“Elite club”: Russian and European officers in V.S.Savonko's diaries

Personal diaries of the Russian Guard officer V. S. Savonko, which were recently acquired by the Department of manuscripts of NLR, are a valuable source for the study of the history of the Russian Guard officers and especially for the history of pre-revolutionary era. To assess the value of the obtained historical source properly the system of officers’ training, developed in the strongest armies of Europe (Russian, German, French, Austro-Hungarian) by the end of the XIX century, was analyzed. The study of this issue has led the author to a conclusion that in all European armies the officer corps always enjoyed a status of an elite club. In different countries the barriers, preventing infiltration into the officers' environment for the people from lower social classes, had diverse execution tools, but they all acted equally effective. The barriers consisted of such measures as legislated class privileges, high tuition fees in military schools, long-term training, unspoken filtrations of applicants, selection of candidates for particular officers’ regiments, high living standards’ requirements for officers. The need to provide a sufficient amount of trained officers for the army led to the social stratification in the officers’ ranks, their identification, and further development of the more or less privileged groups. In addition, the armed forces of different countries were vested with the responsibility to perform the role of a nursery (especially in Russia) assistive in cultural and educational development, which meant assignment of additional missions.