Phenomenon of desertion in context of history of judicial practice during the 1st half of the XVIII century

The study explores practice of applying of criminal laws established at will of Peter the Great especially for use in Russian army. It is well-known that these laws had punished even the most insignificant crimes with extreme severity. However, the standards of the law and practice of an everyday life did not always coincide. This research based on the study of the historical documents on the Vyborg and Kexholm garrisons highlights the systematic comparison between the legislation requirements and the valid sentences of military court. The main concern of present research was to analyze received information on circumstances of committing of crimes, such as desertions, and to generalize data on strategy of military judges at sentencing of criminals to punishments. Specifically it has been discovered that death penalty was not applied toward deserters in actual judicial practice of the first half of the 18 th century.