The article deals with the public and poetic reception of the French invasion of Russia in 1812. The author states that the heroic events of 1812 stimulated the interest to Pan-Slavist ideas in the Russian society. The moral power the Russian defenders showed in the fight with Napoleon and the might, connected with the orthodox acceptance of the world, embodied in Lermontov's poem "Borodino", found their expression in the works which did not have direct indications to the French invasion of Russia in 1812. The object of studying is both Lermontov's poetic works and his contemporaries' letters. The official documents of that time are also the object of studying.

Borodino, the French invasion of Russia in 1812, Constantinople, Moscow, strength of mind, Sons of the North

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