Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation

Federal State Budgetary Educational Institution

higher professional education

"Ulyanovsk State Pedagogical University

named after I.N. Ulyanov"

(FGBOU VPO "UlGPU named after I.N. Ulyanov")

History department

Department of History

Course work

Charity in Russia in the Era of Catherine II

Completed:

3rd year student

Tyugaev Pavel

Vyacheslavovich

Checked: Ph.D.,

Senior Lecturer

departments of history

Solovieva Ekaterina Alexandrovna

Ulyanovsk - 2015

Introduction

Conclusion

Bibliographic list

Introduction

Of all the women who reigned in Russia in the 18th century, only Catherine II ruled independently, delving into all matters of domestic and foreign policy. She saw her main tasks in strengthening the autocracy, reorganizing the state apparatus with the aim of strengthening it, and strengthening the international position of Russia. To a large extent, she succeeded, and the time of her reign is one of the brilliant pages of Russian history.

The reign of Catherine II lasted more than three and a half decades (1762-1796). It is filled with many events in internal and external affairs, the implementation of plans that continued what was being done under Peter the Great. “To Peter the Great - Catherine the Second” - such words are engraved on the pedestal of the famous monument to the first emperor of Russia by E. Falcone. Catherine II, an active and extraordinary ruler, had the right to such a comparison. The achievements and victories of the time of her reign are largely the imprint of her personal participation, guiding attention. A talented, educated, literary gifted nature, she knew how to manage a huge empire, which she passionately aspired to from the time she arrived in Russia, and get along with people, and, which is very important, bring talented, gifted people closer to her, entrust them with important matters. in accordance with their abilities Berdyaev N.A. The fate of Russia. M., 2010.str.- 40..

During her reign, Catherine II paid special attention to the development of the charity system in Russia.

It was during this period in the history of Russia that completely new approaches to public charity appeared, governing bodies for this sphere of social policy were created, attention was focused mainly on charitable institutions of a closed type, ways were opened for the birth of public organizations, the network of establishments and categories of charitable persons was significantly expanded. Let's take a closer look at this period of our history.

The relevance of the study lies in the fact that at present our society is particularly acute problems of social assistance. As a result of the ongoing socio-economic and political changes, such phenomena as unemployment, professional and life disorder of many segments of the population have appeared in our lives. The country is now in complete confusion, indecision, and sometimes inaction.

The purpose of the study: to consider the theoretical foundations of charitable activities in Russia in the 18th century.

The object of the research is the social policy of the state in the field of charity in the 18th century.

The subject of the research is charitable activity in Russia in the 18th century.

Research objectives:

Consider the formation and development of Russian state charity in the era of Catherine II

Consider the main sources of charitable activities in Russia in the second half of the 18th century

Research methods: scientific literature analysis; comparative analysis.

The structure of the course work: the work consists of an introduction, two paragraphs, a conclusion, a bibliographic list.

Chapter 1. Formation and development of Russian charity in the era of Catherine II

1.1 Charity: analysis of the conceptual apparatus

Over the past decade, many new and old concepts related to charity have entered our lives. We often hear about sponsors and foundations, technical assistance, grants and donations. They write about donors, philanthropists and patrons. So, starting to consider charity at the present stage, you should first define a number of basic concepts.

Firsov M.V. gives a different interpretation of the concept of charity (charity) depending on the historical era until the twentieth century “charity was understood as a manifestation of compassion for one's neighbor, a non-state form of assistance to those in need; in the 20th century until the 1990s, this concept was interpreted as a form of class manipulation of public consciousness in a capitalist society; Today, charity is understood as a non-commercial activity aimed at helping those in need. Firsov M.V. History of social work in Russia. -M.: Humm. Publishing house center VLADOS, 2001. - p.221

On the one hand, charity is helping the needy, a manifestation of compassion for one's neighbor. In this sense, charity is closely connected with mercy (mercy), which is “compassionate love, heartfelt participation in the lives of the weak and needy (sick, wounded, elderly)” Bakhmin V.I. About funds in Russia. - M: Logos, 2004 - pp. - 10. Such charity is most often carried out through donations or alms, and suffering people are the beneficiaries of assistance, we can say that this is pure charity or charity in the narrow sense of the word. From mercy came a number of such concepts as alms (alms, payment), mercy (favor), mercy (compassion).

The concept of philanthropy is closely related to charity. Although it is wider, for example, V.I. Dahl interprets philanthropy as "philanthropy, concern for improving the lot of mankind", one can often find the definition of philanthropy as a synonym for charity. Dal V.I. Explanatory dictionary of the living Great Russian language. In 4 volumes. T4 M. - Ripol Classic, 2005. - p. 154

Charitable funds can be used to improve the well-being of an individual or organization, which contributes to the revitalization of its activities. One can give money or equipment to a hospital or a school, a theater or a museum, without demanding anything in return, not even gratitude. If a philanthropist has revealed his own preferences, and he liked to regularly support something socially useful, and especially culture, he can be called a patron of the arts.

In the explanatory dictionary of the Russian language, “a philanthropist is a rich patron of sciences and arts; in general, one who patronizes some business or undertaking. Ozhegov S.I., Shvedova N.Yu. Explanatory Dictionary of the Russian Language - M.: ITI Technologies, 2005, - p. 429 This concept originated from the ancient Roman nobleman Maecenas (I century BC), who once patronized poets and artists.

There is also a sponsor and we hear about them most often. Sponsors usually support some important event, the construction or creation of something, they help an organization that is useful, in their opinion. Support is provided both in money and in the services or products of the sponsor. There is also the concept of an information sponsor of an action or event.

Among the main forms of charitable support are donations, grants and technical assistance.

"Technical assistance is a type of gratuitous assistance (assistance) provided in order to support the implementation of economic and social reforms." Bakhmin V.I. About funds in Russia. - M: Logos, 2004 - pp. - 12 Technical assistance is provided to foreign organizations and governments, often under intergovernmental agreements, and is aimed at promoting reforms in the country.

A donation can be defined as a contribution or gift to another person. Donations can be made to civil, medical, educational institutions, social protection institutions, charitable, scientific and educational institutions, museums, foundations, etc.

The most complex and at the same time quite new for Russia is the concept of a grant. The translation of this English word into Russian has many meanings, including: “a) a gift, a gift; b) subsidies, subsidies; c) the allowance is a one-time cash payment; d) scholarship. Brian M.A. English-Russian dictionary. - M.: Astrel: AST, 2006. - 703 p. 489 Thus, we can conclude that the grant is a one-time subsidy awarded to a scientific institution, a creative team or an individual worker. From everything that is known about grants in Russian and international practice, one can dwell on the following most important characteristics: a) gratuitousness; b) target character; c) public utility.

Another concept that has gained considerable importance in recent times is the fund. “There are two types of funds: one type is established to provide material assistance to any social strata or groups of the population; the other type is a public organization in charge of collecting and distributing funds for certain public needs. Bakhmin V.I. About funds in Russia. - M: Logos, 2004 - pp. - 14 Among the funds there are those that were created to finance various charitable programs at the expense of firms, banks, organizations and individuals.

These funds are called charitable, their task is the effective distribution of funds.

Also of interest is another new concept - a donor, more often this word is always understood as a person who gives his blood, but this is a very narrow interpretation of the concept, a donor is also a kind of benefactor. Wealthy regions are also called donors, which give part of their income and budget to more backward subjects, foreign states or their international institutions are also called donors. We can say that a donor is someone who gives something away for free.

As a result, it should be said that the most used concepts are charity, mercy, donation. There are also a number of new concepts for Russia such as donor, sponsor, grand, which, despite their novelty, are still included in the conceptual apparatus of charity as a theory. The emergence of new concepts can be explained by the development of society and the state, as well as an increase in the amount of assistance from foreign states, and as a result, the introduction of foreign concepts.

1.2 Social policy of the state under Catherine II

With the ascension to the throne of Catherine II, the second attempt during the 18th century began to change the socio-economic structure of the country. Driven by the ideas of the French enlighteners, the "crowned philosopher" in the first years of her reign took a number of specific measures to organize a new type of charitable institutions. On her behalf, one of the most educated people of the then Russia, Ivan Ivanovich Betskoy (1704-1795), worked on this. The illegitimate son of Field Marshal I. Yu. Trubetskoy, he received "extraordinary teaching" in Copenhagen, Paris, visited "secular salons, made acquaintance with encyclopedists and, through conversations and readings, learned fashionable ideas for himself" Zaichkin I.A., Pochkaev I.N. Russian story: IX - middle XVIII in. - M., 2012. p.-229 . In Russia, Betskoy took up the problem of education seriously. By decree on March 3, 1763, he was appointed director of the Academy of Arts, under which he arranged an educational school, and in September, at his suggestion and plan, it was decided to open an Orphanage in Moscow "for babies deprived of parental affection", foundlings. In 1770, the same house was opened in St. Petersburg. The main ideas of I. I. Betsky were reflected in his report "The General Institution on the Education of Youth of Both Sexes" (1764), the charters of educational houses and the gentry corps. His pedagogical system was based on the views of Locke, Rousseau, Helvetius, was quite eclectic and utopian. Together with Empress Betskaya, he planned to "create a new breed of people" Compositions Catherine II / Comp. IS HE. Mikhailov. - M., 2010. page-56 .

First, according to his plan, it is necessary to form the first generation of "new fathers and mothers", capable of educating their own kind, "following from generation to generation, into future centuries." “But education cannot achieve its goal if the first educated generations are not completely isolated from the elders adjacent to them, mired in ignorance, routine and vices,” argued I.I., supported by Catherine II. Betskaya. He spoke of the need to create an artificial barrier between the old and new generations so that the first, "bestial and violent in words and deeds," could not influence the second. He saw such a "barrier" in closed educational institutions (boarding schools), where, under the guidance of Russian (and not foreign) mentors, "children and young men would be kept until their hearts get stronger and their minds mature, i.e. up to 18 -20 years" Zaichkin I.A., Pochkaev I.N. Russian story: IX - middle XVIII in. - M., 2012.p.- 250. .

The Orphanage was supposed to become one of such closed institutions, in which foundlings, children born out of wedlock, "legitimate children left by parents due to poverty" were accepted. The feeding and upbringing of infants was to be carried out within the walls of the Orphanage, "in order to form, through proper influence, from rootless and homeless children useful to the state of the" third rank "and a new kind of people. Pets at home received significant privileges: they and their children and grandchildren remained free and not were subject to enslavement; they had the right to buy houses, shops, set up factories and plants, join the merchant class, engage in crafts and dispose of their property.

The question of financing orphanages was curiously resolved. The state did not give out funds, the houses had to exist on the "voluntary alms" of benefactors, who received various privileges for this. In their favor were taxes on imported playing cards, 25% of income from theaters, public balls and all sorts of gambling for money. Later, at the Orphanages, loan and safe treasuries were opened, which brought in significant income. Houses were autonomous institutions, had their own jurisdiction, were exempt from duties, could buy and sell land, houses, villages, without bureaucratic red tape "start" factories, factories, workshops, organize lotteries.

Hospitals for poor women in labor with an anonymous department functioned at educational homes, where women were not required to have documents and were even allowed to give birth in masks. To work with them, the positions of midwives were established, and later a school was opened at the St. Petersburg maternity hospital to train midwives Egoshina V.N., Efimova N.V. From the history of charity and social welfare of children in Russia. M., 2009.str.- 148..

According to I.I. Betsky in St. Petersburg, the Educational Society for Noble Maidens was founded (1764), and a year later, within the walls of the Novodevichy Convent in the capital, the first Russian school for girls of noble birth and bourgeois rank was opened, who studied at different departments. This closed institution also prepared a "new breed of people": noble girls studied a wide range of general educational subjects at that time - archeology and heraldry, etiquette and drawing, music and dancing, sewing, knitting and housekeeping; bourgeois women had a less intellectual program, the main attention was paid to needlework, cooking, cleaning (they were to become mothers, housewives, housekeepers in the future). With the opening of the Smolny Institute, Catherine laid the foundation for women's education in the country. Girls from poor families, orphans, who passed the ballot (selection) in the field, received education at the institute with state money. I. I. Betskoy was the main trustee and head of the school.

In 1765, Betskoy became the chief of the gentry cadet corps, for which he drew up a charter in accordance with his pedagogical program. And in 1773, according to his plan, at the expense of Prokopy Demidov, an educational commercial school for merchant children was established in Moscow. In the end, Catherine II gave Betsky the leadership of all educational and educational institutions, richly endowing him. He gave most of his fortune to the needs of his offspring - closed educational institutions. In 1778, the Senate presented I. I. Betsky with a large gold medal knocked out in his honor with the inscription "For love of the Fatherland." Towards the end of her life, Catherine began to be jealous of the popularity of her loyal subject (Betskoy appropriates herself to the glory of the sovereign), alienating him from herself. But his ideas troubled the minds of his compatriots for a long time.

At the end of the 18th century, the state continued to take care of the "addition of the insane", the opening of new almshouses. Catherine drew attention to such a serious social phenomenon as prostitution. Continuing the persecution of "lewdness" begun back in the 17th century and punishing "for the maintenance of houses of debauchery", she at the same time tried to put prostitution under the supervision of the police: in St. Petersburg, special areas were allocated "for free (brothel) houses" /Russian house. - 2011. - No. 12. - S. 34.p.- 224..

In 1765, not without the personal participation of Catherine II, the first scientific public organization arose in Russia - the Free Economic Society (VEO). His task was to promote the development of agriculture in the country, the introduction of scientific and technical achievements into the Russian village. The philanthropic activities of the VEO included the opening of agricultural schools and colleges, experimental farms, assistance to peasants in the development of agricultural technology, the spread of new crops, tools, and selection work. Members of the VEO organized demonstration exhibitions, organized competitions for the best projects for organizing peasant life, published cheap books for peasants and their children, including fiction. The VEO examined peasant households, finding out the needs of rural residents, and provided material assistance to the villagers, especially in famine and dry years. The Free Economic Society turned out to be the most durable - it was closed already in 1918.

