Martin Antonenko
A Fixture
- Joined
- Jul 11, 2008
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Pamfil Nasarow
An ordinary soldier in the Russian Army at the time of the Napoleonic Wars
On September 2, 1812 (all data according to our era!), Pamfil Nasarow, the 20-year-old serf peasant son, who belongs to the state, has to join the soldiers!
A bad time to become a soldier, because Napoleon's Grande Army is advancing inexorably in Russia - at the time of Nasarow's draft, Moscow is just falling.
Nasarow, like all of his fellow sufferers without exception, is illiterate, lives in the village of Filimonowo Korchewskij in the Tver province and previously worked on a state estate 170 kilometers northwest of Moscow.
Nasarow did not push himself into the soldier profession, but no other choice.
The local authorities do not name names when they are called up, only the respective families who have to provide a recruit.
(In the case of serfs belonging to private landlords, the landowner alone decides.)
Pamfil's two older brothers are married, one already has children (has to support a family), the other is weak, and his third - younger - brother is not yet 20 years old, the minimum age for a recruit.
So the choice is inevitable as Pamfil Nasarow!
We don't know what 20-year-old Nasarow looked like; no picture of him has survived. But he must have been what the Russians call a "Molodjets", a great guy.
Accompanied by his family members, Pamfil Nasarow moves to the recruitment office in the provincial capital Tver, where he is briefly examined by the governor. The medical examination consists of a quick look at his teeth and the question of whether he “feels healthy”.
Then his head is shaved - a preventive measure against the ubiquitous lice and desertion (a shaved head is easy to spot!). That is still the case in the Russian army today!
After all, he has to take the soldier's oath.
Now Nazarow is also legally obliged to do his 25 years of military service!
Still in his civilian clothes, Narasov and other recruits are set off on the march to his regiment in Saint Petersburg the next day - accompanied by a Cossack guard.
He is lucky and does not need to march the almost 500 kilometers, but is allowed to make the journey in a horse-drawn vehicle - it is war and it has to be fast.
When he arrived in Saint Petersburg, Nazarow was crammed into an overcrowded barracks with the other recruits and was given something like his first uniform:
Jacket and pants made of coarse gray drill fabric (called "Peasant Drill ") and bast shoes, calleed "Lapti"!
He learns to walk, he learns to stand, he learns to move in formation exactly in unison, he learns to use a musket, he learns the correct testimony - and he learns how to address superiors correctly:
"Your well-born" up to the captain ...,
"Your Highly Born" to majors and colonels ...,
... and "Your Excellency" for generals ...,
"Your Princely Highness" towards high officials ...
"Your High Excellency" to Marshals and ...
"Your Imperial Highness" to members of the tsarist family (the grand dukes).
And he learns how to answer every command correctly, namely with the formula:
"I am happy to make an effort, your well-born!" (Rady s’taratjissa, wash blagorodje ")
If a superior speaks to him without giving an order, Nazarow has the formula "I serve the Tsar and Russia!" to answer.
And he gets to know the brutal everyday life of the soldiers, the "Dedowschtschina", the "rule of grandfathers", in which older soldiers mercilessly exploit and harass the young recruits ...:
The fall into the strange and brutal world of the barracks makes Nasarow sick for the first time - he lies in a fever for two weeks.
During this time, “comrades” stole all of his belongings, his civilian clothes and his little money.
He has just recovered and refuses his NCO's order to work privately for him in his free time and is beaten up, with the NCO breaking his nose with a punch.
He is not allowed to defend himself, because a physical attack on a superior inevitably means: court martial!
When he messed up his first practice shooting with the musket (he had to shoot with imprecisely hitting clay balls...
... because lead is far too valuable, too expensive and reserved for the fighting troops!) He received 30 strokes of the stick!
But then Nasarow has luck!
Grandduke Konstantin
... the tsar's brother, inspects the new recruits in order to select well-grown people for the guard - the guard always has the first right of access to the new ones.
For the most distinguished guard unit, the “Preobrazhensky” regiment, Nasarow is too small with his height of 1.60 m, but his good stature means that he is assigned to the “Finliandskij Gwardejskij Okhotnichij Polk” (the Finnish Guard Yaeger Regiment).
The "Finliandskij" regiment urgently needs fresh soldiers, as it suffered the heaviest losses (over 60 percent!) during the Battle of Borodino!
Here is the regimental badge of the "Finns" ...:
The chance of survival with a guard unit is, however, far greater than with a line regiment, since the guards are usually kept in reserve and are only used in extreme emergencies.
In addition, the equipment is of higher quality and the pay is higher.
Guardsmen receive the pay of the next higher batch of a line regiment, the simple guard soldier Nazarow is paid like the corporal of a line regiment ...
Nazarow now "earns" 6 rubles and 50 kopecks, plus an allowance of 12 kopecks "for salt" - per year!
One ruble is the equivalent of 5 pounds of beef or 10 kilograms of butter - as I said per year!
And this monetary value is highly theoretical, because due to the "scorched earth" warfare of the Russians in 1812, food is scarce and very expensive!
At that time, the Russian soldier lived mainly on “Kascha”, a millet porridge, cabbage soup, “Katuschki” (potatoes) and a poor and poorly nutritious black bread, which is all too often stretched with meal and sand.
He's supposed to get meat on Sundays too, but that's more of a theory in times of war!
There is water and bitter tea to drink, which can only be obtained sweetened.
Almost every soldier has a lump of sugar in his knapsack, from which he chops off a piece with the saber and clamps it between his teeth, through which the tea is then sipped - which was still common in World War II ...
The soldier gets almost no alcohol at all, except on high holidays (little) and before attacks (then a little more).
