“Owners of a mutilated affair”: establishment of a support system for military invalids in the Russian Empire during the First World War

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 supposed 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.

1. Chizh I.M. Karpenko I.V. Voyennaya meditsina v russkoy armii v gody Pervoy mirovoy voyny [Military medicine in the Russian army during the First World War]. Istoriya meditsiny – History of Medicine, 2017, vol. 4, no. 2, pp. 216-224. (In Russian).

2. Ulyanova G.N. Blagotvoritel’nost’ v Rossiyskoy imperii, konets XVIII – nachalo XX veka [Charity in the Russian Empire, Late 18th – Early of 20th Centuries]. Moscow, 2005. (In Russian)

3. Matveyeva N.L. Blagotvoritel’naya deyatel’nost’ imennykh komitetov chlenov imperatorskoy sem’i v gody Pervoy mirovoy voyny [Charitable Activity of the Named Committees of the Members of the Imperial Family During the First World War]. Moscow, 2004. (In Russian).

4. Matveyeva N.L. Blagotvoritel’nost’ i imperatorskaya sem’ya v gody Pervoy mirovoy voyny [Charity and the Imperial Family During the First World War]. Moscow, 2004. (In Russian)

5. Sokolov A.R., Zimin I.V. Blagotvoritel’nost’ sem’i Romanovykh. XIX – nachalo XX veka [Charity of the Romanov Family. 19th – Early of 20th Century]. Moscow, 2015. (In Russian)

6. Shcherbinin P.P. Osobennosti prizreniya voyennykh invalidov i chlenov ikh semey v Rossii v XVIII – na-chale ХХ v. [Features of the care of military invalids and their families in Russia in the 18th – early 20th century]. Vestnik VGU. Seriya Gumanitarnye nauki [Voronezh State University Herald. Series of Humanita-rian Sciences], 2005, no. 2, pp. 222-233. (In Russian).

7. Zumpf A. Invalidnost’ i ekspertiza vo vremya Pervoy mirovoy voyny v Rossii [Disability and expertise dur-ing the First World War in Russia]. Bol’shaya voyna Rossii: Sotsial’nyy poryadok, publichnaya kommuni-katsiya i nasiliye na rubezhe tsarskoy i sovetskoy epokh [The Great War of Russia: Social Order, Public Communication and Violence at the Turn of the Tsarist and Soviet Eras]. Moscow, 2014, pp. 58-78. (In Russian).

8. Sumpf A. Rossiyskiye invalidy Pervoy mirovoy voyny: zhertvy proshlogo i sovremennaya sotsial’naya gruppa? [Russian invalids of the First World War: victims of the past and the modern social group?]. Mate-rialy Mezhdunarodnogo kollokviuma «Malen’kiy chelovek i bol’shaya voyna v istorii Rossii: seredina XIX – seredina XX v.» [Proceedings of the International Colloquium “The Little Man and the Big War in the His-tory of Russia: Mid 19th – Mid 20th Centuries”]. St. Petersburg, 2014, pp. 297-311. (In Russian).

9. Toropkin S.A. O prave na pensiyu uchastnikov Pervoy mirovoy voyny [On the right to pension of partici-pants of the First world war]. Aktual’nyye problemy gumanitarnykh i estestvennykh nauk [Current Problems of Humanities and Natural Sciences], 2015, no. 9-2, pp. 93-99. (In Russian).