Martin Antonenko
A Fixture
- Joined
- Jul 11, 2008
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The rank table
The Russian Tsar Petr I….
... orders the introduction of the so-called "Rank Table" on February 4, 1722!
By the way, the tsar borrowed the word “rank” from the German language, because there is currently no suitable word in Russian.
From now on, the people of the careers in the Russian state service - regardless of whether they are military or civilians - are assigned to a certain rank class.
This rank table - Russian "Tabel 'o rangach" - regulated careers in state administration and at court, as well as officer careers in the army and navy in 14 rank classes and other sub-ranks.
Here is such a table - the design comes from the tsar's own hand ...:
The person serving the state was, so to speak, trapped in his respective rank class, since he was only given the offices, ranks, property, privileges and awards that corresponded to his rank, as detailed in the implementation regulations. The entire civil service was thus practically organized militarily!
Later it will also be regulated how many people are allowed to belong to each rank class at the same time.
The military column was divided into infantry, guards, artillery and navy.
The first five classes formed the generals, in grades six to eight the staff officers followed and in grades nine to fourteen the other officers down to the sub-ensign, whereby "Guard" was always rated one class better than "Line" in the ranking table . A guard major held the same position in the ranking as a "line" colonel!
In the ranking table, the holders of military rank classes were privileged, since the holders of all 14 ranks automatically belonged to the hereditary nobility.
Civil and court officials, however, only had this right from the eighth grade onwards. The right of ennoblement in the military ranks was also passed on to the incumbent's children. Children of civil and court officials, however, were denied this right.
From 1856 the hereditary nobility was only achieved with reaching the fourth civil class (real council of state) or from the sixth military class (colonel, major in the guard). The tsar himself reserved the right to award the top classes from one to five (councilors / ministers, generals).
According to the legal requirements, even the oldest hereditary nobility was lost if a family did not reach a rank in the ranking table within three generations!
Civil and court offices in ranks nine to fourteen were associated with the personal nobility. The owners enjoyed a number of privileges such as corporal punishment, poll tax and recruitment.
In contrast to owners of the hereditary nobility and the hereditary nobility of merit, they could not inherit their privileges. In addition, they were not allowed to own serfs, not take part in aristocratic assemblies and not occupy any electoral positions reserved for the high nobility.
The establishment of a clear office career should prevent abuse in the allocation of offices.
The respective requirements for the ranks were set by the Senate, so that it should no longer be possible to make a career without corresponding qualifications.
Nobles who withdrew from civil service and did not appear in the rankings did not gain any reputation in society, since the honor arose from the height of the executive office. When signing, for example, they had to sign with "unworthy squire" so that their lack of social status was shown to everyone.
The rank also determined the manners in everyday life, for example the salutation ("Excellency", "Your Highly Born", "Your Well Born" etc.) or the dress code
Advancement to the next higher rank class - and thus to more privileges, higher orders, income and privileges - could only be achieved through special merits. - in theory.
For the actual advancement in the ranking table, however, protection is much more important!
Because somebody had to recognize the respective merits and ensure that these “higher places” were taken note of and also appreciated accordingly!
Originally intended with good intentions and as a selection of the best, the rank system degenerated into a farce over the years - especially among the higher and highest ranks - as it promoted favoritism, servility, cautiousness and drooling and punished independent spirit and personal opinion.
The Russian Minister of War Vladimir Sukhomlinov may serve as an example ...:
Sukhomlinov, who publicly boasted that he hadn't read a single textbook since the Russo-Turkish War of 1877/78 because the “laws of war remained the same forever” as he said, was in favor of training and equipping the Russian army first world war responsible.
Suchomlinow despised the machine gun as "unsoldatic"...
... and opposed a larger acquisition of these weapons. Consequence: In 1914 the Germans were 4.5: 1 superior to the Russians in machine guns...:
Suchomlinow encouraged the construction of light field artillery...
... and rejected heavy artillery. When the war broke out, the Germans had six times more heavy artillery than the Russians!
Sukhomlinov was against the construction of permanent positions, because that would seduce the soldiers into "cowardice", as he said.
The result: the soldiers only learn very rudimentary fortifications during their training - and then had to catch up on what they had not learned in the field under enemy fire - which cost thousands of their lives.
Sukhomlinov relied on the bayonet attack as the only correct tactic...:
The result: the bayonets were firmly attached to the rifles of the Russian soldiers...
... which made the weapons very unwieldy and almost unusable during trench warfare...:
Sukhomlinov relied on the soldiers' boots instead of building the railroad. Some Russian units marched from Mlawa into the battle of Tannenberg on foot - five full days of marching...
... and arrived on the battlefield already exhausted.
It is true that Tsar Sukhomlinov was the only one who carried out the promotion, but it was the one who decided which proposals the ruler would even see!
Anyone who took it like Sukhomlinov, talked to him and did not attract negative attention, inevitably rose - if only through seniority! - on. In addition, there were finely spun and widely ramified "rope teams" that helped each other up.
However, anyone who attracted negative attention through their own, perhaps too uncomfortable, too modern or even independent opinions and thoughts was guaranteed to be ignored!
This is one of the main reasons for the catastrophic failure of the Russian generals and bureaucracy in the Russo-Japanese War (1904/05) and in the First World War!
The ranking system of Peter I, introduced 291 years ago today, was in place until the Bolsheviks abolished it in 1917.
These difficult-to-understand subtleties of the ranking table played a significant role for me in 2012 when I was researching the details for his Kuban Cossack bust for Andy Cairns (AC Models).
