The monograph by A.G. Tartakovsky reveals the influence of the 1812 era on the fate of Russian memoirism. Memoirism is considered as a special phenomenon of spiritual culture in close connection with sources of other species and against the background of the development of social thought and historiography. The study is based on the body of memoirs about the era of 1812, established on the basis of archival, bibliographic, textual searches, which clearly reflected the leading trends in national and historical identity. Having identified during the XIX century. three "waves" of increased interest of Russian society in the events and heroes of this era, the author traced the struggle of various ideological and political movements around the assessment of experience and heritage of 1812.