisoner by peasant formations, the same number were exterminated, significant stocks of fodder and weapons were destroyed.

In 1812. Captured French. Hood. THEM. Pryanishnikov. 1873

During the war, many active members of the peasant detachments were awarded. Emperor Alexander I ordered to award people subordinate to the count: 23 people "in command" - insignia of the Military Order (George Crosses), and the other 27 people - a special silver medal "For Love of the Fatherland" on the Vladimir ribbon.

Thus, as a result of the actions of military and peasant detachments, as well as militias, the enemy was deprived of the opportunity to expand the zone controlled by him and create additional bases for supplying the main forces. He failed to gain a foothold either in Bogorodsk, or in Dmitrov, or in Voskresensk. His attempt to get additional communications that would link the main forces with the corps of Schwarzenberg and Rainier was thwarted. The enemy also failed to capture Bryansk and reach Kyiv.

Army partisan detachments

Army partisan detachments also played an important role in the Patriotic War of 1812. The idea of ​​their creation arose even before the Battle of Borodino, and was the result of an analysis of the actions of individual cavalry units, by the will of circumstances that fell into the rear communications of the enemy.

The first partisan actions were started by a cavalry general who formed a "flying corps". Later, on August 2, already M.B. Barclay de Tolly ordered the creation of a detachment under the command of a general. He led the combined Kazan Dragoon, Stavropol, Kalmyk and three Cossack regiments, which began to operate in the area of ​​​​the city of Dukhovshchina on the flanks and behind enemy lines. Its number was 1300 people.

Later, the main task of the partisan detachments was formulated by M.I. Kutuzov: “Since now the autumn time is coming, through which the movement of a large army becomes completely difficult, I decided, avoiding a general battle, to wage a small war, because the separate forces of the enemy and his oversight give me more ways to exterminate him, and for this, being now 50 versts from Moscow with the main forces, I am giving away important units from me in the direction of Mozhaisk, Vyazma and Smolensk.

Army partisan detachments were created mainly from the most mobile Cossack units and were not the same in size: from 50 to 500 people or more. They were tasked with sudden actions behind enemy lines to disrupt communications, destroy his manpower, strike at garrisons, suitable reserves, deprive the enemy of the opportunity to get food and fodder, monitor the movement of troops and report this to the main apartment of the Russian army. Between the commanders of the partisan detachments, interaction was organized as far as possible.

The main advantage of partisan detachments was their mobility. They never stood in one place, constantly on the move, and no one except the commander knew in advance when and where the detachment would go. The actions of the partisans were sudden and swift.

The partisan detachments of D.V. Davydova, etc.

The personification of the entire partisan movement was the detachment of the commander of the Akhtyrsky Hussar Regiment, Lieutenant Colonel Denis Davydov.

The tactics of the actions of his partisan detachment combined a swift maneuver and striking an enemy unprepared for battle. To ensure secrecy, the partisan detachment had to be on the march almost constantly.

The first successful actions encouraged the partisans, and Davydov decided to attack some enemy convoy going along the main Smolensk road. On September 3 (15), 1812, a battle took place near Tsarev-Zaimishch on the big Smolensk road, during which the partisans captured 119 soldiers, two officers. At the disposal of the partisans were 10 food carts and a cart with cartridges.

M.I. Kutuzov closely followed the brave actions of Davydov and gave a very great importance expansion of guerrilla warfare.

In addition to the Davydov detachment, there were many other well-known and successfully operating partisan detachments. In the autumn of 1812, they surrounded the French army in a continuous mobile ring. The flying detachments included 36 Cossack and 7 cavalry regiments, 5 squadrons and a team of light horse artillery, 5 infantry regiments, 3 battalions of rangers and 22 regimental guns. Thus, Kutuzov gave the guerrilla war a wider scope.

Most often, partisan detachments set up ambushes and attacked enemy transports and convoys, captured couriers, and freed Russian prisoners. Every day, the Commander-in-Chief received reports on the direction of movement and actions of enemy detachments, repulsed mail, protocols of interrogation of prisoners and other information about the enemy, which were reflected in the log of military operations.

A partisan detachment of Captain A.S. was operating on the Mozhaisk road. Figner. Young, educated, fluent in French, German and Italian language and, he found himself in the fight against a foreign enemy, not being afraid to die.

From the north, Moscow was blocked by a large detachment of General F.F. Wintzingerode, who, by allocating small detachments to Volokolamsk, to the Yaroslavl and Dmitrov roads, blocked the access of Napoleon's troops to the northern regions of the Moscow region.

With the withdrawal of the main forces of the Russian army, Kutuzov advanced from the Krasnaya Pakhra region to the Mozhaisk road in the area with. Perkhushkovo, located 27 miles from Moscow, a detachment of Major General I.S. Dorokhov as part of three Cossack, hussar and dragoon regiments and half a company of artillery in order to "make an attack, trying to destroy enemy parks." Dorokhov was instructed not only to observe this road, but also to strike at the enemy.

The actions of the Dorokhov detachment were approved in the main apartment of the Russian army. On the first day alone, he managed to destroy 2 squadrons of cavalry, 86 charging trucks, capture 11 officers and 450 privates, intercept 3 couriers, recapture 6 pounds of church silver.

Having withdrawn the army to the Tarutinsky position, Kutuzov formed several more army partisan detachments, in particular detachments, and. The actions of these units were of great importance.

Colonel N.D. Kudashev with two Cossack regiments was sent to the Serpukhov and Kolomenskaya roads. His detachment, having established that there were about 2,500 French soldiers and officers in the village of Nikolsky, suddenly attacked the enemy, killed more than 100 people and took 200 prisoners.

Between Borovsk and Moscow, the roads were controlled by a detachment of Captain A.N. Seslavin. He, with a detachment of 500 people (250 Don Cossacks and a squadron of the Sumy Hussar Regiment), was instructed to act in the area of ​​\u200b\u200bthe road from Borovsk to Moscow, coordinating his actions with the detachment of A.S. Figner.

In the Mozhaisk region and to the south, a detachment of Colonel I.M. Vadbolsky as part of the Mariupol Hussars and 500 Cossacks. He advanced to the village of Kubinsky to attack enemy carts and drive away his parties, having mastered the road to Ruza.

In addition, a detachment of a lieutenant colonel of 300 people was also sent to the Mozhaisk region. To the north, in the region of Volokolamsk, a detachment of a colonel operated, near Ruza - a major, behind Klin towards the Yaroslavl tract - Cossack detachments military foreman, at Voskresensk - Major Figlev.

Thus, the army was surrounded by a continuous ring of partisan detachments, which prevented it from carrying out foraging in the vicinity of Moscow, as a result of which a massive loss of horses was observed in the enemy troops, and demoralization intensified. This was one of the reasons why Napoleon left Moscow.

The partisans A.N. were the first to learn about the beginning of the advance of French troops from the capital. Seslavin. At the same time, he, being in the forest near the village. Fomichevo, personally saw Napoleon himself, which he immediately reported. About Napoleon's advance to the new Kaluga road and about the cover detachments (corps with the remnants of the avant-garde) was immediately reported to the main apartment of M.I. Kutuzov.

An important discovery of the partisan Seslavin. Unknown artist. 1820s.

