Location: 130 km (80 mi) Southwest of Moscow Map
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Borodino (Бородино) is situated 130 km (80 mi) Southwest of Moscow in Russia. It is famous for bloodiest battle of the 19th century between armies of French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte and Russian Emperor Alexander I in 1812. General M.I. Kutuzov was in charge of Russian defenses. Three days of bloody battle left the no clear victors. Napoleon failed to destroy Russian army and Kutuzov failed to drain the French armies. After counting his losses Kutuzov retreated from a battle field.
In 1941 the field of Borodino became a battle site once again. This time new invader from the West under leadership of Adolf Hitler tried to make their way to Moscow. German Wehrmacht purposefully sent French SS troops to this part of the front. Adolf Hitler hoped that historic parallels will help him defeat the Russian defenses. Remains of Soviet defenses and trenches are visible among monuments dedicated to heroes of War of 1812.
Reenactment of the 1812 Borodino battle
Reenactment of the 1941 Moscow Battle
Archaeological data indicate the settlement of
these places in the second half of the 1st millennium by Finnish and
then Slavic tribes. Well-preserved earthen ramparts of the 1st-2nd
century AD e. located near the village of Gorki can be considered
the first time military-historical monument of the Borodino field.
However, the first written records of the village of Borodino
date back to the 17th century.
The lands on which the village
of Borodino was located were annexed to the Moscow principality at
the beginning of the XIV century and were located on the territories
bordering on Lithuania through which the ancient Smolensk road
passed. The peasants on these lands were engaged in arable farming -
they cultivated winter rye, spring barley, oats, ice-cold wheat,
flax, hemp and buckwheat. Their condition was assessed as "fair" and
"average". Women, in addition to field work, were engaged in
spinning flax and wool, weaving and knitting "for their own use."
However, their possessions often suffered "from all sorts of
vagabonds and rebels and from the Poles." Many villages after this
invasion, even at the end of the 18th century, were considered
wastelands.
According to some reports, the village of
Borodino was first mentioned in the Mozhaisk Scribes in 1601. Before
the Time of Troubles, the area where the village of Borodino is
located was listed as "the Vozdvizhensky churchyard on the Tsar's
land on the Veyne river with the Church of the Exaltation of the
Holy Cross and the side-altar of St. Nicholas" near the village of
Borodino on this churchyard "in the church there were images and
candles and books and every church building worldly incoming people.
"
Before the construction of their own church in Borodino,
residents of the entire district were parishioners of the Church of
the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, which was located on the other
side of the Kolocha River at the confluence of the Stonets and
Prudka streams (Ognik). This church with a side-altar (lower church)
in honor of St. Nicholas, Archbishop of Myra in Lycia was destroyed
during the Time of Troubles, most likely in 1609. After that, local
residents became parishioners in the Church of the Ascension of the
Lord in the village of Semyonovskoye, which also had a lower chapel
in the name of Nicholas the Wonderworker. News of this temple ends
in the middle of the 17th century.
Since the beginning of the
17th century, the village was known as the possession of the first
Russian tsar from the Romanov dynasty, Mikhail Fedorovich, which
after 1613 was presented to him as the "Tsar's royal salary" to the
"hawk" (position in the "tsar's hunt") Mozhaisk city nobleman Fyodor
Konoplyov, son of Vasily Konoplev, who owned a neighboring village -
Shevardino. He belonged to a service family, whose representatives
are mentioned in documents of the late 16th century.
In
1626-1627, this territory is mentioned in the Mozhaisky Scribe books
of letters and measures of Nikifor Neplyuev and clerk Alexei
Berestov, as "a church place, arable land overgrown with forest",
and Borodino itself, as a village of Kolotsky camp of Mozhaisky
district. Then half of the village of Borodino - "a place in the
courtyard of his votchennikov and four places of household peasants"
was recorded for Bogdan Vasilyevich Konoplyov, who in 1595-1598 was
a laborer and had a yard in Mozhaisk, and the other half - "four
places for peasants and bobyls" for his cousin (according to other
sources - nephew) Dmitry Mikhailovich Konoplyov. The village was
given to them by Fyodor Vasilyevich Konoplev in exchange for the
contribution given by his brother Bogdan during the tonsure of
Fyodor, in the monks of Fedosey, in the Pafnutevo-Borovsky
monastery.
