Identities of Little Russian Society through the Prism of Napoleon’s Russian Campaign

VADYM ADADUROV

War has always been an extremely sensitive indicator of the state of affairs in a soci­ety; like no other event, it accentuated its horrors, moods, and identities.

I think the truth lies somewhere in the middle between these two extreme ver­sions. The artistic image created in 1812 by the unsophisticated imagination of an anonymous provincial icon painter symbolically combined sorrow for the crucified Cossack liberties and fear of any kind of change. In this essay I will sys­tematically lay out the whole wealth of arguments in favor of this hypothesis, and, at the same time, show the schematic nature and poverty of the opposing histo­riographic tradition of representing the attitude of the descendants of Cossacks.

During the six-year period of the French presence on the borders of the Russian Empire (1806-12), not a single figure in the social system of Little Russia and its adjoining South managed to arouse the interest of Emperor Napoleon or his allies in these territories, so far removed from Paris, then the metropolis of Western civilization.

The stereotypical and far from true notion that all Poles who lived in Russia's western domains were secret supporters of Napoleon played an extremely im­portant role in forming a negative attitude among the Little Russian nobility to­ward France as an international power that could lead to the restoration of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth within its old borders.

the surveyors of this gubernia are all Little Russians, and I have no doubt about their loyalty, except in the case of one, and only because he studied in Kremenets [in a lyceum founded by the Polish statesman Tadeusz Czacki - V.A.], which is why I am keeping him in Kyiv. Although the maps of all the counties, including those that concern post roads, are kept in the archive of the city of Kyiv, during the retreat of the troops, some of the local [Polish] nobles will not miss the opportunity to give the enemy accurate maps, which they have had since the times of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.⁶

The juxtaposition of the patriotic disposition of the nobles of Great and Little Russian descent with “the old noble families of Polish origin, which included quite a few who rejoiced or thought that the final hour had struck for Russia,” was also typical of the memoirs of the Kharkiv University professor Dietrich Christoph von Rommel.⁷

Reflecting the position of the “Ukrainian intelligentsia” (which in terms of the concepts of the period under study should be regarded as the Little Russian no­bility) regarding the war of 1812, first Dmytro Doroshenko, and then Oleksander Ohloblyn and Nataliia Polonska-Vasylenko allowed for the formation of a deep ideological split in this stratum, which went so far as to create two political camps: one that had a pro-Russian orientation, and the other that seemed to be waiting if not to cast off the tsarist yoke with the help of Napoleon, then, at least, to gain a certain degree of autonomy.

archival documents of the Russian administration on tracking sentiments in Right-Bank and Left-Bank Ukraine published by Isaak Trotskii at the beginning of 1930 (their content was first published thirty years earlier by Ivan Pavlovs'kyi).⁹ Even the contemporary historian Volodymyr Kravchenko was inclined to support the thesis regarding the “split” of Ukrainian society in its attitude to the conflict between Russia and France. Using the example of the Kapnist brothers, he argued that the same social milieu was home to staunch supporters of imperial integra­tion as essential for overcoming Ukraine's economic, educational, and infrastruc­tural backwardness (Vasyl', in the event of a French occupation of Little Russia, planned to begin a guerilla war) and the romantic supporters of Napoleon (Mykola intended to welcome the newcomers with bread and salt). However, in contrast to the statist approach, Kravchenko rightly noted that “needless to say there was no activity by an organized anti-Russian opposition in Ukraine.”¹⁰

However, a more careful examination of the evidence on which the hypothesis of the ideological split in the social strata of the Little Russian gubernia is based makes obvious the dubiousness of the arguments underlying it. It should be noted that the instances of praise of Napoleon expressed by representatives of Little Russian society were recorded in documents of the Special Committee for the Investigation of Cases Involving Treason or Violations of Public Peace, which had been especially created to uncover sedition, and do not date to 1812 but to the pe­riod of the war of 1806-07.¹¹ Despite the persistent efforts of the aforementioned committee, the total number of cases that it found was relatively small.

