Issue 1 (54)
| ATTITUDES TOWARDS CHILD MORTALITY IN THE TRADITIONAL CULTURE OF THE URAL'S RUSSIANS IN THE END OF THE 18TH — EARLY 20TH CENTURIES | |||
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| Year | 2017 | Number | 1(54) |
| Pages | 59-64 | Type | scientific article |
| UDC | 94(470.5)”17/19” | BBK | 63.3(235.55)5 |
| Authors | Golikova Svetlana V. |
Topic | FATHERS AND SONS: GENERATIONAL STORY |
| Summary | Until the middle of the 19th century no efforts aimed at reduction of child mortality rates had any noticeable effect. The high child mortality rate characteristic for the demographic pattern was firmly established in the minds of the population as an indispensable element of the world order which found its reflection in the accepted norms of behavior. Reduction of child mortality rates in Western Europe gradually changed the prevailing attitudes regulating the behavior patterns in the demographic sphere. In Russia the new attitudes were at first recognized only by the educated and the wealthy groups of the population. However the general population resisted the change because of the long-standing archaic beliefs in the angelic nature of baptized babies and the perception of their death as a particular grace of God. There was a special simplified funeral-and-commemoration ritual for infants who died before they reached the age of seven. Tradition also regulated the behavior of parents who lost their child: a bereaved mother's grief and sorrow were declared a sin, since they negatively affected the children's afterlife. A desire to ensure a favorable posthumous existence for a baby was so strong that sometimes it even pushed mothers to a deliberate infanticide in the early childhood period. This type of crime demonstrated how difficult it was right up to the end of the pre-revolutionary period to change the popular attitudes towards the value of a child's life, transform the general population's mentality introducing the patterns and standards of demographic behavior supporting new generations survival. | ||
| Keywords | Demographic behavior, child mortality, traditional culture, ideas about the afterlife, funeral rites, female criminality | ||
| References |
Аксаков С. Т. Детские годы Багрова-внука, служащие продолжением Семейной хроники. М., 1984. Т. 1. |
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