Comments:

1. 

    

   Sarahjane:

   Great picture. )))

2. 

    

   Rob McGee:

   Супер, отдаю тебе честь за статью!

   I was surprised at first to see that “поручик” wasn’t on the list of ranks — I always think of “Поручик Ржевский” as “Lieutenant Rzhevskii”. But apparently you can only use that term in the context of the tsarist-era cavalry.

3. 

    

   Rob McGee:

   By the way, the Russian/English table of military ranks does NOT apply to the US or UK Navies, nor to the Russian “ВМФ”!

   In both the Russian and English-language military traditions, the Navy has its own peculiar rank terminology that’s different from the Army, Marines, and Air Force. For instance, a Naval “Captain” (Капитан) is the rank-equivalent of a “Colonel” (Полковник) in the Army and other services. But an Army “Captain” is a lower rank of officer, and equivalent to a US Navy “Lieutenant” (“Капитан-Лейтенант” in the Russian Navy).

   This Russian wikipedia article, assuming it links correctly, has a complete listing of enlisted and officer Naval ranks (scroll down to the two tables labeled “состав ВМФ”). But to sum it up quickly:

   The lowest enlisted ranks in the ВМФ are referred to as матрос (US: “Seaman”).

   An Army саржант is equivalent to a Navy старшина (US: “Petty Officer), while an Army прапорщик (“Warrant Officer”) is a мичмен.

   A junior commissioned officer in the Russian Navy, as in the Army, is a лейтенант (US: “Ensign”). But as one progresses up through the Naval Officer ranks, the terms майор (Maj.) and полковник (Col.) aren’t used — instead, there are different grades of лейтенант and капитан. Finally, the Naval equivalents of “Generals” in the Army and Air Force are called адмирал, just as in English.

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     yelena:

     @Rob McGee I was waiting for someone to talk about the naval ranks 🙂 I find them very confusing regardless of the language 🙂 Same goes for much of the naval terminology even for simple things like right and left. I finally memorized starboard and port (there’s a really good explanation in the Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, lol).

4. 

    

   Rob McGee:

   And a question for Yelena: How would you translate “to retire at such-and-such a rank”? Could you use the construction выйти на пенсию старшим саржантом, with the rank at retirement in the instrumental? And could you say “Он — старший саржант на пенсии” to mean “He’s a retired Master Sergeant”?

   Мой папа служил подполковником в морской пехоте, а мама служила полковником в запасе армии. Теперь оба они на пенсии. (My dad was a Marine Lt.Col., and my mom was a “Full Bird” in the Army Reserve. Now they’re both retired.)

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     yelena:

     @Rob McGee Rob, I think using the construction you suggested is grammatically correct. I haven’t heard it used much, but again, I haven’t talked to that many retired Russian servicemen and women. Another construction that I would suggest is выйти на пенсию в звании + rank in the genitive. One thing about the word запас as related to the military service. Мой отец закончил службу сержантом, а вот у мамы – звание капитана. (My father ended his military service in the rank of Sergeant while mother was a Captain). Отец был на срочной службе (Father was a draftee), а мама в армии не служила, но работала доктором (but my mom never served in the Army, but was a doctor). In Soviet Union, people in certain occupations would automatically become reservists even without serving. For example, all doctors had a military rank that depended on their years of experience and category (so when they’d get promoted in their civilian career, they’d go up the rank as well). So, back to my mom’s story, she was капитан запаса (a Captain in the Reserve). But it’s not the same as the Army (or Navy, etc) Reserve. In fact, I find it very hard to explain the concept of a Reservist (in the sense it’s used in the US) to my Russian friends.

5. 

    

   Rob McGee:

   Oops, in my comment about Naval ranks, I misspelled “мичман” — which, according to Russian wikipedia, is derived from English “midshipman”.

   Also, since that link to the wikipedia.ru article doesn’t seem to work (damn Cyrillic in the URL), here’s a link to an English wiki article that compares and contrasts the Russian military rank terms for Navy and non-Navy branches.

6. 

    

   Rob McGee:

   Yelena: Thanks for the explanation about the “retiring” terminology!

   As for naval ranks, I mainly know them from watching Star Trek: The Next Generation, and not because I grew up on military bases! 😉

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     yelena:

     @Rob McGee Rob, that just confirms my belief that a lot of useful stuff can be learned from watching TV! 😉

7. 

    

   Victor:

   Офицеры (и генералы) выходят в отставку или в запас и становятся, соответственно, офицерами в отставке (отставными) или запаса. Например, полковник в отставке, отставной подполковник (разговорное), майор запаса.
   N. B. Повинность и провинность are not cognates; they are related words with вина as a common root.

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     yelena:

     @Victor Victor, thank you for the clarification of выходить в отставку and быть в запасе. When I speak to my friends in Russia, I find that if I say that someone I know is солдат резерва they understand it as someone who is в запасе. I always end up explaining about the Reserve system in the US.

     As for the cognates… Doesn’t cognate mean однокоренной or родственный? I really appreciate help on this one since I am not a linguist by training and am rather terrified of terminology (yep, I am ashamed, but that’s the truth).

8. 

    

   Stas:

   We forgot about маршал.