So soldiers in the field are constantly on the lookout for alcohol, which is also used as a substitute currency!
A Russian soldier has to buy fresh food himself, such as fruit and of course salt, hence the “salt” allowance ...
Officers eat incomparably much better - and, in addition to their much higher pay, receive a “table allowance” with which they can buy good food.
Nazarow will also be redesigned and given his equipment ...
... and weapons: a Tula rifle with a rifled barrel ...
… und sein Bajonett…:
As far as the soldiers' boot shoes are concerned, the unimaginable normality today was that there was neither “right” nor “left” but only one uniform boot. The boots were changed weekly from right to left, which the NCO had to strictly control!
In this way, rapid wear and tear on the footwear should be prevented by wearing the heels evenly.
These boots are generally made a few sizes too big so that they can be stuffed with straw to keep out the cold in winter ...
Try to march with it ...!
After all, the guard has boots with leather soles - which is not necessarily the case with the line regiments. Soles made of cardboard (or no boots at all) are by no means uncommon due to a lack of material (or because the supply officer withholds funds!)!
On March 1, 1813, the recruits, who had meanwhile been fully trained, were put on the march to join the fighting troops.
A total of 37,000 men are marching under General Dmitrij Lobanow-Rostowskij ...
... from Saint Petersburg to Warsaw - the marching conditions are extremely tough.
When the replacement troops reached Warsaw, 2,350 soldiers died en route and a further 9,593 had to be left behind as no longer fit for marching - almost a third of the population!
Nasarow joins his regiment - to which he will belong for the entire length of his military service, because there are no transfers to other regiments!
Endless marches follow - and then Nazarov's "baptism of fire":
At Teplitz (as part of the Battle of Kulm) the "Finliandskij" regiment had to retreat on August 27, 1913 after bitter fighting against General Vandammes' 50,000 French.
When the exhausted troop felt safe and bivouacked in the pouring rain the next morning, they were unexpectedly attacked by French vanguard around 8:00 a.m. - and had to flee again.
The freshly cooked “Kascha” millet porridge, the main food of Russian soldiers, must be left uneaten.
Many items of equipment - especially boots that were hung to dry over the bivouac fires - are also lost.
On the retreat, the regiment happened to meet the Russian commander-in-chief, Marshal Barclay de Tolly ...
... who is accompanied by Tsar Aleksandr I ...:
Pamfil Nararow recalls the encounter with the ruler:
“When he saw how sad the regiment was, the tsar began to cry, took out a white handkerchief and wiped his cheeks with it. When I saw that, I also had to cry. "
Near Leipzig, on October 16, 1813, Nazarov's unit had the next bloody encounter with the French. The "Finliansker" received orders to storm the village of Gossa southeast of Leipzig.
Already at the beginning of the assault, Nasarow was hit by a musket ball in the leg above his right knee, and further bullets pierced his clothing.
Somehow he manages to drag himself the two kilometers back to the main dressing station and finally finds a doctor who only bandages his wound superficially.
Pamfil Nazarow spends the night in the rain by a bivouac fire. His only food that day is two pickled cucumbers that a compassionate soldier gives him.
Nasarow loses a lot of blood during the night, finally manages to put on a new bandage himself out of rags, uses his rifle as a crutch and laboriously hobbles further into the hinterland.
He's been on the road for several days, his leg swells up more and more, until he finally finds a car to ride with.
And he's lucky!
On October 28, 1813, the coachman delivered him to the Saxon town of Plauen ...:
The completely overcrowded field hospital turns him away, which is why he is finally given care by a German private doctor.
The Plauen doctor managed to save his burned leg, but the military doctors would probably have simply amputated!
Nasarow spends several months with this German doctor in Plauen - he can only report back to his regiment in January 1814!
In the summer of 1814 he entered Paris victoriously with his regiment and was allowed to take part in the victory parade.
For all his troops who fought victoriously in the field, the tsar made an extra bonus of 40 rubles for every simple soldier!
The French have to pay ...
Finally it goes back to Russia and Pamfil Nazarow is one of the very few of those who moved in in autumn 1812 who sees his homeland alive again!
After a total of 23 years with the Guard, Nazarow will be released with honor - during this time he will be given home leave exactly three times!
How do we know all this?
Pamfil Nazarow became a monk after the end of his service, took the name Mitrofan and entered a monastery.
There he learned to read and write - and wrote down his memories.
He had little time for it, as he died in 1839 - at the age of only 47.
Pamfil Nazarov is one of just two ordinary Russian soldiers who left written memories of the time of the Napoleonic Wars.
I am very grateful to him for that, because otherwise I would not have been able to tell you this story ...
Of course, Nazarow left out a lot that everyone knew in his day, which is why I used seven other sources for this story (about armament, food, equipment, marching conditions, wages, etc.) in order to make today's story as clear as possible.
There is a lot of talk about battles and commanders, especially at that time - I wanted to counter the miserable conditions under which ordinary Russian soldiers had to live and fight ...
An ordinary soldier in the Russian Army at the time of the Napoleonic Wars
On September 2, 1812 (all data according to our era!), Pamfil Nasarow, the 20-year-old serf peasant son, who belongs to the state, has to join the soldiers!
A bad time to become a soldier, because Napoleon's Grande Army is advancing inexorably in Russia - at the time of Nasarow's draft, Moscow is just falling.
Nasarow, like all of his fellow sufferers without exception, is illiterate, lives in the village of Filimonowo Korchewskij in the Tver province and previously worked on a state estate 170 kilometers northwest of Moscow.