In 1646, after Bogdan Vasilyevich Konoplev, "half
a village of Borodin" was behind Lyubim (Onufriy) Mikhailovich
Konoplev, brother of Dmitry Mikhailovich, and in 1666 half of the
village with the master's yard was owned by his son Dmitry
Onufrievich, then his grandson - Bogdan Dmitrievich.
In 1666,
Dmitry Mikhailovich Konoplev gave his half of the village as a dowry
to his daughter Evfimia Dmitrievna, who married the future devious
Timofey Petrovich Savyolov (Savyolov-Vereisky) brother of the future
Patriarch of Moscow Joachim (Ivan Petrovich Savyolov).
Five
years later, in 1671, the second half of Borodino also passed to
Timofey Petrovich, which Bogdan Konoplev pledged as a pledge of his
debt and was unable to redeem. In the Scribes of 1678, the village
was fully registered with Timofei Petrovich Savyolov and was a manor
house and four courtyards where 23 people lived.
As the
brother of Patriarch Joachim, Timofey Petrovich Savyolov held ever
higher posts at the court: in 1676 he was a steward, in 1678 he was
a Duma nobleman, and in 1689 he was a clerk. In addition, during the
period of the patriarchate of his brother, he was the patriarchal
boyar and was the voivode in Trubchevsk and Suzdal. According to
some reports, he was also the governor of Mozhaisk and adjutant of
field marshal Count Boris Petrovich Sheremetev, a member of the
court over Tsarevich Alexei. At the same time, Pyotr Timofeevich
expanded his possessions in the Mozhaisky district, buying from
Lavrenty Grigorievich Usov half of the Semyonovsky village, and in
1696 - and part of Semyonovsky belonging to Semyon and Yakov
Anufrievich Konoplev.
In 1697 (1698?) Pyotr Timofeevich Savyolov began
to build a church in Borodino; On March 15, 1699, he died and was
buried in the Mozhaisky Luzhetsky monastery. The construction of the
church was continued by his son Pyotr Timofeevich. In 1701, "On
February 18, on the 18th day, the Antimins was issued with a blessed
letter from the Mozhaisky district of the village of Borodino to a
newly built church in the name of the Nativity of Christ," soon
after which the temple with the chapel of St. Sergius of Radonezh
was consecrated.
According to S. R. Dolgova, after the death
of Timofei Petrovich, the ownership in the Mozhaisk district passed
to his son Timofei Timofeevich Savyolov (1668-1741). He was a
steward since 1689, in 1700 - Adjutant General A.A. Veide, from 1703
- Adjutant Wing of BP Sheremetev, from 1709 - Lieutenant Colonel; at
the end of his life he was a member of the Workshop and the Armory.
He managed to somewhat increase his estates in the Mozhaisk
district: in 1712 he exchanged with Ivan Bibikov the part of the
village of Gorki that belonged to him. Under him, in the revision
tales of 1723 in the village of Borodino, the already existing
Church of the Nativity of Christ was first mentioned. The only heir
to Timofei Timofeevich was his son, Pyotr Timofeevich, who served in
the stables department, had estates in the Moscow, Vladimir and
Saratov provinces, and was the owner of 8000 serf souls. In
Mozhaisky district, he inherited the village of Borodino and the
villages of Semyonovskoye and Gorki from his father. Pyotr
Timofeevich continued his father's activities to expand the estate,
acquired the village of Maslovo, which had previously belonged to
his great-uncle - Captain Ivan Ioilievich Konoplev.
After the
death of Pyotr Timofeevich, the Borodino land dacha with the
villages of Gorki and Semyonovskoye was repeatedly split up, passed
from hand to hand between his descendants and other owners. Since
1746, the village was owned by his widow Afinya Semyonovna and his
brothers Timofey and Afanasy, then their children Pyotr Timofeevich,
Avtomon and Alexei Afanasyevich, then their children Nikolai
Petrovich and Vasily Avtomonovich.