The figures named above be considered to be ideologically disposed against Russia? The tsarist administration itself did not view such talks by inebriated in­dividuals as proof of their untrustworthiness - either in 1812, or, even more so, in 1807. With respect to the custom (linked most closely with excessive imbibing of alcoholic beverages) of criticizing the realities of “abject Russian daily life” by praising Napoleon as the main external threat to it, Governor-General of Moscow Fedor Rostopchin wrote to Minister of Police Aleksandr Balashov: “The word ‘liberty’ on which Napoleon based his plan to conquer Russia is not working in his favor. There are no Russian advocates of liberty, because I am not taking into consideration either madmen, or drunkards, whose words are not accompanied by actions.”¹³

The toasting culture of the time allowed successive mentions not only of one’s own or allied statesmen, but also of worthy opponents - that is, a toast in honor of Emperor Alexander could be followed by a toast in honor of Napoleon as a brave general, and the proposers of such toasts from among the nobility were usually not punished.¹⁴ A huge ideological chasm existed between praise of Napoleon expressed in a state of inebriation and actual anti-Russian activity, which in 1812 not a single representative of the Little Russian nobility crossed of his own volition.

The circumstances surrounding the oath sworn by Archbishop Varlaam Shyshats'kyi to Napoleon is very vividly recreated in a source that has so far not been utilized by historians - the memoir of the French staff officer Raymond Emery de Montesquiou-Fezensac. Upon arriving in Mahiliou on Sunday, 26 July 1812, Fezensac witnessed an interesting dialogue between Marshal Louis Nicolas Davout and the Orthodox archbishop. Hearing during the celebration of the Holy Liturgy that Varlaam continued to pray for the Russian tsar, the French mil­itary leader

recommended that he recognize Emperor Napoleon as his ruler and replace the mention of Emperor Alexander by the former’s name in public celebra­tions of the Liturgy. In this connection, he reminded him of the words from the Gospel that it was necessary “to render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s,” adding that the one who is stronger must be regarded as Caesar. The archbishop promised to comply with this recommendation, but did so in a tone of voice that indicated that he did not agree with it.¹⁶

This unique testimony of an eyewitness allows us to reject the hypothesis that by swearing an oath to Napoleon, the hierarch Varlaam was acting as a politically conscious Ukrainian autonomist.¹⁷ It is quite obvious that the motives of his ac­tion were rooted in the need created by circumstances to find a modus vivendi with the new authorities, and not in opposition to Russia, as attributed to the Orthodox hierarch of the beginning of the nineteenth century by nationally minded historians of the twentieth century. Neither in substance, nor in its in­fluence on the sentiments in society can the “case of Shyshats'kyi” be regarded as the antithesis to the general behavioral strategies of the Little Russian elite, which were reflected in anti-Napoleonic speeches and, especially, in the actions of hun­dreds of representatives of this social stratum (for example, a significant part of the personnel of the Russian army's officer corps descended from the nobility of this region).¹⁸ The statist historiographical model makes sense only if we include 99 per cent of the nobiliary and clerical estates in the first political camp, and one per cent in the second, completing it with a certain number of examples in Right­Bank Ukraine, where a few Polish landowners revealed themselves in the 1812 war to be open supporters of France (including the old Volhynian hereditary land­owner Michal Gl^bocki, who, “even though Napoleon's troops had already left Russia, was constantly preparing to go to war to help the Great Napoleon, but was hardly able to move his legs”).¹⁹ But French sources yielded a mention of the participation in the war of 1812 on the side of Napoleon of one (!) Ukrainian Cos­sack (most probably, a former Zaporozhian). On the eve of the campaign, Marshal Nicolas Oudinot hired “le cosaque ukrainien” in Paris (!) as a courier and trans­lator, who accompanied him in the battles of Polatsk, in Smolensk, and during the crossing of the Berezina. However, on 7 December, near Vilnius, the Cossack, who, according to grenadier Francois Pils, had frostbitten feet, refused to continue retreating with the French marshal's troops, obviously preferring to die closer to his native land than in a distant foreign country.²⁰

