Dmitrii Alekseevich Miliutin, The Memoirs of Field-Marshal Count Dmitrii Alekseevich Miliutin/Vospominaniia General-Fel' Dmarshala Grafa Dmitriia Alekseevicha Miliutina (Book Review‪)‬

Dmitrii Alekseevich Miliutin, Vospominaniia general-fel' dmarshala grafa Dmitriia Alekseevicha Miliutina [The Memoirs of Field-Marshal Count Dmitrii Alekseevich Miliutin], ed. Larisa Georgievna Zakharova, 6 vols. 1816-1843:495 pp. Moscow: Studiia Trite Nikity Mikhalkova, Rossiiskii arkhiv, 1997. ISBN 5865660144. 1843-1856:524 pp. Moscow: Studiia Trite Nikity Mikhalkova, Rossiiskii arkhiv, 2000. ISBN 5865660233. 1856-1860: 558 pp. Moscow: ROSSPEN, 2004. No ISBN. 1860-1862:559 pp. Moscow: Studiia Trite Nikity Mikhalkova, Rossiiskii arkhiv, 1999. ISBN 5865660152. 1863-1864: 687 pp. Moscow: ROSSPEN, 2003. ISBN 5824303509, 5824303517. 1868-nachalo 1873:735 pp. Moscow: ROSSPEN, 2006. ISBN 5824303509, 5824307040. In November 1911, the Nicholas Imperial Military Academy celebrated the 75th anniversary of the graduation of its most famous student, Dmitrii Alekseevich Miliutin (1816-1912), Alexander II's influential minister of war. Count Miliutin was still alive, living out his days in the Crimea; and so the academy decided to send a delegation to him with a warm letter of appreciation. Miliutin came to his guests in a housecoat, complaining he could no longer squeeze into his uniform. He listened impatiently to their letter (which took nearly an hour to read) and then whisked them into his gigantic library, the core of which he had inherited from his illustrious administrative predecessor--and uncle--Pavel Dmitrievich Kiselev (1788-1872). There, in the presence of his daughters, he informed the delegation that he intended to leave this library, his equally copious personal archive, and a large set of memoirs to the academy, to do with as it sought fit. He hoped the school would publish what he somewhat casually called the "remembrances of an old man" (moi starcheskie vospominaniia). (1) Having served as minister for nearly 20 years, he spent the next 20 years reconstructing his life using his library and vast personal correspondence, leading some in his circles to speculate he was writing an inside history of Alexander II's reign. In the end, Miliutin's "remembrances" ran to 32 volumes of closely written notebooks, or roughly 3,500 pages of printed text in this marvelous edition, now complete at seven volumes. (2)