The book ' Napoleon. Life and Destiny' is based on the exhibition dedicated to the 250th anniversary of the birth of Napoleon Bonaparte. It was held in Moscow and was organized on the basis of the private collection of MSU Professor Alexander Vikhrov, who is the owner of the most significant collection in Russia, reflecting the personality of Napoleon, the moments of his life and achievements, victories and defeats, real events and myths.This edition includes a full catalog of the exhibition, which presents 280 works of painting, graphics, sculpture, decorative and applied art, as well as memorabilia, weapons, orders and commemorative medals. A significant number of rarities of the beginning of the XIX century are published for the first time.The book by Alexander Vikhrov is particularly interesting because it contains stories that are somehow related to the unique items of the collection, marking the path of the "little corporal" to the imperial crown. These are unique essays with a personal attitude, the content of which goes far beyond the traditional catalog descriptions. Bonaparte appears here as a man in the flesh, a native of the people, and a romantic hero of universal scope, because in world history there is no other example of someone rising from the bottom to such heights.An important place in the book is occupied by the vicissitudes of the relationship between Napoleon I and the Russian Tsar Alexander I, events that affected the fate of many European countries. The theme of the Tilsit Peace, the military-political union of France and Russia, crowning the meeting of the two emperors, is shown in detail. History, as they say, does not know the subjunctive mood. But, according to the author of the new book, after more than two hundred years, one can wonder what the picture of the world order could have been if the idea of strengthening the union of the two countries by kinship had been realized, because Napoleon had wooed two sisters of Alexander I in turn.The refusal of the Romanov family meant one thing for the rejected groom: a head-on collision with Russia is inevitable. There was a war ahead, the price of which is known-a million human lives. Of course, these events of the march on Moscow and its completion are clearly reflected in the book, because it was Russia that became the scene of the most important, tragic events of the era and the beginning of the collapse of the great empire of Napoleon.The emotional notes of a collector who has devoted almost half a century to the study of the Napoleonic era, the direct speech of the emperor of the French and his contemporaries, the assessments of historians, little-known facts and documentary evidence, coupled with works of art, things related to everyday life or the embodiment of a folk legend, make a more voluminous panorama of the reflection of the myth of Napoleon, whose life is still presented as the greatest adventure.