War prisoners from the Great army in the Astrakhan province in the 1812-1814

The authors study the fate of the war prisoners from Napoleon’s Great Army who had been captured in 1812 and then were located in Volga provinces, primarily the Astrakhan province. The wide sources from Russian archives complement evidences from foreign sources, including memoirs. The authors point that the attitude to the Polish prisoners of war was more severe than to the representatives of other nations; it could be caused by more than two centuries of enmity between the two peoples.