XIV Международная студенческая научная конференция Студенческий научный форум - 2022

Peter the Great was the first of the Russian rulers to realize the need to train domestic military specialists and is rightfully considered the founder of organized military education in Russia. Creating a fleet, Peter I was well aware that the country needed highly qualified personnel. “I would rather not have one finger on my hand than the fact that I was not taught in my youth,” the crowned self-taught sailor claimed [1, p.4].

Participation of Russia in the Northern War of 1700-1721. made it clear that the country could not be strong and powerful only if there was a fleet and an army consisting of cannons and soldiers. Without educated officers, no cunning infantry and cavalry operations are capable of ensuring victory in the conditions of that time. Therefore, during the Northern War, at the suggestion of Peter I himself, the first military educational institutions began to be created. But even before the start of the Northern War, he took steps to improve the training of future military personnel [1, p.7].

The first military educational institution in Russia is considered to be a school organized in 1698 in Moscow under the bombardment company of the Preobrazhensky Regiment. Mathematics, the construction of field fortifications, the rules and techniques of shooting, the manufacture of gunpowder and laboratory compositions, etc. were studied at this school. and trained artillery men.

The next stage in the development of military education in Russia was the opening in Moscow in 1701 of the School of Mathematical and Navigational Sciences, which trained sailors and navigators. The school had two departments: navigation and mathematics. The course of study was divided into three stages. The initial stage was designed for one and a half to two years and gave elementary knowledge in the field of grammar, reading and the Law of God. The second - arithmetic is aimed at mastering arithmetic, geometry, trigonometry, drawing. Finally, the highest stage, or navigational, involved the study of mathematical geography, astronomy, drafting, geodesy, navigation, and shipbuilding. After passing through all three stages of training, students underwent mandatory internships on ships and shipyards. Only graduates who completed the program of all three levels could be accepted into the civil service and occupy leadership positions, becoming engineers, shipbuilders, surveyors and diplomats. Those who mastered the 1st and 2nd stages could count on the positions of clerks, craftsmen and accountants. Often Peter I personally took part in the distribution of graduates, deciding their future fate. So, in 1712, according to the results of a review of students, Peter ordered to send 26 people to study navigational sciences in Holland, 22 - to Revel to study the German language, 16 - to be enrolled in the soldiers of the Preobrazhensky Regiment [2].

It should be noted that young men of all classes (“nobles, clerks, clerks, from the houses of boyars and other ranks”) were admitted to the school, except for serfs. Over time, studies began to be equated with military service, and schoolchildren received fodder money, the amount of which was directly depended on the quality and duration of study. Thus, the king wanted to attract young people to study.

Until 1715, the School of Mathematical and Navigational Sciences was the main military educational institution of the country, but later it became necessary to create a naval school in the new capital in close proximity to the sea and fleet. Therefore, in 1715, the Academy of the Naval Guards (Naval Academy) was opened in St. Petersburg, designed for 300 students from the nobility, who were first called cadets [1, p.38]. The curriculum included not only professional training, but also general development. Therefore, along with navigation, artillery and fortification, the cadets studied the basics of such sciences as history, literature, jurisprudence, architecture, genealogy and heraldry, and foreign languages. They were trained in swordsmanship, horseback riding and dancing. In practice, they mastered the maritime business, performing various tasks at the capital's shipyards and other military facilities, in their free time from classroom studies. The Academy of the Naval Guards almost immediately became the most prestigious educational institution, and, according to a contemporary of H. Weber, “in the entire space of the Russian state there was not a single noble family that would not represent a son or a close relative in the Naval Academy” [3, p. 48]. The Petrovskaya Naval Academy gave Russia many excellent sailors, to whom the fleet owes its greatness. Among them are Admiral and writer S.I. Mordvinov, the famous hydrograph A. I. Nagaev, Vitus Bering's associate A. I. Chirikov.

In the same period, engineering schools were established in Moscow (1712) and St. Petersburg (1719), later the 2nd Cadet Corps. In addition to the artillery school at the bombardment company, in 1712 a school was opened at the artillery regiment, and in 1721 another school was opened in St. Petersburg, in which artillerymen who were already in the service improved their knowledge. There were also garrison schools for soldiers' children, a surgical school, a school of translators, etc.