Kutuzov sent Dokhturov to Borovsk. However, already on the way, Dokhturov learned about the occupation of Borovsk by the French. Then he went to Maloyaroslavets to prevent the advance of the enemy to Kaluga. The main forces of the Russian army also began to pull up there.

After a 12-hour march, D.S. By the evening of October 11 (23), Dokhturov approached Spassky and united with the Cossacks. And in the morning he entered the battle on the streets of Maloyaroslavets, after which the French had only one way to retreat - Staraya Smolenskaya. And then be late report A.N. Seslavin, the French would have bypassed the Russian army near Maloyaroslavets, and what the further course of the war would have been is unknown ...

By this time, the partisan detachments were reduced to three large parties. One of them under the command of Major General I.S. Dorohova, consisting of five infantry battalions, four cavalry squadrons, two Cossack regiments with eight guns, on September 28 (October 10), 1812, went to storm the city of Vereya. The enemy took up arms only when the Russian partisans had already burst into the city. Vereya was liberated, and about 400 people of the Westphalian regiment with a banner were taken prisoner.

Monument to I.S. Dorokhov in the city of Vereya. Sculptor S.S. Aleshin. 1957

Continuous exposure to the enemy was of great importance. From 2 (14) September to 1 (13) October, according to various estimates, the enemy lost only about 2.5 thousand people killed, 6.5 thousand Frenchmen were taken prisoner. Their losses increased every day due to the active actions of the peasant and partisan detachments.

To ensure the transportation of ammunition, food and fodder, as well as road safety, the French command had to allocate significant forces. Taken together, all this significantly affected the moral and psychological state of the French army, which worsened every day.

The great success of the partisans is considered to be the battle near the village. Lyakhovo west of Yelnya, which occurred on October 28 (November 9). In it partisans D.V. Davydova, A.N. Seslavin and A.S. Figner, reinforced by regiments, 3,280 in all, attacked Augereau's brigade. After a stubborn battle, the entire brigade (2 thousand soldiers, 60 officers and Augereau himself) surrendered. This was the first time that an entire enemy military unit had surrendered.

The rest of the partisan forces also continuously appeared on both sides of the road and disturbed the French vanguard with their shots. Davydov's detachment, like the detachments of other commanders, all the time followed on the heels of the enemy army. Colonel, following on the right flank of the Napoleonic army, was ordered to go ahead, warning the enemy and raid individual detachments when they stopped. A large partisan detachment was sent to Smolensk in order to destroy enemy stores, convoys and individual detachments. From the rear of the French, the Cossacks M.I. Platov.

The partisan detachments were used no less vigorously in the completion of the campaign to expel the Napoleonic army from Russia. Detachment A.P. Ozharovsky was supposed to capture the city of Mogilev, where there were large enemy rear depots. On November 12 (24), his cavalry broke into the city. And two days later, the partisans D.V. Davydov interrupted communication between Orsha and Mogilev. Detachment A.N. Seslavin, together with the regular army, liberated the city of Borisov and, pursuing the enemy, approached the Berezina.

At the end of December, the entire detachment of Davydov, on the orders of Kutuzov, joined the vanguard of the main forces of the army as his vanguard.

The guerrilla war that unfolded near Moscow made a significant contribution to the victory over Napoleon's army and the expulsion of the enemy from Russia.

Material prepared by the Research Institute (Military History)
Military Academy of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation

While the Napoleonic troops are relaxing with drunkenness and robbery in Moscow, and the regular Russian army is retreating, making cunning maneuvers that will then allow it to rest, gather strength, significantly replenish its composition and defeat the enemy, let's talk about cudgel of the people's war, as we like to call the partisan movement of 1812 with the light hand of Leo Tolstoy.

Partisans of the Denisov detachment
Illustration for Leo Tolstoy's novel War and Peace
Andrey NIKOLAEV

Firstly, I would like to say that this cudgel has a very remote relation to guerrilla warfare in the form in which it existed. Namely, army partisan detachments of regular military units and Cossacks, created in the Russian army to operate in the rear and on enemy communications. Secondly, reading even recently various materials, not to mention Soviet sources, you often come across the idea that the alleged ideological inspirer and organizer of them was exclusively Denis Davydov, the famous poet and partisan of that time, who was the first to propose the creation of detachments, like the spanish guerilla, through Prince Bagration to Field Marshal Kutuzov before the battle of Borodino. I must say that the dashing hussar himself put a lot of effort into this legend. It happens...

Portrait of Denis Davydov
Yuri IVANOV

In fact, the first partisan detachment in this war was created near Smolensk by order of the same Mikhail Bogdanovich Barclay de Tolly, even before Kutuzov was appointed commander in chief. By the time Davydov turned to Bagration with a request to allow the creation of an army partisan detachment, Major General Ferdinand Fedorovich Wintzingerode (commander of the first partisan detachment) was already in full swing and successfully smashing the rear of the French. The detachment occupied the cities of Surazh, Velez, Usvyat, constantly threatened the suburbs of Vitebsk, which caused Napoleon to send the Italian division of General Pino to the aid of the Vitebsk garrison. As usual, we have forgotten the affairs of these "Germans" ...

Portrait of General Baron Ferdinand Fedorovich Wintzingerode
Unknown artist

After Borodino, in addition to Davydov's (by the way, the smallest detachment), several more were created that began active fighting after leaving Moscow. Some detachments consisted of several regiments and could independently solve major combat missions, for example, the detachment of Major General Ivan Semenovich Dorokhov, which included dragoon, hussar and 3 cavalry regiments. Large detachments were commanded by colonels Vadbolsky, Efremov, Kudashev, captains Seslavin, Figner and others. Many glorious officers fought in partisan detachments, including future satraps(as they were previously presented to us) Alexander Khristoforovich Benkendorf, Alexander Ivanovich Chernyshev.

Portraits of Ivan Semenovich Dorokhov and Ivan Efremovich Efremov
George Dow Unknown artist

At the beginning of October 1812, it was decided to surround the Napoleonic army with a ring of army partisan detachments, with a clear action plan and a specific area of ​​\u200b\u200bdeployment for each of them. So, Davydov's detachment was ordered to function between Smolensk and Gzhatsk, Major General Dorokhov - between Gzhatsk and Mozhaisk, Staff Captain Figner - between Mozhaisk and Moscow. In the Mozhaisk area there were also detachments of Colonel Vadbolsky and Colonel Chernozubov.

Portraits of Nikolai Danilovich Kudashev and Ivan Mikhailovich Vadbolsky
George Doe

Between Borovsk and Moscow, the detachments of Captain Seslavin and Lieutenant Fonvizin attacked the enemy's communications. To the north of Moscow, a group of detachments under the general command of General Winzingerode conducted an armed struggle. On the Ryazan road, a detachment of Colonel Efremov operated, on Serpukhovskaya - Colonel Kudashev, on Kashirskaya - Major Lesovsky. The main advantage of partisan detachments was their mobility, surprise and swiftness. They never stood in one place, they constantly moved around, and no one except the commander knew in advance when and where the detachment would go. If necessary, several detachments were temporarily united for large-scale operations.

