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Abstract: Napoleon’s Russian campaign and the subsequent events of 1813-1814 had a huge impact: Napoleon's project of a United Europe had collapsed, and the formation of national identity of many nations, primarily Russian, German, and Spanish had begun. The events of those years could not fail to produce thousands of various legends, which became, in turn, the foundation for the formation of basic historical myths of a number of European nations. Connected with the practice of "scientific research", national historical myths laid the foundations of the consciousness of many modern European nations, and even spawned what is today known as the historic politics and policies of the past. The author of the article comes to the following conclusions. The Russian tradition of studying the war was, for the most part, under the influence and control of the institutions of power (Monarchy-Patriotic or Soviet-Patriotic). Since the mid-1980s there began the process of rapid expansion of research tools, attempts were made to formulate problems, contrary to the established tradition. The foreign traditions of studying the problems of 1812 represent several national segments. As a rule, recourse to the events of the Russian campaign of Napoleon was determined by a certain stage of national history of the French, Germans, Poles, Italians, the British, Americans and other peoples. Now we clearly realize the necessity of connection of the achievements of Russian historiography, especially of the last two decades, with methodological and presentational search of foreign authors, which could have a beneficial impact on the study of events and the meaning of what happened in 1812.