Central Black Earth Region: the military class and its role in regional development

We consider the multifactorial effects of the military class, including the soldiers of the Russian army and their families, as well as indefinite, spare and retired soldiers, military disabled, on the social and cultural, ethnic and confessional, social and class development of the Central Black Earth Region. Included in it Voronezh, Kursk, Orel and Tambov Governorates were the largest densely populated, agricultural regions, traditionally used by the government for military procurement, cantonment of troops and other military mobilization activities in the Russian Empire in the 18th – early 20th century. The military factor had almost continuous impact on all aspects of life of the Central Black Earth Region population, forming in its inhabitants a special character, endurance and stamina, which allowed to be quite successful in a peaceful, “non-military” life. We give the evaluation of historiographical approaches and interpretation of sources on the role of the military class in the Center Black Earth Region development in domestic and foreign historiography. We pay special attention to the impact of recruitment on the daily life of the population in the cities of the region and rural areas. We reveal the historical and legal aspects of changes in the legal status of male and female representatives of the “military class” in the agrarian society in the Imperial Russia. We clarify military and statistical indicators of military class representation in the social structure of the provincial society during the period of conscript obligation and in post-reform Russia, as well as the complexity of accounting for family members of military servicemen during the service and after retirement. The involvement of archival documents, statistical and other published materials allowed for a successful reconstruction of the social and legal regulation and the position of the military class in the Center Black Earth Region of the considered chronological period. We draw conclusions about the prospects of studying the post-reform ethnic and social, social and cultural, class and legal features of the military class life in a non-belligerent provincial society. We prove that the military class was a special social institution in the Russian province of the Imperial period of Russian history.

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