"Everyone dreamt of eating plenty of bread…”: provision with goods of first priority and measures of social assistance to students in Soviet province from 1941 to 1945

Abstract

The article describes provision with food and goods of first priority for students of higher and vocational secondary education institutions during the Great Patriotic War of 1941–1945. This issue was not covered well enough in scientific literature. In their studies of the problem the authors use published and archive resources about Krasnoyarsk, administrative centre of Krasnoyarsk Region. During the Great Patriotic War Krasnoyarsk Region was one of the areas for relocation of evacuee institutions and facilities together with a large number of people from western areas. Krasnoyarsk Region attracted with its vast territory (2.34 million square kilometers), detachment from the central part of the country and from the battle ground. It was sparsely populated with severe climate and it did not have well-developed transportation system or social infrastructure. The work reveals the idea that in the wartime measures of students’ social assistance were very limited, many everyday difficulties were not overcome. Nevertheless, we came to a conclusion that state support of education sphere in the wartime prevented sudden reduction of the quantity of educational institutions and their contingent. In those complicated conditions Soviet education system continued providing for the needs of economics with qualified specialists. The materials of the study specify the scientific idea of living conditions of the population and its social assistance measures in the wartime, create additional opportunities for comparative study of the issue in other regions and sociodemographic population groups.