Recruitment and Service in the Ranks 155
Petrine fashion: one in ten was to be hanged and the rest knouted and sent to
forced labour.6() Mtinnich, who took charge of the Russian army under the em-
press Anna lvanovna (1730-40), evidently thought this a waste of valuable
manpower. for in 1730 those who m~imf'rl themselves but were still able tc
hold a rifle or drive a horse and cart were sent to the army.^61 This was also the
rule during the Seven Years War and in the first part of Catherine's reign.^62 In
1771 such malpractices were said to be widespread among native peoples of the
Volga region, who, 'anticipating a levy, injure their limbs, cut their fingers,
poke out or otherwise damage their eyes, knock out their teeth and deform
their ears and feet'.^63 Religious and ethnic considerations probably inspired
such desperate acts of passive resistance; but the legislators, in true Enlighten-
ment spirit, dismissed such conduct as mere 'barbarism'. A. W. von Hupe!, a
qualified Baltic-German observer writing in the 1780s, also noted the
prevalence of this practice, but did not attribute it to any specific group.^64 He
claimed that in Russia recruits showed less dislike of military service than those
in other European countries at this time. This optimistic view contrasts with
that of a later critic, the Polish democrat J. Tanski. 'The time of the levy', he
stated, 'is one of crisis and despair for the serfs, even for the most miserable
among them. Some prefer death to military service. Often they mutilate
themselves by cutting their fingers or pulling out their teeth, or else go into
hiding in the forests. '^65 Tanski is probably nearer the truth, for there is ample
evidence of the persistence of the practice during the first quarter of the nine-
teenth century.^66 It was a natural response to the increased incidence of levies
and the government's failure to humanize the way in which they were raised.
For the recruit the sudden breach with his family and the rural milieu came
as a severe psychological shock. Modern sociologists have noted the traumatic
effect of unexpected transfer to an unfamiliar institutional environment
without adequate explanation of the rationale for the change.^67 This was also
recognized instinctively by contemporary observers. C. von Plotho, a Prussian
officer who cannot be suspected of sentimentality, describes the sorrowful
scenes that occurred when a recruit took leave of his relatives, 'weighed down
by the terrible feeling that he will probably never see his wife or children
again' .68 The Frenchman D. de Raymond noted that 'this eternal separation
(from his kin] is the most sombre trait in the life of the Russian soldier'.^69 By
60 PSZ vii. 5050 (24 Mar. 1727).
61 PSZ viii. 5632 (23 Oct. 1730).
62 PSZ xiv. 10326 (21 Nov. 1754), § 9, xvii. 12748 (29 Sept. 1766), lll, § 6.
61 PSZ xix. 13651 (2 Sept. 1771 ), § 8.
64 Von Hupel, Beschreibung, p. 202 n.
6S Tanski, Tableau, p. 158.
66 For example, PSZ xviii. 21442 (7 Sept. 1804), §§ 8-11, xxx. 23286 (28 Sept. 1808), 23759
( 1809), etc.
67 A. Rothacher, 'On ... Military Socialization,' Armed Forces and Socie1y 6 ( 1979/80),
p. 332.
68 Plotho, Enlstehung, p. 66. 69 De Raymond, Tableau, pp. 527-8.