SUPPLYING RUSSIAN RURAL POPULATION WITH WINTER CLOTHES AND FOOTWEAR DURING THE GREAT PATRIOTIC WAR IN THE CONTEXT OF STATE POLICY OF DEFARMING

Abstract

The article deals with the processes which took place in rural Siberian under the influence of the Great Patriotic war under the conditions of completed collectivization and defarming. It is demonstrated that the deterioration of life conditions of Russian Siberians contributed to the return to traditions of peasant culture of self-sustainability. This tendency is analyzed on the basis of new field research and materials of oral history. The article presents the characteristic of cultural groups of Russians in Siberia and the adaptation of their traditions of making leather, fur and woolen winter clothing and footwear under the conditions of the absence of stock-raising materials. The author introduces the notion of compensating technologies, describes replacement of hides, pelts and wool of live-stock by other materials. The use of by-products of gopher hunting, dog hides and hides of fallen animals for crafting winter peasant clothes and footwear is analyzed in detail. The author makes the conclusion about simplification of technology and manufacturing processes used in raw materials procession and crafting of clothing and footwear in the peasant family, that was an evidence of archaization of elements of self-sustainability culture. The article proves that it led to the disappearance of cultural differences between groups of Russian population of Siberian village, their unification. For example, Siberians replaced traditional leather footwear with bast shoes, which is characteristic of Russian population of central Russia. Attention is paid to innovations in the policies of the Soviet state which supported traditional crafts to ensure self-sustainability of civilians and the repressed population of Siberia with winter clothing essential for their life activities under hard conditions of war time. The turn in the policy of the Soviet state from elimination of peasant's traditions to their support is characterized by the example of regulation of handicraft and cooperative industry manufacturing footwear with wooden soles and wooden footwear for industrial and household purposes. During the war years, under the conditions of mobilization of all stock-raising materials of collective farms and farmsteads for the needs of the army at war, their manufacturing was recommended for providing people in the system of compulsory labor (GULAG labor camps, labor armies), and at enterprises of food industry (butter-making plants, flax-processing plants). The paper reveals the replacement of traditional leather footwear with the soft sole by footwear with the wooden sole among Russian peasants of Siberia during the war time.