Public life in Tomsk on the eve of the First World War

Based on the chronicle of public life in the Tomsk province in the 1880s - 1919, compiled with their participation in 2013, the authors analyze public life in the provincial city of Tomsk on the eve of the First World War. They believe that Tomsk differed from many provincial cities in Russia in that it was a university city with a large number of other educational institutions, a regional center of a number of ministries and departments, a commercial, industrial and transport hub. The concentration in the city of a significant number of officials, entrepreneurs, artisans, workers, employees, students and professors of higher educational institutions was the basis for the formation of various nonpolitical associations of an economic, cultural, educational, leisure, charitable, scientific, professional nature, clubs, sober societies, women's and national movements. On the eve of the First World War, 16 economic organizations operated in Tomsk: 9 cash registers and mutual aid societies, 4 consumer societies, 3 trade unions; 30 charitable organizations caring for prisons, the sick and the maimed, the poor, students, and other objects of public concern; 23 leisure societies, 16 scientific, 2 sober societies, society of distillers, Society for the study of urban and rural affairs. There are 89 organizations in total, according to the chronicle of the social movement in the Tomsk province and additional research. The most common type of activity was mainly legal gatherings - 46 times they were organized by students, workers, and voters of different political persuasions. Illegal activity has decreased: in five and a half years, leaflets of revolutionary organizations have been distributed in the city only 8 times, it was possible to speak out in the open press. The workers went on strike 21 times, the students - 7 times. The activity of the liberal strata of society concentrated around the election campaigns for the State and City Duma. The illegal organizations of the Socialists were under the vigilant supervision of the provincial gendarmerie department. Its head, Colonel S.A. Romanov, knew almost everything about the revolutionaries of the city through his agents, who could not infiltrate only to the editorial office of the liberal professorship "Siberian Life" and the social democratic trade union of printers. Party passions openly boiled among some monarchists. The authors conclude that the intensity of participation in the public life of the city varied from one stratum of society to another. Wealthy citizens and middle-income strata had the opportunity and time for a fairly eventful cultural leisure, were informed about political events in the country and in the world, and were ready to respond to them. The poor and the poorest strata of the townspeople fought for a piece of bread and participation in public events was passive and rare for them. During the decade and a half of the twentieth century, great changes took place in the cultural life of Tomsk, which were expressed in expansion of the network of educational and cultural institutions, creation of public organizations, development of cultural and educational activities, and as a result - in involvement of wider segments of the population in socio-political and cultural life and in formation of political and mass culture. The authors declare no conflicts of interests.

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