• Director(s):

    SIPP (THOMAS)

  • Producer(s):

    ARTE FRANCE, FILMS D'ICI (LES)

  • Territories:

    Worldwide.

  • Production year:

    2020

  • Language(s):

    German, French

  • Rights:

    TV, DVD, NON-THEATRICAL, INTERNET, VOD

Apart from Tolstoy's readers, few people actually know about the battle of Borodino, fought some 100 km from Moscow. Even today it remains a landmark and symbol of the Russian resistance to the invader Napoleon Bonaparte. 

Despite being a tactical loss, the Russians still hail it as a victory, albeit a Pyrrhic one. It so happens that the Nazi tanks also got bogged down at about the same place 130 years later in 1942. But in 1812, the battle of Borodino was glorified by the manipulative power of the official gazette published by Napoleon's Great Army – it was rebranded as the “victorious battle of Moscow”. But even using all the propaganda tools at his disposal could not make up for its dire consequences: the time and troops lost at Borodino allowed Tsar Alexander to empty Moscow and to set a psychological as well as a strategic trap for the French Emperor.
 

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