O. K. Kaykova The History of the Establishment  and Development of the  Medical-Sanitary Department of the  Kremlin: Problems of Study

Abstract: The article focuses of the history of the Medical-Sanitary Department of the Kremlin (1919–1953) – the special branch of government’s medical system that addressed the problems of: 1) medical care of the highest echelon of the Soviet government’s administration; 2) sanitary control of the Moscow Kremlin and of other important government locations and places outside Moscow visited on trips and holiday locations. The author examines the degree of research done on the given topic, which despite its multidimensional aspects is still little studied, and the possibilities of future research. The Medical- Sanitary Department of the Kremlin was studied primarily in a narrow professional aspect. The historiography on the health and medicine of the highest Soviet administration is primarily concentrated on individual figures as, for example, on V. I. Lenin, I. V. Stalin, and others. The study of the history of the Kremlin Medical-Sanitary Department should be considered in the wider historiographical problem of “medicine and power”. Today a great body of material is available, which permits the research of the diverse aspects of the history of the Soviet power’s system of medical care and vacationing. The article points to only several possible research topics, while the study of this question in general allows to uncover many new sides of the political history and daily life of the Soviet administration.

Keywords: