Is it true that in the Russian Empire, illiterate soldiers were taught to distinguish between left and right with hay and straw?

According to the popular statement, the peasants were taught to basic things with the help of a very unusual technology called up in the imperial army. We checked whether there are reason to trust this story.

For no first decade, the belief has been widespread that during the recruitment of illiterate recruits into the regular Russian army, their commanders faced the problem: the recruits did not know what the right and left. The solution found helped to cope with the difficulty: a straw was tied to the soldier’s right leg, and the hay that he distinguished to the left. Thus, marching and performing the protozoa maneuvers allegedly became possible. In the vast majority of popular sources, this “invention” is associated with Peter I, in which a regular army appeared in Russia, or at least with one of the officers of that era. In this form, history can be found, for example, in public "VKontakte", V "Live magazine" Artemy Lebedev, in the collections of interesting facts about Peter I from publishers AST, "Komsomolskaya Pravda" And RIA "News". However, there are other versions - so, Vladimir Boyko in an article for the Russian Beyond portal attributes The authorship of this "invention" to the commander Alexander Suvorov.

The most famous source, which tells about the emergence of such a practice in the Russian army, is Alexei Tolstoy’s novel “Peter the First”. Like any artistic work, it is difficult to consider this text a reliable historical source, Soviet critics also noted this. So, Vladimir Shcherbina in his article about Tolstoy's novels He wrote: “A living feeling of a long -past era with its life and psychology could not be given only on the basis of historical documents. Here, in all the strength, the artist’s creative fantasy affected the patriotic feeling of his native country with all its truth, its language, legends, songs and fairy tales. ”

However, in the novel "Peter the First" There is Such a fragment:

"They caught up a half -rope of soldiers in brown awkward caftans, bunches of grass and straws were tied to all of them, they walked at the buginet. Sergeant - desperately: "Smirna!" Peter got out of a single -stick, took by the shoulders of one, another soldier, turned, felt clumsy cloth.
- Shit! - shouted, rolling his eyes to the opposed sergeant. - Who put the caftans?
- Mr. Bombardir, the caftans were issued on the Sukharev Swan.
- undress. - Peter grabbed the third - a kind, skinny soldier. But he seemed to suffocate in horror, looking into the bombarder's face with a round, with bristles of black antennae over him. The nearby comrades pulled out a gun from his hands, unbuttoned the band, pulled the caftan from his shoulders. Pyotr grabbed the caftan, threw it into a one -wheelbrack and, without adding a word, sat down, - drove towards Menshikov the palace.
A stripped soldier, trembling with all joints, fascinatedly looked at a single -wheelbarrow moving along a grassy road. The sergeant pushed him with a cane:
-Golikov, out of order, screaming back ... Smir-r-rna! (Having opened his mouth, he threw himself, yelled onto the entire field.) Leva’s leg - hay, right foot - straw. Remember science ... step, - hay - straw, hay - straw…"

Another author, who repeatedly mentioned this “invention” of the Peter's era, is Sergey Alekseev, who wrote many historical stories. As in the case of Tolstoy’s novel, these texts were not scientific research, and their author was an authoritative historian. However, Alekseev received an appropriate education - during the war years in a year and a half Graduated The historical faculty of the Orenburg Pedagogical Institute, but we were not able to find among his bibliography professional works. In the collection "One hundred Stories from Russian History" there is a story called "Hay, straw", however, what is happening differs from Tolstoy described:

"Once Peter was driving past the soldiers' barracks. Looks - the soldiers are built, they learn to walk. A young lieutenant goes next to the soldiers, gives commands. Peter listened: some unusual teams.
- Hay, straw! - shouts the lieutenant. - Hay, straw!
"What's happened?" - thought Peter. He stopped the horse, looked closely: something was imposed on the soldiers on the feet of the soldiers. The king saw: on the left leg, hay, on the right - straw.
The officer saw Peter, shouted:
- Smirno!
The soldiers froze. The lieutenant ran to the king, gave the report:
-Mr. Bombarder-captain, a company of lieutenant Vyazemsky is studying!
- Free! - Pyotr gave the command.
The king liked the lieutenant. Peter wanted to “hay, straw” to be angry, but now he changed his mind. Asks the lieutenant Vyazemsky:
- What are you imposing all sorts of rubbish on their feet?
“Not rubbish, bombardant captain,” the lieutenant replies.
- How so - not rubbish! - objects Peter. - You will disgrace a soldier. You don't know the charter.
And the lieutenant is all his own.
“Not at all,” he says. - This is to make the soldiers easier to study. Darkness, a bombardier-captain, cannot distinguish in any way where the left leg, where the right one. But hay with straw is not confused: rustic.
The king marveled at the fiction, grinned.
And soon Peter took the parade. The last company was the best.
- Who is the commander? - asked Peter from the general.
“Lieutenant Vyazemsky,” the general answered. ”

Subsequently, this story was reprinted in other collections of Alekseev, for example "Bird-Slav", "Historical Tales" And "A book for reading on the history of our Motherland from 1670 to 1945".