All the listed events of the Catherine era were, as it were, preparation for the creation of a state system of charity with its own administrative apparatus, finances, forms and methods of work. The administrative reform carried out in 1775 directly affected the social sphere, as did the urban reform that followed it in 1782. In 1785, "charter letters" to the nobility and cities, which consolidated and completed the class division of the population of Russia, significantly expanded the administrative and executive functions of local noble and city self-government. The “Gubernia Institution”, among others, created administrative and police bodies: a provincial government headed by a governor and a completely new institution for Russia both in name and purpose - an order of public charity.

The regulation approved by the Committee of Ministers in 1828 reads: “Finding<...>The existence of Orphanages in the provinces as useless and extremely inconvenient [the Committee] decided: the establishment of these under the authority of the Orders of Public Charity should not be allowed again.<...>Since 1812, noticing the poor state of these institutions in the provinces, the Ministry made instructions to take measures and avert the great mortality of children in them and bring the institutions themselves into improvement; but due to the lack of methods of Orders and various inconveniences in the maintenance of these establishments, insistence on this could not be successful. Meanwhile, the bringing of children from time to time increases to the point that almost as much was spent on the maintenance of some of these institutions in some places as in general on all other institutions and expenses in other Orders exceeded income.

According to the plan of the reformers, the orders created in each province were headed by the governor, they included assessors from the provincial class courts. They managed local schools, medical and charitable institutions (almshouses, orphanages and educational homes, hospitals). "Abandoned babies", "persons incapable of continuing military service", their families and families of military personnel, orphans, the wounded, the decrepit and the crippled, honored civil officials and others were subject to their care Klemantovich I., Skoch A. Charity in Russia: Lessons from History //Education of schoolchildren. - 2009. -№4 - S. 43.str.- 89. Workhouses were intended for those who idly stagger or engage in beggarly trade. Serfs who were guilty of a crime before the owner were sent to the house of restraint, it was allowed to take children there for "disobedience" to their parents. In these establishments, a heavy semi-prison regime reigned with cruel corporal punishment for "sloths of both sexes."

New for that time were the principles on which the work of orders was based: the relative independence of local charitable institutions, the involvement of the local population in their management, funding from public funds and from local sources. The revenues of the orders were formed on the basis of an inviolable fund (it started with the amount of 15 thousand rubles received by each order from the government at the opening) from interest on real estate, benefits from the city and the treasury, foam and penalty money, economic (from workhouses, factories, etc. .) and occasional receipts (private donations, etc.). Over the 50 years of its existence, orders of public charity, participating in credit and other financial transactions, have turned into rich original banks - their capital has grown to 25 million rubles.

Simultaneously with the orders in 1775, under each city magistrate, orphan courts were created that survived until 1917 - class bodies that were in charge of the guardianship of "merchant and petty-bourgeois widows and juvenile orphans" (from 1818 - personal nobles, if they did not have land ownership) . The courts monitored the state of guardianship, examined complaints against guardians. There was also a noble guardianship.

In addition to the orders of public charity, the needy were cared for by police agencies and officials. They escorted the “idlers” to workhouses and penitentiaries, together with other departments opened Tollhaus (lunatic asylums) - in 1779 in St. Petersburg "due to the accumulation of the mentally ill in the capital", in 1785 - in Moscow, in 1786 - in Novgorod. In 1852, orders of public charity contained 50 houses and hospitals for the insane with 2554 beds. Klemantovich I., Skoch A. Charity in Russia: history lessons//Education of schoolchildren. - 2009. -№4 - S. 43.p.- 112..

1.3 The scope and significance of the reforms of Catherine II in the field of charity

The Catherine period in the history of Russia enriched the country with new approaches to public charity, brought to life the governing bodies of this sphere of social policy, focused mainly on closed-type charitable institutions, opened the way for the birth of public organizations, and significantly expanded the network of institutions and categories of those who are being cared for. But, unfortunately, the fruits of these innovations were bitter. Orders of public charity, which existed until the zemstvo reform of 1864 (in non-zemstvo provinces - until 1917), were constantly criticized by the public for bureaucracy, extortion, formalism, for not satisfying even a small proportion of those in need "that" state funds for charity was not enough." The whole system of public charity suffered from a lack of employees, especially practical workers, who were not professionally trained by anyone.

The utopian nature of Betsky's plan was manifested already in the first years of the existence of the educational institutions he created. Designed to train "a new breed of people of the third rank," foster homes became popular from the moment they were opened, bringing in babies in numbers that exceeded the capacity of the available facilities. Experts noted: "The accumulation of a larger number of children in the wards, the lack of a sufficient number of nurses, the inexperience of doctors and educators, the reception of children who are often sick and even dying - all this led to a terrifying mortality of pets." In the Moscow House, out of 523 children adopted in 1764, 424 (81.1%) died, in 1765 out of 793 - 597 (75.3%), in 1766 out of 742 - 494 (66.6%) , in 1767 out of 1,089 - 1073 (98.5%) Melnikov V.P., Kholostova E.I. Story social work in Russia. - M., 2011.p.- 137. .

Such a picture could not but cause alarm and corresponding actions of the government. The best way out was the transfer of children for feeding and education in peasant families, who were paid for this. Mortality in the Moscow Orphanage immediately decreased by 2-3 times and never reached the level of the first years of its existence (in 1768 - 61.7%, in 1769 - 39.1%, in 1770 - 24.6%), on the other hand, the death rate of children in the village increased: both the pupils of orphanages and the infants of nurses died (from introduced diseases and reduced nutrition). The problem of saving newborn foundlings remained relevant until the end of the 19th century, when the mortality among them reached 50%.

Did not justify the hopes of the organizers and educational institutions for girls of noble and petty-bourgeois rank. From the age of five, babies were taken away from their families for 15 years of study, taking a subscription from their parents or relatives that they would not take the children away until they graduated from college. In the school, closed to visitors, semi-military barracks discipline reigned, corporal punishment, not a very satisfying meal was provided, it was cold in the classrooms and bedrooms, the boarders often caught colds, and often suffered from nervous diseases. Cool ladies and teachers did not always correspond to their purpose and remained in the memories of the former Smolensk girls as the embodiment of evil and hatred for children. The boys lived no better at the Commercial School - the same admission conditions, the same drill and crowding in the classrooms in the sleeping quarters, the same lack of childhood and its inherent joys.

Under Catherine II, the foundation was laid for an organization, "open public charity", i.e. "outside closed charities." The decree of 1781 obliged the city magistrate to appoint a "city broker", who was to open the mugs of the order of public charity with voluntary alms once a week and distribute money "to the poor, unable to get their livelihood by work." Like Peter I, in the legislative acts of 1797 on appanages, the empress assigned to rural and urban communities and parishes the duty to "feed their poor, preventing them from poverty." Supervision over the implementation of the law and charity "outside the establishments" was carried out by police officers: zemstvo captains (1775), governors (1781), private bailiffs (1782). The responsibility of the communities for the charity of the poor was confirmed by the laws of 1801 and 1809. The latter provided for the maintenance of those repeatedly detained for begging at the expense of public charity orders, and attributed the costs to those guilty of "neglect and not charity." In 1838, under Nicholas I, St. Petersburg and Moscow committees were organized "for the analysis and charity of those begging" Melnikov V.P., Kholostova E.I. History of social work in Russia. - M., 2011.str.- 145 .. In the development of previous measures and methods of combating beggarly fishing, the "Regulations" on committees provided for the definition of malicious beggars in workhouses, and "those in need who voluntarily came for help", assistance in their needs. To do this, the committees, which consisted of 10 members, a staff of employees and agents, were to "enter into careful consideration of cases of necessary assistance and the prevention of poverty." But in that period, as contemporaries and practical workers in the social sphere of the late 19th century noted, the system of open charity, as well as closed, "produced very insignificant results." Nevertheless, the ideas born in the Catherine era, supported in the first quarter by Alexander I, survived the dark period of the Nikolaev reaction, laid a serious foundation for the development of the state and public system of Russian charity, the way to which was opened by the reforms of the 60-70s of the last century.

A more independent character is distinguished by the largest organizational measure of Catherine II, which consists in the creation by her of a whole network of special institutions called “Orders of public charity”, opened in forty provinces on the basis of the “institution on provinces” of 1775. According to this law, “the order of public charity is entrusted with the care and supervision of the establishment and solid foundation of: 1) public schools; 2) the establishment and supervision of orphanages for the care and education of male and female orphans left without food after the death of their parents; 3) the establishment and supervision of hospitals, or hospitals for the treatment of the sick; 4) the establishment and supervision of almshouses for males and females, the poor, the crippled and the elderly; 5) establishment and supervision of a special home for the terminally ill; 6) the establishment and supervision of a home for insane people; 7) establishment and supervision of workhouses for both sexes; 8) the establishment and supervision of penitentiary houses for both sexes of people.

Thus, the legislative act of November 7, 1775, called "Institutions for the management of the provinces of the All-Russian Empire", laid the foundation for the state system of public charity, which flourished for a long time and has survived in general terms to this day. The legislation of Catherine II decisively turned the cause of charity from the zemstvo social principle, where zemstvo people provided assistance to the poor at public expense, towards centralization on a state bureaucratic basis, where the police and orders officials were engaged in the charity of the orphans and the poor.

Catherine II laid the foundation for the creation of charitable societies in Russia, which later became the institutional basis of the modern non-profit sector. The philanthropic and educational activities developed by Catherine II continued after her death.

In Catherine's era, orders of public charity - bodies independent of provincial authorities and directly subordinate to the supreme authority and the Senate - were created in 40 out of 55 provinces. For institutions controlled by orders, their own system of funding sources was developed: they received both state funds and money from philanthropists.

Continuing the fight against professional begging and vagrancy, Catherine II by legislative acts somewhat reduced the severity of the repressive measures used in the time of Peter the Great. The beggars began to be treated more humanely and differentiated, they are beginning to be looked at not only as malicious sloths, but also as unfortunate victims of unfavorable living conditions. Therefore, Catherine II, instead of corporal punishment, practiced under Peter I, introduces a system of forced labor and labor charity for the poor. In 1775, the first workhouses, run by the police, appeared for idlers or those engaged in beggarly trade.

For the healing of vicious people, Catherine orders the opening of chastened houses with a heavy semi-prison regime. The "violent sloths" and persons of "obscene and intemperate living" placed in them were constantly busy with work, except for the time for sleep and food. The lazy were ordered to be forced, and the disobedient were punished with rods (no more than three blows for one offense) or put on bread and water for three days or in prison for a week.

Under Catherine II, a network of educational homes for orphans and illegitimate ("disgraceful") babies arose. In Russia, this has become a charitable innovation. The first such educational home with a hospital for poor women in childbirth was opened in 1764 in Moscow as a state institution. This house was built on private donations (Catherine II herself allocated 100 thousand rubles from her own funds and pledged to donate another 50 thousand rubles annually, and Tsarevich Pavel - 20 thousand rubles each). Six years later, the same house was opened in St. Petersburg.

Foundlings, children born out of wedlock, as well as "legitimate children left by their parents due to poverty" were accepted into foster homes. Here the children grew up and received an elementary general education, and from the age of 14-15, pupils were sent to learn crafts in workshops organized at the house itself, or to city artisans. Millions of dollars were spent on the maintenance of orphanages.

The so-called orphanages appeared in the Catherine's era, that is, educational institutions for the children of poor parents - merchants, officials, clerical workers, philistines and workshops - who "due to their poverty did not have the means to arrange children in any schools." Boys and girls between the ages of 7 and 11 were admitted to orphanages. After graduating from college, children were assigned to serve in government agencies, factories, plants, or various kinds of entrepreneurs to learn crafts, trade, and other useful activities.

Under Catherine II, the first all-class hospitals for the poor appeared in Moscow: Pavlovskaya (1764) and Catherine's with an almshouse (1776). In institutions subordinated to the orders of public charity, the needy were treated, as a rule, free of charge. In 1779 in St. Petersburg, in 1785 - in Moscow, and in 1786 - in Novgorod, houses for the mentally ill were opened. In an effort to prevent the emergence of new beggars among the poor, Catherine ordered the opening of loans and loan offices for those in need, as well as craft and other schools where people from ruined families could get a decent profession, so that later they could earn a living on their own.

Under Catherine II, the organization of "open public charity" was laid, dealing with pensions, benefits, fodder money, providing a profession, etc. It operated "outside closed charitable institutions", that is, hospitals, almshouses, invalid homes, etc. So, for example, a decree of 1781 obliged the metropolitan city magistrate to appoint a “city broker”, who was supposed to open the mugs of the order of public charity with voluntary alms once a week and distribute money to “the poor, unable to get their livelihood by work”. The Empress also entrusted rural and urban communities and parishes with the duty to "feed their poor, preventing them from poverty."

It was only during the reign of Catherine II that regular donations for the construction of charitable institutions, for the organization of public and private places to help those in need actually began.

From "poverty-loving" the country gradually moved on to relatively effective forms and methods of the then emerging state policy of social assistance to orphans, illegitimate, elderly, disabled, disabled and sick.

Chapter 2. The main sources of charitable activity in Russia in the second half of the 18th century

2.1 The role of the church in philanthropy

Christianity in Russia played a positive role in the development of charity. Better than others, the historian V.O. Klyuchevsky: “The philanthropy of our ancestors was the same as poverty, and to love your neighbor meant, first of all, to feed the hungry, to give drink to the thirsty, to visit the prisoner in prison. Charity was considered necessary not so much for the charitable, but for the charitable - for their moral health , to raise their level of moral perfection and as a means to ensure a good future in the afterlife" Melnikov V.P., Kholostova E.I. Story social work in Russia. - M., 2011.p.- 162. .

Introducing Orthodox Christianity in Russia, Prince Vladimir deeply perceived its provisions, addressed to the human soul, urging people to take care of their neighbor, to be merciful, such as: “Blessed are those who give alms, and they will have mercy”, “Give to the one who asks you, and therefore, who wants to borrow from you - do not turn away", "Sell your estates and give alms", "Rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep", etc.

In an effort to consolidate and develop charitable activities, to give it a more or less organized character, Prince Vladimir issues the Charter, in which public assistance to the needy was entrusted to the clergy in the person of the patriarch and church structures subordinate to him.

