The works by Prosper Mérimée on Russian History are still poorly studied in Russian historical works. P. Mérimée has made a significant contribution to spreading knowledges about Russia, Russian history and culture in France. Moreover, he paid great attention to Russian history during the period of complicated relations between the two countries. Several of his essays are devoted to the history of the Cossacks, in which P. Mérimée emphasizes the originality of this phenomenon. Studying the question of the image of the Cossacks in the texts of this publicist, it’s extremely important to consider the manner he characterized the Cossacks’ warfare, because on the pages of his essays the Cossacks are presented as warriors foremost. The aim of this paper is to examine the image of the 17th century Cossacks’ warfare in P. Merimée’s essays “Ukrainian Cossacks and their last atamans” 1854, “Stenka Razin” 1861 and “Bohdan Khmelnytsky” 1863. Despite P. Mérimée’s interest in prominent military figures, the history of military art is not the focus of his attention. He does not consider in detail armament, uniforms, tactics, concentrating on the persons themselves. P. Merimée emphasizes the originality of the Cossacks. They were not trained European troops, but they fought in their own disciplined and skillful manner. They were enduring and unpretentious. They demonstrated cunning, the ability to use their own strength, opponents’ weaknesses, and terrain features.
Ruslan Urazbakhtin (Wed,) studied this question.