The remains of French and Russian soldiers who died during Napoleon’s retirement from Moscow in 1812 were buried with military honors in a rare moment of unity between the two countries.
Officials met with descendants of 19th-century Russian and French military leaders in a windswept ceremony on Saturday in the western Russian town of Vyazma to re-bury the remains of 126 people killed in one of the bloodiest battles of Napoleon’s Russian campaign.
Snow fell and a military band performed in temperatures of minus 15 degrees Celsius (five degrees Fahrenheit) as uniformed porters carried eight draped coffins at a cemetery in Vyazma, a town more than 200 kilometers to the west. from Moscow. .
The remains were discovered in a mass grave by French and Russian archaeologists in 2019.
The coffins containing the remains of 120 soldiers, three women and three teenagers were later put in the snowy ground at the sound of a gunshot.
‘Death and time’
The earth had frozen over and the coffins had been left in the ground temporarily covered with a white canvas.
“Over the generations, death and time reconcile everyone,” said Yulia Khitrovo, a descendant of Russian Marshal Mikhail Kutuzov, considered a national hero for having repulsed Napoleon, during the ceremony.
The burial – in which dozens of reenactors in period uniforms participated – took place as France marks the bicentenary of Napoleon’s death this year.
Prince Joachim Murat, descendant of one of Napoleon’s most famous marshals, greeted the fallen soldiers of the Russian army and Napoleon’s Grand Army.
“Two hundred years ago French and Russian soldiers clashed in very fierce battles in this region. The courage of the French and Russian soldiers was such that they continued to fight despite the appalling weather conditions, ”said Murat.
He expressed the hope that their deaths would serve as a reminder to present generations of the “price of peace and brotherhood”.
The ceremony marked a rare moment of unity between Russia and Europe at a time of heightened tensions over a litany of issues, including the Kremlin’s increasingly harsh crackdown on the opposition.
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