Nasarow did not push himself into the soldier profession, but no other choice.
The local authorities do not name names when they are called up, only the respective families who have to provide a recruit.
(In the case of serfs belonging to private landlords, the landowner alone decides.)
Pamfil's two older brothers are married, one already has children (has to support a family), the other is weak, and his third - younger - brother is not yet 20 years old, the minimum age for a recruit.
So the choice is inevitable as Pamfil Nasarow!

We don't know what 20-year-old Nasarow looked like; no picture of him has survived. But he must have been what the Russians call a "Molodjets", a great guy.
Accompanied by his family members, Pamfil Nasarow moves to the recruitment office in the provincial capital Tver, where he is briefly examined by the governor. The medical examination consists of a quick look at his teeth and the question of whether he “feels healthy”.
Then his head is shaved - a preventive measure against the ubiquitous lice and desertion (a shaved head is easy to spot!). That is still the case in the Russian army today!
After all, he has to take the soldier's oath.
Now Nazarow is also legally obliged to do his 25 years of military service!
Still in his civilian clothes, Narasov and other recruits are set off on the march to his regiment in Saint Petersburg the next day - accompanied by a Cossack guard.
He is lucky and does not need to march the almost 500 kilometers, but is allowed to make the journey in a horse-drawn vehicle - it is war and it has to be fast.
When he arrived in Saint Petersburg, Nazarow was crammed into an overcrowded barracks with the other recruits and was given something like his first uniform:
Jacket and pants made of coarse gray drill fabric (called "Peasant Drill ") and bast shoes, calleed "Lapti"!