In addition, Prince Vladimir carried out a number of very progressive events for his time to familiarize Russians with education and culture. He establishes folk festivals, mainly taking care of the "feeding" of the poor, wanderers, orphans and widows, distributing great alms to them.

People's rumors widely praised the charitable deeds of Prince Vladimir throughout Russia. Legends were made about him, his kindness and selflessness were sung in epics for many more years, testifying to the responsiveness of Russians to care and attention. Prince Vladimir for mercy and poverty, in addition to other services to the Church, was one of the first Russians to be canonized as a saint.

The Russian Orthodox Church, which finally took shape under Yaroslav the Wise, also created its own charity center in the Kiev Caves Monastery. This monastery was known for its mercy towards the needy - it had a free hotel for pilgrims, a hospital, a free refectory for poor wanderers. At first, the church was the main subject of charitable activities. Church property was proclaimed the property of the poor, and the clergy were only managers of this property in the interests of the disadvantaged. Donations to the church also flowed under the influence of

view of charity as "protection from sins". This gave the church a long-term leading role in charitable work.

The great-grandson of Prince Vladimir, Vladimir Monomakh, distinguished himself with special concern for the poor and wretched: "Feed and drink the wandering and the poor like your mother's child" Firsov M.V. Story social work. - M., 2012.pp.-26. . Of great educational importance for many generations in Russia was the "Spiritual" he compiled for his children, in which his concerns were expressed about their moral state, about the need to be attentive to the needs of the people.

Princes and other wealthy people in their wills, deeds of gift and other letters stipulated, as a rule, that part of their funds should be used to support "a widow, a lame man and a blind man." In the famous "Instruction of Vladimir Monomakh" to his sons, among the three good deeds by which the devil is defeated, alms were mentioned (along with repentance and tears).

However, the customs of those times contributed to the development of beggarly craft, vagrancy and parasitism. "Church and almshouse people" were, in essence, professional beggars who formed entire settlements around churches and monasteries. Cathedrals and churches had their "regular" beggars - 10-12 people each, who received alms in money.

With the invasion of the Tatar-Mongols, in the conditions of the collapse of the unified state system and foreign domination, the Russian Orthodox Church objectively comes to the fore, from the point of view of preserving and uniting the spiritual forces of the people, which has become at the same time the only refuge for people in need of help, the poor, the elderly and beggars.

During the period of the Tatar-Mongol invasion, the Russian Orthodox Church, which had 100 monasteries by the end of the 13th century, became at the same time a single refuge for people in need of help - the poor, the elderly and the poor, in fact, completely took over charitable functions. This was facilitated by the fact that the Tatar khans, especially in the first period of domination over Russia, treated the clergy with respect, gave letters to the metropolitans, freed churches and monasteries from extortions, thus giving the church a great opportunity to engage in works of mercy and charity, helping those in need.

The church, with its network of monasteries, which was quite widespread by that time, actually completely took over charitable functions, taking advantage of the fact that the Tatar khans, especially in the first period of domination over Russia, treated the clergy with respect, repeatedly gave letters (labels) to the Russian metropolitans, liberated churches and monasteries from tributes and requisitions, left the care of the needy to the clergy.

In addition to the "regular" beggars, monasteries and churches fed wanderers, pilgrims, everyone who flocked to them during natural disasters, wars, and famines. Miracles Monastery in the Kremlin in the XIV century "opened a hospitable shelter for foreign Orthodox saints and elders who came to Moscow, especially for the southern Slavs and Greeks, who found shelter in him, lived in it for a long time and, dying, were buried in his own cemetery" Firsov M.V. Story social work. - M., 2012.str- 56. .

In the difficult period of internecine strife and national oppression, the activities of the Russian Orthodox Church were of exceptional importance for the preservation of the people's inherent spirituality, faith in goodness and justice, did not allow hearts to harden and become indifferent to human grief, to their suffering and deprivation. She inspired the people to fight for national revival.

The restoration of centralized Russian statehood and the final deliverance from the Tatar-Mongol yoke in the second half of the 15th century opened up wide scope for the development of the national economy and culture, the growth of public consciousness, the level of which largely determines the ability of society and the state to solve existing social problems.

The revived Russia slowly gained strength. However, even under these conditions, the traditions of charitable activities, established since the time of Kievan Rus, were not forgotten. Gradually, as the state strengthened, two mutually complementary directions began to be more clearly defined in the development of public charity. The first is the continuation of the traditions of Vladimir and other princes of Kievan Rus, showing an example of personal beneficence and patronage to the poor, the elderly, orphans and other suffering. The second is the strengthening of the organizing principle, the improvement of the forms and scope of state public charity while preserving and encouraging the charitable activities of the Church.

Eternally entered, for example, in the history of Russia under the nickname Kalita (a bag of money) the Grand Duke of Moscow and "All Russia" Ivan Danilovich (1328-1341), who, being very pious and gracious, used to constantly carry a wallet and distribute alms from it to the poor and needy. It is also impossible not to recall Boris Godunov, who, at his wedding to the kingdom (1598), promised that no one in the state would endure need and poverty, while declaring that "he would give his last shirt if there was a need for the people."

This tradition, supported in every possible way by both the Church and public opinion, strengthened and developed in Russia, gradually acquiring a wider scope and numerous adherents among people of different classes, whose material well-being allowed them to contribute by personal means to alleviate the plight of the needy, especially the poor, sick and orphans, as well as those without shelter and the opportunity to provide for themselves. However, as social problems become more complex, the public consciousness feels the need to find new approaches to the problems of combating begging and other ailments that affect society, it seems more sufficient to confine ourselves to private charity and the already established forms of church and monastic charity.

The researchers note that the cadastral books mention the existence of almshouses, “bad houses”, “God’s houses”, etc. at all parish churches. The social support of the parishes was expressed in a variety of forms. The inhabitants of the parish were aware of the material needs of each family, so parish charity corresponded much better to the real needs of the poor than alms. It could be assumed that the zemstvo-parochial activity would be further developed. In reality, this did not happen. The paradigm of help and support already in the ХУ1 - the first half of ХУ11 centuries. changes greatly. The authorities are gaining organizational and legislative power, limiting the role of the Church in doing good, and taking the needy under its legislative control. In the 17th century finally formed the system of serfdom. There were practically no free people left on the territory of the parishes, and therefore their significance as zemstvo self-governing units has significantly weakened. In addition, from the time of Ivan the Terrible, the higher clergy began to claim rights to the church cash desk of parishes and gradually achieved this. By the end of the XVIII century. the parish's right to elect a priest is replaced by an appointment from above. The interest of the population in the parish is gradually decreasing and its activities are increasingly limited to the framework of the church structure. Along with the decline in the importance of the parish, parish charity also declines.

The role and importance of the church in social and caritative activities increased after the Stoglavy Cathedral in 1551, when the state began to seek to regulate the charity of churches and monasteries. They were instructed to separate the really needy, the lepers and the aged, to enumerate them in all cities and arrange male and female almshouses for them under the guidance of priests and kissers, and also to maintain these institutions at the expense of donations. The complete subordination of the Orthodox Church to autocracy took place under Peter I. The church reform of Peter I essentially placed the church at the service of the state, which

It was also reflected in the nature of the social and caritative activity of the Russian Church, subordinate to government collegiums - financial and judicial. However, the plan for the transformation of the charitable institution of the Orthodox Church, conceived by Peter I, was carried out only during the reign of Catherine II.

During the reign of Catherine II, the Orthodox Church became an almost inexhaustible source of money for reforms aimed at reorganizing the charitable system.

In 1764, a manifesto was issued, according to which the former system of church land tenure was abolished. From now on, all the land allotments that the Church had accumulated over several hundred years were subject to transfer to the College of Economy, and the peasants who inhabited them from now on began to be called "economic". As a result, about 1,000,000 peasants passed into the hands of the state. 1.366 million rubles of taxes were collected from economic peasants a year. Of this amount, at first, approximately 30% went to the Church, but later, with an increase in the amount of tax collected, it was reduced to 13%. In fact, it was a legalized form of robbery, however, in the absence of the institution of the patriarchate, the scattered protests of the clergy were easily suppressed. Those who disagreed with the reform were exiled to distant monasteries. Russia under scepter Romanovs. 1613-1913. - M., 2010. Page- 372. .

The Orthodox Church was dealt a severe blow, from which she never managed to recover. An end was put to the economic independence of the Church, however, the funds received during the secularization of church lands made it possible to reform the entire charitable system, which subsequently proved the viability of many of its ideas.

2.2 Contribution to charity of Russian philanthropists and patrons during the period of absolutism

The eighteenth - the beginning of the nineteenth century, marked by the charitable deeds of major representatives of enlightened noble philanthropy. Vivid examples of charitable institutions of this time are the Golitsinskaya Hospital, the first city hospital, the Sheremetevsky House, the Mariinsky Hospital and others. Catherine and her successors did not interfere, but for the most part encouraged the development of charity and patronage. Donations of large sums for the needs of charity, the opening of charitable institutions, the transfer of libraries and collections to museums, the Academy of Sciences, universities, schools, etc. began to be considered "good form". So, the first president of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Countess Ekaterina Romanovna Dashkova, donated to Moscow University "a rich cabinet of natural history that she had collected over 30 years ... valued at 50 thousand rubles" Branitskaya S. Everything I give is yours // Business people. - 2011. - No. 126, - P.-112.

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The first decade of the reign of Catherine II is characterized by the rise of social thought. The Empress is keenly interested in the progressive movements of social thought, and in Western Europe. In the first years of the reign of Catherine II, her initiatives in the field of charity were limited to issues of education. Catherine is trying to introduce a new humane form of raising children into life, to create a unified type of citizen who meets the urgent tasks of a rapidly growing state.

The initiator of the creation of a new system of education was Ivan Ivanovich Betskoy, the illegitimate son of I.Yu. Trubetskoy. In 1763, he presented Catherine II with a plan for school reform, which the Empress signed with a special manifesto. According to the project, a system of closed institutions for the upbringing and professional training of children and adolescents was created. It included educational homes for foundlings in Moscow (1764) and St. Petersburg (1770), and later it also included a school for boys from different classes (except serfs) at the Academy of Arts, the Commercial School in Moscow, as well as the Institute of Noble Maidens at the Resurrection (Smolny) Monastery with a department for girls from the townspeople.

The most famous of these institutions was the Orphanage, which was intended for raising foundlings aged no more than 2 years. Immediately at the base

An obstetric department was created at the educational home under him - a secret maternity hospital. Since in most cases there were illegitimate children, women in labor were given the right not to give their names. It was even allowed to give birth in a mask. All circumstances were kept secret. No one, except the midwife, had the right to enter the ward to the woman in labor. According to Betsky, orphanages were supposed to play a huge role in the renewal of Russian society, many of whose problems were rooted in the negative influence of the ignorant and prejudiced older generation on the young. Since such influence is irresistible in the families of nobles, merchants and peasants, since parents are the natural educators of their children, Betskoy pinned his hopes on closed state institutions where the younger generation would prepare for a new life in the spirit of the best ideas of the Enlightenment and under the guidance of humane mentors. Of course, orphans and homeless children were best suited for this role.

Initially, the upbringing of all pets was the same, they received an elementary general education, and then from the age of 14 - 15, boys and girls were sent to learn crafts in workshops. Subsequently, education acquired a differentiated character.

Moreover, state funds were not allocated for its maintenance, but "voluntary alms" from benefactors were assumed. In addition to them, the Orphanage received a special privilege: a special tax on playing cards imported into the country was transferred in its favor. In 1772, three treasuries were formed under it - Under Catherine II, attempts were made to organize assistance to widows with young children who had no means of subsistence.

However, the appeal did not find a response in the male environment and the treasury remained empty.

In 1768, Russia was at war with Turkey, but when Russian troops entered Moldova, a plague broke out there. In 1770, the plague broke out in Bryansk and soon she took off her harvest in Moscow. Officials could not quickly respond to the problems that arose, the plague spread throughout the city. The panic began. The governor general, the civil governor and the chief police officer fled, unable to cope with the infection. There was a riot in the city. Worried about all this, as well as the Peasant War of 1773-1775 led by Pugachev, Catherine II carried out in 1775 a state reform to reorganize the provincial structure of the empire.

By a new legislative act of November 7, 1775, called the "Institution for the Administration of the Provinces of the Russian Empire", special administrative bodies were created in each self-governing territory of Russia - orders of public charity, whose duties were charged with the creation of public schools, orphanages, hospitals, almshouses, houses for the terminally ill, asylums for the insane, workhouses and penitentiaries. In addition to the orders of public charity, in each province, a noble guardianship was established to take care of widows and orphans of noble origin and orphan courts to take care of widows and orphans of the merchant, bourgeois and artisan classes. These institutions were engaged in organizing a shelter for family members left without a livelihood, and resolving issues related to the inheritance of property.

Orders of public charity - provincial administrative bodies in Russia, created by the administrative reform of 1775. They had six assessors (two from each of the three provincial class courts (nobility, merchants and philistines)), headed by governors. The orders were subordinated to the Ministry of the Interior and the Government Senate. They were in charge of local schools, hospitals, hospitals, almshouses, orphanages, as well as some prison institutions - "working" and "straight" houses, where, in addition to vagrants and beggars, landowners had the right to place recalcitrant serfs. They had funds for charitable purposes received from the government and private individuals. They were transformed as a result of the bourgeois reforms of the 1860s and 70s.

There were some peculiarities in the functioning of public charity orders. Firstly, the orders themselves were transferred to self-financing, each was allocated 15 thousand rubles at a time. It was assumed that the said amount would be turned into the initial authorized capital, which should have been multiplied through the distribution of loans (on the security of estates) or the receipt of interest on deposits in banks. In addition, the orders received the right to accept private donations, and cities, towns and individuals could arrange "generally useful events" (charity balls, performances, concerts, etc.) to raise funds for the benefit of the poor.

