Combating social diseases in Nizhny Novgorod Province on the eve and during the First World War

The subject of the research is the position of Nizhny Novgorod doctors and public figures in relation to alcoholism, syphilis and tuberculosis as socially-dangerous diseases before and during the First World War. The relevance of the research is connected with an insufficient development of the topic in historiography. The author considers the social scientific approaches of Nizhny Novgorod physicians to the development of measures against social diseases by determining the causes of their mass distribution, elaborating public measures to combat them and their implementing. The views of the most active representatives of the Nizhny Novgorod community are presented. Before the First World War, the Nizhny Novgorod region was one of the worst in terms of sanitary conditions; during the war, the situation deteriorated significantly. The author notes that this problem troubled not only doctors, but also society as a whole. In this regard, different public organizations were formed. Their activities were quite successful before the war, but gradually stopped by 1917 because of the wartime events. The author determines the main approaches to the problem of mass social diseases associated with the socio-economic development of society and the difficulties of wartime. The place and role of the leaders and members of major public associations are analyzed: the Nizhny Novgorod division of the Russian League of the Fight against Tuberculosis, the Fairgrounds Committee of Trusteeship of the People's Sobriety, the provincial trusteeship and 11 county committees, provincial authorities and the military leaders. A comparative analysis of the main causes of social diseases is carried out. The sources of the research are archival materials from the largest Nizhny Novgorod archives, national and local periodicals of 1914-1917. The research is based on the principles of historicism, scientific objectivity and determinism. Methods of analysis and synthesis, as well as comparative-historical and chronological ones are used. The novelty of the research consists in obtaining new knowledge about the social entity, the specific historical determinism, the cause of widespread social diseases, proposals of public figures of ways of dealing with them, the activities carried out. The views of the most active representatives of the Nizhny Novgorod public on the issue are first presented. The author comes to a conclusion about the need to consider the fight against social diseases in the First World War as a result of the check of the pre-revolutionary concept in extreme conditions.

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