He learns to walk, he learns to stand, he learns to move in formation exactly in unison, he learns to use a musket, he learns the correct testimony - and he learns how to address superiors correctly:
"Your well-born" up to the captain ...,
"Your Highly Born" to majors and colonels ...,
... and "Your Excellency" for generals ...,
"Your Princely Highness" towards high officials ...
"Your High Excellency" to Marshals and ...
"Your Imperial Highness" to members of the tsarist family (the grand dukes).
And he learns how to answer every command correctly, namely with the formula:
"I am happy to make an effort, your well-born!" (Rady s’taratjissa, wash blagorodje ")
If a superior speaks to him without giving an order, Nazarow has the formula "I serve the Tsar and Russia!" to answer.
And he gets to know the brutal everyday life of the soldiers, the "Dedowschtschina", the "rule of grandfathers", in which older soldiers mercilessly exploit and harass the young recruits ...:
The fall into the strange and brutal world of the barracks makes Nasarow sick for the first time - he lies in a fever for two weeks.
During this time, “comrades” stole all of his belongings, his civilian clothes and his little money.
He has just recovered and refuses his NCO's order to work privately for him in his free time and is beaten up, with the NCO breaking his nose with a punch.
He is not allowed to defend himself, because a physical attack on a superior inevitably means: court martial!
When he messed up his first practice shooting with the musket (he had to shoot with imprecisely hitting clay balls...
... because lead is far too valuable, too expensive and reserved for the fighting troops!) He received 30 strokes of the stick!
But then Nasarow has luck!
Grandduke Konstantin

... the tsar's brother, inspects the new recruits in order to select well-grown people for the guard - the guard always has the first right of access to the new ones.
For the most distinguished guard unit, the “Preobrazhensky” regiment, Nasarow is too small with his height of 1.60 m, but his good stature means that he is assigned to the “Finliandskij Gwardejskij Okhotnichij Polk” (the Finnish Guard Yaeger Regiment).

The "Finliandskij" regiment urgently needs fresh soldiers, as it suffered the heaviest losses (over 60 percent!) during the Battle of Borodino!
Here is the regimental badge of the "Finns" ...:

The chance of survival with a guard unit is, however, far greater than with a line regiment, since the guards are usually kept in reserve and are only used in extreme emergencies.
In addition, the equipment is of higher quality and the pay is higher.
Guardsmen receive the pay of the next higher batch of a line regiment, the simple guard soldier Nazarow is paid like the corporal of a line regiment ...
Nazarow now "earns" 6 rubles and 50 kopecks, plus an allowance of 12 kopecks "for salt" - per year!
One ruble is the equivalent of 5 pounds of beef or 10 kilograms of butter - as I said per year!
And this monetary value is highly theoretical, because due to the "scorched earth" warfare of the Russians in 1812, food is scarce and very expensive!
At that time, the Russian soldier lived mainly on “Kascha”, a millet porridge, cabbage soup, “Katuschki” (potatoes) and a poor and poorly nutritious black bread, which is all too often stretched with meal and sand.
He's supposed to get meat on Sundays too, but that's more of a theory in times of war!
There is water and bitter tea to drink, which can only be obtained sweetened.
Almost every soldier has a lump of sugar in his knapsack, from which he chops off a piece with the saber and clamps it between his teeth, through which the tea is then sipped - which was still common in World War II ...
The soldier gets almost no alcohol at all, except on high holidays (little) and before attacks (then a little more).
So soldiers in the field are constantly on the lookout for alcohol, which is also used as a substitute currency!
A Russian soldier has to buy fresh food himself, such as fruit and of course salt, hence the “salt” allowance ...
Officers eat incomparably much better - and, in addition to their much higher pay, receive a “table allowance” with which they can buy good food.
Nazarow will also be redesigned and given his equipment ...

... and weapons: a Tula rifle with a rifled barrel ...

… und sein Bajonett…:

As far as the soldiers' boot shoes are concerned, the unimaginable normality today was that there was neither “right” nor “left” but only one uniform boot. The boots were changed weekly from right to left, which the NCO had to strictly control!
In this way, rapid wear and tear on the footwear should be prevented by wearing the heels evenly.


