Historical retrospective: Jewish women of Belarus in the development of dental tourism (second half of the 19 – early 20th cent.)

Abstract

The article based on archival documents will consider such a direction in the tourism industry as medical tourism. Dentists were pioneers in this area in Belarus, but the history of this industry is much older than one might think. In the late 19th and early 20th cent. Jewish Pale of Settlement passed through the territory of Belarus. Belarusian provinces, which constituted a significant part of the Jewish population in that period entered a period of dramatic changes. The modernization process resulted in the appearance of women in public spheres. Since the second half of the 19th cent., after the development of the regulatory framework, it becomes possible to obtain the specialty of a dentist. Archival documents from the National Historical Archive of Belarus (NHAB) in Grodno and Minsk show that the dental industry was very attractive to Jewish women. Druskeniki was a special place for the Jewish population. Women Jewish dental offices were in great demand not only among the Jewish population, but also among Christians. This activity gave women the opportunity to have their own income, and, therefore, freed them from patriarchal dependence, destroying gender stereotypes imposed by society. The process of emancipation of the female Jewish population began. The end result of these processes was the formation at the turn of the 19th – early 20th cent. a new type of independent woman