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«The war of quills» in 1812

Goubina Maya

   In the politics of conquest led by Napoleon the political and military propaganda was as an important tool as the campaigns of his armies. Consequently, in 1812 Russians tried to fight back not only on the battlefield, but also on paper. This being said, the Bulletins of the Grand Army form a regular corpus, while the Russian documents have a much more heterogeneous character: they are addressed to the Russian people (civilians or soldiers) or to the soldiers of the Grand Army (French, Germans or Italians) etc. Comparative analysis of the Russian and French propaganda texts shines a new light on the mental picture of the campaign in Russia and allows to explore the mutual perception of the two protagonists.

Keywords: history, the Patriotic war of 1812, propaganda.
Link: Goubina M. «The war of quills» in 1812 // Annuaire d'études françaises 2013: "La campagne russe" de Napoléon : événements, images, mémoire / Annual of French Studies 2013, The Russian campaign of Napoleon : events, images, memory.М. P. 194-200.