In 1716, the military rank of “midshipman” was established (translated from French as “sea guard”), which was assigned to graduates of the Naval Academy who were enrolled in the midshipman company. Midshipmen occupied an intermediate position between students of the Academy and midshipmen of the non-commissioned officer rank - candidates for officer positions. The cadet company stood apart from the main body of students of the Academy. Midshipmen were intended to replenish the command staff, while the rest of the graduates became officers of naval artillery and other specialists [4, p.65]. They were supposed to receive an increased salary: senior midshipmen - 16 rubles, and junior - 12, and the official status of a company of midshipmen was equated to the status of the Preobrazhensky and Semenovsky regiments [4, p.67]. In winter, midshipmen studied in the capital, taking a theoretical course in separate classes of the Naval Academy, and in summer they went on training voyages on warships. Promotion to officers, according to the Naval Regulations, followed after seven years of service in the midshipmen.

The privileged position of midshipmen was put to an end 10 years after the end of the Northern War, when the fleet seemed to be forgotten. The founding of the Land Gentry Corps dealt a sharp blow to the prestige of the naval service, and the miserable existence that the naval cadets and midshipmen dragged out for many years scared the Russian nobles away from the career of a sailor. Only in 1752, when the Naval Noble Corps was created on the basis of the Moscow Navigation School and the St. Petersburg Naval Noble Corps. The St. Petersburg Naval Academy opened a new brilliant page in the history of Russian naval education, the first lines of which were written in the harsh era of the Northern War.

An analysis of historical sources on the training of officers of the time of Peter the Great makes it possible to single out the following characteristic features of the initial stage of the formation of military education in Russia [5]:

Firstly, the first military schools were designed to provide special knowledge and "prepare for officer training", but their completion in itself did not mean a guarantee of obtaining an officer's rank;

it was believed that education alone could not fully compensate for the lack of practical experience in serving in the troops, knowledge of which from the basics was an indispensable condition for commanding people;

school graduates could receive an officer rank only after acquiring the relevant practical knowledge, skills and abilities in the troops and passing exams in special commissions in the regiments.

Secondly, the replenishment of officer positions in the Russian army by graduates of military schools, due to their small number, was an impossible task, and no one claimed it;

the training was carried out mainly in the interests of the navy, artillery and engineering troops and had a purely practical orientation;

the promotion of an officer in the service was made dependent on the level of his education and real merits, and not on birth and origin, as was the case in the past.

Thirdly, the organization and content of education in schools lagged far behind the Western European level, and the quality of training specialists in them lagged behind the development of military art and weapons;

given the low literacy of students, in military schools, in addition to military knowledge, they taught the basics of reading, writing, counting, that is, they provided not only special (military), but also primary general education;

The Peter the Great time officer and, in particular, the Guards officer, was "a jack of all trades like his great Sovereign, whose example was before everyone's eyes" [6, p. 154].

It should also be noted that the forced nature of enrollment in schools, the different classes of the trainees, the strict rules cultivated in them, led to the unpopularity of receiving military education through these schools among the nobility.

The grandiose modernization of Russia, undertaken by Peter the Great, affected all aspects of the life of the state and society. Carried out hastily and rudely, outside the framework of any program, it was ambiguous both in terms of its methods of implementation and its results. The Russian school, which eked out a miserable existence before the reforms of Peter the Great, never left the field of vision of the tsar-reformer and experienced his seething energy in full. In an effort to preserve and strengthen the results of his reforms, the first Russian emperor needed, if not comprehensively educated people, then at least good specialists, especially military ones. The military schools created by Peter I were something extraordinary and unknown, so the first students had to be driven there almost with sticks. Military education at the beginning of the XVIII century was a real “mind-organized violence” [6, p. 281], and the reason for this was not so much the impatience of the king as objective circumstances - the inertia of society, which painfully and very reluctantly perceived the innovations of the brilliant emperor - the reformer.

References

1. Veselago F.F. Essay on the history of the naval cadet corps (for 100 years).SPb., 1852. 354 p.

2. Goroshenova O.A. School of Mathematical and Navigational Sciences in Moscow (1701-1752) and Its Successors // Questions of History. 2005. No. 10. S. 151-155.

3. Alpatov N.I. Teaching and educational work in a pre-revolutionary boarding school.M., Uchpedgiz, 1958.244 p.

4. GalushkoYu.A.,Kolesnikov A.A. School of Russian officers. M.: Russkiy Mir, 1993. 287 p.

5. Kamenev A.I.The history of officer training in Russia. Moscow: VPA named after V.I. Lenina, 1990. 418 p.

6 Volkov S.V. Russian officer corps. M.: ZAO Tsentrpoligraf, 2003. 414 p.