ABSTRACT
The so-called "military colonies" of Alexis Alexandrovich Arakcheev are an institution generally maligned and abused but inadequately studied. The first colonies were founded in the Mogilev province in 1810, shortly after Alexander I's visit to Gruzino. The creation of military colonies is usually explained by financial difficulties in which the Russian government found itself following the Napoleonic wars, and there is no doubt that considerations played a significant part. The aim was to make the military colonies completely self-containing and independent. Every attempt was made to make the military colonies self-supporting, notwithstanding almost insurmountable difficulties due to Russia's technological backwardness which it was necessary to overcome. The military colonies were a planned, rational society and as such demanded a willing and intelligent submission to discipline. When the cholera epidemic which was then spreading over the Russian Empire reached the northern military colonies, it precipitated a bloody revolt there, in which accumulated grievances and frustrations of peasant-soldiers found a violent outlet.
