Activities of the Сuratorship of Empress Maria Alexandrovna about the blind in the Belarusian provinces of the Russian Empire (late 19th – early 20th centuries)

  • Dmitry G. Korsakov Mogilev State A. Kuleshov University, 1 Kasmanaŭtaŭ Street, Mahilioŭ 212022, Belarus
DOI: https://doi.org/10.33581/2520-6338-2019-4-56-63

Abstract

The Curatorship of Empress Maria Alexandrovna about the blind made a great contribution to the development of charity in the Russian Empire which at that time included the Belarusian lands. In the Belarusian provinces, the Office became the first institution to focus on giving aid to blind people. The purpose of the article is to review the activities of the Belarusian branches of the Curatorship of Empress Maria Alexandrovna about the blind and to show their contribution to the development of social assistance and the struggle with blindness in our country. This topic hasn’t been thoroughly studied in native historiography yet and thus it remains relevant for a research. Besides this, in modern Republic of Belarus the traditions of private charity which had been interrupted in the Soviet period began to revive, this obviously increasing the interest to the experience of charity institutions of the past. The article regards the formation and development of the branches of the Curatorship in the Belarusian provinces of the Russian Empire. The main forms and methods of their activity as well as the sources of financing are identified. The main achievements and results of their work are analyzed. The assembled material gives an idea of the condition of the charity system of the blind in the Belarusian lands in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The research is based on the materials obtained in national and Russian libraries, a number of sources being introduced into scientific circulation for the first time.

Author Biography

Dmitry G. Korsakov, Mogilev State A. Kuleshov University, 1 Kasmanaŭtaŭ Street, Mahilioŭ 212022, Belarus

postgraduate student at the department of history of Belarus and East Slavs, faculty of history and philology

References

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  5. Blagotvoritel’nost’ v Rossii. Sostavleno po Vysochaishemu poveleniyu Sobstvennoi Ego Imperatorskogo Velichestva Kantselyariei po uchrezhdeniyam Imperatritsy Marii. Tom 1 [Charity in Russia. Compiled by the highest command of his own Imperial Majesty’s office on the institutions of the Empress Mary. Volume 1]. Saint Petersburg: [s. n.]; 1907. 601 p. Russian.
Published
2019-10-28
Keywords: charity, The Empress Mary’s Office of Institutions, The Curatorship of Empress Maria Alexandrovna about the blind, aid for the blind, schools for the blind, eye hospitals
Supporting Agencies The author is grateful to his supervisor Konstantin M. Bondarenko, as well as the staff of the Russian State Library (Moscow) and the Russian National Library (Saint Petersburg) for their assistance in collecting research materials.
How to Cite
Korsakov D. G. Activities of the Сuratorship of Empress Maria Alexandrovna about the blind in the Belarusian provinces of the Russian Empire (late 19th – early 20th centuries) // Journal of the Belarusian State University. History. 2019. 4. PP. 56-63.
Issue
No 4 (2019): Journal of the Belarusian State University. History
Section
Belarusian History

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