Drunkenness and Disorder in the Imperial Russian Army

Abstract

Drunkenness was a serious matter in the Imperial Russian military because of its potential to create disorder within an institution that was a central part of the disciplinary apparatus of the Russian Empire. Changes made to the military as part of the Great Reforms were intended to restore it to glory after its defeat in the Crimean War. Military disciplinary records from the late nineteenth century, however, demonstrate many of the problems that lay within this reformed military. First, they highlight tensions between soldiers and civilians. Military regiments were quartered in and around the towns and villages throughout the Russian Empire, which meant that soldiers regularly mixed with the wider civilian population. That mixing often went along with conflict. Second, they highlight tensions between rank-and-file soldiers on the one hand and NCOs and officers on the other, emphasizing the ways that the hierarchy and discipline that were central to the military (and to autocratic governance more generally) was often disregarded. Third, they hint at the ways that individual soldiers felt about their tours of duty and about their own position within autocratic society. And perhaps above all, they demonstrate the ways that alcohol lubricated these stresses and made them not simply background issues but active sources of disorder.