192 The Imperial Century, 1725-1825rather than with the peasant milieu from which they stemmed. Suvorov's
'regimental instruction' (1764) prescribed that soldiers in permanent quarters
should maintain 'good accord with the civilians (obyvateli)', but he also voiced
concern lest thev 'should grow accustomed to peasant ways of speaking, dress-
ing or reasoning'.^103
Another factor which separated the two groups was that eighteenth-century
rulers abandoned Peter l's concept (imputed rather than stated) that the army
should be recruited on a territorial basis, which if implemented consistently
might have led men from a particular province or district to combine a feeling
of local patriotism with esprit de corps. As it was, regiments came to comprise
individuals drawn from all parts of the country and were generally not stationed
in the area whose name they bore. It is not clear when and why this change
occurred. Was it just a by-product of bureaucratic routine or did it-as one
later writer suggested,^104 without, however, offering any evidence-stem from
a deliberate effort to prevent the aggregation of men with a common civilian
background? In any case the result was to weaken such unofficial horizontal
bonds as developed between soldiers and civilians. Of course, this schism was
not absolute: men who deserted might find shelter in peasant communities,
despite the risk of heavy penalties on civilians who proffered such aid.
The state's objective of enforcing hierarchical subordination was also
furthered by the construction of barracks, which became much more plentiful
during the first decade of the nineteenth century. They were increasingly built
and maintained with the aid of funds provided by the central authorities, for
which townsmen had previously petitioned in vain.^105 Barracks were un-
popular with the men, who enjoyed more freedom when quartered on the rural
population. They identified them 'with the service, with everything that makes
the soldier's heart miss a beat', as one later commentator put it.^106 Another
critic refers to them as damp, crowded, insanitary, and a source of psycho-
logical as well as physical disorders.^107 But not until the reform era that
followed the Crimean War was any real effort made to grapple with the health
problems which these gloomy buildings did so much to aggravate.Peter I's good intentions in the domain of military medicine were all but
frustrated by lack of funds and trained personnel. The establishment tables
provided for a doctor in each regiment and several base hospitals, but in prac-
tice few posts could be filled and their number was actually reduced in 1731.^108101 Meshcheryakov, Suvorov, i. 141 (Polk. uchrezhdeniye, VI, § 6).
IOol Plotho, Entslehung, p. 66.
I05 PSZ xxiv. 18036, 18086, 18664, § 4, 18822, IX,§§ 15-20 (6 July, 11 Aug. 1797, 12 Sept.
1798, 17 Jan. 1799), xxvii. (IO Mar. 1802), xxix. 22020 (10 Feb. 1806: Orel), xxix. 22575 (30 July
1807: Kiev).
106 'Yeger', 'Otryvki iz zapisok unter-ofitsera', VS 31 ( 1863), 6, p. 501.
io^7 Brant, 'Kazarmennoye raspolozheniye', pp. 77-100; cf. Butovsky, 'O kaLarmcnnoy
nravstvennosti ', p 138.
IOll Kruchek-Golubov and Kul'bin, in SVM viii. xlviii.