TOWNS OF VOLYN DURING THE GREAT WAR: GENERAL STATE AND LOCAL CIVIC CHARITABLE PRACTICES (1914–1916)

Abstract

During the Great War, Volyn became one of the arenas of confrontation between the troops of the Entente and the Triple Alliance. The First World War on the territory of Volyn was affected not only by the battles of Russian and Austro-Hungarian troops, but also by the active activities of a number of civic organizations, mainly of a charitable nature, who wanted to help military and civilian victims of the conflict. The aim of the research is to present the activities of general state and local charitable civic organizations in sub-Russian urban centers of the Volyn province in 1914–1916. Considering the scope and nature of the article, we bypass with our attention the analysis of the activities of ethnic public structures, the Russian Red Cross Society, as well as charitable organizations of associated with members of the Romanov dynasty. The research methodology is based on the use of general scientific and specially historical research methods, including problem-chronological, synchronous, diachronic, comparative-historical and others. The scientific novelty is that the author tried, on the basis of unpublished archival materials, to highlight the activities of general state and local civic charitable initiatives in the sub-Russian urban centers of the Volyn province in 1914–1916. Conclusions. It was established that during the Great War, the towns of Volyn were important centers of civic charitable practices. Not only the general state structural units of the All-Russian Union of Cities, but also local civic initiatives, such as the Lutsk Town Committee for Aid to War Victims or the Municipal Committee for Assistance to the Poor Residents of Kremenets, carried out charitable activities here. Some wealthy townspeople were also involved in charitable activities. In general, during the Great War in Volyn, as well as in other Ukrainian provinces of the Russian Empire, we can observe the phenomenon of public activism as a substitute for the ineffectiveness of state institutions and a compensator for the limitations of self-governing bodies in solving urgent social problems caused by the war.