Case file · Cosmic event
The comet of 1812 over Moscow
The Great Comet of 1811, visible to the naked eye for about 260 days, was taken across Russia as an omen of war; Napoleon invaded the next year, and Tolstoy's Pierre Bezukhov sees it from the Arbat Square in War and Peace.
1811 CE · 55.75, 37.60 · status: official
The account
The comet was one of the brightest of the 19th century. Russian peasants and nobles alike read it as a sign of the end of the world or of a great war. Tolstoy describes it as the comet 'which was said to portend all kinds of woes and the end of the world', but which for Pierre meant new life.