Inasmuch as there is no documentary evidence of contacts between represen­tatives of the “Ukrainian elite” and the French or their allies, sooner or later it had to be “discovered” by the ultrazealous advocates of a mythological view of history. As should have been expected, Pavlo Shtepa, a member of the Organiza­tion of Ukrainian Nationalists (oun), declared, without citing any supporting source of information, that the descendant of an old Cossack family, the autho­rized representative of the Little Russian nobility General Viktor Zakrevs'kyi, traveled on the eve of the 1812 war to Warsaw, where he tried to find support for a plan of a campaign by Napoleon's army into Ukraine. Betrayed by the treach­erous Poles, who did not want to allow the creation of an independent Ukraine, Zakrevs'kyi was allegedly exiled by the tsarist administration to Siberia.²¹ This claim began to circulate in the historiographic field despite valid doubts among its recipients regarding Zakrevs'kyi's rank of general.²² Apparently, this retired hussar captain (rotmistr), the drunkard and rowdy Zakrevs'kyi, who in the 1840s came up with the idea to found the so-called Society of Boozers (Mochymordy) (its members were not exiled because the society's activities did not cross the bounds of the typical fantasies and whims of Russian landowners, such as the freethinking toasts raised among intimates described above), was quite a schemer and diplomatic genius. Given that at the time of the negotiations in Warsaw at­tributed to him by Shtepa, he had just turned... all of five years old! Clearly, we have here an attempt, typical of the national grand narrative, to construct an un­interrupted continuity of the pursuit of independence by the Ukrainian people and their elite, for the purposes of which the period after the abolishing of the Hetmanate is artificially combined with the later period of cultural revival.²³

The hypothesis about the split of the so-called Ukrainian elite into two camps - pro-Russian and pro-French - finds no evidence whatsoever in narrative sources. Describing the sentiments of wealthy merchants at the Romny fair (Poltava gubernia) in July 1812, the Rostov merchant Ivan Marakuev wrote that upon hearing the news about the victory of the army corps of Peter Wittgenstein over the enemy, “the public rejoiced greatly.” In August, while attending the fair in Kharkiv, the merchant noted an “increase of general dismay” at the news of Napoleon's advance on Smolensk: “The Little Russian populace received the suc­cesses of the French with internal satisfaction; the seditious Polish spirit had not yet faded among them; but the nobility did not separate themselves from us [Rus­sians] and thought and acted as the true children of a single Fatherland.”²⁴

The existence of social tensions between the lower classes and the new (self­proclaimed and recognized by Russia) nobility was of greater concern to the latter than the fact that “the people do not like the Russians, from whom they differ in speech, customs, and habits.” This class anxiety permeates the memo­randum of Lieutenant Colonel Petr Chuikevich to the commander of the First Western Army Michael Barclay de Tolly, which was prepared on the eve of the 1812 campaign. The descendant of a Cossack starshyna family, Chuikevich noted that “this land, in which the people's hatred of the nobility is palpable, can be in­cited to insurrection. This problem could occur if our troops were forced to retreat to the left bank of the Dnipro in the face of the enemy's armed force. In present circumstances, the government must not weaken its monitoring of Little Russia.”²⁵ Chuikevich urged the government to rely on the Little Russian nobility, ensuring its loyalty with new privileges, such as granting them the right to build distilleries and prohibiting peasants from moving to other gubernias, especially to the Caucasus.²⁶

The loyal sentiments of the Little Russian nobility gave the Russian command hope of repelling the potential advance of the enemy on the southern front. On 10 (22) August, the head of the General Headquarters of the First Western Army Major-General Aleksei Ermolov advised Emperor Alexander I: “look to Little Russia, where there are thousands of ready Cossacks, the best cavalry in those lands [...] a large number of officers, who have retired but are prepared to spill their blood for the Sovereign, under whose rule they thrive.”²⁷

