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An essay is presented on Russian historiography of the Napoleonic Wars. The author considers the research of Russian historians on the invasion of Russian by French emperor Napoleon. Other topics include the influence of Soviet ideological propaganda, translation of Western historical sources, and military strategy.

Charles Callwell's Small Wars (1896, 1899, 1906) is widely considered both an ur-text for modern counter-insurgency studies, and a primer for the racialized late-Victorian approach to war against 'savages': either way it is usually only considered within a British context. Alongside the numerous examples Callwell used from British colonial campaigns, he frequently referred to those of other European powers – notably the Russian conquest of Central Asia. This article will seek to analyse Callwell's views of Russian colonial warfare, establish the sources on which he relied, and evaluate his accuracy and the effect which the Russian example had on his thinking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In August 1911, the French General Dubail went to Russia to tighten the relations between France and its ally, in the context of the Moroccan crisis. He was received by the Czar and his top advisors. The Russian Army would take the offensive once the front line troops were in place. It would throw itself against East Prussia on the 16th day. From now on, the Russians too saw the offensive as the sole key to success. In July 1912, it was the Russian superior officers' turn to visit France. General Gilinski, the Army Chief-of-Staff conversed with General Joffre, thenewly designated generalissimo, to whom hepromised a Russian offensive the 15th day after the mobilization. In September, the Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolayevich, taking leave of his hosts after the maneuvers of Poitou, invited General Joffre to Russia for the grand Russian maneuvers the following year. To accompany him, Joffre chose collaborators from all the armed forces. Joffre did not want to let his action to be dictated to him, even by his allies. Nicholas II accepted the composition of the mission on June 18th, 1913. Haunted by the risk of the overrun of Frenchforces by more powerful German armies at the beginning of operations, General Joffre insisted on the necessity of accelerating Russian mobilization to the maximum and launching an offensive as soon as possible with the already operational fraction of the army. This question was vital for France. The invasion of Belgium, said Joffre to Grand Duke Nicholas, had to be considered as the most probable hypothesis. Outside of this fundamental gain, the members of the French mission created or reinforced useful contacts with their Russian comrades. The French influence seemed to grow. However, Joffre also discemed, beyond the exterior expressions offriendship, the existence of a Germanophile party, led by the Minister of War. The future gave reason to Joffre, as the Minister ended by being arrested and judged. Joffre stigmatized also the growing influence of Rasputin, who, it was said, was responsible for naming Sukomlinov and thus, the discredit that resultedfor the regime. If Joffre and his companions returned from Russia reassured about the army as a whole, they could also, already, detect, at least among the most lucid, the first signs of the collapse of the autocracy and the beginnings of the revolution. The officers who accompanied the future "victor of the Marne" were also some of the last French to taste the condemned splendor of the Imperial Court of Russia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is devoted to the intelligence activities of the Russian Embassy in Paris on the eve of and at the beginning of the war between Russia and France in 1812. The author has introduced into scholarly circulation a large set of unpublished documents stored in France’s National Archives and the Archive of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and has come to the following conclusions. On the eve of and beginning of the War of 1812 the Russian Embassy in Paris, led by the ‘brilliant’ Prince A. B. Kurakin, played a very important role in the plan for Petersburg to obtain valuable information about the plans and operations of the adversary. Contrary to previous impressions, when the prince was depicted as a kind of ‘dummy’ or, in the best case, a ‘cover’ figure, convincing facts contained in French archive documents add a truly dramatic nuance to this historical personage. Possessing a political flair and extensive connections in Europe and the United States, Kurakin was able to quickly and precisely understand the true meaning of Napoleon’s actions and words and to inform Petersburg about this in a timely fashion. The Russian Embassy in Paris was the main center for the collection and analysis of varied information that attested to the French leadership’s sequential preparations for war against Russia. Despite the widespread opinion about the key role of Colonel A. I. Chernyshev in obtaining secret information about Napoleon’s war machine, the true ‘resident’ in Paris was, nevertheless, Kurakin. Moreover, Chernyshev’s ill-conceived and reckless actions threatened the embassy’s fulfillment of its intelligence functions. However, despite the emergence of serious problems associated with the disclosure of the ‘Chernyshev-Michel group’, Kurakin continued to actively collect intelligence about both Napoleon’s actions and plans and the domestic situation in France itself. Under conditions of the commencement of war between the two powers and his actually being a hostage, the prince did not cease his efforts to collect information and find methods for delivering it to the Russian leadership. