Do not make yourself an idol

About how the genius of Napoleon changed the world

This is the last column of Valeria Novodvorskaya: she dictated it on June 28, in advance, for the first postal issue of The New Times. July 12 she was gone. As she felt ... She was contrary to the performance of many with a very organized person, she never broke the deadlines and wrote exactly in size. Trouble: there will be no more new speakers

"Napoleon in burning Moscow." Jacques Onfrud de Breville. Illustration of 1894 /Photo: AKG Images /East News

“Oh you, whose memory of the bloody world will be full for a long time, prospecting with your glory, the rest among the desert waves! A magnificent grave ... Above the urn, where your ashes lies, the peoples have deceived and the ray of immortality is on fire. " It was his strict critic - Pushkin about Napoleon.

On August 15, the 245th anniversary of the birth of this brilliant hero, a revolutionary and despot, a favorite of Glory and War, who pushed Russia from the path of reforms for 49 years, and his native France, who had been putting an elegant military autocracy on the needle almost forever. Bonaparte’s charm, not only France, but also Russians could not resist: the poet Lermontov and historian Tarle. Napoleon knew how to drive him, and the case went very far. In the boring and prosaic work of the war, he said his poetic word, returning Europe of the 19th century to the VIII, during the time of Karl the Great, uniting the future kingdoms of France, Germany, Austria and Italy. Napoleon Bonaparte tried to attach to this brilliant list Poland, Spain, Russia, Sweden, and even Egypt. He thought about distant India. His star path was akin to the path of Alexander the Macedonian (IV century BC), who in vain conquered the then Oikumen, because his victories were like a soap bubble: colorful, radiant, short -lived.

Napoleon was loved, they worshiped him, the unhealthy relations of the people with the authorities. In one favorable gaze, the emperor were ready to die by soldiers and marshals, an old and young guard. He was his own: a small corporal. Too much glory, too many feats, too much enthusiasm and gold sewing ...

While the French in pursuit of Mirage stomped around Europe in their beautiful uniforms, England prepared an industrial revolution and improved democracy. France could never catch up with her again.

Even the beloved Marshal of Napoleon, Bernadot, refused, becoming the Swedish king, to walk with France her military road. Napoleon left France and Europe his code and other good, bourgeois laws. It could be held in the hands. And the Christmas brilliance of victories faded. The occupation and the Holy Union, which guarded the French as a chain dog, became visible.

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Napoleonic Golden Eagles turned out to be a sickle and hammer for Russia

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In dreams of former glory, France chose the insignificant nephew of the great uncle, Napoleon III with its first president. This empire was a parody of the first and ended with the collapse of the Franco-Prussian war. Having lost Alsace and Lorraine, France thought only about revenge and became the soul of the Entente. So the world went to the First World War.

Offended French people clamped Germany, and she also rushed to replay the story. Here you have Hitler and the nightmare of the Second World War. But this path began with a red carpet, along which Napoleon I passed its brilliant life.

70 years were lost to the theater, devoid of any pragmatists, and only the Order of the Legion of Honor remained from this theater of military operations.

Napoleon literally pulled out anachronic inert Spain from the claws of the Inquisition. But she did not say “thank you” to him, but cursed, even the great Goya cursed - with her paintings, and the Inquisition returned to its place.

And the need to fight with France deprived the reformer Mikhail Speransky, turned the liberal of Alexander I into a reactionary, and provided us with Arakcheev’s reaction. The peasants were released almost 50 years later than it was, and these extra 50 years brought with them the terror of the people's volumes, 1905, October 1917 and all other charms.

The victory of 1812 became a drug and poison for Russia, brought the status of the "Gendarme of Europe" and the Nikolaev "vertical of power". Napoleonic gold eagles turned out to be a sickle and a hammer for Russia.