“With the permission of His Excellency the Count, seven people are sentenced to send them to recruits…”

Abstract

In addition to completing the army and Navy with lower ranks, the recruiting system performed another function, i.e. punitive. Small-time thieves, vagabonds, persons having no passports, drunkards, as well as negligent housekeepers, tax evaders, unauthorized woodcutters, “the insolent” and others, who for various reasons being objectionable to society or the landowner, were punished by sending to military service. In this paper, based on the materials of the local patrimony archive of the Sheremetevs, the patrimony management is considered in detail, as a mechanism aimed at clearing the rural society of the taxes non-payers and persons of depraved behavior by sending them to recruits. It is shown, in particular, that such a process on the part of the patrimony owner was a thought-out, organized and systematic one, what in some cases led to a mass, up to several tens people at a time, provision of peasants for military service. The final decision on punishment was made by the Count, taking into account the opinions of rural commune, patrimonial and house boards.