Charity (entry)

Categories / Social Life/Charity
CHARITY, philanthropic activities, aimed at extending aid to the needy and carried out by social and church organisations, state establishments, as well as by private persons for religious, moral and humane reasons (public and private charity). In St. Petersburg charity included taking care of the poor, sick, aged, orphans, homeless as well as beggars in special establishments: hospices, orphanages, guardianships, boarding houses and orphanages, houses of diligence and mercy, public canteens and cheap lodgings; as well as providing medical and material support. Donations for the construction and decoration of monasteries, churches and chapels can also be classified as charitable activities. Diocesan and parish establishments were engaged in church charity (for example, diocesan authorities ran Alexander Nevsky Charitable House for Poor Clergymen, Nikolaevskoe Society for the Relief of the Poor of Koltovskya Church of the Saviour - the house of diligence and alms-houses). In 1915 parish societies disposed of 27 alms-houses. Other confessions also had their own charitable establishments. Military Department had Chesme Invalids' House, petty bourgeoisie, the charitable establishments, the nobility, the Refuge for the Aged Poor of the Hereditary Nobility. The blind were boarded and educated in Alexandro-Mariinsky School, the deaf at the Imperial School for the Deaf-and-Mute, handicapped children — at the Orphanage of the Congregation of Our Lady. Confessional, departmental and estate restrictions did not extend on state charitable organisations, among which the largest in St. Petersburg were: Empress Maria's Establishments Department and Imperial Philanthropic Society. Empress Alexandra Fedorovna patronised the Trusteeship of Houses of Diligence and Labour Houses, Grand Princess Elizaveta Mavrikievna - The Society for the Relief for Poor and Ill Children (Blue Cross), which ran several orphanages and a house for poor women-workers with children in industrial districts. The City Committee for the Poor took care of beggars; charitable societies of hospitals and prisoners took care of the indigent patients and convicts, the Society for Providing Cheap Lodging looked after poor city residents. Over one million roubles were donated by individuals before 1914. The Eliseev family, Apraksin, Demidov, Timenkov-Frolov and the Brusnitsyn financed the foundation and maintenance of large charitable establishments. The state encouraged and rewarded the benefactors, they were written about in the press and special magazines (Vestnik Blagotvoritelnosti, Trudovaya Pomosch, Prizrenie i Blagotvoritelnost v Rossii). In 1918 all the charitable establishments became state controlled and were included in the Department of Social Services, charity was declared bourgeois hypocrisy. Since the end of the 1980s, there has been a revival of charity in Leningrad (St. Petersburg), first of all in the confessional form (see Eparchy of St. Petersburg). Charity shouldn't be confused with the patronage and sponsorship of art.

References: История петербургской благотворительности: Библиогр. указ. / Сост. В. И. Капуста // Невский архив: Ист.-краевед. сб. М.; СПб., 1993. [Вып. 1]. С. 429-459; Благотворительность и милосердие Санкт-Петербурга: Рубеж XIX-XX вв. / Авт.-сост. В. Н. Занозина, Е. А. Адаменко. СПб., 2000.

V. V. Antonov. Alexandra Fedorovna, Empress
Antonov Viktor Vasilievich
Elizaveta Mavrikievna, Grand Princess
Maria Fedorovna, Empress
the Apraksins
the Brusnitsyns
the Demidovs
the Eliseevs
Timenkov Andrey Ivanovich
История петербургской благотворительности: Библиогр. указ. / Сост. В. И. Капуста // Невский архив: Ист.-краевед. сб. М.; СПб., 1993
Благотворительность и милосердие Санкт-Петербурга: Рубеж XIX - XX вв. / Авт.-сост. В. Н. Занозина, Е. А. Адаменко. СПб., 2000 Deaf-Mute School
Empress Maria's Department of Institutions
St. Petersburg Eparchy
1988