French invasion of Russia subject of much discussion among historians. The campaign's sustained role in Russian culture may be seen in Tolstoy's "War and Peace", Tchaikovsky's "1812 Overture", and the identification of it with the German invasion of 1941–45, which became known as the "Great Patriotic War" in the Soviet Union. French invasion of Russia The French invasion of Russia, known in Russia as the Patriotic War of 1812 () and in France as the Russian Campaign (), began on 24 June 1812 when Napoleon's crossed the Neman River in an attempt to engage and defeat the Russian army. Napoleon hoped to compel Tsar
Tolstoy family major estate Herresta outside Stockholm. Leo Tolstoy's last surviving grandchild, Countess Tatiana Paus née Tolstoy, died in 2007 at Herresta. Two of Leo Tolstoy's great-great-grandsons are Pyotr Tolstoy, a Russian TV presenter and State Duma deputy since 2016 and Vladimir Tolstoy, journalist and adviser to the President of Russia on culture. Several places in Russia are named to commemorate Leo Tolstoy, e.g., Tolstoy-Yurt, village in Chechnya. Tolstoy family Tolstoy, or Tolstoi (), is a family of Russian gentry whose branch had made it into the high aristocracy of the Russian Empire. Descendants of Andrey Kharitonovich Tolstoy ("the Fat"), who moved