 In 1804, Napoleon declared himself France's emperor, having almost fully quenched his vainglorious thirst. However, he became an executor of the will of new landlords and entrepreneurs, while never admitting this fact openly.
In 1789, the French Revolution destroyed the country's feudal system. Some members of the royal family were beheaded. The Convention and later the Directory plunged into a war against absolutism. Their slogans were inherited by Napoleon, although he was a ruler with the powers of a dictator.
Napoleon's fiercest opponent was not some odious usurper but the liberal England, which had survived its revolution aimed at limiting royal powers. Exhausting both countries, England's continental blockade was a reflection of its aspiration for industry and trade leadership. England was obviously reluctant to give up its traditionally strong positions. The battle between the two economic rivals was like a joust: they fought for the right to see each other kneel. However, the problem was still unresolved.
Napoleon was looking for both allies and satellites. The emperor did not believe Tsar Aleksander I and his reassuring words about friendship. Napoleon understood Russia could be tame when oppressed but not as an ally. He was wondering how one could defeat such a power. One of the options considered by his commanders was Ukraine.
The Ukrainian historian Taras Shakh claims France's Foreign Ministry had many documents that could have motivated the emperor to take risks. Napoleon loved challenges and was the minion of fortune. Many reports he received contained information on Ukraine.
His agents told him Ukraine was rich and had always desired to shake off the Russian yoke. Another document stated that Ukraine had once been France's important territory between Russia and Poland. An anonymous agent in Istanbul predicted that Ukraine would soon be Russia's only tumor. Some of his aides even suggested France take Ukraine away from Russia so that the great empire should never recover.
Napoleon used monographs written by famous French philosophers and particularly Voltaire's The Story of Charles XII with a famous phrase about Ukraine "always striving for freedom."
Not only did Napoleon study Ukrainian problems but he also commissioned his offices to mold relevant public opinion. Historian Ivan Borshchak said the January 31, 1807 Argus Newspaper from the French archives states that Russia started its European conquest in Ukraine. The Russian Embassy in Paris sent letters to Saint Petersburg, reiterating that Napoleon cherished a dream to divide the Russian Empire.
In 1807, Bonaparte defeated Prussia and his troops entered Poland. The Poles supported France but demanded that it help them restore Rzeczpospolita to the borders it had in 1772 when the right-bank Ukraine was a part of it. Instead, Napoleon gave the Poles a tiny duchy, while using the Polish troops to fulfill his global ambitions.
Bonaparte's ideas about the fate of Ukraine, Hetman Mazepa's country, differed from those of Poland. Having decided to declare war on Russia and getting ready for a military campaign, Napoleon ordered the Foreign Ministry to work out a special plan for Ukraine. The Encyclopedia of Ukrainian Studies has many facts about it.
He planned to give right-bank Ukraine except Volyn to Austria. Left-bank Ukraine was destined to become a new country under the protectorate of France with a capital in Poltava. A state exotically called Napoleonade would have appeared in Ukraine's southern regions, including Donbass, Crimea and Odessa. It would have become a self-governing constitutional monarchy.
Napoleon hoped that, forced to leave the shores of the Black Sea and surrounded by France's powerful allies in the west and in the south, Russia would forget its aggressive intentions.
In the 1812 war against Russia, western Volyn was the only territory occupied by the French-Austrian army. Having decided to leave the burning Moscow, Napoleon sent his troops to the desired Ukraine, which was rich in grain and forage. However, the Russian commander Mikhail Kutuzov stopped Napoleon's soldiers 150 kilometers away from Moscow, in the village of Maloyaroslavets. The French army, in despair and agony, was forced to cover the old Smolensk road with thousands of corpses.
The reputable Russian historian Evgeniy Tarle published many monographs on the 1812 War, the most notable of them being The Historical Biography of Napoleon (1936) and Napoleon's Invasion of Russia (1938). The two books describe all events associated with the name of Napoleon. The authors wrote about Bonaparte's convulsive craving for revenge, the so-called battle of the peoples of 1813, the famous hundred days of the victorious march through France, the debacle of his army at Waterloo and the pitiful existence of the dethroned emperor on the island of Saint Helena.
However, there is nothing about Napoleon and Ukraine in his monographs. Tarle, who is known as a meticulous scholar, cannot have ignored such a diplomatic and political sensation. The KGB must have deliberately censored these archives. Stalin and his comrades refused to accept utopian and delirious ideas about the downfall of Russia despite supporting Lenin's idea about the right of each nation to decide its fate. However, everything ended when the 1917 October Revolution broke out.
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