That these hopes proved not to be in vain is attested by the assessment that the Russian emperor himself gave the Little Russian nobility on 23 October (4 Novem­ber) 1812. He was very pleased that while the nobility of other parts of the empire provided, in accordance with the provisions of the imperial decree, one serf for every fifty souls for conscription and one of every ten, to the militia (opolchennia), the Little Russian nobility, wishing to demonstrate that they were more loyal to Russia than others, “just out of zealousness alone, provided the army the same number of horsemen on their own horses instead of recruits.”²⁸

If the unwritten rules of class solidarity of the nobiliary elite regarding recog­nizing Napoleon as the aggressor were not in effect (as in the case of the lower strata of society), the question regarding whose side to take was often decided by religious identity and the perception of a single motherland headed by the Or­thodox tsar founded on it. The last words of a soldier in the Russian army, who spoke in a “Little Russian dialect [en dialecte petit russien],” made a deep impres­sion on Heinrich von Brandt, an officer in Napoleon’s army: “You are a brave people, but your tsar must be a bad man. What did our tsar do to him? What is he looking for in our motherland? Rise up, holy Rus', defend yourself, protect our religion, our tsar!”²⁹

Upon hearing these words, the scales fell from Brandt’s eyes and showed him how naive were the hopes of the participants in the campaign against Russia that its peoples would rebel and complete the destruction of this empire that his side had begun. The worst foreboding of Napoleon’s soldier is confirmed by the ac­count of Ivan Kotliarevs'kyi. Assembling the Cossack units in Poltava, the author of the famous Eneida (Aenead) testified that “for the most part, [the men] are enlisting into the ranks of the Cossacks gladly, willingly, and without the least signs of sadness.”³⁰ The reason for such enthusiasm was the expectation of the descendants of the Cossacks to earn emancipation from serfdom with their service to the tsar. To be exact, to earn favor, not to gain freedom, by seizing the oppor­tunity. After the war, the enthusiasm was replaced by general disappointment, pure and simple.

In studying Russian military reports about the conduct of the Cossack regi­ments mustered in Little Russia, we find complaints about the inadequate prepa­ration of this “bunch of clodhoppers [muzhiks],” their poor military equipment, and the extreme youth of many “irregulars [okhochekomonni]” but not about their unreliability or desire to cross over to the side of the enemy.³¹ What is more, seeing the enthusiasm of twelve- and thirteen-year old Cossacks, Lieutenant Gen­eral Fedor Ertel ordered that they be taught the arts of soldiery.³² Overseeing the progress of this undertaking, Ertel probably felt like Alexander the Great, who formed a guard loyal to him consisting of children of the conquered Persians, or the sultan who created the Janissary caste.

The famous political figure and scholar Serhii lefremov once called attention to the fact that there are only a few mentions of the war of 1812 in Ukraine's vast and rich folklore, and that even in those four or five works of poetry (which he recorded during his ethnographic expeditions in the Kyiv region), it is impossible to find any positive comments about the French. The scholar therefore concluded that the common people remained completely indifferent to this war, which “did not touch them in any way,” “did not become near and dear” to them, in contrast to, for example, the Khmel'nyts'kyi Uprising (Khmelnychchyna), which was “en­folded in extraordinary veneration.”³³ This argument, which is close to the methodological approach of modern cultural-anthropological history, makes it possible to understand, even more clearly than the documents of the tsarist police, why the French government could not count on assistance from the indigenous inhabitants of the Little Russian gubernias, in whose imaginations Napoleon was not the “Great Hero” and “Liberator” (despite the honey-tongued assurances of the leaders of the Polish patriotic movement), and therefore, unlike Bohdan Khmel'nyts'kyi, did not become a leading figure in folk dumas.

