«Хозяева увечного дела»: становление системы помощи военным инвалидам в Российской империи в годы Первой мировой войны

Abstract

We describe emerged in the Russian Empire an organizational basis of support for the First World War invalids. The policy of charity for military invalids generated with the participation of official, public and charitable elements. We reveal the complex relationship between the main actors in this process – one of the “crown” charity committees (Special Commission of Grand Duchess Xenia Alexandrovna), the Central bodies of the County Union and the Union of Cities, and local self-government. Using archival materials, the main guidelines for creating a war-mutilated charity system are identified. We determine the leading approaches to the architecture of the state and public system of support to former military personnel who have lost their working ability. In addition, we discuss in details the topic of war-mutilated registration, which was sup-posed to be the first stage of building a national system of care for war invalids, but it was never carried out. We also focus on the financial aspects of supporting military invalids. We conclude that the system for the war-mutilated charity could have become the first fully implemented direction of state social policy in Russian history, but it failed to realize its potential due to political contradictions between the official government and liberal associations.