№3-2020-08
Kovalev A. V.
CHARITY ACTIVITIES OF THE CHURCH DURING THE RUSSIAN-JAPANESE WAR (ON THE MATERIALS OF THE KALUGA PROVINCE)
The article examines church donations in the Russian province during the Russian-Japanese War of 1904-1905 on the basis of a study of the materials of the periodical «Kaluga Diocesan Journal» (vedomosti) on the example of the Kaluga province. Donations are seen as a criterion of the church’s interest in military events and evidence of government policy support. The donation areas (medical needs of the troops, military families, fleet strengthening, general military needs), donor groups (approaches, monasteries, religious schools, administration), donation dynamics are highlighted. The features of church donations, their differences and similarity with respect to «non-church» donations are considered. The following conclusions are made. The church did not remain indifferent to the events in the Far East, however, in the first place, the people of the church did not so much support the military plans of the government as they sympathized with the wounded and sick soldiers, as evidenced by the overweight of donations for medical needs. The main group of donors were parishes, that is, the war caused increased interest not so much from the «top» as the majority of people close to the church. The temporal dynamics of church donations differs from the scheme customary for research of «non-church» donations, according to which almost all the donations were made in the first months, and then their scale sharply decreased and almost disappeared. Church contributions are not distributed along a sharp descending line, but several peaks, and it shows the particular impressionability and responsiveness of people of the church to events from the theater of war and in the country.
Keywords: Kaluga province, «Kaluga diocesan Journal» (vedomosti), patriotism, First Russian Revolution of 1905-1907, government support, donations, Russian-Japanese war of 1904-1905, church.
Kaluga Branch of the «The Russian Academy of National Economy and Public Service under the President of the Russian Federation», Russia
