In historical films and on the pages of books devoted to army everyday life in different eras, you can hear two words by which military personnel respond to the commander’s order to carry out the action - “Yes!” and "I'm listening!".

In the modern army, only the word "is" remains. How did this short and capacious word appear, and why was it not always in the military charter?

Order response history

Attempts to write a military charter were made by Tsar Ivan the Terrible, whose commission developed the “Boyars Sentence” for the border service, and Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, who ordered the creation of a treatise on the “Teaching and Tricks of the military structure”. However, the appearance of the first full military regulations in our country, covering all branches of the army, dates back to 1716 and is associated with the name of the great reformer Peter I. At the same time, new teams appeared.

The king created a regular army. Now men were gathering for service not about the outbreak of war, but to perform regular military service. At this time, a new charter appeared, which fully regulated the process of service. Along with the new orders, new teams appeared.

Tsar Peter became the founder of the Russian Navy. Many contemporaries were wary of the innovations of the reformer king, and therefore there were not enough officers among the nobles to command the fleet, and infantry soldiers were in no hurry to retrain as sailors. And the Russian military did not have enough knowledge in this area.

Then Peter I invited to study the English military. Russian soldiers were ordered to repeat everything exactly after the British military. So they adopted the answer “Yes, sir!”, Turning it into “Yes!”. If you often and quickly say “Yes, sir!”, It automatically turns out “Yes!”. This word took root in the navy, in the XVIII century it was fixed in the charter, and then passed into the terminology of other branches of the army.

Proof of the fact that "There is!" is the onomatopoeic answer of the English "Yes!" or “Yes, sir!”, is that other teams of Russian troops have analogues in the army of different countries: “Atentu!” ("At attention!") In French, "Fall in!" (“Become!”) In English, etc. And only “Yes!” remains without translation.

Other versions

According to one version, soldiers of the pre-Petrine era responded to the commander’s order “Yes!” However, it was not as clear and capacious as it is, because it could be pulled and said in a chant. Therefore, a short and clear answer gradually replaced the universal “yes”.

The word "is" programs a person to the fact that the work has already been done, is already there, hence the answer.

Interesting fact: due to the numerous amendments made to the Charter of the USSR Armed Forces during the Great Patriotic War, in modern films about those times there are a large number of “mistakes”. Often, they relate to the responses of the Red Army to command orders. Either they answer "Yes!", Then "I am listening!", At all, "That's right!" on an order to carry out an action. This cuts the ear not only to historians, but also to those who served in the army.

For a long time in the military vocabulary there was an answer “I obey!”.Perhaps this answer came from the usual answer for the peasants to the gentleman “Listen-s”, because in the pre-revolutionary era soldiers were recruited from the common people.

The Red Army tried to completely get rid of the traces of tsarism, and abandoned the previous order of communication of commanders and soldiers. Peasant “I obey!” It turned into a neutral “Yes!”, but was enshrined in the Charter of the Red Army's internal service only in 1937. That is how military personnel answered command orders until the end of the war.

In the Charter of the internal service of the USSR Armed Forces of 1946, servicemen who received the order were ordered to answer “I am listening!”, And in the Navy - “Yes!”. The general "Yes!" again returned to the Armed Forces charter only in 1960

It took several centuries for the answer "Yes!" entrenched in the army lexicon. The Russian military owes this answer to Peter I and the English sailors. However, in the speech of the Russian military, “has” acquired its meaning and became a more significant word than a simple imitation of the foreign language “Yes, sir!”.