At the same time, significant shortcomings were soon discovered in the activities of the orders. One of them was due to the fact that work in the orders of public charity was a public service according to the "Table of Ranks", often attracting careerists who wanted to rise to a decent rank in this "non-dusty" field. The second drawback was due to the fact that the orders managed very heterogeneous charitable institutions (almshouses, schools, madhouses and workhouses, etc.), which, in the absence of a sufficient number of qualified specialists, gave rise to anarchy and chaos in business.

It is well known that Catherine II to a large extent herself set an example for her subjects. So, in 1767, the Russian nobility and merchants collected more than 52 thousand rubles for the construction of a monument to the Empress, but Catherine II, having added another 150 thousand rubles from herself, intended this money for the construction of schools, orphanages, hospitals and almshouses. Many nobles followed her example, so that the total amount of donations amounted to about half a million rubles.

Catherine II sought to interest the entire population of the country in this activity, since the treasury itself could not cope with all the problems. The “City Regulations” adopted in 1785 contributed to the increase in the public activity of citizens in relation to the poor. In accordance with this legislative act, such estates as the clergy, merchants, petty bourgeoisie and peasantry were established, which should take care of their disabled representatives. Thus, the merchants, having large financial resources at their disposal, oversaw the activities of a number of homes for the mentally ill, almshouses, orphanages, and schools, in which assistance was provided to all those who suffer, regardless of social status.

However, the existence of a number of negative factors preventing the successful implementation of all this soon became apparent. The most acute problem was the financial support of charitable institutions. The funds allocated by the Order of Public Charity from the state budget for the implementation of programs to assist those in need were extremely lacking. The costs of maintaining the huge bureaucratic apparatus of the new system of social protection of the population did not even cover the pawnshops and commercial associations operating under the Orders of Public Charity, which were intended to serve as their independent source of income.

But nevertheless, despite the numerous problems of the system of public charity, by the end of the reign of Catherine II in Russia, it already existed and was distinguished by a variety of forms and boards. Under Catherine II, the assistance system was reorganized and adapted to the conditions of life. Rich, noble, educated people considered it an honor to invest their money in charitable institutions, almshouses, orphanages, orphanages.

Patronage was encouraged in every possible way by various insignia, medals, and the philanthropists themselves enjoyed great prestige in society.

“To our will, Her Imperial Majesty, the most kind wife, out of philanthropy urgent to her and wanting to promote the common good, takes over the main authorities over educational houses in both patronal cities of ours established with all the institutions belonging to them; then, as a result of this, we command the trustees of these to relate in what is due to Her Majesty!

Empress Maria Feodorovna leads and develops hitherto unprecedented charitable and educational activities. With her participation, a network of educational, orphanage, hospital, educational and other charitable institutions is being established.

The Empress showed great concern for improving their sanitary and hygienic condition; for this, the number of children brought up in the Orphanages of both capitals was limited to five hundred each, and it was assumed that only “completely weak children who required constant care” would remain in them. villages to trustworthy and good behavior to peasants in order to accustom pets to the rules of rural economics.

Boys were to be brought up in peasant families up to 18 years old, girls up to 15 years old.

Maria Feodorovna's activity in the matter of guardianship was probably explained not only by her humane character, but also in part by her great ambition. Having before my eyes the example of Catherine the Great, who for decades ruled autocratically over the entire Russian Empire,

Maria Fedorovna, apparently, was painfully worried about the absence of any noticeable influence on state affairs. After the death of Maria Feodorovna, these institutions became known as the Department of Institutions of Empress Maria Feodorovna. All the numerous institutions under its control came under the jurisdiction of the specially formed Fourth Department of His Own Imperial Majesty's Chancellery (headed by its special secretary of state), they developed and successfully existed until the events of 1917. With the onset of Soviet power, all these institutions were abolished or transferred under the authority of the People's Commissariats. And to abolish what happened, only in the Department of Institutions of Empress Maria Feodorovna by the beginning of the 20th century there were 683 charitable societies and institutions.

Charity work was the main activity of the Mariinsky department. In the second half of the XIX century. a number of areas have emerged:

• 1. Charity of babies. There were 2 educational homes in Moscow and St. Petersburg, which annually received more than 20 thousand illegitimate children. In addition, under the auspices of the Houses there were up to 80 thousand people who were in private education. About a hundred schools were maintained to educate orphans. New phenomena have also been observed; So, in the 1880-1890s. the network of "nurseries" is expanding at some provincial and district orphanages.
• 2. Guardianship of teenagers. By the beginning of the 1900s. there were 176 orphanages (for 14 thousand children), including 4 thousand boarders who were fully supported by institutions. All the prisoners were required to take the course of the public school.
• 3. Charity for the blind and deaf-mute. For blind children, 21 schools were opened (2 in the capitals and 19 in the provinces), where more than 700 children studied. In addition, there were 6 institutions for helping blind adults. There was also a school for deaf and dumb children (for 250 people).
• 4. Charity for the elderly and the provision of medical care. In 36 almshouses (including two widows in the capital), up to 5 thousand people were under the care of the department. 40 hospitals (for 4,200 beds) operated under the control of the Department, and annually up to 25,000 poor patients used their services.

Maria Fedorovna was actually appointed the first minister of charitable institutions, after her it became a tradition and the wives of the emperors began to head the Office, and each contributed to the cause. So Empress Elizaveta Alekseevna, the wife of Alexander I, contributed to the creation of two societies - the Imperial Humanitarian and the Women's Patriotic.

From the day of the death of Peter 1 and until the accession of Catherine II, six sovereigns and empresses were replaced on the throne. They were people of different ages, dissimilar characters and tastes, but, nevertheless, they had much in common. First of all, none of them was distinguished by high intelligence, most of them ended up on the throne by chance. And one more thing - during the years of their reign, power was used not for the benefit of the state, but to satisfy personal whims. The successors of Peter the Great, although occasionally spoke of the common good, did so out of inertia or outward imitation. None of them conducted diplomatic negotiations, did not lead troops on the battlefield, did not draw up regulations, did not inspire subjects to exploits by personal example.

The heirs of Peter 1 Catherine 1st Alekseevna, the wife of Peter the Great, was proclaimed Empress after the death of Peter, mainly due to the announcement made by Metropolitan Feofan Prokopevich about the verbal testament of Peter the Great, who appointed her as his heir. This also corresponded to the desires of Prince Alexander Danilovich Menshchikov, in whose hands the government of the state was concentrated. A "Supreme Privy Council" of six boyars was also created in an attempt to limit autocratic rule. But Empress Catherine 1 died already in 1727, leaving a will in favor of the son of Tsarevich Alexei Peter 2 and then the daughters of Peter the Great - Anna and Elizabeth.

The heirs of Peter 1 Emperor Peter 2nd Alekseevich, the grandson of Peter the Great, ascended the throne at the age of 12. Menshikov tried to consolidate his power by declaring his daughter the bride of the Emperor, but despite this he was soon exiled, and power passed to Prince. Dolgoruky. Emperor Peter the 2nd died unexpectedly in January 1730, having contracted "black" smallpox.

The heirs of Peter 1 Empress Anna Ioannovna, the eldest daughter of Tsar John the 5th, was proclaimed Empress by the “Supreme Privy Council”. Contrary to the will of Empress Catherine the 1st. Transferring the throne to Anna Ioannovna, the “Supreme Privy Council” forced her to sign “conditions”, according to which military and civil power was concentrated in the hands of this council, which replenished itself and even appointed heirs to the Throne. But on the 10th day after her accession to the Throne, Anna broke the “conditions” and dissolved the “Council”. Power actually passed to the Courland German Johann Biron, who for a whole decade persecuted everything Russian and everything Orthodox. Anna Ioannovna died in 1740, having bequeathed the Throne to the grandson of her sister Catherine, the newborn John 6th Antonovich, and the same Biron was appointed regent.

The heirs of Peter 1 John 6th Antonovich came to Russia with his parents. Immediately after their arrival, the general of the Petrine era, Munnich, arrested Biron and transferred the regency to the Emperor's mother, Anna Leopoldovna of Braunschweig, but in this way the power still remained in the hands of the German party, which became unbearable for the entire population. Less than a year later, the daughter of Peter the Great, Elizabeth, with the support of the guards, arrested the “Brunswick family” and announced her entry into the kingdom.

The heirs of Peter 1 Empress Elizaveta Petrovna, came to the Throne in 1741 and ruled for 20 years. Her reign was a complete turn towards purely Russian rule, but the heavy legacy of the just past period was not easily outlived. One of the most important issues was the question of succession to the Throne. The choice of Elizabeth was stopped by the closest descendant of Peter the Great, the son of her sister Anna, Peter Feodorovich. In 1745, Pyotr Feodorovich married Princess Angal. Zerbstskaya Ekatira Alekseevna and their son Pavel Petrovich was soon born. In view of the low ability to rule Peter Feodorovich, Elizabeth intended to appoint his son Pavel Petrovich directly as the heir to the Throne, but she died without carrying out this project in 1761.

The heirs of Peter 1 Peter 3rd Feodorovich, immediately after accession to the Throne, again wanted to turn the rule of all Russian domestic and foreign policy into a German way, feeling himself much more like a Duke of Godshtinsky than an All-Russian Emperor. His wife Ekaterina Alekseevna, although she was a nee German princess, on the contrary, completely became Russian in her soul and could not come to terms with the desires of her husband. With the help of guard officers, on the night of June 28, 1762, she announced her accession to the Throne and soon arrested Peter 3, who did not resist. A few days after that, he was killed in a drunken quarrel.

Largely unfinished and, most importantly, forced by hostilities, the Petrine reforms remained virtually unchanged during this period. The entire upper class, obliged by law to wear a foreign dress and have a foreign appearance, while foreigners were in power, could not help but undergo significant ideological shifts and separation from the masses. At the same time, the entire clergy and church hierarchy were deprived of the opportunity to continue their teaching activities; a large number of monasteries, which had previously been centers of enlightenment, were abolished, and the monastic vows themselves were very difficult and limited; the annexation of Little Russia and the South Russian clergy, in many respects different from the native Moscow, led to great friction among the hierarchy itself, while simultaneously spreading the schism, which we have already spoken about. Thus, the entire mass of the people was actually deprived of that spiritual influence, which constituted the main strength of Moscow. But to this should be added the annexation to Russia of significant territories with a generally pagan (east), Mohammedan (south) or Catholic (west) population.

Immediately after the death of Peter 1, a period of legislative calm ensued. His immediate successors cared little about the full implementation of charity measures in their entirety and only repeated and strengthened the decrees on cruel punishments of the beggars. In some branches of charity, there has even been a noticeable deterioration in the situation. The real blow to the charitable institutions of the Church was the secularization of church lands, carried out under the empresses Anna, Elizabeth and Catherine 1. As you know, the lands were largely transferred to the “new” nobility, which gained enormous influence as a result of palace coups.

Although Empress Catherine I, and then Elizabeth, issued decrees on the charity of illegitimate children, these decrees were not valid, as a result of which even those shelters that had been opened under Peter I gradually closed. During this period, the total "number of the poor increased, and even more so in the churches and in the ranks." This continued until Catherine II.

Catherine the 2nd (Alekseevna) Catherine II in the first years of her reign followed the traditions led by Peter 1, significantly softening, however, his punitive system in relation to the poor. The first decade of the reign of Catherine II is characterized by the concept of social thought. During these years, her initiatives in the field of charity were limited to issues of education. Fascinated by the ideas of Western humanist philosophers, Catherine tried to introduce a new humane form of raising children into life, to create a unified type of citizen who would meet the urgent tasks of a rapidly developing state.

Catherine the 2nd (Alekseevna) At this time, she took measures to establish one almshouse in each of the 26 dioceses, drew up rules on the accommodation of the insane, prescribed: do not let the poor through the outposts, beggars from the merchant class, give away idlers if they are healthy, to manufactories and factories, to give the poor from the landlord peasants into soldiers; reaffirmed the prohibition of street begging, orders to care for those in need in those villages in which they are put on a head salary, and on the obligations of landowners and palace administrations to feed their poor and prevent them from wandering, on the expulsion of idlers from Moscow and on the non-issuance of passports to beggars, and, finally, it was decided to establish the Widow's Loan and Saving Treasury.

Catherine the 2nd (Alekseevna) Under Catherine II, the Church lost its former influence in the field of public and private care. However, since 1764, new monasteries have been opened, with almshouses, shelters, hospices, schools with hostels for students.

Catherine the 2nd (Alekseevna) The largest business of this period of the reign of Catherine the Great was the establishment of two large institutions for the care of illegitimate children. The question of them was seriously developed under the guidance of the famous philanthropist I. I. Betsky and received practical implementation with the foundation in 1763 of the Orphanage in Moscow.

Ekaterina 2nd (Alekseevna) In St. Petersburg, a branch of this house was first opened (in 1770), transformed in 1780 into an independent institution. The arrangement of these two houses laid a firm foundation for the charity of illegitimate children, if not throughout the Empire, then in the provinces closest to the capitals. The creation of these houses, as well as the adoption of other measures mentioned above, served to develop and strengthen the system of charity outlined by Peter the Great.

Catherine the 2nd (Alekseevna) After the opening of the Moscow and St. Petersburg orphanages, similar institutions began to open in the provincial provincial cities - Kazan, Cheboksary. Here the children were kept until the age of 3, and then transferred to the capital's foster homes. In 1852, there were already 9 educational houses with 17 departments in the provinces, in which 3145 pupils were brought up.

Ekaterina 2nd (Alekseevna) In order to expand the activities of orphanages in 1768, "village expeditions" were established - physically strong children were given for education in the villages. For example, 2,000 villages in the St. Petersburg, Pskov, and Novgorod provinces were assigned to the St. Petersburg Orphanage, where 18,000 nurses raised more than 25,000 pets. The payment for breadwinners and educators was about 15-16 thousand rubles. in year. The allowance was paid to the breadwinners until the age of 15, after which the latter remained in foster families until the age of 21.

Catherine the 2nd (Alekseevna) The largest organizational measure taken by Catherine II in the field of streamlining social charity was the creation by her of a whole network of special institutions called "Orders of Public Charity", opened in forty provinces on the basis of the "Institution of Provinces" in 1775.