Portraits of Alexander Samoilovich Figner and Alexander Nikitich Seslavin
Yuri IVANOV

Without detracting from the exploits of the detachment of Denis Davydov and himself, it must be said that many commanders were offended by the memoirist after the publication of his military notes, in which he often exaggerated his own merits and forgot to mention his comrades. To which Davydov simply replied: Fortunately, there is something to say about yourself, why not talk? And it's true, the organizers, Generals Barclay de Tolly and Winzingerode, passed away one after another in 1818, what to remember about them ... And written in a fascinating juicy language, the works of Denis Vasilyevich were very popular in Russia. True, Alexander Bestuzhev-Marlinsky wrote to Xenophon Polevoy in 1832: Between us, be it said, he wrote out more than cut himself the glory of a brave man.

A memoirist, and even more so a poet, and even a hussar, well, how can we do without fantasies :) So let's forgive him these little pranks? ..

Denis Davydov at the head of the partisans in the vicinity of Lyakhovo
A. TELENIK

Portrait of Denis Davydov
Alexander ORLOVSKY

In addition to partisan detachments, there was also the so-called people's war, which was waged by spontaneous self-defense detachments of the villagers and the significance of which, in my opinion, is greatly exaggerated. And it is already teeming with myths ... Now, they say, they concocted a film about the old man Vasilisa Kozhina, whose very existence is still disputed, and nothing can be said about her exploits.

But oddly enough, the same “German” Barclay de Tolly had a hand in this movement, who back in July, without waiting for instructions from above, turned through the Smolensk governor, Baron Casimir Asch, to the inhabitants of the Pskov, Smolensk and Kaluga regions with appeal:

The inhabitants of Pskov, Smolensk and Kaluga! Listen to the voice that calls you to your own comfort, to your own safety. Our irreconcilable enemy, having undertaken a greedy intention against us, fed himself hitherto with the hope that his impudence alone would be enough to frighten us, to triumph over us. But our two brave armies, stopping the daring flight of his violence, with their breasts resisted him on our ancient borders ... Avoiding a decisive battle, ... his robber gangs, attacking unarmed villagers, tyrannize over them with all the cruelty of barbarian times: they rob and burn their houses; they desecrate the temples of God... But many of the inhabitants of the province of Smolensk have already awakened from their fear. They, armed in their homes, with courage worthy of the name of the Russian, punish the villains without any mercy. Imitate them all who love themselves, the fatherland and the sovereign!

Of course, the inhabitants and the peasants behaved differently in the territories left by the Russians. When the French army approached, they moved away from home or into the forests. But often, first of all, some people ruined the estates of their tyrannical landowners (we must not forget that the peasants were serfs), robbed, set fire to, ran away in the hope that the French would come now and free them (the land was full of rumors about Napoleon’s intentions to rid the peasants of serfdom ).

Destruction of the landowner's estate. Patriotic War of 1812
The looting of the landowner's estate by the peasants after the retreat of the Russian troops before Napoleon's army
V.N. KURDYUMOV

During the retreat of our troops and the entry of the French into Russia, the landlord peasants often rose up against their masters, divided the master's estate, even tore up and burned houses, killed landowners and managers- in a word, they smashed the estates. The passing troops joined the peasants and, in turn, carried out the robbery. Our picture depicts an episode from such a joint robbery of the civilian population with the military. The action takes place in one of the rich landowners' estates. The owner himself is no longer there, and the remaining clerk was seized so that he would not interfere. The furniture was taken out into the garden and broken. The statues decorating the garden are broken; crushed flowers. There is also a barrel of wine lying around with the bottom knocked out. The wine spilled. Everyone takes whatever they want. And unnecessary things are thrown away and destroyed. A cavalryman on a horse stands and calmly looks at this picture of destruction.(original caption for illustration)

Partisans of 1812.
Boris ZVORYKIN

Where the landowners behaved like human beings, the peasants and yard people armed themselves with what they could, sometimes under the leadership of the owners themselves, attacked the French detachments, carts and rebuffed them. Some detachments were led by Russian soldiers who fell behind their units due to illness, injury, captivity and subsequent flight from it. So the audience was diverse.

Homeland Defenders
Alexander APSIT

Scouts Scouts
Alexander APSIT

It is also impossible to say that these detachments acted on a permanent basis. They organized for as long as the enemy was on their territory, and then disbanded, all for the same reason that the peasants were serfs. Indeed, even from the militias created at the behest of the emperor, runaway peasants were escorted home and subjected to trial. So the detachment of Kurin, whose exploits were sung by Mikhailovsky-Danilevsky, lasted 10 days - from October 5 to October 14, until the French were in Bogorodsk district, and then was disbanded. Yes, and not the entire Russian people participated in the people's war, but only the inhabitants of several provinces where hostilities took place, or adjacent to them.

French guards under the escort of grandmother Spiridonovna
Alexey VENETSIANOV, 1813

I started this whole conversation in order, firstly, to understand that our cudgel of the people's war could not stand any comparison with the Spanish-Portuguese guerilla (you can read a little about this), which, supposedly, we were equal to, and, secondly, once again to show that the Patriotic War was won primarily thanks to the actions of our generals, generals, officers and soldiers. And the emperor. And not by the forces of the Gerasimov Kurins, the mythical lieutenants Rzhevskys, Vasilis Kozhins and other entertaining characters ... Although they could not do without them ... And more specifically, we will talk more about the guerrilla war ahead ...

And finally, today's picture:

Archpriest of the Cavalier Guard Regiment Gratinsky, serving a prayer service in the parish church of St. Euplas, in Moscow, in the presence of the French on September 27, 1812.
Engraving from a drawing by an unknown artist

... Wishing to create a more favorable attitude towards himself among the population, Napoleon ordered not to interfere with the celebration of worship in churches; but this was possible only in a few temples that were not touched by the enemy. From September 15, divine services were regularly performed in the church of Archdeacon Evpla (on Myasnitskaya); divine services were performed daily in the church of Kharitonius in Ogorodniki. The first evangelism in the church of Peter and Paul on Yakimanka made a particularly deep impression in Zamoskorechye...(w-l Tourist's companion No. 3, published for the centenary of the war of 1812)

State educational institution

Education Center No. 000

Heroes - partisans of the Patriotic War of 1812 D. Davydov, A. Seslavin, A. Figner, their role in the victory of Russia and the reflection of their names in the names of the streets of Moscow.

Students of 6 "A" class

Degtyareva Anastasia

Grishchenko Valeria

Markosova Karina

Project leaders:

a history teacher

a history teacher

Ph.D. head Scientific and Information Department of the State Institution of Culture “Museum-panorama “Battle of Borodino””

Moscow

Introduction

The Patriotic War of 1812 is one of the brightest events in the history of Russia. As the famous publicist and literary critic of the XIX century wrote. : "Every nation has its own history, and in history there are critical moments by which one can judge the strength and greatness of his spirit ...". [Zaichenko [In 1812, Russia showed the whole world the strength and greatness of its spirit and proved that it was impossible to defeat it , even striking in the heart, capturing Moscow. From the first days of the war, the people rose to war with the invaders, all classes of Russian society were united: nobles, peasants, raznochintsy, clergymen.

Having visited the Museum-panorama "Battle of Borodino" we wanted to learn more about the heroes-partisans of the Patriotic War of 1812. From the guide we learned that for the first time the partisan movement arose during the Patriotic War of 1812. Kutuzov connected the partisan struggle with the actions of the regular army, D. Davydov, A. Seslavin, A. Figner played a big role in this.