Although stories about Sen and Solome in the Russian Army are found in numerous publications on the Internet and works of art, we were not able to find its mention in professional historical texts. The only exception to find is the lecture of the military historian Boris Kipnis for the Arzamas project, in which a scientist speaks: “But to study, of course, must be a military affairs. Without this, everything is useless. Therefore, the famous Peter's “hay - straw” is very important that the soldiers distinguish: where is the right (hay), and where is the left (straw) - and knew how to turn. ” As we can see, in the version of the Cyphnis (if you understand his words literally), the authorship of the unusual methodology belongs directly to Peter I, and it was supposed to use it for rebuilding, and not for marching. Moreover, in the presentation of the historian, hay and straw are not consistent with the parties that in most retelling of this plot.

There is evidence that this equipment was used in Russia, but not in the army environment. Musician Vyacheslav Schurov in his book "Genres of Russian Musical Folklore" tells About the songs that accompanied the work of the Volga Burgla: “To make the sleepy one go in the leg, but not to lose time to stop, turn around and find the guilty, the artel stops singing a song that has already begun and delays the well -known chorus:“ Hay! Straw! Hay! Straw! ” The author refers to the report of the ethnographer Pavel Bolsin about the trip to the mouth of the Volga, which was published in 1852. We were not able to find out whether the “well -known chorus” was by borrowing from army culture or our own invention.

In the English -speaking scientific environment, the use of hay and straw in the Russian army is a relatively popular plot, but among not historians, but psychologists. In particular, about such training of illiterate soldiers tells Professor of University College London Chris McMenus in his book “Right Hand, Left Hand. The origin of asymmetry in the brains, bodies, atoms and cultures. ” The researcher refers to his colleague Wilm Frych and her work of 1968 "Left and law in science and life", and that, in turn, on the German medic Kurt Elsa. How did this specialist learn about an unusual innovation in the Russian army, we could not find out, but it is noteworthy that in the case of McMenus the statement, the statement appears in the text without relying on historical research.

In the context of neurophysiology and other sciences of human thinking, the story of hay and straw tells the author Sam Kin much more popular in Russia. This American writer working in the non-fiction genre, Published Five books, most of which became bestsellers and were translated into Russian. In one of them, “a duel of neurosurgeons. How the secrets of the brain were revealed and why the death of one king was able to turn science over ", There is Such a fragment: “In the 19th century, the Russian sergeants are so inscribed by illiterate peasants who do not know how to distinguish the left from the right, that they tied a bunch of hay to one leg and a bundle of straw to the other, and then commanded“ hay, straw, hay, straw! ”To teach them to walk in the leg.” As you can see, here we are no longer about the Petrine era - a kind of methodology was allegedly invented a century later. Note that among the sources to the chapter in which this statement is given, there are no works written by historians.

Unlike texts in Russian, evidence of how hay and straw were used to distinguish between the left and right legs are found in English -speaking historical works. For example, in 1951, Bruce Katton in the book "Army of Mr. Lincoln" ReportedThat such equipment was used to teach illiterate soldiers during the Civil War in the United States in the middle of the 19th century. Allegedly, the term “straw-foot) to designate the new recruiting even appeared. In 1922 Wilbur Fisk Krafts Conducted A similar story, but already about the war for the independence of the United States, which occurred almost a century earlier. Certificates of using this practice in Europe are also dated to the 19th century, but they are more justified: for example, they exist memories About how the English commanders trained Scottish recruits that do not speak English.

Thus, the story of hay and straw in the Russian army is given in numerous sources, but there are serious issues to the vast majority of them. In the texts in Russian, this plot is represented mainly in literary texts on historical topics, while professional historians (at least in any significant amount) do not cite it in their works. In English about hay and straw on the feet of Russian soldiers, psychologists and physiologists tell for the most part, without referring to history or military specialists. At the same time, several historians talk about the application of such technology in the USA and Great Britain, but we could not find evidence that it was borrowed from Russia. We repeat that this plot does not have a canonical presentation - depending on the text where it is given, both the historical era and the authorship of the “invention” are changing.

This is not for sure

What do our verdicts mean?

Read on the topic:

1. Facts: 16 most popular legends about Peter I
2. A. Tolstoy. Peter the First
3. Did Peter I publish a decree that a subordinate to the authorities should have the appearance of dashing and moron?