In contrast to the “silence” of the lower classes, we see a real “roar” of nobiliary poetic creativity, which bears clear witness to the pro-imperial identity of this so­cial stratum. Written in both Russian and Ukrainian, these published works often deliberately imitated the speech of the common people, creating the illusion of broad popular support of the tsarist regime: “We have a father, the tsar the most luminous [...] we swore to him [...] when needed to defend / our Russian tsar.”³⁴

As in Petro Danylevs'kyi's “Oda malorossiiskogo prostoliudina na sluchai voen- nykh deistvii pri nashestvii frantsuzov v predely Rossiiskoi imperii v 1812 godu” (Ode of a Little Russian commoners in the event of armed hostilities during the French invasion of the Russian Empire in 1812), which is quoted above, so also in Hryhorii Koshyts'-Kvitnyts'kyi's “Oda, sochinennoi na malorossiiskom narechii po sluchaiu vremennogo opolcheniia” (Ode composed in the Little Russian di­alect on the occasion of a temporary militia), Petro Kalaidovych's and Ivan Ko- van'ko's “Pesni” (Songs), Vasyl' Kapnist's odes and poems, and the anonymous “Mysli ukrainskogo zhitelia o nashestvii frantsuzov (malorossiiskaia oda)” (Thoughts of a Ukrainian inhabitant about the Invasion of the French. Little Rus­sian Ode), the authors mocked Napoleon and his allies, the Poles, and countered them with arguments attesting to the religious, social, and political unity of the Russian Empire.³⁵

In researching the collection of Russian brochures captured by the French dur­ing the 1812 campaign, which are held in the Archives Nationales (Paris), it is dif­ficult to ignore a Ukrainian-language document, whose content reflects perfectly the context described above of the rejection by Ukrainian society of a political orientation toward Napoleon.³⁶ We are talking about a pamphlet entitled Stikhi Tverdovskogo (Tverdovskii’s Verses), which is an integral part of a larger col­lection.³⁷ The plot of the work, from which Napoleon’s entourage could learn of the hostility of Little Russians to France, turns on the battle of Pultusk on 27 De­cember (New Style), 1806, represented by Russian propaganda as a brilliant victory of army commander Levin August von Bennigsen over the emperor of the French (although, in reality, it was the Russians who were defeated and who retreated, leaving the battlefield to the enemy).³⁸ Thus the level of familiarity of the author, who relates in satirical form how “the braggart, brigand, and derelict” Bonaparte lost (in reality, Bennigsen fought against Marshal Jean Lannes), was of a general nature, based on official reports and rumors. As regards the author, in view of his colorful Ukrainian language, there is no reason to doubt his Little Russian origin. The Stikhi Tverdovskogo, published with the permission of the committee on censorship, and the little glossary accompanying them, are evidence of the use of the Ukrainian language in general, and of the term zaporozhets ' in partic­ular, in the literature of the Russian Empire. The text contains many demotic metaphors (for example, the portrayal of Bonaparte as a cattle thief); such verbal crudity was commonplace for the poetry of the period and copied the style of Kotliarevs'kyi’s Ene'ida.

As for the motives for writing the pamphlet, various hypotheses are possible. The most likely, in my view, are: (1) the author’s desire to feel involved in impor­tant events by expressing his civic stance, and (2) his attempt to find favor with the authorities, on whose part there was obviously a demand for this kind of show of public support. Attesting to the latter is the publication in the same edition of two works of similar content, ostensibly written on behalf of citizens belonging to different social classes from the empire’s borderlands. The author of the verse work was probably not a Cossack; most likely, he was a Little Russian nobleman, who lived in St Petersburg and wrote under a pseudonym.³⁹ His pamphlet depicts quite clearly the opinions and sentiments of the nobiliary estate. Notably, in the view of the author, the romantic image of the Zaporozhian Cossack remains rel­evant as a metaphor for the defender of the Orthodox Fatherland, but no longer as concerns Ukraine, but as defender of the whole empire. There is no trace left of the Zaporozhian Sich rebel; his place has been taken by the loyal defender of the tsarist throne, ready to become the stronghold of the human spirit and victory (thence the pseudonym)⁴⁰against the French threat. Moreover, the author of the Stikhi Tverdovskogo does not hide his animus toward the Polish rebels, describing the uprising under the leadership of Tadeusz Kosciuszko as adventuristic. He obviously views the latter as the exact opposite, deserving of absolute condem­nation, to the loyal stance of the Black Sea (formerly Zaporozhian) Cossacks, led by Otaman Kulish (Zakharii Chepiha), who fought Kosciuszko's rebels as part of the Russian army.⁴¹ It is difficult to doubt the sincerity of the pamphlet author's feelings on the occasion of the victory (even if only fictional) over Bonaparte: the reading of the text leaves a slight aftertaste of the author's mood, which reflects the firm convictions of a person who, from the height of his ideals, is mocking the “pathetic” - in his view - figure of Napoleon.

