What should we do to «Construct» a fight?

On the basis of the scrupulous analysis of all accessible sources the author reconstructs the fighting collision at Zvenigorod on 12 September, 1812 which escaped attention of previous historians owing to its insignificance. The author also shows how a certain gramophone records collector with the help of apparent falsifications, imagination and due to his bad knowledge of sources had unreasonably exaggerated the significance of this skirmish to the level of the well-known fight at Thermopylae.