Therefore, the choice of the theme of our project is not accidental. We turned to the head of the scientific information department, Ph.D. GUK "Museum-Panorama" Battle of Borodino" with a request to tell us about the heroes of the partisans and provide us with materials on the activities of partisan detachments.

The aim of our study- to show the need to create partisan detachments, the activities of their leaders D. Davydov, A. Seslavin, A. Figner, to note their personal qualities and fully appreciate their contribution to the victory in the Patriotic War of 1812.

In 2012 we will celebrate the 200th anniversary of the Patriotic War of 1812. It became interesting to us how the descendants paid tribute to the memory and honor, the courage of the heroes who saved Russia in that terrible time.

Hence the theme of our project "Heroes - partisans of the Patriotic War of 1812 D. Davydov, A. Seslavin, A. Figner, their role in the victory of Russia and the reflection of their names in the names of the streets of Moscow."

Object of study are the activities of partisans in the Patriotic War.

Subject of study are the personalities of D. Davydov, A. Seslavin, A. Figner and their activities in the Patriotic War of 1812.

We assume that without the action of the partisans, without their courage, heroism and dedication, the defeat of the Napoleonic army, its expulsion from Russia, is not possible.

Having studied the literature, diaries, memoirs, letters and poems on this topic, we developed a research strategy and defined research objectives.

Tasks

1. Analyze literature (essays, poems, stories, memoirs) and find out how partisan detachments acquired mass character and became widespread.

2. To study in what ways and means the partisans acted to achieve their goals and victories in the war of 1812.

3. To study the biography and activities of D. Davydov, A. Seslavin, A. Figner.

4. Name the character traits of the partisan heroes (D. Davydova, A. Seslavin, A. Figner), provide for discussion the appearance of partisans, partisan detachments, show how necessary, difficult and heroic their work was.

5. To study and visit the memorable places in Moscow associated with the war of 1812.

6. Collect material for the school - military museum and speak to the students of the education center.

To solve the tasks we used the following methods: definition of concepts, theoretical - analysis, synthesis, generalization, free interviewing, application of toponymic knowledge in search memorable places Moscow.

The work was carried out in several stages:

First stage, organizational, visit to the Museum - panorama "Battle of Borodino". Research planning. Finding sources of information (interviews, reading printed sources, viewing a map, finding Internet resources) for study. Determination in what form the result of the work can be presented. Distribution of responsibilities among team members.

Second phase, ascertaining, selection required material. Interviewing (Head of the Scientific Information Department, Candidate of Historical Sciences, GUK "Panorama Museum" Battle of Borodino ""). Studying the map of Moscow. Reading and analysis of sources of information.

Third stage, forming, selection of the necessary material, finding memorable places in Moscow associated with the Patriotic War of 1812.

Fourth stage, control, report of each team member on the work done.

Fifth stage, promotional, creating a presentation, collecting material for the school - military museum and speaking to the students of the education center

Chapter 1

1.1 Basic concepts used in the work.

What is Guerrilla Warfare? How is it different from ordinary war? When and where did it appear? What are the goals and significance of the Guerrilla War? What is the difference between the Guerrilla War from the Small War and from the People's War? These questions appeared in our study of the literature. In order to correctly understand and use these terms, we need to give their concepts. Using the encyclopedia "Patriotic War of 1812": Encyclopedia. M., 2004., we learned that:

guerrilla war

In the XVIII-XIX centuries. guerrilla warfare was understood as independent actions of small mobile army detachments on the flanks, in the rear and on enemy communications. The purpose of the Guerrilla War was to disrupt the communication of enemy troops with each other and with the rear, with convoys, destroy stocks (stores) and rear military establishments, transports, reinforcements, as well as attacks on milestone posts, release of their prisoners, interception of couriers. The partisan detachments were entrusted with establishing communication between the divided parts of their army, initiating people's war behind enemy lines, obtaining information about the movement and strength of the enemy army, as well as the constant anxiety of the enemy in order to deprive him of the necessary rest and thereby lead "to exhaustion and frustration." Guerrilla warfare was seen as part of small war, since the actions of the partisans did not lead to the defeat of the enemy, but only contributed to the achievement of this goal.

In the XVIII-XIX centuries. the concept of a small war denoted the actions of troops in small detachments, as opposed to the actions of large units and formations. The Small War included guarding own troops (service at outposts, guards, patrols, pickets, patrols, etc.) and actions by detachments (simple and enhanced reconnaissance, ambushes, attacks). Guerrilla warfare was carried out in the form of short-term raids by relatively strong "flying corps" or in the form of long-term "search" for small partisan parties behind enemy lines.

Partisan actions were first used by the commander-in-chief of the 3rd Western Army, General. By permission, on August 25 (September 6), the party of the lieutenant colonel was sent to the "search".

The partisan war intensified in the autumn of 1812, when the army stood near Tarutino. In September, a “flying corps” was sent to the raid on the Mozhaisk road. In September, a colonel’s party was sent to the rear of the enemy. September 23 (October 5) - the party of the captain. September 26 (Oct. 8) - the party of the colonel, September 30 (12 Oct.) - the party of the captain.

Temporary army mobile detachments, created by the Russian command for short raids ("raids", "expeditions"), were also called "small corps", "detachments of light troops". The "light corps" consisted of regular (light cavalry, dragoons, rangers, horse artillery) and irregular (Cossacks, Bashkirs, Kalmyks) troops. Average number: 2-3 thousand people. The actions of the "light corps" were one of the forms of guerrilla warfare.

We learned that guerrilla warfare is understood as the independent actions of small mobile army detachments on the flanks, in the rear and on enemy communications. We also learned the goals of the Guerrilla War, that the Guerrilla War is part of a small war, that “flying corps” are temporary mobile units.

1.2 Davydov (1784 - 1839)

Nevstruev, 1998
Shmurzdyuk, 1998

1.3 Hero of the partisans - A. Seslavin

Along with Denis Davydov, he is one of the most famous partisans of 1812. His name is inextricably linked with the events immediately preceding the transition of the Russian troops to the offensive, which led to the death of the Napoleonic army.

Only shortly before World War II, Seslavin was promoted to captain. Such a modest advance on the "ladder of ranks" was the result of a two-time break in military service. Having graduated from the Artillery and Engineering Cadet Corps in 1798, the best military educational institution At that time, Seslavin was released as a second lieutenant in the guards artillery, in which he served for 7 years, being promoted to the next rank for this, and at the beginning of 1805 "resigned from service at the request." In the autumn of the same year, after the declaration of war with Napoleonic France, Seslavin returned to service and was assigned to the horse artillery.

For the first time he took part in hostilities in the campaign of 1807 in East Prussia. In the battle of Heilsberg, he was seriously wounded and awarded a golden weapon for his bravery. Soon after the end of the war, he left the service for the second time and spent 3 years in retirement, being treated for the consequences of a wound.

In 1810, Seslavin again returned to the army and fought against the Turks on the Danube. During the assault on Ruschuk, he walked in the head of one of the columns and, having already climbed the earthen rampart, was seriously wounded in his right hand. For differences in battles with the Turks, Seslavin was promoted to staff captain and soon after to captain.

At the beginning of World War II, Seslavin was Barclay de Tolly's adjutant. Possessing a good theoretical background, a broad military outlook and combat experience, he served in the headquarters of Barclay de Tolly as a "quartermaster", that is, an officer general staff. With units of the 1st Army, Seslavin took part in almost all the battles of the first period of the war - near Ostrovnaya, Smolensk, Valutina Gora and others. In the battle near Shevardino he was wounded, but remained in the ranks, participated in the Battle of Borodino and was awarded the St. George Cross of the 4th degree among the most distinguished officers.

