Childhood as a Stage of the Life Way (On the Example of the Kazan Philistines of the First Half of the XIX Century)

The article is devoted to the study of childhood as one of the life stages of the development of the family of Kazan philistines in the first half of the 19th century. Given the lack of documents of personal origin, the main sources were family-wide lists of Kazan bourgeoisie, statements, metric books, forensic materials, complaints and petitions deposited in the funds of the State Archive of the Republic of Tatarstan. Based on these sources, issues such as the age limits of childhood, attitudes towards children in philistine families, practices and emotions regarding children in various life situations were investigated. As a result, it was concluded that the attitude towards childhood and children in the middle class is characteristic of a traditional pre-industrial society, childhood has not yet formed into a separately recognized and designated life stage. This was manifested in the practice of getting rid of illegitimate children, the desire to include the child as early as possible in resolving issues of maintaining himself and his family, including removal from the family by way of returning to school or working with strangers. However, the predominance of a rational attitude towards childhood did not exclude a positive emotional color in relation to children.