MILITARY EXPEDITIONS OF THE XVII–XVIII CENTURIES IN THE PERSPECTIVE OF CULTURAL AND CIVILIZATIONAL IDENTITY OF RUSSIA

The article is devoted to the military history of the late feudal period. The focus of research: marches, relocation and redeployment of troops. This mundane and, at the same time, integral part of any war in the study receives some unusual lighting for military history. The traditional view - in the military-political or utilitarian-professional perspective – remain outside the scope of this article. The study of phenomena and facts of field-marshing reality, the explanation of causal relationships in the military environment, attempts to comprehend the meaning of wars and military affairs are carried out from the perspective of a cultural and civilizational approach. From the methodological toolkit, preference is given to comparative analysis, systematization and comparison of the main march indicators during the Great Northern War (1700–1721) and the War of the Spanish Succession (1701–1714). The study is based on an extensive and diverse historiographic base, presented by archival materials, domestic and foreign sources, memoirs of eyewitnesses, correspondence of direct participants, descriptions of wars and campaigns, etc. The military campaigns of the Russian army of Alexei Mikhailovich and Peter the Great, the troops of Charles XII, Louis XIV, Evgeny of Savoy, Marlborough are analyzed. The length of communications, weather and climatic features, socio-economic infrastructure, state of communications and other marching factors are viewed through the prism of civilization reflection. Military progress, striving for unification, penetrates into the original cultural and civilizational environment, resulting in a common and particular in the field routine of the troops. It is reflected in the diversity of displays: in readiness to overcome difficulties of field life, in severity or comfort of conditions of service, in degree of well-being and deprivation, in moods of the soldiers’ masses. A special cultural and mental climate within a military society was formed. Ultimately, the military sphere, being a reflex of a rich cultural, historical, ethnic diversity, helps to realize semantic characteristics of civilization, role of cultures and societies in initiating wars, in pursuit of peace, their attitude to good and evil, to place of man in this world.