8 November ] 1874 – 6 January 1955) was a Soviet historian, Marxists scholar, and academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences who studied and published on topics such as the Napoleonic invasion of Russia and the Crimean War.

His father, Viktor Grigorievich Tarle, belonged to the Merchantry Social Estate and ran a shop in Kyiv.

[1][2] As a student, Tarle joined Marxist clubs and took an active part in the social democratic movement, frequently visiting Kyivan factory workers as a lecturer and agitator.

[1] He researched in the libraries and archives of Western Europe for his early works and read a paper at the World Congress of Historical Studies held in London in 1913.

He repeated the basic ideas of Mikhail Pokrovsky on the 1812 campaign and interpreted Napoleon from the viewpoint of class struggle.

The Battle of Borodino was not termed a victory in his work, and the resistance to Napoleon was claimed as "never a popular, national war".

He stated that "there was no mass participation by the peasantry in the guerilla bands and in their activities, and their part in the campaign was strictly limited".

Tarle supported his interpretation by "denying that the peasants fought against the French and describing the burning of Smolensk and Moscow as systematic acts of the Russian army in retreat".

According to Black, when first published in 1936 Tarle's biography of Napoleon was accepted as "the final word in the analysis of the 1812 campaign" but was subject to criticism.

Tarle prepared a new work in a comparatively shorter time and published it in 1938 under the title Napoleon’s Invasion of Russia, 1812.

In addition, Tarle was attacked for failing to evaluate the Battle of Borodino as a clear-cut Russian victory, stating that Moscow was burned by the Russians themselves, and assigning too much significance to the expanses of Russia, with cold and hunger being key factors in the defeat of the French army.

Valuable new materials and chiefly Stalin’s enormously significant and illuminating judgment had obliged Soviet historians to correct their errors and revise their interpretations of the war of 1812".

Tarle's complete work was entitled "The City of Russian Glory: Sevastopol in 1854–1855" and was published in 1954 by the USSR Defense Ministry.

Yevgeny Viktorovich Tarle died on 6 January 1955 in Moscow, before he could fulfill his intention of writing another book on the War of 1812.