“WHAT BELONGS TO SOLDIERS, PASSES BY THEM”: ATTEMPTS TO OVERCOME CORRUPTION IN THE RUSSIAN ARMY IN THE EARLY 19th CENTURY

Abstract

The Purpose of the Research. The paper presents a thorough study of Russian military presence in Right-Bank Ukraine as a powerful means of political support of the autocracy in the 19th century which resulted in negative social and economic transformations. The study of legal acts and archive sources of the period suggests the understanding of Russian Emperor Alexander the First’s role concerning optimization of the system of regular troops supply introduced by Ekaterina the Empress and struggle against the officials’ malversation throughout the tsar’s overall reformative activity in the first decade of the century. The Research Methodology. The scope of relevant general scientific and specific methods was applied to complete the issued objectives. Under the overall perspective of dialectal approach, biography analysis, historical and genetic method served the tools of the research. Structural and systemic approach towards data interpretation provided unbiased treatment of documented facts and their adequate incorporation into the text of the paper. The Scientific Novelty. The paper ponders on the economic relationship between the Russian military and society. It has been the first practice to analyze the top imperial authorities’ efforts initiated by the Emperor Alexander the First to put things in order in the system of supply to the regular troops stationed in Right-Bank Ukraine and provide them with the necessities. The study proves that the process in question went hand in hand with corruption combats and malversation among officers and quartermasters. The authors ground their argument on archival documents and prove that such authoritative actions resulted in minimal success and temporary improvement of the military and civil local bureaucratic system which failed to thoroughly influence the situation. The total autocratic control over the gross, high-powered, military and bureaucratic mechanism turned it into a functional tool meant to be applied in the Russian Empire’s politics on the annexed territories. The Conclusion. The obtained data and their analysis verify the assumption that the Romanovs’ aggressive policy of the early 19th century gave rise to the potentially dangerous phenomena in the state structure which ruined its basic constituents like army and civil administration. The Russian state colonial policy meant to enrich the autocracy transformed into the robbery of the annexed territories by the Russian officials. The lack of effective state control and anachronistic serfdom constituted a heavy obstacle towards reforms of any kind.