Expulsion from the Poorhouse in the second half of the XIX -early XX centuries(based on Materials of Siberia)

This research based on the previously obtained results of studying the social care of disabled and elderly people in Siberia in the XIX -early XX centuries, it used previously unpublished archival materials. This study deals with the process of expulsion of disabled citizens from charitable institutions. Historiographic analysis shows that this aspect of the daily life of the poorhouse has been fragmentarily considered by historians of public charity, who believe that the exception was a rather rare and exceptional fact. While agreeing with their position in principle, it should be noted that each case of expulsion was unique and required a detailed investigation. Microhistoric analysis combined with a historical and anthropological approach, which are used to study the internal processes in the poorhouse, make it possible to consider the grounds for dismissal of those under consideration and the exclusion procedure itself, as well as to identify different types of objective and subjective reasons why disabled and elderly people left the institution.The conducted research suggests that those admitted to the poorhouse did not realize the degree of their own material wellbeing and security in conditions when society could not offer other forms of social assistance, easily parting with the received place in it. At the same time, the expulsion from the poorhouse became a serious life test for those who inadvertently leftthe institution itself, or were dismissed by the administration of the almshouse by the decision of the Board of Trustees, since there were very few opportunities to return to the almshouse, which doomed a disabled person or an elderly person to a beggarly existence.