The foreground of the lithograph on display depicts the battle between the Russian and French armies during the Patriotic War. On the left are the cathedrals of the Kremlin, on the right is the Kremlin Wall, behind them is the Moskva river. The city is in flames.

The 1812 Fire of Moscow occurred in September, after the Battle of Borodino. By the decision of Commander-in-Chief Mikhail Kutuzov, Moscow was surrendered to Napoleon. The Russian army retreated to wait for reinforcements and defeat the enemy.

The fire persisted for almost a week. It spread covering almost the entire surface area of the Zemlyanoy and Bely Gorod, reaching the city’s outskirts and destroying three-quarters of the city’s wooden buildings. Napoleon Bonaparte occupied the Kremlin but had to flee from Moscow to escape the fire. Later, the French emperor recalled this day:

There are multiple versions as to what caused the fire. It could have been a strategic move in the surrender of the city, arson by Russian infiltrators or the actions of the French occupiers. In addition to that, a fire could break out spontaneously in the ensuing chaos. Since there were several points of origin to the fire, each of these versions has the right to exist.

The fire took several thousand lives of wounded Russian soldiers left in the city as well as civilians. The Moscow University, the Buturlin Library, the Petrovsky and Arbat theaters burned down. It is believed that the Troitskaya Chronicle and the manuscript of “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign”, which was kept in the palace of Aleksei Musin-Pushkin, perished in the Fire of Moscow. The population of Moscow after both the fire and the war decreased by more than 50 thousand people and amounted to 215 thousand.

Leo Tolstoy described the Moscow fire in the fourth volume of his novel “War and Peace”. He reflected on the reasons and considered the different versions put forward by historians and the military. As a result, Tolstoy came to the conclusion that none of these reasons could lead to a fire of such scale. Following his philosophy of history, Tolstoy wrote about the combination of causes that led to the fire. According to his concept, a historical event arises as a result of the totality of the wills of all the people who take part in it, and never at the will of one, regardless of the person in question being commander or emperor.