298 The Military Settlementsfarmers refused to reap hay for their unit's horses because they needed to work
on their own plots instead. The protest was backed by reservists-retired
Cossacks, some of whom were elder kinsmen of the initiators. The movement
spread to an adjacent district {that of the Taganrog Uian regiment) and menaced
the town of Khar' kov. The rebels burned down three buildings and killed an
NCO who refused to join them.
The authorities at first reacted dilatorily, hoping to quell the protest by per-
suasion rather than force, but then brought up two loyal regiments. On 2
August arrests began. In all over two thousand persons, including settlers'
wives and children, were taken into custody. Open-air camps had to be set up
as there was not enough room in the local jails. A military tribunal sentenced
275 individuals to death, while others were punished by informal disciplinary
measures.· Arakcheyev, who came down to take charge of the judicial pro-
ceedings, substituted mass public beatings for the death penalty. Of the 52
persons who ran the gauntlet (up to 12,000 blows), 25 died (see above, p. 168).
Those awaiting their turn were promised a pardon if they repented. The tactic
succeeded, for three-quarters of those sentenced to corporal punishment were
sent into exile instead. Among them were several dozen active and retired
officers.^8 The affair was soon a topic of conversation in the capital.^9 It helped
to turn public opinion against the government, and Arakcheyev in particular.
It was not generally known at the time that the tsar had explicitly approved his
conduct.
The troubles in the military settlements must be seen in the context of the
growing disaffection within the army generally during the last years of Alex-
ander l's reign. This was rife among men in the ranks as well as their officers.
Most of the disturbances occurred in provincial garrisons and were dealt with
in secret, so that contemporaries knew little about them. Disproportionate
attention was aroused in educated society by the so-called 'mutiny' in the
Semenovsky guards regiment in October 1820. This incident occurred in one of
the armed forces' most senior and prestigious units, which was stationed in the
capital and therefore had 'high visibility'. Liberals and conservatives were
both tempted to jump to the conclusion that sedition was rampant at the very
centre of the military establishment. This was not so, as is evident when one
examines the matter closely. Strictly speaking, there was no 'mutiny' but only
a legitimate peaceful protest.^1 u Its significance lies in the authorities' panic-
~There is a good account in Fedorov, So/da1skoye dnzheniye, pp. 43-71; cf. Vereshchagin,
'Materialy'; Yevstafyev, Vo.1s1u11i_ye pp. 90-1; Petrov, 'Us1roys1vo', pp. 149-52, 244-5.
9 Oksman el al., DekahriHI', p. 27; Turgenev. Lu Rus\ie, i. ~15.
JO Wiet:Lyn,ki ('Muliny', p. 172) corrcclly lcnm ii a 'non-•iolc111 demons1ra1ion of prolest'
against 1he regiment's unpopular new commander, Colonel F. E. Shvarts, and a '1rivial
ma lier' -but uses 1he conventional term 'mu1iny' in 1he Litle of his article. To his accounl four
points should be added: (u) Shvarts. in addi1ion to other provocative acts, limited the soldiers'
earnings from off-base labour, on which they had come 10 depend; (b) some men believed (wrongly)
that Shvarls was Jewish, and .:hauvinistic prejudice heighlened their antagonism; (c) the rank-
conscious officers resented their guards unit being taken over by a mere army colonel, quite apart
from his defects of characler; (d) some of them .:rilicizcd Shvarls within earshot of !heir men.