Seasonal nurseries activities in the Novosibirsk region rural areas during the Great Patriotic War

During the Great Patriotic War, due to the conscription of most of the able-bodied male population to the front, the use of female labor became widespread. However, attracting women to work was accompanied by certain difficulties, one of which was the presence of young children, which required the organization of qualified supervision of them. The way out in this situation was the deployment of additional children's institutions. The purpose of the study is to consider the functioning of seasonal nurseries in rural areas during the Great Patriotic War on the basis of archival materials based on the materials of the Novosibirsk Region. When doing research, a complex of general scientific and special-historical methods was used. Seasonal nurseries were created primarily in rural areas, providing care for babies during seasonal field work. The deployment of this type of children's institutions solved several problems: it made it possible to employ mothers for the period of field work, improve the health of children, and played an important social role in supporting mothers, primarily families of military personnel and workers. Given that the proportion of women among the working-age population in the countryside was extremely high, it is difficult to overestimate the importance of the work of such institutions for the normal functioning of agriculture. Seasonal nurseries deployed in rural areas faced problems in their staffing, material supply, catering, which had to be solved by local authorities and health authorities. Significant duties were imposed on collective farms, which housed seasonal nurseries. Often nurseries, which required relatively few resources to support their activities, were seen by management not as a means to make life easier for their fellow villagers, but as an unfortunate hindrance, distracting from the main task of fulfilling the plan. However the data presented show that this process was generally implemented successfully in the Novosibirsk Region.