THE MOSCOW ORPHANAGE AS A TOTALITARIAN EDUCATION PROJECT IN THE 18TH CENTURY

The article is devoted to the study of the role and significance of the Moscow Orphanage in solving the problem of illegitimate children in the 19th century. The Moscow Orphanage is predominantly viewed in modern research as a form of humanistic initiative to save children abandoned by the society. But the evidence from the archival documents of the 19th century allows us to evaluate this social project in a different way. The author of this article presented an attempt to answer three research questions. First, whether buying the infants from the population and their placement in a closed institution for two decades can be attributed to the growing number of illegitimate children in Moscow, and whether this practice of buying and selling encourages an increase in this category of children? Second, whether the complete isolation of the orphanage and a lack of relevant examples for children to assess family values and understand what a family is, can be attributed to salvation of the children through ‘alleviating the burden’ for their parents, or whether we have an authoritarian project to form ‘people of the new breed’? Third, whether death of peers, constantly surrounding every child, lack of any real education, and constant hard physical labour help to the development of children’s moral ideas and faith in their own strength and abilities? Based on the study’s results and conclusions, the author concludes that the orphanage was established to implement the personal ambitions of its creator, which were far from benevolent, allowing us to view the Moscow Orphanage as a very odious totalitarian project