"Institutions for the management of the provinces of the All-Russian Empire" According to this law, "the order of public charity is entrusted with the care and supervision of the establishment and solid foundation of: 1) public schools; 2) the establishment and supervision of orphanages for the care and education of male and female orphans left after their parents without food; 3) the establishment and supervision of hospitals, or hospitals for the treatment of the sick; 4) the establishment and supervision of almshouses for male and female, the poor, the crippled and the elderly, who do not have food; 5) the establishment and supervision of a special house for the terminally ill, who they have no food; 6) the establishment and supervision of a house for insane people; 7) the establishment and supervision of workhouses for both sexes; 8) the establishment and supervision of penal houses for both sexes of people.

Orders of public charity covered that part of the population that needed help and support. From the income of the province it was allowed "once" to provide 15 thousand rubles for the maintenance of orders. Moreover, this money was allowed to be put into circulation, that is, given at interest, thereby increasing capital. But this money was not enough, so there is a constant search for ways of additional funding. The activities of the orders of public charity did not unfold immediately and not in all provinces at the same time. From 1776 to 1787, public charity orders existed only in 22 out of 51 provinces.

The order of public charity was an administrative body, the chairman of which was the governor-general. The orders were first subordinated to the College of Economics, and with the establishment of the Ministries in 1802, they came under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of the Interior; from 1810 to 1819 they were subordinate to the Ministry of Police, and with the liquidation of the latter, they again became subordinate to the Ministry of the Interior and the Governing Senate.

Since 1763, the Medical College has become the central body of medical affairs. In 1803, in connection with the formation of the Ministry, the College of Medicine became part of the Ministry of the Interior as the Medical State Administration. The prikaz system existed for over 80 years and was eliminated in the course of the bourgeois reforms of the 1960s and 1970s. XIX century.

The transfer of public charity under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of the Interior translates the search for its funding into organizational forms. These include such as permission to conduct business and property operations (renting shops, houses, forges, gardens, mills, vegetable gardens, etc.; encouraging the extraction of peat, sawing logs, allowing the sale of playing cards; opening cloth factories) .

Thus, the orders of public charity increased their capital not only from the income of the provinces, but also from banking operations, private donations and as a result of conducting independent economic activities.

In the same period, the organizational structure of public charity begins to take shape. Orders of public charity were managed collectively, but the governor directly presided. The board included assessors of the Joint Court, one from each class: nobility, merchants, villagers, while the conduct of business was entrusted to one of the members of the board.

The system of daily meetings, drawing up incentives and permits, their coordination with the Ministry of Internal Affairs created a rather cumbersome and slow system of assistance and support, which was noted by contemporaries. Since 1818, officials have been introduced into the orders and from the side of the government - inspectors of medical boards. But each province had its own peculiarities in the management of orders.

"Institutions for the management of the provinces of the All-Russian Empire" Thus, the legislative act of November 7, 1775, called "Institutions for the management of the provinces of the All-Russian Empire", was laid down by the state system of public charity. The legislation of Catherine II resolutely turned the cause of charity from the zemstvo social principle, where zemstvo people provided assistance to the poor at public expense, towards centralization on a state bureaucratic basis, where police officers and orders were engaged in the charity of the orphans.

Begging in the form of begging is regarded as a phenomenon prohibited by law. The decree of October 8, 1762 "firmly confirmed" that "the beggars in Moscow did not go around the world to beg for alms, and they did not sit on the streets and crossroads." By decree of February 26, 1764, it was again confirmed that "no one under any circumstances roamed the streets, and did not dare to ask for alms", for which "all police teams, by virtue of decrees, should have the most diligent inspection." Those who were taken away, or, in the words of the decree, "taken" by the main police in the petition for alms "of different ranks of people, until the proper consideration of them" cases, received "feed money, 2 kopecks each", from the funds of the collegium of economy. By a decree of February 27, 1772, the Moscow police chief's office was again ordered to "catch those who collect alms and loiter through private officers."

However, begging and vagrancy does not seem to stop; new measures are required: "idlers", except for the inhabitants of Moscow itself and the Moscow district, are defined as "lower servants of the Moscow police"; on elected elders and sots, guilty of allowing economic peasants to beg for alms, a two-ruble fine is imposed on each beggar caught, which went to the maintenance of the workhouse; among other things, the duties of the mayor include the obligation to have supervision so that the poor, "if they can work, make them repair streets and bridges instead of those hired by the townsfolk, for which the townsfolk will give them the necessary daily food."

In 1768, after a fire in Astrakhan, it was ordered to issue construction materials to the victims of the fire on a loan for ten years without interest. A decree of June 6, 1763, ordered, as a result of the Moscow fire, during which "besides the government building, 852 philistine houses burned down, and 33 people," to lend one hundred thousand rubles to the victims of the fire without interest for 10 years, and besides in addition, for one hundred thousand rubles "to prepare materials for the stone structure" and, "buying bread for a year on passing barges, give out free of charge to those who are not able to work, because others who are still able can feed themselves by their labors, especially with the future now there is not a small structure. In this decree, attention is drawn to the recognition that it is necessary to use, in the types of fire-fighting, instead of wood, stone; from a charitable point of view, it deserves a remark about the emphasized distinction that it draws between helping the incapable of work and the able-bodied.

In 1774, a crop failure befell the Shatsk province; followed by an order to immediately begin earthworks around the cities, allowing only those who really needed to work, and, moreover, residents only of their own county, "to deliver means of subsistence to those in need and so that they would not be scattered over other counties"; the work consisted in carrying out a ditch and filling the shaft; in Temnikovo, the work was in charge of the soldier Grigory Bukhanov, authorized from the voivodship office; payment was made weekly, with bread - in kind, and for shoes and salt - in money; 3.120 adults and 1.861 minors were at work; due to the limited funds devoted to work, they provided, in general, poor assistance: 712 quarters were spent on the whole county. bread and about 300 rubles in cash.

Catherine 2 decided to create a universal system of charity, and on the example of Moscow - an indicative model of a universal system of public charity for all provinces of Russia. In this regard, on August 12, 1775, the Supreme Decree was issued, which ordered the Moscow chief police officer to establish a hospital, an almshouse and workhouses in the city - for charity "wandering around the world and begging, the elderly, the crippled and the sick, who feed on their labors not able, as well as people who belong to no one, about whom no one has care.

The first institution in the charitable system conceived by Catherine II was a hospital with 150 beds, called Catherine's. On June 19, 1776, its grand opening took place. From the very beginning, the hospital was "all-class", common to all kinds of diseases. In the same year, an almshouse for 100 people was opened at the hospital. A workhouse for male "sloths" was also established here, and a women's almshouse and a workhouse for women were housed in the buildings of the former St. Andrew's Monastery.

At the next stage, an orphanage, a home for the insane, a home for the terminally ill, a chastity house with a factory, city and county schools were created. The management of the entire complex of charitable institutions in Moscow was entrusted to the chief overseer, whose functions were performed by the chief police chiefs of the city. An assistant overseer was appointed to manage each institution.

That. , created by Catherine 2, the system of public charity also provided for the construction of special institutions for the employment of the unemployed, beggars, vagrants - workhouses. In 1785, a restraining house was created in Moscow. Unlike the workhouses, it was a forced labor colony where individuals were interned for antisocial behaviour.

By 1762, a certain system of institutions of state and public social assistance was taking shape: - medical institutions (hospitals, asylums for the insane); - institutions of charity (almshouses, invalid houses, houses for incurable patients); - educational institutions (orphanages, orphanages, schools for children of clerical workers); - Institutes of boarders, local charitable societies.

Thus, by the reform of 1775, Catherine II created a universal system of charity. It should be emphasized that the institutions of social assistance to the population in the provinces did not have a clear structure and principles of organization. Their activity was not constant and they could not meet the needs of the population. And yet, the charity system created during this period of time flourished for a long time and has survived in general terms to this day.

In concluding the analysis of the issue of Catherine II's measures to combat begging, it should be mentioned, at least in a nutshell, about the almost complete closure of "poor houses" and the cessation of "Bozhedom" charity that took place under her. Representing cemeteries for the poor, miserable houses with "Bozhedom" charity played their own role in the history of Russian life and survived until the 18th century. Even in this time, so close to us, the "bozhevik" was an official appointed by the magistrate for burial at a wretched house of those who died a violent death, or in the so-called overnight, as well as those, after whose death their children refused, for poverty, from their burial.

In the Bessarbian region, around the same time, "grave-digging workshops" also existed; these workshops, established from ancient times, consisted of people called "chokls" and devoted themselves to the goal of "picking up sick wanderers at the haystacks and crossroads and taking them to the hospital, burying the dead of various ranks and conditions of people without pay and looking after the sick during dangerous illnesses"; such workshops were the remains of Byzantine grave-diggers (fossarii copitae), which appeared under Constantine the Great or his son Constance; at first, the members of the guilds buried only the martyrs and made up the genus of church servants, and then they extended their help to all who needed it; the number of members under Constantine the Great and his first successors reached 1100 people, Honorius and Theodosius reduced them to 950, and Anastasius brought them to 1100 people. In 1747, an order followed in Russia to remove poor houses from the cities. And in 1771, the poor houses were completely closed. With the closure of the squalid houses, the almsgiving that Snegirev wrote about also ceased: the wretched were taken to squalid houses, where every Thursday on Trinity week people gathered with coffins, clothes and shrouds for the dead, buried the dead and distributed alms to the living beggars.

Ivanovich Betskoy (1704–1795), the illegitimate son of Prince I. Yu. Trubetskoy, received a good European education. For thirty years as president, he headed the Academy of Arts. In 1763, he presented Catherine 2 with a plan for school reform - "The General Institution for the Education of Both Sexes of Youth", in which he used the ideas of the encyclopedists J. Locke and Ya. A. Kamensky.

Betsky owns a number of projects for the creation and reorganization of educational institutions of various kinds (such as the Educational Society for Noble Maidens - the Smolny Institute - in St. perhaps it can be recognized as the most ambitious and ambitious. First, it was not supposed to reform an existing institution (as was the case, for example, with the Academy of Arts), but to create a fundamentally new type of institution for Russia.

Secondly, the system of Orphanages in Russia, according to its creator, was supposed to include not only the shelters themselves, but also a whole network of related institutions, from maternity hospitals and hospitals to craft workshops and loan funds. And finally, thirdly, the Orphanage was to become a place for the formation of a new type of people, the so-called third estate, and the specifics of this estate had to be determined not only on the basis of professional belonging to the category of “merchants, artists, traders and manufacturers”, but also by the ideology itself.

According to his project, a system of closed educational institutions was created in the Russian Empire for the education and training of children and adolescents, educational homes for foundlings in Moscow (1764) and St. Petersburg (1770), schools for boys from different classes (except serfs) at the Academy of Arts, a commercial school in Moscow, as well as an institute for noble maidens at the Resurrection (Smolny) monastery with a department for girls from the bourgeoisie, the gentry cadet corps was transformed

On September 1, 1763, the project presented by I. I. Betsky was approved by Catherine 2, however, the role of the government in such an important state business was to sanction the enterprise, since there was no money in the treasury for the establishment of educational institutions.

Immediately after the publication of the royal manifesto, the Synod, by a special decree, announced a subscription to fundraising, which clearly defined the source of existence of the designed institutions - “To be supported from a single generous alms of those who love God and their neighbor according to the Gospel commandment and diligently bake for the welfare of the Fatherland »

To set an example, Catherine II personally contributed 100 thousand rubles. The largest contributor to the construction and maintenance of the Orphanage was Prokofy Akinfievich Demidov, a well-known mining plant, famous for his hospitality, his whims and large donations to Moscow University and educational social institutions in Moscow.

Prokofy Akinfievich Demidov - The Commercial School was founded at the Moscow Orphanage with his funds. He also established a boarding school at Moscow University. For generous charity, he was worthy of the rank of real state councilor.

The Demidovs did a lot for the development of domestic metallurgy; they were smart, prudent and tough entrepreneurs. But the Demidovs also made a great contribution to the development of public charity and education in Russia. Here are some more examples of active philanthropists from this family.

Pavel G. Demidov - (1738 -1821) Corresponded with many prominent European scientists. He supported students of Moscow University who achieved success in the field of natural history and mineralogy. Donated a collection of art rarities worth more than 200 thousand rubles to the university library.

Nikolai Nikitich Demidov - (1773 -1828) Donated to the Gatchina Orphan Institute. He presented Moscow University with a rich collection of natural scientific rarities (minerals, shells, stuffed animals, etc.). At his own expense, he built 4 cast-iron bridges in St. Petersburg. He donated his Moscow estate for the construction of a house of industriousness (today it is the building of the Moscow Pedagogical University).

The eighteenth century could be called happy for Russia: both at its beginning and at its end, the throne was occupied by persons undoubtedly marked by the seal of a state genius and equally entitled to the titles of "great" assigned to them. In the spirit of her activity, according to her desire, which did not remain an empty sound, to glorify Russia not only with the brilliance of external victories, but also with the breadth of economic transformations, and, in the language of modern diplomats, to bring her into the concert of European powers, Catherine II was the true successor of Peter I.

The great significance of the legislative and charitable activities of Peter the Great, in general, has been sufficiently clarified. Let me now sketch a picture of Catherine the Great’s activities in this regard, and in view of the presence of two components in the issue of charity - the fight against professional and feigned poverty and assistance to real need, I will consider each of these components separately, referring first to the first.

In the "supplement to the Great Order", in Art. 560, an idea is expressed, which is only beginning to enter the consciousness of society in our time, about the dual task of charity and those elements whose resultant is true charity. The said article states that the beggars "attract care to themselves ... firstly, in making the beggars work, who control their hands and feet, and, moreover, to give reliable food and treatment to the poor for the weak." Consequently, their ability to work was taken as a sign of dividing the poor: for the poor, able-bodied, they need help with work, work, labor assistance, and for the poor who have lost the ability to work - "food and treatment", i.e., what I call "pure charity" ". However, it should be noted that the text of the article, which introduces a completely correct classification, is somewhat incomplete: only those who own hands and feet are recognized as capable of work; but after all, the possession of limbs is not yet an indispensable sign of working capacity, and therefore the terminology of the article under consideration should be viewed as approximate, approximate, and not exhaustive; besides, the article has lost sight of measures of preventive charity, with a significant development of which, of course, the need for both labor assistance and pure charity will be reduced; moreover, it is as if the greater importance of the fight against poverty is highlighted in comparison with help for it, and both resultants are recognized as if unequal: help is, as it were, an appendage, an addition to the struggle.

