Eastern European Baptist History: New Perspectives, 2007

ike i Rossii po novym issledovaniiam’, Trudovaiia pomoshch’, no. 4 (1915), p, 389; quoted in E.V. Ivanova and Zh.E. Ivanova, Zarubezhnyi opyt sotsial’noi raboty v ram- kakh rossiiskoi blagotvoritel’nosti (Moscow: Mezhdunarodnaia akademiia informatizatsii, 2001), p. 15; and the more detailed schema of M.V. Firsov, “Sotsial’naia rabota v Rossii: Teoriia, istoriia, obshchestvennaia praktika” (PhD dissertation, 1997), quoted in Ivanova and Ivanova, Zarubezhnyi opyt, p. 15. * Blagotvoritel’nye uchrezhdeniia Rossiiskoi imperii, vol.-1 (St. Petersburg: E. Evdokimov, 1900), p. 10; quoted in Ivanova and Ivanova, Zarubezhnyi opyt, p. 43. > Ivanova and Ivanova, Zarubezhnyi opyt, p. 44. 212 the transformation.® The 1890 Brokgauz-Efron Entsiklopedicheskii slovar’ [Encyclopaedic Dictionary] defined charity as “the showing of compassion to ones neighbour and the moral obligation of one who possesses some- thing to hasten to the aid of the one who does not’, adding that “charity in the true meaning of the word occurs together with Christianity.’ In the Soviet period, the definition of charity changed dramatically. In 1927 the Great Soviet Encyclopaedia |Bolshaia sovetskaia entsiklopediia] stated that “charity is a phenomenon characteristic only of a class society”. The 1950 edition of the same encyclopaedia called charity “assistance that is hypocritically given by representatives of the ruling classes.... By means of so-called charity ... the bourgeoisie attempt to extinguish hatred of capitalism among the masses and hold them back from revolutionary struggle.”? The 1970 edition of the Great Soviet Encyclopaedia had no entry for “charity” at all. After a period of high visibility in the second half of the nineteenth century, it could be said that charity became invisible. The state took over responsibility for righting social ills. To be sure, at times intervention by fellow citizens on behalf of the poor was still accepted. In the 1930s the wives of Communist officials began the “Wives Movement” to ease such problems as child neglect and housing for the poor. According to historian Sheila Fitzpatrick, “a good deal of what the wives did was reminiscent of the charitable activities of upper-class women under the old regime’. Bolshevik Nadezhda Krupskaia (Lenin’s widow), however, denied the similarity, referring to such assistance instead as “social activism’.”° However, despite its unflattering official definition (or lack of same) the Christian practice of charity survived, although it was focused on the needy among church members. Outreach to the wider society officially took the form of such things as church contributions to the Soviet Peace Fund." ® Tvanova and Ivanova, Zarubezhnyi opyt, p. 14. ’ RA. Brokgauz and I.A. Efron (eds), Entsiklopedicheskii slovar’, vol. 7 (St. Petersburg: I.A. Efron, 1890), p. 55. ® Bol’shaia sovetskaia entsiklopediia, vol. 6 (Moscow: Sovetskaia entsiklopediia, 1927), p. 466.