Answering the question of what the article is, a rare person will say that this is a well-known document of the early 18th century. But in many dictionaries today, along with such an interpretation of this term as a category or type of product, one can find another explanation. We will be educated people and find out what the article is in all its meanings. At the same time, let's recall a bit of the history of our country.
The era of the legendary reformer and innovator Peter I is known not only for the “window to Europe”, the development of education and the change in the status of the state (it was under Peter that they began to speak of Russia as an empire), but also the emergence of new requirements and norms of legislation, education and management. The appearance of the state fleet and the secretariat, the Senate and the secret chancellery is only a fraction of the transformations that the Russian state underwent at that time.
One of the main and noteworthy documentary developments of the legal framework, along with the law, which was called the “Table of Ranks”, was the Peter's Sea Charter and the Military Article. Further narration will be about him. Published at the beginning of the 18th century (more specifically, in 1716), it became the most important of its kind and, to some extent, a revolutionary document.
So what is a military article, which after so many years does not cease to be considered a monument of Russian law? It can be called the military criminal code. It was the Military Article that for the first time clearly prescribed not only all possible crimes (for the most part military), but also the order and the measure of punishment applicable to the violator of the rules. Recall that many crimes before the entry into force of this code were dealt with in a church court, and various domestic atrocities were not taken into account at all. Moreover, even the term “crime” did not exist as such.
Military Article is a very harmonious system of 24 chapters, divided into separate articles. At the same time, defining a crime, some chapters contain clarifications that can mitigate, or vice versa, toughen the punishment for a committed act. In other words, the military article in the criminal proceedings began to take into account such concepts as intent and
innocent harm, negligence and defense. The crime of the law was considered not only the abandonment of the post or desertion, but also drunkenness or failure to appear at prayer. As criminal acts began to be considered not only actions prohibited by law, but also capable of harming the state as a whole.
Speaking about what the Article is military, one cannot but say that in this document you can trace some notes of humanism and attempts to approach the issues of crime and punishment more humane. However, the severity of punishment, traditional for those times, was reflected in it. All political crimes (rebellion, indignation and, of course, treason) were punishable by a single measure - the death penalty. Death awaited those who were convicted of blasphemy or witchcraft. As a punishment, such truly medieval measures were used as cutting off the tongue, red-hot torture, branding, and whipping. Criminals were sent to hard labor or shackled and kept in prisons. At the same time, there were no cases in which the death penalty was changed to a less severe measure.
Summarizing the above, I would like to note that the Military Article was not only the first of its kind in the criminal code of the country, it introduced general rules for the conduct of the trial, streamlined the conduct of the investigation and the hearing.