The saving power of “opinions”: on the practice of military courts in the Russian army (18th - early 19th centuries)

The article analyzes the practice of military justice in the Russian imperial army of the 18th - early 19th centuries. The aim of the article is to study to what extent the realities and practices of applying the laws in the life of the army corresponded to the letter of the hard legislation of Peter’s time. The main source for the study was military court cases on crimes that were not considered political by punitive legislation and punitive institutions of the empire: desertion, murder, theft, embezzlement of state money, etc. The author comes to the conclusion that with all the normative cruelty of the Military Charter of Peter I, the practical activity of military courts had regulators that played the role of a kind of limiters of the punitive orientation of the articles of the Military Charter. These include the formation of the composition of military courts from among active officers, which gave them the character of a military “jury trial”. A mandatory element of military proceedings were separate “opinions” of judges, representatives of the command and members of the Military Collegium, the central institution of military administration, in which various arguments for commutation of the sentence were presented. These “opinions” turned into a tool through which the strictness of the regulatory legal framework was actually mitigated. The corporate nature of the proceedings not only limited the rigidity of the laws - the very activity of military courts in practice served as a powerful tool for the formation of the army as a military corporation and raising its morale.