Begging in the form of begging is regarded as a phenomenon prohibited by law. By decree of October 8, 1762, it was "firmly confirmed" that "beggars in Moscow did not go around the world to beg for alms, and did not sit on the streets and crossroads" . By decree of February 26, 1764, it was again confirmed that "no one under any circumstances roamed the streets, and did not dare to ask for alms", for which "all police teams, by virtue of decrees, should have the most diligent inspection." Those who were taken away, or, in the words of the decree, "taken" by the main police in the petition for alms "of different ranks of people, until the proper consideration of them" cases, received "feed money, 2 kopecks each", from the funds of the collegium of economy. By a decree of February 27, 1772, the Moscow police chief's office was again ordered to "catch those who collect alms and loiter through private officers." However, begging and vagrancy does not seem to stop; new measures are required: "idlers", except for the inhabitants of Moscow itself and the Moscow district, are defined as "lower servants of the Moscow police"; on elected elders and sots, guilty of allowing economic peasants to beg for alms, a two-ruble fine is imposed on each beggar caught, which went to the maintenance of the workhouse; among other things, the duties of the mayor include the obligation to have supervision so that the poor, "if they can work, make them repair streets and bridges instead of those hired by the townsfolk, for which the townsfolk will give them the necessary daily food." Finally, workhouses are established. In Moscow, a workhouse for men was assigned to "the former quarantine house located behind the Sukhorev Tower," where "presumed sloths could be used for work" on sawing wild stone on government and private buildings, "and Andreevsky Monastery for a workhouse for women where women were supposed to be involved in "spinning work; the daily wages of the prisoners were determined at 3 kopecks. "The worker's house in St. Petersburg was ordered to be arranged by all means by May 1, 1781, it was ordered to send to this house those who stagger in St. the mendicants in the county towns were to be sent "to the Yamburg cloth factory, or to other work"; the premises for a workhouse in St. Petersburg were allotted on Vasilevsky Island, in the former buildings of almshouses. Similar workhouses were to be set up in other provinces.

As can be seen, in a number of legislative and charitable measures, labor assistance, as one of the means of combating poverty, is gaining more and more significant place. With complete certainty, in her discussion of manufactories, Catherine II writes that "it is especially necessary to take work for idlers in big cities." And even in the 17th century, the indiscriminate giving of alms to every beggar was a common occurrence: the impartial language of cadastral books naively conveys that, for example, in the city of Murom in 1637, "poor people walking feeders by their work, and others feed by the name of Christ," assuming that both kinds of earning a livelihood are equally legitimate; in the cadastral book of the city of Uglich, along with the entry: "yes, near the Filippevsky bridge there is an almshouse on the town's land ... and the beggars live in it, they feed on broad alms", there are records of a completely different meaning: "against the Nikolsky Gates, the church of St. Nicholas ... and church ... land ... thirty sazhens ... and beggars live on it and pay rent to the Metropolitan of Rostov, deacon Alexei Ustinov, "or" the Church of the Nativity of Christ ... and on that church land live alms-beggers from the quitrent. In a word, ancient Russia did not distinguish between forms of charity.

Quite different is seen in the character of Russian charity in the 18th century. First, the persecution of vagrancy and begging begins in Moscow; under Catherine II, this prohibition applies to all provincial cities, "for those who wander for alms are not in one local province, but there are such, as everyone knows, everywhere is enough" ........

However, regarding the use of labor assistance by Catherine II, several explanations should be made. Firstly, workers' houses were established only in provincial towns, and those "staggering" in district towns were to be sent "to a factory or similar place", where the beggars, although they could get a job, and, consequently, get rid of poverty, but they ended up, however, in a commercial-industrial institution, and not in a charitable educational institution; secondly, workers' houses and manufactories offered their workers only factory or handicraft labor, and, consequently, charitable agricultural colonies, as institutions of labor assistance, were apparently overlooked; thirdly, the workers' houses of that time did not have an essential feature of modern houses of industriousness - they lacked the condition of temporality of charity, its limitation to known terms, and therefore the government, even taking into account the rudimentary state of the manufacturing industry of then Russia and the lack of workers, took on himself an hardly feasible task - finding work for all those who do not have it; fourthly, workers' houses, established one for each province and subordinated to the local provincial body - the order of public charity, did not have a unifying central administration, the absence of which, perhaps, is desirable in the matter of private charity, with a certain share of parochialism and self-esteem of private societies, was, meanwhile, it is necessary here both in terms of the very complexity of labor assistance, and in terms of the novelty of its application in Russia; finally, the workhouses founded "to punish the guilty", completely different in their goals from the workhouses as charitable institutions, seem to be completely superfluously assigned to the jurisdiction of one and the same order, on the one hand diverting it from direct charitable tasks, and on the other, inevitably introducing some confusion into the purpose of these various institutions.

Being thus a convinced supporter of labor assistance, Catherine II sought to use, among other things, one of the types of this kind of assistance - social and charitable work. It should, however, be noted that Catherine II apparently allowed financial assistance to people who really needed it, as it can be concluded from this that the city broker was obliged, among other things, to distribute the mug collection to those who "cannot earn your livelihood by work."

“Although the human heart can do a lot,” says Professor Isaev, “pauperism is too important a phenomenon, too closely connected with the structure of economic life, for society to leave only the hearts in charge and refuse to influence it with the norms of the law.” If, therefore, organization is needed in general in charitable work, then it is needed, it is absolutely necessary in social disasters, which, by the way, are one of the causes of poverty, and not individual poverty, but mass poverty, the poverty of an entire locality. And here, in order to save the population, not only pure charity must appear in the form, for example, of the ordinary distribution of money or materials, as an irrevocable allowance or loan, but also labor assistance, in the form of public works - and, moreover, in an incomparably greater amount than the above financial assistance.

As if realizing the validity of the biblical saying - "timely mercy in times of sorrow, like raindrops in times of heat," Catherine II used both of these types of charitable assistance during those frequent national disasters that befell Russia during her time.

In 1768, after a fire in Astrakhan, it was ordered to issue building materials to the victims of the fire on a ten-year loan without interest. A decree of June 6, 1763, ordered, as a result of the Moscow fire, during which "besides the government building, 852 philistine houses burned down, and 33 people," to lend a hundred thousand rubles to the victims of the fire without interest for 10 years, and besides in addition, for one hundred thousand rubles "to prepare materials for the stone structure" and, "buying bread for a year on passing barges, give out free of charge to those who are not able to work, because others who are still able can feed themselves by their labors, especially with the future now there is not a small structure. In this decree, attention is drawn to the recognition that it is necessary to use, in the types of fire-fighting, instead of wood - stone; from a charitable point of view, it deserves a remark about the emphasized distinction that it draws between helping the incapable of work and the able-bodied. The next decree, dated October 26, 1771, commanded, in order to "deliver a well-deserved sustenance and exterminate idleness, the culprit of all evils," to determine those in need "to work to increase the collegiate chamber moat"; the daily remuneration for work was determined for men at 15 kopecks, and for women - at 10 kopecks, while those who went to work with their own tools, the indicated wage increased by 3 kopecks; the main leader of the work was lieutenant general, senator and cavalier Melgunov. The decree under consideration clearly expresses the view of laziness as "the culprit of all evils", and of labor assistance, as of assistance that provided not shameful or unworthy, but "well-deserved subsistence". Decree of December 2, 1774, given in the name of the Voronezh Governor Shetnev, ordered, in order to deliver labor assistance to the population affected by crop failure, "to start making ditches near ... cities, for a moderate monetary or grain payment from the treasury, to any gender and age of people for whoever cannot dig the earth will wear it"; in order not to shake the economic balance of the other population, which was not overtaken by the disaster, by organized labor assistance, it was recognized necessary to clarify that "such work must be voluntary, not at all attire and not with such publicity that from abundant places ... workers flocked." In the above decree, as it were, the chosen type of work is justified by the general availability. Pestilence 1771 , which brought great devastation to the Moscow population and, of course, greatly undermined the structure of public life, did not, quite understandably, go unnoticed by the legislature: by a decree of November 15, 1771, "a simple people without any handicrafts" was drawn to public works to increase "with a contented payment," the collegiate chambers around Moscow.

These examples clearly speak in favor of the conclusion that public works are beginning to be more and more used as charitable labor assistance. In the legislative orders of Catherine II, the desire to introduce into the consciousness of the population a view of the need to provide assistance through labor is clearly visible. Far from the legal provisions of Caius Gracchus, who, as is known, established the sale of wheat to citizens below its value, or Clodius, who went even further and allowed the distribution of bread free of charge, Catherine the Great was much closer, in the spirit of her state outlook, to the genius of labor, Peter the Great, with his dictum - taken, by the way, from the Holy Scripture: "Let an idle man not eat" - with a dictum that could be put in the best epigraph to the biography of this remarkable king-worker. Russia had to fight against begging, it was necessary to apply charitable assistance conditionally, by labor, even in social disasters. Otherwise, Russia was threatened with the fate of Rome, where, as is known, the free distribution of bread cost 10 million sesterces (700,000 rubles) in 73 BC, and in 460 AD - 77 million sesterces (5,300,000 rubles), and each beggar, whose number reached under Caesar a huge figure of 320,000 people, having obtained, subject to being included in the list of the poor, a tessera (in other words, a legalized patent for poverty), monthly received 5 measures of wheat from stores , and later - from the time of Septimius Severus, more oil, and from the time of Aurelian, in addition, pork.

And Catherine II used, among other charitable measures, public works. A trace of this was left in the decrees cited above, for the most part included in the Complete Collection of Laws. But, strictly speaking, it would be very wrong to build your conclusions only on the basis of this monument, which indisputably preserved - I hasten to make a reservation - the most precious features in the history of the legal and economic life of former Russia. Apart from the fact that the complete collection of laws is not complete, it, taken separately, can, in most cases, show only the desire of the government to achieve this or that goal and the instructions given by it for this purpose. When put in connection with other documentary news, the impartial language of which, like the language of an eyewitness, conveys to what extent and under what circumstances this or that government measure was actually carried out, the Complete Collection of Laws is a primary source. Comparison of the indicated two historical and legal sources makes it possible to find out, for example, curious questions about how far public opinion went ahead of legislative activity on a certain subject or, on the contrary, lagged behind it, how feasible the government’s plans were or, conversely, theoretical, how far, finally, , they were the topic of the day and sanctioned what had already been applied in reality, entered, so to speak, into the customary law of the population.

Turning to the few data I have at hand on how the order on charitable and social work was carried out, one can nevertheless provide some information that is not without interest.

In 1774, a crop failure befell the Shatsk province; followed by an order to immediately begin earthworks around the cities, allowing only those who really needed to work, and, moreover, residents only of their own county, "to deliver means of subsistence to those in need and so that they would not be scattered over other counties"; the work consisted in carrying out a ditch and filling the shaft; in Temnikovo, the work was in charge of the soldier Grigory Bukhanov, authorized from the voivodship office; payment was made weekly, with bread - in kind, and for shoes and salt - in money; 3,120 adults and 1,861 minors were employed; due to the limited funds devoted to work, they provided, in general, poor assistance: 712 quarters were spent on the whole county. bread and about 300 rubles in cash. Of course, this was only a first try, a first experience, and as such it can be considered satisfactory; therefore, it is not surprising that from the height of the throne this attempt was approved and the decree of January 14, 1776 ordered, in case of crop failures, to adopt "a method that, according to Her Most High Imperial Majesty's good invention, was approved by real experience in the Voronezh province near the cities of Troitsky, Temnikovo, Upper and Lower Lomov and Narovchat, and with foreign colonies inhabited near Saratov, who is in an institution to work in the nearest county towns by making ditches and earthworks ... for a moderate monetary or grain payment from the treasury. This grain aid, still applied weakly and to a limited extent, was, however, a step forward in the cause of charity. Involuntarily, on this occasion, the words of Monnier are recalled: "science, legislation, art, writing - everything is improved and developed in the world; God allows that the art of doing good works in the same way, so that charity, like trade, opens thousands of ways of its distribution and so that a person multiplies his spiritual virtues, just as he multiplies his knowledge.

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Recalling the hospitability of ancient Russian society, which reached the point that even on icons, for example, St. Sergius, the saint was depicted with a charter in his right hand, on which it was written - "have love not hypocritical and hospitable", on the one hand, the prevalence of vagrancy in ancient Russia, and, on the other hand, the need for that struggle against begging as a seasonal trade, which volens-nolens had to start legislation with ever-increasing vagabond begging. Let me here, by the way, note that vagrancy could develop not only from the hospitability of primitive societies, but also because, according to Mordovtsev's witty explanation, the circumstances that "in a primitive human society, all its members must be both hunters and shepherds, and farmers ... in the same way they should all be warriors ... it is clear that for those incapable of physical labor, only mental labor remained"; hence the wandering Russian cripples, singing tales of antiquity, or ancient Greek blind men, like Homer, composing rhapsodies.

