Why is Alexander Suvorov so little known outside and even inside of Russia, despite being arguably the best Russian Commander in history?

by pilotii101
SgtBANZAI

Since no objective point of view from the scientific scene exists on this subject, I suppose it's generally a lack of interest towards Russian history coming first and Suvorov's military endeavours being largelly forgotten soon after his death coming second.

Lack of interest towards Russian history in Western (specifically - English-speaking) Anglosphere is noticable at first glance since, I suppose, absolute majority of people who have interest in military history will find it hard to name the most important battles in the history of Russia as well as the best or at the very least most known Russian commanders. Chances are you'll hear about Zhukov (since he's Soviet №1 WW2 commander, and WW2 is the most popular war in media ever) or Kutuzov (since he was in command of the Russian army during 1812 campaign - one of the most well known thing about Napoleon) and that's pretty much it. It's hard for me personally to rationalize it - probably great divide between USSR and the west in 20th century can be held accountable for this, partially it's also all the meme culture which has great presence in modern day media usually ridiculing Russia (although there are a lot of countries having it just as bad or worse - France, for example) on one thing or another or telling its history in a very simplified way.

Another factor is that absolute majority of Russians also have no interest in their country's history - which is why there are a lot of, let's put it straight, scientific freaks or history falsifiers.

Second, Suvorov's military career, despite being very formiddable, hasn't left any lasting impact in the end. His military reforms were forgotten soon after his death, and first Russian expeditions against France, despite multitude of Suvorov's victories, ended in defeat of the allied armies so Suvorov had to retreat and abandon campaign altogether. Although he had a lot of victories against the Ottomans, Poles and French, he eventually was simply retired from service and ended as just one of the commanders of the era - unlike, say, Napoleon, who essentially rose to the very top and created his own empire, or Wellington, who at the very least was present at the last battle waged by Napoleon and thus is well known.

Hope this clears this question a bit.