Soon after leaving Moscow, Seslavin received a "flying detachment" and began partisan searches, in which he fully showed his brilliant military talents. His detachment, like other partisan detachments, attacked enemy transports, destroyed or captured parties of foragers and marauders. But Seslavin considered his main task to be the tireless monitoring of the movement of large formations of the enemy army, believing that this reconnaissance activity could most of all contribute to the success of the operations of the main forces of the Russian army. It was these actions that glorified his name.

Having decided in Tarutino to unleash a "small war" and surround the Napoleonic army with a ring of army partisan detachments, Kutuzov clearly organized their actions, assigning a certain area to each detachment. So, Denis Davydov was ordered to act between Mozhaisk and Vyazma, Dorokhov - in the Vereya - Gzhatsk region, Efremov - on the Ryazan road, Kudashev - on Tulskaya, Seslavin and Fonvizin (the future Decembrist) - between the Smolensk and Kaluga roads.

On October 7, the day after the battle of Murat's corps near Tarutin, Napoleon gave the order to leave Moscow, intending to go to Smolensk through Kaluga and Yelnya. However, in an effort to maintain the morale of his army and at the same time mislead Kutuzov, Napoleon set out from Moscow along the old Kaluga road in the direction of Tarutino, thus giving his movement an “offensive character”. Halfway to Tarutin, he unexpectedly ordered his army to turn right at Krasnaya Pakhra, went by country roads to the New Kaluga road and moved along it south, to Maloyaroslavets, trying to bypass the main forces of the Russian army. Ney's corps at first continued to move along the Old Kaluga road to Tarutino and united with Murat's troops. According to Napoleon's calculation, this was to disorient Kutuzov and give him the impression that the entire Napoleonic army was marching towards Tarutino with the intention of imposing a general battle on the Russian army.

On October 10, Seslavin discovered the main forces of the French army near the village of Fominskoye and, having notified the command about this, gave the Russian troops the opportunity to preempt the enemy at Maloyaroslavets and block his path to Kaluga. Seslavin himself described this most important episode of his military activity as follows: “I was standing on a tree when I opened the movement of the French army, which stretched at my feet, where Napoleon himself was in a carriage. Several people (French) separated from the edge of the forest and the road, were captured and delivered to the Most Serene, as evidence of such an important discovery for Russia, deciding the fate of the Fatherland, Europe and Napoleon himself ... I found General Dokhturov in Aristov by chance, not at all knowing about his stay there; I rushed to Kutuzov in Tarutino. Having handed over the prisoners for presentation to the most illustrious, I went back to the detachment in order to observe Napoleon's movement more closely.

On the night of October 11, the messenger informed Kutuzov about the "discovery" of Seslavin. Everyone remembers from War and Peace the meeting between Kutuzov and the messenger sent by Dokhturov (in the Bolkhovitinov novel), described by Tolstoy on the basis of Bolgovsky's memoirs.

For the next month and a half, Seslavin acted with his detachment with exceptional courage and energy, fully justifying the characterization given to him by one of the participants in the Patriotic War as an officer of "tried courage and zeal, extraordinary enterprise." So, on October 22, near Vyazma, Seslavin, having galloped between the enemy columns, discovered the beginning of their retreat and let the Russian detachments know about it, and he himself broke into the city with the Pernovsky regiment. On October 28, near Lyakhov, together with Denis Davydov and Orlov-Denisov, he captured the brigade of General Augereau, for which he was promoted to colonel; together with another famous partisan, Figner, he recaptured from the French transport with valuables stolen in Moscow. On November 16, Seslavin broke into Borisov with his detachment, captured 3,000 prisoners, and established communication between the troops of Wittgenstein and Chichagov. Finally, on November 27, he was the first to attack the French troops in Vilna and was seriously wounded in the process.

In December 1812, Seslavin was appointed commander of the Sumy Hussar Regiment. In the autumn of 1813 and in 1814 he commanded the forward detachments of the Allied army, participated in the battles near Leipzig and Ferchampenoise; Promoted to major general for military distinction.

Seslavin, according to him, took part "in 74 combat battles" and was wounded 9 times. Intense military service and severe injuries affected his health and peace of mind. At the end of hostilities, he received a long leave for treatment abroad, visited France, Italy, Switzerland, where he walked along the path of Suvorov - through St. Gotthard and the Chortov bridge, was treated on the waters, but his health did not improve. In 1820, he left the service and retired to his small Tver estate Yesemovo, where he lived alone, without meeting with any of the neighboring landowners, for more than 30 years.

Seslavin was distinguished by exceptional courage and energy, courage fully justifying the characterization given to him by one of the participants in the Patriotic War as an officer of "tried courage and zeal, extraordinary enterprise" .. () Alexander Nikitich was a deeply educated person, was interested in various sciences. After retiring, he wrote memoirs of which only fragments have survived. This man was undeservedly forgotten by his contemporaries, but deserves to be remembered and studied by posterity.

