The Russian imperial army was created by Peter I. First, the army was formed by a set of recruits, including the compulsory service of nobles, and then from 1874 universal conscription was introduced. The main source of replenishment of the officer cadre of the Russian army was the numerous cadet schools and military schools. In 1848, a goal was formulated that all military schools were obliged to follow when teaching pupils: “Christian, loyal, good son, reliable comrade, modest and educated youth, executive, patient and efficient officer - these are the qualities with which a pupil of these institutions must move from school to the ranks of the Imperial Army with a pure desire to repay the Emperor and Russia with honest service, honest life and honest death."
According to statistics, in 1913, 43% of the students in the capital's military schools were children of nobles. Graduates of these schools supplemented the staff of cadets in the Russian army (cadet is an intermediate military rank between non-commissioned officer and chief officer). Only those cadets who had high academic performance came to enter the capital's schools. Those who entered the military school were required to sign a document obliging him not to join any political party and not to marry until the completion of his studies.
The school day in military schools was scheduled for minutes. Getting up at 6 o'clock in the morning, in a few minutes it was necessary to make a bed, wash, get dressed and go out for a morning examination. Then - prayer and breakfast. Classes in class until 12 noon, followed by lunch and drill training until 5 pm. 3 hours were allocated for rest and self-preparation. From 8 to 10 pm, the pupils had free time. At will, some of the cadets participated in the rehearsal of the orchestra or sang in the church choir, practiced in the gym, wrote letters, and walked. The schools had well-equipped reading rooms. The teachers in every possible way encouraged the cadets to read, since an extensive program in Russian literature was being implemented at the school. Graduates were required to be able to clearly and correctly express their thoughts. Pupils studied the works of Tolstoy, Pushkin, Lermontov,Turgenev, Byron, Gogol, Shakespeare, Goethe. Each graduate had to speak two foreign languages. The program also included training in horse riding, gymnastics, fencing and, of course, dancing.
The cadet exams were taken twice a year: before Christmas and in the spring.
On Sunday, Saturday, and Wednesday, students could get laid off to the city. Pupils of military schools attended opera, theater and, of course, balls. The balls held at the Mikhailovsky Artillery School (St. Petersburg) were especially famous: “They prepared for the cadet's ball in advance: the designs of the decorations were grandiose, and the electrical engineers and artists had their own. On the day of the ball, all the rooms were open and decorated. The center of the hall - without any columns with stucco walls and ceilings, was simply charming in the light of many chandeliers. It was possible to make a huge circle from it along wide corridors with open classrooms, in which cozy living rooms, grottoes, refreshments with soft drinks were arranged everywhere."
One of the remarkable events of the year for the St. Petersburg junkers was their participation in the parade of the guard troops, which took place on the square next to the Winter Palace.
After the spring exams, the cadets went to summer camps. The pupils were accommodated in clean and tidy barracks, on the territory of the camp there was a shop where every cadet could buy everything he needed, as well as cozy living rooms for recreation, sports grounds and baths. After arriving from the camps, graduation parties began, the cadets said goodbye to their friends:
Lord Junker! We are almost officers
Promotional video:
Noble blood flows in our veins, Let's swear now: our soul and heart, We will invest in our son love for Russia!
None of these guys, who swore an oath to defend Russia, even at the cost of their lives, knew that from October 1917 they would have to fight on the fronts of the Civil War and their whole subsequent life would turn upside down in a way that none of them could have imagined.
Young officers, cadets and cadets, brought up on the principles of service to the Tsar and the Fatherland, treated the revolution as a great misfortune for their country. They considered the red flag of the revolution a rag symbolizing rebellion, violence and betrayal of the Fatherland.
And the new government sought to radically change the order and life of military institutions. In the very first days, the new managers changed the name of the cadet corps to "military school gymnasium", shoulder straps were canceled, and "pedagogical committees" began to exercise control over the work of gymnasiums. Educational officers, company commanders and directors were subordinated to soldiers and commissars, whose main duty was to destroy any "counter-revolutionary actions". Gradually, the officer-educators were replaced by civilian teachers, who were called "class tutors." The cadets were outraged by such innovations and began to leave the corps en masse. Many of them did not hesitate to join the ranks of the White Army, which fought the Bolsheviks.
The first to oppose the Reds in 1917 were the students of the Aleksandrovsk Military School and the cadets of the Moscow corps. For three days the cadets kept Moscow from being captured by the Bolsheviks, and one of the companies of the school did not stop fighting even after the city was captured by the Red Army and was completely destroyed by the Reds. Junkers from other Moscow schools came out against the Bolsheviks. They fought for two weeks with the superior forces of the Bolsheviks, proving in practice their skills and displaying unprecedented heroism.
In Petrograd, the cadets and cadets of all military educational institutions took up arms. The pupils of the Nikolaev Engineering School suffered especially. In Petrograd, soldiers of the Finnish regiment attacked the Naval Cadet Corps. The director of the Marine Corps ordered the distribution of weapons to senior cadets and midshipmen. The young guys put up serious resistance to the armed soldiers. To save the pupils, the corps director went to negotiate with the attackers, offering them a number of rifles in exchange for refusing to storm the building. But during the negotiations, he was attacked, stunned and taken to the building of the State Duma. His deputy, who remained in the building of the Naval Corps, gave the order to dismiss the midshipmen and cadets to their homes.
