Abstract: The article discusses the main features of the conduct of hostilities in the autumn of 1812 in Russia, and the role of Smolensk in Napoleon's strategic plans for the subsequent period. On the basis of the epistolary heritage, primarily of French contemporaries (both soldiers and officers), the specific aspects of the retreat of the Great Army along the Old Smolensk Road are considered, another facet of the Moscow campaign of the Emperor of all the French is demonstrated. The author also draws attention to the activities of the occupation authorities in Smolensk itself, based on creating conditions for turning the city into a powerful operational base for the entire army. В 
The main conclusions of the study are the following theses:
1. Numerous memoirs of contemporaries pay rather close attention to the problem of the retreat of the Great Army to the Smolensk region, giving quite detailed descriptions of both the life itself and the possible prospects for the further course of the campaign.
2. A number of indirect evidences demonstrate attempts to turn the city into an operational base that allows preparing troops for the next campaign in the East, which is indirectly confirmed by descriptions of attempts to create local self-government bodies in the city.
3. Smolensk in numerous French memoirs devoted to the campaign of 1812 was presented as a symbol of the drama that broke out in Russia.
4. In the Russian epistolary heritage of the epoch, the corresponding descriptions contain a sense of transformation of mass consciousness, in the conditions of a new practice for humanity called "total war".
5. In general, summing up the general results of the consideration of Smolensk in the autumn-winter campaign of 1812, it can be argued that its role as a moral barrier in Napoleon's desire to continue hostilities and the importance of the city as a strategic point has been insufficiently studied until now and requires a very deep analysis

Abstract: The subject of this research is the review of game production, namely the Witcher universe as a specific form of text, realized as a combination of the phenomena named the “open world”. The object of this research is the application of archetypes and mythologemes of the developing genre of computer role-paying games (RPG). Particular attention is given to the development of game universes, and one of the factors of its development within the genre of role games – the open world phenomenon, which in the author’s opinion, ensures the formation of new mythology and turns the game space into the specific culturological phenomenon, transforming the mass consciousness by creating a variation affect, suggested to a player in terms of using one or another game project, active research of the so-called “seamless world”. The scientific novelty lies in examination of the little-studied aspects of the evolution of mass culture, namely with active use of multiple mythologemes applied in the entire set of game universes, particularly the Witcher, which is a distinct marker of the development of this direction. Figuratively, consideration of the characterized game universe can be interpreted as a marker of development of the entire industry which allows concluding that the modern game industry actively uses a specific form of the reflection of game reality, called an open world. It is based on several elements (effects) that have archetypical nature.