Nevstruev, 1998
Shmurzdyuk, 1998

1.4 Hero of the partisans - A. Figner

The famous partisan of the Patriotic War, a descendant of an ancient German family who left for Russia under Peter I, b. in 1787, died on October 1, 1813. Figner's grandfather, Baron Figner von Rutmersbach, lived in Livonia, and his father, Samuil Samuilovich, having started his service from an ordinary rank, reached the rank of headquarters officer, was appointed director of a state-owned crystal factory near St. Petersburg and shortly thereafter, renamed state councilors, he was appointed in 1809 vice-governor in the Pskov province (died July 8, 1811). Alexander Figner, having successfully completed the course in the 2nd cadet corps , April 13, 1805 was released as a lieutenant in the 6th artillery regiment and in the same year sent to the Anglo-Russian expedition to the Mediterranean. Here he found an opportunity to be in Italy and lived for several months in Milan, diligently studying the Italian language, with a thorough knowledge of which he subsequently managed to render so many services to the fatherland. Upon his return to Russia, on January 17, 1807, Figner was promoted to lieutenant, and on March 16 he was transferred to the 13th artillery brigade. With the beginning of the Turkish campaign of 1810, he entered the Moldavian army, participated with a detachment of General Zass in the case on May 19 during the capture of the Turtukaya fortress and from June 14 to September 15 - in the blockade and capitulation of the Ruschuk fortress by the troops of gr. Kamensky. In a number of cases near Ruschuk, Figner managed to show excellent courage and bravery. Commanding, during the imposition of the fortress, in the nearest flying sap 8 guns, he, during the repulsion of one of the enemy's sorties, was seriously wounded in the chest, but did not leave the line, but soon volunteered for a new feat. When gr. Kamensky decided to storm Ruschuk, Figner volunteered to measure the depth of the moat and did it with a boldness that amazed the Turks themselves. The assault on July 22 failed, but Figner, who brilliantly participated in it, was awarded the Order of St. George, removed by the commander-in-chief from the artillery general Sievers, who was killed on the glacis of the fortress, and on December 8, 1810, he was honored to receive a personalized Most Gracious Rescript. In 1811, Figner returned to his homeland to meet with his father and here he married the daughter of a Pskov landowner, retired state councilor Bibikov, Olga Mikhailovna Bibikova. On December 29, 1811, he was promoted to staff captain, with a transfer to the 11th artillery brigade, and soon received a light company in command of the same brigade. The Patriotic War again called Figner to the military field. His first feat in this war was the courageous defense by fire of the guns of the left flank of the Russian troops in the case at the river. Stragani; here, having stopped the shooters overturned by the French, he, at the head of them, recaptured one of the guns of his company from the enemy, for which the commander-in-chief personally congratulated Figner with the rank of captain. With the retreat of the Russian troops through Moscow to Tarutino, Figner's combat activity changed: he handed over the command of the company to the senior officer in it, having acted shortly before in the field of partisan operations. By secret order of Kutuzov, disguised as a peasant, Figner, accompanied by several Cossacks, went to Moscow, already occupied by the French. Figner failed to fulfill his secret intention - to somehow get to Napoleon and kill him, but nevertheless his stay in Moscow was a true horror for the French. Having formed an armed party from the inhabitants who remained in the city, he made ambushes with it, exterminated lone enemies, and after his nightly attacks, many corpses of the killed French were found every morning. His actions inspired panic fear in the enemy. The French tried in vain to find a brave and secretive avenger: Figner was elusive. Knowing fluently French, German, Italian and Polish, he wandered in all sorts of costumes during the day between the heterogeneous soldiers of the Napoleonic army and listened to their conversations, and at nightfall he ordered his daring men to kill the hated enemy. At the same time, Figner found out everything necessary about the intentions of the French, and with the collected important information, on September 20, having safely got out of Moscow, he arrived at the main apartment of the Russian army, in Tarutino. The courageous enterprise and sharpness of Figner attracted the attention of the commander-in-chief, and he was instructed, along with other partisans, Davydov and Seslavin, to develop partisan actions on enemy messages. Having gathered two hundred daring hunters and backwards, putting the footmen on peasant horses, Figner led this combined detachment to the Mozhaisk road and began to carry out his disastrous raids in the rear of the enemy army. During the day, he hid the detachment somewhere in the nearest forest, and himself, disguised as a Frenchman, Italian or Pole, sometimes accompanied by a trumpeter, drove around the enemy outposts, looked out for their location and, after dark, flew into the French with his partisans and every day sent to the main apartment of hundreds of prisoners. Taking advantage of the enemy's oversight, Figner beat him wherever possible; in particular, his actions intensified when armed peasants near Moscow joined the detachment. At 10 versts from Moscow, he overtook an enemy transport, took away and riveted six 12-pound. guns, blew up several charging trucks, put up to 400 people on the spot. and about 200 people, together with the Hanoverian colonel Tink, took prisoner. Napoleon appointed a prize for the head of Figner, but the latter did not stop his courageous activities; wanting to bring his heterogeneous detachment into a larger organization, he began to introduce order and discipline into it, which, however, did not please his hunters, and they fled. Then Kutuzov gave Figner 600 people at his disposal. regular cavalry and Cossacks, with officers of his choice. With this well-organized detachment, Figner became even more terrible for the French, here his outstanding abilities as a partisan developed even more, and his enterprise, reaching insane audacity, manifested itself in full splendor. Deceiving the enemy's vigilance with skillful maneuvers and secrecy of transitions and having good guides, he unexpectedly flew into the enemy, smashed foragers, burned wagons, intercepted couriers and disturbed the French day and night, appearing at various points and everywhere carrying death and captivity. Napoleon was forced to send infantry and Ornano's cavalry division to the Mozhaisk road against Figner and other partisans, but all searches for the enemy were in vain. Several times the French overtook the Figner detachment, surrounded it with superior forces, it seemed that the death of the brave partisan was inevitable, but he always managed to deceive the enemy with cunning maneuvers. Figner's courage reached the point that once, near Moscow itself, he attacked Napoleon's guards cuirassiers, wounded their colonel and captured them, along with 50 soldiers. Before the Battle of Tarutino, he passed "through all the French outposts", made sure that the French avant-garde was isolated, reported that to the commander-in-chief and thereby had considerable benefit in the complete defeat of Murat's troops that followed the next day. With the beginning of Napoleon's retreat from Moscow, a people's war broke out; Taking advantage of this favorable circumstance for the partisan, Figner acted tirelessly. Together with Seslavin, he recaptured a whole transport with jewels looted by the French in Moscow; soon after, meeting with an enemy detachment at the village. Stone, broke it, put in place up to 350 people. and took about the same number of lower ranks with 5 officers captured, and, finally, on November 27, in the case of p. Lyakhov, uniting with the partisan detachments of Count Orlov-Denisov, Seslavin and Denis Davydov, contributed to the defeat of the French General Augereau, who laid down his weapons by the end of the battle. Admired by the exploits of Figner, Emperor Alexander promoted him to lieutenant colonel, with a transfer to the guards artillery, and awarded him 7,000 rubles. and, at the same time, at the request of the commander-in-chief and the English agent at the main apartment, R. Wilson, who was a witness to many of Figner's exploits, freed his father-in-law, the former Pskov vice-governor Bibikov, from trial and punishment. Upon his return from St. Petersburg, Figner overtook our army already in northern Germany, under besieged Danzig. Here he volunteered to fulfill the courageous commission of Mr. Wittgenstein - to get into the fortress, collect all the necessary information about the strength and location of the fortress werks, about the size of the garrison, the number of military and food supplies, and also secretly incite the inhabitants of Danzig to revolt against the French. Only with an extraordinary presence of mind and an excellent knowledge of foreign languages ​​could Figner dare to carry out such a dangerous mission. Under the guise of an unfortunate Italian, robbed by the Cossacks, he entered the city; here, however, they did not immediately believe his stories and put him in prison. For two months Figner languished in it, tormented by incessant interrogations; he was required to prove his true origin from Italy, every minute he could be recognized as a spy and shot. The stern commandant of Danzig himself, General Rapp, interrogated him, but his extraordinary ingenuity and resourcefulness saved this time the brave daredevil. Remembering his long stay in Milan, he introduced himself as the son of a well-known Italian family, told, at a confrontation with a native of Milan, who happened to be in Danzig, all the smallest details about how old his father and mother were, what condition, on what street they were standing. house and even what color the roof and shutters were, and not only managed to justify himself, but, hiding behind ardent devotion to the emperor of the French, even crept into the confidence of Rapp so much that he sent him with important dispatches to Napoleon. Of course, Figner, having got out of Danzig, delivered the dispatches, together with the information he had obtained, to our main apartment. For the accomplished feat, he was promoted to colonel and temporarily left at the main apartment. Following, however, his vocation, he again devoted himself to the activities of the partisan. At his suggestion, a detachment was formed from various deserters of the Napoleonic army, mostly Spaniards, who were forcibly recruited into it, as well as from German volunteers, and was called the "legion of revenge"; in order to ensure the reliability of partisan actions, a combined team from various hussar and Cossack regiments was attached to the detachment, which formed the core of the detachment. With this detachment, Figner again opened his disastrous raids on the enemy in the new theater of war. On August 22, 1813, he defeated an enemy detachment that he met at Cape Niske, three days later appeared already in the vicinity of Bautzen, on August 26 at Koenigsbrück he passed 800 steps past a puzzled enemy who had not even fired a single shot, and on August 29 attacked the French General Mortier at Speyrsweiler and took several hundred people prisoner. Continuing further movement ahead of the Silesian army, illuminating the area, the Figner partisan detachment met on September 26 at Eulenburg with the corps of General Sacken, but on the same day, separated from it, took the direction of the Elbe. Twice the detachment then encountered enemy detachments, so few in number that their extermination could be certain, but Figner evaded attacks and did not even allow the Cossacks to chase the lagging behind. The brave partisan was obviously saving men and horses for some more important undertaking. Seeing from the movements of the belligerents that the fate of Germany would be decided between the Elbe and Sala, Figner assumed that in early October, Napoleon, in view of the decisive battle, would remove his troops from the left bank of the Elbe, and therefore, in anticipation of this movement, he wanted, holding out for several days near Dessau, then invade Westphalia, which remained loyal to the Prussian government, and raise its population against the French. But his assumptions were not justified. Napoleon, due to changed circumstances, took the intention to cross to the right bank of the Elbe, and, according to the orders given to them, Marshals Renier and Ney moved to Wittenberg and Dessau to master the crossings. On September 30, one of the patrols informed Figner about several squadrons of enemy cavalry that had appeared on the road from Leipzig to Dessau, but he, confident that the French troops had already begun a retreat towards Sala, explained the appearance of the squadrons by foragers sent from the enemy. Soon a party of Prussian black hussars ran into the detachment, explaining that the enemy squadrons belonged to a strong vanguard, followed by the entire army of Napoleon. Realizing the danger, Figner immediately turned the detachment into the gap between the main roads that went to Wörlitz and Dessau, and approached the Elbe with a forced march towards evening. Here news was received from the head of the Prussian troops stationed at Dessau that, in view of the unexpected advance of the French army towards this city, the Tauenzin corps would retreat to the right bank of the river, leaving not a single detachment on the left. But the people and horses of the Figner detachment were tired of the reinforced transition in the vicinity of Dessau, devastated by the French and allies; in addition, Figner was sure that the French movement was only a demonstration to divert the attention of Bernadotte and Blucher, and that Tauentzin, convinced of this, would cancel the proposed retreat to the right bank of the Elbe. Figner decided to stay on the left bank. On the next day, he planned to hide his detachment in the dense bushes of a small island near Wörlitz and then, letting the French pass, rush, depending on the circumstances, either to Westphalia or to the Leipzig road to search for enemy carts and parks. Based on all these considerations, Figner deployed his detachment seven versts above Dessau; the left flank of the detachment adjoined the coastal road to this city, the right flank to the forest, which stretched for a verst along the river, in front, about seventy sazhens, lay a small village; in it, as in the forest, were the Spaniards, and two platoons of Mariupol and Belorussian hussars stood between the village and the forest, the Don Cossacks - on the left flank. The patrols sent in all directions reported that the enemy was nowhere to be seen at a distance of 5 versts, and the reassured Figner allowed the detachment to make fire and indulge in rest. Ho, this was the last rest for almost the entire detachment. Before dawn on October 1, the partisans roused themselves with a drawn-out command: "to the horses!" Rifle shots and the cries of the fighting were heard in the village. It turned out that two or three platoons of the enemy cavalry, taking advantage of the night and the carelessness of the Spaniards, tore off their picket and rushed through the streets, but, met by the hussars, turned back and, pursued by shots, scattered across the field. Several captured Polish lancers showed that they belonged to the vanguard of Ney's corps advancing along the Dessau road. Meanwhile, dawn began, and no more than a hundred fathoms from the village, the formation of the enemy cavalry was discovered. The situation became critical, moreover, with the rising of the sun, the presence of the enemy was detected not on one, but on all sides. Obviously, a detachment of brave men was bypassed and pressed against the Elbe. Figner gathered the officers of the detachment. “Gentlemen,” he said, “we are surrounded; we need to break through; if the enemy breaks our ranks, then don’t think about me anymore, save yourself in all directions; I told you about this many times. on the Torgau road, about ten versts from here ... "The detachment entered the gap between the village, occupied by a platoon of Spaniards, and the forest and prepared for a friendly attack. Commanding words of enemy officers were heard in the fog. "Akhtyrians, Alexandrians, peaks at the ready, march - march!" Figner commanded, and the detachment cut into the enemy, making his way with bayonets and pikes. Inspired by the example of their leader, a handful of brave men performed miracles of courage, but, crushed by disproportionately superior forces, were pushed back to the very bank of the Elbe. The partisans fought to the death: their ranks were broken through, the flanks were covered, most of the officers and lower ranks were killed. Finally, the detachment could not stand it and rushed into the river, seeking salvation by swimming. Weakened and wounded people and horses were carried by the current and died in the waves or from enemy bullets raining down on them from the shore. Figner was among the dead; on the shore they found only his saber, taken by him in 1812 from a French general. Thus ended the days of the famous partisan. His name became the best asset in the history of the exploits of the Russian troops, to increase the glory of which, it seemed, he devoted all his strength.