"In 1766, August 31, a
first-class surveyor, collegiate assessor Alexander Kolobov" carried
out a land survey. Its materials were used in the 19th century for a
special demarcation, in particular, the demarcation of the Borodino
imperial estate in 1838. In the village of Borodino then there was a
"manor house on a stone foundation", a horse farm, two water mills,
as well as 16 peasant households, where 78 men and 74 women lived, a
pole road from Moscow to Smolensk (New Smolensk road) passed through
the village.
In 1768, the part of the village that belonged
to the last of the Savyolovs' descendants was sold at an auction for
debts to Evdokim Alekseevich Shcherbinin, whose daughter, Elena,
married Vasily Denisovich Davydov.
The "Economic Notes" of
1774 contain only general information about the owners of the
Borodino dacha: "The village of Borodino with the villages and
wastelands of the common possession of the gentlemen Shcherbinin,
Kolychev and the Life Guards Cavalry Regiment of Second Lieutenant
Nikolai Petrov, son of Savyolov 1912 dec., 712 sozh., 199 souls ",
The common possession of which belonged to the" Vozdvizhensky
graveyard ".
In 1798 (according to other sources, in 1799),
the retired brigadier Vasily Denisovich Davydov (1747-1808), an
associate of Suvorov, bought an estate with a manor house in the
name of his daughter Alexandra Vasilievna, married Begicheva. Here
passed the childhood of his son - the hero of the Patriotic War of
1812 Denis Davydov and his brother Evdokim, who became famous in the
Battle of Austerlitz.
By 1800, the village had grown,
according to the data given in the "Economic Notes", which were
compiled to the materials of the General Survey of 1797-1798, it
contained: "the stone church of the Nativity of Christ. The house is
a wooden master. Two flour mills with two stoves, the first on the
Kolocha River, the second on the Voine River ”, as well as 25
peasant households, 114 “ male ”and 123“ feminine ”souls. It is also
indicated here that 10 households - "part of the deceased
Major-General and Chevalier Evdokim Alekseevich Shcherbinin and his
wife Alexandra Osipovna are in the inventory on promissory notes."
For other owners in the village. Borodino - the actual state
councilor Ivan Gavrilovich Voeikov and the guard of the
second-captain Nikolai Petrovich Savyolov - recorded seven and eight
courtyards.
In 1801, Denis Davydov left the village, entering
the military service: first as a cavalry guard, then as a hussar.
In 1812, fate returned Denis Davydov to the places
where he spent his childhood. Here is what he wrote about
preparations for the Battle of Borodino in his Diary of Partisan
Actions of 1812: “... We approached Borodin. These fields, this
village were more familiar to me than others! There I spent the
carefree summers of my childhood and felt the first impulses of my
heart for love and glory. But in what form did I find the shelter of
my youth! The fatherly house was dressed with the smoke of bivouacs.
Rows of bayonets glittered amid the harvest that covered the fields,
and masses of troops thronged their native hills and valleys. There,
on the hillock, where I once frolicked and dreamed ... there
Raevsky's redoubt was laid ... Everything had changed! ... I lay
under a bush behind Semyonovsky, not having a corner not only in my
own house, but even in the barns occupied by the chiefs. I watched
as noisy crowds of soldiers dismantled the huts and fences of
Semyonovsky, Borodin and Gorki for building bivouacs and making
fires ... ”.
Fyodor Nikolayevich Glinka describes the
bridgehead chosen for military operations as follows: “Our battle
line stood on the right bank of the Kolocha, facing the Kolotsky
monastery, towards the side of Smolensk; right wing to the Moscow
River, which meanders in the form of a ribbon at the foot of the
Borodinsky heights ... The river Voynya, streams - Stonets, Ognik
and other nameless ones flow into Kolochu. All these rivers and
streams have rather high banks, and if you add to this a lot of
potholes, ravines, mostly wooded, and various spring precipices,
gullies, it will be clear why Borodinskaya's positions on a detailed
plan seem to be hilly, cut, dug. Forests have overlaid the edges,
frequent shrubs and copses are rough along the entire front length,
and two large (old and new Moscow) roads cut the position, like two
hoops, in the direction from Smolensk to Moscow ... In the middle of
our battle line, two points are noticeable and important: Gorki and
the village of Semyonovskaya. Between them stretches a sloping
height with a slight slope to the Koloche river ... Following with
your eyes the length of the main line to the left side, you rest on
the left flank into a swamp covered with dense forest. The village
of Utitsa is located here. Through it, from the village of Yelnyi,
the old Smolensk road goes to Mozhaisk, long abandoned. "
It
is likely that on August 22, the day the Russian troops occupied the
position for a general battle, MI Kutuzov stayed for some time in
the Davydovs' house. However, despite a number of documents marked
"Borodino village", signed by him on the eve of the battle on August
23-24, his main apartment was located not in Borodino, but in the
neighboring Tatarinovo estate.