These boots are generally made a few sizes too big so that they can be stuffed with straw to keep out the cold in winter ...
Try to march with it ...!
After all, the guard has boots with leather soles - which is not necessarily the case with the line regiments. Soles made of cardboard (or no boots at all) are by no means uncommon due to a lack of material (or because the supply officer withholds funds!)!
On March 1, 1813, the recruits, who had meanwhile been fully trained, were put on the march to join the fighting troops.
A total of 37,000 men are marching under General Dmitrij Lobanow-Rostowskij ...

... from Saint Petersburg to Warsaw - the marching conditions are extremely tough.
When the replacement troops reached Warsaw, 2,350 soldiers died en route and a further 9,593 had to be left behind as no longer fit for marching - almost a third of the population!
Nasarow joins his regiment - to which he will belong for the entire length of his military service, because there are no transfers to other regiments!
Endless marches follow - and then Nazarov's "baptism of fire":
At Teplitz (as part of the Battle of Kulm) the "Finliandskij" regiment had to retreat on August 27, 1913 after bitter fighting against General Vandammes' 50,000 French.

When the exhausted troop felt safe and bivouacked in the pouring rain the next morning, they were unexpectedly attacked by French vanguard around 8:00 a.m. - and had to flee again.
The freshly cooked “Kascha” millet porridge, the main food of Russian soldiers, must be left uneaten.
Many items of equipment - especially boots that were hung to dry over the bivouac fires - are also lost.
On the retreat, the regiment happened to meet the Russian commander-in-chief, Marshal Barclay de Tolly ...

... who is accompanied by Tsar Aleksandr I ...:

Pamfil Nararow recalls the encounter with the ruler:
“When he saw how sad the regiment was, the tsar began to cry, took out a white handkerchief and wiped his cheeks with it. When I saw that, I also had to cry. "
Near Leipzig, on October 16, 1813, Nazarov's unit had the next bloody encounter with the French. The "Finliansker" received orders to storm the village of Gossa southeast of Leipzig.

Already at the beginning of the assault, Nasarow was hit by a musket ball in the leg above his right knee, and further bullets pierced his clothing.

Somehow he manages to drag himself the two kilometers back to the main dressing station and finally finds a doctor who only bandages his wound superficially.
Pamfil Nazarow spends the night in the rain by a bivouac fire. His only food that day is two pickled cucumbers that a compassionate soldier gives him.
Nasarow loses a lot of blood during the night, finally manages to put on a new bandage himself out of rags, uses his rifle as a crutch and laboriously hobbles further into the hinterland.
He's been on the road for several days, his leg swells up more and more, until he finally finds a car to ride with.
And he's lucky!
On October 28, 1813, the coachman delivered him to the Saxon town of Plauen ...:

The completely overcrowded field hospital turns him away, which is why he is finally given care by a German private doctor.
The Plauen doctor managed to save his burned leg, but the military doctors would probably have simply amputated!
Nasarow spends several months with this German doctor in Plauen - he can only report back to his regiment in January 1814!
In the summer of 1814 he entered Paris victoriously with his regiment and was allowed to take part in the victory parade.

For all his troops who fought victoriously in the field, the tsar made an extra bonus of 40 rubles for every simple soldier!
The French have to pay ...
Finally it goes back to Russia and Pamfil Nazarow is one of the very few of those who moved in in autumn 1812 who sees his homeland alive again!
After a total of 23 years with the Guard, Nazarow will be released with honor - during this time he will be given home leave exactly three times!
How do we know all this?
Pamfil Nazarow became a monk after the end of his service, took the name Mitrofan and entered a monastery.
There he learned to read and write - and wrote down his memories.
He had little time for it, as he died in 1839 - at the age of only 47.
Pamfil Nazarov is one of just two ordinary Russian soldiers who left written memories of the time of the Napoleonic Wars.
I am very grateful to him for that, because otherwise I would not have been able to tell you this story ...
Of course, Nazarow left out a lot that everyone knew in his day, which is why I used seven other sources for this story (about armament, food, equipment, marching conditions, wages, etc.) in order to make today's story as clear as possible.
There is a lot of talk about battles and commanders, especially at that time - I wanted to counter the miserable conditions under which ordinary Russian soldiers had to live and fight ...