Disregarding life, he volunteered to carry out the most dangerous assignments, led the most risky enterprises, selflessly loving his homeland, he seemed to be looking for an opportunity for cruel revenge on Napoleon and his hordes. The entire Russian army knew about his exploits and highly appreciated them. Back in 1812, Kutuzov, sending a letter to his wife with Figner, punished her: “Look at him closely: this is an extraordinary person; I have never seen such a high soul; he is a fanatic in courage and patriotism, and God knows what he won't do it." , Comrade Figner. by occupation, he decided to cast a shadow on the glorious partisan, explaining, in his letter to, all the heroism of Figner only with a thirst to satisfy his immense feelings of ambition and pride. Figner is depicted in different colors according to the testimony of his other comrades and contemporaries, who valued in the famous partisan his true heroism, bright mind, captivating eloquence and outstanding willpower.

Despite different opinions about Figner's personal qualities, this man was brave, courageous, daring, fearless. Knew a few foreign languages. The French assigned a large sum for the capture, they called him a “terrible robber”, who is elusive like the devil .. This man deserves the attention and memory of his descendants.

Conclusion

During the preparation of the counteroffensive, the combined forces of the army, militias and partisans fettered the actions of the Napoleonic troops, inflicted damage on the enemy's manpower, and destroyed military property. The troops of the Tarutinsky camp firmly covered the paths to the southern regions not devastated by the war. During the stay of the French in Moscow, their army, not conducting open hostilities, at the same time suffered significant losses every day. It became more and more difficult for Napoleon from Moscow to communicate with the rear troops, to send urgent dispatches to France and other Western European countries. The Smolensk road, which remained the only protected postal route leading from Moscow to the west, was constantly subjected to partisan raids. They intercepted French correspondence, especially valuable ones were delivered to the Headquarters of the Russian army.

The actions of the partisans forced Napoleon to send large forces to guard the roads. So, to ensure the safety of the Smolensk road, Napoleon advanced to Mozhaisk part of the corps of Marshal Victor. Marshals Junot and Murat were ordered to strengthen the protection of the Borovsk and Podolsk roads.

The heroic struggle of the army, partisans, the people's militia, led by Kutuzov and his headquarters, the feat of the people in the rear created favorable conditions for the Russian army to go on the counteroffensive. The war entered a new phase.

