Kezhutin A.N. Teaching and the Question of Russia’s Alcoholization at the Turn of the 19th–20th Centuries (Based on the Material from All-Russian Pedagogical Congresses)

Abstract: The subject of this research is the position of the leading teaching group in Russia regarding alcoholism as a social illness at the end of the 19th – beginning of the 20th centuries. The current relevance of this topic is linked to its insufficient consideration in historiography. This article examines the social and scientific approaches of Russian teachers and school doctors to the development of a body of anti-alcoholism measures by way of identifying the reasons for the wide spreading of drinking and alcoholism, the elaboration of a system of social actions in the fight against them and the implementation of these developments in practice. The author enunciates the main approach to studying the “question of alcohol,” which was linked to the society’s processes of socio-economic development. The source base for this work consist of material from all-Russian pedagogical congresses at the turn of the 19th–20th centuries. The foundation of this study is based on the principles of historicism, scientific objectivity and determinism. The author uses the methods of analysis, synthesis, comparative-historical and chronological. The novelty of this research consists in the resulting new information regarding the social essence, the specific-historical determinism and causes of widespread drinking and alcoholism, and the suggestions made by the teaching community for fighting this issue and their anti-alcoholism measures. For the first time in historiography the position of the most active representatives of the pedagogical community regarding this issue are presented. The author comes to the conclusion that members of the leading teaching group actively participated in the anti-alcoholism movement in Russia.

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