05/30/2022
Historian Mikaberidze (The Napoleonic Wars) offers an intimate portrait of Russian field marshal Mikhail Kutuzov, whose defeat of Napoleon’s invading army of 600,000 soldiers in 1812 “dramatically” altered the balance of power in Europe. Noting that Kutuzov appears in Tolstoy’s War and Peace, Stalin’s anti-Nazi propaganda, and most recently, Vladimir Putin’s campaign to forge a new Russian identity, Mikaberidze claims that this “mythmaking” has obscured the real man. Drawing on Kutuzov’s letters and other primary sources, he masterfully sorts fact from fiction, detailing how Kutuzov, who was born into an aristocrat family in 1747, entered military school at age 11, served in multiple campaigns against the Ottoman Empire, and became one of Russia’s most brilliant and controversial generals. Throughout, Mikaberidze sheds light on Kutuzov’s battlefield savvy and cunning; his forbearance in defeat, particularly at the Battle of Austerlitz; his “exile” as military governor of Kyiv; his depression and anxieties over debts incurred at his mismanaged estates; his conflicts with Czar Alexander I; and the “oblique methods” he used to overpower rivals within the Russian command. Accessible and impressively researched, this sweeping biography unearths the real man behind a national symbol. Readers of European military history will be enthralled. (Aug.)
