Reaction of the Russian Emigration and Czechoslovak Legionnaires to the Publication of the Diaries and Memoirs of French General M. Janin

Abstract. The article tells about the publication in the 1920s–1930s by the French divisional general Maurice Janin of excerpts from his diaries and memoirs about World War I, the Great Russian Revolution of 1917 and the Civil War, as well as the reaction of contemporaries to their publication. General Janin, who in 1916–1917 served as head of the French military mission at the Supreme Commander-in-Chief’s headquarters in Mogilev, and in 1918–1920 as head of the French military mission in Siberia and as commander-in-chief of the Czechoslovak Corps and Entente forces, was a participant and eyewitness to many important events. The desire to show the correctness of his actions and to justify himself from the accusations against him became his main motivation when working on narrative sources. For the first time, French and Czech periodicals, as well as periodicals published by the Russian emigration, were widely used in the preparation of the material. The main part of the article is devoted to the assessment of his memoirs by Russian emigrants and Czechoslovaks, many of whom were direct participants in the
events described.

Keywords: General M. Janin, Admiral A.V. Kolchak, S.P. Melgunov, Intervention, Entente, White Movement, Czechoslovak Corps