Modern historiography of Russian childhood in the "age of catastrophe"

The present article is devoted to the analysis of studies revealing the history of childhood during military disasters (World War I and the Civil War) and the current state of the study of Russian childhood in 1914-1922. These topics have been addressed by foreign researchers for the first time. Russian historical science became interested in the problems of childhood history in the 1990s and 2000s after perestroika, during the glasnost policy, the opening of archives, and the active transfering of historical knowledge. The extensive study reveals current research problems and discussions (e. g., on the issues of childhood establishment, key dates of events, etc.); introduces the theoretical and methodological bases of the research; and defines the interdisciplinarity of contemporary approaches. The main discussion on the problems and views of domestic and foreign authors range on such topics as: patriotic mobilization of children and young men, social transformations of behavioral practices, public policy in relation to young citizens. It deals with homelessness, orphanhood, juvenile delinquency, hunger, evacuation, and family patronage. The article reveals the lack of well-researched fragments. A separate discourse is devoted to the problem of the children's text, the peculiarities of children’s perception of the surrounding reality, and the research risks in working with these documents. The authors make a conclusion that the historiography of Russian / Soviet childhood in the given period is now a rather dispersed research area, with a scarce scholarly interest. In this connection, some conclusions are drawn on the prospects for the research on childhood in the crisis periods of Russian history in the early 20th century.