When the Voronezh Cadet Corps read out the manifesto on the abdication of the Sovereign Emperor, all the cadets burst into tears. Then they tore down the red flag posted by the scribes and played the national anthem, picked up by the voices of all the cadets in the corps. The Red Guard was called to the corps. The director, Major General Belogorsky, saved the cadets from reprisals.
In the early days of the Bolsheviks' coming to power, cadet corps were defeated in all Volga cities: Nizhegorodsky, Simbirsky, Yaroslavsky. The Red Guards caught cadets on the streets of cities, at railway stations, on steamers, in carriages, maimed and beat them, threw them into the water and threw them out of the train cars on the move. Those of the cadets who were fortunate enough to go through this hell, arrived in Orenburg and joined the local corps, subsequently sharing their fate.
The Pskov Cadet Corps, transferred to Kazan, joined the local cadets and fought with them against the Reds. In 1918, the Pskovites went to Irkutsk with weapons in their hands, where they continued their struggle against the Bolsheviks.
The company of the Orenburg Neplyuevsky corps in December 1917 joined the detachment of the Cossacks of Ataman Dutov and participated in the battles with the Reds near Karaganda and Kargada, suffering heavy losses. The surviving cadets formed the command of the Vityaz armored train. By the way, the teams of the armored trains "Russia" and "Glory of the officer" also consisted of cadets and cadets.
The cadets of the Odessa Infantry School fought off the Red Guards who surrounded the school for several days. Then, by order of the director, they left the building in single order and in small groups to make their way to the Don and join the ranks of the Volunteer Army.
In October 1917, pupils of the Kiev Infantry School named after Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich entered into battle with the Bolsheviks. Junkers fought on the streets of the city and suffered heavy losses. Having seized the train, they went to the Kuban. Later they became participants in the famous Ice campaign and took part in the capture of Yekaterinodar.
The civil war covered vast areas of Russia. In this struggle, the Russian cadets and cadets proved that they are capable of fighting for their Motherland. They suffered enormous losses in killed, wounded, maimed and tortured. These children and youths fought on equal terms with adults. So the volunteer detachments that fought with the Reds at Taganrog and Rostov were mainly formed from cadets and cadets. The youths were in the forefront and were the first to die. General Alekseev spoke about them: “I see a monument that Russia will erect to these children, and this monument should represent an eagle's nest and the eagles killed in it…”. The cadets of all Russian corps covered themselves with glory and honor, fighting shoulder to shoulder with the cadet brothers. An Englishman who visited southern Russia during the Civil War wrote: “in the history of the world he knows nothing more remarkable,than the volunteer children of the White movement. To all the fathers and mothers who gave their children for the Motherland, he must say that their children brought the holy of spirit to the battlefield and lay down for Russia in the purity of youth. And if people did not appreciate their sacrifices and did not erect a worthy monument to them, then God saw their sacrifice and accepted their souls into His Paradise abode …"
The fate of the cadets who fought in the ranks of the white armies was sad and difficult. Part of the Odessa and Kiev corps, which did not manage to sail from Odessa on a steamer on January 25, 1920, fought their way into Romania. After the defeat of the White Army in Siberia, the Khabarovsk corps was evacuated to Vladivostok, and then to Shanghai. The Siberian Emperor Alexander I corps came through China to Yugoslavia. After the defeat at Novocherkassk, the Don corps moved south and was evacuated first to Egypt, then to Yugoslavia. The Crimean Cadet Corps also came here. All three cadet corps were united into one under the name - First Russian V. K. Konstantin Konstantinovich Cadet Corps. This is a military establishment, the patronage of which was assumed by the King of Yugoslavia Alexander I,lasted until the arrival of the Red Army in Yugoslavia during World War II.
The Naval Cadet Corps, after being evacuated from the Crimea, settled in Bizerte (Tunisia) where for several years he continued the training of midshipmen and cadets to enable them to complete the course.
Several Russian military schools: the Sergievsky artillery school, the Engineering and Nikolaevsky artillery school, the Alekseevsky infantry school, settled in Bulgaria and for several years trained students according to the previous programs.
The ruler of Manchuria opened a Russian military school on his territory, which graduated officers to fight in the ranks of his army with the Reds. The school worked on two-year programs and was taught by Russian officers. All cadets who graduated from this school received the rank of second lieutenant in the Russian army.
From 1930 to 1964, the Russian Cadet Corps-Lyceum named after Emperor Nicholas II (Versailles Cadet Corps) existed in France. He was financially supported by Lady L. P. Deterling, and its first director was General Rimsky-Korsakov.
During the existence of Russian military institutions on the territory of foreign states, it became clear to many how love for the Motherland, self-sacrifice and heroism in defending the Motherland was formed and brought up in the young generation.