If Denis Davydov had not written poetry, even then his name would be known to us – the name of a brave cavalry officer, a hero of the War of 1812 and one of the colorful military memoirists. But Davydov is also a poet. And all this together makes him a peculiar figure not only in history, but also in the Russian literature of the Pushkin’s time, so rich in poetic talents.

The poems of Davydov were conceived by his contemporaries with respect to his real biography, through his military-memoir prose and his life as a professional writer. This Davydov was not at all a "hussar", neither a reckless personality... He was a hard-working and educated writer, living the concerns of Russian literature contemporary to him, a reflection of which was traced in the memoirs of his contemporaries and in his correspondence.

The first literary experience of Denis Davydov dates back to 1803-1805, when his political poems containing sharp attacks against the tsar and the court nobility were widely circulated in manuscript form. Davydov was friends with many Decembrists who highly appreciated the poet's liberal works. However, he refused the offer of his cousin Decembrist Vasily Davydov to join the secret society. Leaving his sharp politicized fables, he developed a completely different trend in his work. "Hussarschina" by Davydov became one of the most meaningful popular and psychological phenomena of the1800-1810s. There had been earlier experiments in writing "hussar" poems, but it was Davydov, who boldly used colloquial vocabulary, experimented with verse sizes and for the first time spoke of patriotism and heroism in his "hussar poems", who proved to be the best.

Davydov was undoubtedly an outstanding man, a brave warrior and a talented author. But his reputation as an "a role-model” hussar – a drunkard, gambler, brawler and scrapper was highly exaggerated both by rumors and his own creative work.

The best prose works of Davydov are considered to be his memoirs of the Patriotic War of 1812 ("Diary of Partisan Actions") and his autobiography "Some Features from the Life of Denis Vasilyevich Davydov". These war-time memoirs are still important sources for the history of the wars of that era in terms of the reported data value.

The section “Books” of the museum collection features two books by Denis Davydov:

• Davydov D.V. Poems. – Moscow: Soviet Russia, 1979. The book is comprised of selected poems, an autobiography, traditionally accompanying his editions, as well as poems dedicated to the author by the Russian poets of the 19^th century.

• Davydov D.V. Hussar feast. – M.: Eksmo, 2006
  The collection includes poems, autobiography and war-time memoirs