Charitable Associations of Tomsk Province in 1844-1917

Patronage and charity was an essential part of the life of pre-revolutionary Russian society, one of the notable parties to the formation of civil responsibility. With regard to Siberia, the history of charity is reflected both in generalizing works and in works on its separate subjects. However, they are mostly descriptive. The present article analyzes statistical information about the charitable societies of the largest Russian province in the beginning of the 20th century - Tomsk, mainly on the materials of a unique chronicle of the social and political life of the province in 1880-1917, compiled by scientists of Tomsk University. The results of the analysis showed that there were twice as many charitable organizations in the province as it was previously believed that of the 86 registered societies, 50 were in the provincial center, 34 in the county centers, 2 in the commercial villages, 34 cared about the poor, 25 about the students, 12 about sick and crippled soldiers, 11 - about prisoners, 5 - about another. Their organizers were businessmen, officials, confessional communities. Large donors from merchants, as a rule, created a financial basis for the creation of charitable institutions, educational institutions, and they acted normally on the funds of public and confessional organizations - societies, trusteeships, committees. The most significant for the development of the region were the organizations that contributed to educational activities, and the authors consider the most important result of cooperation between patrons, authorities and the Siberian public the creation in Tomsk of the first university in Asian Russia, one of the leading universities of the country.