The painting by Vasily Vereshchagin is dedicated to the last stage of the Patriotic War of 1812. Leo Tolstoy reserves a large portion of the fourth volume of the novel “War and Peace” to it. The remnants of Napoleon’s army were retreating from Moscow along the ruined Smolensk road. Soldiers collapsed from hunger and unprecedented severe frosts and died from outbreaks of plague and cholera. From all sides, the French were pursued by Russian partisans and peasants with sticks, axes and shovels. Napoleon’s army marched past rural areas and villages that it had recently burnt and ravaged.
The exodus of the French from Russia was a real disaster that lasted from October to December. Napoleon voluntarily turned his back on Mikhail Kutuzov and gave the order to retreat, rejecting a general battle. It happened a month and a half after Moscow had been surrendered to the French and burned down almost completely. During this time, Kutuzov strengthened the Russian army and the mighty people’s militia doubled its strength.
Leo Tolstoy believed that it was the righteous, moral victory of the Russian troops in the Battle of Borodino that was the root cause of all of Napoleon’s subsequent failures. The writer believed that the enemy was defeated not by the army but by the Russian people, capable of a true feat for the sake of the Fatherland.
Vasily Vereshchagin was a Russian painter, best known as a battle artist. Born into a noble family in the Novgorod Governorate, he studied at the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts continuing his education in Paris under Jean-Leon Jerome. Vereshchagin traveled a lot in Central Asia, China, India and Tibet, visited Syria, Palestine and the USA. He participated in the conquest of Turkestan, was seriously wounded in the Russo-Turkish War and died at the age of 61 onboard the battleship Petropavlovsk near Port Arthur when the ship detonated on a mine during the Russo-Japanese War.
Many of Vasily Vereshchagin’s paintings reflected his anti-war sentiments and therefore caused discontent among the elite, who reproached the artist for his lack of patriotism. Despite this, Emperor Alexander III recognized his talent, and Vereshchagin himself remained loyal to Russia. His most famous painting, “The Apotheosis of War” depicting a pile of human skulls has become a time-honored masterpiece.
