Pupils and graduates of the Ostsee’ Garrison School in the 1730s

The article studies the professional training of soldiers’ sons and the formation of the social group of lower-ranking military men in the 1730s. The regulation of the occupations of military personnel’s sons and the creation of schools in the garrison regiments were carried out during the Petrine reforms of the 1710-1720s. Later, amendments were made to the legislative norms that clarified the tasks of the garrison schools. These innovations took place during the reign of Anna Ioannovna. Since then, school training has focused on replenishing the regiments with literate and professionally educated clerks, musicians, and artisans. The author of the article focuses on the school history that started in the early 1720s in the Ivangorodsky infantry regiment of the Vyborg garrison. Based on the data from sources on personnel, the article analyzes the general level of literacy among officers and privates of the mentioned military unit, the composition of their families, and the activities of male children. The author examines the results of the government policy on the training of literate lower-ranking military men, as well as the history of the formation of the social group of military men. It was revealed that the military command in Vyborg made efforts to ensure that the local regiments were replenished with people who originated from military families and were professionally trained in the local school. This was the embodiment of the strategy of the central authorities. By 1735, the personnel of the Ivangorod regiment had already been replenished with 23 literate employees who were born in the military families of Vyborg, Kexholm, and other towns of north-western Russia. The study of data on family ties within the community of the Vyborg garrison employees proved that the enrolment of soldiers’ sons in the garrison schools and future appointment of graduates to service in the garrison regiments was one of the ways the military estate was formed in Russia of the 1720s - 1730s.