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article is devoted to an analysis of the attitudes of the different social groups of Russian society toward the Russian-Turkish war of 1877-1878. The author based her analysis on the memoirs, diaries, and epistolary heritage of contemporaries. The author reveals the attitudes of Russian society on the eve of and during the war. The author emphasizes the support of the war by the Russian peasants and the common people, who expressed their deepest sympathy to the suffering of the South Slavs under the Turks, as their brothers in faith. The author gives the analysis of the attitudes of the Russian nobility and the clergy toward the events in the Balkans. According to the author, the attitude of the nobility was controversial and also included personal motivations. The author reveals the opinions of contemporaries, which differ from the views of some modern historians who base their assessments on the statements of the members of the volunteer movements and data from police reports. On the other hand, one can suppose that for the majority of Russian volunteers in the Balkans, personal gain was quite compatible with a sincere desire to help Slavs as brothers in blood and most likely, as suffering fellow believers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the overall interpretation of the War of 1812 and the heroization and deheroization of its key figures. Changing political circumstances, including the Tsars' orders concerning the representation of the Russian Empire's past and nationbuilding projects propagated by Russian elites constituted key variables. Between 1812 and 1914, preachers, artists, journalists, rulers, military officers, authors of memoirs, civil and military historians, writers and journalists participated in a dispute over the ‘heroes' and ‘villains' of the 1812 war. The present study draws on sources from the 19th and early 20th century such as the history of Aleksandr Michailovskii Danilevskii, the memoirs of Aleksei Ermolov, Nadezhda Durova and Denis Davydov, lyrics by Vasilii Zhukovskii, and Lev Tolstoi's novel War and Peace. It compares and contrasts these author's statements and ideas with the visual, poetic, journalistic and commemorative imagery of their time. Such an approach helps explain how heroic characters were designed and demonstrates the ambivalence of their positions: the frequently cyclical dynamic of appearance and disappearance from mainstream narratives of Russian history. This approach also allows for the attribution of individual narratives to specific discursive genres. Genetic source criticism was applied when analyzing War and Peace. Tolstoi's drafts and notes are examined to reveal the ways in which his concept of the novel changed over time, including gradual revisions in the shaping of characters and the use of the memories of war veterans to create a grand narrative. All this allows for an identification of the techniques Tolstoi applied when working with historical evidence, his recoding of the cultural and psychological profiles of certain characters, his retouching of contradictory elements, and his omission of a vast number of facts. The authors conclude that the heroization techniques applied in these narratives strongly depended upon the philosophy of history of their time. Thus, in the 1820-30's the trend towards romanticizing and nationalizing the Russian past manifested itself in a desacralization of Emperor Alexander I and a substitution of the idea of a “people's war" for that of a “holy war". By contrast, Lev Tolstoi's national project meant that the writer depersonalized war and heroized the Russian family and the Russian people. Later on, this discourse was reinforced through the sociologization of the writing of history, which meant that historians presented the war of 1812 as a clash of abstract interests, processes, and groups, to which the names of heroes served as accessories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores the history of Russia during the Great War and prelude to the Bolshevik Revolution. Emphasis is given to topics such as scholastic focus on social mobilization, public support for war and the cultivation of patriotism, and social stability under tsarist rule. Other topics include population displacement, the conscription of minorities, and military occupation.

