The burial of a Russian grenadier killed in the battle of Kunowice/Kunersdorf (1759) in the light of burial practices during Seven Years' War.

Abstract

The battle of Kunowice (Kunersdorf) was fought on 12 August 1759 on the fi elds in the vicinity of the present-time village of Kunowice, town of Słubice, and village of Drzecin (the Lubusz voivodeship in Poland) between the Prussian army (c. 50 000 soldiers) and the army of the Russian-Austrian coalition (c. 80 000 soldiers). It was won by the coalition, thanks to their outnumbering the enemy, using the power of Russian artillery, as well as the lie of the land and a fortifi ed camp built by the Russians. Archaeological excavations have been conducted on the battlefi eld since 2009. In 2010  human remains were found in the south-western part of the explored area. Despite their poor reservation an anthropological analysis was possible and the position of the body could be established. Unfortunately, the vertebrae, the pelvis and the shoulder blades were almost fully decomposed and could not be examined. The person was a slender man of about 40–50 years,c. 165 cm in height. In the right shoulder blade there was a lead bullet deformed after the hit. The fi nds around the bones included 22 buttons or their remains, a badge with a fl aming grenade and the monogram of Empress Elizabeth I of Russia, a piece of headshield, leather remains of a grenadier’s cap, an iron case-shot and two lead bullets. Their analysis led to the conclusion that the man had been a Russian grenadier from the Observer Corps.Relations from the time of the Seven Years’ War bring disparate accounts of dealing with the bodies of fallen soldiers. Burials were managed by soldiers only (e.g. at Kunowice and Prague), soldiers and peasants (at Lutynia/Luthen and Hochkirch), or peasants only (at Kolin, Rossbach and Sarbinowo/Zarndorf). Corpses were usually buried within a short time; only in the case of the Sarbinowo and Kolin battles this took almost a month. Sometimes the bodies were segregated according to nationality and/or rank, sometimes all were buried together. The only constant was that after a battle the fallen were ransacked although it is diffi cult to find any regu-larity in this practice. Some accounts suggest that the plundering was done soon after the battle and long before burials. Information on burials after the battles of Sarbinów and Lutynia indicate that corpses were ransacked just before the burial. Moreover, recent excavations of Seven Years’s War graves in the Czech Republic show that sometimes not everything was stolen.The burial of the Russian grenadier from Kunowice fi ts into what is known of the burial customs of the time from both relations and archaeological data. Soon after his death he was  probably robbed of his personal belongings, the ammunition pouch, the knapsack, weapons and boots, but the cap, shirt, jacket, and probably trousers, were left. Since the burials were very hurried, taking only one day, the corpse was probably overlooked and therefore it was not interred in a mass grave.