Historical Overview of Volunteer Practices in the Health Care System in the 1920s–70s: Materials from the State Archive of the Russian Federation and the Central State Archive of Moscow

Print PDF

Scientific article

УДК 930.25+093+94(47)+930.253

DOI 10.28995/2073-0101-2022-3-715-728

Gorlova, Natalya I.

G. V. Plekhanov Russian University of Economics, Moscow, Russian Federation

Historical Overview of Volunteer Practices in the Health Care System in the 1920s–70s: Materials from the State Archive of the Russian Federation and the Central State Archive of Moscow

Abstract

Turning to archival materials continues the Russian archivists’ tradition, developed in the recent decades, to introduce into scientific use documents of key importance for understanding the Soviet history and its episodes, including those related to socially significant activities of voluntary activists in the field of healthcare under the auspices of the Union of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies of the USSR. The chronological frameworks of the undertaken research is 1920–70s. The author aims to review documentary sources that reflect the activities of the Society's activists acting on voluntary and gratuitous basis. The work actualizes the problem of evolution of the sectorial sphere of volunteer labor application from historical point of view. In its activities during the studied period, the Society used traditional organizational forms and sought out new ones for social mobilization of the population's participation in gratuitous donor movement and its promotion, sanitary improvement of cities and villages, improvement and popularization of sanitary culture at work and home, public sanitary control, preventive measures and combating the spread of infectious diseases, etc. The empirical base of the study is formed by materials from the State Archive of the Russian Federation and the Central State Archive of Moscow. The body of sources on the subject analyzed by the author is distinguished by its diversity (minutes of meetings of the executive committee plenums, operational meetings, transcripts, certificates, annual reports on core activities, etc.); it permits to highlight the diverse activities, forms and methods of the Society's activists’ work, as well as to trace the process of institutionalization of the profile direction in the national volunteer movement in the field of healthcare. The author has introduced unique archival documents into scientific use. The methodological basis of the work is principle of historicism, systematic nature of scientific analysis, objectivity, integrated use of a wide range of sources, which has made it possible to consider the volunteer practices of socially significant activity in the healthcare system in the process of its formation and development, in the context of historical conditionality and continuity of its development. The article takes on particular importance in connection with systematic development and popularization of medical volunteering in modern Russia, which takes into account the rich historical experience and heritage of the USSR.

Keywords

Archival document, historical sources, Union of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies of the USSR, volunteerism, healthcare.

Download the article: gorlova_doi

References

BALTIISKII, V. A. Sovetskii Krasnyi Krest v reshenii zadach zdravookhraneniya voennogo vremeni [The Soviet Red Cross addressing wartime health protection problems. In Russ.]. IN: Sovetskoe zdravookhranenie, 1985, no. 5, pp. 26–27.

BOBYLEVA, N. M. Obshchestvo Krasnogo Kresta i Krasnogo Polumesyatsa Bashkirii v pervom periode Velikoi Otechestvennoi voiny 1941–1945 gg. [The Society of the Red Cross and Red Crescent of Bashkiria in the first period of the Great Patriotic War of 1941–45. In Russ.]. IN: Voenno-istoricheskii zhurnal, 2007, no 12, pp. 22–24.

GOTLIB, V.O. Opyt raboty s aktivom okhrany materinstva i detstva obshchestva Krasnogo Kresta [Experience of working with the activists of the protection of motherhood and childhood of the Red Cross Society. In Russ.]. IN: Sovetskoye zdravookhraneniye, 1959, no. 6, pp. 22–25.

GRIGOR’EVA, G. A. Aktivisty obshchestv Krasnogo Kresta i Krasnogo Polumesyatsa SSSR [Activists of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies of the USSR. In Russ.]. Moscow, Medgiz publ., 1956, 84 p.

EVDOKIMOVA, E. S. Deyatel'nost' Buryatskogo otdeleniya obshchestva Krasnogo Kresta vo vremya Velikoi Otechestvennoi voiny [Activities of the Buryat branch of the Red Cross Society during the Great Patriotic War. In Russ.]. IN: Vestnik Buryatskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta [Bulletin of the Buryat State University], 2010, no 7, pp. 10–14.

IPPOLITOV, S. S., GOLOTIK, S. I. Rossiiskoe obshchestvo Krasnogo Kresta (1917–30-ye gg.) [The Russian Red Cross Society (1917–30s). In Russ.]. IN: Novyi istoricheskii vestnik, 2001, no. 2 (4), pp. 237-250.

IPPOLITOV, S. S. Rossiiskoe obshchestvo Krasnogo Kresta v Sibiri i na Dal'nem Vostoke: organizatsiya i pomoshch' armii i naseleniyu (1919–1920 gg.) [The Russian Society of the Red Cross in Siberia and the Far East: Organization and helping the army and population (1919–20). In Russ.]. IN: Novyi istoricheskii vestnik, 2013, no. 1 (35), pp. 56–68.

LUCHINA, K. I. Obshchestvennyi sanitarnyi inspector [Public sanitary inspector. In Russ.]. Moscow, Meditsina publ., 1979, 30 p.

NESTERENKO, A. I. Bol'sheviki-organizatory sanitarnykh otryadov v revolyutsionnom Petrograde [Bolshevik organizers of sanitary detachments in revolutionary Petrograd. In Russ.]. Leningrad, Meditsina publ. 1969, 191 p.

SEMENOV, M. A. Dokumenty o deyatel'nosti Krasnogo Kresta v Novosibirskoi oblasti v 1941–1942 gg. [Documents on the activities of the Red Cross in the Novosibirsk region in 1941–42. In Russ.]. IN: Istoricheskii kur'er, 2019, no. 5 (7), pp. 83–99.

TROYAN, N. V. Sovetskii Krasnyi Krest v gody Velikoi Otechestvennoi voiny [The Soviet Red Cross in the days of the Great Patriotic War. In Russ.]. Мoscow, Meditsina publ., 1975, 56 p.

SHALATSKAYA, E. P., KURAPOV, A. A. “Organization of the fight against the cholera epidemic in the city of Astrakhan and the Astrakhan region in 1970”, History and Archives, no. 1, pp. 26–43, doi 10.28995/2658- 6541-2022-1-26-43

About the authors

Gorlova Natalya Ivanovna, PhD in History, associate professor, G. V. Plekhanov Russian University of Economics, department of hospitality, tourism, and sport, associate professor, Moscow, Russian Federation, +7-800-200-08-36, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Submitted 14.12.2021, published (for citation):

GORLOVA, N. I. Istoricheskii obzor dobrovol'cheskikh praktik v sisteme zdravookhraneniya v 1920–1970-kh gg. Po materialam fondov GARF i TsGA g. Moskvy [Historical Overview of Volunteer Practices in the Health Care System in the 1920s–70s: Materials from the State Archive of the Russian Federation and the Central State Archive of Moscow. In Russ.]. IN: Vestnik arhivista / Herald of an Archivist, 2022, no. 3, pp. 715-728. doi 10.28995/2073-0101-2022-3-715-728

You can read completely article in the russian historic-archival magazine “The Herald of an Archivist”. Read more about terms of subscription here.

Полностью материал публикуется в российском историко-архивоведческом журнале ВЕСТНИК АРХИВИСТА. Ознакомьтесь с условиями подписки здесь.