Translated from the Ukrainian by Marta Skorupsky

NOTES

Originally published as: Vadym Adadurov, “Identychnosti malorosiis'koho suspil'stva cherez pryzmu rosiis'koho pokhodu Napoleona,” in idem, “Napoleonida” na Skhodi levropy. Uiavlennia, proekty ta diial 'nist uriadu Frantsii shchodo pivdenno-zakhidnykh okrain Rosiis ’koi imperii na pochatku XIX st. (Lviv, 2018), 197-210. Copyright 2018 by the Ukrainian Catholic Uni­versity Press and Vadym Adadurov. Translated and reprinted with permission.

1 See the report on this icon in the paper of local historian Georgii Skadovskii in lug: Nauchno-literaturnaia, politicheskaia, sel ’skokhoziaistvennaia i kom- mercheskaia gazeta (Kherson), 23 December 1898, no. 231, 3.

2 See my monograph: V. Adadurov, “Napoleonida”na Skhodi levropy: Uiavlen­nia, proekty ta diial’nist uriadu Frantsiishchodo pivdenno-zakhidnykh okra'in Rosiis 'koi imperii na pochatku XIX stolittia, 2nd ed. (Lviv, 2018), 176-97.

3 A.A. Vasil'chikov, Semeistvo Razumovskikh, vol. 4/2, Svetleishii kniaz Andrei Kirillovich (St Petersburg, 1887), 308.

4 Narodnoe opolchenie v Otechestvennoi voine 1812 g.: Sbornik dokumentov, ed. L.G. Beskrovnyi (Moscow, 1962), 432-4.

5 Sbornik Russkogo imperatorskogo istoricheskogo obshchestva, vol. 54, Gertsog Armand-Emmanuil Rishel 'e. Dokumenty i bumagi o ego zhizni i deiatel ’nosti 1766-1822, ed. A.A. Polovtsov (St Petersburg, 1886), 72.

6 O. Levitskii, “Trevozhnye gody: Ocherki iz obshchestvennoi i politicheskoi istorii g. Kieva i lugo-Zapadnogo kraia v 1811-1812 gg.,” Kievskaia starina 39, no. 11 (1892): 211.

7 [Kh. Rommel'], Piat' let iz istorii Khar'kovskogo universiteta. Vospominaniia Professora Rommelia o svoem vremeni, o Khar’kove i Khar’kovskom universitete (1785-1815), ed. la. Baliasnyi (Kharkiv, 1868), 83.

8 See D. Doroshenko, Narys istorii Ukralny, vol. 2, Vid polovyny XVII stolittia (Munich, 1956), 288; O. Ohloblyn, “Varlaam Shyshats'kyi,” in idem, Liudy starol Ukralny (Munich, 1959), 306-7; N. Polons'ka-Vasylenko, Istoriia Ukralny, vol. 2, Vid polovyny XVII storichchia do 1923 roku (Munich, 1976), 280-1; see also an ideologically close work by D. Dontsov, “Chy Rosiia ie nepoborna?” in idem, Vybrani tvory, vol. 9, Ideolohichna i kul ’turolohichna eselstyka (1948-1957 rr.) (Drohobych-Lviv, 2015), 152.

9 E. Borschak, “Napoleon et l'Ukraine,” Revue des Etudes Napoleoniennes 41 (Paris, June-December 1935), 13-14; I. V. Pavlovskii, “Dela ob gosudarstvennoi izmene i narushenii obshchego spokoistviia, proizvodivshiiesia v Malorossii v 1807 g.,” Kievskaia starina 83, no. 12 (1903): 136-8.

