Farewell, 1812
Evgeny Demakov’s “Farewell 1812.”
While the Cossacks got all the credit, fully one-third of the horse mounted cavalry of Tsar Alexander I’s Imperial Russian Army that faced Napoleon was made up of Hussar regiments. This looks to be the uniform of officers of the Akhtyrka Hussars regiment.
The 12th Akhtyrka Hussars were formed in 1651 as Cossacks then after 1765 changed to an hussar regiment. In 1812 they served in Bagration’s 2nd Army of the West in Rayevski’s 7th Corps and distinguished themselves at the Battle of Mir where the French took them to be their own hussar troops due to their colorful uniforms until it was too late.
The regiment was later decimated at Leipzig in 1813 and by the time it reached Russia again in 1815, very few of its original officers and men were still in the saddle. So for this couple depicted in the painting, it really could be the last farewell.
The Akhtyrka regiment lasted until the end of the Empire, furling their standards in 1918 after 267 years of service. Their last honorary Commander-in-Chief was the Grand Dutchess Olga Alexandrovna Romanov, Tsar Nicholas II’s youngest sister, who outlived her regiment by some 42 years.
