“I can't take anything from life...”: The conflict of social expectations and reality in the daily life of Orenburg high school girls at the beginning of the XX century as a cause of teenage suicides

The article analyzes the suicides causes of female students of the Orenburg Women's Gymnasium that occurred in the early 20th century. The survey is based on the documents retrieved from the funds of the United State Archives of Orenburg Region and first introduced into scientific circulation. It is for the first time that this problem is appealed to on the bases of regional material, which determines the scientific novelty of the work and allows for a further comparative analysis of the circumstances of children's and adolescents' everyday life in the metropolitan regions and in the provinces. The circumstances of girls' everyday family life, their relationships with parents and relatives are under study. The question about the fulfillment of the family's key functions in the conditions of cardinal transformation of this social institution in the post reform period is raised. The objects of the study also include the educational and upbringing processes carried out within the gymnasium, their specificity and pedagogical effectiveness. The author concludes that the main motive leading the female students of the gymnasium to suicide was the conflict between the social expectations of adolescents and the reality surrounding them. The environment in families and educational institutions formed a sense of alienation in children, put them in a situation when they had to independently solve a large number of “adult” problems, contributed to the emergence of a constant feeling of anxiety and eventually led teenagers to chronic “failure”. Unable to cope with an internal psychological crisis, disappointed in their abilities, assuming the impossibility of achieving hopes for future well being, girls saw suicide as the only way out of the situation.