10 V.V. Kravchenko, “Ukraina naperedodni rosiis'ko-frantsuz'koi viiny 1812 r. ochyma suchasnyka,” in Skhid-Zakhid: Istoryko-kul’turolohichnyi zbirnyk (Kharkiv) 2 (1999): 199-200.

11 V. Shandra, Malorosiis'ke heneral-hubernatorstvo 1802-1856: Funktsil, struktura, arkhiv (Kyiv, 2001), 82.

12 I. Trots'kyi, “Do istorii revoliutsiinoho rukhu na Ukraini na pochatku XIX st.,” Prapor marksyzmu (Kharkiv) 2 (1930): 157.

13 Otechestvennaia voina vpis 'makh sovremennikov (1812-1815 gg.), comp. N.F. Dubrovin (St Petersburg, 1882), 69 [Rostopchin to Balashov, 30 July 1812].

14 F.L. Lindenmann, “Volynskaia guberniia v 1812 g. v memuarakh saksonskogo kapitana,” trans. N.S. Khomchenko, Mynule i suchasne Volyni i Polissia, issue 41, Ukraina ta Volyn’ u napoleonivs’kykh viinakh, ed. A. Saliuk and O. Zlato- hors'kyi (Lutsk, 2012), 248.

15 I.F. Pavlovskii, Poltava: Istoricheskii ocherk ee kak gubernskogo goroda v epokhu upravleniia general-gubernatorami (1802-1856) (Poltava, 1910), 198, 204.

16 R.E. de Montesquiou-Fezensac, Journal de la campagne de Russie en 1812 (Tours, 1849), 22.

17 As far back as at the end of the nineteenth century, Church historian Andrii Khoinats'kyi, writing from the position of local Volhynian patriotism, intro­duced elements of martyrdom and heroism into the historiographic image of Shyshats'kyi: A.F. Khoinatskii, “Pravda ob archiepiskope Varlaame, byvshim pervym episkopom Volynskim, a potom arkhiepiskopom Mogilevskim, skonchavshemsia v zvanii prostogo monakha, i drugie nekotorye svedeniia, neobkhodimye dlia istorii Volynskoi seminarii,” Volynskie eparkhial'nye vedomosti (Kremenets) 8 (1879) (unofficial part): 323-9. In our time, Varlaam (Shyshats'kyi) is viewed in this role by the Orthodox Church of Ukraine.

Historians connected to this Church are popularizing the mythical image of the Mahiliou hierarch: V. Rozhko, Arkhiiepyskop Varlaam Syshats 'kyi: Shliakh do avtokefalii (Lutsk, 2014), 125-32.

18 S.V. Potrashkov, “Ukraina v Otechestvennoi voine 1812 goda: vnutrennii as­pekt,” in Otechestvennaia voina 1812 goda: Istochniki. Pamiatniki. Problemy. Materialy VIII Vserossiiskoi nauchnoi konferentsii. Borodino, 6-7 sentiabria 1999 g. (Mozhaisk, 2000), 210-12.

19 M. Chaikovskii (Sadyk-Pasha), “Zapiski,” Kievskaia starina 32, no. 1 (1891): 47.

20 F. Pils, Journal de marche du grenadier (1804-1814), ed. R. de Casaternes (Paris, 1895), 158.

21 P. Shtepa, Moskovstvo, ioho pokhodzhennia, zmist, formy i istorychna tiahlist’, 4th ed. (Drohobych, 2003), 3.

22 See A.E. Taras, “1812 god - tragediia Belarusi,” chapter 5, “Nastuplenie velikoi armii: boi i zhertvy (iun'-avgust 1812 g.),” part 3, Voenno-politicheskoe obozre- nie, accessed 17 September 2021, https://www.belvpo.com/20106.html/.

23 For greater detail, see V. Adadurov, “‘Vpysuvannia’ ukrains ’koi istorii v ievropeis’kyi kontekst i ioho metodolohichni zasady (Lviv, 2013), 30-1; S. Plokhii, Kozats ’kyi mif. Istoriia ta natsiietvorennia v epokhu imperii, transl. from English by M. Klymchuk (Kyiv, 2013), 268, 392.