The article focuses on the military intelligence gathered by Russia during the July Crisis of 1914, which led to the outbreak of World War I. The author discusses the history of military intelligence gathering in Russia after 1905, explores Russia's relationship with Austria-Hungary during the mobilization crisis of 1912, and examines Russia's reaction to Austria-Hungary declaring war against Serbia in 1914.

This article explores the use of camels for baggage transport by European colonial armies in the nineteenth century. It focuses in particular on two episodes: the Russian winter expedition to Khiva, and the march of the Army of the Indus into Afghanistan, both of which took place in 1839. However sophisticated their weapons and other technology, until at least the 1880s European colonial armies were forced to rely exclusively on baggage animals if they wanted to move around: railways arrived very late in the history of European expansion. In Central Asia this meant rounding up, loading, managing and feeding tens of thousands of camels, which could only be furnished by the pastoral groups who inhabited the region, who in some cases were also the objects of conquest. Camel transport placed certain structural constraints on European conquest in Central Asia: firstly it meant that the forces involved were almost always very small; secondly it prevented the launching of spontaneous or unauthorised campaigns by "men on the spot," as every advance had to be preceded by the rounding up of the necessary baggage animals, and the creation of a budget to pay for then. Finally, the constraints imposed by camel transport ensured that British and Russian armies would never meet in Central Asia, and that a Russian invasion of India was a chimera. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the history of Russian conquest of Bukhara, with special reference to military and diplomatic aspects. From the beginning of the Russian advance into the region, relations between Russia and Bukhara had several peculiarities, but were characterized above all by mutual incomprehension. In my view, the main obstacle to the development of relations lay in the different understandings the two sides had of the nature of a peace agreement or treaty. In this paper I try to shed light on some questions arising from the military conflict between the Emirate of Bukhara and Russia in the interpretations of Russian military historians and Bukharan chronicles of the period. The focus is on a comparative analysis of the military capabilities of the Bukharan Emirate and Russia, the differences in weapons technology between these two powers, the links between the Russian advance in the region and the domestic and foreign policy of the Bukharan emir, Muzaffar, the situation in the emirate, and the use of Islamic ideology as a mobilizing force for the population in opposition to Russian expansion. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

For some time now the theme of the conquest of Central Asia by the Russian Empire has been a subject of historical generalization. In a long-term temporal and broad geographical perspective, researchers have interested themselves in certain general tendencies and patterns, around which it is possible to structure grand narratives of ‘conquest’. One of the consequences of this approach has been a predominant interest in a few ‘key’ events. Another has been a narrowing of the circle of those historical personages garnering attention to a few ‘key’ figures. Finally, the very analysis of events has been reduced in many cases to a study of the thoughts and projects of the colonizers with regard to Central Asia; other interpretations of the ordinary participants in military actions on both sides, their expectations and misgivings, have become immaterial, the disregarded dross of history. In this article, based on written and oral accounts of Russia's military campaign against the Khoqand Khanate in 1875–1876, I will attempt to write a microhistory of the conquest, reconstructing its local episodes, reconstructing and listening to the voices of various actors, and distinguishing different motivations, preferences and means of description. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article explores the debates that preceded the Russian conquest of Tashkent in 1865. It argues that none of the explanations usually given for this – the ‘men on the spot’, ‘cotton hunger’, or the Great Game with Britain – is satisfactory. Instead, it shows that the War Ministry and the governors of Orenburg had advocated the capture of Tashkent from the late 1850s, and that General Cherniaev's assault in 1865 was at least tacitly authorized. The motives for the Russian advance combined the need for better supply chains to the steppe fortresses, a desire to ‘anchor’ their new frontier in a region with a sedentary population, and concern for security from attacks by the Khoqand Khanate. Economic considerations and rivalry with Britain played very minor roles. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

An introduction is presented to the issue of the journal that discusses topics such as the Russian conquest of Central Asia in the 19th century, colonial administration, and cultural subordination.

This article is a microhistory of the siege and capture of the fortified city of Khujand by Russian forces under Major-General D.I. Romanovskii in May 1866. It explores what this episode can tell us about the nature of siege warfare and frontal assaults in the course of the Central Asian campaigns of the Russian army, but more particularly the nature of Khujandi resistance and the motivations for it. It argues that these are to be found, above all, in a strong sense of local patriotism connected with the city itself, rather than in any form of proto-nationalism, loyalty to the Khan of Khoqand or the Emir of Bukhara, or Islam. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article presents biographical information on 19th century Russian naval officer Admiral Oscar von Kraemer. Kraemer's birth in Finland, then part of the Russian Empire in 1829 and his enrollment in military school in Russia at the age of eight are discussed. Kraemer's service during the Crimean War of 1853-1855 is examined. Kraemer's service on sea duty following that way until his appointment as Chief of Staff for the Navy in 1888 is discussed. His death in 1904 is noited.

General Aleksei Brusilov's fame rests on his successful offensive in 1916, yet he had many other career triumphs. One was his auspicious leadership of the VIII Russian Army during the ‘Great Retreat’ of 1915, when his skillful generalship was a major factor in preventing the total rout of the Southwestern Russian front. Although he retreated with other armies, he took thousands of Austrian and German prisoners in doing so and eventually launched at the end of his own offensive, which gave the enemy quite a bloody nose. The successes he had in 1915, which have generally gone unnoticed by historians, displayed the leadership qualities he so well demonstrated in his great victory of 1916. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article focuses on Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich who served as the supreme commander of the Russian Army in the First World War from July 1914 to August 1915. The author discusses Nikolaevich's leadership experiences commanding troops, explores his loyalty to Russian Tsar Nicholas II, and analyzes his views on tactics and strategy.

