old Russian Army insignia - please, correct the mistakes

[Eugen Pinak]

Hello all,

I've tried to post it on European AF forum, but to no result, so I post it here. Please, correct the mistakes - they spoil your great site!

I am very glad to see that you started all this historical insignia pages, especially Russia, as usually there are a lot of mistakes in their insignia descriptions.

However, I am also very disappointed that you don’t bother to show the sources for your pages – even if you take the pictures directly from their web-pages. Why Russians are worse than Poles? :)

And one more thing before I go to insignia proper – the flags. For some unknown reasons instead of showing country flags for Austro-Hungary and Russian Empires you’ve shown _royal_ flags, and Russian one must be black/orange/white – for most of the period covered country flags were old Austrian and Hungarian combined for the former and white/blue/red (as modern) for the latter.

Now to the Russian insignia. As I’m not that good in this business – for _real_ knowledge you should ask Andrew Rukkas, author of this page http://users.univ.kiev.ua/~rao/
A) The page – ARMY:
1. Rank stripes can’t cover Royal ciphers or crowns.
2. You don’t tell that three different names of rank come for infantry, artillery and cavalry.
3. You don’t tell who’s shoulder strap shown actually is – some may think, for example, that artillery can wear red or blue straps.
4. Cadets in Russian army were the boys from Cadet Corps – the ranks you call Cadets were actually Warrant officers and Cadet Officers – Acting 3rd Lieutenants (their position was much closer to officer, than to WO). They may perform officer or NCO duties – in the latter case they had respective rank stripes.
5. Cadet Officer - Master Sergeant is, in fact, siply Cadet - Master Sergeant, as you painted over his rank star :)
6. “Praporshchik” never was “Warrant Officer”. He was always a commissioned rank, so “3rd Lieutenant” would be more correct.
7. Staff Captain, IMHO, rather Captain-Lieutenant. And in any way Russian “Stabs” is not translated as “Staff”.
8. Hussar officers wore the same shoulder straps as other officers, but with different lace. The cord you show is for dress uniform only.
9. Lieutenant Colonel (Guards) is, in fact, naval rank (Guard naval depot).
10. Colonel (aide-de-camp) is not ADC per se, but officer of HM Suite.
11. General (aide-de-camp) and General shoulder straps are to be changed between each other.
12. Firs of all, Field Marshal not necessary had Royal cipher on the straps. And, IIRC, Field Marshal buttons were placed between letter and crown.
13. And at the end about the Ranks in Guard troops. They were one grade higher, but _only_ for junior officers (Acting 3rd Lieutenant to Captain). But as there were no LtCol rank, all colonels, both Army and Guard, were equal. Note, that there were no “Generals of the Guard”.

B) Shoulder straps with majesty shiefs monograms:
1. Riflers - 15. rifle His Majesty King of Montenegro Nikola I regiment – no krown.

C) Cadets:
1. All abbreviations must have dot after each abbreviated word – exs. not CmK, but Cm.K.
2. Crown on left strap top row – incorrect.
3. No numerals on cipher on right strap second row from the top.
4. Left strap third row from the top - cipher is incorrect.
5. Second left strap fourth row from the top – there must be gap between number and letters.
6. Two middle straps fifth row from the top – cipher is incorrect (Peter I instead of Nicolas I).
7. Second left strap sixth row from the top – cipher is incorrect (Peter I instead of Nicolas II).
8. And as for the last seven straps – they have absolutely no relation to Russian Empire, as this are modern Cadet Corps.

