Save

Foreign Military Law and Mercenary Contract in Seventeenth-Century Russia: The Сase of the Smolensk War, 1632–1634

In: Russian History
Author:
Oleg Rusakovskiy Senior Research Fellow, Centre for Modern Russian History, Faculty of Humanities, HSE University Moscow Russia

Search for other papers by Oleg Rusakovskiy in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed
Close
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7065-2993
Download Citation Get Permissions

Access options

Get access to the full article by using one of the access options below.

Institutional Login

Log in with Open Athens, Shibboleth, or your institutional credentials

Login via Institution

Purchase

Buy instant access (PDF download and unlimited online access):

$40.00

Abstract

The article aims to discuss how the Russian government dealt with foreign military law based on mercenary contracts while recruiting troops in Germany and Britain for the Smolensk campaign of 1632 to 1634. In the agreements made with foreign colonels that survive in contemporary Russian translations, the Tsar’s officials granted an almost unlimited legal and administrative autonomy to foreign military commanders in order to make service in Russia more attractive for Western mercenaries. While doing so, the Russian government believed that a unified military law and an effective court and administration system existed among the European military communities. However, some essential terms of military service remained unspecified in the documentation, depriving the Russian army commanders of any legal recourse to prevent conflicts within foreign regiments, which ultimately contributed to an administrative disaster at the end of the Smolensk campaign. The article analyzes both the Russian attitudes towards foreign military law and mercenary contracts and how this might have affected European mercenary units in Russian service.

Content Metrics

All Time Past 365 days Past 30 Days
Abstract Views 576 111 7
Full Text Views 16 4 2
PDF Views & Downloads 63 18 5