In preparation for the battle,
the buildings of the village of Borodino were burned down by Russian
soldiers before the start of the battle. According to the memoirs of
N. Ye. Mitarevsky: “Out of nothing to do, we officers first walked
in the grove, then went to the Kolocha River, saw behind it a large
manor’s wooden house and decided to visit it out of curiosity. The
soldiers were already in charge there. Entering the hall through the
garden porch, we saw two broken mirrors, one on the floor, the other
on the wall; chairs and tables were scattered around the room and
mostly broken; the sofas and armchairs are tattered; one soldier
beat a crystal chandelier with a stick and amused himself as the
fragments flew. “Why are you doing this?” We asked. "Yes, so, your
honor, so that the Frenchman does not get it." All other rooms had
the same destruction. Even before the battle began, this house was
on fire. "They said that they had lit it on purpose so that the
French would not settle there." On the eve of the battle, houses in
the western part of the village were also dismantled or burned by
the life rangers located in it.
During the Patriotic War of
1812 on August 26 (September 7), 1812, a fierce battle of Borodino
took place on the Borodino field near the village of Borodino,
located on the New Smolensk road to Moscow. As Mikhail Illarionovich
Kutuzov wrote, it was "a battle ... the bloodiest of all known in
modern times."
During the battle and artillery firefight, the
remaining houses in the village. Borodino were destroyed. The
Borodino church was badly damaged - the head was pierced by a
cannonball, the walls were beaten with bullets, traces of which were
noticeable back in 1848, the bell tower was damaged by the fire of
the French artillery, the covered gallery, the iconostasis and the
holy thrones were burned, the doors and window frames were knocked
out and broken.
At the onset of winter, the dilapidated
church served as a refuge for the inhabitants of the village who
returned from the forests to the ashes.
In the "Bulletin of
Mozhaisky uyezd burned by the enemy, now not completely built up,
and about those who are uninhabited by ruin with remarks", compiled
by the general of the cavalry Tormasov on January 4 - February 19,
1816, it is indicated that the village of Borodino with the villages
of Semyonovskaya and Gorki were burned.
Before the start of fighting on the Mozhaisk
defense line, in 1941, the former Borodino palace and cavalry corps
were used as a hospital.
The village of Borodino and the
Borodino field were one of the places of fierce battles in the
defense of Moscow during the Great Patriotic War. The main
hostilities in the area of the village unfolded on October 13,
1941. The Soviet troops were opposed by the 40th motorized German
corps, in particular the elite SS Reich division, whose advance was
delayed for six days, and the 7th Bavarian infantry division.
Defeated, the Red Army retreated, but some of the wounded could
not be evacuated. The villagers helped the remaining wounded
soldiers, hiding the soldiers and officers who were surrounded. The
archives contain a description of the following case. In October
1941, Lieutenant Denisov and three soldiers were seriously wounded
in a battle near the village of Borodino. The collective farmer of
the village of Bezzubovo, VT Revkov, picked up the wounded, took
them to his daughter's house in the village of Borodino, where they
hid and were treated for three months. Food was collected with the
help of schoolchildren from the village. When the Red Army liberated
the village, the wounded soldiers were transferred to the hospital.
After three months of occupation, Borodino was liberated on
January 21, 1942.
Before the retreat, German troops Wehrmacht
soldiers burned down all the houses in the village of Borodino,
including the palace building