Be that as it may, but the government should take prohibitive measures against vagrancy. And, indeed, little by little a fairly strict passport system is being established: for free residence in the capital, the presentation of a "pro-feeding letter" is required. From the documentary data relating to 1728, one can form some idea about this. So, at the peasant of the Kirillo-Belozersky monastery, Semyon Mukin, the letter he had had burned down during the fire of the hemp barns where he worked, and without a passport no one accepted him "neither for work, nor for living": Metropolitan Pitirim quite often gave out to persons those who have lost pro-food letters, temporary residence permits; the loss of letters was not uncommon: the Suzdal maiden monastery in the village of Novoselka, the peasant Artemiev, who worked with children on a barge with slab stone, lost the letter "during a storm." There were also forged submissive letters issued, for example, with the illegal signature of the former clerk of the Vologda bishop Feodor Tikhomirov. One episode with a submissive letter is curious: Yakov Vasilievich lived on Okhta for eight years; brother Gabriel, a peasant of the Resurrection Monastery, came to him from the province; for the appearance of a passport in the Synodal Office (i.e., in a modern way, registration), the brothers left the house, headed for the Neva, but, for lack of money to pay for the transportation, Gabriel remained on the right bank of the Neva, and Yakov alone crossed the river , who, having appeared with Gabriel's passport at the Synodal Office, presented it there, calling himself Gabriel; the passport was found forged, an investigation began, and both brothers were punished, they were beaten by cats, and Gabriel, in addition, was expelled from St. that he, knowing his "vice", did not come to the office in person ...

Catherine II, as it were, attached poverty to the place and, by decree of December 19, 1774, made it obligatory "everyone who has a further 30 versts from his residence to go away must have a printed poster passport, and even then, if it is not for asking for mercy, but for some work."

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In a reasonable understanding of the benefits of labor assistance, Catherine II was aware at the same time of the need to organize public charity. A brilliant monument to its legislative activities in this respect are the "orders of public charity."

The establishment of these administrative bodies of charity dates back to November 7, 1755, when the decree "Institutions for the administration of the province of the All-Russian Empire" was published; The twenty-fifth chapter of this remarkable decree is entirely devoted to the provision "on the order of public charity and its position."

The order of public charity was established one for each province, consisting of a chairman - the local governor and members - two assessors of the upper court, two assessors of the provincial magistrate and two assessors of the upper massacre, where the latter was available; besides this, in case the need met, the district noble marshal and the mayor could be invited to the meeting of orders, as advisory members. The management of the order included: schools, institutions for orphans and the sick, almshouses, houses for the terminally ill and for the insane, as well as workhouses and strait houses. Orders were directly subordinated to the Empress. In the form of initial monetary funds, 5,000 rubles were allocated to each order from the provincial sums, and these amounts, in order to increase funds, were allowed to be loaned against the security of real estate, under the conditions of such being in the same province, for a period of not more than a year and in the amount from 500 to 1,000 rubles "in one hand". The administration of schools made it a duty to remove corporal punishment for children; hospitals were to be built "outside the city, but near Onago, down the river, and by no means higher than the city, but near"; almshouses were ordered to be built separately for men and separately for women; the establishment, in addition to hospitals, of an independent home for the terminally ill was recognized as necessary in the quite fair consideration that “there are such illnesses that are essentially incurable and in hospitals or hospitals the number of incurable indigents will occupy places without the benefit of those who, being obsessed with temporary diseases, could get cured by use in hospitals or hospitals"; in the form of exemplary work, which could be introduced into workhouses, it was indicated for Moscow - "stone plates", and for other places - "cook flax or spin"; Finally, with regard to penitentiary houses, it was stated that, among other things, disobedient children, vicious people, "spoilers" (according to modern terminology, squanderers), by order of the governor, or at the request of landowners, masters, parents, or three relatives who were obliged to indicate exactly the circumstances that prompted them to resort to the help of penitentiary houses; the relatively strict regime of penitentiary houses is evident from the permission to inflict corporal punishment on "recalcitrant and disobedient" ones, consisting in inflicting lashes, but not more than three per offense, or imprisonment in a "dark prison" for one week, or, finally , in planting "on bread and water" for three days. In addition to these charitable institutions, it was not forbidden to introduce others of any other type. Meetings of orders were limited by the time from January 8 to Passion Week.

In order to elucidate the significance of the institutions of orders for public charity and the role they played in the development of Russian charity, one should first of all recall the authoritative words of Professor Isaev. Being an unshakable defender of compulsory public charity, Isaev comes to this conclusion from several considerations; according to his witty remark, a person, firstly, very often falls into need, thanks to those conditions of social life that are not created by him and which he is not able to change; secondly, public charity does not take the form of the fruits of an unprotected tree, from which every passer-by could snatch them without restriction, and therefore, with restrictive measures in place, public charity cannot dispose to idleness. At the same time - I hasten to make a reservation - Professor Isaev does not detract from the importance of private charity: in his own words, the latter, "led out of love for the cause, is capable of much more subtle healing of all varieties of need."

Therefore, the very attempt to organize public charity deserves full attention and approval. In addition, the considered legislative measure of Catherine II is distinguished by many advantages: the entire planned system of public charity was imbued with the beginning of humanity - corporal punishment was allowed only in strait houses, and the insane were recognized as subject to charity in institutions specially arranged for this; further, the system was distinguished by harmony and provided for a whole network of charitable institutions; there was no beginning of centralization, and this, in turn, could contribute to the emergence of competition between some provincial authorities with others and thereby contribute to the organization of charity; persons who were quite financially secure were involved in charity work, which tended to reduce the cost of maintaining personnel and served as a guarantee of more secure spending and storage of charitable funds; finally, the permission for orders to engage, in addition to charitable tasks, also in financial transactions on a land loan made it possible to carry out public charity, which in general requires particularly significant funds, without special, material sacrifices from the government.

But with an impartial analysis of the institute of orders for public charity, one cannot but admit that the circumstances that contributed to the improvement of the organization of charitable work, at the same time, entailed unfavorable consequences for this. In the absence of a central authority, the orders could go into disarray and quite involuntarily expend their strength on solving such questions, a satisfactory answer to which has already been found by someone else; the lack of any, at least, a controlling or inspecting body should have also affected not in terms of the benefits of the introduced system; the persons who were part of the orders involuntarily introduced into the living work of charity an element of bureaucracy, always somewhat dead and prone to clerical formalism; these orders, which were strictly secular in nature, did not involve clerics, and their presence could combine church charity with secular and, in any case, influence the elimination of discord between these two kinds of charity; the non-serving element of experienced local figures in the field of charity was not involved in charity activities, but meanwhile, taking into account the territorial nature of the system of orders, this particular element was incomparably more local than the changing, "wandering" composition of officials; limiting the time of the meeting of orders to approximately three months a year, naturally slowed things down; Finally, one should imagine the complexity of the task assigned to the orders, which is further aggravated by the acceptance of landed property as security, in order to express surprise at how the orders did not fall under the burden of this task, which had officials of people who devoted only their official leisure to the cause of charity and were involuntarily doomed to turn the cause of charity not professional, but amateur.

All of the above, of course, explains the existence of two opposite opinions about the orders of public charity. Both opinions are equally true and unjust. Some researchers argue that "the orders did not justify the hopes placed on them, due to the complexity of the work," that "the orders did a lot in terms of hospitals, but little in the fight against poverty." Others drew quite the opposite conclusion; Bishop Anthony, a contemporary of the introduction of orders, in a speech delivered by him on December 15, 1779 at the opening of the Nizhny Novgorod governorate, said: "From now on, we will not hear the flow of the sick, defeated at the crossroads, for life-giving medical clinics are opened to them; what will we see and hear? we will see poverty in pleasure; orphans as honest citizens; the sick, cheerful, jumping with their feet and glorifying God"; there is also such a pathetic exclamation: "Catherine did not burden the people with new taxes ... she invented a completely new tool ... income from the circulation of money in a banking position"; defenders of this opinion cite in support of their conclusions the consideration that already in 1803 the capital and contributions of orders of public charity amounted to about 9 million rubles, in 1810 - about 18 million. rub., in 1820 - about 36 mil. rub., in 1830 - 82 mil. rubles, and in 1839, when 123,000 people used the help of public charity, the orders' own funds exceeded 51 mil. rubles, and the amount of deposits - 98 mil. rub.

Of course, Catherine II herself did not look at the establishment of orders for public charity as the last word on a charitable issue, realizing, as she wrote on another occasion, that it was impossible to "divide ... wealth, like a monk divides bread at a meal" the statute needed to be supplemented ...

The implementation of the orders was carried out gradually. Novgorodsky was opened by the first order - in 1776, and two years later, in 1778, the second was opened - Tver; for the triennium 1779 - 1781. the opening of most of the orders falls, in the last year of the reign of Catherine - Volyn, Minsk and Podolsk. Thus, the orders were established in the reign of Catherine in forty provinces out of fifty.

Taking into account all of the above, apparently, one should be inclined to the idea of ​​recognizing the institution of orders, as bodies of public charity, as an act of great national importance. If public charity did not flourish in that magnificent flower, hope for which its first shoots, first buds, gave hope and did not turn Russia, like England, into a country predominantly of public charity, then perhaps the post-Catherine activity is to blame for this, which did not contribute to the original sketch of the necessary amendments and additions. To reconcile the two hostile camps - adherents of orders and their opponents, perhaps, is the witty remark of Professor Brickner: "not only the finished and finished results of the legislative and administrative activities of governments should become the subject of a historical presentation, but the spirit that expresses itself during such work is worthy of attention, the direction in which the reforms are being made, the good intentions that guide the figures."

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In concluding the analysis of the issue of Catherine II's measures to combat begging, it should be mentioned, at least in a nutshell, about the almost complete closure of "poor houses" and the cessation of "Bozhedom" charity that took place under her. Representing cemeteries for the poor, miserable houses with "Bozhedom" charity played their own unique role in the history of Russian life and survived until the 18th century. Even in this time, so close to us, the "bozhevik" was an official appointed by the magistrate for burial at a wretched house of those who died a violent death, or in the so-called overnight, as well as those, after whose death their children refused, for poverty, from their burial. In the Bessarbian region, around the same time, "grave-digging workshops" also existed; these workshops, established from ancient times, consisted of people called "chokls" and devoted themselves to the goal of "picking up sick wanderers at the haystacks and crossroads and taking them to the hospital, burying the dead of various ranks and conditions of people without pay and looking after the sick during dangerous illnesses"; such workshops were the remnants of Byzantine burials or gravediggers (fossarii copitae), which appeared under Constantine the Great or his son Constance; at first, the members of the guilds buried only the martyrs and made up the genus of church servants, and then they extended their help to all who needed it; the number of members under Constantine the Great and his first successors reached 1100 people, Honorius and Theodosius reduced them to 950, and Anastasius brought them to 1100 people. In 1747, an order followed in Russia to remove poor houses from the cities. And in 1771, the poor houses were completely closed. With the closure of the squalid houses, the almsgiving that Snegirev wrote about also ceased: the wretched were taken to squalid houses, where every Thursday on Trinity week people gathered with coffins, clothes and shrouds for the dead, buried the dead and distributed alms to the living beggars.

Strictly speaking, Bozhedomskaya charity had a dual character. On the one hand, in an earlier time, with the narrowly religious significance of charity in general, it was of great state importance, since, without its help, the corpses of the poor and those who died from any epidemic disease would have remained unburied in large cities for a long time. . On the other hand, with charity interpreted in the sense of a political and economic task, it, acting from religious motives, belonged, in its origin, to church charity. Therefore, if in ancient Russia Bozhedomskaya charity was mixed with a political and economic connotation and it stood above the average level of the state of the then charity, then in the 18th century, with the predominance of the economic significance of charity, it, mixing a religious character with charity, turned into something archaic, into relic of the past. And it is not surprising that, under the new direction of charity, this indiscriminate distribution of alms at funerals was itself condemned to degeneration, and in any case its destruction should be noted as a sign of the ever-increasing importance of economic charity.

NOTES

1. In neighboring Poland, there was also a struggle in begging. According to the law of Sigismund I, dated 1219, the peasants who arrived in the city had to enter the service in the city, or for some kind of work, no later than within three days; according to the law of Jan Albert, it was necessary to determine the number of poor people in each village and city; such poor, being unable to work, could beg for alms; a special stamp was superimposed on their clothes; in the case of begging "unstigmatized" beggars, it was necessary to involve them in the work of building fortifications against the Turks and digging ditches. (Okolsky. Historical essay on the charity of the poor in Poland. Warsaw. Univ. Izvest.; 1878, IV).
2. Extract from the cadastral books of the letter and measures of the steward Mikhail Feodorovich Samarin and Podyachev Mikhal Rusinov (1674 - 1676); Work. Yaroslav. scientist archive. com., in 2, 1892. However, even the patriarchs sometimes refused alms: sometimes “the petition of the old woman of Maryitsa to Patriarch Nikon for alms,” where this “old woman of the city of Voronezh” asks to be welcomed to her, “wretched, for alms”; on the reverse side of the petition it is marked: "refusal" (Tr. Ryaz. uchen. arch. kom. 1890, in IV); but this, of course, was an exception in the seventeenth century.
3. Orders of public charity in Russia. Safronov (Son of the Fatherland 1839, XII).

To be continued

M.N. Sokolovsky

(printed from: Bulletin of Charity (No. 1), 1901; published by the Institute for Civil Society Problems in the form of a pamphlet in 2000)

Today, in the year of the glorious anniversary of the 400th anniversary of the Romanov dynasty, whose history is inextricably linked with the history of our Fatherland and its peoples, our attention cannot but be drawn to the enormous role played by the Russian Tsar and Imperial House in the formation and development of the system of charity and charity in Russia.

When awarding swords to the Order of St. Andrey, two hundred and fifty rubles are charged from the cavalier ... Cavaliers of the Order of St. Andrew in the passages are obliged to visit places established for public teaching and enlightenment, also arranged for the charity of the poor and obsessed with diseases, excluding military hospitals, and then inform Her Imperial Majesty, presenting notes in which help or correction is needed.

Each knight was obliged to educate one or even several young nobles. Cavaliers were obliged to help the poor, widows and orphans, visit prisoners of war and prisoners, listen to their complaints and on solemn days give alms to the poor, preferring the wounded and mutilated in the war. Every month, one of the gentlemen was supposed to inspect the hospitals and alleviate the situation of the afflicted as much as possible. Knights of the Order of St. Andrei could also visit prisons, listen favorably to the unfortunate and observe that they were not treated too harshly.

The duties of the cavalry ladies of the second order established by Peter the Great - St. Catherine - consisted in "liberating one Christian from barbarian enslavement, redeeming with his own money. In addition, the care of the ladies of the Grand Cross and the cavalry ladies of this order was entrusted with a special institution for the education of noble maidens under the name of the School of the Order of St. Catherine, and their duty in this subject is to monitor the execution of the institution, for the said institution, decided.

