In May 1812, Napoleon completed the development of a plan for a war with Russia. The conquest of our country, and what's next in his intentions? It turns out India. She was supposed to be French.
Napoleon rightly calculated that it would be difficult to conquer India in that part of it where the colonial troops of Britain had already established themselves. This means that we must meet halfway - through the north of India. But Russia cannot be avoided.
Napoleon was preparing to conquer India in great detail. In 1804 he even asked for a draft document for himself on the creation of an "Asian Academy" in Russia.
It was the favorite idea of Count Uvarov, a 24-year-old novice diplomat and future minister of public education. It was then that Napoleon learned that the Russian Academy would be subordinated to the tasks of cognition, first of all, India. History, geography, religions (the project said: "The system of Lamaism and the worshipers of Budga"). Here is also Hindu mythology and literature ("the most ancient, the most attractive and least known"). To be translated into Russian of the ancient Vedas and the outstanding poetic monument of world civilization "Mahabharata". Even the study of Sanskrit - a language that is the oldest and most difficult, but tempting for Russia, for many scientists prove that it once replenished Russian.
Photo: Baron Felician Reinfeld. "Forcing the Berezina"
I found an echo of Napoleon's interest in how Russia is avidly interested in the culture of India in the St. Petersburg magazine "Son of the Fatherland". He publishes a lecture by the Frenchman A.-L. Shezi "On the advantages, grace and richness of the Sanskrit language, as well as the benefits and pleasures of learning it."
Did Russia know about Napoleon's evil Indian intentions?
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Sources of Zhukovsky
Vasily Andreevich is keen on Indian poetry and even translated something. In 1808 he became the editor of the journal Vestnik Evropy, which was founded by Karamzin. And already in the second, with the name of Zhukovsky, an article appears with a striking message: "They assure that Napoleon's soldiers will pass through Persia to the East Indies and take over the trading companies of England."
But how to get through Persia? Only through Russia!
Unknown manuscript by Denis Davydov
The future hero of the war with Napoleon, having learned about his Indian desires, told Kutuzov about his readiness to inevitably fight not only for Russia: “Let's lay down our heads for the Fatherland, and this is more honorable than to die on the banks of the Ganges from the fevers of India, where the Emperor of the French will drive us all.” Roughly, in a hussar way, but are not Russia and India justly tied by one historical and strategic chain?
At the same time, Davydov did not get off with just a sonorous phrase. He knew, it turns out, about the hard forced-colonial fate of India. I found in the Military-Historical Archives of Davydov's authorship "Notes on India". Six pages of the manuscript. The smooth outlines of the letters coiled into the title. Then a feather - a goose feather - at the speed of a final stroke, splashing along an arc with a black constellation of small blots, took up the first line: “Bengali is the richest land in India. It lies on both sides of the Ganges …"
Draws attention to the cunning of the British: they, having entered India for commercial purposes, soon violated the agreement not to build fortifications and not to hire troops.
Another line - about the resistance of the Indians, and not only about their defeats, notes the following: "They put the British on the edge of flight."
For some reason, Davydov needed to compile even an explanatory dictionary. I will retype it, because this world of certain knowledge is curious: “The titles of Hindu Muzulmans can be compared with ours in this way: khan means cavalier, bogodar - baron, zing - count, dovlakh - marquis, maluka - duke, gumara - prince, sivas gumara - prince blood, the nabob is the ruler of the province, for the management of which he pays the suba, and the suba is the viceroy who is in charge of many provinces."
How wonderful it is that there is a trace of the attitude of the hero of the Patriotic War of 1812 to India, which fell into colonial dependence.
Order to customs officer Ivanov
The intentions of Napoleon to go to the conquest of distant India through Persia, which is close to us, is not a fantasy. Russia has long known about such a shortest road to a country of untold riches that is tempting and for itself. Alas, the wanderings of the merchant Afanasy Nikitin have been forgotten by this time. Therefore, the search for new opportunities begins. The director of the Astrakhan customs office, Ivanov, was ordered to scout from the capital: "About the most convenient routes to India and the place of the establishment of trade relations with India from Astrakhan."
The customs officer turned out to be diligent. He replied: “I didn’t spare and I don’t spare either my labors or my property itself, sending from time to time from Astrakhan to India on my own koshta people who were capable of doing that, whom my letters of assurance, personally supporting with evidence, would arouse in the local merchants hunting for such a useful enterprise."
The feat of the merchant Gabaiduly Amirov
In Russia, not only Indian intentions, but also accomplishments began to appear. In 1805, the brave Tatar - the obvious heir of Nikitin - returned home to Russia after 30 years of wandering. He began to report: "This path from Russia through Bukharia to Calcutta, adhering to the Persian borders, lying in the west of India." I saw mighty rivers - the Indus and the Ganges. Visited Delhi and Calcutta. I walked in the mountains. Learned the customs of both the poor and the noble. Marveled at the local beliefs. He admired the man-made and natural beauties. Let me emphasize: unlike most Western travelers with the manners of colonialists, he noted: "Silence, calmness and justice are so perfectly observed."
The more I immersed myself in the topic, the more often I found out: the best minds of Russia are not for military campaigns in India - only to trade! Among them is Mikhailo Lomonosov with his first remarkable research in Russia "A Brief Description of Various Voyages in the Northern Seas and an Indication of the Possible Passage of the Siberian Ocean to East India".
June 1812. In the footsteps of the Macedonian
Eves of the invasion of Russia. How many worries Napoleon has these days! And yet again India. Napoleon reveals his strategic intentions to one of his close associates, the Count of Narbonne: “Alexander the Great reached the Ganges, starting from the same distant point as Moscow … Suppose that Moscow is taken, Russia is defeated, the tsar has made peace or died in some palace conspiracy, and tell Is it impossible for me then access to the Ganges for the French army …"
The campaign to India turned out to be impossible. The pitiful remnants of the French army are left with one thing - to flee. A disastrous crossing over a cold border river - what is the Ganges!
Let us especially note that so far even our historians for some reason do not dare to express to the mass reader clearly and clearly: Russia, having defeated Napoleon's armada, interrupted - forever - France's intentions to invade India from the north. It turns out that in World War II she saved not only herself and Europe.
Kutuzov: something from the family tree
Our great commander "became related" with India not only by the expulsion of Napoleon from Russia. 115 years after Borodino, his great-granddaughter Elena Shaposhnikova, by her husband Roerich, is sent to a distant country. She is a deep expert on Indian philosophy and culture. I saw several of her voluminous books in the library of her son, Svyatoslav Nikolaevich, when I had to visit his estate not far from Bangalore.
Another descendant of the Field Marshal gave himself to India. I read in Nicholas Roerich's article "India" (1937): "Helena Ivanovna's uncle went to India in the middle of the last century, then he appeared in a beautiful Rajpuran costume at a court ball in St. Petersburg and again left for India. They haven't heard of him since then."
It is so true that the story of the reunion of the most significant names and events is bizarre.
But where did I get this Russian-French-Indian plot? For the Veche Publishing House I finished a 25-year collection of facts for the first of its kind educational book “How Russia Learned India. Chronicle of unusual events from the times of hoary antiquity with the Word and Deeds of noble and nameless guardians with the attachment of Indian fairy tales, which were preserved for Russia by Pushkin and Tolstoy.
Valentin Osipov, laureate of the Great Literary Prize of Russia