As Russia prepares to formally commemorate the 100thanniversary of the beginning of World War I by unveiling a memorial to its ‘heroic dead’ in Moscow next year, this article will examine the role of one of its, until comparatively recently, long-forgotten heroes, who played a significant role in the organization and development of the country's air defense system, Major-General G. V. Burman. Not only will the article throw light on the activities of one of the more significant former Tsarist officers who played an important role in the defense of both the Russian Empire and the young Soviet republic, but the article will also open a new chapter in the analysis of the creation, organization, and role of the air defense system of one of the major combatants during the First World War. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article below attempts to present the role played by the tsarist army in the history of Bessarabia between 1812 and 1828, a period in which the latter enjoyed a relative autonomy within the Tsarist Empire. Based on vast documentary evidence, presented in premiere to the Romanian historiography, the precise mapping of the units deployed in Bessarabia, their effectives and the services performed by the local population can now be determined. At the same time, it is worth mentioning that, immediately after annexation, Bessarabia became the main logistics base of the tsarist army for the operational theatre in the Balkans, a role which it fulfilled during the entire 19th century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper re-examines the causes of outbreak of Second Russo-Iranian War and the factors that played a role in its escalation into fully fledged war. The paper challenges the common perception that Qajar Iran played a major role in the outbreak of the war and proposes that the Qajar court took a defensive posture vis-à-vis aggressive Russian provocation originated in Tiflis and was merely reacting to it. The paper then examines policy differences between Tiflis and the court of St Petersburg as a contributing factor in the outbreak of the war. Finally, the paper examines two different and contradictory views of imperial Russia and its internal politics and military capabilities among Qajar Iran's decision makers during 1825–28. It is argued that the two perceptions eventually translated into two factions, each lobbying the shah for and against escalation of hostilities with Russia. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Despite real problems associated with reconstructing the frontline experience of Russian soldiers during World War I, a study of surviving documents reveals an involuntary modernization among the troops that prepared soldiers for careers in the Red Army and the political police and bred hostility toward the rural population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The establishment of shock formations, an essential feature of World War I, encouraged the recruitment of volunteers and developed principles later used to set up the Red Army. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The dismissal of the talented war minister A.A. Polivanov had less to do with conservative opposition within the imperial court than with poor planning associated with the Naroch offensive, which relieved German pressure on Verdun at the cost of unacceptably high Russian casualties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An interview with scholarly periodical "International Affairs" editor-in-chief Armen Oganesyan is presented. He discusses the bicentennial of the Battle of Borodino during the French invasion of Russia, also known as the Patriotic War of 1812. He comments on planned public exhibitions commemorating the bicentennial at an exhibition pavilion next to Moscow City Hall in Moscow, Russia, and past commemorations of the Battle of Borodino.

This article investigates the lack of Russian-language monographs about the Russian participation in the First World War. Discussing a number of recent and older works that have been published, the article suggests that the surprising lack of Russian interest has much to do with the continued unease felt in Russia about the Great War. This does not fit into the heroic image Russians (and particularly the current government) prefer to cherish about their past. The article in addition supplies the reader with a fairly comprehensive overview of recent English-language as well as Soviet, émigré, and post-Soviet Russian-language works on Russia in the Great War. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Although the Crimean War ended in defeat, the Russian Empire survived, acquired a new appreciation for its own diversity, and initiated a national reform program with far-reaching consequences for its people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article has as its theme the place military settlements hold in the memory of the Russian people since the early 1800s and the reason that this memory is so strong. Among the reasons the author gives are that the settlements directly involved up to one percent of the population, were a model project of future military systems, and involved an enormous portion of the military budget in the 19th century. The article further discusses central themes of the memories: force and violence, as well as outbreaks of resistance to authority. The research for the article was based on recollections as seen through songs, proverbs and anecdotes, some of which are presented in the article.