With the further development of the order system in all orders, the obligatory duty of mercy was initially established and maintained. “From each holder of the Order of St. Alexander Nevsky, - says the Statute of the aforementioned order, - when he is awarded with this order, it is charged at a time and delivered to the Chapter of the Orders for charitable deeds for four hundred rubles. Of this amount, two hundred and eighty rubles remain under the jurisdiction of the Chapter, and the rest go to the State Treasury, at the disposal of the Committee for the Wounded, now Alexandrovsky. When awarding swords to this order, two hundred rubles are charged from the granted ... Cavaliers of the Order of St. Alexander Nevsky are entrusted with charity and care for invalids at home and all schools. Similar duties had cavaliers of other imperial and royal orders.

The work of Peter the Great was continued by Great Catherine II (1729-1796), who, having ascended the throne, proclaimed: “Charity for the poor and concern for the multiplication of useful people for society are the two supreme positions of every God-loving ruler.” At the same time, organizing assistance to those in need, the Empress herself remembered and reminded others that “giving alms to a beggar on the street cannot be considered the fulfillment of the obligations of the government, which should give all citizens reliable maintenance, food, decent clothing and a kind of life that does not harm human health.”

During the reign of Catherine II, the Supreme Power began to look for new approaches to resolving the issue of helping orphans and homeless children. Preparing the Order for the Legislative Commission, the Empress instructed I.I. Betsky to prepare a draft, on the basis of which, on September 1, 1763, the Empress issued a manifesto on the construction of an educational home in Moscow. It was created not just an educational home in which children were fed and given an overnight stay, but an institution where they sought to give them education and work skills for a decent life in the future. Catherine II closely followed the practical implementation of her plan. Drafts of Ekaterina Alekseevna have survived, indicating that she repeatedly returned to the development of the curriculum and programs for orphanages in Moscow and St. Petersburg, as well as the Smolny Institute for Noble Maidens.

For all new educational institutions I.I. Betskoy, on behalf of the Empress, developed detailed regulations in which educational ideas in the field of pedagogy were embodied in mandatory norms. The statutes of pedagogy were republished in order to promote the wide dissemination of the ideas embodied in them.

The construction and maintenance of orphanages was carried out at the expense of private donations. Following the publication of the manifesto on the establishment of an orphanage in Moscow, a special decree announced a subscription to raise funds from private individuals. Catherine II personally contributed 100,000 rubles to the foundation of the orphanage.

The ceremonial laying of the building took place on October 7, 1764 in the presence of the Empress. In 1764, 523 children were admitted to the Moscow Orphanage (children up to 2.5 years old were admitted to orphanages). Soon, on frequent donations in large provincial cities - Arkhangelsk, Voronezh, Yekaterinburg, Kazan, Kyiv, Nizhny Novgorod, Tobolsk and others, following the example of Moscow, educational houses were also opened. In them, "brought babies" were brought up only up to three years, and then they were transferred for training to the Moscow Orphanage. In 1771, the St. Petersburg branch of the Moscow Orphanage was transformed into an independent institution.

In addition to Moscow and St. Petersburg, educational homes appeared in Novgorod, Yeniseisk, Olonets, Kyiv, Kazan, Vologda, Penza and other Russian cities.

Orphanages had a number of privileges to increase funds. They had the right to hold a charity lottery; for their needs was the fourth part of the collection from all public city amusements; they had income from the production and sale of playing cards, etc.

In 1775, under the provincial reform of Catherine II, public charity orders were created in the provinces under the leadership of the governor, with the participation of wealthy citizens from different classes in their leadership. The orders were to monitor the functioning of public schools, hospitals, almshouses, orphanages, as well as institutions for the mentally ill, strait and workhouses. For the maintenance of all these establishments, the Empress singled out 15 thousand rubles to the orders of public charity at a time. Further income was to be made up of interest on this capital, as well as private donations, fines and penalties levied in court proceedings, etc. It is noteworthy that public charity orders, being state authorities, had the right to attract charitable donations. Charitable funds also came to the Smolny Institute.

Thus, in Catherine's time, a systematic approach to charity began to take shape. It was during the reign of Catherine II that the Principles were laid down, on which charitable institutions of charity subsequently developed under the auspices of the House of Romanov: the manifestation of the care of the monarchy for citizens through the patronage of charity and personal participation in it; giving the mentioned institutions a state character, but excluding them from the general system of state bodies of the Empire, and financing, both on the basis of charity and using state funds.

The further development of these institutions is associated with the name of the wife (since 1801 - widow) of Paul I, Empress Maria Feodorovna (1755-1828), who created a whole system of charity institutions operating on a charitable basis. In 1781 - 1782. Pavel Petrovich (1754-1801) with Maria Fedorovna traveled to Western Europe (Vienna, Florence, Paris and other cities) under the name of Count and Countess of the North. Acquaintance with charitable institutions in Europe, in particular the educational house in Florence, prompted the spouses to take up, after the accession of Paul I to the Throne in 1796, extensive charitable actions. The “Maltese project” of Emperor Paul I deserves special mention. struggle for Christian values ​​against godlessness and revolution. The holders of the order, among other things, were also assigned very serious duties in the field of charity.

After the martyrdom of Emperor Paul I, who fell at the hands of the conspirators, the development of the "Maltese project" was suspended and eventually completely canceled, due to changes in domestic and foreign policy guidelines.

In this and the next reign, the greatest contribution to the cause of royal charity was made by the wife of Pavel Petrovich, Empress Maria Feodorovna. She not only took under her personal guidance and patronage the charitable institutions founded by Catherine II, but in addition to them, Maria Fedorovna created a whole complex of educational, medical and almshouse charitable institutions.

The Establishment of the Imperial Family, issued upon the accession of Pavel Petrovich to the Throne, was, as an example of prudent management, prescribed for citizens to establish almshouses for the elderly and food for the poor, for sick hospitals, and for junior schools; as well as the establishment of spare bread shops. In this legislative act, in particular, it was said: “About these institutions, since they are based on mercy to the human race, the Expeditions of the Lots should use all their attention, so that the order, by the Department of the Lots of institutions, is exactly carried out; and it was observed, firstly, that by superfluous unnecessary people, or stewards, or other unnecessary expenses, no amount should be diminished or spent, which could be used with better use; secondly, so that what is determined for almshouses, hospitals, schools and those in them, comes in full.

And further: “to use diligence, so that the inhabitants, spending time in diligence, never and nowhere beg for alms in a beggarly way; who, because of old age, or due to extreme decrepitude, cannot acquire food for themselves by work, such to support their relatives; and for lack of, or for their poverty, the care of the Order to build for their residence near the church the departments of each Order, under the name of the almshouse, two huts, one for the female, and the other for the male, where to supply them with warmth, food and clothing necessary to cover nakedness ; what is the cost of having a box at the almshouse, behind the seal and lock of the state elder, and in the churches of that Order, a purse, into which, collecting on holidays and Sundays from well-meaning donors, attach to this box, and after each month repair an extract, than maintain this almshouse; in case of deficiency, add from the village. For a better order in these almshouses, the priests of those churches should, above all, have supervision, and especially that those who live in them behave respectably and do not stagger anywhere; if, for the sake of all this, for the sake of laziness, someone would dare to go around the world for mercy, to report about such to the Specific Expedition, which, by the power of laws, is obliged to give a command to send them to state work, giving for its part, who should know about it.

Particular emphasis in the reign of Paul I is also placed on the construction of charitable medical institutions. In the Institution of the Imperial Family, we read: “For the care of the villagers, the village order must ... contain hospitals or hospitals for all the conduct of that Order of the inhabitants; arranging them down the river, and by no means above the village, if possible in a high place and free air, placing the building not cramped and not low; so that male patients are specially kept from female patients, and that patients with sticky diseases have special chambers.

At each such hospital, a Physician and a Physician who knows the art of Pharmacy is appointed, which the Department itself will supply through the Medical Board; and, moreover, appoint male and female Overseers, as much as the need requires, from those living in almshouses, or from the villagers themselves, by will to accept this post for those who wish. Expenses that will be needed for this institution must be collected from the villagers themselves, since it is arranged for their own benefit.

The special management of these hospitals is entrusted to the Physician, and the village Orders are obliged to fulfill the requirement to fulfill it, as long as they agree with the general rules issued for hospitals. Along with almshouses and hospitals, "bread shops" (warehouses) were established as based on mercy for the human race.

Paragraph 206 of the Establishment provided: “In order to avert a shortage that could happen from a shortage of bread, for their own benefit, with each Order, a reserve bread store should be established; and for that:

1. At some distance from the village, so that during a fire incident they could not be exposed to any danger, arrange those shops.

2. Entrust them to the main authorities by orderly elected; as caretakers for them to determine the elders chosen from the world, tested in fidelity and in good behavior.

3. Establish to fill these stores with an annual grain collection from the villagers of each Order, and arrange it according to the amount of land each owns, counting half a pood of rye from each winter tithe, and 10 pounds of oats and the same amount of buckwheat from a spring tithe.

4. Continue this collection without stopping, regardless of the amount of bread stored in the store.

5. So that from his long lying in the barns, damage or damage could not come out of him, but most of all so that he does not turn to sowing the fields incapable: to the bread that has lain in the barns for two years, at the beginning of autumn to make a sale, and with the money received for it to buy the same or more new bread.

6. The sale and purchase of such is entrusted to the entire village Order, with caretakers appointed from the community.

7. In the event that it is inconvenient to make a sale, if the transportation of sold and bought grain for the villagers can become a burden, the villagers' debt will be in exchange for their own grain of the new crop.

8. Although the establishment of these stores includes assistance for the villagers during a lean year, they may also be needed because, in unexpected cases, some villagers will need a temporary loan of grain for sowing, and sometimes for their own feeding : and for this issue, such are here assigned; but with the fact that they were repaired: 1. With the knowledge of the orderly elected; 2. So that its return was made without fail at the first harvest of grain from the fields; 3. To issue this bread on loan not according to the measure, but according to the weight, and not to do less than four pounds on a vacation loan.

9. So that not only the Order, but also the Expeditions themselves, have a correct account for the whole store, and know how much bread and cash is in total, and what years, whether it is all collected according to the situation, how much is distributed in loans; distributed in loans, whether it was returned, and whether the exchange of the bread of previous years stored in anbars was fulfilled for the bread of the harvest of the new year.

Later, Alexander I (1777-1825) constantly legally and financially supported his mother, Maria Feodorovna, in her charitable endeavors. Possessing good organizational skills, she managed to attract enlightened and wealthy people to the cause of helping the sick, the poor and children. In 1797, Maria Fedorovna reorganized the Board of Trustees at the Orphanages, which received funds from all over Russia. In the Board of Trustees, noble estates, mines and factories were mortgaged and remortgaged, the interest from which went to the needs of the Office. The office of Empress Maria Feodorovna was turning into the largest charitable organization in the Russian Empire.

The patronage of charity, already during her lifetime, became a stable tradition for the Russian Imperial House. Charity has become a necessary element of charity, social policy. This found expression in the creation of charitable departments under the auspices of the House of Romanov, which included both Catherine's charity institutions and those newly created in the late 18th - early 19th centuries. Since that time, a number of charitable departments and committees have been created, reporting directly to the monarch and members of his family. At the same time, the participation of monarchs and members of the Dynasty in charity was not only an expression of their personal qualities, but reflected their understanding of social problems.

The participation of members of the Dynasty in the work of charitable organizations was not limited to exclusively representative functions. The very fact of the August patronage over these institutions was a powerful incentive to attract thousands and thousands of private philanthropists to cooperation. In order to ensure the smooth functioning and development of charity institutions on the basis of charity, as well as to actively involve citizens in it, the authorities encouraged charity in various ways. Donors could count on orders, medals and badges of honor, on the assignment of their names to charitable institutions, endowment funds, and scholarships. Persons who donated to institutions and societies of the Department of Institutions of Empress Maria and the Imperial Philanthropic Society could, in addition, count on ranks and departmental uniforms. Ranks and uniforms were also provided to those who served free of charge in the mentioned departments. Charitable activities could serve as a means to public recognition.

Of the representatives of the Imperial Family, the most significant donations to subordinate institutions were made by the wife and widow of Paul I, Maria Feodorovna. In 1884, her donations were estimated at 1,241,478 rubles. silver and another 515,389 rubles. banknotes. Donations by the wife of Alexander I, Elizabeth Alekseevna (1779-1826), as of 1884, amounted to 1,510,597 rubles. banknotes. The wife of Nicholas II (1868-1918), the Holy Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, only donated 50,000 rubles to the Guardianship of the houses of industriousness and workhouses. for the library and 70,000 rubles. on the establishment of prizes for authors of works on charity.

Emperors and other representatives of the male half of the House of Romanov also donated to the institutions of the Empress Maria and other charitable institutions. Alexander I donated more than others. From 1816 until the end of his reign, the Humanitarian Society received a total of 1,327,950 rubles in donations, of which more than 600,000 came from the Emperor. During the reign of Nicholas I, the Humanitarian Society received donations in the amount of 9,606,203 rubles. Of these, about 7,000,000 were donations from various societies, institutions and individuals. The rest of the money came from the Tsar. Under Alexander II (1818-1881), 2,756,466 rubles were transferred to the Imperial Philanthropic Society by the monarch, while a total of 15,086,940 rubles were received. From Alexander III (1845-1894) 1,167,105 rubles were received, while the total amount of donations was 21,362,298 rubles.

Nicholas I (1796-1855) donated 100,000 rubles to the Alexandria orphanage. banknotes, by 1884 amounting to 36,516 rubles. silver. Alexander II donated 70,000 rubles to the Department of Orphanages. to create an emerital (pension) fund. He also donated 1,000,000 rubles to the Office of the Empress Maria. in memory of his deceased wife.

In order to get a real idea of ​​the size of these donations today, you need to multiply the mentioned amounts by one and a half (for the beginning of the 20th century), two, or even three (for earlier periods) thousand.