State healthcare policy and women's question in the Buryat-Mongolia ASSR and the Mongolian People's Republic (late 1920s -1930s)

The article highlights important aspects of the activity of Soviet and Mongolian physicians aimed at health improvement of female population of the BMASSR and the Mongolian People’s Republic in the course of shaping socialist healthcare system. Due to cultural affinity of Buryats and Mongols, the doctors faced similar problems and resorted to similar methods and forms of health improvement and sanitary education. An important role in female health improvement belonged to women’s sections, roaming propagandists, maternity and child welfare centers and so called red yurts. In Mongolia medical and sanitary expeditions of the People’s Commissariat of Health of the RSFSR played a great role in the organization of specialized medical assistance for women. In their work with female population in both Buryatia and Mongolia, Soviet physicians faced active resistance of shamans and lamas.