OFFICERS OF THE FIELD TROOPS OF THE SIBERIAN CORPS IN THE LATE XVIII CENTURY

Abstract

The article is devoted to the study of the personnel and inner structure of the Siberian corps’ field troops in the last decades of the 18th century. The paper is based on the service records of the Siberian corps’ officers from fund 489 of the Russian State Military History Archive (Moscow). The author examines the data, concerning officers from two dragoon regiments, two chasseur and two musketeer battalions, that have composed about a half of the Siberian corps’ entire number of field troops. The author states that the officers of the Siberian corps’ field troops experienced a number of significant changes after some restructuring since the mid-1770s to the mid-1780s. The officers from the nobility now began to prevail, but most of them came from the families holding a small property. In addition, the quota of young officers, who had served in the Guards regiments previously, significantly increased. At the same time, the author found quite a few people among the officers of field regiments and battalions of the Siberian corps who originated from Siberia itself. The recruitment policy of the 1730s–1750s, when people from the Siberian Cossacks and other local groups had been promoted to officer ranks both in field and garrison troops, was changed by Catherine II. By the last decades of the 18th century, the supreme power preferred to transfer army officers from the troops, stationed in European Russia, to the Siberian corps. Its field regiments and battalions were therefore at the same level as all other Russian Imperial troops of the period.