Abtracts
'There is more than one way to serve the ruler': Exploring казённые, вольные, and партикулярные forces in the long Eighteenth Century
In the late eighteenth century, the Russian Empire began to recruit and employ privateers in its naval wars against the Ottoman Empire and Sweden. However, the legal relationship between these combatants and the Russian state remained unclear for decades after their first large-scale deployment. Were they simply foreigners in Russian service? Were they like other Russian irregular troops? How could the Russian Empire control and regulate their actions? This paper explored three kinds of labels attached to Russian naval auxiliaries: казённые (state), вольные (free), and партиулярные (individual or private). It discussed in detail a 'landmark case' in which the distinction between state and private naval forces was articulated in Russian law.
Catherine II’s two wars against the Ottoman Empire in 1768-1774 and 1787-1791 brought legal questions about naval auxiliaries to the forefront of the Admiralty. In both wars, the empire recruited numerous combatants from the Balkan peninsula and in the Aegean Sea archipelago. Russian commanders referred to these combatants in different terms – волантеры, албанцы, арнауты, греки – none of which presented a stable or specific category of service. The Russian state vaguely referenced the idea of privateers (каперы, корсары) but was uncertain which of its many different combatants fit the category. In 1794, the Russian Empire convened the first high Admiralty court for appeals to review petitions of merchants and privateers embroiled in the second Russian-Ottoman war (1787-1791). The Commission of Archipelago Affairs, as this Admiralty court was called, decided over 170 cases on the basis of Russian maritime law and its interpretation of the law of nations concerning commercial navigation and privateers. A year into its work, the Commission recognized the uncertain legal standing of many of these combatants in Russian law. As it quickly determined, the resolution of this legal dilemma hinged on the case of Lambros Katsonis. To resolve the many dozens of cases from aggrieved combatants and merchants, the Commission needed to rule on Katsonis’s standing. The Commission’s decisions for most of the cases on its docket rested on this one decision. Once decided, the outcome to the matter went on to define the distinction between Russian privateers and naval officers in Russian law – precedents that shaped Russian naval practices for the next fifty years.
The paper was divided into three sections. The first section situated privateers on the spectrum of other combatants in eighteenth-century Russia. By looking to service contracts, self-perception, international perception, and state determination of their standing through legislation and cases, this section explored the differences between the various kinds of combatants. The second section described the constitution and jurisdiction of the Commission of Archipelago Affairs that was established in 1794 and dissolved in 1798. Convened as a special Commission to address the numerous complaints and concerns that poured into the empire after the Russian-Ottoman War, this body combined judicial and administrative powers and reported directly to the Procurator General. Although the Commission made recommendations to the Procurator General and the monarch, who held the ultimate authority in deciding the cases, it showed a significant amount of independence and discretion in most decisions, including the central case of Lambros Katsonis. The third part of the paper then examined the details of the Katsonis case. Russia’s senior naval command and Katsonis presented diverging accounts of his standing in the Russian navy. Katsonis’s case in front of the Commission comprised several hundred pages of reports, testimony, receipts, and other evidence. The paper hones in on the central legal arguments and the evidence provided and considered by the Commission to distinguish a privateer (партикулярный корсар) from a naval officer (казённый). It concludes with the implications of this decision for the other cases in front of the Commission of Archipelago Affairs and for Russian maritime law in the nineteenth century.
- Julia Leikin, School of Slavonic and East European Studies (UCL)
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