Home – Home – Jornals – Humanitarian sciences in Siberia 2017 number

The article is devoted to studying the mutual relations between regular army servicemen, civil authorities and population in Siberia in the second half of the XVIII century. Everyday life of people, who were at service in the Russian empire’s army in the XVIII century, is not studied properly, although the contacts between military men and civilians took place constantly concerning a really wide range of issues: collection of taxes and fees, military troops’ accommodation, maintenance of police order, etc. Based upon Siberian materials particularly, this problem is even more worthy of consideration. The research source base includes data of collections of the Russian State Archive of Ancient Acts (RGADA), Russian State Military Historical Archive (RGVIA) and State Historical Archive of Omsk Region (GIAOO). The archive research led the author to the following conclusions. First, the military powers have been obliged inevitably to take some measures related to controlling the financial inflows’ sphere. This could be explained with Siberia’s extreme remoteness from the imperial centre and weakness of local civil authorities. The commandants of border fortresses and Siberian cities were responsible for collecting fees and preserving of money. Second, the military troops’ accommodation inside the cities could turn into conflicts between the servicemen and local inhabitants, as well as local government officials. The state treasury was unable to provide permanent housing even for regular army’s officers. This led to arbitrary actions and abuses by the military men, who preferred sometimes to solve their everyday problems by the use of excessive force. On the other hand, it should be noticed that the servicemen actions were strictly governed by the imperial laws and military regulations. The military command, in turn, tended to monitor enforcement of these laws and regulations.