Best regards,
Eugen Pinak

[Miklós Lovász]

And one more thing before I go to insignia proper – the flags. For some unknown reasons instead of showing country flags for Austro-Hungary and Russian Empires you’ve shown _royal_ flags, and Russian one must be black/orange/white – for most of the period covered country flags were old Austrian and Hungarian combined for the former and white/blue/red (as modern) for the latter.
Best regards,
Eugen Pinak

Dear Eugen, Hungarian flags almost never contained blue! They were always red-white in stripes (the earliest ones), red with various seals, white whith various seals and, the last one, red-white-GREEN! Red-white-blue was always used by Slavic people, the French since the Revolution, the Brits, Americans and Dutch (and probably a small million of other people, but never Hungarians!)
As to your point, you're more or less correct, the flag you described was instated only in 1869, according to some sources (though I remember a later date)

More historical Hungarian flags at:
http://www.geocities.com/zaszlok/hazateres/tortenel.html

[Zdzislaw Rudzki]

Dear Eugen

Just few points.....

1. Indication of the source. The credits given on Polish historical pages are there because those pages were prepared by me. As I can see Pavel does not mention sources of information. To avoid copyright problems he tries to put only the graphics made by one of the editors. But the source of information is also important especially with some exotic or historical insignia. Just to verify their authencity.
2. The Imperial Russian "pagoni" is a very complicated subject. The same applies to Soviet insignia. To present everything properly there should be a lot of pages of every period, or the text description of the rules. Even today's Russia has different shapes of the shoulder straps for different uniform items. In the early days it was much more complicated. I hope that our friend Valery who is doing the website with Russian/Soviet civil services uniforms will also do this for military .....
His website is in Russian but we have his permit to use the graphical material here.

What more can I say - we will try to fix all mistakes, but it needs time. And as the website is run as a hobby - all changes can be done in our free time. We both (Pavel and I) have a lot of other things to do .......

[Eugen Pinak]

Hello all,

To Zdzislaw:
First of all, thank you for your work - I don't even know that this is not full-time project. In any way I'm glad to help - after all, each mistake corrected makes you site better.

As for your points:

1. - I understand.

2. - I don't think so. There were just 2 types of straps on Russian military uniform (not taking dress uniform into account) - broad for officers/soldiers (design generaly unchanged from 1855) and narrow for officials and 3-4 types of straps on Russian civil uniform - though one type was the same as for military officials.

BTW, here: http://www.genstab.ru/shenk_cover.htm you can find book about 1910 Russian Army uniforms, including soulder straps. Almost no text - only pictures.

To Miklós: Sorry if I was not clear enough - I meant white/blue/red _Russian_ flag.

Best regards,
Eugen Pinak

[Zdzislaw Rudzki]

Thanks very much for the link to "genstab-ru" . Very interesting materials on hat site. Also the texts ;)

[Eugen Pinak]

Zdzislaw, you are welcome!

BTW, here is another article about shoulder straps here - http://armor.kiev.ua/army/forma/pogon_1.shtml
Much more words, but if you like, I can help with the translation.

[Zdzislaw Rudzki]

Thanks.
No problem with translation. I've been learning Russian for many years in the school. Remember that I live in Poland and during the People's Republic learning Russian was obligatory since the 5th class in primary school ;)

BTW. Do you know the website civil-uniform.narod.ru ? It's very interesting.

[Eugen Pinak]

No problem with translation. I've been learning Russian for many years in the school. Remember that I live in Poland and during the People's Republic learning Russian was obligatory since the 5th class in primary school

Sorry, I've forgot it - and this is after all my visits to Warsaw :(
Though with young Poles I found it much easier to communicate in English.

Thank you for the website - I've never seen it. Good site about rarely known subject (at least there is a good book about Imperial Russian Civil Uniforms, but almost nothing about Soviet era).

Best regards,
Eugen Pinak

[JackK]

Eugen,
Can you give the title of the book about Imperial Russian Civil Uniforms?

Thanks,
JackK

[JackK]

Eugen,
Can you give the title of the book about Imperial Russian Civil Uniforms?

Thanks,
JackK

[lbsr]

Mr Pinak,
could You mail me?

Thanks,
lbsr@volny.cz

[Eugen Pinak]

JackK, the book is called: "Russian's officials' world", author - L.E. Shepelev, printed in 1999, ISBN:5-210-01518-1