This article is concerned with the analysis of the factors that formed the perception of the Spanish campaign of Napoleon by Russian society in 1808-1812, in other words, during the period most distorted by later memoirs. The author analyzes a wide range of sources: periodicals, reports, diaries and letters of contemporaries. The sources studied allow us to conclude that there were several layers in the perception of the war in Spain: the ethnic stereotype based on the «black legend» cultivated by the French enlighteners that transformed in 1812, as well as the confrontation between England and France accompanying the Spanish war, the outcome of which was to determine Russia's foreign policy.
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