24 M.I. Marakuev, “Zapiski rostovtsa,” Russkii arkhiv (Moscow) 45, no. 5 (1907): 113-15.

25 P.A. Chuikevich, “Primechaniia o Malorossii,” in Skhid-Zakhid. Istoryko- kul’turolohichnyi zbirnyk 2 (1999): 205, 209.

26 Ibid.

27 Sbornik istoricheskikh materialov, izvlechennykh iz Arkhiva sobstvennoi Ego imperatorskogo Velichestva kantseliarii, ed. N.F. Dubrovin, 2 (St Petersburg, 1889): 416.

28 Ibid., doc. no. 238, p. 112.

29 H. von Brandt, Souvenirs d’un officierpolonais: Scènes de la vie militaire en Espagne et en Russie (1808-1812) (Paris, 1877), 258.

30 Ukrains ’kyi narod u Vitchyznianii viini 1812 roku: Zbirnyk dokumentiv, eds. V.I. Strel's'kyi and H. lu. Herbil's'kyi (Kyiv, 1948), doc. no. 5, p. 11.

31 Dvenadtsiatyi god. Istoricheskie dokumenty sobstvennoi kantseliarii glavnoko- manduiushchego Tret’ei zapadnoi armiei generala ot kavalerii A.P Tormasova, ed. D.P. Akhlestyshev (St Petersburg, 1912), doc. 238, p. 248 [Ertel to Chichagov, 4 (16) October 1812]; doc. 245, p. 257 [Klenovskii to Ertel', 30 September (11 October), 1812].

32 Ibid., doc. 254, p. 267 [Ertel to Chichagov, 18 (30) October 1812].

33 S. lefremov, “1812-i rik na Ukraini,” in Za rik 1912-i (Kyiv, 1913), 268.

34 V.S. Kiselev and T.A. Vasil'eva, “Evoliutsiia obraza Ukrainy v imperskoi sloves- nosti pervoi chetverti XIX v.: Regionalizm, etnografizm, politizatsiia,” Vestnik Tomskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta. Filologiia 27, no. 1 (2014): 110.

35 lu. Ladyntsev and L. Shchavinskaia, Ukrainskaia literatura protiv Napoleona (Moscow, 2012), 53.

36 Archives Nationales (Paris), sèrie AF IV, carton 1650, f. 321 (8) - 325 (12). First published in V.V. Adadurov, “Zaporoz'kyi kozak Tverdovs'kyi proty Napoleona: Vidobrazhennia virnopiddanykh nastroiv malorosiis'koho dvorianstva v ukrainomovnomu pamfleti 1807 r. z Natsional'noho arkhivu Frantsii,” Ukratns’kyi istorychnyi zhurnal 5 (2012): 177-86.

37 Dukh Rossiian, ili Serdechnye chustva sibirskogo mastera Userdova i zaporozh- skogo kozaka Tverdovskogo, isobrazhennye stikhami po sluchaiu pobedy nad Bonapartiem 14 dekabria 1806goda (St Petersburg, 1807).

38 L.L. Bennigsen, Zapiski o voine s Napoleonom 1807goda, 2nd ed. (Moscow, 2012), 97-9.

39 According to my conjecture, the author of the work could have been the de­scendant of a Cossack starshyna family, the mining engineer Ivan Kovan'ko, who introduced a melter foreman from the Urals into his narrative.

40 The surname Tverdovskii apparently refers to Ukrainian and Russian words “tverdynia” (stronghold) and “tverdyi” (strong) and emphasizes his persis­tence in the struggle against Napoleon.

41 For this historical figure, see B.E. Frolov, “Diskussionnye voprosy biografii atamana Z.A. Chepegi,” in Chetvertye kubanskie literaturno-istoricheskie chteniia: Sbornik nauchnykh statei (Krasnodar, 2003), 96.