Analyzing the actions of military partisans and summing up their activities during the army’s stay in the Tarutino camp, Kutuzov wrote: “During the six-week rest of the Main Army at Tarutino, my partisans instilled fear and horror in the enemy, taking away all means of food.” Thus was laid the foundation for the impending victory. The names of Davydov, Seslavin, Figner and other brave commanders became known throughout Russia.

Denis Davydov, one of the first theorists of the partisan war in 1812, reasonably believed that during the retreat of the Napoleonic army, the partisans participated, together with the main parts of the Russian army, in all the most important military operations, inflicting enormous damage on the enemy. He emphasized that “partisan warfare also has an impact on the main operations of the enemy army” and that partisan detachments “help the pursuing army to push back the retreating army and use local benefits for its final destruction” 55. More than a third of the prisoners, a huge number of rifles, even cannons, various wagons were taken by the partisans. During the retreat of the Napoleonic army, the number of prisoners increased so rapidly that the command of the advancing Russian troops did not have time to allocate detachments for their escort and left a significant part of the prisoners in the villages under the protection of armed villagers.

Kutuzov had every reason to inform the tsar that "my partisans instilled fear and horror in the enemy, taking away all means of food."

Chapter 2 Gratitude of the descendants to the heroes of the Patriotic War of 1812 in Moscow

2.1 Patriotic War of 1812 in the names of Moscow streets Many architectural ensembles and monuments of Moscow today remind of the feat of the people in 1812. Poklonnaya mountain Triumphal Arch rises on Kutuzovsky Prospekt. Close to Arc de Triomphe there is a museum-panorama "Battle of Borodino", a monument to the heroes of this battle and the famous "Kutuzovskaya izba". The monument was erected on Victory Square.

From here, the road to the center of Moscow leads through the monument to the heroes of Borodino - the Borodino Bridge. And there, not far from Kropotkinskaya Street, where the partisan's house of 1812 is located, and to the Khamovniki barracks (on Komsomolsky Prospekt), where the Moscow militia was formed in 1812. Not far from here is the Manege located next to the Kremlin - also a monument to the heroes of the Patriotic War of 1812, built for the 5th anniversary of victory in this war.

Every place, every house or other monument associated with the Patriotic War of 1812,

gives rise to a sense of pride: for the heroic past of our people

Street names are also reminiscent of the war of 1812. So, in Moscow, a number of streets are named after the heroes of 1812: Kutuzovsky Prospekt, Bagrationovsky, Platovsky, Barclay Drives, streets of General Yermolov, D. Davydov, Seslavin, Vasilisa Kozhina, Gerasim Kurin, st. Bolshaya Filevskaya, st. Tuchkovskaya and many others.

Metro stations Bagrationovskaya, Kutuzovskaya, Fili, Filevsky Park are also reminiscent of the war.

https://pandia.ru/text/77/500/images/image002_13.jpg" align="left" width="329" height="221 src=">

Fig.1 Seslavinskaya street

Seslavinskaya street (July 17, 1963) Named in honor of A.N. Seslavin () - lieutenant general of the hero of the Patriotic War of 1812

· Denis Davydov Street (May 9, 1961) Named after DV Davydov () - a poet one of the organizers of the partisan movement in 1812

https://pandia.ru/text/77/500/images/image005_7.jpg" align="left" width="294" height="221 src=">

One thousand eight hundred and twelfth year (1812) street (May 12, 1959) Named in honor of the feat committed by the peoples of Russia in 1812 to protect their Fatherland

· Kutuzovsky Prospekt (December 13, 1957). Named after -Kutuzov ()

Field Marshal General, Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Army during https://pandia.ru/text/77/500/images/image007_5.jpg" width="296" height="222">

Rice. 3 on

2.2 Monuments of the Patriotic War of 1812 in Moscow

· The 1812 memorial at Poklonnaya Gora includes several objects.

Triumphal Arch

Kutuzov hut

Church of the Archangel Michael near the Kutuzov hut

Panorama Museum "Battle of Borodino"

Kutuzov and glorious sons of the Russian people

Fig. 4 Arc de Triomphe

https://pandia.ru/text/77/500/images/image011_4.jpg" align="left" width="235" height="312 src=">

Fig. 5 Kutuzov and the glorious sons of the Russian people

Fig.6 Kutuzovskaya hut

Rice. 7 Church of the Archangel Michael near the Kutuzov hut

Monuments of the Patriotic War of 1812 in Moscow

Cathedral of Christ the Savior

Kremlin arsenal

Moscow Manege

Alexander Garden

Georgievsky Hall of the Grand Kremlin Palace

Borodinsky bridge

Fig. 8 Cathedral of Christ the Savior

Fig. 9 Kremlin arsenal

Rice. 10 Moscow Manege

Fig. 11 Alexander Garden

Fig. 12 Georgievsky Hall of the Grand Kremlin Palace

Fig.13 Borodinsky bridge

Conclusion

In the process of working on the project, we studied a lot of material about partisans and their activities during the Patriotic War of 1812.

Even from literature lessons, we know the name of Denis Davydov, but he was known as a poet. Having visited the Museum-panorama "Battle of Borodino", we recognized Denis Davydov from the other side - a brave, brave partisan, a competent commander. Reading his biography in more detail, we became aware of the names of Alexander Seslavin,

Alexander Figner, who were also leaders of partisan detachments.

The guerrillas made daring raids on the enemy, obtained important information about the activities of the enemy. highly appreciated the activities of military partisans for their courage, unbridled courage,

Denis Davydov after the Patriotic War of 1812 summarized and systematized

military results of the actions of military partisans in two works of 1821: "Experience in the theory of partisan actions" and "Diary of partisan

actions of 1812”, where he rightly emphasized the significant effect of the new

for the 19th century forms of war to defeat the enemy. [12 c.181]

The collected material replenished the information fund of the school museum.

1. 1812 in Russian poetry and memoirs of contemporaries. M., 1987.

2. . Moscow: Moscow worker, 1971.

3. Heroes of 1812: Collection. M .: Young Guard, 1987.

four. , . Military Gallery of the Winter Palace. L .: Publishing house "Aurora", 1974.

5. Davydov Denis. Military notes. Moscow: Gospolitizdat, 1940.

6. Moscow. Big illustrated encyclopedia. Moscow studies from A to. Eksmo, 2007

7. Moscow magazine. History of Russian Goverment. 2001. No. 1. p.64

8. Moscow is modern. Atlas. M. Print, 2005.

9. "Thunderstorm of the twelfth year ..." M. "Science" 1987 p.192

10. Patriotic War of 1812: Encyclopedia. M., 2004.

11. Popov Davydov. Moscow: Education, 1971.

12. Sirotkin war of 1812: Prince. For students Art. environment classes. school-M.: Enlightenment, 198s.: ill.

13. Khataevich. Moscow: Moscow worker, 1973.

14. Figner Posluzhn. list, store in the archives of St. Petersburg. artillery. museum. - I. R .: "Travel notes of an artilleryman from 1812 to 1816", Moscow, 1835 - "Northern Post", 1813, No. 49. - "Rus. Inv.", 1838, No. No. 91-99. - "Military Collection", 1870, No. 8. - "To All. Illustr.", 1848, No. 35. - "Russian Star", 1887, v. 55, p. 321- 338. - "Military encyclical lexicon", St. Petersburg, 1857. D.S. [Polovtsov]