Russia, 1762-1825: Military Power, the State and the People (review)

It is not often that a reviewer receives a book on the very same topic he has been working on for the past few years, so I was quite anxious to read Janet Hartley's new book Russia, 1762-1825, published in Praeger's "Studies in Military History and International Affairs" series. I had good reason to be since her work is magnificent.

As the title indicates, the book deals with the transformation of the Russian society and state in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Indeed, this was an important period when the Russian empire experienced a major territorial expansion, established itself as a power player in European politics, and "reached the pinnacle of military success by 1815" (p. 2). In her book, Hartley challenges the notion of Russia as a "garrison state" utilized by Richard Hellie, John Keep, and John LeDonne. To achieve her goal, the author identified three major themes: 1) the cost of sustaining Russia's rapid and massive expansion, and the warfare associated with it; 2) institutional and legal developments that had a profound impact on Russian state and society; and 3) the shaping of a Russian identity and sense of patriotism.

The book is organized into ten chapters, plus a conclusion. Chapter 1 deals with the history of the Russian army and navy during the reigns of Catherine II, Paul I, and Alexander I. It traces the various reforms that the Romanov sovereigns pursued to modernize their military, and evaluates their effectiveness. Chapter 2 provides a detailed look at the Russian conscription system and its impact on the community. Besides describing recruits' experiences of being conscripted, the author also provides a fascinating, albeit tragic, account of families left behind, households divided or occasionally eliminated, and compares and contrasts experiences from various social strata subject to conscription. The officer corps's formation, its development and service, are discussed in Chapter 3. Despite the perennial problem of incompetent officers in the army, the Russian military education system was surprisingly multifaceted and the book addresses this issue by analyzing various military schools and institutions that emerged between 1762 and 1825. The author also notes that the officer corps, often considered the guardians of the throne, could also turn into a grave threat, as revealed in the roles the officers played in the 1762 and 1801 coups and later in the Decembrist Uprising of 1825.

Chapters 4 and 5 address the issue of Russia's ability to fund warfare, which was an almost constant feature in the era under discussion. The author initially looks at the empire's income and expenditure by analyzing state budgets over six decades and notes several challenges the Russian government faced. She argues that "a fundamental failure in Russia was the inability to increase the taxation base, either direct or indirect," which often forced the government to seek foreign loans and subsidies. The Napoleonic Wars had an especially profound impact in this respect and saw both the inflow of British subsidies for a total of some seven million pounds (p. 77) and a dramatic increase in the deficit and accumulation of the famous "Dutch debt." The chapters also illustrate the impact economic constraints had on agriculture, industry, and trade, and the government's efforts to resolve them. Chapter 6 is interesting for its discussion of relations between the military and civilian population, which quite often turned violent, while Chapter 7 details reforms in administration and law, with a noteworthy section on military law's treatment of magic and witchcraft. Chapters 8 and 9 deal with the shaping of the Russian identity and the development of a new culture as a result of conflict, conquest, and assimilation. The concluding Chapter 10 provides a detailed look at "an ambitious, even utopian" (p. 208) idea of military colonies that were established (to dreadful results) in the second half of Alexander I's reign.

The...