Science of the Child in Late Imperial and Early Soviet Russia

Abstract

Abstract Between the 1880s and the 1930s, children and their development became the focus of unprecedented scientific and professional interest across modernizing societies worldwide. This book charts the rise and fall of the interdisciplinary field devoted to the study of the child in Russia across the late imperial and early Soviet eras. It follows the institutionalization of new domains of knowledge and occupational practice, including developmental and educational psychology, special needs education, child psychiatry, juvenile criminology, and the anthropology of childhood. The book represents an original contribution both to Russian and Soviet history (specifically the history of Russo-Soviet human sciences, professions, education, and childhood) and to the history of scientific interest in child biopsychosocial development in general. Drawing on ideas and concepts emanating from a variety of theoretical domains, the book provides new insights into the concerns of Russia’s professional and scientific intelligentsia with matters of biosocial reproduction and investigates the incorporation of scientific knowledge and professional expertise focused on child development and socialization into the making of the welfare/warfare state in the rapidly changing political landscape of the early Soviet era.