History of Russian military ranks

Modern Russian military ranks trace their roots to Table of Ranks established by Peter the Great. Most of the rank names were borrowed from existing German/Prussian, French, English, Dutch, and Polish ranks upon the formation of Russian regular army in the late 17th century.

The Kievan Rus had no standing army apart from small druzhina (дружи́на), a permanent group of personal guards for the local ruler (knyaz, prince); an individual member of such a unit called a druzhinnik (дружи́нник). In case of emergency, knyaz raised a militia comprising volunteers from the peasantry, and the druzhina served as the core of the troops. Each local knyaz served as the military leader of his troops. Such arrangements had no need for permanent ranks or positions; they were created ad hoc, based on the task(s) in hand.

Upon the formation of Strelets troops in the mid-16th century, the low-level commanding officers were appointed to one of the following ranks:

These were not personal ranks and were retained only as long as the officer held the position. For battles, knyaz organized his troops into temporary high-level units, usually a polk (полк, Old Slavonic for group of troops), a regiment commanded by a golova (голова́, head) or voyevoda (воево́да, war leader); these commanding positions were not permanent and did not persist after the battle. The cossack cavalry units had their own ranks of Kazak (коза́к), yesaul (есау́л) and ataman (атама́н); they were not comparable to the strelets ranks.

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