The Battle of Maloyaroslavets became one of the key episodes of the Patriotic War. It took place on October 12, 1812. Five days earlier, Napoleon had withdrawn his main forces from Moscow in an attempt to retreat from Russia along the Kaluga Road, south of the Smolensk Road, which was ravaged during previous hostilities.
He sought to bypass the Russian army, whose main forces were in the Tarutino camp in the northeastern part of Kaluga Governorate. However, on October 9, the commander of a partisan detachment, Ivan Semenovich Dorokhov, reported to Mikhail Illarionovich Kutuzov about the movement of the enemy division in the Fominsky area (modern-day Naro-Fominsk).
Kutuzov sent an infantry corps under the command of Dmitry Sergeyevich Dokhturov to attack it. The general made sure that the main forces of the French army headed by Napoleon were moving towards Maloyaroslavets, and reported this to Kutuzov.
The next day, October 12, Dokhturov’s corps attacked the French and drove them out of the city across the Luzha River. Gradually, the main forces of both armies, led by Kutuzov and Napoleon, joined the battle. The battle lasted until late at night.
The city changed hands several times, but eventually the enemy took it. Maloyaroslavets was almost completely destroyed. Despite the tactical success, at the military council on October 13 Napoleon refused to repeat the attack and decided to retreat along the Smolensk Road.
During the Battle of Maloyaroslavets, the Russian army was stationed south of the city, while the French attacked from the north. The St. Nicholas-Chernoostrovsky Monastery was in the epicenter of the fighting. It was severely damaged.
One of the attacks of the French army was depicted by the artist Peter von Hess. He painted the monastery on the right side of the canvas, and showed the northern bank of the Luzha River in the distance, from where the enemy attacked the Russian defenders of the city.
The artist who painted the original canvas was a participant in battles against Napoleon as part of the Bavarian army in 1813–1814. Later he became a court painter in Munich. A series of paintings depicting episodes of the Greek War of Independence brought him European fame.
The Borodino Museum-Reserve houses a smaller reproduction of the painting “The Battle of Maloyaroslavets”. It was made in 1965 by Mikhail Ananyevich Ananyev, a painter from the Mitrofan Grekov Studio of Military Artists.
