i8 The Imperial Century, I 725-1825
This horrifyingly brutal penalty seems to have been applied even more harshly
Rus!.ia than in other European states where it was also on the statute-book,
r the number of men constituting the 'street', and thus the number of blows,
lS higher (usually 1,000 men instead of 200) or else was left to the com-
ander's discretion. Somf"timl'.'~ a se!'!tence pre:;cribcd only tln;; 11umber of
sses;^135 yet it was common knowledge that several passes could kill a man.
ortality statistics are available in one especially notorious case which occurred
1819, when Arakcheyev imposed the penalty on some rebellious military
lonists at Chuguyev in the Ukraine. Of 52 men so punished, 25 died within
1 days.^136 Even so, instances are recorded of soldiers surviving an incredible
mber of passes. Private F. Moskalev, of the St. Petersburg Grenadiers, who
;erted three times in 1786-7, was sentenced to one pass on the first occasion,
passes on the second, and eight on the third, each time through 1,000
n-a total of 15,000 blows. About the same time a soldier in the Irkutsk
-rison named Gordeyev deserted no less than six times ·and received a total
52,000 blows; on the last occasion he was spared the gauntlet and sent to
ced labour instead .1.^17
Nhat did soldiers themselves think of corporal punishment? We may gain a
npse from some verses written in 1803 by Ivan Makarov, a grenadier in the
iaylovsky guards regiment, who was himself made to run the gauntlet and
t to a line regiment once his literary endeavours were discovered.
For my country I stand on guard
Yet my back is beaten hard.
The stick's the sole reward for me
Who defends us from the enemy.
He who beats his men a lot
Rises straight up to the top
And is thought extremely keen
Though a devil he has been.
He who fails this brutal test
Has to serve with the rest.^118
.inst this item of evidence may be set a statement by the writer S. N.
1ka, formerly a company commander. A sensitive soul, he resolved not to
ct corporal punishment, but when two soldiers drank themselves into a
Of five men sentenced to run the gauntlet for desertion in 1799, whose records are in
/IA, only one had the size of the unit specified: f. 11, op. 6, ed. khr. 33, II. 12-38.
Vereshchagin, 'Materialy', pp. 158-60. The casualty rate may have been unusually high in
ase because the victims included 27 retired soldiers and 15 non-settlers.
Beskrovnyy, Russkaya armiya, p. 435.
Ya otechestvu zashchita I A spina moya otbita, I Ya otechestvu ograda-I V tychkakh,
kb vsya nagrada. I Kto soldata bol'she byot I Tot chin Ldes·, dostayot. I I staratelen,
>Sh I Khot' na chorta on pokhozh. I A kol' bit' kio ne umeyet I Nichego ne razumeyet.
·vsky, 'Soldatskiye stikhi', pp. 143-4. The author was no doubt an educated nobleman who
:ted his own discontents on to the common soldiers. The other grievances he mentions
le strenuous guard dutiC\, lack of medical care. crowded barracks, low pay, and the sorry
of veterans.