Problems of formation of the Kostroma militia during the Patriotic War of 1812

Abstract

The purpose of the work is to clarify and detail the data of historiographical research on the problems of recruitment and material support of the Kostroma militia as one of the militias of the III district. Among the sources, documents from the collections of the Russian State Military Historical Archive, the Russian State Historical Archive and the State Archive of the Kostroma Region are considered. The documentary data are compared with the texts of the works of K.A. Voensky, V.R. Apukhtin, N.N. Vinogradov and others. An important component of the information sources, which has not been updated to date in historiography, are the mechanisms of recruitment, staffing, calculation of financing and provision of fodder, as well as instructions on accepting money and military property, accepting donations, resolutions on uniforms and equipment of warriors, issues of armament and training of recruits, as well as supply of the Kostroma militia. The documents allow us to establish the course of the discussion about the figures of giving warriors from noble estates and mechanisms for overcoming contradictions. In addition, the archives contain information about the social and everyday problems of the inhabitants of the province in connection with the events of 1812-1814 and ways to solve them. Special attention is paid to the problem of the coincidence of the time of recruitment and recruitment into the militia in 1812-1813 among the burghers of the Kostroma province. The results obtained make it possible to clarify the chronology of the formation of the Kostroma province militia, to detail economic and financial indicators, such as: the size of donations, the burden on various estates when donating money and in kind, the size of salaries and one-time allowances for militia members.