In the century preceding the World Wars, Napoleon reigned consistently, if not as the dynastic progenitor of France’s ruling house, then as the preeminent discursive figurehead for European conflict. For today’s public the much more pertinent exercise is to identify the next Hitler rather than the next Bonaparte. The horrors and extremities of the Second World War overshadow the relevance of most other comparative images regarding war and despotism. The myth of Napoleon persists, however, as a contradictory image of success, failure, power, and diminutiveness.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine and the strong response from Western Europe has triggered a crossfire of rhetoric featuring Napoleonic comparisons covering a variety of statements. Any firm statement from the French government regarding Russia is vulnerable to Bonaparte allusions attached to the Kremlin’s contestations; however, Russia’s imperial ambitions and dictatorial character have made it subject to its own slew of negative Napoleonic comparisons. As an emperor, a liberal, a conqueror, an exile, an instigator, and a reformer, the variations of the mythic Napoleon are common features in both analysis and mockery within the political and public spheres. A review of the largely negative character of Napoleonic comparisons surrounding the Ukraine conflict serves to illuminate the impact of historical consciousness on political discourse, particularly as regional contestations of legacy are manifest in contemporary conflict.

In February of this year, after French President Emmanuel Macron declared that he would not rule out sending troops to Ukraine should the situation warrant it, he was met with bold posturing from Moscow. The Chairman of Russia’s State Duma, Vyacheslav Volodin, issued an histrionic warning that France should not risk suffering Napoleon’s fate. Infamously, in 1812 Napoleon’s Grande Armée invaded the Russian Empire and was forced to undergo a disastrous retreat by a brutal scorched earth defence and the rugged resistance of the Russian army in the dead of winter. As such, Putin’s ally was making a classical nationalist allusion to Macron, one of a legendary French defeat at Russian hands.

What complicates the rhetoric of this warning is not only the inherently different perspectives on Napoleons qualities as seen by the Russians versus the French, but also the fact that since the beginning of Russian hostilities in Ukraine in 2014, negative Napoleonic stereotypes are so often used in reference to Putin. Indeed, politicians and journalists alike use the Janus-faced legacy of Napoleon today in a haphazard way. Putin, a Russian autocrat in the midst of........

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