Horses were of vital importance in Napoleonic-era warfare. For Napoleon the huge loss of horses in the 1812 campaign was even more important than the loss of men. Shortage of horses undermined his hopes of victory in 1813. The mobilization and utilization of Russia's horsepower is a crucial but little-studied aspect of these years. The largest single source of horses for the Russian cavalry in 1813-14 consisted of animals substituted for conscripts in the recruit levies. The first use of this policy occurred in the winter of 1812-13 in the provinces of Volhynia and Podolia and is the subject of this article. Its success led to the policy being adopted across the empire. As well as providing key insights into a crucial aspect of Russia's war effort, this article also illustrates the strengths and weaknesses of Russian provincial administration in these years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a discussion on the history of humanitarian intervention during the Russian-Turkish War of 1877. The author presents arguments in support of his thesis that the events of the so-called Great Oriental Crisis from 1875 to 1878 have more in common with genocide than internationally sanctioned humanitarian intervention. Descriptions are given of other historians' explanations for the war's position within the tradition of Russia's and Austria-Hungary's imperial expansion in the East. The author examines the religious, cultural, and economic factors underlying European attitudes toward the Turkish Empire between the Congress of Paris and the Russian-Turkish War.

Prepared on the basis of newly released archival materials, this article investigates the combat operations of the Transbaikal Calvary Division conducted in western Russia during the First World War, specifically, during the offensive the Russian Army launched during the summer of 1916. It provides a unique mosaic of Russia's employment of Cossack troops, particularly cavalry, in this famous offensive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Russian military units assembled for the punitive expedition against Poland in 1831 included the Finnish Sharp-Shooter Battalion of the Imperial Guard. The participation of the Finnish Guard in the campaign against Poland was the first concrete testimony of Finnish loyalty towards the Russian Empire, and played a key part in securing Imperial favour for Finnish autonomy. Thus, the November Rising determined the fates of both Poland and Finland for the rest of the nineteenth century, and the continuation of Finnish autonomy was, ironically, partly based on the destruction of Polish autonomy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses Western European views on Russian military settlements and colonies in the 19th century. It describes the economic purpose of the settlements to relieve the Russian military budget, the way in which the settlements modernized the Russian army through the creation of a military reserve, and the relationship between soldiers and farming. The predictions from Western European observers that the colonies would result in revolution are discussed, along with the peasant riots protesting the Russian government. Other subjects under discussion include the military policies of czar Alexander I, the creation of the settlements by war minister Aleksej Andreevič Arakčeev, and French diplomacy in Russia.

In the course of colonial conquest, Russian military policy underwent a process of radicalization which culminated in the expulsion of most of the local population. This policy was explicitly referred to as “cleansing” by Russian contemporaries. Even though imperial Russian officials did not yet think in ethnic terms and were not backed up by biologistic concepts, their images of Northern Caucasians had become highly essentialized. In the case of the Circassians from Western Caucasus, this essentialization led to their exclusion from the “civilized” world and turned them into objects to be dispensed with. This article seeks to explain the origins of Russian “resettlement” and “cleansing” by locating them within the emerging field of governmentality and tracing their further development. It argues that Russian colonial authorities, in conducting their strategy of “final subjugation,” created a new, supplementary instrument of state power that could be used where other, less openly violent techniques of domination and control had failed. In contradiction to widespread assumptions, in Northern Caucasus the mission to civilize and the intent to destroy could exist side by side and even came to complement each other. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

El artículo discute el rol de América Latina en la rivalidad geopolítica entre Gran Bretaña y Rusia durante los finales del siglo XIX. A lo largo del siglo XIX, Rusia y Gran Bretaña enfrentaron el llamado Big Game, una rivalidad centrada en el Medio Oriente y Asia Central. América Latina, una zona bajo la influencia británica, empezó a atraer la atención de la armada rusa. El artículo examina la relación con Rusia como territorio estratégico.

The article presents an essay discussing Caucasus as perceived by eight Russian officers serving there in the period 1837-1859. The author focuses on Russia's acquisition of Caucasus, its economic development, and population. Further discussed are the officers' opinion of the mountain tribe gortsy, their handling of violence in military engagements, and attitude toward kavkaztsy - people who have lived for a long time in Caucasus.

Examines the character of the Finnish army, in particular its Russian context, and attempts an assessment of the appropriateness of its organization and training for its intended wartime role in the defence of Finland. The historical significance as a contributory cause of the constitutional crisis between Russia and Finland in 1899-1901; The curious relationship between Finland and Russia within the Empire; More.