Государственная политика и опыт местных властей Восточной Сибири в организации помощи солдатским семьям (август 1914 - октябрь 1917)

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Abstract: The article’s designated research subject is the aid provided to the population under the extreme circumstances of war and revolution. The research object is the activity of city and uyezd fiduciaries for providing aid to the families of those called to war. Under the term aid (social support) we intend the temporary measures directed at helping soldiers’ families in overcoming the daily difficulties caused by the First World War. This aid could be material or in socio-lifestyle assistance, employment, judicial help, etc., and in forms of realization – monetary or in natural form. This examination is limited to the territory of the Yeniseysk and Irkutsk governorates in Eastern Siberia, on the example of which one can have an idea of what was going on not only in the life of the region, but also in the country in general. The picture of the aid provided to soldiers’ families is recreated on the basis of sources of a legislative nature, published and unpublished (archival) clerical documents, reference-statistical material and periodic press. The author used particular historical methods, namely, the comparative and synchronic. On the example of separate institutions the author reveals the aid work’s overall direction, the numbers and social composition of the organizers, the sources of financing, and the types and forms of aid. The author comes to the conclusion that the activity of the fiduciaries formed under the influence of local particularities and local understandings, which created a differentiated level of help and conditions of accessibility. The article’s material specifies and expands the established scientific knowledge regarding the nature of social aid, its defining factors, scope of forms and measures; this further creates additional possibilities for comparative-historical analyses of Siberia.

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