CHILDREN OF SERVANTS IN RUSSIA IN THE MID-19TH – THE EARLY 20TH CENTURY

Abstract

In this article, based on the historical and anthropological approach, we study the possibilities of implementing the maternal role of female servants in Russia at the turn of the 19th – 20th centuries. Based on a wide source base, represented by reports of various societies, court cases, reports of Zemstvo and public congresses, etc., the author analyses the extent to which servants had the «right to a family», which was the reason for the desire or unwillingness to have a child, the possibility of raising children. Using concrete examples, the study shows that most of the servants’ children were illegitimate and unwanted. Very often, because of the fear of dismissal and loss of means of subsistence, the servants had to get rid of the child. The author comes to the conclusion that the options for the development of the mother-child relationship were reduced to «getting rid» of the child by abortion, infanticide, dumping it in an orphanage; giving it to relatives or public organisations for upbringing; providing the child to itself. The example of servants’ children shows that they were forced to grow up early, and the resulting «freedom», in most cases, was realised in deviant behaviour. By the end of the 19th century the fate of street children had become a problem that caused serious concern not only for Russian pedagogues and hygienists, but also for the broad circles of Russian society.