Rank and medal had to match exactly, as only certain medals were accessible for each specific rank ...:
The Russian Tsar Petr I….
... orders the introduction of the so-called "Rank Table" on February 4, 1722!
By the way, the tsar borrowed the word “rank” from the German language, because there is currently no suitable word in Russian.
From now on, the people of the careers in the Russian state service - regardless of whether they are military or civilians - are assigned to a certain rank class.
This rank table - Russian "Tabel 'o rangach" - regulated careers in state administration and at court, as well as officer careers in the army and navy in 14 rank classes and other sub-ranks.
Here is such a table - the design comes from the tsar's own hand ...:
The person serving the state was, so to speak, trapped in his respective rank class, since he was only given the offices, ranks, property, privileges and awards that corresponded to his rank, as detailed in the implementation regulations. The entire civil service was thus practically organized militarily!
Later it will also be regulated how many people are allowed to belong to each rank class at the same time.
The military column was divided into infantry, guards, artillery and navy.
The first five classes formed the generals, in grades six to eight the staff officers followed and in grades nine to fourteen the other officers down to the sub-ensign, whereby "Guard" was always rated one class better than "Line" in the ranking table . A guard major held the same position in the ranking as a "line" colonel!
In the ranking table, the holders of military rank classes were privileged, since the holders of all 14 ranks automatically belonged to the hereditary nobility.
Civil and court officials, however, only had this right from the eighth grade onwards. The right of ennoblement in the military ranks was also passed on to the incumbent's children. Children of civil and court officials, however, were denied this right.
From 1856 the hereditary nobility was only achieved with reaching the fourth civil class (real council of state) or from the sixth military class (colonel, major in the guard). The tsar himself reserved the right to award the top classes from one to five (councilors / ministers, generals).
According to the legal requirements, even the oldest hereditary nobility was lost if a family did not reach a rank in the ranking table within three generations!
Civil and court offices in ranks nine to fourteen were associated with the personal nobility. The owners enjoyed a number of privileges such as corporal punishment, poll tax and recruitment.
In contrast to owners of the hereditary nobility and the hereditary nobility of merit, they could not inherit their privileges. In addition, they were not allowed to own serfs, not take part in aristocratic assemblies and not occupy any electoral positions reserved for the high nobility.
The establishment of a clear office career should prevent abuse in the allocation of offices.
The respective requirements for the ranks were set by the Senate, so that it should no longer be possible to make a career without corresponding qualifications.
Nobles who withdrew from civil service and did not appear in the rankings did not gain any reputation in society, since the honor arose from the height of the executive office. When signing, for example, they had to sign with "unworthy squire" so that their lack of social status was shown to everyone.
The rank also determined the manners in everyday life, for example the salutation ("Excellency", "Your Highly Born", "Your Well Born" etc.) or the dress code
Advancement to the next higher rank class - and thus to more privileges, higher orders, income and privileges - could only be achieved through special merits. - in theory.
For the actual advancement in the ranking table, however, protection is much more important!
Because somebody had to recognize the respective merits and ensure that these “higher places” were taken note of and also appreciated accordingly!
Originally intended with good intentions and as a selection of the best, the rank system degenerated into a farce over the years - especially among the higher and highest ranks - as it promoted favoritism, servility, cautiousness and drooling and punished independent spirit and personal opinion.
The Russian Minister of War Vladimir Sukhomlinov may serve as an example ...:
Sukhomlinov, who publicly boasted that he hadn't read a single textbook since the Russo-Turkish War of 1877/78 because the “laws of war remained the same forever” as he said, was in favor of training and equipping the Russian army first world war responsible.
Suchomlinow despised the machine gun as "unsoldatic"...
... and opposed a larger acquisition of these weapons. Consequence: In 1914 the Germans were 4.5: 1 superior to the Russians in machine guns...:
Suchomlinow encouraged the construction of light field artillery...
... and rejected heavy artillery. When the war broke out, the Germans had six times more heavy artillery than the Russians!
Sukhomlinov was against the construction of permanent positions, because that would seduce the soldiers into "cowardice", as he said.
The result: the soldiers only learn very rudimentary fortifications during their training - and then had to catch up on what they had not learned in the field under enemy fire - which cost thousands of their lives.
Sukhomlinov relied on the bayonet attack as the only correct tactic...:
The result: the bayonets were firmly attached to the rifles of the Russian soldiers...
... which made the weapons very unwieldy and almost unusable during trench warfare...:
Sukhomlinov relied on the soldiers' boots instead of building the railroad. Some Russian units marched from Mlawa into the battle of Tannenberg on foot - five full days of marching...
... and arrived on the battlefield already exhausted.
It is true that Tsar Sukhomlinov was the only one who carried out the promotion, but it was the one who decided which proposals the ruler would even see!
Anyone who took it like Sukhomlinov, talked to him and did not attract negative attention, inevitably rose - if only through seniority! - on. In addition, there were finely spun and widely ramified "rope teams" that helped each other up.
However, anyone who attracted negative attention through their own, perhaps too uncomfortable, too modern or even independent opinions and thoughts was guaranteed to be ignored!
This is one of the main reasons for the catastrophic failure of the Russian generals and bureaucracy in the Russo-Japanese War (1904/05) and in the First World War!
The ranking system of Peter I, introduced 291 years ago today, was in place until the Bolsheviks abolished it in 1917.
These difficult-to-understand subtleties of the ranking table played a significant role for me in 2012 when I was researching the details for his Kuban Cossack bust for Andy Cairns (AC Models).
Rank and medal had to match exactly, as only certain medals were accessible for each specific rank ...:
