Faculty Information |

MATSUMURA Takeshi Faculty of Economics Department of Socio-Economics Professor

■ Title
Crimes and punishments of Russian officers of the time of the Decembrists

■ Outline
  During the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars, the armies of the states of Western Europe were transformed into the armies of the modern type, and their officers acquired a professional character. It can be assumed that the officers of the Russian army of the Decembrist era, formed in a modern way, also represented a class of professional military men. In fact, the General Staff expected responsible actions from the officers in managing the daily life of the lower ranks. But some officers allowed arbitrariness against them and were punished for this. The article analyzes five cases of military trials of officers. In the 1st case, 2 officers left some soldiers to die in the cold weather at the time of the march. In the 2nd case, a company commander killed a soldier in self-defense. In the 3rd case, a lieutenant appeared in plain-cloths in front of the regiment commander and tried to beat him with a stick. In the 4th case, a company commander lynched a deserter and buried the dead body secretly. In the 5th case, a major frequently used violence to his orderlies. All of these officers were punished and some of them were reduced to the ranks, what is more, some were deprived of the nobility. These cases show that, although the Russian army has already transformed into an element of the state bureaucracy, part of the officers still treated the lower ranks as serfs. The process of professional formation of officers in this period was not yet completed.
  Takeshi Matsumura
  Single   Vestnik NSU. Series: History and Philology   Novosibirsk National University   21(8),pp.67   2022/10